The Watch - Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn on the ‘Pluribus’ Season 1 Finale

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Chris and Andy briefly talk about the ‘Pluribus’ Season 1 finale (1:02), before they’re joined by series creator Vince Gilligan and star Rhea Seehorn to unpack the episode (8:25). They discuss Carol and Zosia’s complicated relationship, how they tackled the measured rhythm of the story, the challenges Seehorn encountered in acting opposite the Others, writing the second season, and much more. Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of ‘The Watch’ and so much more! Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guests: Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ron. and I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me on the other line, but shortly you'll be joining me in the studio. It's Andy Greenwald. Good morning. We are the collective. I can be anywhere at any time. It's absolutely right. Andy, today on the watch, we are going to be bringing folks an interview that we did in studio a couple of days ago with Ray Seahorn, the star of Plyrobis and Vince Gilligan, the creator of Plyrobis. We talked a lot about the broader themes and ideas of the first season of the show. So we didn't get into super detail about the finale. But I think what we'll do is,

since it's an extensive interview and it's a great chat with these guys and they were so generous for their time, we're going to get into that interview as soon as possible. And maybe Andy and I will save some of our more detailed thoughts about the finale and the season as a whole for when we come back on January 5th after the New Year's. So Andy, anything you wanted to just throw out there as like a top note headline pluribus for people to take with them? I mean, it was definitely more about South American, like, village and folk traditions than I would have expected going into the season. But I do love the fact that TV can still surprise me in 2025. No, that said, I thought that it was a pretty triumphant finale for what was an incredibly subtle in some ways and impressive season.

And one thing that I really liked about the show was just right there in the opening that I'm referring to. It has a cold open where, I believe her name is Kusamayo, is eager. to be uploaded. And so we find out that they have, in fact, worked on the precise combination of smelling salts that will... They can do it with the extra moisturizer. You ever worry about that?

Like, you're just shooting that stuff up there one of these days. I appreciated that it was a subtle and artistic and slightly digressive way to say, this can happen. This is coming for Carol. They can do this. But also, the way that it was shot with the feeling of joy and togetherness

and she's surrounded by people who love her, and these are her parents and family members, and they can't wait for her to join them. And she's quite excited to join them because she loves them. And the second that it works, it's clear that they will never physically interact with each other again in the same way, which isn't necessarily a, you know, we understand what the joining is now, right?

We understand that they are with each other at all times, thus they do not need to perform the pantomime of making each other breakfast or singing to each other or whatever it may be. But seeing it played out that way, just the choreography and the direction of it was so stark and so honestly devastating that it set the table beautifully for everything that followed. It's funny you should mention that because I had a similar reaction to the moment preceding, and this is obviously, Andy talked about the cold open, but we'll be, as Vince and Ray do, discussing spoilers for the entire first season of the show. the moment preceding Carol and Zosha's breakup essentially where they're in the ski lift, the gondola, taking them up the mountain,

and they're having this sort of storybook romance, globetrotting romance. I kind of knew it in the moment, but I definitely knew it upon rewatching it, is that as they get out of the gondola, you realize that the entire ski lift stops after they get out, and so it stops running in a cycle. And so obviously all of them,

it has been done as a production for Carol and for her romantic, ideal version of this love affair. And the fact that it stops and it just swings a little bit, it's such an ominous foreshadowing moment of their breakup to come and also why they are going to break up. And the fact that for as much as Carol thinks she has them pinned down with, you can't lie and you can't kill and you can't do this, progress happens either way. you know, life finds a way. And that they, they, just because they said we won't do anything like that without your consent,

doesn't mean they're going to stop looking for ways to convert other people and perhaps possibly Carol. And so she starts to put the full court press on her. And you have to wonder whether or not in some way or shape or form that her love affair with Carol is about a sales pitch. And I thought it was just an amazing example of Gilligan and his team's ability to tell a story with things beyond just words, to set a tone, set a mood, and then to fall through with it. Yeah, and we talk about this with them, which was a real thrill to do. But the mastery of the show

is in the marriage between the micro and the macro storytelling. Because in that moment, we as fans of television, Reddit, Pilled, whatever, we wonder, like, is Zosha now saying I? Is she making jokes and razzing Carol about board games and croquet? And that's in the previous but just basically behaving more quote-unquote human with her, is that a sign of the collective evolving and how they deal with the peculiar specific problem of Carol? Or is it all part of a larger evolutionary existential manipulation? And then, of course, what are all relationships maybe, but a delicate dance between softening yourself and making yourself vulnerable and open to other people's ideas and behaviors and kind of wanting to bring. bring down the hammer of getting what you want out of it. Really, what is a podcast about, right?

It's finally time we just admitted it with each other. And the day you watch a Miyazaki movie, I'll know that you have been uploaded to the larger stream of consciousness. That's what I bring the atom bomb. It's fair. I have a helicopter come and drop. The wind rises. I don't know if anybody does it better than the Albuquerque crew

or the Vince Gilligan creative team is run right at television. essential struggle between the desire for thing, the audience's desire, and maybe often the creator's desire, to grant wishes and make people enjoy things and feel good about things, and the essential note of conflict, which is what drives all storytelling.

And to that point, the creation of an direct introduction of Minusos is just so brilliant, because in a show like this, there are no fences. They could bring in anyone or any energy in the world, and they took the time to create a heat-seeking missile that is just perfectly designed to disrupt Carol's own negativity.

Yeah, and also upset her conception of herself as this incredibly principled, basically like last person on Earth. She meets the real last person on Earth, the last real hero. Or at least in terms of the way he sees it, he's here to save the world. This is a good place for us to stop just because I don't want to get so far ahead of ourselves that we wind up repeating ourselves with our conversation with Vince and Ray who were awesome guests. And it was really cool to have them in studio. Honestly, dream guests to meet both of them, but also to see their dynamic with each other. And I just want to say if anyone listening is part of a team that might one day come on this podcast also, creatively actor, writer, director, showrunner, definitely ask each other questions during the podcast because that makes our lives. Because Ray was going right at Vince and I was like, this is great.

I could just mute myself. I loved it. We will be back on January 5th. We will probably talk a little bit more about the pluribus finale. I will probably have some thoughts on the last few Stranger Things episodes. And then we have an incredibly busy

January to share with our watch listeners between the pit industry, Night Manager, Night of the Seven Kingdoms, tons of stuff. So we will never not have something to watch. Greenwald, a great ear podcast with you. I love potting with my best friend, so it's barely work. This is the best thing we get to do. I'm so happy we get to do with you. Thank you to

Kaya and Kaya, who joined the team this year. Doing great work. Just throwing me, both of you guys, just throwing me hospital balls on social. I love it. Appreciate it. Appreciate all of you. Yeah, we'll be back with you guys on January 5th. Everybody, happy holidays and happy New Year. Happy New Year, Baranski's. Here we are with Vince Gilligan and Ray Seahorn, the creator and the star of Pluribus, one of me and Andy's favorite TV shows of the year. And it's just an honor to have you guys here. This was just such an incredible season of television.

I can't wait to ask you. Vince, we had you on for the pilot or the premiere in the first two episodes. Same like it was just yesterday. Yeah, I know. I went fast. So thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having us. Congratulations on the season.

Like, as you could tell, I didn't want to be there for the first interview in case you guys botched it in the back half of the season. I know. I know on my name associated with it, but now I do. The show's excellent. It was a fantastic finale, and we're going to talk about all of it. I have kind of a thinky question to start off with, and it'll get easier, I promise. But I wanted to start with something from the finale.

There's a moment when at the end of this magical ski trip that Carol has gone on with Sosha, a praski on the couch, she realizes slowly with clarity. One of us is bilingual. I won't say which language. With great clarity that this can never actually work. And this struck me as like a very universal and quite relatable moment for anyone who's ever been in a potentially doomed relationship. And usually, though, it's not because your partner is going to use your harvested stem

steles to consume you into the global hive mind. That is a specific to the show. I did date a girl in college. It was very similar, like super parallel story. So it's definitely chimed with something in your past. Or stem cell, actually. But this moment, this one scene from the finale really did make me think of the kind of magic trick you guys pulled off with this season where something so wild, global, insane,

genre and heightened can feel relatable to our day-to-day existence. So there's an aspect of this question for both of you, but Vince, I wanted to start with you. Just in terms of crafting that scene where you take something that is about one giant thing, the others plan here and what they're going to do to Carol.

But making it specifically about Carol's journey and her emotional relationship with this woman in this moment. As in what goes into crafting? Yeah, I'm just curious, because famously you work so collaboratively with your writers, and I'm curious if this is weeks of conversation

or it's just simply you always have a North Star in terms of what the story needs to be? It's definitely, there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears, a lot of weeks of conversation. And our secret weapon, other than Ray in front of the camera, our secret weapon, we got a lot of secret weapons behind the camera, but starting with Gordon Smith and Allison Tadlock, who co-wrote that episode.

But there were a lot of conversations with all of us, all of us writers, the, what is it, seven of us, figuring this stuff out. and it does not, none of it comes easily. Sometimes I just feel like, gosh, you know, you watch it later and someone, some smart person has insight into and says, this is kind of like every relationship in a certain sense. They're doing a relationship. Like, I guess it is.

I haven't really thought it until just now. Is it more of a math problem for you guys in the room saying this scene has to start here with Carol here and we have to end it with her realizing this and then you fill in the blanks? Yeah, like, is it all the way back to like when you're breaking the stories like in the beginning? beginning? The breaking process is the most important part of the process. It is where we sit around in the room and we say what happens next. And sometimes we get, sometimes we do jump ahead. Sometimes we say, where should the season end? What is the big revelation at the end of the season? At the very beginning of the season, we didn't know there would be that respite for Carol where she finds out, oh, they need our stem cells.

They need to stick a big needle in her hip. And so you find it, some, sometimes you have a North Star to you, that's a good phrase. But sometimes you think you have a North Star and you work your way forward and then you realize that North Star was illusory. We're not going to wind up there at all. It's every single day is either a bold new adventure or a fresh hell, depending on how you want to look at it. Adventure in L. Yeah. But you just, it's not the most satisfying answer except to say to folks listening to this, watching this, who are struggling to do this job, know that we're struggling to.

It never gets easier, which is kind of a bummer. But on the other hand, if you look around, oh, everyone else says it easier than me, I'm having a hard time. No, no, everybody, if you're doing it right, it's not easy. So that's the best short answer I can give to it. And you've always said,

which I thought was great advice to writers, that if it comes too easy, like, then the character does this because it's just going to make it really easy for you to make the show or the scene go where you wanted it to, you need to kick the tires on that because it might not be actually what that character would do. Like, you need to, like, drill down. It's interesting. In the beginning of that scene, Carol has said that maybe she's happy.

And it's almost like an alien virus is in her body in that moment. I wondered what that felt like for you to play, right? We had a lot of discussions about that. And, you know, Carol, when she was pre this event and this kind of misanthrope, she wasn't allowing herself to experience happiness. And I think probably mostly subconsciously, but a little bit consciously, she's aware that that wasn't the best way to go about life, that I'll be happy when, I'll be content, when, I'll be successful, when.

And, you know, even her thoughts when she's remembering the Ice Hotel, she knows that she didn't allow herself to take in that kind of beauty and that kind of love when she could have. There's some willing delusion as far as feeling love. I think she is feeling affection for Zosha,

but it's also coming out of being so broken by the time in isolation, not just the 40 plus days or whatever it was, but also the existential threat that it would be forever. You're going to die alone and never speak to anybody ever again unless you make this shift.

And so we had lots of conversations about what's front of mind versus back of mind, what's being suppressed versus what's in the front. How much is she allowing herself that? And then they did this brilliant thing for me to hang on to as an actor that she's trying to be happy. She's trying to take it all in. And then much like you brought up, there's still the very human part of us that sometimes is petty, sometimes it's defensive, sometimes can't leave, you know, good enough

enough alone and Carol's definitely one of those people that she, everybody knows on a great date, you don't ask about exes. Like, what do you do? Like, she clearly is immediately picking at something. And that gave me the license to realize, like, okay, so that obstacle is still there. There's still a part of her that keeps, that knows you can't totally trust us in what's going on. But at the same time, craft wise, we have to, and Gordon Smith was directing it as well, like, I'm aware, when you say reverse engineering, like understanding where it has to go, I'm aware that the payoff for being hurt, that personally hurt on top of, terrified of the news that she gets, then she had to have let her heart go a little bit.

She had to, you know, some of those feelings had to be real in order for, in order for the kick in the face to hurt that much. Yeah. I love those scenes of the sort of more romantic interlude with Carol and Zosha, just because they're almost filmed like a fantasy. Like they're filmed like a memory that you would have like a memory where you're like, I've erased the bad part of this relationship. And all I remember now is us being escorted up this gondola to the,

to the chalet or whatever. And I was wondering whether or not when you were doing scenes with, um, with Caroline like like when you were doing those Zosha scenes like, what is that like as a, what is she like as a scene partner when she is also a part of a collective consciousness? basically. Well, I mean, first off, hats off to her.

That is such a deceptively difficult role. And Carolina Widra is just crushing it. And I've had these conversations with Vince and in certain interviews in the beginning when she was really like, not struggling in any kind of pejorative sense, but like the way we should as actors trying to like dig down.

Like how do you play this? And she's trying to dial it in with Vince or with Gordon or any of the writers and directors, and you suddenly, I know she felt like, why am I not getting this? And I was like, you're having all the tools that we normally rely on as actors taken away. You cannot listen and react. You can't even, other than certain parts of the neurodiverse population, in general, humans mirror each other.

We reciprocate. If you take the conversation angry or you look like something just crossed your mind that's sad, like I follow. I mirror that, but she can't. But at the same time, she can't look like she's just high on volume or a robot or, you know, she's sentient, she's compassionate. We've now reached this part, which she had to do too. Like evolving, these people are also evolving slightly.

You see them not be able to realize that I'm being sarcastic about a grenade and get to a place where they can make a joke about an orgy. Yeah. You know, so there's some evolution happening there as well. And it's so fun, I think that Vince and all of them have made sure that you can never fully know if she's being manipulative, like in this role she's playing. But I like the larger philosophical question of like, you can't really answer that about anybody.

Like any act of love that you're doing for somebody that you love, like has an objective. I haven't thought of that. You're right. You know, it's like, what is manipulation? And obviously we see Carol get to that final place. But sorry, long way of saying, I just really wanted to like shout out to like the incredible work she's doing.

of it is also difficult but I was able to at least channel that into the character. It is very difficult to come up against... We've all been there where you're super upset and you're with somebody that keeps going like, I hear you. I hear you and that sounds like it's very painful and you're like shut up! Stop me right I am. Yeah, don't therapy

speak to me and like we had so much fun with they're inherently dramatic but it makes them inherently comedic to me the scenes where Carol's getting upset and no one else is getting upset with her and the more you because we've all been there talk about like find the places that are like what's relatable to anybody not only have we all been the person screaming the barns on fire

when everyone else is like can you just sit down and have brunch um but also you know when you start to look insane and you're like i know i look crazy what and you're like i'm not helping it's not helping my situation starts with that is a winner like that's gonna go great yeah it's right up there with i'm fine just small digression since you mentioned working with carolina and and sort of working with her as she learned to play this almost this very challenging type of role. I wonder if there's anything parallel to, you joined this Vince's Mary band of Albuquerque Bandits

in Better Call Saul, and you had actors like Bob who had worked with this family before and bringing you in saying, here's how we do things, here's how Vince does things. What was it like taking on that role with actors like Carolina and the other members of the cast being like, welcome to town, it's a land of enchantment. Right?

But it was important to me to not so much to say like, I guess there was a few things. This is how they work. This is how it goes. Because I knew it was going to be slightly different. We were going to find this very strange tone and genre shifts together. I mean, a lot of it is on the page and there's point of view in the scripts and they're beautifully written. But Vince had told me early on, like, I think you said, I'm not sure what the show is yet. And I knew he didn't mean that they didn't like slave over these scripts that we got.

It was more about we're going to know it when we see it as far as like how comedic can a scene go while still supporting how dark you made a moment over here or are they out of balance now and not in the same show anymore. And we had a lot of fun doing that. So I knew we were going to do a lot of things differently and I wasn't going to hang on to like, guys, listen. So I'm better call Saul. That would be such an ass. On the acclaim series, in which I was an essential part. It's right up there with the actresses whenever you test for things,

and there's always one person in the room. It's like, oh, my God, you guys, I don't even want you to be nervous because they're so nice. Do you have you met them? I've met them so many times. Don't even worry. Oh, my God. Vince is just like, mm. It's like, shut up.

But anyway, yes, people do that. So, but I did think, I want to do what people did for me on Better Call Saul because it was terrifying. You're like, uh, this is a bunch of breaking bad people. Am I going to fit in and all this? And first of all, the whole crew and cast is super, you know, open arms. It's all about like, hell yes, come bring something new. Play in the sandbox, let's go. Literally with this bar that I think should not even be a bar.

It should be a given that like know your stuff. Like be fully, fully prepared and know all your lines. Nobody wants to waste takes on you not knowing your stuff. And then come with ideas and then be, as Vince and Peter have both said, Peter Gould, be confident enough to collaborate, which is hard some days because you're feeling small or scared, but the best idea in the room wins. And it's okay. You don't have to like, you don't have to have a chip on your shoulder. You know, you can receive ideas from anywhere. And so I did tell everyone, I made sure that everybody felt like they were part of the family.

And I make sure I get whoever is certainly my other supporting cast members, but also guest stars whenever possible. And Bob Odenkirk and Patrick Fabian and most of the members of Better Call Saul, if they had time, did the same. Like, go rehearse with them. Not to nail down a performance, we're going to leave that open, but to run lines, to get familiar. It is not... You'd work on your own time on the weekend. Yes, we did it on the weekends. If I couldn't do it because of my hours, then I would ask them if they could meet me out at a fitting, at my lunch break in my trailer, anything. It's so hard, and I've been there. to be a guest star and have the only time you've said the lines out loud prior to action was

by yourself in your hotel room. Whether you're a seasoned vet or not, it's just really hard. So in that way, I just wanted to make sure people understand, I'm here for you, we're all here for you, we're all going to collaborate together. It's going to be awesome. Technically, the only thing I went to them and said, and Samba did say, like, I'm really glad you told me that, is, I said, if you start getting a lot of. of direction that's very fine-tune kind of modulating, the instinct for most actors is to go,

wow, I must really suck. Like, they cannot get what they want. And I said they do that when they actually think you're capable of fine-tune modulation. If there's any way to get out of your head and tell yourself, this might be a gift to do almost like an exercise where you see how much you can slightly shift a line to a 7.8 and then an 8.3, like, you will have fun and you will be a better actor at the end of the day. Yeah. And if things get tense, you can always say, look, Vince told me he doesn't even know what the show is. That's right.

And really, like, don't worry. I got no idea. And I also said, and don't look me in the eye. Oh, sure. Of course. Sorry, we could have started with that. I did get excited when you said we have a bar. There's a bar.

And I said, and I misunderstood. But I was never invited. That was never invited. Right. Is there a secret to all of this? There's an open bar message. Just as Mitch. I was wondering, you know, there are a few episodes here, and this is for both of you,

but there are a couple episodes of this season that I imagine, like, a different version of the show the script could have been like eight pages long, because that's like, there's not that much action in a classical sense. Like, it'll expand the accordion of time and show Carol do 13 things around her house that, like, ordinarily most TV shows would be like, Carol walks into a room and then like, cut to whatever, the thing that she was trying to accomplish is. And I got to admit, I would wonder, have you done stuff like that before? Like, since, like, being on stage, like, where you have this much, like, work-a-day stuff to, like...

And wordless. Depict. Yeah. And a lot of it is wordless, like, on-screen. Well, I wasn't totally surprised by that kind of storytelling because, I mean, look at the Mike Irwin-Trout scenes, you know, because of breaking bad and better calls. So I have seen them advanced story. I think I'm going to get the writer language wrong so you can help me. Advance the story through character development.

Is that the right way? Like, it's not plot, plot, plot. Sometimes the character going through a task is what's advancing the story. And the old expression, you know, character is plot, plot is character sometimes. I mean, not always. Right. But without dialogue and not being afraid. I think another big component to that is that Vince assumes the intelligence of his audience.

Sure. And I think his fans feel very rewarding. by that, that it's okay to let, because in those moments, especially when I'm by myself, I realized this time around, because I had so many scenes because of the isolation sort of portrait part of the story, that in those moments, the audience is frequently my scene partner, because I'm taking their hand down the rabbit hole. Not that I'm playing to camera, you know, in that sense, but we are plotting out the same story points of this task, whether it is burying her wife's...

Yeah. Burying her wife, putting the pavers on it, or even just the smaller things like waking up in the morning, if they have me waking up on the couch with an empty bottle near me, I know I couldn't sleep in the bed

where my wife used to sleep still. And I had to drink to get myself to fall asleep. That's a very specific way to fall asleep and a very specific way to wake up. And we all know those horrible moments when something horrific happens and you wake up the next morning and you have that little sliver of time

where it's possible it was a nightmare. And then we stage it so, you know, that I turn and I see Helen's body, and it comes crashing down. And then it's about playing those moments with or without dialogue. I'm thinking like, what's next? You would immediately think, well, did the whole thing happen? Is this all, was any of it a dream?

Is it all real? And you just go from there and tell the story the same as you would without dialogue. Well, as an audience member, it's a different kind of watching that I think you're used to in contemporary television because there is a degree of wandering eye going on. I mean, just with a sheer amount of TV that I watch sometimes,

I will look at my phone or whatever while I'm watching something. But it's... Disappointing. I don't even have a phone. I'll give up my Apple TV subscription if it's like as a penalty. But it's like I can't do that with this show at all. You know, you have to... Because even if you think, like, what could I possibly see

on this version of her listening to the voicemail message on this time? There's always something. There's always something being revealed. There's always something that you can be like, I now mark her emotional journey here because of this or whatever. And it's like actually just close watching. It's such a fascinating question. It's really more of just that.

I'm astounded by it too. I mean, yeah, we wrote it because we knew we are able to have that tool in the toolbox because we know Ray will pull it off. And not everybody can. I mean, not every actor can. And, and, I mean, it's just, yeah, you can watch her over and over again. That's what the highest compliment for anything I can ever have a hand in making is if people want to rewatch it. And if people get together on their own time, then talk about it.

And we hear anecdotally that that's happening a lot. And, again, so much of it is Ray's ability to be watched and rewatched. And it's, it's, you know, I used to think, you know, what is it that movie stars have? Is it what kind of, there's a certain charisma. And there is, and it's ineffable and it's hard to, you know, a lot of people for many decades, generations have tried to figure out what it is. I don't know what it is, but I do know that when an actor is having all of that, is doing that hard work that Ray is doing. And also, all of these actors are, I mean, just as an example, Carlos Manuel Veska in the last episode

that Air 107. He's all by himself too for a big chunk. And what both these actors have in common is they have this inner life. I'm just repeating kind of different words what Ray just said, but it just there's a version of acting where you can just sort of, you know,

where's the light, is the light hitting me? Am I on my mark? You know, and let the audience provide the context and the interpretation. But Ray is actively doing all that stuff. And you can see, I'm my finest, it calls you the jumbo-tron face. I said, I was saying, Ray has a face like a jumbotron screen.

I think it just popped into my head because it was right after that couple. The cold play. But I was like, you know, I would say, I meant it well. I had good intentions. But it was like you see everything without any words. I mean, without any dialogue. It's, and not everybody can do that. Thanks.

Yeah, he came right. We were doing some press junk and he was in a different room. We come to the hall and he's like, I need to tell you something I just said. And I was like, what? He's like, I want to explain jumbo drama. And I was like, what? Jumbo Trond. You said like theater, and I absolutely agree it is to me,

Better Call Saul and now Pluribus have been the closest to my experiences on stage. Yeah, I remember seeing the humans. in New York the play and Reed Bernie has a moment in the beginning where he just, it's very tall

we used to call it sometimes holding the stage. You don't have to be doing something as long as you're thinking the thoughts and you'll suddenly get in sync with the, thinking the thoughts telling the story of the character and what they're doing

and why are they pausing right now, especially if it's not direct address, it's about something else that you're inviting them into. Yeah. And Reed did it And the audience will start, it's like their heart starts sinking with yours. And the breathing starts sinking with you and you can hear a pin drop.

And I used to do that a lot. You're right. A lot of television will cut it. So you kind of almost start becoming afraid to add thoughtful pauses or meditative moments because they get cut. And then it looks like your timing is weird when they put it together. I learned a lot watching Jonathan Banks on Saul. I would go to set a lot to watch him. because he had these long periods.

And he's really, really good at inviting the camera in because I had a habit in the beginning that when they would give me very private moments, I would instinctively turn away from the camera because I do think of it as another entity there. And Jonathan will turn towards it without ever looking like he's just playing the camera and just let it be and let them be in on the secret.

And I talked to him a lot about that. It was very helpful to me. That's really cool. There's a confidence, Vince, to some of the scenes that you include in the series. And Chris mentioned the Patrick Fabian voicemail. And it's just like, she's calling the phone. I'm like, surely they'll cut away from it this time. And they don't.

And we enjoy it. But I think it's worth drilling down a little further because it's definitely not in those moments. My wife was actually like on like the 10th time. She's like, it's coming back around. I'm like it in a horse trail again. I don't think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think you're in the writer's room going, make them watch it again. I sleep on a bed of end.

I don't think it's that. I do think that there is a level of confidence that is earned here because it's not just the incredible actors you have to hang these wordless scenes on, but you have, I would imagine, I'd love to hear you talk about it, a shorthand with production writ large. Like, you couldn't write these scenes if you didn't have the relationship with the locations, with the people who've been working on your shows, with your writers, with your directors, to pull it off.

The editors, exactly. Every visual element, because sometimes when scenes are overridden, It's because the writer is just like, I can only control this. That's a very astute observation. Yeah, and these people, they've been working with some of them almost two decades now. So, yeah, it's funny. The life is just rich with ironies. I love that you were saying, oh, you must be very confident.

I'm the least confident person I've ever met. But some things I am have a little more confidence about than others. And part of it is I'm never, you know, I'm never going to go broke assuming the audience is smarter than I am. And that has held us in good stead. All of us assume that, the writers. We all, starting with us, we all assume that. The audience knows more than we do. And also, the little, little spark of confidence in the knowledge that we don't need all of the audience.

There are, you guys, God bless you guys for digging what we do. God bless the folks listening. I assume they're fans too. But there's a whole world of people like, this show sucks. This show, all she does is wander around. But I mean,

it's a small world. But it's, but it's, that is as it should be. That's not, that's not a bad thing. If the audience was monolithic, the world would be,

yeah, the others. Better that than the other. Yeah. Yeah. I have no reaction to this content whatsoever. We don't need everyone on earth. We just,

I don't even know what we need. That's the, in their wheelhouse, not mine of it as far as how many viewers they need to make something worthwhile. But I have confidence in that Ray is very watchable. And I have confidence in that it was the truth. And I have confidence in that people, there is an audience for this. It's not every human being on earth, but it's enough. I have confidence that the audience will reward us if we deal them squarely.

Deal, deal with them fairly. don't break the rules midstream, don't, you know, but it just, and it just, and also hearing, the example you gave, hearing Patrick Fabian over and over again, it wasn't in some weird way torturing the audience, it was more about, what is the effect this would have on Carol? Yeah. And I knew every single, I had confidence that every single time Ray would find a different way to listen to this voicemail, this outgoing message. knew that every single time she would find a different way and she would make it funny.

I mean, all of your responses are so different after you get the last Westgate message, all the calls you make after that are like, no, fuck you. You know what I mean? Like bring me a Gatorade, you know? There's a small thing we had fun too. Like one of the last time she's listening to it, after Diabate played by absolutely brilliant Samba Shuta has given her this news about you can tell them you don't consent. the director, Ganja Montereo came over and she said, and you can see it in the wide, but it is a wide shot.

She was like, she goes, maybe Carol would be like a little bit embarrassed about this message that they won't even talk to her, that that's how bad her behavior. Because I have not told maybe the others, the others probably did tell Diabate that they don't speak to me. But Carol doesn't fully know that, and it's a little embarrassing. So even though she's like, done get through the message because I want to tell. tell you on consent. There's a small part that I added with her direction that made me laugh where I'm just like, it's just fine. It's just kind of like, no big deal. I think it's just a busy signal. I got it. I got to push back on the no confidence thing in one specific way. This is an anecdote that we tell all the time, and you can tell us if this is completely untrue. But I think one of the

most inspiring and wild anecdotes about the last 20 years of TV writing is the idea that you guys in the Breaking Bad Room did not know what the gun in Walter White's trunk was going to be used for when you introduced it at the beginning of that season. That's true. Or the stuffed animal in the pool, which is my mind. So you do keep making things hard for yourself and then writing yourself out of it. And I wondered if dropping an Adam bomb on the front yard was in an attempt to, let's say, escalate things even further for you guys, or if you have a little more of a roadmap this time.

We have a little more of a roadmap this time. That was the stupidity of youth with that M-60 in the trunk of the Cadillac. That was the dumbest thing ever. I think we had... Did you regret it for a long time? Oh, there were times in the right... That was one of the lowest points ever in any writer's room. I literally...

This is our heroic story, Vince. I would stand against the wall at a certain point, and I would just slowly bang my head against the wall, and the writers were just like, dude, are you all right? And I wasn't that hard, but just trying to knock the ideas loose. And they were just all just kind of the long silences, long and come. comfortable silences. And I would say, let's have a flight of fancy. Let's pretend we never did the M60 machine gun. And then they're all like, okay, sure. Let's do that for five minutes. And then let's get back to reality because you have to pay off the machine gun in the trunk. And we, it was like,

you also told me occasionally he'd be like, so then Walt goes to the car, he opens in the trunk and puts his suitcase. And they were like, no, you can't open her the truck. And it's like, damn it. You just kept trying to yada yada. Yeah, I plead guilty to that. It was, it was, I don't, we have, we have ideas for what the, the atom bomb is for. And we, I think we had, the pink teddy bear, I think, I think we kind of knew in our hearts that it came from. It was a classic bit of, or classic or not, it was a bit of misdirection. Sure.

It was, oh my God, there must have been a terrible shootout. in the house here, oh, no, it came from the sky. It was a, you know, what is the most unlikely explanation for all this crap on the pool? Oh, it was a, you know, but then it can't just be a random aircraft collision. Walter White has to have been responsible for it. That stuff was tough, but there was nothing ever tougher than the M60 machine. That was just, that was hubris on my part. Oh, we'll figure it out.

We got all you. We'll figure it out. I deserve all the pain that I inflicted upon myself. But the writers did not. I suppose if Ray gets the script for 201 and Carol's just storing her whiteboard markers in the Adam bomb cabinet, there's nothing in there. There's nothing in there. It's fine. It's fine. 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, wishes, and misses.

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The Manusos plot is something that is fascinating to me because his journey is so electrifying to watch that road trip that he takes to get. through the Darien Gap and to get to Carol. And you're playing it when he arrives, very defensively, but also like, kind of like, this is my, my home turf and, like, this, I have my ideas about how I want things to go here. And I almost was curious whether or not, like, do you have to turn off the side of your brain that knows what else is happening in the other half of these scripts or in the other half of this story when you're acting just Carol's POV from those scenes? Well, we only get our scripts one at a time.

I am in the usually around in the middle of shooting like let's say six when I get seven. And occasionally I'll ask a few questions, but mostly, and this started happening on Better Call Saul, I realize it's not really like if I'm doing a play, understanding what the endpoint is is going to help me to reverse engineer what the most interesting point A is, right, to take that journey. but I think a lot of times we end up asking where something's going to help, and I have another series, to help understand like how do I help tell this story? I need to make sure that my character, I know later that I'm going to find out that my character's lying. So that's part of me playing it now versus I find in the world that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gold were creating that You're not. You're playing. It's not necessary. They don't need me to telegraph to the audience where the story's going. That's not my job anymore. And it was actually nice to have that burden taken away

because oftentimes my ram space is totally full with what I'm playing right now. Like there's a lot going on when he shows up. It's a reminder that she's terrified that like deep down I'm being called out for like not at all following through with my revolution. I had that I plotted. I'm also lying through my teeth that I don't know why they came back. Beats me. I can see that he can see that I'm lying, which is so fun to play, and he's a wonderful scene partner. She's protective, but also baseline, because somebody asked me the other day, they were like, she's just so rude, though, as soon as he comes out, I was like, he showed up with a machete. Yeah, in an ambulance. In an ambulance. It was like, I'm coming in and then bats my phone away from me. Like,

I'm allowed to be a little pissy. It's very fun. Those. all the energies they put me next to, whether it's Zosha or Diabate's energy or, and now Minuso's like, they're, again, inherently dramatic but inherently comedic as well if we just play our objectives because we're both immovable objects in the scene. I want to talk specifically about the playing Carol against different energy because the logline is the most miserable person in the world must save the world. Vince, in the earliest days, like the blue sky days of the writer's room, what drove you to create the character? of Minusos in the way that you did, potentially knowing that that specific friction would be so

interesting. Because you'd almost as a cliche would think that, oh, you'd pair the miserable with the joyful and you'd think Mr. Diabate would be the pairing that would be reading some sort of thing. You've chosen someone who is even more hardcore than she was. Which is totally surprising and pays off beautifully. You just sort of think about it all day long and slowly banging a head against the right of room wall. Is there a death there at this point? Pretty much. It's a machine gun.

It's like Jimmy Trashcan at H.J. Right. It looks like the trash can at H.A.G. It's like having a bunch of Legos on a table and fitting them together. Is this pleasing? Let's try this. That's kind of the job. It's not an elegant process.

It is a brute force process sometimes. In the case of that example, we already knew, I guess, in reverse engine, trying to come up with a good answer about a great question that I had never thought about before. How did we do it? I guess I figured, well, we figured, because it is kind of a communal mind in the writer's room sometimes, but we figured there's already a pretty unhappy lady

with the happiest person on Earth, Zosha. So we already have that dynamic. So what other dynamic? Because you do want to put opposites or very different energy levels together because that leads to drama. We've got kind of a private bingeer, kind of character for folks who remember that movie.

We got, yeah, and Carol, let's put her, let's put her against a hardcore Navy seal. Right. And she, they both have similar goals, except they're going to go about them in a very different fashion. That's probably what the thinking was there. And you had a cleaner way to deal with Chekhov's gun in the car this time than you did in Breaking Bad. The shotgun in the cop car, dealt with it very cleanly. Yes.

It did come back. Yes. No headbanging necessary. Exactly. That was, that was, I love the way you played that and I love the way Gordon directed that. In episode 105, we're after this terrible night sleeping in the police car with the with the gumball lights going. And then, and then it's like, you notice this button. Son of them, bitch. I love, I love that scene. That scene made me, and then finding the handcuff key. Yes, because I found, like, it's, it's, it's so wonderfully illustrated of just like, of Carol, like, she frequently goes,

about things the hardest way you're that's her MO always the hardest just you know I got a three in the morning with a flashlight like Marlore and Scully oh dead body parts ah it's like you could have just asked him

yeah when Ziavote says like I asked them that's how I found out I was like ah you said dude why do you drink so much milk yeah yeah I love I wanted to ask you about one of my favorite parts of the character is Carol's relationship to substance abuse.

And the way that it kind of dots along as these little punctuation marks throughout the season of the breathalyzer in the beginning of the season, the sensor inside of the liquor cabinet, the reference to heroin use, and obviously the truth serum sequence. And tell me a little bit about,

like, because it's interesting how it's not her, it's not like her, like, I'm leading with this, I'm in recovery or whatever. It's always in the background. I really love that aspect of the character.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. We've been having so much fun speaking to journalists that, even like hardcore jaded journalists that actually want to talk about philosophical questions about what this is bringing up for them. And we're hearing all these different things. That's wonderful.

As you might imagine, you know, like, is it commentary on AI? Right. But that was coming from an editor of a major publication. And he was just sure it was. And I said, but that's the forefront of your mind. You're bringing to this show. What is the existential? threat for you right now.

When Vince started writing it 10 years ago, you know, the AI existed, but not the debate topic it is now. Likewise, the pandemic lockdown happened. And I bring that up because I had a journalist once say that she thought the entire thing, the entire show is a metaphor and portrait of grief and depression. Right. You know, being down a well and you can't, and people are saying cheer up and you can't hear them and you can try to fake it, but you can't keep faking all this. And another person said they think the whole show is about addiction.

Wow. The entire thing. And I was like, that's so fascinating. And it's not, no, it isn't because there is no right answer. It's everything. It's about human nature. And with that part component that you're bringing up, I did ask, because it's important to me, I said, let me know if this is a portrait of alcoholism, I need to like layer that in.

That's a different. And they said it's not. It's not. It is a, I can't remember the exact phrases that were. told to me to help to help me in discovering all that stuff. But it had more to do with this is a self-medication issue, another way to block the world out, this misanthrope, that she takes too far sometimes. And clearly her wife was worried about her. But not worried about like she did that because they were trying to freeze eggs. Right. Do you know what I mean? So it was it was tied to a

specific event. So I felt like we kept it just from going off the cliff of like, we should, I mean, also, that whole revelation is so great because it's in conjunction with Minuso's being convinced that they're being surveilled. Yeah. You know, and so like the parallel is awesome when that happens. Yeah, I think she, I think Carol takes a lot of things too far. Yeah. I think she's not very good in moderation. Oh, that'll end fine.

Yeah, she's not a moderate kind of gal. And that's one example of it. Vince, I wonder what the experience has been like for you, because as, As Ray just mentioned, this was an idea that you've been kicking around for a while. And over time, I'm sure it's been shaded. Details have emerged. You found Ray to be the perfect star for it. And then events kind of started to chime with it in interesting ways.

And it's proven to be a very seaworthy conceit that can be a mirror for so many of our own issues of our time. This is a high-minded question for a guy who's just been banging his head against the wall for 10 years. But I wonder, what has that experience been like as a creator realizing that you, have some, to reference the end of the season, some fissile material here. Oh, I love the way you put that. It's amazing. I just, I spent the last, how long did it take us to do? It's been like three years. I mean, I've lost track of the time. So have I, you mean since you sent me the first script? Yes, probably three. Three years, probably, okay. And then it took us quite a while to make the show and then it's the first season. It took us quite a while to edit it

and do all the visual effects. The last, however many, X number of years, let's call it three, although I'd been thinking about it for almost 10. I was telling myself, and then, you know, three in the morning, you wake up in the middle of the night and worry about things, and I kept telling myself, it's okay to move away from breaking bad, the single biggest, the first thing on your tombstone, breaking bad, most likely. It's okay to move away from that because, you.

you had it and just remember how insane the year 2013 was. Like, you know, that was the closest I'll ever get to being a, like, you know, like a rock and roll star or something walking down the street. And people are like, oh, my God, breaking bad. It's never going to happen again. And go forward with courage. Try something new because even if this thing, everybody collectively yawns when it comes out and then says, I should have done more breaking bad, at least you will have had the, you can be proud of you. yourself, you know, you had the courage to try something new. And then this thing comes out. And it's

just like, beyond, I don't know, beyond my wildest expectations about the reaction to it. And if it is, if it is facile material, as you say, the timing was, was perfect, that's just dumb luck. I mean, we made that we always make the best show we can make. That's always. We're never not going to do that. But then, as with anybody else, everybody else is out there making the best show they can make too, no matter what show it is. Because that's why you get into this business. You have love and passion. You want to make great things.

And then the chips fall where they fall. Anyone who says luck doesn't play a hand is lying either to themselves or to the person you're talking to. I would say about you, though, I think the fact that you don't write to particular themes, you're not trying to preach a specific thing, lends a timeless quality to it that is meeting the world right now in a place where, because what I'm hearing from a lot of people is this show is this great conduit for them to have some very nuanced conversations about a lot of areas that we have been thinking about for the last decade as very binary responses to. It is definitely

this or this and with a lot of it and seeking, you know, a way to have some conversations that are more nuanced and based in what does it mean to be human? and what does happiness mean? And even you've said this before, like, happiness doesn't, seeking happiness doesn't mean avoiding all struggle,

avoiding all, you know, thought-provoking or difficult situations and conversations. And you've always thought that. So I, I just feel like the fact

that he wasn't setting out to write to a particular thing is part of why it's seaworthy. I agree. But I did have a question, if I may, when stuff started coming out, like the pandemic

or AI, where you like, crap, they're going to think that's about this? I seriously thought that when the pandemic hit. I remember thinking, oh, my God, the last thing on earth that anyone is going to want to buy or watch is something that they feel is about yet another pandemic. And I seriously, I had some dark days in or, you know, around, we all had a lot of dark things. Over your sourdough starter, you're working. You're working at being like, oh, no. But 2020 was a tough year for everybody.

But I remember thinking, oh, my God, this thing I've been working on now for five years, no one's going to want it. And luckily, you know, I work slower than glaciers mark. So another five years went by it. Everyone almost in time for the next one. Yeah, almost in time for the next pandemic. Yeah, yeah. So I, you're like, you've got to get this out before the next pan. And, or now you have to do another season. So just to leave it on that, no, where are you in that process? Is there a third whiteboard behind Carols 2 that has the whole Oh, man, I wish. I wish elves would write all this out on a dry erase board and I could go take credit.

Or Carol for that matter. That would be great. We are plugging away yesterday. We had our final day in the writer's room of season two for, for, don't get too excited. No, for this year. Four of the year, 2020. Yeah, we are plugging away. We think we know what the first episode, what happens in the first episode.

and we're going to keep nose to the grindstone and pedal to the metal in 2026, but it takes longer than I wish it did. You know, the old expression, you can have it good, you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, pick two. You don't get all three. And we definitely cannot figure out how to do it fast. But we're having a good time. I've got great, great writers. And I can't wait to see what Ray and,

Carolina and Besska and Samba and all these wonderful actors do with season two. It's going to be, it's going to be fun getting back. I don't know anything. Yeah, I haven't told you. I don't know anything. How's a chance to ask him? I've got him on the record. How is Carol's golf game in season two?

Oh, this is all he wants to talk about. I can close my laptop. I got multiple texts being like, God, you can tell the swing thoughts are different, you know, 45 days in versus when you first play on the courts. Really? Yeah. Good. My swings, I, because I'm taking golf lessons now. For the character or out of personal interest?

Personal and for something else. But I'm like now it pains me. I just didn't, I feel so bad. I didn't get to get enough lessons. And I see that my stances, I think I pulled off looking like somebody who does golf. Just not really, really well, which is what I wanted to get to.

And I ran out of time. I did the best side. When you were in the skyscraper, you were dialed. Well, I had to do it where the ball goes. That is Diane Mercer in post. You talk about the show being a mirror. Chris really only wanted to talk about the golf swing and the Zins that were for sale in the gas station.

No, no Zins. Oh, that there were no Zins. There was all cigarettes. And my buddy and I was like, do you think that the others use Zinn? Oh, interesting. They've cleaned them out. My friend. It's like a, I'm glad I get to do this with Vince Gilder.

It's like a tobacco pouch, like a nicotine pouch. Yeah, but very popular with golfers. actually. So unfortunately popular with teens. Teens, yes. Don't do it. Not a good thing.

Don't do it. Don't do it. I'm currently wanted to talk about the lottery tickets in that scene. Right. Yeah.

Something for everyone. Well, I just couldn't stop like wrapping their head around like, so is there any joy in winning the lottery if money doesn't matter? Do you still feel like a winner? But like everybody won, right?

So does it matter? Right. I was like, I cannot answer any questions. I thought the reaction was perfect because it's like, and then it's over. Yeah, it means something, but it, but it is somehow, I thought, like, that reaction for me was born out of like,

well, at least it has nothing to do with them. It is my own success because it's based on odds and luck that they didn't do. Yeah. See, because I love the way you played it, but you could have also gone, now I fucking win the line. Yeah, it's like, now, right. What about the last 30 years? Yeah, when you could just go to Fort Knox anyway.

Ray, Vince, thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for this season of TV. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was fun. This was fun. Thanks, guys.

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