Zafiro Añejo

Zafiro Añejo

I don’t watch a whole lot of television, but have, like millions of other clean and sober Americans, become severely addicted to Breaking Bad, the popular series about a chemistry teacher who turns to making methamphetamine when he learns he has lung cancer. All it took was one euphoric episode. Actually, I held off for several seasons before the peer pressure got to me. Knowing that the main character was a chemistry teacher, I was naturally interested in how a brother science teacher would be portrayed. But as I quickly learned, his role as a teacher became progressively irrelevant to the storyline. Part of the purpose of the Walter White character even being a teacher, I think, was to provide an unsettling juxtaposition of identities: a role model who works with our children and a manufacturer of an illicit soul-stealing blight of society all rolled up in a cancer-suffering puzzle of a man.

               

Aside from that, I found that watching BB had the nice little side benefit of having some Spanish in the script. The setting, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the fact that producing and selling meth puts one in the same arena as Mexican drug cartels, provides for occasional Spanish dialogue. Probably the two episodes with the most español are Hermanos and Salud, both from the fourth season. At this moment I feel obliged to announce SPOILER ALERT if you, by some milagro, have not yet watched BB.

Both of these episodes focus on the character of Gustavo “Gus” Fring.  For the uninitiated, Gustavo is a very charismatic bad guy—someone who shamelessly provides the poison of meth to a growing population of human refuse, but does so with such professionalism and such exquisite manners that it’s hard not to admire him to some degree (guilty pleasure # 32: grudging admiration for fictitious and murderous drug lord.) Gustavo is played by the American actor Giancarlo Esposito.  Esposito was born in Denmark to an Italian father and an African American mother while in BB he plays a mixed-race Chilean who runs a Mexican fast-food restaurant.  He’s a champion of cultural and ethnic diversity whether he’s selling you meth or pollo asado.

In Hermanos, Gus witnesses the close-up murder of his close associate (“close” in both a professional way, and in an ambiguous way that has led to much online speculation.) This occurs in a flashback from 20 years in the past and provides us viewers with a little insight into Gus’ motivations.  It also sets up the action for the Salud episode, when Gustavo makes a vengeful revisit to the Juárez Cartel.  For those who want to know the full details, watch the Fourth Season of Breaking Bad, or read the fan-page Breaking Bad Wiki. Here’s the website:  http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Zafiro_A%C3%B1ejo 

Suffice it to say that Salud brings Gustavo back to Mexico is to have a fateful meeting with fellow drug kingpin Don Eladio, for the culmination of a blood feud that was established in the Hermanos episode. The real drama starts at the 34 minute mark, when Gustavo stands by the pool in the same spot where his associate (played by James Martinez) was killed.  He opens a small pill box and takes a couple of tablets that we, later in the episode, surmise to be some sort of antidote (activated charcoal?)  When Don Eladio and his entourage of well-fed henchmen enter the scene we learn what Gustavo’s weapon of choice is.  A box with a ribbon on it rests on a nearby patio table, catching Eladio’s attention. ¿Un regalo? he asks.  He lifts an ornate bottle out of the box and spouts with admiration “Incluso la botella es una obra de arte.”

In one of the cleverest sequences I’ve ever seen, Gus uses the contents of that bottle to poison the entire cartel, reducing his competition and exacting his revenge in less than ten minutes.  It was one of those scenes I had to re-watch several times. The bottle was a liter-sized container of a fictitious tequila called zafiro añejo. Efforts were made by the producers to have some actual product placement with a real brand, but once the tequila companies learned the scene would involve imbibers dropping like moscas, they declined.  It was decided to create a BB original brand, inspired by the rare and terribly expensive 140 year old cognac called Hardy Perfection Fire.

Getting back to Spanish, more relevant to this blog than drug lords or tequila, let me reiterate that it was enjoyable to encounter its occasional use in this series.  Sometimes the phrases are spoken slowly and deliberately, as when the Mafioso-like Eladio intones “los negocios son los negocios.”  At other times, the actors are demonstrably native speakers, as when the articulate Martinez rapidly fires his lines.  Gustavo is supposed to be Chilean (although “Fring” isn’t exactly a Latin apellido.)  He does pretty well with his Spanish, though it’s obvious he is acting and experiencing some difficulty.  Then again, he’s challenged to do Spanish with a Chilean accent, so that’s perhaps another reason it sounds odd.  I’m sure I couldn’t have done any better, so I won’t criticize the actor any further.

So now, having finished all that NetFlix® has to offer at the moment, I wait with baited breath for the final eight episodes to become available.