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We're now five episodes from the end of Breaking Bad, and the colossally strong run of episodes so far this season has made us more depressed than ever at the thought of saying farewell.
Digital Spy sat down with the show's creator Vince Gilligan last week to find out about the process of wrapping up Walter White's story.
We also took the opportunity to ask him about the specifics of Walt's morality at this point in the season, and get his perspective on one of the more popular fan theories doing the rounds online.
The endings of iconic television shows are often taken as a statement on the creator's worldview, like the ambiguity of The Sopranos, or the religious overtones in Lost. Did you find yourself getting bogged down in the meaning of the ending?'You can get bogged down in a great many ways. We've spent the better part of a year or probably more, my writers and I, trying to figure out this ending. You think of everything under the sun, you think of every possible outcome and permutation that can occur to your collective imagination, to the seven of us in that writers' room. And you think in terms of what is a fitting ending for the show - what's an ending that would satisfy us, the writers, what is the ending that will satisfy the viewers, and is that necessarily the same thing?
"Then you think to yourself, what's the ending Walt wants? What's the ending Skyler wants? What's the ending Jesse wants? You try to play a very deep game of chess, and the trouble is for me that I'm not a chess player. You try to think through, if Walt does this, and then does this, then the counter-move is this – you try to think 20 moves ahead, and you try to attack it from a lot of different angles. What's fitting for the character, what's fitting for the story, versus what's innately satisfying for the viewer.
"And it was tough. It was a tough year, year and a half. There were very dark days where I would have a little anxiety attack and I'd say to the other writers, 'We've screwed up, we've taken a wrong turn, is there time for us to go back and reinvent?' Luckily, we never really had to reinvent. My writers would talk me off the ledge, they'd say, 'It's not that bad, we're headed in the right direction, it'll be alright'. And you know, now that it's all said and done – and I may get the shock of my life when the final one airs – but at this moment in time, I feel very good about the ending, I feel very satisfied by it."
There are a huge number of very intricate fan theories that have developed online about the show. How aware are you of that discussion?"Most of what I hear is anecdotal. I really stay away from the internet in regards to Breaking Bad, I mean, I use it all the time to find my way around town or whatever! I stay away from it not because I'm not interested, but because I fear it would be a rabbit hole that I would disappear down forever. I am very flattered by it, I'm blown away by the number of really smart people spending a lot of time thinking about this show, and analysing it and parsing every last detail of it. I love to hear it anecdotally, but I don't really want to hear it because I'm afraid... well, it doesn't really matter now because the writers' room is closed.
"But while the writers' room was still up and running, when we were actively breaking story, I would pretty strenuously avoid hearing those things, because you're on a path at that point. You and the writers are on a path, and you kind of have to stick it out, you have to get to the end of the trail and you don't want to get knocked off course. People way smarter than me have said a lot of very astute things about the show, a great many of them giving me credit for things that weren't even remotely in my mind!"
There's one specific theory, about Walt taking on the attributes of people he's killed including Gus Fring and Krazy-8, which I wanted to ask you about. Was that intentional?"That one was purposeful, yes. Specifically in regards to Gus. I would say at this point it's not looking like we're ever gonna see anyone as smart as Gustavo Fring. He was actually, I think, smarter than Walt, and yet Walt defeated him. It was like, the guy who shoots down the Red Baron has to tip his wings, drop the bouquet of roses and say, 'I was lucky to have bested you because you are the better man'. It's that kind of a thing. So yeah, he takes on those traits, I think subconsciously."
There's been a lot of discussion about Walt refusing to send Hank "to Belize" in last week's episode, which some people found surprising given how ruthless he's become. Does Walt still see family as absolutely sacred?"Well, I have to be a bit coy as to the episodes that remain, but what you saw in that episode, when Saul mentions Belize and Walt reacts very negatively to that idea, that felt right and proper to the writers, and to me. He would react that way. And think about it this way: if killing Hank were a relatively painless option for Walt, psychically... well, the essence of drama is making choices very hard for your main characters.
"So if that were an easy choice for him, a) I don't think that would be dramatically interesting, and b) Walt would be even harder to root for than he already is! So it felt ironic and yet very fitting to us. It felt earned, based on our knowledge of the character, of his background and his makeup, that you don't kill family. You don't kill players, as it were. Your opponents in the meth cooking business are fair game, but family is not."
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