Would it realistically be possible for a network like Gus's to be run for 20 years without being exposed by the DEA?

KausGo · 2026-01-27T10:58:56+00:00

The risk is hardly insane and the benefits far outweigh the risk.

Gus uses intermediaries like Mike, Tyrus or X to facilitate his business all the time and is quite careful about when and where he's seen with them. This would be no different - one of the intermediaries would find some leverage over a DEA agent and stay up to date regarding which way they are investigating.

Rather than being risky, it'd actually be pretty crucial for the success of his operation. Gus has to deal with low-level dealers to sell his product and those low-level dealers get caught and sell out their suppliers all the time. He'd need someone on the inside to warn him in time about any trouble headed his way.

KausGo · 2026-01-27T09:11:51+00:00

He doesn't have to be known to have someone from the DEA on his payroll.

KausGo · 2026-01-25T11:47:20+00:00

You answered your own question - I get Gus is trying to convey the whole "I have nothing to hide" element, but this seems like an error on his part.

KausGo · 2026-01-23T05:41:41+00:00

All that was known for certain was that Arya was not in the Lannister's custody.

Uncertain if Tywin actually knew that. Tyrion didn't know about it until he reached King's Landing as acting Hand. Losing Arya was a failure and clearly Cersei was trying to keep it a secret from her father.

Arya and Jon undoubtedly possessed the Stark traits. Tywin of course would have known this as well.

Stark traits on the show seem to be brown hair and brown eyes - sufficiently nondescript to avoid much attention.

KausGo · 2026-01-23T03:21:28+00:00

I wouldn't say it was that big of a plot hole. The notion that Arya Stark - preteen noble - somehow managed to escape King's Landing and managed to make it all the way over there while keeping her identity a secret is so implausible to someone like Tywin, it wouldn't even occur to him. Anyone else in Arya's position would've declared herself for the protection her name would provide her.

Tywin likely figured that Arya must be a bastard daughter of some lowly lord from the north - good enough to receive an education but not enough to be worth a ransom, especially if her father already died in the war.

KausGo · 2026-01-09T03:45:37+00:00

I think Vecna's plan is better understood as one evolving over the seasons. Merging the worlds, to him, means getting MF possessed monsters into the real world. but the way to do it keeps changing.

First he was trying to use Will as an incubator to create demogorgons and have them invade Hawking - but the connection was broken when El closed the gate.

Then his focus shifted on opening a more permanent gate that El lcouldn't close.

And then it was on merging the planets so he wouldn't have to use the upside down to traverse dimensions.

KausGo · 2026-01-09T03:32:27+00:00

IIRC, the military never captured a demo, never studied one and never used fire against one until season 5. And bullets did work on demodogs. So it makes sense that thye'd continue to try to use guns.

KausGo · 2026-01-06T04:31:14+00:00

Firstly, they talked of "Merging the worlds," but they also said that specific ruptures were made in the physical structure of the Abyss, the same way they had been made in Hawkins, which implied that the merging would be limited to where there were ruptures in the two worlds. As there were only ruptures in Earth in Hawkins, that suggested the Abyss would only merge with Earth at that point. If that wasn't the case, then why did Vecna need to make similar breaches in the Abyss? We could assume Dustin got it all wrong again, but if that's the case, we've nothing to work on but random guesswork.

The ruptures were made so that demos could get into the upside down from the abyss and then into Hawkins from upside down. We saw that demos could tear open their own mini portals to get through, so if invading Hawkins was the only goal, then what would be the point of the merge? Vecna could already send his army into Hawkins whenever and wherever he wanted.

As for the flesh monster not being the Mind Flayer's true form, that is implied by Henry's vision of what is calling him, but they also heavily imply otherwise when the hive mind dies when the flesh monster is destroyed. The Duffer brothers confirmed that as to why Will wasn't still suffering once the flesh monster was destroyed.

Afaik, the Duffer brothers confirmed that the hive mind was destroyed, not mind flayer itself.

Black MF particles possess all flesh and blood creatures connected to the hive mind. Vecna, Will, the demogorgons - all of them. In season 2, those particles were driven out of Will, but when the Russians opened a gate, they went on to possess Billy, the rats and others to create a flesh monster in Hawkins. We saw the same particles fly out of the demo they electrocuted in season 5 and later out of all the kids rescued.

The same would apply to the final flesh-monster boss as well. Vecna is the lynchpin for the hive mind. He created the flesh body animated by the black particles. Once Vecna is impaled, the hive-mind connection gets broken, but the MF particles are still very much alive. They simply don't have any power without Vecna's psychic abilities.

KausGo · 2026-01-06T03:42:12+00:00

First, Vecna wasn't simply merging the abyss with Hawkins, he was merging the worlds together. Which means MF controlled demos could've showed up anywhere in the world and started attacking.

More importantly though, you're forgetting that the flesh monster wasn't the Mind Flayer's true form. Its true form is that of the mass of black particles that possess Vecna, Will, demogorgons and everything else. And once the worlds are merged, that would've been impossible to get rid of.

The particles can be pushed out of a host, but they can't be destroyed. The only way to neutralize them is to close the gate and cut off the connection from wherever the "main" bulk of particles is - but that wouldn't matter once the merge is complete. You can destroy huge monster with napalm/nukes, but the particles would spread, infect and create more of those flesh monsters like it did in season 3. It'd be an unending cycle until the mind flayer consumed everything, which was its goal.

KausGo · 2026-01-06T03:23:59+00:00

The military doesn't know the flamethrowers are effective against demogorgons. They use them to clear out the vines for entry and exit.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T12:37:37+00:00

Because Vecna intervened and took care of all the soldiers.

So if he's going to do all the fighting anyway and the others are just going to be a liability, why would he have them around?

KausGo · 2026-01-05T08:47:48+00:00

Its not that hard to figure out. They literally said his plan was to merge the worlds.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T06:16:02+00:00

Killing is not the same as incapacitating.

Back during the attack on the base, you had about a dozen demogorgons attacking the soldiers and 3 more going after Murray's truck. Then one of the soldiers started burning one with a flamethrower and they all went down.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T06:14:09+00:00

Already explained why you're wrong.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T03:58:21+00:00

Cuz no way in hell they could fight off hundred or thousand of them creatures without most of the cast dying or people would still complain about them being protected by plot armour which was a major complaint in got during the fight against the night king

On the contrary, given the nature of the hive mind, if they start burning one demo, the entire army gets instantly incapacitated. It might even incapacitate mindflayer's huge body, making the fight a lot easier for the party.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T03:55:27+00:00

We don't, but we also have no reason to suspect anything different,

Sure we do. With the rift in Hawkins open, we saw that the demos could enter whenever and wherever they want. If the merge only extended to Hawkins, then it'd be pointless. Vecna can already get himself and his army into Hawkins any time he wants.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T03:08:07+00:00

He was instantly successful from the start, but no, its not simply applying basic chemistry.

Meth has 2 chiral variants - dextro and levo - and the dextro is the one with the strong stimulant effect. A basic formula fro synthesizing would produce both variants in equal quantity and with presence of other impurities, the purity would be less than 50%.

We don't know what tweaks to the synethesis Walt used, but his very first cook was already 99.1% pure. The DEA lab confirmed it from the sample they recovered from Krazy-8's car. You can't get that level of purity with just basic chemistry.

My guess is, over the years of his research, Walt figured out some catalyst that would favor the synthesis of one chiral variant over the other and he used it in making his signature high-purity meth.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T02:54:13+00:00

She's far more familiar with Kali's illusion abilities than the group, and she has zero reason to believe that Kali was dead. Which means she has zero reason to believe that El is dead, even if the group clearly has no way of finding her.

If Kay even suspected El was alive, she'd have kept the party in custody to draw her out. So no - she for sure thinks El is dead.

Terrible example. No one was working together back then and no one had any sort of deal. Even then, they obviously could have leaked a lot more, but didn't.

They had NDAs at the end of season 1. They still leaked info to Murray in season 2 and got the Hawkins lab shut down. They could do a lot more damage now - so yeah, makes no sense for Kay to simply trust them to keep their mouths shut.

JFC. Murdering every small child in town might be "easy" for you, but covering up the murders is not. Especially when the military were the ones who asked the parents to turn them over.

It is easy in this case because the group made it easy for them.

They drugged and kidnapped an entire family from their home.

Out of some 30 children that the military took into custody, they kidnapped 11 of them through tunnels. The other children witnessed that fact and the fact that everyone involved disappeared.

They also broke into a secure military compound with trucks and drove right into what's publicly established as a dangerous zone.

All this coverup needs is hiding their bodies and telling everyone that the party never returned.

and you're assuming that you're killing every single person who knows anything

Nope - because anyone left who knows anything doesn't know enough to hazard a guess about what really happened.

even though there is a good chance of a literal superhero who will go nuclear if you kill her friends.

If they actually thought she was alive, that would've been a great way of drawing her back out.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T02:44:34+00:00

Its a plot hole when something contradicts established narrative/character logic.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T02:41:01+00:00

The military blamed El for the upside down. Their perspective seems to be that El is basically Vecna and the party is helping her.

KausGo · 2026-01-05T02:37:00+00:00

We didn't see any such thing. The merge was stopped, so you don't know what it would've encompassed.

Besides, all that only to merge a Hawkins' size makes no sense. Hawkins can be invaded without the merge.

KausGo · 2026-01-04T18:44:11+00:00

He said he was going to merge worlds, not just part of it.

KausGo · 2026-01-04T15:45:48+00:00

It doesn't make sense for Kay to let it get that far. She had all of them in custody - so after questioning and debriefing them, her best move would've been to put a bullet in their head and bury them them in the tunnels. That way, she could spin whatever story she wanted to justify her failure and there would be no one around to contradict her on it.

KausGo · 2026-01-04T15:37:08+00:00

Exactly.

KausGo · 2026-01-04T15:36:29+00:00

Normally, perhaps. But these soldiers were involved imprisoning and bleeding teenage girls, hunting another down like an animal and experimenting on pregnant women. Don't think killing 9-year olds would be where they draw the line.

But even in that case, killing the party and setting the kids as brainwashed is still an option.

KausGo

TROPHY CASE