‘Better Call Saul’ Creators On Bob Odenkirk’s Recovery & Taking Break From ‘Breaking Bad’ Universe; Vince Gilligan’s Next Series “Something Really Different”

There will be no more meth-making in the middle of the desert, at least for now.

That essentially was the word from Better Call Saul co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould at the show’s Season 6 premiere Thursday night in Hollywood. The final season premieres April 18 on AMC.

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Gilligan has been breaking story on a new series for the past few months but said, “I haven’t told my wife about it.”

AMC

“It’s something really different,” the four-time Emmy winner said about his new series, which definitely will be a departure from the crime-thriller-loaded world of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

“It’s a remake of Trapper John, M.D.” laughed Gilligan. The inside joke there being that he and Gould discussed heavily the spinoffs of M*A*S*H (including AfterMASH) when creating Better Call Saul — essentially what you should and should not do when coming off of a hit series.

A grand assumption is that most of the characters we see on Saul but don’t see on Breaking Bad — i.e. Saul’s girlfriend/attorney Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), drug dealer Nacho Varga (Michael Mando), slithering attorney Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) and drug lord Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) — all have some ill fates in store. But don’t jump to any conclusions, the ensemble said by and large Thursday night.

After creating a strong, complex female protagonist in Wexler, could we possibly see Seehorn in her own spinoff? And is there another Breaking Bad movie on the horizon?

”I love these characters, I love this world,” Gould said. “Maybe someday, but personally I’m going to take a little break from that world and try something else, just to prove that I can.”

Said Gilligan: “I think that’s my answer too. There are stories left to tell, but it’s not proving something to the world, it’s about proving something to yourself. That thing I’m working on, hopefully someone will want to buy it, someone will want to make it.”

Watch our conversation with the duo here:

Talking about Bob Odenkirk’s heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul in July 2021, Gilligan called the actor’s recovery “amazing.”

“He came right back, like it never happened,” Gilligan said. “It was for real: He was gone, then he was back.”

The Mr. Show alum and former SNL scribe returned to work on Better Call Saul on Sept. 8.

Odenkirk has talked about the ordeal in The New York Times Magazine. He retreated to location on the show’s soundstages after shooting a scene where Fabian and Seehorn were hanging out. Both were with Odenkirk when he had the heart attack. Odenkirk rode his workout bike and went down, laying on the ground without a pulse. The show’s health safety supervisor, Rosa Estrada, and assistant director Angie Meyer administered CPR and hooked the actor up to an automated defibrillator. It took three tries to get his pulse back. Odenkirk was taken to Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, where he had two stents put in his body to relieve the plaque buildup.

The particular scene that Odenkirk was shooting will be seen in the second part of Season 6; Gilligan and Gould staying mum about its contents.

“It was a hard scene to go back to,” Gilligan said. “I was directing. I was there.

“We weren’t all the way through it,” he continued. “We were four-fifths of the way through it, so when he recovered, we had to finish shooting the scene. All of our amazing crew — makeup, wardrobe, hair, director of photography — everybody had to make sure that it looked exactly like the stuff we shot previously, so when it cuts together you can’t tell what’s the new stuff and what’s the old stuff.

Added Gould: “I can say that this season you’re going to see shots of Bob before and after, and you’ll never know. His recovery is amazing. I can put the two scenes next to each other and never know the difference.”

Gilligan offered high praise for Estrada and Meyer. “It’s a credit to the people who saved his life,” he said. “They’re like angels, saints — they came in right there and saved his life.”

With Breaking Bad known as one of the best series finales ever, have Gilligan and Gould set the bar too high for Better Call Saul?

“It’s very scary to follow Breaking Bad, but with Peter at the helm of this show, I think he and the writers have got it,” said Gilligan. Production on all episodes has wrapped.

“Just to give you a tease that I probably shouldn’t: There’s something in this season that you will know that we watch a lot of old TV,” teased Gould. “There’s going to be a surprise that I think is pretty extraordinary.”

Hmm, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman cameos, anyone?

The first seven episodes of Better Call Saul‘s sixth and final season begin April 18, then the series goes on hiatus until July 11, when the last half-dozen episodes kick off on AMC and AMC+.

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