Better Call Saul is currently shooting its final season in New Mexico, but outside of the folks in the writers’ room, there aren’t many people who know how the series will ultimately end, and that includes series’ star Bob Odenkirk. The series will continue to shoot until November, but Odenkirk says that he refuses to read ahead. He doesn’t know anything about the final season beyond the episode he is currently shooting.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have thoughts about how it will end. This week, in an interview with Esquire UK, he reiterated that the events of the final season of Better Call Saul will change the way audiences perceive Breaking Bad. “When Better Call Saul is done it will shed new light… you will see Breaking Bad and the story of Breaking Bad in a different way. It will be different from what you think you know.”
It’s unclear exactly what Odenkirk means by that, but he is on the record stating that we should not assume that Kim Wexler — who is never seen on Breaking Bad — is dead during the events of Breaking Bad. Beyond that, we don’t know much. Vince Gilligan has stated that he expects that Saul will have a “better” ending than Breaking Bad, but not necessarily happier. Meanwhile, Peter Gould says that there “is a lot of sadness” to where the final season is going.
What does that mean for the fate of Jimmy McGill? Again, Bob Odenkirk does not officially know, but he does know showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould very well after working with them for all of these years. While Odenkirk himself likes to believe that Jimmy McGill will learn some valuable lessons from his experiences during the Breaking Bad timeline and adjust accordingly, he doubts very much that the showrunners see it that way, as he told Esquire:
“Vince and Peter refuse to account for my argument that sometimes people do learn the right lessons from their mistakes and their traumas and problems. I’d like to think that after all he went through with the story of Breaking Bad, where he was gonna become wealthy by representing a meth kingpin, that he somehow decides to fly right and maybe use his various talents to help people who really need help. I don’t think that’s where he’ll end up but I think people sometimes do make a better choice based on experiences that they’ve had. But I don’t think they agree with that theory
“Their glass seems pretty half-empty.
“Their glass is always half-empty. And it’s draining fast.”
An ending where Jimmy McGill straightens himself up and flies right really would be out of character for Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan, who like to tell stories about characters who are done in by their own egos. It would be nice to think that Jimmy and Kim meet up in Omaha and live happily ever after, but that wouldn’t be on brand for the Breaking Bad universe. Whatever happens, however, we can expect an intense and exciting final season, says Odenkirk. Vince Gilligan “starts knocking things down and starts lighting fires and burning everything down,” Odenkirk told Esquire. “It’s really going into overdrive. And it’s pretty exciting.
(Via Esquire)