Max Arciniega
Vital statistics
Portrayed By	James Martinez
Occupation(s)	Co-Founder of Los Pollos Hermanos
Status	Deceased
Episode Count	1
First Appearance	Hermanos
Last Seen	Hermanos
Images of Max Arciniega

Maximino "Max" Arciniega was a close associate of Gus Fring and co-founder of the Los Pollos Hermanos franchise. He held advanced degrees in biochemistry and chemical engineering. Gus and Max were very close. Max's education was financed by Gus after Gus rescued him from the slums of Santiago.

Gus gave a generous endowment (scholarship fund) to the UNM Chemistry department in Max's name; Gale Boetticher was one of perhaps three dozen recipients.

History

Season 4

Gus and Max are the hermanos ("brothers") in "Los Pollos Hermanos". Gus paid for Max's education in chemistry at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile - USACH (University of Santiago in Chile). When the pair moved to Mexico and opened up a chain of Los Pollos Hermanos chicken restaurants together, Max provided the chicken recipe, but also cooked the crystal meth that he and Gus began to give away samples of.

These samples gained the attention of Don Eladio, the druglord in charge of the Juárez Cartel, whom Max and Gus had approached in the hopes of convincing the Don to distribute their meth in addition to the usual cocaine. Don Eladio, unimpressed by these upstarts and nominally dismissive of selling methamphetamine, had Hector Salamanca kill Max on the patio of his mansion while Juan Bolsa restrained Gus. Gus was forced to watch the blood from his friend's fatal head wound drip into the swimming pool, a vision that stayed with him.

After moving to the United States, Gus set up a college scholarship in chemistry in Max's name (which he used to groom future meth cooks) and grew determined to avenge his friend's death. He torments Hector about the killing of Hector's nephews by Hank; Gus had told the Cousins of Hank's involvement in Tuco's death, but then anonymously warned Hank that the Cousins were after him, giving him time to fight back; at the same time, Gus had rival druglord Juan Bolsa killed ("One Minute")("I See You").

Using a bottle of poisoned tequila, Gus eventually kills Don Eladio himself along with his capos at the same poolside where Max was murdered ("Salud").

Trivia

• Max Arciniega is named after the actor who plays Krazy 8 in the Season 1.

• Gilligan has stated that he decided against officially confirming or denying whether or not Max and Gus were, in fact, lovers. However, he has said that if you were to imply this about their relationship, you "wouldn't be wrong." If this is true, it would add much more to the emotional attachment of Gus witnessing Max's death.