Vince Gilligan reflects on his final Better Call Saul episode, says he came back “just for fun”
The Breaking Bad creator says writing his last script was a "collaborative effort"
Aux News Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan is just as much of a Better Call Saul fan as the rest of us. Perhaps that’s a given, since he co-created the show based on another show he created, but he stepped back from the series (to make the movie based on the show that he created) and still thought it “just kept getting better and better even after I was gone.”
The pandemic allowed him to be more present in the final season’s writer’s room, culminating in Monday’s episode “Waterworks,” which Gilligan wrote and directed. Being more hands-on with Better Call Saul “was just great,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It wasn’t necessary for anyone but me, but selfishly it’s just a great, great show and I wanted to take part in it, not just in the final season, but throughout.”
“I didn’t need to be there for anybody but me, but man! I had a great time being around for the final season,” he continues. “I don’t know that it was important for me. It was just fun. I didn’t feel driven to do it. I just wanted to do it for fun and because I love the show. I’m a giant fan of the show and I was very lucky to get to direct three episodes in one season.” Gilligan had never directed more than two episodes in a season of TV, and “Waterworks” was “the first episode of TV I’ve written all by myself since the final episode of Breaking Bad.”
“There’s no need for that and I wouldn’t even call it bragging rights or anything,” he added. “I just realized it was interesting just to get one to myself, but even that’s misleading when I say that. I didn’t have one to myself, because all of these episodes are broken by the writers en masse. It’s very much a group episode. You’re never really alone when you’re writing one of these things or when you’re directing it, which just makes it even better that it’s such a collaborative effort.” And with that, Vince Gilligan’s final bow in the Breaking Bad universe. (At least… for now.)
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Vince is the definition of humble, and still created some of the darkest anti-heroes.
Vince’s darkest scene was writing Huell into an nearly endless time loop in that hotel room….and then freed him narratively 6 seasons into the NEXT series.
I can only hope that there might be a stand alone Mike Ehrmantraut movie a la El Camino before this world is put to bed. I’m sure it could be squeezed into the timeline somewhere.
It’s extremely hard sometimes to reconcile the extremely lovely person that Vince from all accounts is with the fact his mind has given birth to some extremely dark shit.
I find it refreshing as well, that he’s pretty self effacing and light hearted all while making two series full of darkness, death and tragedy. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to other show creators, like Matthew Weiner or David Chase, who are so self serious about their projects, so tight lipped about one aspect or another of their show, and you just want them to take it down a notch or two in their pretensions.
You can definitely see it in the shows as well how you’ll just have these almost ridiculous light-hearted touches simply because they thought it’d be fun.Most infamous of course is the pizza toss.
“Walter White throws a Pizza Party on the Roof”“I gave that roof a Pizza. Roofs love Pizzas”
And it’s hilarious he finally wrote another scene to explain that scene.“It’s like democratic, bro. You know, cut your own Christmas tree, cut your own pizza. ”
They pass the savings on to you!
Vince Gilligan is the antidote to all the “tortured genius” bullshit that gets thrown around, particularly whenever a creative is outed as a being a huge dick, an abuser or worse.You know, it IS possible to be a literal creative genius and also a thoroughly fucking awesome guy that every single person who’s worked him loves.
He’s also the exception in the book “Difficult Men” about prestige drama showrunners.
Wow, there’s literally a book about them? Jesus….
I never actually read it, but I used to read Alan Sepinwall and I remember him talking about it.
Colbert needs to lock him up again.
I think he was the full on showrunner for the X-Files there for a bit too, I believe when the show flopped over to shooting in LA. X-Cops is a dopey funny episode
It’s called writing and having an imagination you weirdo.
He’s like David Lynch in that way. And now I want to see Vince Gilligan and David Lynch work on something together, or just have lunch together, either way.
“but he stepped back from the series (to make the based on the show that he created)”
Man, imagine if he’s stayed with BCS. We wouldn’t have a pointless, shitty Breaking Bad sequel movie and we might not have been subjected to the boring-ass story of how a lab was built underground.
Okay, now time to get that second season of The Lone Gunmen.