One factor in regards to the brutal world of meth dealing on “Breaking Unhealthy” is that there was by no means any assure a personality would survive. Collection creator/showrunner Vince Gilligan and the writing crew thought of killing off main characters fairly commonly, like famously initially planning on killing Jesse (Aaron Paul) on the finish of season 1 or considering killing Sklyer (Anna Gunn) in season 5. The present would have been very completely different with out Jesse, who’s the true coronary heart and soul of the sequence, so killing him would have been an enormous mistake, and killing Skyler would have simply been pointless. Fortunately, the writing crew made the correct selection in the long run and saved each characters from the chopping block.
Whereas engaged on the ultimate season and getting the large finale all discovered, there was one other character that nearly ended up six toes beneath: Saul Goodman, performed by Bob Odenkirk. Saul is among the present’s finest characters and even bought his personal prequel sequence, “Higher Name Saul,” so killing him off would have had main repercussions. It truthfully would have upset numerous the fandom on prime of impacting “Higher Name Saul,” so it is nice that he was saved, however why did Gilligan even take into consideration killing him within the first place?
In a 2014 interview with Leisure Weekly, Gilligan defined why he virtually killed Saul and determined to pivot to simply killing Walt (Bryan Cranston) as an alternative, and it is fascinating to consider simply how completely different “Breaking Unhealthy” and “Higher Name Saul” might need been.
The Breaking Unhealthy finale virtually killed Saul
The “Breaking Unhealthy” writing crew went forwards and backwards on whether or not or not they wished to exit in a “massacre” or do one thing a bit extra restrained. Gilligan even stated that at one level, “we talked about killing off each main character” in a “‘Wild Bunch’ massacre of an ending.” They finally determined to again off a bit as a result of they realized that regardless that that ending could be dramatic, it would not essentially serve the story. And with Saul, they realized that it would not actually make sense for his character. As Gilligan defined:
“Saul Goodman is type of like a cockroach, within the sense that he is in all probability going to outlive all nuclear wars and he’ll nonetheless be on the market someplace after mankind has grow to be extinct. He is a survivor and due to this fact it would be bizarre if he did not survive. Walter White, then again, bought a loss of life sentence within the first act of the very first episode. It will be lower than satisfying maybe if he did not die on the finish of the entire thing.”
It was completely important that Walt died on the finish of the sequence to finish Walt’s arc, even when the chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-kingpin’s loss of life was the one second that made Gilligan cry. However when it got here to Saul, there have been some fairly massive components in addition to his cockroach-like means to outlive practically something.
No good cause to kill Saul Goodman
Gilligan admitted that whereas the affect killing Saul would have on “Higher Name Saul” was “in all probability an element” of their choice to maintain him alive, the larger drawback was that they simply could not provide you with a extremely good cause or approach to kill him. There simply wasn’t that magical second once they all felt like that they had settled on the right approach to take out Saul that might have that means and be narratively satisfying, so he figured, “Why hassle?”
He additionally identified that their involvement in “Higher Name Saul” did not imply a personality would survive “Breaking Unhealthy,” after all, as Mike (Jonathan Banks) had a significant position within the prequel sequence regardless of being killed off “despatched to Belize” within the killer season 5 episode “Say My Identify.” Characters weave all through “Breaking Unhealthy,” “Higher Name Saul,” and the sequel movie “El Camino,” with fairly a number of dying onscreen in “Breaking Unhealthy” lengthy earlier than showing in “Higher Name Saul.” (For those who’re confused on the timelines, don’t fret, we have got a primer on that.)
I am glad that they did not kill off Saul as a result of it might have solid a gloom over “Higher Name Saul” that might have been arduous to disregard, and that sequence is actually unbelievable. And like Gilligan stated, Saul’s a survivor, a cockroach, the type of man that simply would not go down due to Walter White.