#coincidentally I was in ABQ at the time

[septembersghost]

i forgot kim canonically went to the university of colorado boulder, which gives a really beautiful symmetry to my personal headcanon that she immediately vacates florida and moves to montrose to be as close to jimmy as possible, and rebuilds some kind of legal career there, helping people who most need it. the area is beautiful - the crisp open air, the horizon of snow capped mountains, geographically just different enough from abq that it isn't the same view, but still feels like home - and, gradually, she is more at ease than she ever has been.

the nebraska connection ends up being coincidental (from the place of your birth to the ends of the earth), but we know kim has no fond memories of her childhood there, and jimmy holds none for his time hiding there as gene either. it was a stifling existence for them both. colorado, though, that was her escape, where she went when she first knew she wanted more from her life, and some part of her returning there after all that's happened makes sense. she's not that girl who was running away, nor the tightly coiled lady justice from new mexico, nor the woman erased from florida. all of them are with her, but she is fully herself. she has room to recover and grow. she sees the man she loves, the real him, the one she was always proud of, whenever she can. and on the hard days, when she misses him most, she knows that, at least, they're sharing the same sky.

#me residing in the same state as my fictional beloveds: this comforts me i'm very normal #kim wexler #better call saul

[starbuck]

SO, as my fellow BrBaBCS friends may remember, it’s been my theory ever since I started rewatching BrBa that the timing of the DEA going after Tuco RIGHT after he started selling Walt’s supermeth was too coincidental to be true… that it would make sense if Gus was somehow involved considering he was about to secretly launch his own meth business and did NOT want competition from the cartel and ESPECIALLY not a Salamanca.

Eventually though, this theory seemed to be proven false by my being reminded that the DEA found Tuco’s bloody fingerprint on No Doze’s body, giving them a perfectly legitimate excuse to go after Tuco without any outside involvement necessary. That’s what I *thought*… But then this morning I realized that I had overlooked one crucial detail: HOW did the DEA find No Doze and Gonzo’s bodies so quickly in the first place?

They were tucked away in a junkyard SO secluded that a man could be murdered in broad daylight with no one taking notice, but I’m supposed to believe that some random person found Gonzo RIGHT after he died and reported this not just to the police, but to the DEA? A likely story… Instead, let me tell you another story…

Tuco had already been selling Walt’s meth for at least a week prior to the junkyard sale… A new, super-potent strain of meth goes on the market in the ABQ territory and OBVIOUSLY Gus is gonna take notice and be displeased. So what does he do? Well, first he’s gotta figure out where Tuco is getting it from. He has someone (probably Mike) follow Tuco to the junkyard sale and watch the whole thing with binoculars from a distance. He watches Tuco murder No Doze and dispose of his body. Interesting. They’ll put a pin in that. In the meantime, they’ve gotta figure out who these guys Tuco got the blue meth from are.

Canonically, Walt and Jesse are both spied on in the days following the junkyard sale and both assume the culprit to be Tuco, however, I went back and checked and was validated by the fact that, as expected, the car that pulls away from Walt’s house in 2x01 is NOT the same car that Tuco drove to the junkyard. Additionally, Tuco seems surprised to learn Walt’s real name and that he has a family in the following episode, things which shouldn’t have surprised him if he had already been spying on Walt’s home. No, I think a better explanation for all of that was that it was Gus’ guys scoping out the competition (but also happy to let Walt and Jesse THINK it was Tuco because anything to make that relationship more fraught than it already was is to their benefit).

And so that all brings us to the question of who tipped off the DEA… Just as Gus had guys watching Walt and Jesse, someone also must have tailed Gonzo back to the junkyard, watched him die, and, with Tuco now entirely defenseless, decided that this was the moment to strike. They left an anonymous tip with the DEA and then let the law do the rest of the work for them. The way things ultimately went down for Tuco was obviously unplanned… I’m sure the original plan was just to have him imprisoned again, but I can’t imagine that Gus was too unhappy about Tuco’s death, even if he didn’t exactly orchestrate it himself.

This is all heavy conjecture, obviously, but I think it makes sense and I like how this reading lets it mirror Tuco’s going to prison in BCS where, on the face of it, it’s Tuco’s own inability to control his temper fucking him over, but, in truth, he’s also being set up by outside forces he has no knowledge of. Really adds to the tragedy of it all, in my opinion.

#tuco salamanca #the tuco tag always needs more posts so i’m giving it a present #breaking bad #i’m still like. i can’t BELIEVE i never thought about this before #and - for the record - i don’t care if this is ‘actually true’ or not #i do absolutely believe that it was Gus spying on Walt and Jesse in 2x01 and not Tuco #but otherwise i’m 100% content to just let this all be my little pet theory #i do not require authorial validation… it’s true in my brain because i decided it is #i ALSO still enjoy the idea that Bolsa and Eladio also wanted Tuco dead and that Gus secretly had their blessing to do Whatever #either because Eladio felt threatened by Tuco taking on such a profitable deal without running it by him first #or that nobody trusted him with that much power #and meanwhile Gus had his own motivations and was like :))))))))))))) #i just like the idea of the cartel eating itself alive #and it also adds credence to my Bolsa Is A Fake Bitch thing #which - again - is true regardless but this Adds To It #i like that - again - you can draw parallels between BCS where he’s like ‘Hector we obviously respect you so much’ #and then after Hector’s stroke he’s like ‘he totally deserved that amirite? lol’ #vs. him telling Hector and the twins that their revenge is VERY important to him and the cartel as a whole #while he secretly had given his blessing to Tuco’s demise #it’s all just *chef’s kiss* excellent tragedy all around #anyways i’m very tired so i’m done for now #but feel free to talk to me about this and i can say more in the morning #brba #long post