Vince Gilligan Answers Fan Questions (Part I)
In Part I of his chat with the fans, Breaking Bad's creator and executive producer Vince Gilligan explains why Hank discovers Walt's secret when he does and lays odds on the chances of seeing Bryan Cranston in his underwear one last time. Click here to read Part II of the interview.
The scene with Hank on the toilet was wonderfully tongue-in-cheek. Were you worried about people not taking the scene seriously enough, given the weight of the revelations? -- shiggityshwa
A: That's an excellent question. Why on the toilet? We were looking to do a type of scene and a moment of revelation that was unique to the show and that seemed a bit overly-mundane or perhaps even undramatic in its setting. Breaking Bad is known for its moments of high tension and drama and showmanship, and we wanted to end the season in a very different manner. We believe that the moment of revelation, when it finally comes, is so very dramatic that really it could be set anywhere and still have the punch of horror for Hank that it needs to pack.
When you introduced Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass in Season 3, was there a plan that the book could be Walt's undoing? Is this poetic justice for Gale? -- Fulminate
A: [Laughs] I like the idea of Gale's poetic justice from beyond the grave. The writers and I love the idea of revisiting previous moments in the show because we love the idea that all actions have consequences. We know that in our day-to-day lives, but very often in television storytelling characters say things or they do things and a particular episode ends and there's not necessarily much in the way of resonance. On this show, we very much like a character's actions to have repercussions in ways that we identify with in real life. And to that end, we love revisiting these old moments, and Walt Whitman's poetry was something that Gale Boetticher loved. It touched his heart and he wanted to share it with his new friend and mentor Walter White. And unfortunately the sharing of it and Walt keeping this book in hindsight proved to be a bit unwise.
What was the purpose of opening the final scene out by the pool with the same shots, in the same order, as the beginning of "Seven Thirty-Seven"? -- Harmonica
A: This episode is the end of the first half of our final season. So there's a feeling of ending to it, and certainly at the end of this episode, there's an end that we finally reach to Hank's lack of knowledge about who Walt really is. But maybe the most important ending is the resonances of what happened in Episode 7: the end of Mike and also the end of Walt's collaboration with Jesse. And those two endings lead my writers and I to feel somewhat sentimental for better times in the show. There's sort of an elegiac quality to this episode -- Episode 8 contains within it a bit of an elegy for episodes past and to that end, we do have a lot of visual shoutouts and harkenings back, and also some lines of dialogue. For instance, Lydia says to Walt, "We're gonna make a lot of money together," which is something Tuco told Walt way back in the end of Season 1. So there are a lot of moments like that -- little Easter eggs to be gleaned.
What influenced your decision to kill off Mike instead of letting him drive away into obscurity? -- Virginia Young
A: It was definitely a decision that was hard-fought and hard to come to because the writers and I all love the character of Mike, and we also love Jonathan Banks who plays Mike. But on the other hand, Walter White is a very powerful and dangerous man and he's also a very damaged man. And whether he would admit to it or not, he has to flex his power because deep down inside he feels very powerless. I think he has very terrible low self-esteem issues. [Laughs] So it's very important for Walt to get respect and feel respected, and certainly for the last eight episodes and many episodes prior to that, Mike dissed Walt on a regular basis. Walt did not like being zip-cuffed to a radiator. He did not like the idea of Mike deciding to take away his hard-earned methylamine. And going back many episodes before that, he didn't like all the various times Mike has held a gun on him, punched him off a bar stool, dog-kicked him when he was on a bar floor. So all these reasons had built up over the episodes, but they unfortunately come to a head in a moment in which Walt doesn't really need to do what he does. He can let Mike ride off into the sunset.
Although it could be argued that Walt really is in trouble once these ten guys give out all the information they're going to give to the feds. So Mike is leaving Walt and Jesse in a terrible lurch, and if Walt were to get the names from Lydia, and Mike were out there somewhere alive, Mike would probably come back and stop 'em or kill 'em in retaliation. So, as a lot of these moments in Breaking Bad, there's a lot to be chewed over in this moment: Did Walt have to do it? Was it the best play? Or was it an unnecessarily petulant and instinctive moment that he now regrets.
Will we ever see Walter White in his tighty-whities again? -- Lisa
A: Very possibly, but Bryan Cranston is a man who, for just the spare change in your pocket will most likely drop his pants if you ever run across him on the street. So even once the show ends, there's a great possibility of seeing Mr. Cranston in his underpants, even if he's not playing Walter White. [Laughs]
Vince Gilligan Answers Fan Questions (Part II)
In Part II of his interview with the fans, Breaking Bad's creator Vince Gilligan describes the moment he started to dislike Walter White and why the show tends to pick on children.
Walt has been through quite a transformation over 5 seasons. Did you ever imagine him getting this dark back in Season 1? And do you think he's gonna get worse in the season coming? -- Justin
A: It's funny, I always pitched -- and everyone has heard the line ad nauseum -- that the show was going to take Mr. Chips and transform him into Scarface. So implicit within that statement was the idea that this character's going to get very dark indeed. [Laughs] Scarface was a pretty dark character, and if you use Scarface as your template, you kinda gotta know where you're heading. Having said that, I think in many ways Walter White is a darker human being than Scarface right now. So I guess the short answer to the question is that I thought I saw how dark Walt was going to get, and in those earlier days looking back on it now, I don't think I truly did. I think how dark Walt has become has surprised me, and does continue to surprise me. As to whether or not he will continue to get darker still? It's a real possibility, but the best thing to do is wait and see.
When was the turning point for you, meaning from when on did you start to dislike Walt? That is, if you do. -- jzvbb
A: I respect Walt, and I find him very interesting. If I didn't respect him or find him interesting, this would a much harder job than it is. Having said that, Walt is a pretty unpleasant individual, and capable of great unpleasantness. He became really interesting to me way back in the fourth episode of the first season, when instead of accepting his old friend Elliot and Gretchen's offer of help for his cancer treatment, he instead put his family at risk. In that moment, he became very interesting to me in a way that he hadn't before. But when he became actively unlikable? Gosh, that's a harder moment to point out. Oddly enough, poisoning young Brock, as bad as that was, it made sense at least because he needed Jesse on his side -- otherwise his whole family was going to perish. But now, in Season 5, I guess he does terrible things in order just to better his station in life and make himself more money, and that's probably where I have to draw the line.
Vince, why do you hate children so much? It seems like every child on this show commits some kind of crime or suffers a terrible tragedy. -- iconoclast
A: [Laughs] I actually love children. But it seems to me that there should be no victim or class of victim that is completely off-limits on this show, and children definitely have suffered. We don't want to bang it home any more than it needs to, but Walter White has made some terrible choices since we first met him, and he suffers for those choices, but I don't think he suffers half as much as the innocent people around him, starting with his family, starting with his own children, and then moving on to perfect strangers who suffer inadvertently. There's no active plan on our part to make children suffer any more than anyone else on the show [laughs], but definitely all kinds of people suffer on this show.
What is Flynn's favorite breakfast food? -- Phil Rippke
A: Flynn's favorite breakfast food I would think is a toss-up between some form of dry cereal or bacon. Flynn definitely loves his bacon, although definitely not vegetarian bacon -- which tastes, of course, as we all know, like band-aids. Admittedly, you don't keep a tally of how often you've seen Walter, Jr. eat breakfast. And then suddenly you turn around one day and you say, "My God, this kid. All he does is eat breakfast!" So, that amuses me and the other writers as well, greatly. The idea that Flynn or Walter, Jr. -- depending on what mood we're in we'll call him one or the other -- but Flynn's love of breakfast indeed seems to know no bounds.
How do you feel about the series ending? I'm sure all the fans agree with me when I say it is too soon. -- lijustbrokebad
A: Well, I appreciate that sentiment very much, and I myself am very sad at the thought of the series ending. This is lightning in a bottle, and as tough as it is to say goodbye to one another and to say goodbye to the fans and lose this week-in and week-out job that has been the best, most exciting, most satisfying moment in my career thus far -- and may turn out to be the highlight of my career period -- I hate the thought of the show peaking in quality and then going into some sort of long, slow, inexorable slide into mediocrity. I would rather risk going out a little too soon than going out a moment too late. Having said that, I think we've got the right number of episodes at 62 episodes of TV. And I just couldn't feel any luckier than I feel having had the opportunity to do the show and have it work out better than I ever saw it in my wildest dreams.
As always, thank you all for watching and for being so enthusiastic about the show and indeed for keeping us on the air. There were a lot of times there over the years that Breaking Bad could have ended, and the fact that we're still on the air and have gotten this far is testament to all the support and love we've gotten from so many quarters. Anyone reading this on the AMC website in particular is a superfan as far as I'm concerned. God bless you for being so supportive for so many seasons.
at myself for not noticing that sooner
