Fourteen years ago, Peter Gould wrote an episode of Breaking Bad, “Better Call Saul,” where he was tasked with introducing a character who would serve two purposes: 1) provide legal expertise to Walter White and Jesse Pinkman so that to be more plausible when they continued to elude law enforcement. and 2) bring back some of the humor that Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan worried the show was losing as Walt and Jesse’s arcs grew darker. Beyond that, and the casting of Bob Odenkirk in the role, no one thought much of who Saul was, much less believed that he would one day spawn a prequel series — also titled Better Call Saul — that would rival the reputation of Breaking Bad the same. Now that prequel has come to an end, with Gould (who co-created the spinoff with Gilligan) fittingly serving as writer and director for the series finale, which we recapped here. Gould spoke with Rolling Stone about why he chose to end the series with Jimmy/Saul going to prison, bringing Walt back for one last talk with his criminal lawyer, what he thinks is happening to Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler, and many other. When we spoke after season five, you said that while you were writing that year’s episodes, “the fog started to clear a little bit about where we were going with all of this.” Is what you planned then what you end up with?It’s similar, but not exactly. What we began to realize was that the proper ending for Saul was to be in the justice system, as a suspect and ultimately a convict, rather than as a lawyer. This guy has lived in the court system, he’s pranked it, he’s played it. And it just felt like that was the right place for the series to end: him behind bars. But that was pretty much all we had back then. Gould, left, with Rhea Seehorn as Kim. Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures How important was it to the end of Kim’s story that Jimmy was behind bars?I think Kim was on her own journey. I don’t know that Jimmy being behind bars is an officer for her. But I think the fact that they both confess, they both have their consciences cleared, they both live more honest lives, that’s the core of the ending. You bring Walt back one last time. And as in Breaking Bad finale, “Felina,” you have the main character returning to Albuquerque, making amends for what she did and getting some small measure of satisfaction. Were you thinking about that at all when you did that? When I thought of “Felina,” mostly what I thought of was, it’s such a big episode that Vince directed. It was so right for Breaking Bad. I knew the ending of this show would have a different feel. It felt right to have these two guys, Saul and Walt, in a final scene, which touches on their reluctance to be really honest with themselves about what they’ve done and who they are, and what their real regrets are. . Neither can really bring themselves to tell the truth. I asked some of the other writers on the show, including Vince, what they would change Saul the Breaking Bad if they had a time machine. And now you’ve gone and made that question part of the text of this show! So I have to ask if there is anything you would change in each series, just to make your life easier in this.It’s a tough question, because usually the things in the writers’ room that we’ve struggled with on every show where we’ve been like, “Oh, if only we’d done it differently,” those problems lead to an interesting solution. So it’s really hard for me to wish things were easier, because being a little difficult was helpful. There’s that old Orson Welles saying that “lack of boundaries is the enemy of art.” Sometimes living with the choices you’ve made makes things more fun. If I had to pick one thing – and it’s hard to say I’d want to change it, because it felt so right – it was what a cheat Saul was to Francesca Breaking Bad. We reached there [on Better Call Saul]but little. You can think of a specific example where the fight worked around its plot Breaking Bad led to a more interesting solution?The obvious one is Saul’s Lalo-Ignacio dialogue in the first episode where we met him: “It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio!” And “Aren’t you with Lalo?” For a long time we wondered, “What the hell is he talking about?” And even after we had Nacho, who was obviously Ignacio, we asked, “What did he do?” And how is Lalo involved? We just didn’t know. It really helped us get to where we landed. This was definitely one of them. But the other thing is, why the hell does he have this crazy desk? What was the point? What is he really looking for? And finally, the question we started with, which seemed unsolvable, is: What problem does being Saul Goodman solve? His edition Better Call Saul that we’ve been watching since 2015 basically ends with “Fun and Games”. The cartel characters mostly don’t reappear, the main title sequence is different, and the focus is almost entirely on Jimmy and Kim. Why did you decide to structure the season like this?There are many different pieces to the show, but ultimately, the middle line, the core, the emotion of the show, is about this man’s journey — for Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill/Gene Takovic, his journey. We felt that it was not enough to simply answer the question of how Saul Goodman became. We wanted to know, was there ever an opportunity for this guy, even in a small way, to redeem — redeem is a big word, I don’t know if he’s redeemed, but is he always going to be trapped in this cycle that he’s in? It felt right to continue the story, because the man’s life went on. Of course, that was the idea, really from the beginning. That’s why we started the way we did, at the beginning of the show, to show Gene Takovic and go back to Gene’s story. I think we would have left something on the table if we hadn’t finished Gene’s story. Walt shows up again, you also bring back Chuck and Marie Schrader. Were there other characters you wanted to include in the finale but didn’t get around to it?Oh man. You’re talking to the writer-director of the episode. I would love to have Patrick Fabian come back, Dean Norris to come back. Anna Gunn would be great if she fit the story. I love our entire cast. Giancarlo Esposito is one of the best, most fun actors to work with. So I would like them all. I’m greedy. We didn’t want to make a kind of over-the-top epic, and I hope we didn’t. We wanted it to be like a drama and not like a collection of scenes. I would definitely return them. And of course Michael Mando, Nacho’s shadow hangs over the entire season. The feeling I got about this episode was that it felt a little similar Christmas carols. Jin becomes Saul and is visited by three ghosts. And every time one of these ghosts visits him, you realize that this guy is trapped in the cycle. It’s not an exact analogy, but hopefully these flashbacks will help illuminate the change he makes in this episode. It’s making a change and it’s hard to make. In your opinion, do you think what Saul does at the audition will get Kim out of legal trouble with Cheryl? No, I don’t. I think Kim is on her own journey and I think she knows it. He feels bad about what is happening to Cheryl. But I don’t think Kim would like it if Jimmy made some sort of maneuver to protect her from Cheryl. Doesn’t he save her? he saves her. They’re done saving each other right now. What he sees is that he had the courage to face what he did. And he did something that I don’t think Jimmy/Gene ever thought he would do, which is to not only turn himself in, but actually sit across from Sheryl Hamlin, who they both lied to disgustingly, and be 100 % honest. Over the years, whenever I asked you if Jimmy was really Saul still, you said that in the scripts, you would continue to refer to him as “Jimmy” as long as Kim did—that is, until the transformation was complete. I’m curious if his name in the script and direction for this episode kept changing in the black and white scenes of this episode, or if you just used one of Jimmy, Saul, or Gene throughout. Since this is an episode where it goes from Gene to Saul and eventually back to Jimmy, I was very careful to use the name that felt “right” at each moment. I described these moments in the script. [Gould emailed me: “Here’s a screenshot of one of the pages to illustrate.”] Peter Gould Finally, Vince says that, at least for now, this is the conclusion of the Heisenberg universe. You’ve been doing this for 15 years. how does it feel to be at the end of it? I haven’t figured out how I feel about it. It’s really upsetting. In my daily life, the thing that upsets me the most is that I don’t see all my partners and fellow citizens on the show every day. My life for the last 15 years has had a very regular rhythm of going into the writers’ room, being on set, being on post. That’s the great thing about this job. Once you’re exhausted with one phase of it, the next phase begins. In my heart, I still feel like we’re going to reopen the writers’ room for season seven. But of course, this is not the case. My fervent hope is that as many of us as possible work together again. And, of course, these characters mean so much to me. I love writing all of them, but I especially love writing Jimmy and Kim and Mike. Their voices, I will have to really fight, in whatever I do in the future, not to have them…
