Better Call Saul producer breaks down 'Breaking Bad' episode, Kim mystery
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Warning: This story contains plots details from Monday night's episode of Better Call Saul, titled "Breaking Bad."
Yeah, bitch! The RV rides again!
Monday's episode of Better Call Saul — titled "Breaking Bad" as a wink not just to the mothership/ Krystal Ship but Breaking Bad's season 2 episode "Better Call Saul" — indeed delivered the guest stars that everyone had been waiting for since Saul co-creator Peter Gould teased their appearance before the final season began. Or, actually, since season 1 began.
Viewers were transported back to the night that Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) kidnapped Saul (Bob Odenkirk) and drove him into the desert, where he feared execution and uttered the infamous mention of Lalo (Tony Dalton) more than a decade before the prequel would introduce such a character. Into the outskirts of the ABQ the story ventured, nostalgia and discovery rattling around that old Krystal Ship. (Yes, Walt, that's what Jesse calls it.) Later, back at the office, Mike (Jonathan Banks) warned Saul about getting into business with this dangerous, cancer-stricken "amateur," but Saul tuned him out and his greedy, wounded gut was taking him into J.P. Wynne High School for that fateful follow-up scene in Breaking Bad.
Reckless decisions weren't just being made in the past. In the black-and-white future Omahaverse, Jimmy/Saul/Gene made secret contact with his former assistant, Francesca (Tina Parker), fulfilling the promise of the Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. call mentioned in season 4. He learned that the situation was still "hot," post-Walt's death. His money-laundering backups had been seized (including Lazer Base), Skyler (Anna Gunn) cut a deal, Jesse's car was found down by the Mexico border (see: Badger's roadtrip in El Camino), and — get this! — Kim (Rhea Seehorn) had inquired about him. That prompted Gene to call a sprinkler company in Florida where he believes that she's working (unless it's a Day Spa and Nail situation), and he had a heated conversation (with her, seemingly?) that caused him to beat the hell out of that pay phone.
Reeling from the call, living up to the adage of "Hurt people hurt people," and continuing to reunite with his Saul accoutrements, Gene met up with Jeff (Pat Healy), son of Marion (Carol Burnett), turning the game back on. He enlisted Jeff and his buddy, Buddy (Max Bickelhaup), for an elaborate scam that involved Gene playing rube while he got various marks drunk, and his cohorts then drugging them so they could steal their identity/credit cards back at home. But when one of the targets turned out to have cancer, Buddy had second thoughts. Gene's temper flared and he forced Jeff to drive him to the house. By the time he smashed the glass in the door, he had put himself in a situation that is perhaps best be described as "hot."
Let's remove those seeds and stems from the sink, accept Prince Rainier's proposal, take the lemon wedge off our nose, walk like Frankenstein after he was probed by aliens, and speak with the writer and director of this revelation-laced episode, Saul executive producer/Schnauz Farms owner Tom Schnauz.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So... nothing from this episode to talk about.
TOM SCHNAUZ: It's kind of slow moving. Drags a little bit in the beginning, then slows down in the middle, then crawls to a full stop at the end.
[Co-creator] Peter Gould said that it was important to wait to bring back Walt and Jesse. Why was the era of Breaking Bad's "Better Call Saul" episode the right moment to reintroduce them? And the mystery of "Why did Saul say 'No Lalo'?" in Breaking Bad is really having its moment in the desert sun, as it was contextualized a few episodes ago.
We talked since season 1 about, "When do we bring back Walt and Jesse? Do we bring back Walt and Jesse?" And now that Gene in Omaha is slipping back into his old ways, now felt like the right time to show the Saul Goodman character and the decisions he made chasing Walter White, the same way he made decisions to do these crazy Omaha scams. That's off of the Kim Wexler phone call, the mystery phone call that we don't know what happened yet. Something very upsetting happened on the other end of that line that brought back up a lot of old feelings and a lot of pain, and Jimmy McGill's drug of choice to numb that pain is Saul Goodman. And just like the events of ["Fun and Games"] — the death of Howard Hamlin [Patrick Fabian] and Kim keeping a secret about knowing that Lalo was still alive and not telling him, and the reasons that she didn't tell him caused a lot of pain and pushed him full Saul Goodman. Something about that phone call brought up a lot of pain that he needed to cover up again, and he needed to get back into that world of taking advantage of other people.
We'll get to that phone call in a minute. How easily did Bryan and Aaron fall back into the dynamic from that "Better Call Saul" episode? And what was the best joke on set?
Bryan and Aaron were incredible. I mean, they slipped right back into the roles. With Bryan, all I had to say was, "Less Heisenberg, more Walt," because I think a couple of times he went to the season 5 Heisenberg where he was in full control. They had to be reminded, "This is very early on season 2, you guys are in way over your heads." So that little adjustment was made on set.
The best joke on set? Boy, I can't remember. I mean, the funniest thing to me was, I was in my hotel room and I had heard that the guys had just arrived and this email popped up in my inbox. It was a picture of them in their costume fitting and they were doing, like, gang signs and it just made me laugh. First, it was a picture of them with the hoods completely pulled over and then rolled up, showing their faces. And it really made me so happy to see that after so many years. And then being with them in the RV was just incredible.
Bryan said there are two other scenes, moments where they're not with each other. What can you hint about what's to come there?
I am afraid to say anything. I don't want to ruin anything. But Bryan is telling the truth that there are individual scenes coming up that shed light on the world of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman. That's all I can say.
Revelation: Kim is alive and checked on Jimmy! The fans won't riot. Though the last time we saw her, she had destroyed her life, and as the writers have suggested, a fate worse than death awaits. In the scene when he calls her, there was a problem with the shot. Noisy trucks kept going by when Gene was talking to her. Do you want to tell us exactly what was so upsetting about that call?
[Laughs] Yeah, those trucks, we couldn't control them…. We will learn the details of the phone call; we will know what was said in a future episode. It's just right now we wanted to keep the mystery going of: What is going on in the world of Kim Wexler? You said she's alive, but I don't know. Is she alive? Can you tell from that phone call? He asked for Kim Wexler [laughs] on the end of that line and then heard something that made him slam the phone down and break the glass. So we'll find out in a future episode exactly what words were spoken.
Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television Bob Odenkirk as Gene on 'Better Call Saul'
You'll hate this next question. I won't ask how the sprinkler business in Florida is treating her, but can you say how much Kim there will be in the next two episodes?
I mean, I always love more Kim Wexler, so it was hard to do. I got a lot of ribbing from Rhea Seehorn about, "Why don't you want to work with me? Why am I not in this episode?" We'll see what comes in the future episodes. There's only two left, so hopefully everything will be answered.
When Gene is talking to Francesca, there's a mention of Tigerfish, another Ice Station Zebra reference. Who's on his mind more these days, Kim or Walt? They're both jockeying for space right now.
Kim had been pushed back a little bit when he heard from Francesca that Kim actually asked about him, and maybe there was a glint of — Bob does such a great performance of showing that little puppy-dog [vibe], "She asked about me? What'd she say?" [Laughs] It's so good. And then all that pain comes welling up, so he needs to cover it up with a little bit of — that action he used going after Walter White, which is why we felt now is the right time to cut back and forth between the two time periods to show that he's doing the same thing now that he did back then.
As you said, he needs to medicate with Saul, and now he's scamming hard, right after he told Jeff that they were done. And as Francesca noted, he doesn't necessarily need the money. He's acting out because he's in pain, and he's taking a lot of risks. At the end of the episode, he breaks the window of the target's home, even though he's been warned that the drug might have worn off. Is he trying to get caught on some level because he doesn't want to live this anonymous, sad sack life anymore?
Yeah. Breaking the glass is actually a step beyond what they planned for. The whole point of the scheme was to rip these guys off and not have them even realize they've been ripped off for months later. There's no way to trace: "How did they get my information?" So he is being reckless. With a lot of criminals, when you get away with it for so long and so easily, part of you wonders, "Are they going to catch me? Should they catch me?" Yeah, he's acting out. So I think maybe there's some little part of him that wants to get caught. But I know there's a big part of him that doesn't. So those things are battling.
Gene learns that this last victim has cancer, like Walt. It throws him for a loop for a minute, but he soldiers on. He urges Jeff's friend to finish the job, lies to him about how "You get over it," and when the guy doesn't bite, Gene sets out to finish it. If we're wondering about the possibility of any redemption for Gene, it doesn't seem like he's making a great case for it. How "gone" is he at this point?
Redemption — boy, that's a tricky thing because you look back on the world of Breaking Bad and he's participated in and helped a lot of horrible things happen. So in comparison to the things that he's doing right now — they are a step beyond what Slippin' Jimmy and Jimmy & Kim ever did. He's drugging people. He's knocking them unconscious and stealing their wealth.
Can he be redeemed? It's funny, he's our main character, so you want to root for him. You want him to turn around. Just like with Walter White. I mean, all the horrible things he did, the fans just stuck with it for so long and were on Walter White's side, even through the death of Jane [Krysten Ritter] and all that. It's amazing how you can keep the audience attached to your characters no matter how horrible the things they do. I think there is a glimmer of hope — you want him to change his mind when he hears the guy has cancer, and it looks like he's going to, but then: "He's exactly the same as all the rest of them. Yes, he has a sob story, a horrible thing, he deserves this just as much as anybody else."
Marion [Carol Burnett] is a very sharp woman and notices something going on with Gene out her window. Would you advise viewers not to underestimate her? Is she possibly the one who's going to unravel this whole mystery?
She's very smart. She's going to look out for her boy. And we'll wait and see what happens in the future episodes.
In season 4's "Quite A Ride," Saul reminds Francesca about a phone call to take place on his birthday, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. What percentage of that payoff pay phone scene in Monday's episode did the writers have planned out back in season 4?
Zero percent planned. That [season 4] bit about the phone call was added by Peter after we broke the episode, so we writers didn't know it was coming until the pages were released. Peter thought the scene needed something extra.
Francesca mentions to Gene that Huell [Lavell Crawford] went back to New Orleans, so he did make it out of that hotel room. What options were you considering?
It was weird. I feel like I wanted somebody from the universe to get away and kind of be happy [laughs]. They had set Huell up with the fake photograph and they lied to him about the circumstances, so he felt like the easiest one to be able to walk away from all this. And we touched on Kuby [Bill Burr], who we didn't know — he felt like D-Day [Bruce McGill] at the end of Animal House, he just disappeared without anyone knowing where he went. [Laughs] And then we referenced Ira [Franc Ross]. And we mentioned Danny, who in my head was always Mark Proksch's character, Daniel Wormald, as the guy who ran the laser tag. I always imagined he was going to be the Danny. We just never figured out a way to work it back into the series.
Another mystery solved! Finally, what is your cryptic tease for the second-to-last episode?
It's just further spiral downward of this character. [Laughs] "Descent" is the word I would use.
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