The Show’s Creator Explains the Finale of ‘Better Call Saul.

This post containsSpoilersThe following are the recommendations:Better Call SaulSeries finale.

Peter Gould created an episode for The Daily Show fourteen years agoBreaking Bad, “Better Call Saul,”The character he created was to serve two purposes. Breaking Badcreator Vince Gilligan worried that the show was losing as Walt and Jesse’s arcs both turned darker. Beyond that, and the casting of Bob Odenkirk in the role, no one gave much thought to who Saul was, let alone believed he would one day anchor a prequel series — also titled Better Call Saul— that would come to rival the reputation of Breaking Bad itself.

This prequel has ended. Gould, who cocreated the spinoff along with Gilligan, served as writer/director for the series finale. You can read our recap 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 final conversation with his criminal lawyer, what he thinks happens to Rhea Seehorn’s Kim Wexler, and a lot more.

When we spoke after Season Five, you said that while you were writing that year’s episodes, “the fog started to clear slightly about where we were going with all of this.”What did you actually end up doing instead of what you had planned?
It’s similar, but not exactly. It was clear that Saul should be in the justice systems as a suspect and then a prisoner, not as a lawyer. This guy has lived in the justice system, he’s made a farce of it, he’s played it. He was put behind bars, which felt like the best place to end the series. That was about all we had at the time.

How important was it to the end of Kim’s story that Jimmy be behind bars?
Kim was probably on her own path. I don’t know that Jimmy being behind bars is axiomatic for her. The core of the ending is I believe the fact that both Jimmy and her confessed to their guilt, that they have both made amends for it, and that they now live more honest lives, I think.

You bring Walt home one more time. Like in the Breaking Bad finale, “Felina,”You see the main character returning to Albuquerque to make amends for what happened and get his revenge.some small measure of satisfaction. You were thinking about this when you did it?
When I thought about “Felina,” mostly what I thought of was, it’s such a big, rip-roaring episode that Vince wrote and directed. It was perfect. Breaking Bad. It was obvious that this episode would end with a different feeling. It did feel right to have these two guys, Saul and Walt, in one last scene, which kind of touches on their reluctance to really be honest with themselves about what they’ve done and who they are, and what their true regrets are. They can’t seem to be able to tell the truth.

I’ve been asking some of the other writers on the show, including Vince, what they would change about SaulOder Breaking Bad They could have 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’s anything you would change about either series, just to have made your life easier This one.
It’s a difficult question, because usually the things in the writers room that we struggled with on either show, where we said, “Oh, if only we had done that differently,”These problems led to an innovative solution. So it’s really hard for me to wish that things were easier, because having them be a little difficult was helpful. There’s that old Orson Welles quotes that “lack of limits is the enemy of art.” Sometimes having to live with choices that you’ve made makes things more fun.

If I were going to pick one thing — and it’s hard to say I’d want to change it, because it seemed so right — it’s what a scumwad Saul was to Francesca on Breaking Bad. We made it! [on Better Call Saul]It is possible, but not very often.

Can you give an example of where the struggle to overcome the plot was successful? Breaking Bad This led to a more intriguing solution.
The obvious is the Lalo Ignacio dialogue, which Saul was uttering in the episode where he first met us. “It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio!”And “You’re not with Lalo?”We have been wondering for a while, “What the hell is he talking about?”We asked questions even after Nacho was Ignacio. “What did he do?”Lalo is involved in all this? We just didn’t know. It was a great help in getting us to our destination. It was definitely one of them. Another thing is why does he run such an insane office? Was it really necessary? What’s the real purpose of it? The question we began with seemed impossible, and that is: What problem can becoming Saul Goodman solve.

Version of Better Call Saul that we’ve been watching since 2015 basically ends with “Fun and Games.” The cartel characters mostly don’t appear again, the main title sequence is different, and the focus is almost entirely on Jimmy and Kim. Why did you choose to structure the season this way?
There’s a lot of different pieces to the show, but ultimately, the through-line, the core, the emotion of the show, is about this guy’s journey — about Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill/Gene Takovic, his journey. We felt like just answering the question of how he became Saul Goodman wasn’t enough. We wanted to know, was there ever a chance for this guy, even in a small way, to redeem — redeem is a big word, I don’t know if he redeems himself, but is he always going to be trapped in this cycle that he has been in? It felt right to continue the story, because the man’s life continued. This was the idea from the very beginning. That’s why we started the way we did, at the very beginning of the show, of showing Gene Takovic, and coming back to the Gene story. I think we would have really left something on the table if we hadn’t finished the Gene story.

Walt is back, so you bring Marie Schrader and Chuck back. Were there any other characters you wanted to include in the finale but couldn’t?
Oh, man. You’re talking to the writer-director of the episode. It would have been great to have Dean Norris and Patrick Fabian back. Anna Gunn would be great, if it was a part of the story. I love our entire cast. Giancarlo Esposito, one of the most talented and fun actors I have ever worked with, is a great actor. They would all have been my dream. I’m greedy. We didn’t want to make a kind of overstuffed epic, and I hope we didn’t. It should feel like a drama and not a collection of scenes. They would have been welcome back. And of course Michael Mando, Nacho’s shadow hangs over the whole season. This episode reminded me a lot of “The Hangover” Christmas Carol. Gene becomes Saul, and he’s visited by three ghosts. And each time he’s visited by one of these ghosts, you realize this guy is trapped in the cycle. It’s not an exact analogy, but hopefully those flashbacks help to illuminate the change that he’s making in this episode. He’s making a change, and it’s a tough thing to do.

Is it possible to imagine that Kim and Cheryl will be in legal trouble if Saul acts at the hearing?
No, I don’t. Kim is on her journey and he seems to know that. He does feel bad about what’s happening with Cheryl. But I don’t think Kim would like it if Jimmy pulled some maneuver that protected her from Cheryl. He doesn’t save her; She saves her. They’re done with saving each other by this time. What he sees is that she had the courage to face what she’s done. And she did something that I don’t think Jimmy/Gene ever thought she would do, which is not only to turn herself in, but actually to sit across from Cheryl Hamlin, who they both lied to disgustingly, and be 100 percent truthful.

Over the years, whenever I’ve asked you if Jimmy was really Saul yet, you’ve said that in the scripts, you would keep referring to him as “Jimmy” as long as Kim did — i.e., until the transformation was complete. I’m curious if his name in the script and stage directions for this episode kept shifting in the black and white scenes of this episode, or if you just used one of Jimmy, Saul, or Gene throughout.
Because this episode is where Gene goes from Gene to Saul, then back to Jimmy, I was careful to use the name I felt comfortable with. “right”Every moment. I outlined those moments in the script. [Gould emailed me: “Here’s a screenshot of one of the pages to illustrate.”]

Vince finally states that for the time being, this is the end of Heisenberg’s universe. You’ve been doing this for 15 years. How does it feel to finally be done?
I haven’t figured out how I feel about it. It’s really upsetting. In my daily life, the thing that’s most upsetting is that I’m not seeing all my collaborators and co-consiprators on the show every day. For the past 15 years, my life has been a steady rhythm: I’ve been going to the writers room, being on set, and being in post. It’s the wonderful thing about this job. Just when you’re exhausted with one phase of it, the next phase begins. In my heart, I keep feeling like we’re about to reopen the writers room for Season Seven. But of course, that’s not happening. It is my sincere hope that we can all work together again. I love these characters. I love all of them but especially Jimmy, Kim and Mike. Their voices, I’m going to have to really struggle, in whatever I do in the future, not to have those voices peek through. They’re deep in my heart and deep in my soul, and I don’t think that’s ever going to end.