Is Subtext Important?

How important is subtext to you while reading? What do you consider subtext, typically?

Context for those who care, I was interviewing another author recently and we were talking about a scene from Kill Bill and how the villain just lays out the stakes plainly. The author said that a lot of folks might want that scene to be more subtle but I argued that the subtext of the conversation wasn't the stakes but the conflict and relationship between the characters. Now I'm reading a book my one of my favorite authors and there is definitely a lot of "spelling it out" yet I'm still intrigued and loving the ride. At the same time, there are some books that insist on telling me how they made toast (I'm looking at you Time Traveler's Wife) and I am just soooooo bored.

I'd love to get some thoughts on this