‘Better Call Saul’ Co-Creator Explains Why the Series Finale Was So Different from ‘Breaking Bad’

[The following story contains spoilers from Better Call Saul‘s series finale, “Saul Gone.]

The word “hail” doesn’t begin to describe the barrage of bullets that marks the end of AMC. breaking Bad Back to 2013.

You better call Saul. It never had a comparable ending, and the acclaimed prequel’s Monday series finale was much smoother and less bloody, marked by musings on time travel, regret and self-sacrifice.

In the series’ overtime, viewers saw Gene Takavitch, Saul Goodman, and Jimmy McGill at work, with all three sides of the character played by Bob Odenkirk to Emmy-nominated effect. And the audience, as with the entire series, has to ask which alter ego matches the essence of the character and wonder if and how much the character can change.

The result may not have been a happy ending, but it was upbeat and balanced the punishment Jimmy/Sol/Jenny clearly deserved with Rhea Zehorn’s reconciliation with Kim that she and the audience clearly wanted.

Series co-creator Peter Gould, writer and director of the finale, picked up the phone. the hollywood reporter Discuss the emotional parts of the ending, as well as choose the final scene for the series.

Also, for perhaps the millionth time, he considered whether he and co-creator Vince Gilligan were done storytelling. breaking Bad the world.

Barring future FYC panels or something, this is probably the last time we’ll talk about this show. What do I need in your crying?

(Laughter.) I’m crying! You can simply say “She cried”. No matter what she says, you can only write, “She held back tears as she talked about how she was going to miss the show.” You can only say that I’m crying. That’s fine with me.

I’m going to waste my first question on production design. For the big Jimmy/Jean/Soul court moment at the end, did you tell someone you needed a courtroom that looked like a cross, or did you go to an accessible set, see the guard, and say, “Oh my God, Kim could pass”?

Boy, I wish I could say it was all carefully planned. We had a terrible time. It was an episode trying to find a court for this episode in the midst of a pandemic. I won’t go into all the details, but [location manager] Christian De Bedoya came out for us, as did the Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico. So thank you to the Supreme Court, to the State of New Mexico, because this is a room that they allowed us to use, and thank God they did.

So was it really a situation where you saw what the banister looked like and you were like, “Oh, symbolic”?

Absolutely! You say yes!” Marshall Adams, our brilliant cinematographer, and I had the whole visual design idea for this sequel and that was part of it.

Now let’s go to the end. This is probably the most hopeful and optimistic ending I could imagine for this series. How did you decide that relative happiness was a possibility and/or something these people deserved?

Oops! I like the fact that you think it’s a happy ending when you have one character in prison with a really long sentence and another facing a giant civil suit. Yes yes! Look, the fact that you think it’s an optimistic ending means a lot. Our question really became, “What is the right ending for this guy? When is the right time to give up? When is the right time to leave Kim?

Yes, I agree that it is optimistic because it makes a difference. For those who study the people around them, they can see that making real change is very difficult and rare. In drama, we always say, “Oh, it’s about changing the characters,” but sometimes characters become who they were or continue along the paths they’ve traced. This is a guy, he has a self-destructive urge that keeps coming back and doing things he doesn’t really need to do, like working with Walter White or breaking into Mr. Lingke, even when he was supposed to show up any minute. .

Now it’s finally making a difference here. I think you are right. I find that optimistic. I thought it was good and fair to end up with Saul behind bars. You asked what he deserves, and I think it’s certainly no less than he deserves.

What were the conversations about how much relative optimism or how much relative happiness could this actually contain?

I think we just wanted to be honest. We don’t really think of it as “this is a happy ending” or “this is a sad ending”. Our best hope is that this will be a satisfying ending. We’re just trying to think about what could happen to these characters and what they would do in that situation and how the world would respond to their actions. It’s interesting because we don’t usually think in terms of “happy thing” or “higher thing” or “lower thing”. Remember, we remember rhythmically that both heroes suffered terrible setbacks and they both lost their way and lost the life they built. My mother used to say, “Where there is life, there is hope.” I think I’ll end up signing this one.

Have fun, I see this as an optimistic ending, but breaking Bad It ended in a terrible massacre, so you know, it’s all relative. When you were looking for the kind of ending you wanted this series to have, how was that process different from a very, very compelling ending? breaking Bad was necessary, is obviously much more open and philosophical.

breaking Bad, from the pilot, Walt was dying. I have a Bulgarian friend who used to take me to parties and say, “Please Peter, tell me he’s going to die in the end!” I was scared that Walt would get some kind of miracle cure because we wanted the show to go on. Interestingly, Walt turned out as he wanted. Walt dies despised by the world and despised by his family, but he achieves the goals he set out to achieve, or so it seems. He was able to leave money for his family and he’s leaving in a burst of glory and he’s certainly not another anonymous guy in a double crochet pair.

Saul has something different in mind, and it’s not so clear. He’s more like most people I know. he’s looking for He’s looking for meaning. He doesn’t have the fire under him to light his door like Walt does. So it felt like we wanted something different.

What else? We already did that ending. breaking Bad. We made a big bloody explosion that ended breaking Bad. Walt was a guy who killed people. He was finally picking up his gun and shooting. Saul never picks up a gun during the show. End of it will not be violent in the same way. He is a man of words, so of course he will have words in the end.

If you asked me last week what the show’s final scene would be, I was 100 percent sure we’d come to an end with Jimmy and Kim smoking together in honor of the pilot, and we did. Good He was close to madness. It was the last shot, and how did you decide I needed another close-up, one last call, with the finger gun?

(laughs.) You’re absolutely right, and it was a heated debate and what I fought was whether or not we wanted Leaning Against the Wall to be the series finale. I felt like seeing both parts. I didn’t want to end them. I thought maybe it wasn’t right for them to end up together because that’s not how they’re supposed to be together. So it was nice to break them up and also deal with the truth that he is in prison and will be for a long time. Is this a complete sentence? We can all fantasize and think about what could happen next, but it’s definitely there now.

So the first thing Jimmy does after getting the genie seems to be shaving off his mustache. Interestingly, since Kim’s legal threat has at least partially subsided, Kim retains her light brown hair and bangs. What does this choice tell you about their level of self-compassion, and what does that change later on?

I think for Jimmy, Gene Takavitch is a fantasy in his mind. He disguises himself as an anonymous and powerless person. So, of course, once he decides he’s going to court, he goes to court like Saul Goodman. In fact, he walks around the courtroom like Saul Goodman, and he doesn’t just walk, he walks around the courtroom. But when he leaves the courthouse, the last photo is of Jimmy McGill, or at least that’s our idea.

Kim isn’t making these big, sweeping changes. He changes much more smoothly and more like a person any of us know. It won’t change everything permanently. Also, I don’t think she’s the Kim Wexler we know. She’s not the Kim Wexler she was before Howard was shot. He’s a new person. I don’t think he will make the mistakes he made again. If we said, “Okay, now she’s going to dress like the Kim we knew and have her hair in a ponytail like the Kim we knew before,” you could say, “Okay, in the end it’s not done. There’s that difference. ” I think we wanted to agree on the fact of the change.

You mentioned your Saul Goodman line in court. There was a moment when you realized, “Wow, we’re doing this scene in black and white, so it can’t be a flashy, colorful costume. What is the most flashy costume we can wear?”

Absolutely. this was our problem [costume designer] The same happened to Jennifer Bryan earlier in the season. Pick a crazy tie and shirt in Episode 10 and fantasize about it, but what does a Saul Goodman outfit look like in black and white? Saul Goodman is a colorful creature and we saw a similar costume in season two. The sharkskin costume has always been one of my favorites. Many were snapping pictures of the various costumes and trying to figure out what would connect with Saul Goodman, both in real life on set and in black and white on TV at home.

And finally, everyone said otherwise in last week’s TCAs, but 100% of the audience will interpret Mike’s answer to the time machine question as wanting to see some old friends in five or ten years. As a sign that you no longer live in this world now, but five or ten years from now, you might want to see some old friends. Do you want to confirm or cancel?

Oh! Wow, there are so many hidden messages in the show. Look, if Vince or I or any of the people who worked on the show had an idea that we were all excited about, never say never. Vince and I both feel that we want and need to do something different and change things. If we ever return to this world, we hope to bring a new set of ideas that will enrich it and give us something different. One of the things I’m most proud of You better call Saul. is that it is not breaking Bad. It’s its own animal, and as you point out, the ending is definitely different. breaking Bad or of The way.

I wouldn’t want to do another chapter of this story without him recovering. We still don’t have anything and I think we want to try something else, but as I said before, where there is life, there is hope.

It’s only been a few months, so you shouldn’t have eaten yet, I don’t think so.

I will say this time when breaking Bad Turns out Vince and I were talking a little later. You better call Saul. And now none of this is happening. We both work on other things. But let’s see what will happen!

This interview has been edited and summarized for clarity.