Now that Jimmy McGill has completed his professional transition into Saul Goodman, “Better Call Saul” finally paid off on its long-awaited premise.
Since that is settled, fans of the series are now left wondering how much of the “Breaking Bad” prequel’s story is left to tell? After all, not only did viewers finally meet Saul, the fourth season also featured the show’s biggest time jump, inching closer to the day when he crosses paths with Bryan Cranston’s Walter White.
“I couldn’t tell you exactly how many episodes there are [left], but I think we’re closer to the end than we are to the beginning,” “Better Call Saul” co-showrunner Peter Gould told TheWrap.
“Breaking Bad” ran officially for five seasons, though that final season was as an expanded 16 episodes spread over two years. With the exception of the WGA-strike shortened first season, “Breaking Bad” seasons were longer episode counts vs “Saul.” AMC has already renewed the “Breaking Bad” spinoff for a fifth season, which Gould said is just now starting to be put together.
Gould admits that he and co-showrunner (and “Breaking Bad” creator) Vince Gilligan are working on the show’s endgame. “I don’t know that I can claim to have a nailed-down plan, or that Vince and I have a nailed-down plan for how it ends, but I can tell you we’ve talked about it an awful lot,” says Gould. “This is a story that has a beginning, middle and an end.”
Part of that will include the fate of Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), last seen stunned and horrified as she witnessed first hand the “birth” of the monster that is Saul Goodman. With Kim among the handful of “Better Call Saul’s” main players not seen on “Breaking Bad,” it begs the question of whether her and Jimmy’s relationship, already on choppy waters, makes it out alive.
“The thing I’m most interested and worried about is where Jimmy and Kim are going together,” says Gould. “What is Kim’s fate going to be? She seems to be, at the end of this season, at a decision point about her relationship with Jimmy.” Gould argues that while Jimmy knew he was playing the Bar Association with his story about Chuck, he was unaware that Kim wasn’t fully in on the ruse. “He was expecting that Kim would see through it. She didn’t. She took it at face value.”
With “Better Call Saul” running closer to the “Breaking Bad” timeline, does that mean we’ll see more “Bad” vets show up? Gould is still holding out hope he’ll get everyone of consequence to make a return in some form or fashion. While he didn’t specifically name them, that would presumably include Cranston himself and Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman.
“[We] would love to see all of the key folks from ‘Breaking Bad,’” said Gould. “It’s really a matter of whether the story leads us there.”