Better Call Saul Showrunner on Series Finale: "We're Very Happy With Where It Ended"

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Better Call Saul's "Waterworks" episode. S'all gone, man. Monday's series finale (titled "Saul Gone") isn't just the end of Better Call Saul: it's the end of the Breaking Bad Universe. Written and directed by showrunner Peter Gould, who co-created the prequel series with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, the episode premiering August 15 on AMC finds fugitive Gene Takovic (Bob Odenkirk) on the run after being made by Marion (Carol Burnett). Gene blew his cover when he broke bad with accomplice cab driver Jeff (Pat Healy) — Marion's son — accidentally giving himself away as Albuquerque conman Saul Goodman (Odenkirk). 

"It's a lot of pressure. It's very scary. A lot of sweaty palms. A lot of sleepless nights," Gould said of the Better Call Saul series finale during AMC's Television Critics Association presentation. "I mean, I think, 'Who are we going to please?' I think we know. I think those of us on the show are very happy with where it ended. I hope everybody else agrees." 

Gould continued, "I think the thing that I'm most proud of is, it's true itself. And we're playing in the same court that we started with, and I think that's an accomplishment." 

Whether Saul is a satisfying conclusion to the Breaking Bad Universe, Gould added, "All we can do is hope." 

Odenkirk and co-star Giancarlo Esposito, who plays drug lord Gus Fring, will remain at AMC in two new original series: Straight Man, starring Odenkirk as a professor at a middling college in rural Pennsylvania, and The Driver, starring Esposito as a delivery driver who finds himself on the slippery slope of descent back into a life of crime. Gilligan will soon pitch a new show that "could not be more different than Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul." (The project, which is set at Sony Pictures TV, has been described as "grounded, blended-genre drama" compared to The Twilight Zone.) 

"You can't keep putting all your money on red 21. I feel like we probably pushed it doing a spinoff to Breaking Bad [but] I could not be more happy with the results," Gilligan said during AMC's virtual TCA panel. "Then I did [Breaking Bad movie] El Camino and I'm very proud of that too. But I think I'm starting to sense you've got to know when to leave the party, you don't want to be the guy with a lampshade on your head." 

Gilligan added: "I don't have any plans right now to do anything more in this universe. I know I probably gave the same answer at the end of Breaking Bad. I gotta prove to myself that I got something else in me. I'm not a one-trick pony, that's what I'm hoping." 

The Better Call Saul series finale, titled "Saul Gone," airs Monday, August 15 on AMC and AMC+.