Interpreting "Partner" on This Week's "Breaking Bad"

Giancarlo Esposito and James Martinez

Whenever we write about the best shows on TV we always make sure to mention Breaking Bad, AMC's remarkable show about a high school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker/dealer. In fact, I love the show so much that every time I'm at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, I corner Vince Gilligan, the show's creator and ask him when BB might finally have a gay character.

On Sunday night's episode we got that character. Maybe. Or maybe not. It depends on how you interpret it.

The character in question is Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), the brains behind the drug operation for which Walt White (Bryan Cranston) does all of the meth cooking.

In this flashback scene, we see Gus years before he became the cold, calculating, utterly ruthless man we know from the show. Indeed, the scene seems intended to show us just why Gus is so hard. Be warned, this clip contains some strong violence and is probably NSFW.

So are Gus and Max business partners or business and romantic partners? My own partner and I watched the show together, and after watching this scene, I turned to him and said, "Did they just out Gus?" To which my partner responded, "You're nuts." Reading some of the reaction online, we weren't the only ones to be confused.

Something not included in the clip above, but that happens just before Max is murdered, is that two of the drug lord's body guards pee in the swimming pool and remark that Gus and Max must like what they see. Again, ambiguous. After all, questioning another man's masculinity is pretty much standard operating procedure in some circles.

I contacted AMC to see if I could chat with Gilligan about whether or not this scene was meant to reveal whether or not Gus is gay. Unfortunately, I didn't get a response.

However, this week's Breaking Bad podcast did address the subject. The question of whether Gus and Max are lovers comes up starting at about the 40:30 mark. When asked about it being "alluded" to, Gilligan says "It's open to interpretation. It's whatever the audience wants it to be." Both Steven Bauer, the actor who plays Don Eladio, and the episode's editor, Kelly Dixon, saw Gus as gay, to which Gilligan says "It's okay to infer that."

Boy, did Gilligan's answer bum me out. Gilligan is an amazing writer and has managed feats with the characters on Breaking Bad I've never seen another writer achieve. He's made the unsympathetic sympathetic and shocked me with plot twists and character arcs like no other writer.

So to hear him cop out as to whether or not Gus is gay and Max his partner makes no sense. After all, Gilligan hasn't shied away from anything else on this show. Surely he can't be nervous about writing a gay character?

Nor can I think of another character on the show where their sexuality has been referenced only to have the audience be forced to infer what the truth is. So why this time? Gilligan is such an amazing writer that perhaps he has something else planned that will touch on the answer. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Or I'll have to to ask Gilligan when I see him next.

For those fans of the show who would rather not have the ruthless Gus batting for our team, which would make him yet another evil gay character in a long line of evil gay characters, all I can say is part of the joy in watching this show is that almost everyone is morally compromised, especially the show's two main characters — Walt and Jesse — and yet you end up caring deeply about them. There is no reason a gay character couldn't be treated the same way. And to have the reason Gus — who is an utterly fascinating character — be the way he is due at least in part to seeing his lover so brutally murdered in front of him, actually makes him more sympathetic and interesting. 

Unless he's not gay, of course. Then it makes this back story a whole lot less powerful. At least that's how I "interpret" it.