When Better Call Saul was born, it was going to be something very different from what it has ended up being. The initial idea was that it would be a comedy. But what AMC, its channel in the United States, ordered with three episodes left to go before the end of Breaking Badwas a drama that told the story of Saul Goodman. The character had first appeared in the eighth episode of the second season of the series starring Bryan Cranston in a chapter entitled Better Call Saul. That was, precisely, the title of the series that premiered in 2015 and this Tuesday broadcasts its finale on Movistar Plus+ (10:30 p.m.).
This is how viewers met Jimmy McGill, the character’s real name, a very different guy from the Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad, shady and swindling lawyer, “friend of the cartel,” whose path crosses with that of Walter White. In the six seasons and 63 episodes of Better Call Saul There are dozens of references and points of connection between the two series, set in a universe in which morality is as flexible as a reed. As the end approached, the connection between these two worlds grew. Everything seemed to obey a plan thought up years ago by its scriptwriters. However, it was not so. “We had no idea what the fate of the characters would be,” says Peter Gould, co-creator and head of the series along with Vince Gilligan. “In the first season, everyone in the writers’ room thought that the protagonist would transform into Saul Goodman at the end of the first season and then we would become something like a criminal procedural, a series where we would see a different case every week. I was thinking of a criminal version of Jerry Maguire. But it was not like that,” Gould recalled in a video call interview with EL PAÍS last Thursday.
The series was adapted to what the characters asked for and what the actors created. “What we did was to watch very carefully everything that we had already done before. We like to take ideas that we had planted before and that we normally didn’t even know we had planted. An obvious example is when, in Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman is on his knees at a grave and screams: ‘It wasn’t me, it was Ignacio! I’m a friend of the cartel. Did Lalo send you?’ It was in an episode I wrote and I had no idea what it meant. Better Call SaulLalo Salamanca and Nacho Varga have been two supporting characters of great importance.
Peter Gould has been writing the universe of Breaking Bad, since the first season of the parent series. He was in charge of creating Saul Goodman, which led him to take on more responsibilities in the production focused on the lawyer. “When we started Better Call Saul It seemed crazy to me. I was so proud of Breaking Bad… How could we go on? How dare we do so?” It is Gould who directs the episode that closes the story.
But Saul Goodman would not have been the same without the acting work of Bob Odenkirk, nominated for an Emmy five times for his role in this series. “Nobody can do what Bob does,” says Gould. “Nobody can go beyond the most ridiculous comedy, almost like a sketchto the drama two seconds later. What he does is unique. And I don’t think he even realizes it himself.”
One of the most praised aspects of the series has been the relationship between Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler (actress Rhea Seehorn). As the series progressed Better Call Saulit was more common for viewers to wonder about the fate of that lawyer who had not been mentioned in Breaking Bad and The core of Jimmy’s personal life was transformed into a loving and supportive professional relationship that raised fears for her future. “That’s the greatest compliment we can get, that people really cared about her and her fate,” Gould says. “We started the show as a sequel or a prequel, because it’s ended up being both, and at first the questions people were asking us were about when we were going to see the characters from the show.” Breaking BadBut the question we were asked the most lately was, ‘What’s going to happen to Kim? ‘ ‘You better not kill Kim! ‘ That’s because we’ve created a character with Rhea that has connected with people very deeply and that’s one of the greatest triumphs of this series.
Better Call Saul was born in the shadow of Breaking Bad, But, as Gould admits, it wasn’t hard for him to shake off that weight and free himself from a comparison that could have weighed down the series. “I think we got rid of that shadow pretty early on. He was always a presence in the writers’ room, of course, a lot of us worked on it.” Breaking Bad and we had to be careful with the references and relationships with the series, which became increasingly complex. There were 62 episodes of Breaking Badplus our 63 and the two hours of the film directed and written by Vince Gilligan, The way (which narrated the fate of Jesse Pinkman after the end of Breaking Bad). It was a challenge to make sure everything was consistent and fit together well. We always thought about Breaking Bad in that sense, but we soon got rid of its shadow. I think that was when things started to happen that were too stupid to have happened in Breaking Bad. There’s one episode where Jimmy goes to an inventor who’s created a talking toilet. In another, he fakes a rescue on a billboard. Walter White would never have done that stuff, not even Jesse.
The latest episodes, particularly celebrated by viewers, include the participation of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, who have returned to play Walter White and Jesse Pinkman to definitively unite the two series. “It has been an exercise in endurance to have waited until now to do it. But I think that waiting so long has been better. We wanted to tell the story of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman. And these characters were not important to that until now.”
The one now tastes like a second farewell to the universe of Breaking Bad after the original series had in 2013. But will it be the final one? Neither Vince Gilligan, in recent statements, nor Peter Gould dare to close the door completely, especially in times when networks and platforms depend so much on their successful franchises. “I think that, for the moment, Vince and I, and the rest of the team, believe that we have already tempted fate enough. It has been a lot of hours, we are asking the viewers too much and it is time to give it a break. I want to try other things and explore other worlds. That said, you never know, you can never close the door completely because, if there is a great idea, if people are willing… who knows, it could happen again. Of course, it is not going to happen soon.”
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