Better Call Saul: 7 Big Questions About the Series Finale, Answered

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers through the series finale of Better Call Saul, “Saul Gone.”]

There’s so much to be asked, when one of television’s great achievements comes to an end. So the morning after the Better Call Saul series finale aired, co-creator Peter Gould and stars Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn very generously spoke with reporters via Zoom for a press conference that explored so many aspects of the final episode, “Saul Gone.”

Below, Gould, Odenkirk, and Seehorn answer maybe not all, but at least a few of the biggest questions from the end of the season, from the choice to continue filming in black and white, what was cut from the finale, and when the idea to have Jimmy end up in prison first came up (and why that nearly caused problems with another Breaking Bad property).

The Team Never Got Any Pushback Over Going Black and White

From the beginning of Better Call Saul, Jimmy/Saul/Gene’s post-Albuquerque life was filmed without color, but for the bulk of the show’s run this just meant a few scenes a season — it wasn’t until the final stretch of episodes that the producers realized what adhering to that creative choice would mean. “We were a little scared about having so much of the show in black and white,” Gould said. “So for a long time, there was the the idea of getting into Gene’s timeline and then switching into color.”

However, continued Gould, “that really felt wrong, because it’s a little like Wizard of Oz, to go from black and white to color. I think that would have maybe gave the wrong feel to those scenes. So we took the plunge and said, it’s all gonna be black and white. And you know what, we didn’t get a single bit of pushback from the studio or the network, which I think is very impressive, that they allowed us to do so much of the show in black and white. Hopefully, the audience went along with it. I love black and white.”

Were the Final Scenes Difficult to Shoot?

“It was the easiest scene we ever shot,” Odenkirk laughed while asked about the final scenes, in which Jimmy and Kim reconnect, and he wasn’t exactly joking. “It’s really just a lot of feelings from six years of working together and playing these people, and it’s one of the few times that one of them isn’t sort of trying to manipulate the moment… This was deeper than that.”

So, Odenkirk said, “But I do think these are two people who belong together, who are comfortable with each other in a deep way, which is a great thing for a long term relationship. I think that was the easiest scene to play because you could just let go of all the manipulation and wanting something to be different or arguments that they might need to be making. They could just exist next to each other — something they very much like to do.”

Said Seehorn, “It was the last scene we shot, the very last scene we shot of the series and there’s a lot of real circumstances where the Venn diagram of what you’re supposed to be playing overlapped.” And she agreed with Odenkirk that “they are without artifice and without armor and sort of maskless to each other, which is the best part of their relationship — that they were able to be that for each other.”

Seehorn praised how “perfectly written” the scene was, saying that “He tries to make her laugh a little bit, somehow letting her know it’s okay, because he can see that she’s scared for him. It’s such an economic scene — Peter’s so great at not overwriting it and trusting us and trusting the audience.”

Gould confirmed that “I had paired that scene down. There were versions of that scene that I had written where there was a lot more said and a lot more catching up and it just kept getting leaner and leaner as I worked on it because in a weird way, they don’t have to say that much to each other. They’ve come to a conclusion. And so it was, it was shooting. It was incredibly moving.”

There was one tough element to the sequence, though, according to Gould: “The cigarettes were a real difficulty, because both Bob and Rhea were coughing and my eyes were running — I had cigarette smoke down my throat for a couple of days afterwards. It looks so cool. But it’s really not good for you. So thank you, Bob and Rhea for for being willing to smoke.”

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