Better Call Saul Confronts Its Legacy in Season 6

| August 31, 2021 |

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Bob Odenkirk in Better Call Saul season 5 — *Photo: AMC*

Every bit Better Call Saul heads into its sixth and last flavour, the AMC hit has found a way to carve out its own path beyond the enormous shadow of its big blood brother, Breaking Bad. The series combines incredible cinematography, outstanding acting, and intelligent storytelling in a peerless manner.

Every bit we continue to anticipate the show's last episodes, we were lucky enough to go the chance to talk with executive producer Thomas Schnauz about how much the drama has already accomplished, how instrumental actors similar Rhea Seehorn and Tony Dalton accept been to the program's success, and what the testify's lasting legacy will hopefully be.

Den of Geek: Practise you have any inklings of data on whether AMC is going to split the sixth season into two parts? This has been a rumor for quite some time and I know Peter Gould said he had hoped information technology would be aired as a unmarried entity.

Thomas Schnauz: I don't know. Because of the COVID delays, and then Bob's heart assail and recovery, I accept aught idea when or how the episodes volition exist aired. Everything with production is moving forward, steady but irksome. We're filming scenes that don't involve Bob right now. I just finished editing my director'due south cut of episode 607, and I addressed some notes on my script for 611. I'k still waiting to hear the dates of when I'll prep and direct 611.

Heading into the terminal flavour, Better Call Saul is different from a lot of other shows in that we already know what Jimmy McGill's fate is going to be. What nosotros don't know is what Gene Takovic's closure represents. How much more prevalent volition those scenes be in the sixth flavour?

We will of course address Gene's future, but I'm not at liberty to say how much or how fiddling will be in the bear witness. We talked about it a ton when we were breaking the episodes, and all nosotros writers can do is become with our gut about how much Factor we see. Everyone chimed in with thoughts, and Peter Gould had the ultimate choice, and I recollect he picked an amount that we're all happy with.

The fifth season of the evidence got a lot more action-oriented than past installments every bit Jimmy and Kim themselves go a little also close to the cartel. Can we expect the violence to be ramped up even more than in the final season? How do y'all residual keeping the same tone the show has always had while realizing that things alter as you lot get close to the finish line?

We don't really pay attention to matching the tone or the corporeality of violence that came earlier in previous seasons. Nosotros but do what's correct for the current story. The prove has always been violent in my optics, since season 1, with Tuco and the skate twins, Nacho'south threats to Jimmy, Mike in Philly… and also emotionally tearing, with Chuck betraying his brother. So there will exist more physical and emotional violence in season 6, simply I tin't swear that it's whatsoever more than than we had earlier. We're coming to the end, and so whatever happens will probably hitting harder.

Many people take come up to view Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) equally the best antagonist in the entire Breaking Bad/Better Telephone call Saul universe. Volition his role be even larger in the final flavour than before and exercise you and the other writers regret not bringing the character into the fold earlier in the series?

Season 5 felt really special to me. I merely felt similar we were clicking on all cylinders, and Tony Dalton was a big part of that. Nosotros certainly talked most bringing in the character Lalo as far dorsum as season 1, only now with 20/20 hindsight it feels he came in at the perfect time. I can't say if Lalo'southward role volition be bigger or smaller in season 6, but he was certainly pissed off and a human on a mission in the season five finale.

Last season y'all wrote one of the most acclaimed episodes in the series, "Bad Choice Road". How much of the iconic scene with Lalo interrogating Jimmy and Kim at dwelling house came from your own imagination and how much of it was a group effort from the whole squad?

We writers all work together on all of the episodes, and it's just too hard to remember who came up with what beat/line/idea. On my Twitter folio (@tomschnauz) I post the boards that we work on (index cards with all the story beats), which is a skillful indication of what nosotros came upwardly with in the room. I want to say that I did pitch the Lalo interrogation technique of having your prisoner echo the same story over and over until there's a discrepancy, merely I can't swear to it. When it comes fourth dimension to write, we use the cards to aid guide us, so the "author" of the episode puts his/her spin onto it, but fifty-fifty after that, a author will sit down with Peter and often another author to either streamline or, sometimes, bulk up a scene if it'southward feeling thin.

Did anybody realize what an asset Kim Wexler was going to be to Better Call Saul when the show first started? Was it e'er the intent to make her a de-facto lead, or did Rhea Seehorn impress so much that it just came most naturally as the plot and the themes kept progressing and calling for exploration of her character?

We had zero idea what Kim'due south role would be in the serial. In fact, I think the writers were still debating into season 2 if Kim and Jimmy had an intimate relationship prior to us meeting her in season i, or were they just friends? I wrote the line about the "sex robot voice" in episode 3, so I was in the camp of: "they started something merely career took over and it didn't quite become anywhere." Nosotros knew Rhea was good when we saw her audience record, but then seeing her in the role as we were filming season 1 — all the nuance, the humor, the gleam in her eyes — we knew we had a special combination with her and Bob.

These actors share that indescribable matter when you watch them — when the characters struggle against a system stacked against them, you root for them, just then… when they start "breaking bad" and doing things they shouldn't, you nonetheless root for them! Maybe y'all're not rooting for them to succeed in the horrible thing they're doing, but you're still with them and shouting, "No, plough dorsum! Don't go defenseless!" Then, to answer the question, the series is what it is and Kim is who she is because Rhea worked and then hard and brought so much to the character. It definitely helped the writers make choices virtually where the plot should get.

What do you want Better Call Saul to be remembered for What element should exist considered its lasting legacy? Exercise you think this has been a prove that has the ability for people to continue to discover for many years to come?

When nosotros started this prove, I thought we'd take very express viewership — a small per centum of the people who watched Breaking Bad . I would have been thrilled with fifty% of that audience. But I've been delighted to meet and hear from fans who have never seen the original show. I'm hoping people volition go back and rewatch both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul because of the way we wrote them: we didn't go in with an overall plan, and when we finished writing one episode, we weren't exactly certain what was going to happen adjacent.

So the writing was a struggle and we put ourselves into tight corners, and when searching for an answer for these problems we created, nosotros were often surprised, and I hope that comes through in the viewing. The plot is non predictable, and the answers are difficult to go to, so I hope both serial stand up to repeated viewing.

Better Phone call Saul flavor 6 is expected to premiere in 2022.