Breaking Bad Creator Predicts Better Call Saul Will Have the Better Series Finale

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan predicts spinoff series Better Call Saul, which he co-created with showrunner Peter Gould, will have the better series finale when Saul concludes its sixth and final season. Breaking Bad ended after five seasons in 2013, finishing its run with two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and 16 Primetime Emmy Award wins, including Outstanding Drama Series for its final season. For all the widespread acclaim cooked up by Breaking Bad, Gilligan expects the 13-episode sixth season of Saul to outpace the parent series when the part prequel, part sequel spinoff comes to an end in 2021:

"This show is absolutely, under Peter's leadership, gonna stick the landing. It's gonna be awesome," Gilligan told The Hollywood Reporter's TV's Top 5 podcast. "And The Hollywood Reporter, and other wonderful journalistic outlets, are going to be having articles about, 'Which one had the better ending? Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul?' And I'll bet you folks are gonna say Better Call Saul."

After writing and directing the franchise's first straight-to-Netflix feature film — El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, revealing what happened to fugitive Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) after Breaking Bad's series closer "Felina" — Gilligan previously told Entertainment Weekly he expects to move on to something "completely different" and put the Breaking Bad universe to bed after helping finish up Saul, which launches its fifth season next month on AMC.

"I don't have any plans right now to do anything more with the Breaking Bad universe except for helping Peter Gould and the writers finish up Better Call Saul. Having said that, I have surprised myself in the past, clearly," Gilligan said, citing times when he said there would be no more Breaking Bad beyond its series finale. "But I'm starting to think — I used this expression a lot in 2013 — I don't want to overstay my welcome. I hope I haven't at this point."

Better Call Saul follows the misadventures of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), a.k.a. the famously sleezy Saul Goodman, whose bad business associates include secret meth kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). Saul sometimes flashes forward to post-Breaking Bad — after the crooked lawyer became a fugitive for his dealings with Walter 'Heisenberg' White (Bryan Cranston) — but when it ends in Season 6, Gilligan expects to put the franchise to rest.

"It's a tempting thing to overstay your welcome when you're having a good time at the party. Suddenly you look around and you're the last person there with the lampshade on your head and the hosts are waiting for you to get the hell out. I don't want to be that guy," Gilligan said. "I'm really starting to think, 'God, I better see if I got anything else in me here. I'd better see if I can come up with another story.' So no matter what, the next thing I intend to do is something completely different."

"But you never know, 20 years from now, if I'm still working, and everyone still wants it," he added of a possible El Camino sequel, "it'd be interesting to see what Alaska still looks like 10 years later, 15 years later."

Better Call Saul returns to AMC with its fifth season Feb. 23 at 10/9c.