The Watch - Creator Peter Gould on What Might Be the Best Episode of 'Better Call Saul' Yet

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Chris and Andy are joined by 'Better Call Saul' showrunner Peter Gould to talk about the making of tonight's defining episode (11:17), why 'Better Call Saul' could not exist without 'Breaking Bad' (28:13), and how he's feeling as the show is coming to an end (45:03). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Peter Gould Producer: Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's been fun. Andy, what an episode we have for folks tonight. We are coming to you after the airing of Better Call Saul on a Monday. And so tonight we have an incredible interview with Peter Gould, the creator of Better Call Saul, who was so generous to talk to us about the episode, the series, Breaking Bad, how he's feeling about it all. We get into extensive detail about this episode. episode. So a lot of our recapping that we would normally do is going to be poured into the

interview you're going to hear with Peter. But Andy, I thought we could just chat for a few minutes about this episode because I think it's possibly, at least in the running for, if not the best episode of the series. Yeah, I was stunned by it. I just absolutely floored by it. I think it probably is. I mean, recency bias, sure, but I think that it's my favorite episode of the series to date. And I think it's important to say, and we got into some of these details with Peter, I'm confident that this will be a pantheon episode of Better Call Salt because it encapsulates everything that makes this show both exceptional and unique.

In that, what other show has the luxury, the ability to do such deep, thoughtful, melancholic codas? This is all about the come down. This is all about the after effects of violence and trauma and bad life choices, right? And making us sit in them with the characters who sit in with them. So it's not just that the episode moved forward, the Kim and Jimmy plot to a absolutely, it's the best in that it is heartbreaking and surprising, but inevitable.

Of course this is how things would go. So the episode moves those balls forward, but it has the time and space and generosity to have this beautiful eight or nine minute gust scene that's really about French wine, but, you know, that's sensibly about French wine, but really about existential sadness and Max and things, echoes of the character that we've known for over a decade. that has room for Mike and Nacho's father to have this incredible conversation from two sides, literally, they're separated by a fence, beautifully shot by Michael Morris, but like two sides of an argument

about how one should spend one's life when grieving. God, it was a stunner. You mentioned the Salma Yacine where Gus is eating alone and I was just like, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but I was like,

this is why you do a series like this. You know, there's, I think I have a healthy medicineism when it comes to like spinoffs and prequels and sequels and just about how cheap those things have gotten, intellectually cheap that those things have gotten. And when you're watching this character that we've now spent close to 10 years with, if not more,

and you know, I think I have probably the most stable and solid relationship with that character as far as supervillains go, as far as like truly evil, truly morally corrupt people go that I watch on screen. I watched that scene with so much empathy for him and also still never crossed the line

where I was rooting for him. And I think that that's a very simplistic way to look at sometimes fictional characters. But watching this guy deprive himself of any kind of earthly pleasures, of any kind of happiness, of any hope for happiness. And even if I can write into what I think he was thinking

sitting at that bar as this guy is like, I'm going to get this bottle. you and I are going to have a special occasion together is he's probably thinking this guy's going to die if he ever comes into my life. And he seems like a really nice guy. I mean, and I thought that that act of almost preservation

that he makes, whether it's for himself or for the character of the Reed Diamond's playing, the Somelier, you know, it's very human. And it was just like, I was like,

this is why this show is such a miracle because this character who, where you just think about as the stone-faced, quick, clean cut, the killer from box cutter, the guy who puts Hector Salamanca in a chair, all this stuff, he also has nights where he goes and dines alone. Yeah, well, first of all, it was, now I do feel this is ego,

but I feel like the show is absolutely in conversation with me or with us, because a week ago we were saying how we're privileged to have Giancarlo Esposito on our screen, but he's really kind of just, you know, he's playing the hits. He's a stadium rock tour of Gus Fring. Nope. This was an incredible showcase for an actor at the height of his power, showing us something we haven't seen before. And it also made me think about what the flip side to the question that we ask constantly about the show is, which is the question of like, what new is there for us? What is left for us to learn that's new? What is what surprises are still in store? What are the stakes? And you know, I've obviously worked myself and do a lather about that in the past with, for potentially no good reason. I think it speaks to why we watch these shows at all. And there's the reason of, um, we want stories.

we haven't seen before. We want newness. We want to be surprised. But really behind that is we just want to understand what makes people tick more. And we want to the time spent the emotions display to understand someone else, even if they are drug kingpins

in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And this episode was a master class in that for every character left on the board. And even some characters who, I mean, how many times has Stephen Bauer been on the show has Don Aladio, five or six times? No, and now I'm wondering whether or not Aladio had like a...

A second career is a therapist waiting for him if he didn't want to be a cartel boss. Incredibly insightful comment he makes. Exactly. Exactly. So every time these characters come back now, and I think that we should, I think there have been times when I've glossed this over and overlooked it, there's a reason that they come back and it's an opportunity, not just a servicing, you know, and I was just riveted. Because, you know, we're talking about this a couple days on from watching the episode, and we've just had this long conversation with Peter that we'll get to in a moment. And I think that you and I really hung up on the like the elegiac tone of it and the sadness that the sadness to it. But when we texted after watching it, we were jacked because of it was excruciating to watch the Howard Memorial scene.

And excruciating both because of the tension but then also Ray Seahorn's performance where she goes full heel and then the consequences from it, you know. And this is an episode where Jimmy McGill became Saul Goodman. and we suddenly left the Albuquerque we've been living in and jumped forward to essentially the Breaking Bad timeline in a way that was earned, you know? And it was in a way what AMC thought they were buying seven years ago. And we got there. And what a journey to get there.

It's a knockout because it operated so at such a high level on so many different fronts. Yeah, I mean, we lavish a lot of praise on Peter. You'll hear in the interview. I think the thing that he did was sort of write a show and write an episode specifically this episode we just saw that felt very organic and surprising, but also felt like the way

all these things always had to end. So specifically for Jimmy and Kim, you know, we've been sort of like protect Ray Sehorn for a long time. We've been protect Kim Waxler, nobody wants to see her go die. You know, the abrupt Kim exit stage left closes door

and you can hear her taping up her boxes. Yep. And that's her exiting Jimmy's life. you know, at least as far as we know. And it's how breakups work. You can share a life with somebody and then all of a sudden that strand, that narrative is splitting too,

and you're not really sharing a life with someone, even if she winds up coming into contact with him in future episodes, maybe she will. I thought that the way that this episode almost like deepened my appreciation for the moments that we've experienced over the last couple of weeks and months with this season was really, really important.

the way it changed how I felt about nacho's death, the way how it changed how I felt about Mike, the way it changed how I felt about Howard and Howard's death. All of those things took on like a different kind of level of weight through this episode. And I just want to say, even though, I mean,

this seems like kind of like, not even faint praise, but like obviously it's better call Saul. It's really directed well. There's like a dozen images in this episode that I will never forget. The flames and Gus's glasses, Mike burning, evidence of Howard's life and Nacho's life in a trash barrel in the middle of the dark in the

middle of the desert, the shot of Mike and Nacho's father walking away from him. And just the way it was staged, the way it was shot, this show is just craftsmanship and art at a really, really high level. And the last point I want to make before we get into the interview, and this is there are aspects of, you know, I had the Mia Culpa last week. I said it to Peter's face and I feel it sincerely. Patience is a virtue. That's a cliche, but it is true, and it's true in television, and it's been an interesting reckoning even for myself to realize the limits of that in my own life in terms of, I believe that, and I've praised Saul for it, but then I fell victim to impatience, you know, and I think that it makes me think of how we cover the Emmy nominations on Tuesday,

and we were talking about how in our own top 10 lists and in the way the, you know, the culture industry talks about television is really, privileges the new and the fast and the immediate and the excitement and Better Call Saul with its long, long, long range planning going back in a way. You know, this is, as you said, this spans over a decade if you bring in Breaking Bad is an outlier. And it's interesting that it's been sometimes a struggle to remember and reorient how this show operates. Every season we have a conversation like this. This season may be more than others. But I don't want to forget, And I won't forget this episode because this is why. Yeah.

This is why. Yeah. And here it was coming and they knew it was coming and they delivered. And yeah, and then maybe that's as good a place as I need to get into talking to the man who's responsible for it. Yeah. So let's get into our interview with Better Call Saul creator Peter Gould, who talks extensively about funning games, the episode you all hopefully just watched. And Andy and I will be back on Thursday to chat more about all sorts of other TV. I also just want to say he talks about what's to come in the best way I can imagine.

Not a single spoiler, but when you get to that part of the interview, I think you'll be as excited as we are and I think he is. Yeah. So let's get into our interview with Peter and we'll talk to you on Thursday. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul predicts. Follow all the playoff dishes, swishes, wishes, and misses. Predict the spread, the total points and even the game winner. Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch.

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Great. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. First of all, thank you so much for coming on the watch. We are obsessed with Better CallSaw as we have been for years. And just to pull the curtain back a little bit, AMC had said, you know, do you want to talk to Peter? And of course we said yes. And I had been saying like, oh, we'd love to talk to him around the finale. You know, like we'd love to talk to him once we know everything that's happening in their only phone. he'd love to talk to you after this episode. And I was like, okay, well, we'll take a look. We'll watch it. And then we finished it. I think Andy and I both share the same opinion about this that we finished. And we're like, well, that's the best episode of the series.

So I'm glad he's coming on the podcast for this one. So congratulations on all your work on this. And thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. Oh, delighted to be here as we were just saying off screen. I'm a listener, especially when you're talking about, the bureau. Those six, those glorious six weeks last summer. And we can save some time at the end to keep talking about it. But yeah, let's keep talking about the bureau. But I guess maybe we should use

what Chris is framing as a way to start the conversation because this episode was absolutely stunning and so rewarding and so surprising. And I wonder how you consider it. I mean, the rhythms of this season we know have been slightly untraditional because you had the gap in the middle, building towards a finale, building towards a finale that clearly is now going to take us across different eras

of the larger Albuquerque IP universe. What was this episode for you and your fellow writers? How was it to refer to it? How was it circled on the whiteboard? Oh boy. Well, we don't use a whiteboard.

We consider that. It's just whiteboards are, you know, there's, Andy's bringing up a, it's kind of a religious war in screenwriting between the whiteboard users and the three by five card users. You guys are famously cards. We fall firmly in the card, and we could talk about that for a while.

As did Jimmy and Kim, yeah. Yes, that's right. Well, they use post-it notes. Posit notes, which is, that's a sad substitute for cards, but we couldn't have them using cards. And post-in notes are, as you know, Kim's thing. How do we think about this episode? You know, we talk, you know, usually when I talk about how we work on the show, I say that we work moment by moment, which is true, but we have to have a sense of where we're going. And the big question for us, as we went into this, there were things that we felt needed to happen or should happen, ideally.

And sometimes you have these ideals and you don't get there because the characters don't want to do it or the logic doesn't want to do it. But we really felt strongly that Gus and Lalo should have a face-to-face, a face-to-face. And so we spent a lot of time talking about what are Lalo's moves here? You know, what would you do if you were the most tenacious bastard on the planet? How would you try to unravel what Gustavo Fring is doing? And in return, what would Fring do? And so we came up with kind of some of the big pieces of that pretty early in the season, the idea of that Lala was going to be watching the super lab from across the street.

So sometimes you have these things that you kind of work towards and you kind of feel, okay, that might be a direction we go in, but it's always a might be. Because if, you know, when you get there, if it doesn't make sense for the character to do something or if it doesn't feel right, then you have to throw it out. This was something that we more or less had, I think, after the first couple episodes. So here's what's so exciting about your answer, because we want to talk about point and shoot. But we were referring to fun in games, which is next week's episode, and that's the one that we think is the best you've ever done. But this is amazing, because it's all connected and it's all related.

And we do want to talk about the path to deciding this was the moment to put Lalo off the board. but what we're in ecstasies about. You're talking about episode nine. I'm sorry. We're on nine. But we want to know that too. I'm so glad you love nine. But nine is the one that we earned.

You know, we're in ecstasies over it. Yeah. I was avoiding. I was avoiding, yeah. You know, actually the big, I think the big revelation to us, as we were talking about the season and really the end of the series, you know, thinking about where Kim is and where Jimmy is. And, you know, Jimmy being kind of having some PTSD, still from what happened the previous season,

he had the one-two punch. You know, one, he was out of the desert and he, you know, was witnessed all that killing. And then then Lalo Salamanca was in their condo. You know, he's a little bit leery of things and maybe feeling at the beginning, you know, he says at the end of last season, am I bad for you to kill? And we thought about that a lot. Who's bad for who? Why is Kim doing what she's doing?

Why is Jimmy doing what he's doing? And it's sort of a, you know, it's a romance gone bad in a certain way. You know, we kept thinking about alcoholism and, you know, addiction problems. But I think that's, I think that all relationships have things that you go back to. And so that was, we've thought about that a lot. And to me, to me the big lightning bolt, if we had a lightning bolt moment in this season, it was the idea that Kim would know that Lala was alive and she wouldn't tell Jimmy. Yeah.

And that was, that was the revelation. Once we had that and once we had that idea, and Kim makes, there are a couple other things coming up still. Once we had, once we had that, it was like, okay, that we can, I can really hold on to that. That's what's what's that about? And that's, you know, becomes about her feeling of responsibility. And at the same time, he, and he does, he loves her. He does not want to give her up. He is, it's, so it's, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was, that was absolutely.

Once we had that, that was very important. And then once we realized that, um, these worlds were going to cross over in their condo with Lalo. And it took a lot of thinking, a lot of thinking to figure. out how to, why that would have, sometimes you have an image and you try to make it logical and sometimes the logic just takes you. And you go back and forth between those things, but you have to have the discipline. The hardest thing is to have the discipline to throw away the images that you want because it doesn't, they don't make sense. That is, that is the hardest discipline for me in

the writer's room. So that was, I mean, that's, that was, that was what we were thinking about a lot. For us, this episode, you know, it's the end of something. You know, this episode that we're talking about now, episode, episode nine, this is the end. It's the end of, I mean, in some way, it's the end of their relationship. It's the end of this series that we've had with this couple who fell in love and we got to see them fall in love. It's also the one time they actually say, I love you. And to me, that has incredible power, all those things. Anne Shirkis, who wrote the episode, of course, just crushed it.

And Michael Morris, who directed it, was just a remarkable, remarkable job in his last episode for the show. And it's, yeah, that's how we thought of it. We thought of it, you know, how are we going to get to that? How is that, are they going to stay together or not? And we knew pretty early on that they weren't going to stay together, because it would just be depressing to think that she'd never learn anything. You mentioned it being the kind of

the end of something and you know, I was left with a lot of empathy for almost every single character in this series at the end of this episode but also a really, really deep sadness because of like just how profoundly lonely every single one of them is.

And there's a moment for each one of these characters, Mike drinking beer alone, Gus walking away from this possible romance at the wine bar, you know, this scene between Mike and Nacho's father, the two of them walking away from one another, and then the very end with Kim closing the door,

and then the very, very end with Jimmy fully saw alone with his Bluetooth headpiece. And I was wondering, assuming that that read is right, do you think it's because there's something that hollows out the people in this world, they touch this criminal underworld, this sort of decay, that it kind of hollows out their life? What do you think it is that makes it so profoundly lonely to be in Albuquerque? That's a great question.

I think it might be a slightly different story for each one of them. Yeah. But I think for a lot of them, certainly for Mike and for Kim, it's about living with your decisions. It's about really taking in the choices that you've made. And in a different way, that's true for Gus. You know, Gus is holding on to his rage, his desire for revenge. And maybe he's holding on to this romance that he had,

you know, with his boyfriend, Max, where they, that, and Max's death, we know that Gus had some kind of, we've never been very specific. he had some kind of violent past before that. But that seems to be the turning point for Gus Fring. And so, yeah, he's made a choice that he's going to hollow himself out. And he can't really be himself with another person.

And, you know, for Jimmy, I think he's, I think it's a little different because Kim chooses to leave. She's, she's changing what she's going to do. And Jimmy is so hurt. I mean, to me, that's what the ending is, is that, you know, the question we started with on the show was what problem does becoming Saul Goodman solve? What, you know, what are you trying to solve by becoming Saul Goodman?

And I think this episode answers it, which is that, you know, he's so fucking hurt. Can I curse, sorry. Yeah. He's so hurt. He's so hurt. He's so. wrecked by what happened, that he doesn't, he wants, he flattens himself out into a cartoon character.

And it's terrible because now you know that during Breaking Bad, and even at the end of this scene, this, this episode, that underneath all that is still the guy that we knew. I mean, I don't believe, it's not a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde transformation. He's, he's purposely flattening himself. out. And that's that's painful. I mean, we all have personas. I mean, I think it's just a more extreme version of what we all do, because we all have personas that we develop, usually in our teens. And then we're kind of stuck with it. We're stuck with it for life. And this is a guy who's, you know, he's chosen this persona. It's sort of like, you know, the guy in college who decides to wear the personality hat. And so that's, that was what it meant to me, or that's what we were

thinking about. One of the ways that the show is talked about now, and I think we talk about it this way as well, is often, of course, this was always inevitable in relation to the mothership, in relation to Breaking Bad. And one of the things that has emerged is a popular opinion that I think at times we share that the beauty and the rigor of the show has been an opportunity to kind of dig a little deeper on questions of culpability and morality and humanity. I wonder how much that heavy idea weighs on you and your collaborators when you are crafting these scenes with with the time that you've had to craft them. There are many examples I could use, but going off of what you were just talking about, the thing that I know Chris and I were both really struck by in the Jim and

Kim scene, which is the Jimmy and Kim scene, which is so beautifully played by those two incredible actors. And it's a loop in all the years that we've built up to. It's wonderfully directed as the season has been. And it's also, I can talk about that scene forever. So yeah, keep going I just want to narrow you down into one point, which is the coda, which is when she says it was fun. You know, I think Chris and I, when we talked about the scene later,

we were like, there's a moment of that scene where it's like Dianu, and then she adds, you guys give her that last piece, which is crushing and revealing and profound, I think, in a way that echoes all the way back to an hour ago

when I started this question when I was asking you about the morality. I love you, but it doesn't matter. Like, that in and of itself is a pretty amazing statement. And the fact that then she gets to this confession of why she's been sticking with it the entire time. It's like she knew the first part a long time ago.

It's the second part that she only just realized, right? Yeah, I mean, I think she maybe wasn't admitting it to herself. You have to talk to Ray. But we had a long, I remember I was in Bob and Ray's kitchen. Bob and Ray and Patrick Fabian lived together in Albuquerque. We love this so much. Delightful house. It was such a nice house, and there was always lots of ice cream.

and good food. And we had dinner together, and then we spent a lot of time talking about this scene and about, you know, the original version of the, this is tangentially related. The original version at the end of the scene as written. There's an action line at the end of the scene

that basically says that his pain ters into rage. And it took me a long time to die. as we talked about the scene, it took me a long time to diagnose that they were feeling, especially Bob was feeling, an obligation to get to rage. And that that was, that was, so a lot of the questions about the scene were really about this, this, this feeling. And as soon as I said, maybe we don't have to get to rage. You know, why are we, you know, that's a good line and a script.

But this shows you how carefully these guys read the scripts and how meticulous their analysis is. And I said, maybe we don't need to get to rage. Maybe that's maybe that's a bridge too far. And I talked to Ann about it later and she agreed. And that changed the shape of it. And, you know, Ray, you know, Ray just with that particular line, she said, I know what that's about. I know what to do with that. And I knew she would because she is what I love about the way that line, because the way that line is written, you know, you could read it in a totally different way.

which is to, I'm blaming, she's blaming Jimmy. For making it fun. But she's, but she is, she's taking responsibility. She's, and she hates herself in that moment. And it's just, and there's no, nothing he can say to that. Yeah. So I, I'm glad you single that line out. That was that moment for me, that whole scene for me is, is, it's climactic in a very special way

because you couldn't, in a movie you couldn't do this. because a movie's 90 minutes or two hours. And so you can have, even if you have two characters who aren't really saying what they feel for an hour and a half, it's not the same as watching two characters for, you know, whatever it is, 59, 60 episodes who are relating to each other in one way. And then the, you know, the submarine surfaces

through the ice in this scene. And that to me is one of the things is exciting about this, this long-form storytelling. But is that also part of your guiding principles at this point to approach the opportunity of having this long-form storytelling like the German engineers digging out the superlap in that you can go deeper and there's not even an opportunity? I'm having our time phrasing the question because I know you're in the midst of it when you're making the show and you're really going line to line.

But this idea that has come to the way that we talk about the show, I wonder how much that filters into you, that you have almost a responsibility in addition to an opportunity to keep pushing? Because it certainly plays out. that way. I don't make, want it to seem like you're doing, it's not like you're eating vegetables. No, absolutely. You're absolutely right. And look, and speaking of vegetables, you know, we would never get away with what we've done. You know, people compare the two shows, but breaking bad could exist without Better Call Salt easily. Yeah.

But Better Call Salt could never exist in a world without Breaking Bad. We would never get away with splitting the story the way we do with Jimmy and Mike or a lot. There's a lot of things that probably and I don't mean, I think the audience might buy into it, but I don't know, I mean, it's just a hard thing to explain.

Well, when does he become this crazy lawyer? Wait, that's what you sold us, the crazy lawyer show. So it'll be in seven years. The audience could say that too. So yeah,

yeah, I think it's two different animals. And because Walt, you know, Walt was a, you know, I think it all, for me, these shows all grow out of the main character.

You know, it's the main characters like this curl a DNA. And if you, if you tend to it right, that curl of DNA, that provides you the other characters that have become a constellation, but they're all, they're all based on the, is that germ of what's going on with this person. And Walt had, you know, Walt wanted respect. You know, he was a person nobody respected. People took for granted. And fear was, he'd be fine with people fearing him, you know. And that's maybe that even felt good to him. That was his drug.

And Jimmy, you know, it's so apparent. And part of it is just Bob. He wants to be loved. He wants to be liked. He wants everybody to like him. And this is also, I identify with this. I don't really want people to be scared of me. In fact, when people are, it's something that happens as a boss.

Every once in a while, you realize, wait, you know, I'm wielding power here. I've really got to, I've really got to check myself. And you've really got to be, you've got to really think about how you're coming off and making sure that you're giving people opportunities. That's another issue. But I'm more in the Jimmy camp. I want people. I want people. I want, and it's, and by the way, it's a hopeless. It's absolutely hopeless because you're, you never get to the point where everybody loves you or even everybody likes you. It's, it's, so it's, it's a, it's sort of a, a desperate folly that, that, uh, and I think that the whole show grows out of that to me, that show,

the whole show grows out of, um, I don't think that's something I knew at the beginning. You know, that's, it's like the thing about these insights is you, you don't, sometimes you don't get them until you're on a podcast. That's what we've always felt that. We've argued that. I'm kind of obsessed with cause and effect on, unsaw specifically across both series, but specifically with Saul, and I like to sort of traced moments back. And I think one thing that's been great over these last two episodes

is this episode that just aired imbues the previous episode, which is very largely action-driven with so much meaning to me. And, you know, I was watching the scene again with Kim and Jimmy at Howard's Memorial. Jimmy is working the room,

and Jimmy is handling Howard's widow and is just doing everything and he's just never got stage fright. He's never seems to be second-guessing himself. And watching Ray Seahord's reactions to Bob in that scene kind of like separate. And you can see kind of like something is happening inside of this character. So then you watch the last fight scene and it's got a different kind of tone to it. But I go back to the previous episode and to Mike telling Kim and Jimmy, this is this is the story you guys. had begun to tell anyway.

Yeah. This is where this guy was going to wind up, had this story kept being told. We just, we are going to fix this now. Where do you think,

where do you think Kim got scared? Or where do you think Kim starts to make the decision that she makes in the final moments of this episode that just aired? Is it when Mike talks to her? Is it when Mike came,

told her that Lala was still alive? Like, where do you think something changed for Kim? And she'd realized that they needed to be, they couldn't be together. I think it's, I think she's too

shaken. This is my take on it. She's too shaken. Look, she almost, she was ready to shoot a guy in the face. Yeah. You know, which I don't think Jimmy was even expecting.

I don't know. He thought she was going to drive away, right? I mean, he was sort of encouraging her to. I thought he was, she was going to drive away or go to the cops. And he underestimated how much she loves him and how she's not willing to give him up any more than he's willing to give her up. But yeah, and I think she's made that decision when we fade in to this episode nine that we're

talking about right now, which is fun in games. I think that when at the end of the teaser, when she's lying in that motel bed after a day of faking it and doing a great job of faking it, I think that's all, it's all, it's all, it's all in her head right there. And I think that she, they have to finish the assignment that Mike has given them. They have to finish that. And then once that's done, I think she's, and as, you know, and you could argue that the scene with Cheryl pushes, pushes her over the edge. Because it's one thing, you know, it's one thing to frame Howard the way they have, you know, with all these schemes that they've had and to feel bad about it later.

And it's another thing to really cruelly destroy Cheryl in that moment in so many dimensions. And one of the things I think you're responding to, Chris, is just to say it out loud, is in addition to the performances, is the brilliant editing from Skip McDonald. Because it's where you're looking. It's when you're seeing her that you understand. if you're watching carefully, and hopefully you're not making a sandwich while it's on. But it's all the things that you're talking about, all those pieces of subtext have to be communicated as much, you know, editorially and with great sensitivity to the performances. And, you know, you can, there's a version of this where you could, you could cut it.

You could cut this scene and have it just lay there like a dead fish. This is why all the directors, and every director knows this, that, you know, you're really, you're relying on, and this is one of the things that's tough about television, because their directors get to have their directors cut, but they don't get that much time. And especially, they probably get the same amount of time doing their director's cut now as you did probably in the 70s when everything was, and the shows were great, but they were much complex editorially. Yeah. And so they're kind of turning their baby over to the editors and to the producers. And hopefully, that's a scene I'm particularly proud of and I'm impressed by everybody's. Bob and Ray and Ed Bagley, Ed Bagley, I think is incredible. And then Michael Morris, who directed it. I mean, it's just, he's got a remarkable sensitivity.

I have a larger question about process, but because we're talking about this episode and because you mentioned, before the long-form storytelling and what it allows. I just have to. I don't even know if there's a question here, but the Gus scene, both because of his appreciation of fine wines, really spoke to me. But more than anything else,

I'm just in awe of that scene because it's like eight or nine minutes of a character talking about wine. So, first of all, thank you. How did we get away with that? Or did we? Only you could get away with it. Honestly, because I think of this incredible earned audience trust

and time spent with these characters across two series that any insight is a gift because we are on board. But then the using that gift to make a scene like that that is written that way, performed that way, and I'm glad you brought up edited that way, it's so rewarding and it's so rare. It is a rhythm that we're just not really accustomed to on television. My follow-up question to that, Peter, is who in the writer's room got lost in Europe with a URAL pass and was like, I have an anecdote for this scene?

I don't know. That's a good question. What I mostly remember is Allison Tatlock's husband is in the wine business. So he was extremely helpful with all this, all this. And yeah, the URAL past, I don't know that probably all of us have been lost at some point. So, ask your husband, what wine tastes like blood? Because it's going to be perfect for us. God, that was a good line. Yeah. Okay, so the thing that I wanted to say sort of pulling back from this episode is, and listeners who have been listening to our coverage of the show will be, I hope, happy that I'm admitting it here in front of you, which is, first of all, I have a mea culpa because at the end of the first half of the season, I was uncharacteristically out on the show. I had some questions. I was concerned. I was sort of struggling in a place that I'm sure, and I'd love to hear you talk about it. you and the writers have found yourselves in as well, which is, what are the stakes of what we have

left? We know what happens with a super lab. We know what happens with Gus. We know what happens with Mike. What is left on the board for us to play with? And I left that finale being like, this was exciting, but I'm not sure where my heart is at this moment. Then you came back with the episode that you did with Point and Shoot. And I was like, I'm a fool. I'm a fool for many reasons, which we can talk about on and off air, but specifically, the idea that you guys who have been doing this for so long at such an absolutely elite level

wouldn't have a sense of how much story road is left that you did. So there's a large question about how you determine that hidden somewhere in this word cloud I'm throwing at you. But more specifically, I doubted you and I shouldn't have that you would look at the board and say, Lalo's done because this is the best use of his time. They were going to have one big scene, a juicy scene that's deserving of him

rather than try and stretch this out for five or six episodes because Tony Dalton's amazing and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. It was that sense of, yeah, you guys knew. And it felt good to be so wrong. Peter, were you expecting this much accountability when you joined this podcast? No, of course I am. You guys are, yeah, I don't want to be interviewed by smart people.

Yeah, you know, look, it's, you know, we're just hoping people stick with us. as we go. And, you know, it's totally reasonable. I mean, there have been shows when things have, I'm not going to name any names, but there have been shows where I said, I'm out. And sometimes I stay out and sometimes I don't.

But I think what we've done successful, look, we talked a lot about the structure of this season. And you haven't, it hasn't been unveiled fully yet. You know, there's still things. things to come that I'm very, very excited about and are unusual and I think are going to hopefully be surprising in a good way, not just, not just cheap shocks. But, you know, we only have this, ultimately, this is a story of Jimmy McGill. That's, that's the, that's the core of it. I mean, it's certainly also the story of Mike Erman Trout and Kim Wexler and Gus Fring and the

whole cast to certainly wallow. But it's, it's, you know, you have to, it's at a certain point, we have things that are important to resolve. And, you know, I do think that the more, I think the more conventional, there's a more conventional structure to the season and to this, the show, where we would end, as sort of as Breaking Bad did, closer, closer to the Breaking Bad model, where there was, you know, the, the enormous episode where all the, there was all the deaths and Skylett, the fight with Walt Jr. And it all happened. Osamandius, right? Osamandius.

Moira and Ryan's episode. You know, that that was, you know, there were two more episodes after that. I had the, the delight of following Ryan, Ryan and Mori. Moira, you know, rocking the house, you know, with, with my, my dulcet tones. You had granite state, right? Yes, I did. I did. Granite followed the rock.

It was perfect. Yes. But there's not as much, there's way less, way less killing. There's still some, but not way less. Any of you got two different endings. So we don't talk about that. That's true. You come back on.

We'll talk about that. But, you know, this, this show has a very different structure. I mean, it's just not, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I will, I would like to come back and talk to you guys at the end. But I thought it would be more beneficial for us to talk now, because then we, your listenership will drive viewership. So, you know, I'm being completely mercenary here, uh, wanting, wanting to get, we need to get those, we need to get those sweet, sweet ratings for the last few episodes. But, but so just, then just on a mercenary level, like looking at the cards, I'm not going to insult you again, but the cards for this season,

how spirited a conversation and debate was it to be like, well, there's only about, you know, two episodes of Nacho story or there's eight episodes of Lala story and we have to own that and steer into it as opposed to trying to keep it afloat. Jeez, that's a great question. You know, I think part of it was, you know, you just don't want to have, you know, it's just logic. Andy, I wish I could say, oh, we have this, oh, the rhythm, every, every 12th act, there has to be a, but no, there's nacho.

He's trapped in Mexico. He's out of options. What's going to happen? And then, you know, what happens? So, okay, he gets back and he's, let's say he evades all the cartel and Gus's guys, then what? Then what does he do? Well, he's still got a deal.

Then they're going to take his father. So it's, there's just, he's run out of options and so have we with that character. With Lalo, you know, at some point, Lalo is going to, you know, he's going to gather the information to know that there is physical evidence that he can show to, model audio to say this SOB is plotting against us. It's the super lab. Now, how does he do that? And how does that, how does that correspond with what we're doing with Kim and Jimmy? So it's not really, I wish, it's not really that, I don't, we don't structure it like a, like a bridge where you say, okay, here are, here are our polls or whatever, the uprights,

the uprights, and here are the, we do a little bit of that, but most of it is, just say, okay, what would happen next? What would Kim do now? Okay, now what would happen? You know, Kim's being followed. Well, what happens if Kim realizes she's being followed? What would happen then? And it's literally, that's how we do it.

And it's, and then, you know, hopefully as you go, and you think about the scenes, they get deeper because it's not, there's more to it than just characters making decisions. Well, that's the thing is that when you mentioned a nacho, And I think I, you know, that's, that was a, if not my favorite, at least in the top two or three favorite characters, but it was him and Kim really in this series. And it was an abrupt ending in some ways, you know, even though I mean, I think I, I'm maybe my brain is trained for like TV characters just always figure out a way to find the secret door to get out of there at the last second. And I was like, that's a really abrupt ending, although it probably feels true to the way life ends in that kind of life

and that kind of, if you're pursuing that kind of underworld career. And then to have the Mike and Nacho's father scene in this episode really gave it this grace note and also it wasn't sentimental. And in fact, I think I was kind of like, Nacho's father's not afraid. He's just, he's just like has derision for this whole thing where he's just like, you guys are all just gangsters. And you talk about what you talk about.

what you talk about in Sangra for Sangra and all this stuff and it's all bullshit. And it's like, I thought that was almost an amazing tribute to Nacho as a character to have that moments. You get to have these like delayed kind of hit of a painkiller on a character that you lose. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

I love that scene because it calls Mike's whole life philosophy into question. Mike assumes that he identifies with this other, this father. And by the way, Mike, I mean, look, this is a big moment for Mike because when I watch that episode, like you, Chris, I think that, you know, I can put my, in my own audience head when I'm watching it. I'm convinced Mike is going to find some way to rescue the kid.

Yeah. I'm absolutely, because Mike is, I love Mike. And I don't, I want to deny that he's, he's a killer for the cartel. I like to pretend that he's not. And I think he likes to pretend that he's not. And there are lines that he draws. But he, you know, he's thrown his lot in with Gustavo Fring and letting Nacho die is part of that. But then he assumes that Nacho's dad, like him, would want revenge.

That's what his, because that's, look what Mike, when Mike, what happened to Mike's son happened. He went out, he went a brief, very sharp killing spree. he took care of it, you know, with his own two hands. And he thinks that maybe he assumes that dad is going to be the same way. And dad is not that way. Dad, dad is a decent person who's not out for revenge who understands, you know, this macho world pool that's just going to lead to more death. and I think he kind of puts Mike in his place briefly, briefly.

Yeah. Speaking of Mike, quick two-part question, has there ever been a moment when you've turned to Vince and said, oh, we screwed up by having that happen and Breaking Bad, and why is it the death of Mike? Meaning. Well, we say that all the time. We always go, oh, how do we square this with that?

And I don't know that we've managed to square everything. I think we went really far to do it. But there are things, I'm sure, I'm sure that smart folks, you guys and probably, especially everybody at Reddit knows everything that doesn't make any sense. But I don't even mean in terms of continuity. I guess I just, this episode was so rich in what you've given us even more about Mike, a character we've spent years with. And we know so much about that this was the first time when I found myself watching Better

Better Call Saul wishing for a retcon of Breaking Bad, meaning, I wish that we could see the ripples further down for this character. You know, I wish that he could be in. And, you know, you don't need to confirm or deny. I think we're all hoping we'll be back in black and white and see the future part at some point this season. Suddenly, I wished we had more Mike. And I wonder how often that happens to you. Oh, yeah.

I mean, definitely. It's, look, and, you know, when you talk about that, you know, part of it is the character, absolutely. But then part of it's the, I mean, we have the privilege. I have the privilege of working with these. actors. And Jonathan Banks is just one of my favorite people in the world. And so you, you know, it's, that's one of the things that's been frustrating to me about the episodes I direct. I haven't had enough Mike overall. And so, yeah, it's, I mean, the one thing that we've given, we've given ourselves a lot of license by traveling around in time. And so we could bring characters like Mike,

who we killed on Breaking Bad back. And, and, but it's, it's, it's not the same. And yeah, did we think we screwed. But I do think, you know, I think the trick is you have to live. This is the lesson that Kim learns. You have to live with your decisions. And once, you know, we have all the chances in the world to think things through and change them until it errs. And then once, once it's out there in the world, we're we have to, we're stuck with it. We're stuck with it. You know, I have had people say to me, jokingly, you know, I know, a long time ago, Noah Hawley. said to me at an event. I only met him this once. And he said to me, you know, I know what you should do with your show. This sounds exactly like Noah. And I said, yeah. And he said, just don't

ever have him turn into Saul Goodman. Just don't do it. And I was like, okay. And that, you know, and that, that would be the Noah Hawley version. He could, he could get away with it. He's, he's brilliant. But we kind of, we kind of, we're kind of stuck, we're kind of stuck with our decisions. That's kind of how we, we, that's how, how we roll. Let's put it that way. How is this experience making Saul, and as you come to the end of this experience, and it was interesting hearing Bob Onger talk about his Emmy nomination, and he was like, I got to admit, I'm kind of waiting to go back to work. I'm waiting to go play Saul more.

Like, it's the first time in 15 years that I'm not going to get that call. But I was curious how working on this series has changed your relationship with BAD, with Breaking Bad. and if it made you think differently at all about the story that's told in Breaking Bad or just because it's now it has it's starting to have this godfather godfather two kind of weight to it but if you watch that is the biggest compliment oh my god i'm serious though because i'm telling Vince i'm telling Vince you said that he's going to love that i when you watch two you go back and watch one and it has this new feeling you know and you and and in similar ways they

cut back and forth across time. How does it change how you feel about the Walt saga? Yeah. Boy, that's a great question. You know, it's all wrapped up, and this is, I'm going to answer it the same way, because it's all wrapped up on my personal experience, as well as, you know, the fact that was 15 years younger. And, you know, when I started on Breaking Bad, my daughter was seven years old, and now

she's 22 years old and she's in Paris. So it's, you know, it's been a life journey for me as well, as well as a show. I'm mostly, I'm just proud of breaking. I'm so super proud of Breaking Bad. And, but if there was something that, that I wished that we could have done in Breaking Bad, it was, I don't know, it was, it was kind of what we're doing in Better Call Saul, which is, and I don't know how to put it exactly. but it's a

Breaking Bad has such great showmanship and it's the characters are so bold there's so much they're, Walt especially is bigger than life and he's, and he wants to be.

That's what he wants. And what I like about the change up is that that Jimmy Saul is not, he is in some ways he's bigger than life, but in some ways he's just a regular, a regular moron like the rest of us. So I don't know.

I don't know. This is a great question. You know, it's, it's a, I guess I love the showmanship of Breaking Bad. And I love the, uh, the willingness to take, to take the detours that we take on, on, on Better Call Saul that hopefully don't feel like aren't really detours. They seem like detours, but they're not. I don't know. That's a great question. I think I have to rewatch Breaking Bad probably.

There are worse things in the world to be spending your time. So just to begin to wrap us up a little bit here, and this question is predicated on two things. One, we're not asking you to spoil anything, and we would never want you to. And two, we are going to hold you to your offer to come back. So we will withhold some other questions we have. But it feels like it's safe to assume after the kind of that the deep melancholy, almost finality of fun and games, that the remaining episodes will be jumping to different places and times, that maybe this moment in Albuquer. Certainly, we've already left the moment in Albuquerque where a lot of the series was set because we've resumed life with Saul in full, full soldom.

Assuming that is safe to say, how exciting and fun, but also maybe different was that to be playing around? Yes, I'm so excited for you guys to see where this is going. Some people are going to love it. Some people are going to hate it. I think it's just, I mean, it's certainly not like anything else. And yeah, I'm super, super proud of all the, all, the whole season. But these, these, the remaining episodes, I think are, are really pretty unique and special. And, you know, we, we had a lot of freedom, but, you know, we had a, let me put it this way. You know, Breaking Bad, I remember the season, the final season of Breaking Bad,

we had a, we did have a little white, okay. Thank you. You. There was a list. There was a list, but it was for a list. It's not for the show. It was a list of questions that needed to be answered before we were done. And we also had a list of questions that we needed to add, address before we're done.

But the interesting thing is a lot of those questions have been answered. A lot of those, those very logical, how did this? this happened? Why did this person do that? A lot of that is kind of answered at this point. But maybe the most important question, which is about the inner life of a person and who somebody really is who puts on different identities. And can you put aside the things you've done in your past? Where do those things get carried? Those questions that are maybe more, well, they're less physical. Anyway, those questions are still on the table.

And I think they do get answered in an exciting way. I think the thing that will surprise you the most is how funny some of the stuff that's coming up is. Because this fun in games, fun and games is a lot of things. It's not particularly a funny episode. But I think you're going to, there's still a lot of, there's some whiteness. And, you know, obviously there's some guest stars who have already been revealed who are still to come. And I think the way they, the way everyone shows up, I think is really pretty damn special. For what it's worth, I laughed at the breakfast bar joke in a when, when Saul was like,

I'm the breakfast bar. I like that. Good. Good. I'm glad. I love the breakfast. Oh, I love that whole. You know what I love also is that, for some reason, it makes me laugh so hard every time when he's

driving, he's driving the Cadillac. He's got the AM radio on. It's blasting away. And he looks around. His ad comes on. He looks around, he kind of puts, does that, does that, those duck lips. And he looks around at the world like, yeah, you hear that? That's me.

That's me. Look at me. And it's just that, it's Bob's, Bob's, uh, physicalization. It's just, it's just amazing. It's, it's, it's, and he goes from where, we're, and the, he goes from Jimmy in the previous scene, Jimmy going, but I love you. And it is the most pathetic, broken. I love you.

I've ever seen in my life. It's just, it just makes me cringe and it makes me feel so much. And then then less than five minutes later, duck lips is duck lips is driving through Albuquerque in the Cadillac. And I, you know, obviously you can tell I like, you know, look, the show is clearly made for me. Sometimes I'll go, watch something. I go, I love this show. And it's, it's, uh, clearly it's made, it's made for me. This is a show that's made. This is a made for me. And look at that. That is the expertise. we've come to expect from a writer of your caliber. You brought it all back.

We tease the Bureau at the beginning. Now at the end, we brought it back. Everyone should watch the Bureau. Everyone should obviously watch the last few episodes, a better call Saul. I personally am glad I had the chance to apologize to you. I will not doubt you again. I'm very excited about what's to come.

Was this verbalized? It was. Oh, yeah. It was contentious. Yeah. So, all right. So we really need that Mia Coppel. That needs to be front and center here.

I think you should title the episode, Andy's Andy's Mia Kalpa in person to be able. It bends the knee. Exactly. The internet and podcasts are a place where men can apologize in a microphone. Where men never presume that their opinions matter more. This is the safe place for it. So it felt good. It felt right.

Well, thank you for sticking with us even though we got. What a gift I gave you. Peter, I always believed in you, by the way. I'm surprised. So wait, can I just ask you? I'm sorry, just to go backwards. I know we're not supposed to do that. We're wrapping it up.

But I have to ask you. So your feeling was that because Lalo showed up and shot Howard, what was going through your mind? I was disoriented in terms of where my heart was supposed to be with the show, specifically because I was doing something that, you know, I think your show invites, which is you're sort of game it out while you're watching it. And I was gaming out the different pathways. And I was like, Lalo's goal is to expose the super lap. He doesn't.

His goal is to kill Gus. We know he doesn't. Mike isn't going to fall victim to this. Jimmy's not going to be killed by this. Howard is now off the board. So it's really Kim or nothing. And I didn't understand. So I was like, I don't know where to be, where to align myself in terms of what I'm

interested in seeing because so many of the new avenues have been closed off. And, you know, it's the prequel issue that I'm sure you guys have wrestled with and stay one. We also couldn't get it out of like, and we're just, you know, poor TV watchers. We couldn't get it out of our heads that it was like a kind of mid-year-old. season finale, I think. Yeah. You know, and I think we just were like, I know that they tweeted that it's not supposed to be viewed as a cliffhanger or not supposed to be viewed as a midseason finale.

I think we thought that there was a degree of like semi-finality to the statement. And that was also a reaction that we were having where it's like, well, that, okay, so what? But I thought there was something more, you know, like, yeah. But for me, but the breach of trust for me, the thing that I, I, the real mistake that I want to apologize for is not assuming you knew much more than I did about how much Lolo was really left in the tank. Because I didn't even occur to me that you would be like, we got one big one. He's going to go out with a giant bang and we're going to tell the best version of the story because there's still in your mind, which is the mind that it matters, and so much more to do. I immediately had the conservative

hidebound TV brain of like, so now we got four more episodes of Lolo playing cat and mouse across the you know, the laundromat. You know, that's interesting. Nothing in what you've given us. would encourage me to have such conservative thinking. And yet that's where I ended up. Well, you know, that's, it's an interesting thing. Something I think I learned in Breaking Bad, which is, I mean, it's weird. It's a weird rhythm because, uh, you just, we were talking about Azamandias a minute ago. You have episodes where suddenly everything happens all at once.

I think the first one of those that I'm aware of was George Masters' episode in season one, where suddenly, you know, we went from, you know, having them pass the talking pillow, to suddenly Walt was shaving his head and blowing up, blowing up Tuko's headquarters. And it was like, I was seething with jealousy because George got, he got all these huge events. This is before I learned, learned, learned how things work. He got all these huge events. And I was, I had pretty much, Andy, I had the reaction of YouTube. What's left for my episode?

And it's just it's it's it's just a different kind. It's a thinking about rhythm. It's a rhythm thing. And we've talked about it too, where how, you know, there was a season of your show that I watched. I think both of Chris and I did because of other commitments or busyness, we did,

we binged it. We ended up missing it when it was airing. There was one season that we didn't cover on the pod. And so I caught up with it on Netflix, which is a way that a lot of people watch it. So I think these issues that suddenly I was dying on this hill about what was going on, that goes away for the majority of the people.

who will watch the season because they'll click next. You know, and so it's just a, it's a, it's a rhythm is the key word here. It just shows you everybody's watching, you know, the show is really created in the audience's brain. It is. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, real drama is going on in your head. And, uh, everyone's going to have a slightly different one going on.

It's, I think you're, you think so strategically, I'm very impressed. You must be a hell of a chess player. you've never been more wrong about something. No, because I think sit in a chessboard, I'm paralyzed by all the moves, so I do nothing, and then there goes my king. So it's been interesting, but it was a great feeling to be so wrong

and to continue to be wrong publicly. I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time, and we're going to let you go, and you can come back after the finale of Saul, and you can formally announce the Reed Diamond Sommelier spin-off show that you're going to be immediately taking

the series. It would be great. Read Diamond, yes. Thank you so much. We're tech avail for that, by the way. We can talk about that too. Excellent. Thank you guys so much.

Yeah. Thank you, Peter. Really appreciate it. Although I was thinking about getting another showrunner to finish just like the bureau. So anyway, have a good one. And thank you guys very much. I love talking to you.

You guys watch it like nobody else does. And I love the questions and the smart thoughts. I feel a little bit out of my league. Sorry, thank you very much. Thanks, Peter. Take care. Every act of change begins with a neighbor. When neighbors connect through the Feeding America network, small actions ripple into lasting impact.

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