Breaking Bad is a show filled with character tragedies of all sizes and flavors, but one scene that still bludgeons my brain all these years later is Brock’s poisoning, since that was one of the most unforgivable acts. (If any character actions that go down throughout the 2026 TV schedule even come close, I’ll be surprised.) Brock’s situation specifically led to one of the show’s most dramatic Walt and Jesse scenes, and Bryan Cranston has made the sequence all the more powerful to me with a BTS reveal.

Cranston, somewhat fresh off his 2026 Emmys win for his wild and mostly soundless performance in The Studio’s Season 1 finale, sat with fellow Vince Gilligan alum Rhea Seehorn (of Better Call Saul and Pluribus fame) and Variety to talk about working with one of television’s most celebrated creators. The two Emmy winners addressed the fact that Gilligan (and Saul co-creator Peter Gould) are known for holding off on giving actors scripts for future installments. As one might imagine, that detail brought interesting wrinkles to certain scenes, such as the aforementioned argument.

The scene in question took place in the back half of Season 4’s “End Times,” with Jesse holding Walt at gunpoint while accusing him of poisoning Andrea’s son, which Walt denies with heightened efficiency. Here’s how Cranston described playing out that dialogue without knowing the truth:

That all makes sense as an actor playing a character who, despite much evidence suggesting otherwise, often comes across as somewhat empathetic to those closest to him. But then Walt is also as desperate as characters can be, which also plays into his overtly frightened responses.

Of course, Walt DID poison Brock, so that entire scene is really an exercise in extreme duplicitousness. Which Cranston addressed when he continued, saying:

Gotta love that even Bryan Cranston seemed surprised to learn just how dark his character's actions could be. But did he really believe his own acting in that scene? Maybe so. When Rhea Seehorn asked him if he'd have played that argument any differently knowing the truth, to which he responded with:

Even knowing that Walt was responsible for so much of the horrible sh-t that happened in Breaking Bad, I still probably would have believed him during that exchange, given how hardcore Cranston's acting was. We're all just trusting Jesses deep down, I guess.

The wonders of the Breaking Bad-verse will likely never cease to make themselves known. All episodes can be streamed via Netflix subscription while waiting for Rhea Seehorn's return as Carol in Pluribus Season 2, which will presumably find its way back into our lives in 2027 via Apple TV subscription.

Breaking Bad is my favorite TV show of all time (well, either that or The Wire), and one thing that I've heard from several people is that there are a lot of similarities between it and the 1948 classic, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Now, I had seen the movie before (it's actually one of the best black and white movies you’ll ever watch), but I never really made the connection between the two…until I watched it again recently, and now it's incredibly obvious.

So, here are just a few of the ways that The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is similar to Breaking Bad.

Firstly, Humphrey Bogart Plays The Perfect Morally Gray Protagonist

Of all of the excellent characters in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is obviously the greatest. It all goes to the fact that he's actually the antagonist of the series, but it's really up to the viewer as to when they come to that conclusion (for me, it was when Walt just watched Jane die).

We get a morally gray protagonist in Fred C. Dobbs (played by Humphrey Bogart) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Now, if you don’t know, Bogart actually played a number of gangsters before he played good guys like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, Rick Blaine in Casablanca, and Frank McCloud in Key Largo. So, he always had that bad boy streak in him. However, in Sierra Madre, he’s not an all-out bad guy. Not at first anyway. Similar to Walter White, he’s actually down on his luck, and broke at the start, as he completes a job, only to get stiffed out on the pay.

However, when he and two others uncover gold, you see his slow descent into avarice, and he essentially “breaks bad” and becomes a killer to protect the gold that he’s acquired. He might not poison children like Heisenberg, but he’s definitely not a nice person, either, which makes him one of the best morally gray characters in cinema history. He’s like Heisenberg-lite.

The Open Desert Setting Definitely Reminds Me Of New Mexico In Breaking Bad

Anybody who’s watched Breaking Bad can tell you - New Mexico is a character in itself. The vast desert, the crime coming in over the border, the law enforcement trying to quell the violence, it all just makes Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul feel completely unique like the best westerns often do (and yes, Breaking Bad is essentially a neo-western).

We get that same sense of openness with the Mexican setting in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. We see the vast desert, we get the federales (“Badges? We ain’t got no badges.”), and we get the rugged men who have to deal with this often harsh environment.

In a lot of ways, Breaking Bad’s New Mexico setting almost feels like an extension of the Mexico setting we get in Sierra Madre. I don’t know how I didn’t see this before with the first time I watched it, but I definitely see it now.

The Theme Of Greed Corrupting Completely Is Also Present In This Classic Film

Lastly, the theme of what greed can do to people is prevalent in both the movie and the popular AMC series. In Breaking Bad, Walt probably wouldn’t have gotten in over his head if he wasn’t greedy for the sense of power that being Heisenberg gave him. In the end, this greed destroyed his entire life, as well as his family.

We get that in Sierra Madre as well, as Fred C. Dobbs might have had a better fate if he didn’t let the temptation of gold take over his life. This greed was all-consuming, and it ultimately led to his downfall.

In that way, both the movie and the TV series have a lot in common. If you’ve seen the movie, can you spot any other similarities?

You can rent or buy The Treasure of the Sierra Madre on Amazon

More than a decade after it ended, Breaking Bad isn’t just remembered as part of the peak TV era but still ranks near the top of many “greatest TV shows ever made” lists. The AMC drama turned Bryan Cranston’s Walter White into one of TV’s most unforgettable characters and helped redefine what long-form storytelling on TV could accomplish. But, according to creator Vince Gilligan, when he first pitched the concept, one executive had a brutally honest, and now famously wrong, reaction.

Speaking during a SXSW panel (via The Hollywood Reporter), Gilligan reflected on the earliest days of developing the series. While discussing how the idea first took shape, he revealed that a top executive at Sony Pictures Television once dismissed the concept outright. As Gilligan shared, the exec said:

The moment is particularly funny in hindsight, given how enormously influential the show eventually became. Per Gilligan, the original concept for Breaking Bad was surprisingly simple. While speaking on the panel, he shared that he had once rediscovered an old notepad containing the earliest version of the idea he had written down years earlier.

The entire premise fits into just nine words: “Good guy does something bad to save his family.” That concept eventually evolved into the story audiences now know of a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with cancer who begins cooking methamphetamine to ensure his family’s financial security. Over time, Walter White’s moral compromises spiral into something far darker, transforming him from a sympathetic figure into a ruthless criminal.

Gilligan famously summarized the show’s trajectory as turning “Mr. Chips into Scarface” but, at the time, he was pitching the series, that transformation apparently sounded less like prestige TV and more like a bad idea.

The road to getting the show made wasn’t smooth elsewhere either. Gilligan also recalled pitching the series to HBO, a meeting he has previously described as deeply discouraging. According to the show creator, the executives in the room seemed almost completely uninterested in the concept, radiating what he once called a “toxic gamma radiation of disinterest.”

Eventually, Sony embraced the project, and AMC stepped in as the network that would bring the series to the small screen. The gamble paid off in a massive way. Premiering in 2008, Breaking Bad gradually grew into one of the defining shows of the modern television era. Across five seasons, the series earned critical acclaim for its meticulous writing, moral complexity, and unforgettable performances. Cranston won four Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Walter White, while Aaron Paul also won multiple Emmys for his role as Jesse Pinkman.

The show’s success expanded into a broader Breaking Bad universe, including the acclaimed prequel series Better Call Saul and the follow-up film, El Camino, both available to stream with a Netflix subscription. Considering how BB ultimately turned out, it’s safe to say that what once sounded like “the single worst idea” ended up becoming one of television’s best. Luckily for audiences, Vince Gilligan didn’t let that brutally honest response stop him from moving forward with the idea.

Gilligan's latest great television series, Pluribus, starring Better Call Saul alum Rhea Seehorn, just wrapped up its acclaimed first season and is available to stream with an Apple TV subscription.

Director Vince Gilligan is known for creating some outstanding television, especially Breaking Bad and its spinoff Better Call Saul (both of which are streaming with a Netflix subscription). He's once again brought a new story to the small screen with the apocalyptic series Pluribus, starring Emmy nominee Rhea Seehorn. The pilot episode is one of the best I've ever seen in my life, which is saying a lot because I'm a bona fide television addict at this point. Let's break it all down.

Pluribus has quickly become one of the best Apple original shows, with the entire first season streaming now with an Apple TV subscription. The series was rightfully nominated for a 2026 Golden Globes, and I am still not over just how good the first episode "We Is Us" was... even after finishing all nine episodes.

Pluribus Episode 1 Is Horrifying And Fascinating

Pluribus' first episode premiered on November 7th and introduced us to a very different take on Albuquerque than Gilligan's previous TV shows. We follow alcoholic novelist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), who is left dumbfounded in the midst of a sudden apocalyptic event. Upon returning home from a book tour, she sees a stranger convulsing in a car, before seeing her partner, Helen, suffer the same symptom. It turns out to be affecting the entire city, with Carol being the only one immune.

The tension steadily builds throughout the 58-minute episode, as she attempts in vain to find medical assistance for Helen. Things go from scary to downright creepy when the city's surviving residents stop seizing, and speak and act in perfect unison. Carol returns home with Helen's body, and things get even more bizarre.

The entire episode is a masterful study in pacing and tension, leading me to instantly want to binge-watch the entire Apple series. I think that "We Is Us" is up there with the best pilots of all time, in the way that it instantly gripped me and got me invested in the burgeoning new series. A few other examples of shows that nailed this include the famously expensive Lost pilot, the first episodes of Westworld, The Sopranos, and (of course) Breaking Bad. Hey, Vince Gilligan knows how to get audiences invested in TV projects early into their run.

The entire season of Pluribus is great, but I have to give Episode 1 its flowers for instantly capturing my attention. While it takes a few episodes for certain shows to get good, that is certainly not the case with Pluribus. Especially once it becomes clear that Carol is just one of around twelve people in the world who are immune to the hive mind that's occupying the rest of the planet.

We're getting a second season of Pluribus, and it should be fascinating to see where Vince Gilligan takes the narrative when it returns to Apple TV. By the end of Season 1, Carol agrees to work with fellow survivor Manousos to try and set the world right. But given her strong feelings toward Zosia, smart money says it's going to be a complicated sophomore season.

Pluribus is streaming in its entirety on Apple TV now. Season 2 isn't expected to be part of the 2026 TV schedule, so we might be waiting a while. Now excuse me as I re-watch that pilot episode again.

Pluribus has quickly become one of Apple TV’s best original shows as we follow Rhea Seehorn’s Carol Sturka on her fight to restore humanity after an alien virus turns all but 13 of Earth’s people into a content hive mind. The Season 1 finale saw her finally joining forces with the dog food-eating Manousos — one of the others immune to the Joining — with their timeline on free-thinking running short. So how long will we have to wait for Pluribus Season 2?

Creator Vince Gilligan addressed that question while talking to EW, and I’m not sure this is exactly what fans want to hear. It definitely doesn’t sound like Pluribus Season 2 will make it in time for the 2026 TV schedule, but at least things are moving in the right direction. Gilligan said:

No date has yet been set to begin filming Season 2, and the creative minds behind Pluribus are being careful not to let the show’s popularity pressure them into rushing the writing process.

Executive producer Gordon Smith echoed the showrunner’s sentiments about the long wait that might be ahead, saying:

While I definitely am excited to see more of what Carol and Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) will get up to after his harrowing trip through the Durién Gap and what the future holds for Carol’s relationship with Zosia (and the Others), I’m willing to wait for Vince Gilligan to do his thing and provide another captivating season. (The entire nine-episode first season can be streamed now with an Apple TV subscription.)

Vince Gilligan said he was “amazed” to learn that Pluribus had become Apple TV’s most-watched show, surpassing hits like Severance and Ted Lasso. He said he feels fortunate that people are responding so favorably to the show, but again, that’s not going to help us get to the second season any quicker. Gilligan said:

He said that’s what has always worked best for his team, and after Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, I’m certainly not going to question his method.

Fans of Apple TV shows have become accustomed to long waits between seasons. Severance went three years before its first and second seasons (due in part to the entertainment industry strikes), and we’re probably looking at 2027 before we get Severance Season 3. The Morning Show, similarly, takes two years between seasons. It looks like we can expect the same from Pluribus.

Spoilers below for the Season 1 finale of Pluribus, so be warned if you haven’t yet streamed the episode via Apple TV subscription.

From it earliest scenes, Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus has kept me guessing in ways that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul rarely did, and I wasn’t exactly shocked when Season 1 wrapped without hardcore resolutions for Carol, Manousos or anyone else. When I spoke with Rhea Seehorn ahead of that finale, I knew she couldn’t speak at length about Carol’s post-finale journey ahead of Season 2, so I focused instead on the new and surprising details we learned about the Others from Zosia in these final two episodes.

Gilligan and the rest of the creative team continued to uncork mysterious details about Pluribus’ alien hivemind in “Charm Offensive” and “La Chica o El Mundo,” though it’ll forever be hard for this show to top “a video of John Cena admitting the Others subsist on human corpses.” Carol and Zosia’s expanding relationship, for lack of a better word, was the crux of the eighth episode, as the two bonded through stories and sex, all while Carol added to her list of reasons to be suspicious of them.

When I asked Rhea Seehorn about the Others-related details that she nerded out over the most, her answer was surprisingly identical to what intrigued me the most. In her words:

Bringing over 7 billion minds together obviously would create a system of intelligence and information unlike anything ever witnessed or utilized in real life. (And without all the asshats that make the Internet a swamp.) But even with all of those experiences and brainpower on hand, the Others can't know everything. For instance, if some of the Joining's casualties included each of the people with proprietary knowledge of the recipes for Dr. Pepper or KFC's spice blend, those products might never be produced succsessfully again even if Carol and Manousos do save the world.

In a similar vein, no one within the hivemind can speak to what the world was like in B.C. times, since those eras did not overlap with the Others' time on our planet. Just as none of them can tell Carol what's ever going on inside her head. To the contrary, Zosia makes it clear that they want to know what she's thinking about, particularly when it comes to the author's "Winds of Wycaro" fantasy books. I do love the concept of these aliens geeking out as one over Carol's plotting choices.

It's not just about Zosia and the Others learning new details about Carol's history and her personality that may not have been present in Helen's memory banks. The hivemind is also learning how to adapt to other human behaviors that will no doubt be utilized entirely in attempts to sway Carol to joining their side. That said, it's hard to truly know whether they actually care, or if they're just using curiosity as a means to an end to extract info from Seehorn's character.

The Critics Choice Award-nominated actress spoke to that idea, saying:

The optimist in me would love for Carol, presumably with Manousos' help, to figure out how to bring Zosia out of the hivemind and back to humanity, and that Karolina Wydra's character would not only be appreciative for their efforts, but that she would also still be all in on romancing Carol. Such glass-half-full options are rarely the outcome in Vince Gilligan shows, however, so I should probably expect the worst here.

Other Details That I Was Surprised To Learn About The Others

1. They sleep in mass groups akin to how safety shelters are set up after hurricans and other natural disasters.
2. Despite the aliens' vast wealths of knowledge, Zosia has difficulty adapt to using singular pronouns.
3. Radio signals can possibly be used to recalibrate brains back to human, assuming Manousos' theory is legit.
4. As evidenced by the sensor in Carol's liquor cabinet, the Others still know things about her relationship with Helen that even she's unaware of.
5. Despite not being able to lie directly, they have little issue with hiding duplicitous acts from Carol that tap directly into her fears of joining them, such as getting stem cells from her donated eggs and adapting their techniques.

It's hard to believe that Season 1 is already over, but it's not hard at all to believe that Rhea Seehorn has already secured her first nominations for her stellar work as Pluribus' Carol. She's up for Best Drama Actress at the Critics Choice Awards, which will be telecast on January 4, and she'll then be up for the same award at the Golden Globes on January 11.

Until then, all nine episodes of Pluribus can be streamed on Apple TV.

Spoiler alert! This story discusses Pluribus through Episode 7, “The Gap,” which can be streamed with an Apple TV+ subscription.

Likely one of the more thought-provoking TV premieres of 2025, Pluribus has quickly become one of the best shows to watch on Apple TV+, as it reunites Vince Gilligan with Better Call Saul breakout star Rhea Seehorn. CinemaBlend sat down with Carlos-Manuel Vesga — aka Manousos, who’s in competition with Seehorn’s Carol for the title of most miserable person on Earth — to talk about that dog food scene, and let’s just say I’m not any less nauseous now that I’ve heard what he was really eating.

In Pluribus, Manousos has Carol beat when it comes to stubbornness, refusing to communicate with the Others or accept help of any kind. This leads to him scavenging for food in storage units in the episode “Please, Carol,” and digging into cans of dog food when resources run scarce. CinemaBlend’s Nick Venable just had to know what Carlos-Manuel Vesga what was really eating, and the actor's response didn't disappoint:

My sincerest apologies to those who enjoy haggis, but I’m not sure that sounds much better than canned dog food. Haggis is a pudding of sheep’s organs like hearts, livers and lungs that’s mixed with oats and other spices and cooked either inside an animal’s stomach or an artificial casing.

Carlos-Manuel Vesga was such a good sport, eating more of the haggis than Vince Gilligan required, which may have turned out to be a mistake. The actor said:

Four cans of anything is a lot, but when we’re talking this organ meat in gravy, made to resemble dog food, that is such a commitment to the job. However, the actor insists it really wasn’t as bad as it sounds, continuing:

It turns out that as Manousos becomes a bigger part of the series — particularly in “The Gap,” in which he treks from Paraguay through the Durién Gap en route to Carol in New Mexico — eating all that haggis wasn’t the only sacrifice Carlos-Manuel Vesga made in the name of Pluribus.

Of course the actor wasn’t made to siphon actual gasoline as his character made the trek north through South America. But in this case it wasn’t the liquid substitute that was used, but rather the means of getting it through the tube that is making me a little green. Vesga recalled:

Indeed. Thank goodness they clarified that they had washed their mouth. Otherwise that would have been disgusting (she says sarcastically while gagging a little).

For all of the organ meat and tea being shot from someone else’s mouth, Carlos-Manuel Vesga was possibly more affected by the philosophical challenge offered by Pluribus, as he told us he hadn’t realized how dialogue-free the role was. He auditioned with a scene that wasn’t part of the script, so when he actually read what his part entailed, he was a bit thrown by the role being so physical, as in slight and specific eye movements, etc. He recalled telling the showrunner that, too, saying:

That sounds pretty unnerving, because he wasn't able to get comfortable ahead of time with the specific movements required. He continued:

Spoken like a true professional, that feeling unprepared for a dialogue-free scene would cause more discomfort than eating four cans of haggis — or at least a different kind of discomfort.

Pluribus has gotten off to a strong start, as Apple TV+ recently announced it has become its most-watched original series. It’s definitely earned it, in my opinion, with parallels to be drawn between Rhea Seehorn’s Carol and Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg, the inclusion of one fantastic John Cena cameo and how it inspires questions like, “How does sex with the Others work?”

Be sure to tune in for the final episodes, which drop Fridays on Apple TV+.

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Pluribus’ latest episode via Apple TV subscription, so be warned!

For the bulk of Pluribus’ first season so far, we’ve stuck with Rhea Seehorn’s character as the sole human focus, surrounded as she may often be by the hive-minded Others. But Episode 6, “HDP,” took audiences to Las Vegas to spend some quality time with another final vestige of humanity, Samba Schutte’s advantageous Koumba Diabaté, whose glass-always-full perspective stands in contrast to Carol’s more disagreeable and curmudgeonly ways. Of all the episode’s highlights, perhaps the most unexpected was…[checks notes]...oh yeah, John Cena!

Though it was a cameo from the genuine Doctor of Thugonomics himself, it technically wasn’t “John Cena” that Koumba and Carol watched deliver one of the most hilarious slices of exposition I’ve ever seen. Few things are quite as surreal as watching the WWE legend matter-of-factly explain the necessity of using human corpses for sustenance. That just doesn’t happen on shows like Law & Order or Sesame Street.

Samba Schutte talked to CinemaBlend about his standout episode — hopefully the first of many — and I had to ask how he found out about John Cena’s involvement. Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn’t a last-minute celebrity grab, and was right there on the page. As he put it:

I don't think Carol was swayed by the surreal majesty of having John Cena share one of the most disturbing updates anyone could ever share. But for viewers like me, it was quite the effective treat.

Though Cena's appearance was already locked when Samba Schutte read the episode's script, he hadn't yet filmed it. But don't go thinking he and Rhea Seehorn were performing to an empty screen. As he revealed, there was another very special stand-in "actor" who handled the cannibal explanation.

That's right, Breaking Bad and Pluribus creator (and Better Call Saul co-creator) Vince Gilligan was the first to deliver all of the gnarly details to Carol and Koumba. But was it the real Gilligan, or just the Other version of the TV mastermind? How wild would it be if Gilligan wrote himself into this series as one fo the surviving humans?

If I had to make a Top 10 list of people who could tell me that all of dead people around the planet are being turned into amber-colored life-sustaining fluids, I don't know that I'd argue against Cena dn Gilligan being on the list. I'd also take Al Pacino, the cast of Futurama in-character, and maybe Penn & Teller, but only Teller. And now I'd even add Samba Schutte to that list. The dude just exudes warmth.

It’s been a big year for ol' John Cena. Not only did he get usurped by aliens for Pluribus, but he helped fuck over a racist parallel universe in Peacemaker, helped save the country with Idris Elba in Prime Video’s Head of State, and is in the midst of his WWE retirement tour. I kinda hope the Others continue using him to deliver other icky updates in the future.

Sadly, Pluribus’ first season will be wrapping up before too much longer, with only three episodes left to drop across the next three Fridays. Thankfully, we already know Season 2 is on the way, though whether or not it’ll be part of the 2026 TV schedule is something only the Others know for now. Maybe some other WWE vets have inklings…

Mild spoilers below for the first two episodes of Pluribus for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed them via Apple TV subscription, so be warned!

The most anticipated post-Halloween streaming debut among prestige TV nerds like yours truly (if not the entire 2025 TV schedule), was the latest series from small-screen laureate Vince Gilligan, the inscrutably named Pluribus. The sci-fi-leaning project has kept fans guessing and doing detective work since its conception was announced, and not even the release of the first two episodes has stemmed that need for answers.

As many are aware, Gilligan was the brain behind Breaking Bad and its rise to permanence atop Best-Of lists for the rest of time, and he also co-created one of television’s most beloved and acclaimed spinoffs, Better Call Saul. Both shows are 100% in my own personal Top 10, and I can already foresee a day when Pluribus will join that same list. In part because it’s already doing something that wasn’t entirely possible with the two shows centering on Walter White and Saul Goodman.

Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul, While Often Mysterious, Weren't Impossible To Predict

Such as it goes for projects that are entirely embedded in the real world, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are largely genre stories that tend to allow for a set amount of possible outcomes. Sure, it was pretty impossible to guess with any amount of specificity how much havoc Bryan Cranston's teacher-turned-kingpin would bring to Albuquerque right when audiences were learning about his cancer diagnosis and meeting the rest of the family. But it wouldn't have been stretching to predict a truly epic fall from grace for Walt. Nor to think that he might not make it through the end alive.

Better Call Saul presented even fewer options for its finale endgame with Jimmy/Saul, since it was set up as both a prequel and a sequel to the Emmy-winning flagship drama, with all signs almost immediately pointing to the Cinnabon-managing Gene being brought to justice in one way or another. It wasn't always clear whether or not Rhea Seehorn's Kim Wexler would stick with him, but for those whose first instincts pegged her as being too smart to stick around....well, you know.

To be sure, I'm not voicing any of this through a negative filter, as I don't necessarily need crime dramas to deliver completely left-field storytelling. I love both of these shows regardless of how much they truly surprised me. But that does play into why I'm enjoying Pluribus on a slightly different level.

Pluribus Kicks Off With An Incomprehensible Event, And I Can't Begin To Imagine Where It's Going

I've never cooked amphetamines, and I've never passed the bar exam, but could obviously still find ways to relate to Walt and Saul's stories. On the flip side, Pluribus kicks off with epically tragic and world-shifting event that's so large-scale that it's relatively impossible to realistically wrap one's brain around it. Not even an author of fantastical fiction, Seehorn's Carol Sturka, can immediately grasp what's occurred, despite witnessing signs of it everywhere she looks.

In that first episode, Carol finds herself caught in a global nightmare when nearly every single living person's consciousness has been usurped by extraterrestrial beings that ooze positivity and helpfulness, despite Carol's behavior being entirely antithetical in the immediate aftermath. And understandably so, since her partner is dead, her successful career is meaningless, and she's one of the only people left whose identity is still intact.

Unlike Saul Goodman and Walter White, whose respective fates were always going to be either "dead" or "jailed," Carol doesn't inspire any such tidy predictions. Sure, she could also get killed or get imprisoned, but within this particular narrative, both of those outcomes actually would be fairly surprising. Especially since it doesn't seem like jails are necessary anymore.

Thankfully, Pluribus seems like it was crafted in part to keep audiences guessing from one installment to the next, and it isn't just a random cobbling of events that naturally aren't easy to foretell. But the fact that it's not a limited series, and that there are overall three-season plans, allows for so much story that I can't wrap my head around any of it.

If I absolutely HAD to predict something, though, it would be this: Magnets, bitch!

Pluribus drops new episodes every Friday on Apple TV. Let us know your own predictions, even if they don't center entirely around magnets.

For the past few months, Apple TV has been dropping enigmatic and enticing teasers for Pluribus (stylized Plur1bus) ahead of its debut on the 2025 TV schedule. After watching a handful of these brief videos from Vince Gilligan’s upcoming series and going over all kinds of fan theories, I thought the new full-length trailer would offer more insight into the show starring Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn. Yet, here I am, as confused as ever, trying to make sense of this…

As soon as I finished the trailer, I turned my confusion into motivation to start a quest to find as much information as I could about Pluribus and what the Breaking Bad creator is up to here. Here’s what I found…

What We Know From The Trailer And Description

So, what is Pluribus about? Well, according to the official logline from Apple TV, the series will follow the most miserable person on Earth – Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) – as she is forced to save the world from happiness. The action-packed, dramatic, and darkly humorous Pluribus trailer begins to explain what happens in the show, but without giving away what it’s about. Check it out below:

While everyone is happy, or at least content, Carol spends her days angry, confused, and somehow isolated from the world that seems to be there just to meet her needs. When touching on Pluribus in an interview with EW, Vince Gilligan offered a little more insight into the story than the logline, but not much:

This poses more questions than it answers, but we are left with some key details about the show: Carol is the only person not affected by some wave of happiness, she is tasked with saving the world, and she can have anything and everything she wants (besides answers).

The Scenario Vince Gilligan Set Out To Explore

The idea that would eventually become Pluribus came to Vince Gilligan many years ago when he was taking a break during production of Better Call Saul. In the same EW interview mentioned above, he recalled how walking through a neighborhood triggered a random thought that became the genesis of it all:

This totally sounds like something out of a great Twilight Zone episode, with its world in which everyone is nice and can’t be offended, and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Is This Going To Be A Lost Situation, But With A Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Attitude?

Based on the mysterious teaser trailers and new full-length trailer, I can’t help but think Pluribus is going to be a Lost situation with a Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul attitude. On one hand, you could argue that the upcoming Apple TV series can be taken at face value, and what you see is what you get. However, I can’t help but think there are going to be so many layers to this story that’ll unfold over time.

Combine that mystery and intrigue with Vince Gilligan’s knack for storytelling, well-rounded and intense characters, and a return to the desert landscape of New Mexico, and you have yourself a lot of potential.

The truth is, I don’t know how many questions will be answered when Pluribus starts streaming for anyone with an Apple TV subscription on November 7th. I’ll be there, though.

Given its near-universal acclaim and reputation as an awards darling, to call Breaking Bad my all-time favorite TV show may sound like an obvious choice, but it is the truth. As such, I would follow its creator, Vince Gilligan, anywhere he goes, which is why I am aching to see his next project, Pluribus.

I would not even need to know anything else about this upcoming Apple TV+ series for it to pique my interest, knowing that the Emmy-winning writer and producer is involved. In fact, there is not too much else that anyone knows about Pluribus, but that only makes it more alluring to me. However, let’s focus on what has been revealed about this new show in the following guide.

What Is The Pluribus Premiere Date?

Pluribus is set to premiere on Apple TV+ on November 7, 2025. That is certainly a spot on the 2025 TV premiere schedule to be thankful for, as far as I am concerned.

What Pluribus Is About

As I mentioned at the top of the article, details regarding the story Pluribus will tell remain pretty mysterious at the moment. The most we have received so far in terms of a plot description is that the series follows “the most miserable person in the world,” who is tasked with “saving the world from happiness,” but Vince Gilligan had more to say about it when he told Variety the following:

Those words are, in essence, really no less vague than the logline, but, in all honesty, I both respect and admire Gilligan for managing to maintain this aura of mystery surrounding Pluribus with his comment. That being said, he also told Variety back in October 2023 that he describes the series as “mild science fiction,” adding that the story contains “no crime, and no methamphetamine.” This further illustrates that this is his first project in years to not exist in the Breaking Bad universe, following the prequel spinoff Better Call Saul, which provided Saul Goodman’s (Bob Odenkirk) origin, and the feature-length sequel, El Camino, which provided a fitting end to Jesse Pinkman’s (Aaron Paul) story.

The Pluribus Teasers Have Been Gross And Enticing

Also, effectively keeping Pluribus intriguingly shrouded in mystery is the series’ promotional material. See for yourself by checking out the first official teaser and premiere date announcement clip below. Fair warning: some viewers may find it disgusting, and it has even led CinemaBlend’s Mike Reyes to suspect that there may be a plague afoot in this story:

A couple of days after that unsettling clip of a woman inexplicably licking donuts dropped online, an even more cryptic, second Pluribus teaser was released. It depicts an unbroken shot of a phone receiver that a woman, seen out of focus and watching a White House broadcast on her TV, walks toward with a gold club in hand before nervously reaching for it.

During the clip, three captions also appear that read, “Hello, Carol” (which some YouTube commenters suspect is a reference to Walter White’s neighbor on Breaking Bad), “Call us,” and “No pressure,” before it cuts to a black background with the phone number (202) 808-3981 across the screen. I recommend calling the number to experience what is on the other line for yourself, but I will say that the recorded greeting I hear has me suspecting that, if not a plague, the plot of Pluribus might involve a cult. Hell, it might even involve both topics, which is undoubtedly a concerning combination.

The Pluribus Cast

With how little we still know about the plot of this new series, we cannot tell you much at all about its main characters. So, for now, let’s talk about who has been confirmed to appear in the Pluribus cast and what else you may know them from.

Rhea Seehorn

Leading the Pluribus cast as the woman we supposedly saw in the second teaser, and whose name might be Carol, is Rhea Seehorn in her second collaboration with Vince Gilligan, following her three-time Emmy-nominated role as Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul. She previously had a recurring role on another legal dramedy (Franklin & Bash), a starring role on the short-lived sitcom Whitney, and has since starred in titles like Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Amazon Prime’s Invincible.

Karolina Wydra

Pluribus is Karolina Wydra’s first collaboration with Gilligan, but she is known for a TV show similar to Breaking Bad called Sneaky Pete, in addition to other acclaimed series like True Blood, Justified, Quantico, and, most recently, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. She made her acting debut in Michel Gondry’s 2008 comedy Be Kind Rewind, and her other notable feature-length credits include the beloved rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love, and the cosmic found footage thriller, Europa Report.

Carlos-Manuel Vesga

Carlos-Manuel Vesga made his English-language acting debut with the 2025 movie, The Luckiest Man in America. Some viewers may also recognize him from his role in the Spanish-language Netflix miniseries, The Hijacking of Flight 601, from 2024.

Miriam Shor

Billed as a Pluribus guest star is Miriam Shor, who recently appeared in an Apple TV+ original TV show called Before, but is best known on the small screen in the Younger cast as Diana Trout. She has shown up on the big screen most notably in films like the classic drag movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and the Oscar-winning American Fiction.

Samba Schutte

Also guest-starring on Pluribus is Samba Schutte of Our Flag Means Death fame. He is also known for the short-lived comedy Sunnyside and lending his voice to series like The Legend of Vox Machina and video games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Pluribus Comes From Breaking Bad Creator Vince Gilligan

As previously established, Pluribus comes from the mind of Vince Gilligan, best known as the creator of the Breaking Bad universe. He first came to prominence in Hollywood as a writer for The X-Files, and even created the spinoff series, The Lone Gunmen, which unfortunately lasted just one season. He also wrote films like Home Fries and Hancock and co-created the short-lived cop dramedy Battle Creek for CBS with David Shore.

Also signed on as executive producers for Pluribus are Emmy-nominated Better Call Saul writers Gordon Smith and Alison Tatlock, Diane Mercer (who has produced every installment of the Breaking Bad universe), The L Word: Generation Q producer Allyce Ozarski, and Jeff Frost. Credited as co-executive producers are Saul and El Camino producer Jenn Carroll and Trina Siopy, an actor who has also worked on Saul and served as a co-executive producer on House of the Dragon.

How To Watch Pluribus

Also established early on, Pluribus will be available with an Apple TV+ subscription upon release. However, a Netflix subscription is the most common way to catch up on or revisit Vince Gilligan’s previous creations, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and El Camino – the last of which is exclusive to the platform.

We shall see just how contagious happiness really is when Pluribus premieres.

A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon some teaser art for a new show on the 2025 TV schedule. It didn’t have a title or a synopsis, just a cryptic image, a tagline, and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s previous statement that it'd be "fun and different." There was also a countdown that ended today, revealing another handful of details for the Apple TV+ show we can now call Pluribus. While I’m glad my curiosity and patience have now been compensated, I’m absolutely skeeved out by the “reward” we’ve just received. However, it also gave me a theory...

Seriously, Who Licks Two Whole Boxes Of Donuts…

Pluribus’ odd teaser trailer is very simple, but also incredibly unsettling. I could describe it for you, and I honestly almost did to spare you Apple TV+ subscription holders. Eventually, I decided that if you really want to feel the discomfort of what I’m about to discuss here, you need to see it with your own eyes.

This is coming from me, a person who appreciates the best "sick" movies that deal with such subject matter. So here, without further delay, and a trigger warning for all germaphobes, is that very teaser:

The more I revisit this announcement for Pluribus’ November 7th premiere date, the more details I pick up on. This act of defiling baked goods, accompanied with sinister-sounding music and a sign that says “Help Yourself!” is the definition of a nightmare in a post-lockdown world.

Add on top of that that this setting looks like the lobby of a school, and things begin to look even grimmer. Though on the plus side, Vince Gilligan's past as a writer on the future TV star maker The X-Files definitely looks to be coming in handy right about now. Which returns me to that question I asked earlier, as I believe a person who licks two whole boxes of donuts is a very special type.

…Someone Who Wants To Start A Plague

That’s right, kids! I think Pluribus is an outbreak narrative! What’s more, it reunites Vince Gilligan with Rhea Seehorn, of Better Call Saul fame. One could assume she’s playing the starring role, which sounds like quite a doozy when you read this official description of the series:

Taking into account that the very title means “many,” and is prominently known as being part of the United States’ motto “E Pluribus Unum,” I’d also venture a guess that this might be a domestic threat. At least, for the first season, which only begs to question what sort of nastiness will we see to promote Season 2?!

Perhaps the last piece in this puzzle of mine is that cryptic promo art from earlier this week. Dropped throughout the social media accounts for Breaking Bad, those messages had this same image/caption combo:

So not only are we going to potentially see a plague, but this looks like a pathogen that can inspire a sort of reverse 28 Days Later scenario. Instead of carriers puking up blood and trying to kill their neighbors, Pluribus seems to suggest that they won’t be able to stop smiling at them…or anyone else…ever! Yep...this is definitely something that would come from an alum of the X-Files writers' room, aka "that place where some of the darkest TV episodes have come from."

In a sick sort of way, walking down this path of conspiracy kind of has me quite amped for Pluribus. On the other hand, donuts and any other freely offered food in large gatherings are going to have to wait for my attention. Which only makes the November 7th premiere date even more apt, as Season 1 will be airing on Apple TV+ through December 26th - the holiday corridor known as cold and flu season!

Better Call Saul is a (law school) textbook example of a TV spinoff that matches its predecessor in terms of quality storytelling, and it helped turn Mr. Show icon Bob Odenkirk into a dramatic powerhorse. But as it often goes with incredibly amazing television standouts, an ill-sighted network note nearly clipped the actor’s Saul Goodman character from existence before he could bring his signature sleaze to some of Breaking Bad’s best episodes.

Better Call Saul co-creator and esteemed Breaking Bad writer Peter Gould dropped this gobsmacking nugget of info in the impending BTS extravaganza Saul Goodman V. Jimmy McGill: The Critical Companion to Better Call Saul (via EW), penned by Alan Sepinwall and out on February 4, 2025. The Emmy winner dug into the origins of the flagship drama’s Season 2 episode “Better Call Saul,” by first admitting that when Season 2 was being crafted, he wasn’t entirely sure what the tone was, and defaulted to creator Vince Gilligan for guidance.

The basic idea was that Bryan Cranston’s Walter White needed a lawyer, and the writers initially went a little overboard in the conception phase for that character that eventually became Saul. As Gould put it:

As a kid, the idea of a pneumatic tube connections was the stuff of dreams, so I would have been down with that idea all the way. But I digress.

Continuing his explanation, Peter Gould said that as opposed to being conceived as a standalone character with the potential to expand this crime drama saga, Saul Goodman was just meant to be a means to an end for Walt's story, albeit a means that was more amusing than perhaps expected. Which sparked some nervousness when it came to how the shyster would properly fit into the deadly serious story. And as Gould put it, those nerves were fully justified.

You gotta love a higher-up boss who can look at something and, probably without making an attempt to grasp how much work went into it, ask if it could be done all over again from top to bottom. Wait, did I say "love?" I meant "rage out against."

Thankfully, Vince Gilligan made the decision to speak up in defense of the colorful attorney, making it possible for Better Call Saul's A+ episodes to exist and entertain in perpetuity. According to Gould:

And here I thought the wildest change-in-decision behind the scenes of Breaking Bad (at least ones concerning Bob Odenkirk's character) might have been flipping Saul from having a Hot Topic job to working at Cinnabon. But this is on a whole other level of "What the hell was that one person thinking?"

All episodes of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are available to stream with an AMC+ subscription, and if there’s ever a point when it looks like BCS doesn’t exist anymore, that’s how you’ll know you unwittingly slipped into that alternate universe where AMC execs got their way. Good luck getting home!

I have a confession to make. Amidst my dislike for green beans and custard (a tragedy given my St Louis home base), I also didn’t love one of the proclaimed peak TV greats: Breaking Bad. In fact, my husband and I got through more than a season of slogging through the well-acted, well-scripted, and highly lauded drama series before I gave up and called it quits. I don’t regret it for a second.

I didn’t quit Breaking Bad because I thought it was rubbish. I didn’t quit because life got too busy; life is always busy and I’ve still had time to binge-watch a decade’s worth of Masterchef. I didn’t quit because I have a grudge against Bryan Cranston or Vince Gilligan or because I liked Dean Norris better in Under the Dome. (Sidebar: I did not like Dean Norris better in Under the Dome, though the first season is solid.)

I didn’t quit because at the time of Breaking Bad’s airing, particularly near the end, the Albuquerque-set series was all my co-workers could talk about. Though it is worth pointing out that Breaking Bad was a huge talking point for CinemaBlend back in 2013 when I was a freelancer at this esteemed website.

I quit because I found it dark, graphic and depressing. Much like Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, it was keeping me up all night on the nights I managed to get through an episode or two. I could watch an episode at 4 p.m. and still be stressed about it at 1 a.m. It had nothing to do with the memorable characters or the solid writing; I simply could not abide living adjacent to this world created by Vince Gilligan.

I can’t be the only person in the history of the universe who simply found Breaking Bad to be too stressful to manage, but I have yet to find another person willing to admit this. All of the reasons above are reasons Breaking Bad is often listed as one of the best TV shows and (among the best TV shows that got even more popular streaming). In fact, there are so many people who like the Bryan Cranston-led drama there are literal resources to help viewers find shows like Breaking Bad.

My co-workers have since told me that Better Call Saul might be a better fit tonally for me, and they are probably right. Bob Odenkirk’s a funny guy in real life and Saul has been branded by us as a TV series that’s “easy to dive into.” I even recently found out Saul was originally supposed to work at a Hot Topic, a prospect I find very amusing. But I had so much trouble sleeping with Breaking Bad, I haven’t been willing to give Saul Goodman’s tale the proper reverence, either. Maybe my Gilligan-less streak will change when his new show with Rhea Seehorn drops?

Listen, as someone who works on the Internet, I am inherently aware I missed out on a lot of cultural milestones and a piece of peak TV history by ducking out when I did. I know because TV moments like Heisenberg throwing a pizza onto the roof were everywhere. But for me, there’s just stuff I wanted to do that didn’t include well-written stories about a teacher-turned-crime lord and the chances he was willing to take when he felt like he had nothing to lose.

I know I write about TV for a living, but the occasional gap is necessary given how much content is being created these days, and we have a lot of wonderful employees who could wax poetic about which episodes are the best (and worse) and which Gilligan series sticks with them more. It's just not me.

And in case you are wondering… No, I haven’t been able to finish Sons of Anarchy either.

After crafting two of the most prestigious shows ever to hit the airwaves, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, what's next for Vince Gilligan? Well, he's not dwelling on the past. The mastermind behind these groundbreaking AMC series is diving into a thrilling new venture, teaming up again with former Saul collaborator Rhea Seehorn. Breaking the silence surrounding the highly anticipated Apple TV+ series, the writer and showrunner finally gave us some tantalizing hints about the project. But, if you were expecting another crime drama in line with his previous works, you might be in for a surprise. The new, still untitled, show doesn't delve into crime or drugs, yet it still sounds incredible, and I can not wait.

It's been over a year since Vince bid farewell to his cherished Albuquerque-based franchise for the second time with the ending of Better Call Saul. The creator is gearing up for something a bit off the beaten path: sci-fi. In a recent chat with Variety, Gilligan gave a sneak peek into his upcoming show featuring the acclaimed Kim Wexler actress in what might seem like a surprising change of genre for the pair, stating:

Venturing into science fiction, whether mild or not, may seem like a significant shift for the creator of two of the most prominent crime shows of the 2010s. However, it's not as outlandish as it might appear. Vince Gilligan's journey in the industry began with a role in the widely popular science fiction drama series The X-Files. Vince, who credits the creator of The X-Files for teaching him some invaluable lessons in running a show, started on the show as a staff writer during season 2 of the enduring cult classic and remained involved until its initial conclusion in 2002.

The announcement of Gilligan and Seehorn's collaboration came in September 2022, with Apple TV+ swiftly giving it the green light for an impressive two-season run. Despite the series sharing the Albuquerque setting with his other works, the Virginia-born writer assures that Rhea's character will be a departure from her previous role as Kim Wexler. According to him:

Seehorn, concluding her stellar six-season run as Kim Wexler last year, earned acclaim and two Emmy nominations for her portrayal. As fans eagerly anticipate her return to the small screen, the promise of a fresh and uncharted narrative with Gilligan steering the ship has heightened my anticipation for the series.

As we wait for more details about the project, which will be able to be viewed with an Apple TV+ subscription,  to emerge, viewers can relive Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul with their Netflix plan. For those inclined to rewatch, explore various viewing orders for both shows. If you've had your fill, consider trying shows similar to Breaking Bad.

Is it the end of the line for Breaking Bad? It’s been over a year since Vince Gilligan put the franchise to rest for the second time with the ending of Better Call Saul. As the TV show creator is currently getting ready to start production on an original sci-fi series for Apple TV+ that is void of methamphetamine and crime, he shared his thoughts on whether he thinks he would return to the world he started with Walter White. His answer has me hoping it doesn’t happen. 

While reflecting with Variety on the 10th anniversary of the Breaking Bad finale, Vince Gilligan was asked whether he believes he has said goodbye to the franchise “forever.” Here’s how he answered: 

It sounds like if Gilligan could have his way completely, he would never look back on the Breaking Bad franchise because he’s said what he wanted to say through both series. However, he shared one caveat. If his next couple projects completely flop and he finds a way back into Walter White’s world, he’s willing to open the door again. 

Gilligan sounds caught between loving the universe he created with Breaking Bad, and not wanting to overstay its welcome on TV screens even knowing how popular and powerful it is. The TV creator has been entrenched in telling the Breaking Bad story since 2007, bringing five seasons of the initial show starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul before lightning struck a second time with the success of prequel series Better Call Saul, which bowed out after six seasons. Gilligan also had this to say: 

It’s a fair answer, because who knows? Perhaps Vince Gilligan will figure out a really great new storyline from Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul and blow our minds years from now. However, I’m inclined to be content with the two incredible TV shows we’ve been given and hope Gilligan doesn’t simply go back to it out of boredom or peer pressure. I'd love to see him put his talents into his new original ideas and for them to pay off. 

Both series are so well made and I’d hate for more to come from the franchise and downgrade the quality Vince Gilligan has set up for what we’ve seen before. For the time being, Gilligan is placing his focus on a mysterious Apple TV+ sci-fi show, which has already received a two-season order. Gilligan shared he is planning to get started with production on the show this winter in New Mexico. 

In the meantime, you can watch both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul with a Netflix subscription. If you’re looking to rewatch it, check out the different orders you can watch both shows and if you've had your fill, here are some shows like Breaking Bad to try next.

Updated with video.

Breaking Bad continues to be the type of show that just keeps on giving. Years after the show went off the air, finally answering who would live and who would die thanks to Walter White’s criminal escapades, fans still debate several key aspects of the program. There have been attempts to try and expand on the legacy of Breaking Bad, from the Netflix original movie El Camino to the award-winning Better Call Saul. (Just don’t ask us which show is better, because that’s too hard.) But there remain so many questions about Breaking Bad that we still have to this day, including this significant one about Walter, Hank, and the book left on the toilet tank.

Needless to say, there are massive spoilers for Breaking Bad in the remainder of this article, so stop reading now if you haven’t yet watched the show. 

There’s a pivotal moment in the final season of Breaking Bad when Walter’s brother-in-law, DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), stumbles on a book of poetry that has been inscribed to “W.W.” And in the moment, Hank calculates all of the clues to realize that Walter is the Heisenberg he has been chasing all these years. It’s not one of the best Breaking Bad episodes, but it’s an unforgettable moment. 

But given how calculating Walter (Bryan Cranston) has been at every step of his criminal career, is it fair to believe that he would leave such an incriminating piece of evidence lying around… on the toilet? This certainly felt, to me, like something Walter would have destroyed as quickly as possible. And it felt that way to an attendee at a 2014 panel held on behalf of the show, where Cranston and show creator Vince Gilligan took questions from the audience, and one man asked why Walter let that book be found. Gilligan admits that this plot point is one that the show’s writers continue to argue about to this day. But his reasoning for Walter’s crucial mistake goes something like this:

So Vince Gilligan chalks it up as a mistake made by a brilliant drug-running chemist who’d let his attention slip because he was out of the game. Very possible. If you watch all of Breaking Bad in order, you will find plenty of examples of Walter making a huge mistake, or being lucky (and getting out of jams because of that luck). But how does Bryan Cranston feel about Walter’s slip up? The show’s lead told the panel:

Can you imagine anyone else needing to weigh in? Both Cranston and Gilligan believe that Walter White dropped his guard, leading to one of the best scenes in the entire series:

For now, it seems like the Breaking Bad story is over (unless you count that embarrassing Super Bowl commercial that Cranston and Aaron Paul did). What burning questions do you still have about Breaking Bad, all these many years later? 

TV fans will forever owe a debt of gratitude to Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, as they are the principal filmmakers who brought us what is not just one of the greatest small screen crime franchises, but two series that are unquestionably among the greatest shows of all time: Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman and Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill are just three of the best Breaking Bad characters in the complex, scary, and intense world of crime in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the storytelling is brilliant. One can highlight the best episodes of Breaking Bad and the best episodes of Better Call Saul, but it’s really the full breadth of the canon that is truly special – especially when you also bring the fantastic feature-length film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie into the mix.

Following the end of Better Call Saul in 2022, one could start looking for other shows like Breaking Bad… but why not instead try and enjoy the full scope of the incredible crime drama with a new perspective that you may not have previously experienced? With three separate titles and some timeline jumping in the stories, there are multiple ways to enjoy the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul/El Camino continuity, and we’ve put together this feature in aid of helping you learn about how to do just that. 

If You’ve Never Seen Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Before

Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul/El Camino spent years earning hype and acclaim from professional critics and casual TV watchers alike… but are you only now finally getting around to watching them? If the answer to that question is “yes,” then your focus should be on watching the series and the film in the same order in which they were originally released. There’s no need to get fancy just yet – simply watch the series and film in release order.

If You’ve Seen Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Before

If you’ve already seen Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul/El Camino, then you know that the timeline is a bit more complicated than your average TV crime franchise. While El Camino is a kind of spin-off sequel movie, Better Call Saul is a spin-off prequel and sequel that fills in some gaps both before and after the story in Breaking Bad. The good news is that it’s never complicated enough to screw up clarity, and it means that fans can try and get a new angle on the canon by doing a chronological viewing. You might be surprised, but there’s a lot to get out of it.  

Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul In Order: By Release Date

Watching the Breaking Bad franchise in order is pretty straightforward… but there is one hitch that necessitates explanation. As noted earlier, Breaking Bad launched the canon in 2008, and it was followed by the prequel series Better Call Saul in 2015… but you shouldn’t jump right from one to the other. While El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie wasn’t released until October 2019 (between Better Call Saul’s fourth and fifth seasons), you shouldn’t hold off on watching the film until you are deep into the second show. Instead, it should be what you watch after the Breaking Bad finale, making this the proper watch order:

• Breaking Bad (Seasons 1-5) – Aired January 20, 2008 – September 29, 2013
• El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie – Premiered October 11, 2019
• Better Call Saul (Seasons 1-6) – Aired February 8, 2015 – August 15, 2022

Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul In Order: Chronologically

Sadly, Breaking Bad franchise fans will never get the opportunity to experience the canon with perfectly fresh eyes ever again – with memories of the most shocking and incredible twists and turns being impossible to forget – but at the very least one can change things up with a chronological rewatch. As noted earlier, non-linear events in various episodes don’t allow this viewing experience to be perfect, but it’s a fun way to mix things up.

Better Call Saul (Season 1, Episode 1 to Season 6, Episode 9)

Witness the brilliant rise of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk): an ever-hustling hustler who tries to go straight by becoming a defense attorney serving the good people of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He gets love and support from some, including brilliant colleague Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), but he is also repeatedly scorned trying to earn the respect of his professional, albeit mentally ill, older brother (Michael McKean). 

He takes a shot at an honest life, but Jimmy is also never one to ignore a semi-legal opportunity and/or shortcut, and his journey becomes the story of a man’s moral downfall as he transforms into criminal lawyer Saul Goodman. This arc is mapped through the first episode of the first season (“Uno”) through the ninth episode of the sixth season (“Fun And Games”).

Breaking Bad (Season 1, Episode 1 to Season 5, Episode 16)

Picking up about three years after where the action ends in Better Call Saul’s “Fun And Games,” the Breaking Bad pilot introduces audiences to Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher who learns that he has only months to live after a lung cancer diagnosis. Claiming to not want to leave his family with the financial burden that would come as a result of his treatment, Walter decides to team up with a former student and drug dealer named Jessie Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to cook and sell the highest quality methamphetamine that the world has ever seen. Within two years they are able to build an empire – but not without remarkable cost.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Jesse Pinkman’s fate is left mostly ambiguous in the Breaking Bad series finale, “Felina,” but the confusion is cleared up in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. The story is set in the immediate aftermath of the hit show, and it chronicles what happens to the (literally) tortured protagonist after he manages to survive his partnership with Walter White. The Netflix film provides a satisfying conclusion to the character’s tale as he attempts to escape Albuquerque and forge a new life for himself with a new identity.

Better Call Saul (Season 6, Episode 10 to Season 6, Episode 13)

Speaking of new identities, the final four episodes making up the Better Call Saul ending center on Jimmy McGill in his post-Saul Goodman life, living in Omaha, Nebraska under the alias, Gene Takavic. Taking place a couple months after the events El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, the final arc of the show sees the former lawyer taking one last crack at setting up a criminal enterprise and ultimately facing the consequences for his life of misdeeds.

As they have been for years, Breaking Bad, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, and Better Call Saul are all available to stream with a Netflix subscription and the entire canon is also available for purchase on Blu-ray or from digital retailers. Once you finish watching/rewatching, you can check in on the latest work of Breaking Bad’s principal stars.

Warning: This story contains massive spoilers for the series finale of Better Call Saul, “Saul Gone,” so read at your own risk. 

Fans had plenty of questions going into the final season of AMC’s Better Call Saul. What would become of Nacho Varga? How would the war between Gus Fring and Lalo Salamanca get resolved? And would Gene Takavic find some kind of redemption in the post-Breaking Bad timeline? But seemingly above all else, fans were particularly eager to learn the fate of Kim Wexler. Thankfully, the lawyer-turned-sprinkler company employee survived, and series co-creator Vince Gilligan has provided an A+ update on her post-finale future that should soothe any fan concerns. 

On the show’s penultimate episode, “Waterworks,” Kim – portrayed by the skillful Rhea Seehorn – was revealed to be living in Florida in the post-Breaking Bad era. Having long forsaken her aspirations as a lawyer, Wexler worked a desk job at Palm Coast Sprinkler and lived a quiet life in the suburbs. Her new life also included a boyfriend, Glenn, who offered her his take on mayonnaise vs. Miracle Whip (along with seemingly lackluster sex). All in all, our favorite lawyer and public defender was living a pretty dull existence – which was only further emphasized by the black-and-white palette BCS used for the “Gene timeline.”

But things started looking up for her near the end of the series, and those changes will apparently have a massive impact on the character following the events of the series. In an interview, Vince Gilligan explained that Kim Wexler is well on her way to building a new life. And there may not be room for a certain someone as she goes down that path: 

The comments that the producer shared with The New Yorker are sure to be music to fans’ ears. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with Kim dropping Glenn as she slowly steps back into the legal profession. I’m not sure the well-meaning “chap” would really fit into Kim’s world if she does ever become a full-fledged attorney again. And let’s be honest, does Kim really deserve a guy who simply says “Yep, yep, yep, yep,” while making love?

Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould gave Kim Wexler one of the most complex arcs on the entire show, and she’s easily one of the best characters from either Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad. I’m just glad Kim didn’t have to die for Rhea Seehorn to get some Emmy love. The actress is currently one of the many 2022 Emmy nominees, having scored a nod for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. And she could land another nomination next year, thanks to the second batch of Season 6 episodes. 

Like so many of us, Rhea Seehorn, had been nervous about Kim’s fate, so she was likely relieved to learn of her fate in the series finale. After hearing Vince Gilligan’s update, I’d love to see Seehorn reprise the role and lead her own show. Gilligan has no plans for spinoffs at the moment so, for now, I’ll (gladly) settle for the relatively happy ending he gave Kim here.

Better Call Saul’s first five seasons are now available to stream with a Netflix subscription. Those who are in need of a new show to watch now that it’s finished its run can check out CinemaBlend’s 2022 TV schedule for some options.

When Breaking Bad aired its series finale in 2013 after five intense seasons on AMC, fans were sustained by the promise of a Saul Goodman spinoff. We were thrilled to be getting more content from this universe, and with the bar set so incredibly high, nobody could have expected Better Call Saul to be as good as, or possibly better than, Breaking Bad. So in the days leading up to the prequel’s final episode, you certainly can’t blame fans for questioning if there’s an opportunity for a Saul spinoff featuring one of its characters, and given co-creator Vince Gilligan’s blunt response, it’s obvious he’s given it some thought too.

Better Call Saul — the prequel starring Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill-turned-Saul Goodman-turned-Gene Takavic — is set wrap its six-season run on Monday, August 15, with an episode forebodingly titled “Saul Gone.” Vince Gilligan shared his thoughts with Rolling Stone about whether he could or should continue the narrative he’s been working on for over a decade. He said: 

This world that Vince Gilligan created is clearly one he cares a lot about, and it’s exciting that there is a part of him that would love to continue to tell its stories. However, it seems he’s questioning how much is too much? At some point, you just have to let the end be the end, particularly for this type of universe. Gilligan continued: 

With the creative genius that Vince Gillian and his team have brought to the AMC dramas, whatever “something new” he moves on to, he’s guaranteed a built-in fanbase. It furthermore seems unlikely that he’d fail at all of his future endeavors, forcing him to come crawling back to the deserts of New Mexico (or wherever the next installment would take us). However, with some of TV’s best characters coming from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, it’s always good to know that the creative potential is there if Gilligan ever one day chooses to return to it. 

Albuquerque may not be the multiverse, but fans were treated to a guest appearances from Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, respectively, in Season 6 of the prequel series. Cranston has opened up about returning for Saul and specifically detailed the massive amount of secrecy surrounding his and Paul's roles. He also joked that former co-star Bob Odenkirk had changed since stepping into the lead of his own series.

We’ll have to see what else Vince Gilligan has up his sleeve for the series finale, which is set for 9 p.m. ET Monday, August 15, on AMC. In the meantime, catch up on the best episodes of Better Call Saul so far, with the first five seasons available for streaming with a Netflix subscription.

Better Call Saul fans have been anxiously awaiting the final season of the acclaimed show and, now, at long last, it’s nearly here. Development and production on Season 6 was challenging, especially since it was marred by COVID-related delays. But filming was also marked by a particularly scary situation last summer when lead actor Bob Odenkirk was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack on set. Odenkirk has since recovered and, in the time since the incident, more details on the ordeal have been divulged. Tidbits about the scene the actor was filming have now come from the show’s co-creator and executive producer, Vince Gilligan. 

Both Better Call Saul and its predecessor, Breaking Bad, contain some very intense scenes, which could be tough for the stars to act out. Vince Gilligan has sat in the director’s chair for a number of those installments (and has churned out some amazing TV, in the process). When Deadline asked him and co-producer Peter Gould about Bob Odenkirk’s on-set heart attack at the BCS Season 6 premiere, Gilligan revealed that he was directing at the time and that the sequence was difficult to go back to after the medical emergency:

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m very intrigued. Given the ambitious nature of the drama series, it’s not too surprising that such a moment would be tricky to jump back into. It sounds like Vince Gilligan and co. were able to get things finished with no problem, though. One would imagine they were happy to get it done – and even more pleased that the leading man was doing well and back on set to perform it.

There was a massive outpouring of support from fans and celebrities after Bob Odenkirk’s on-set collapse. Breaking Bad alum Bryan Cranston was one of the many who sent well wishes. Odenkirk also received praise from the executive team at AMC amid the situation. A few days after the heart attack, the star eventually provided an optimistic update on his condition. Months later, he’d celebrate his return to the set of the show, which continued filming Saul Goodman-less scenes in his absence. 

Just a few weeks ago, the Nobody star opened up about the wild day. He recalled someone quickly giving him CPR until the ambulance arrived. During his recollection, he also expressed more gratitude for the support he received. The star doesn’t believe he deserves the kind sentiments but hopes he can show that he’s “worthy of” it. 

One thing he absolutely doesn’t have to prove he’s worthy of, however, is the praise he’s received for his work on Better Call Saul. Alongside Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, Bob Odenkirk has crafted one of the greatest television characters of all time. It’s unclear as to how the final season will play out but, with everything the group has experienced, they’ve definitely earned the right to relish this moment. And I’m sure the scene they were filming when Odenkirk had the heart attack will be yet another great moment for the show.

Better Call Saul makes its return to AMC for its sixth and final season on Monday, April 18th at 9 p.m. ET. It’s one of the many returning shows on CinemaBlend’s 2022 TV schedule.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie provided longtime fans of the franchise with plenty of closure when it came to the story of Jesse Pinkman. The film was still bittersweet, as it could make the last time we see the beloved character, unless he manages to make that long-awaited appearance on Better Call Saul. Still, fans will be able to preserve their last outing with Pinkman through the film’s release on DVD and Blu-ray. Those who pick up the film will also be treated to never-before-seen extras, including a stroll down memory lane with Aaron Paul and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.

Aaron Paul and Vince Gilligan are two of the biggest reasons that Jesse Pinkman has become one of the most iconic characters in television history. So it’s only appropriate that the two took some time to reflect on how Breaking Bad molded him into the hardened character we see in AMC and Netflix’s film. And we just happen to have an exclusive clip in which they give some of their thoughts on Jesse’s evolution. Check it out down below:

If there’s one thing Vince Gilligan has proved with Breaking Bad (and Better Call Saul) it's that he knows how to develop his characters, and this was definitely the case for Jesse. As Gilligan stated in the clip, Jesse began as a young slacker with no true direction but, by the series’ end, he grew up immensely. This was in part due to the influence of his chemistry teacher-turned-drug partner Walter White, for better and for worse.

Of course, Gilligan is just as good as putting characters through harrowing situations, and Jesse is among one of the Breaking Bad characters to suffer the most during the show’s run. Aaron Paul pointed out some of the most tragic moments in Jesse’s story, which are actually some of the show’s most powerful. I’m sure plenty of us still remember how rough it was to see both Jane and Andrea’s deaths. And I don’t know about you all, but it still hurts me to see Jesse held in captivity by Jack’s gang.

This pain and suffering, however, helped to create what is easily one of the best character arcs in all of television. Gilligan and his writers more than succeeded in mining the humanity from Jesse, and Paul’s affecting performance only improved as the seasons progressed. It’s sometimes hard to believe the actor went from nearly being a one-season character to become a three-time Emmy winner. But I, for one, am glad that things panned out the way they did and that both Paul and Gilligan can talk about it now.

Their discussion on Jesse’s story is only one of several excellent features that are included on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of El Camino. Both include Making El Camino, a behind-the-scenes documentary that includes never-before-seen interviews with the cast and crew. There’s also a Super Commentary, an audio commentary which features 46 members of the cast and crew. The releases also contain Snow Globe: A Breaking Bad Short, the Skinny Pete in the Box and On the Radio teasers, the Rocker Salvage Vamonos Pest commercials, the music video for ChloexHalle’s “Enchanted” and visual effects design galleries.

The Blu-ray edition of the film contains even more Breaking Bad goodness, including an audio commentary solely featuring Vince Gilligan and Aaron Paul, deleted and extended scenes, a gag reel and Scene Studios with Vince Gilligan.

The story of Jesse Pinkman may be over, but it’s a ride that none of us likely regret taking and are sure to remember it for years to come.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is now available to own on DVD or Blu-ray, or you can own both with the special edition steelbook. And be sure to keep it here at CinemaBlend for more news from the world of TV and movies.

Better Call Saul is remarkable television. Though it is both a spin-off and a prequel to the legendary Breaking Bad, it also happens to be a show that does an amazing job standing independently – creating riveting and entertaining characters and arcs that have nothing to do with the Bryan Cranston/Aaron Paul series. It’s downright impressive how incredible it is when it’s operating autonomously.

But at the same time, it’s non-stop fun for Breaking Bad fans who are given the opportunity to regularly catch callbacks and references that feel rewarding for those paying attention.

These details range from minor Easter eggs, to answered questions, to full blown set-ups, and we recently went back through all five seasons of Better Call Saul to hunt for them all. Compiling them in a list, we then selected the 15 we consider the cream of the crop and highlighted them for your enjoyment below:

A Cinnabon Manager In Nebraska (Season 1, "Uno")

Better Call Saul gave fans a chance to smile a knowing grin within the first few seconds of its airing, as the very first moment of the pilot constitutes a callback to its predecessor. In Breaking Bad’s penultimate episode, Saul (Bob Odenkirk) tells Walter White (Bryan Cranston) that the best case scenario for him is that he winds up working as a manager at a Cinnabon during his new life in Omaha, Nebraska, and the flash-forward that kicks off the series premiere features him employed in that very job.

Pretending To Be Kevin Costner (Season 1, "Marco")

Throughout Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman regularly proved himself as a consummate liar, and thus it wasn’t always easy to tell when he was telling the truth. One such moment is featured in Season 3’s “Abiquiu” when Saul tells Walter that he once convinced a woman that he was Kevin Costner. In Better Call Saul’s Season 1 finale, it’s shown that this was no fib, as a montage of con artistry ends with Jimmy McGill waking to a woman in his face yelling at him for not being the star of Bull Durham. (Bonus callback: Jimmy also tries to sell Rhea Seehorn's Kim on his physical similarity to Costner while imagining a grift in Season 3’s “Expenses,” though she doesn’t buy it at all.)

The Return Of Ken Wins (Season 2, "Switch")

Karma has a way of catching up with Ken Wins, the asshole stockbroker played by Kyle Bornheimer in the Breaking Bad universe, and it uses protagonists of both the sister AMC shows as agents. He first appears in Breaking Bad Season 1’s “Cancer Man,” where Walt successfully blows up his car with a windshield squeegee at a gas station, but Jimmy and Kim Wexler go the extra mile screwing him over in the Better Call Saul Season 2 premiere by conning him and leaving him with an exorbitant bar bill. What’s extra awesome is that the grifter duo drives up the tab by ordering an entire bottle of the ultra-expensive Zafiro Añejo Tequila, which is the same brand that Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) uses to poison Don Eladio (Steven Bauer) and his crew in Breaking Bad Season 4’s “Salud.”

Mike Buys A Familiar Toy For His Granddaughter (Season 2, "Amarillo")

Some of the best Breaking Bad callbacks in Better Call Saul are those that answer questions that no fan ever asked. For example, did you ever wonder how Mike’s granddaughter Kaylee wound up with that wriggly pig toy that Mike (Jonathan Banks) uses as a distraction while dealing with a would-be hitman in Breaking Bad Season 5’s “Madrigal”? Of course not. But it’s still hilarious that we get to see it activated for the first time in Better Call Saul Season 2’s “Amarillo.”

Why Tuco Was In Prison (Season 2, "Gloves Off")

In Breaking Bad, Raymond Cruz’s Tuco Salamanca is introduced to the story because his former cellmate, Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), is a friend of Jesse (Aaron Paul), but what was never established in the series was the reason why Tuco was in prison prior to his dealings with Heisenberg. In Season 2, this is addressed via a significant plotline, as it’s revealed in “Gloves Off” that Tuco spends time in jail because of an assault against a certain senior citizen/retired cop named Michael Ehrmantraut – the result of a setup orchestrated by Mike and Ignacio “Nacho” Varga (Michael Mando).

The Origin Of Saul’s “Gimmie A Dollar” Trick (Season 3, "Witness")

One of the very first shady things we ever see Saul Goodman do in Breaking Bad is have Walt and Jesse both give him a dollar – an act that allows him to operate with them on a criminal level while maintaining legally binding attorney-client privilege. What we don’t know until Better Call Saul Season 3, however, is that the trick is one that Jimmy picks up from Kim. In “Witness” there is a scene where Kim has her boyfriend/future husband make the same deal so that they can have confidentiality… and as a bonus Easter egg, Jimmy is left in a similar position as Jesse in the moment because he doesn’t have any singles, only big bills.

Huell Doesn’t Do Tight Spaces, But His Fingers Are Magic (Season 3, "Chicanery")

When Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) first arrives on the scene in Breaking Bad, his presence is meant as pure intimidation, working as a bodyguard for Saul – but later in the series it’s revealed that he has a particular skill: he is an expert pickpocket. He memorably lifts Jesse’s ricin cigarette in Season 4’s “End Times” and then some marijuana in Season 5’s “Confessions.” It’s a key piece of the franchise’s history – and in Better Call Saul Season 3 it’s revealed that Jimmy first hooked up with Huell because of his magic fingers. Dr. Caldera (Joe DeRosa) connects the two men so that Huell can plant a cell phone battery on Chuck McGill (Michael McKean), forcing him to have a meltdown during a hearing.

Gus Dreams Of A Super Lab (Season 3, "Off Brand")

The majority of Better Call Saul Season 4 features Gus Fring executing a construction job that will eventually become Walter White’s super lab, and while that’s a callback that is a bit too broad to include by itself on this list, we will highlight the Season 3 scene where Gus visits the industrial laundry, Lavanderia Brillante, for the first time and then confirms to a waiting Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser) that the location is to his liking for his big project.

Jimmy Makes Friends With A Familiar Burglar (Season 4, "Something Beautiful")

Jimmy McGill has a skill when it comes to making friends in low places, and while we still haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Danny, the “amenable” owner of the local laser tag arena who Saul frequently touts in Breaking Bad, we have learned through Better Call Saul how the titular lawyer winds up meeting Ira (Franc Ross) – the owner of the extermination company Vamonos Pest. Long before tenting houses for covert meth labs, Ira met Jimmy as part of a deal to steal a valuable Hummel figurine, as depicted in Season 4’s “Something Beautiful.”

Gale Boetticher Sings A Song (Season 4, "Something Beautiful")

The tale of Gale Boetticher (David Costabile) is one of the sadder ones in Breaking Bad lore, ending when Jesse kills him at the end of Season 3 so that Gus can’t kill Walter, but the silver lining is that his story is also one filled with many highlights. For example, he is a wonderful singer, as seen via his renditions of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)" and "Crapa Pelada" by Quartetto Cetra, and Better Call Saul brings that back in Season 4’s “Something Beautiful” (the only episode with two entries on this list). The comical song "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer seems just as complicated as the Italian “Crapa Pelada,” but Gale’s version is once again flawless and amazing.

Gus Halts Hector’s Treatment (Season 4, "Something Stupid")

When Hector Salamanca (Mark Margolis) shows up for the first time in Better Call Saul (Season 2’s “Rebecca”) he appears in relative good health, and isn’t the wheelchair-bound man with a bell that is depicted in the majority of his Breaking Bad appearances. This instantly let audiences know that the show was going to depict his decline – but did anybody predict how influential Gus would be? Following Hector’s stroke in the Season 3 finale, the Season 4 premiere finds Gus hiring a Johns Hopkins specialist (Poorna Jagannathan) to heal him, and then “Something Stupid” drops the guillotine when he cuts off Hector’s treatment just shortly after he begins demonstrating noticeable improvement.

Lalo Finally Arrives (Season 4, "Coushatta")

We’ve covered a couple of answers to questions we didn’t ask in this feature, but now it’s time to discuss a case where Better Call Saul answers a question that fans were asking often and repeatedly during the show’s first few years. In Breaking Bad Season 2’s “Better Call Saul” (the episode where the character debuts), Walt and Jesse put Saul at gunpoint while he kneels over a ditch, and one of the things he says while panicked is, “Lalo didn’t send you?” The original series never actually addressed the existence of Lalo after that, but Better Call Saul finally did in Season 4’s “Coushatta.” It turns out that “Lalo” is Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca (Tony Dalton) and he’s caused nothing but chaos since his arrival.

Krazy-8 Gets His Nickname (Season 5, "50% Off")

When Domingo Gallardo Molina a.k.a. Krazy-8 (Max Arciniega) is introduced in the Breaking Bad pilot, he seems like a super scary dude – but that’s made his evolution throughout Better Call Saul that much more interesting. He first appears in the Season 2 episode “Gloves Off,” and he’s portrayed as an underling wearing an employee polo from his father’s furniture store. By Season 5 he starts rising in the ranks, and in the second episode, “50% Off,” he even gets his nickname courtesy of Lalo Salamanca during a poker game.

Krazy-8, Meet Hank And Gomie (Season 5, "The Guy For This")

Sticking with Krazy-8 for a moment, Better Call Saul also notably addresses what could be called a dangling plot thread with the character from Breaking Bad: the fact that he worked as an informant for DEA Agents Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) and Steven Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada). Better Call Saul finally addresses the situation in Season 5, and adds a twist in with the reveal that Gus Fring actively knows about everything Krazy-8 is doing.

Dedicado A Max (Season 5, "Dedicado A Max")

One of the most shocking Breaking Bad deaths is featured during the extended flashback sequence in Season 4’s “Hermanos” specifically when Hector Salamanca shoots Gus Fring’s business partner Max Arciniega (James Martinez) in the head. It’s repeatedly made evident how traumatizing this was for Gus, perhaps most notably via his work to keep Hector in a crippled state after his stroke, but there’s also an excellent moment in Better Call Saul Season 5 when it’s revealed that Gus has funded an entire Mexican village and dedicated the town square fountain to his deceased friend – which is certainly a much sweeter expression of memory.

This list is 15 of our favorite Breaking Bad callbacks in Better Call Saul, but the reality is that it represents only about a quarter of all the ones we found rewatching the entire show. Is your #1 not featured here? Tell us about it in the comments section, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all our future coverage of the Breaking Bad universe – including updates on Better Call Saul Season 6.

For six seasons (and hopefully someday, its long-awaited movie), Community proved to be the little show that could. Despite its inconsistent ratings, a seemingly indifferent network, the firing (and subsequent re-hiring) of its showrunner, and the controversial exits of a number of its prominent stars – including Chevy Chase and Donald Glover – the show stayed strong, resulting in an underdog success that provided a consistently fun, ultra-meta spin on the familiar sitcom format.

Created by Dan Harmon, the series starred Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Alison Brie, Jim Rash, and Ken Jeong, many of whom have only continued to rise in fame since the acclaimed sitcom left NBC (and the short-lived Yahoo! Screen). But in addition to these familiar names, there were several other stars who made appearances — both brief and not — during the show's extended run. From John Oliver to Brie Larson, here are 10 actors you might have forgotten were on Community.

John Oliver (Ian Duncan)

John Oliver is best known nowadays as the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, where he comedically recaps/breaks down some of the biggest news stories/political events of the past week. But when Community began, Oliver periodically appeared as Professor Ian Duncan, a psychology teacher at Greendale Community College who was close friends with Joel McHale's Jeff Winger. While Oliver was away from Community for awhile, he returned for several episodes in Season 5 – but he was absent again in Season 6 (as he was committed to the first season of his aforementioned talk show). Oliver's inconsistent time on Community was due to his involvement as the temporary host of The Daily Show when Jon Stewart was absent, which paved the way for his solo HBO series. Beyond the small screen, Oliver also voiced Zazu in 2019's The Lion King, starring fellow Community star Donald Glover.

Brie Larson (Rachel)

A few short years before her Oscar-winning performance in 2015's Room, and several years before she played the title role in Captain Marvel, Brie Larson appeared in a few episodes of Community — in the fourth and fifth seasons, specifically. Brie played Rachel, a love interest for Abed (Danny Pudi). While there were several elements from the fourth season (i.e. the Dan Harmon-less "gas leak" year) that didn't carry over into the last two seasons, Larson was one of the few newly-introduced characters who leaped into the showrunner's return. When Larson was introduced into Community, she was already an established actress, notably in the acclaimed indie Short Term 12. She also had prominent roles in The United States of Tara, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, 21 Jump Street, and The Spectacular Now. Since then, however, Larson has since been seen in Kong: Skull Island and Avengers: Endgame.

Kumail Nanjiani (Custodian Lapari)

Fans will remember 2014 as a big year for Kumail Nanjiani. After making brief and/or supporting roles in Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, The Five-Year Engagement, Veep, Drunk History, Burning Love, Franklin & Bash, and more, Nanjiani finally broke out with a main role in HBO's acclaimed Silicon Valley, and he had his own short-lived Comedy Central series, The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. The actor-screenwriter gained more attention and exposure, thus continuing his Hollywood ascension and leading up to his Oscar-nominated work in the autobiographical dramedy, The Big Sick, and building up to roles in Men In Black: International, Stuber, The Twilight Zone, Dolittle, The Lovebirds and Marvel's upcoming The Eternals. As it happens, 2014 was also the year that Nanjiani made one of two guest star appearances on Community as Custodian Lapari, Greendale's deputy custodian, in the fifth and sixth seasons, respectively.

Tig Notaro (Bartender)

In 2012, Tig Notaro was a hard-working comedian with a hard luck story. A few days after she was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer, Notaro performed a brazen, deeply personal set at the Largo, which was subsequently released online. Shortly thereafter, it became a huge success, turning the deadpan comedian into an overnight sensation. Notaro received a double mastectomy and thankfully found herself on the road to recovery, thus propelling her career in show business. She's now a Grammy-nominated performer with credits including The Office, Bob's Burgers, New Girl, Star Trek: Discovery, Transparent, Instant Family, and more, as well as the documentary, Tig, and a short-lived autobiographical Amazon series, One Mississippi. Two years prior to all that, though, Notaro was seen in Community's second season as a bartender serving drinks to Allison Brie's Annie Edison while the Greendale student pretended to be a whole different person.

Adam DeVine (William "Willy" Winger Jr.)

In 2013, a couple years after Workaholics premiered on Comedy Central, and only a year after the release of Pitch Perfect, Adam DeVine appeared in Community's fourth season. Playing the part of William Winger Jr., a.k.a. Willy Jr., the half-brother of Jeff Winger, DeVine was a guest star on the NBC series. The appearance came at a mid-point in DeVine's career. Due to the growing popularity of Workaholics, DeVine was turning into a household name in the world of comedy, though this mid-period Community episode was before he transitioned into leading roles in movies like Game Over Man, Isn't It Romantic?, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, and Jexi, as well as his principal role in HBO's The Righteous Gemstones and his leading role in Netflix's Green Eggs and Ham.

Brit Marling (Page)

When Brit Marling appeared in Community's second season, the actress/writer/producer was breaking out as an indie darling, having starred in, produced, and co-written two of the hottest movies at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival: Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice. In response to the acclaim for those two small-budget movies, Marling gained a few prominent acting roles, including the Community episode "Early 21st Century Romanticism" — which became Marling's first paid acting gig, by her own admission. Marling played Page, Britta's new friend whom she believes is a lesbian. This episode received attention for an on-screen kiss shared between Marling and Jacobs. Since her time on Community, Marling continues to expand he career as a multi-hyphenate, most notably with Netflix's cult-favorite sci-fi series, The OA. The mind-bending streaming series was cancelled after two seasons, though diehard fans are adamant about bringing it back.

Vince Gilligan (Devon)

Best known as the creator of AMC's masterful Breaking Bad and the co-creator of its exceptional spin-off series, Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan has earned a wealth of acclaim as a writer, showrunner, producer, and director. But in 2014, Gilligan added his first acting credit to his resume when he appeared in the Community episode "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing," where the Emmy-winning writer-director played Devon, a struggling middle-aged actor and host of Pile of Bullets — a cheesy 1990s VCR-based video game. Other than a cameo on Comedy Bang Bang and an appearance as himself on What Just Happened??! with Fred Savage, Community was one of Gilligan's select few on-screen acting roles (he also did voice work for American Dad and Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero). He rarely appears on-camera outside of interviews. Therefore, if you didn't recognize Gilligan here, you're forgiven.

Drew Carey (Ted)

By the time Drew Carey appeared on Community, the actor-comedian-television personality was already a household name. Thanks to shows like The Drew Carey Show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and, eventually, The Price Is Right, Carey was a familiar face to television audiences in the United States. Thus, it was a fun surprise to see him in the second season of the cult-favorite NBC series playing Ted, the head of the law firm Hamish, Hamish & Hamlin and Jeff's former boss. If you forgot that the game show host made a brief appearance on the program, that's understandable — especially since the character died off-camera in Season 3 (by Jeff's admission, at least). Nevertheless, Carey continues to be seen on The Price Is Right, though he recently took a break from the popular CBS series when his ex-fiancee was tragically murdered.

Paul Walter Hauser (Student #3)

In recent years, Paul Walter Hauser has stood out as one of our most impressive up-and-coming character actors. With strong supporting turns in BlacKkKlansman, I, Tonya, Cobra Kai, Late Night, Super Troopers 2, and the title role in last year's Richard Jewell, Hauser has stood out in parts big and small... although you would be forgiven if you missed him in Community. The actor made a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance in the Season 2 episode, "Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples." He was billed simply as "Student #3," though he has a line and modestly prominent screen-time. It was one of his first professional credits, and it paved the way for what we would see from him today — including upcoming roles in Cruella, Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, and more. He's certainly an actor to watch for, especially after his outstanding performance in Clint Eastwood's newest.

Jack Black (Buddy Austin)

Unlike several other actors on this list, Jack Black was a well-established name when he walked onto Greendale's campus. The Golden Globe-nominated actor-musician is best known for School of Rock, Tropic Thunder, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, Nacho Libre, High Fidelity, Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny, Goosebumps, and the recent Jumanji films, to name a few. He was a big get for the plucky NBC sitcom, playing the role of the hapless Buddy Austin, a would-be member of the study group. His brief mid-season role in the sitcom's first year was a splashy surprise, and it came at a point when Community was finding its groove (namely in the episode right after its first-ever mid-season break). As Community advanced into the more meta series fans know it for today, one could easily forget the surprises found in the first season — including Black's starry appearance.

In addition to these names listed above, Community also saw Randall Park, Nick Kroll, Martin Starr, Katharine McPhee, Matt Walsh, Eliza Coupe, Owen Wilson and other big name stars briefly roaming the halls of Greendale before the doors closed. Although the series was never a huge hit in the ratings department, nor was it ever the awards contender it should have been, the Dan Harmon-created meta-sitcom did have both critical acclaim and a devoted following in its favor. Suffice to say, it makes sense why it would attract so many high-level talents throughout its unlikely run. Now that the show has concluded, it's also easy to see why so many famous faces who appeared on this fan-favorite series went on to do so many great things. Who was your favorite celebrity appearance on Community? Let us know in the comment section below.

Spoilers for the latest episode of Better Call Saul lie ahead

Vince Gilligan is no stranger to producing cinematic television experiences, and that was certainly the case with Better Call Saul’s latest installment, “Bagman.” The episode centers on Jimmy’s (or Saul’s) mission to pick up and deliver $7 million intended as bail money for the shady Lalo Salamanca. Along the way, Jimmy encounters enemies and an ally in Mike, and the two must rely on each other while stranded in the desert. While the finished product is a sight to behold, Gilligan and company had their hands full with this desert shoot.

Having filmed scenes in the desert for years for both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan is more than accustomed to the conditions. He recently shot a desert scene for El Camino, which he considers to be one of his greatest days as a director. However, he found directing “Bagman” to be one of the toughest (and most rewarding) experiences of his career. The only similarity between both occasions is that he was working with great actors:

Gilligan also didn’t mince words about the dangerous nature of the desert while speaking with THR. He does find it to be beautiful in its own way, but he stressed that it’s not for the faint of heart:

Talk about suffering your art. But in all seriousness, if Vince Gilligan and his team have shown viewers anything with both shows, it’s that the desert is an unpredictable place, in front of and behind the camera. Nevertheless, they’ve used it to deliver some excellent TV such as Breaking Bad’s “4 Days Out” and the acclaimed “Ozymandias.” And it’s more than a safe bet this won’t be the last piece of business Saul Goodman will have to handle out in the wild.

Better Call Saul airs Mondays on AMC at 9:00 p.m. E.T.

Spoilers below for the Season 5 premiere of Better Call Saul, so be warned.

The last time Better Call Saul fans laid eyes on Jimmy McGill, Kim Wexler and the other beloved characters in this dark universe, it was October 2018. Basically, a whole different lifetime in today's TV climate. Thankfully, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould's Breaking Bad prequel finally returned to AMC for Season 5, with fans now fully aware that next year's Season 6 will be the series' final batch of episodes. With so much attention on the past, though, the episode's most intriguing scene was arguably the Gene-centric flash-forward that kicked everything off.

Not only did the cold open hint at Gene facing some potentially huge trouble in his midwestern hideout, but it also brought back beloved actor Robert Forster for his final on-screen performance as Ed "The Disappearer" Galbraith. Read on to find out what Bob Odenkirk had to say about Gene's future, as well as what creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould said about Forster's return.

Bob Odenkirk Doesn't Trust Gene

Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman's arcs are generally set in stone within the Breaking Bad universe, as far as the timelines are concerned. Sure, lots of gaps are yet to be filled in with the final two seasons of Better Call Saul, but beyond Kim's overall fate, there seemingly aren't very many major changes that can go down for the character as he enters the Walter White era. However, the post-Saul future is completely up in the air, allowing Gene's sporadic black-and-white appearances to fuel the mystery.

The Season 5 premiere first showcased Gene's extreme paranoia after his hospital visit from Season 4. But just when he was feeling secure again, someone specifically called him out for being Saul Goodman, thus sending him down another rabbit hole whose exit is still unknown to TV audiences. While speaking with press at this year's Television Critics Association winter press tour, Bob Odenkirk shared his thoughts about Gene, saying the character may be aiming for a reckoning of sorts.

One has to wonder if the character now feels pretty regretful about plastering his face all over New Mexico as a way of building up his Saul Goodman branding. That shameless self-promotion has made it all but impossible for Gene to live his quasi-fugitive life in peace, though Bob Odenkirk makes a solid point that Gene's solitude is in direct contrast to the loudness of Saul's life, from his commercials to his clothing.

As a real-world comparison for Gene, Bob Odenkirk brought up the counter-culture activist Abbie Hoffman, who had famously avoided the aftermath of a 1973 cocaine bust by taking on a new identity whose ideals essentially just matched up with his actual identity. In Odenkirk's words:

Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad fans also have little clue about what Saul's personal life was like during the years of the flagship series. One can always hope that Kim not only survives BCS but also makes it through BB intact, though Gene doesn't look like a man who will ever have any loved ones waiting for him at home. But will admitting his true identity be worth whatever punishment may await him as Heisenberg's lawyer? It appears not even Odenkirk knows that one just yet.

Robert Forster's Return As Ed The Disappearer

Of all the surprise cameos that Vince Gilligan brought to El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, perhaps the most touching was that of Robert Forster as Ed Gilbraith, the vacuum salesman and repairman also known for giving shady people new identities. Forster died the day that El Camino premiered on Netflix, but while many fans likely thought that was the last time the character would show up, he returned in Better Call Saul's Season 5 premiere for Gene's flash-forward.

During the AMC spinoff's panel at the TCA press tour, both Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan reflected on getting him back for both projects. When asked if there was anything further planned for Ed, Gould said:

Had Better Call Saul tried to set up Ed's return at another point in the creative process, viewers likely wouldn't have gotten to actually see Robert Forster back behind the counter for Ed's more legitimate moneymaker. It sounds like there was a basic plan to at least get the actor to lend his voice for Better Call Saul, but the timing worked out where the TV team was able to bring in a full-fledged in-person reprisal. It's a testament to his legacy and his dedication that he was able to appear in all three projects.

Following up on Peter Gould's thoughts, Vince Gilligan said:

Robert Forster was a perfect fit for Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad universe, though it's a shame that Ed was such a limited role, as perfectly played as it was. One could only hope that the actor's bill of health was good long enough for Gilligan to give Ed a limited series.

The scene certainly wasn't a write-off just to get Forster back for one last hurrah, either. Though it initially looked like the Gene persona was going the way of Werner Ziegler, the character had a change of heart and decided to take care of the situation himself. A revised sense of confidence coursed through that phone call, as both Jimmy and Saul temporarily poked through the Gene exterior. What's going to happen to him next in this violent season? Could "Gene" himself get killed off by the end of the series finale?

Find out answers to some questions, if not those specifically, when Better Call Saul returns to its normal weekly time slot on AMC on Monday, February 24, at 9:00 p.m.

It's a strange feeling to know that 2019 allowed viewers to spend more time with Breaking Bad characters than Better Call Saul characters, thanks to the release of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which gave a more definitive closeout to Vince Gilligan's original drama. Thankfully, Saul is returning to AMC soon for its long-awaited Season 5, but that good news was recently coupled with the reveal that Season 6 will be the spinoff's final round. The big question now, of course, is which show's ending will be more satisfactory.

For many fans, Breaking Bad's final episode ("Felina") is one of television's all-time great finales; its anti-hero's fate was germane, its dark horse protagonist regained hope, and the world was left spinning in Heisenberg's aftermath. Considering Better Call Saul's ongoing set-up isn't meant to hit the same overall peaks as its predecessor, it would make sense if Saul's swan song didn't quite stand up as tall.

However, franchise mastermind Vince Gilligan already believes that fans are going to come away from these two series holding Better Call Saul up over Breaking Bad where the endings are concerned. In his words:

Such a claim might have been laughed right out of the room some years ago, when it seemed highly improbable for Better Call Saul to truly match the same quality control as Breaking Bad, but those times have definitely changed. Though Vince Gilligan stepped back from co-showrunner duties in order to bring El Camino to life, he's obviously still quite invested in the fictional world as an executive producer, so he presumably knows exactly where Peter Gould is heading with this increasingly intensifying story.

Vince Gilligan shared his fairly bold claim during the TV's Top 5 podcast, on which he was a guest alongside Peter Gould. One has to wonder how much of that answer was his genuine belief on the matter, and how much of it was assumptions about more fickle TV viewers who inevitably need everything to be a competition. Gilligan isn't a TV creator who spends a lot of time stoking the fandom, though, so it probably is more humble opinion than anything else.

By all means, Better Call Saul definitely could have a better ending for several reasons, generally speaking. For one, its 13-episode final season will arrive eight or so years after Breaking Bad's finale, so Peter Gould and his creative team have had a long time to think about the perfect way to blend Saul's final run into Breaking Bad's timeline, which will almost definitely include all the major cameos we want.

As well, Gould & Co. have had all that time to reflect on fans' overblown opinions to both BB's ending and to El Camino reactions. (Mostly good, though perhaps more lukewarm than expected.) Not that their creativity should be wholly guided by the fanbase, but outsider opinions are bound to influence some decisions.

Considering Saul, Gus Fring, Hector Salamanca and many others are still alive when Breaking Bad kicks off Walter White's epic rise and fall, Better Call Saul fans obviously shouldn't expect the final episode to hinge on any of their fates. However, the biggest puzzle piece in this entire franchise right now is arguably Rhea Seehorn's Kim Wexler, whose absence in the flagship series makes her remaining episodes all the more emotionally fraught. She's finally getting to meet the burgeoning Saul Goodman persona in Season 5, but will she stick around to see that evolution, or will she pack up shop and leave Saul behind?

Of course, I'm working with the strong assumption that Kim does indeed survive throughout the rest of Better Call Saul. Because if Kim dies at any point before or during the finale, then I don't see how anyone could possibly then say that Saul's ending topped Breaking Bad's. Especially if she would die in the finale itself. I don't want to live in that world, so I'm going to think happy thoughts, such as "We have 23 more episodes of Better Call Saul left!"

Mark your calendars, because Better Call Saul Season 5, which will finally premiere on AMC on Sunday, February 23, following The Walking Dead's midseason premiere. Saul will then air its second episode during its normal Monday-night time-slot on February 24.

SPOILERS ahead on how El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie ends.

El Camino almost pulled a Seinfeld. Thankfully, Better Call Saul's writers -- and Vince Gilligan's own girlfriend -- saved the Breaking Bad movie writer/director from himself.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie just released Friday October 11 on Netflix. The movie ends with Jesse Pinkman successfully escaping to Alaska, and driving off to start a new life. Whether you found that ending incredibly satisfying or (like me) wish more of the story moved forward into Jesse's new life rather than spending so much time looking back, you'd probably agree that Vince Gilligan's alternate ending idea is a serious downer.

Vince Gilligant talked to Vulture about another possible ending that would've left Jesse Pinkman in prison:

Poor Jesse. And he'd be at peace with it? Why even bother? Just let the ending of Breaking Bad stand, with Jesse driving off to freedom. Thankfully that prison idea did not make it to the screen. Vince Gilligan's girlfriend is a saint for putting up with his dismissive response to her reaction, since he only seemed to get it when the Better Call Saul team had the same thoughts:

Phew! Jesse Pinkman actor Aaron Paul told Collider El Camino's original cut was three hours long, so a lot was trimmed for the final version on Netflix -- which also got a limited theatrical release and will air on AMC at some point. Hopefully fans will get to see some of the deleted scenes.

Aaron Paul already said the script originally had a voiceover airing the contents of the letter Jesse wrote to Brock. At the end of the movie, Jesse gave that letter to Ed the vacuum salesman (RIP Robert Forster) to mail to young Brock from Breaking Bad, but we never got to hear what was in the letter. That's the kind of thing I'd be curious to see in a deleted scene.

But, to me, a lot of El Camino already felt like several Breaking Bad deleted scenes strung together. It was great to see characters like Mike, Jane, and of course Walter White again, but I wanted to see more of how Jesse lived after his escape, not just end the story when he finally gets ready to start that new life.

But now that I know Vince Gilligan almost left Jesse in jail, I'm grateful for what we got. El Camino is now streaming on Netflix. What do you think of that alternate ending? How about the real one? Don't forget that Better Call Saul Season 5 should be coming fairly soon in 2020.

While Breaking Bad may have come to an end as a series back in late 2013, the world has never felt “closed.” While functioning primarily as a prequel, Better Call Saul started running less than two years after the end of the legendary show, and with its fifth season gearing up to start in 2020, there is a totally natural expectation to continue to see the expansion of the beloved universe.

Because of this expansion, though, unanswered questions about the world don’t necessarily make any sense. If stories are continuing to be told, why not use the opportunity to play certain things out to their natural conclusions? Fortunately, this is something that’s understood by series creator/writer/director Vince Gilligan, which is why we now have El Camino: A Breaking Bad Story. With fans previously having been given a bit of a cliffhanger ending in regards to the fate of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), now a movie exists to tie everything up with a bow – and while it may not precisely function like a typical film, it is still an immensely satisfying experience to anyone who previously invested love in the genius-driven original series.

With the Breaking Bad finale, “Felina,” primarily focused on completing the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Jesse Pinkman didn’t get a totally conclusive ending with the show – the character’s final moment featuring him driving away to an unknown future after having spent months caged up by neo-Nazis are forced to cook meth. El Camino, however, now exists to tell his tale. It picks up with Jesse immediately following those events, notably driving the model of car that gives the series-expanding movie its title.

Both suffering from PTSD following his traumatic experiences, and the target of a massive police manhunt, Jesse must find a way to not only try and escape the personal hell that is Albuquerque, New Mexico, but also collect the resources he needs that will allow him to do it. It’s a mission that requires old friends, and memories of his past – and all the while over him hangs the question whether or not it is actually possible for him to return to an even somewhat normal life.

Without having any kind of “stitched together” quality, El Camino essentially feels like a special 124 minute episode of Breaking Bad – and that’s a high complement given that the show in question is one of the most skillfully directed, beautifully shot, and intricately written of all time. Because Better Call Saul has done such an excellent job establishing itself as its own thing, the movie is a wonderful reunion with the tone and feel of the original series, and with that comes exciting stylistic choices, impressively structured storytelling, and brilliant character work.

Vince Gilligan, who actually only directed five of the 62 episodes of the show, channels the best of the best filmmakers who worked on Breaking Bad (a list that includes Rian Johnson, Michelle MacLaren, and Adam Bernstein), and conjures a movie that is effortlessly ambitious with its flair. Once again there is dazzling use of symbolic color subtly used everywhere, but there is also cinematography that will drop your jaw – such as a god’s eye view angle that captures the entire layout of an apartment while Jesse investigates every nook and cranny in a montage that has him searching for a hidden treasure.

Without giving away names (in an attempt to protect spoilers), there are many fan favorite characters who pop into the story and get a bit of their own closure through the narrative, but El Camino is Jesse’s story through and through. Within that, not only does it fill in some important gaps and answer some important questions about the character, but also gives Aaron Paul yet another opportunity to showcase his remarkable talent. It’s admittedly a bit obvious that he is a fair bit older than he was when Breaking Bad started (40 years old vs. 29 years old), and that’s particularly evident in the flashback sequences that take us back deep within the show’s timeline, but what’s really impressive is just how well Paul falls back into the role.

Jesse Pinkman went through hell during his time growing his partnership with Walter White – the bold, naïve, egotistical punk we met back in 2008 being a distant memory – and it’s remarkable how Aaron Paul carries the weight of it with him in every scene. Sometimes it’s more intense than others, such as when an ordinary shower reminds him of being hosed down by the neo-Nazis, but even when he’s more compos mentis you can see pain in his eyes and a pure desire to just escape everything in his life. Paul put on phenomenal performances week to week when Breaking Bad was running, and close to a decade later he hasn’t missed a beat.

Given that it makes zero effort to connect with an audience that isn’t deeply familiar with Breaking Bad already, El Camino is less a “full feature film from the world of the show” as it is essentially a coda for the story that’s already been told. But for anyone who has devoted time, energy, and love to the series and its perfectly constructed characters should find a lot of satisfaction in the experience. It’s the conclusion that Jesse Pinkman most definitely deserves, and further proof that Vince Gilligan is truly one of the greatest storytellers working in entertainment today.

Netflix's El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is meant to bring back at least 10 characters from the AMC show. Obviously Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman is the main character. The very first promo showed Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) refusing to rat out his buddy Jesse. After that, it was confirmed that their boy Badger (Matt L. Jones) would also return for the movie. Jonathan Banks pulled a classic Mike Ehrmantraut move by revealing his own appearance in the movie -- spoilers be damned. So that's three supporting characters confirmed for Jesse's movie, and now we have a fourth: Old Joe.

Old Joe's appearance was teased in the El Camino trailer that aired during the 2019 Emmy Awards. But this time we don't just see a glimpse of the junkyard, we hear a phone conversation between Old Joe and, presumably, Jesse Pinkman. Watch the clip:

Yep, El Camino will "Go for Joe" in the upcoming Breaking Bad movie. As Joe notes in the video, everyone knows who Jesse Pinkman is at this point, since the clip also shows Jesse on TV as a wanted man after the Breaking Bad finale.

Old Joe owns the Rocker Salvage junkyard and he's helped out Walter White and Jesse Pinkman a few times. He first showed up in Season 3 and saved them from Hank and he also returned in Season 5.

Why is Old Joe back now? The title of the movie is El Camino because Jesse sped away in Todd's (Jesse Plemons) El Camino in the Breaking Bad finale. Will Jesse try to junk the El Camino since it's recognizable and get a new ride? If so, why would the movie be called El Camino? That'd be like killing off a main character shortly into the movie. Maybe Old Joe tells him no way. We don't have long to wait to find out, since the movie hits Netflix on October 11. Joe was never a main character, but it's still good to see him back.

Breaking Bad maestro Vince Gilligan wrote and directed El Camino, which is going to get a limited release in theaters as well as playing on Netflix before eventually arriving on the home network of AMC. Gilligan admitted to THR -- which also included the note about the movie including at least 10 Breaking Bad characters -- that El Camino isn't going to play well for people who aren't caught up on the TV show.

No, don't bother. The Downton Abbey movie opened to #1 at the box office last weekend by giving the loyal TV fans exactly what they wanted. Rick Grimes' Walking Dead movie is also heading to theaters. I do think we have a trend on our hands. This might be the best time to point out that I'm unsatisfied with how Northern Exposure ended and I would like the cast to reunite for a wrap-up movie. Thank you for your consideration.

The thing about Breaking Bad is that almost no one was unsatisfied with that ending. Reunions, reboots, continuations, or movies often end up in the conversation if the story was left unfinished or if the showrunners wanted something more and the network said no. That's not the case here.

Vince Gilligan explained to THR why he even decided to tell the rest of Jesse Pinkman's story in a movie instead of just letting us imagine where he drove off to:

Aaron Paul admitted he had his own doubts.

Ultimately, Aaron Paul said he thinks fans will be happy with the Breaking Bad movie. And since he loved the finale as much as fans, that does go a long way. Sure, he has to promote the movie, but we all trust Vince Gilligan at this point. The man wouldn't risk his own great reputation for nothing.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie will release on Netflix and in select theaters on Friday, October 11. AMC has yet to reveal when it will air on the network.

Television fans are getting spoiled. Extensions of their favorite television shows are making their way to the bigger screen with increased frequency. For example, Downton Abbey enthusiasts will be able to revisit the Crowleys when that beloved show unleashes a feature film into movie theaters beginning on September 20. Well, Abbey isn’t alone, as Breaking Bad now says it’s new movie will play movie theaters, as well.

You didn’t know there was a Breaking Bad movie? You’re not alone. The feature film was rumored, and then sprung on an unsuspecting fan base recently. Written and directed by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie once again stars Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, and will follow the character through the events after the show’s series finale. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, El Camino will play on theater screens in 68 cities starting on October 11.

That’s also the day that El Camino will arrive on Netflix, making the film available to millions of Breaking Bad fans who likely used the service to binge-watch the gripping series and stay up-to-date in the criminal enterprise of Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul). But if you want to experience the new film on the biggest screen possible, you better be living in a major city like New York and Los Angeles, or lucky enough to be in Albuquerque, where the Breaking Bad television series AND the secret movie were filmed.

But you better act quickly. EW notes that El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie will only be in theaters for three days, screening from October 11-13. It also will make its way to AMC (where the show aired for years) following its exclusive Netflix run.

In the recent interview for THR, Gilligan and Paul opened up about the extensive efforts they took to keep the project off the radar. The title refers to the car that Jesse rode to freedom in the series finale of the show. The article confirms that 10 major Breaking Bad characters will appear in the movie, and reveals two of them will be Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt L. Jones), Jesse’s running mates. In fact, Pete was in the movie’s trailer:

Could Bryan Cranston also appear? We can only hope, in some fashion.

Breaking Bad fans haven’t been starving for content. AMC continues to run the Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, which relies on outstanding performances by Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks to flesh out the rich world created by Gilligan. But Aaron Paul’s flawed and damaged Jesse Pinkman has long been a fan favorite, and we have no doubt fans will be eager to see what Gilligan thinks has happened to him.

Look for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie in various formats when it starts showing its cards on October 11.

In the six years since Breaking Bad exited AMC as one of the most critically acclaimed TV dramas of all time, creator Vince Gilligan expanded that universe in huge ways with Better Call Saul (and its co-creator Peter Gould), but fans will finally make an official return to Breaking Bad's world with the upcoming AMC and Netflix TV project El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Who else will be returning, though?

Given the high security surrounding El Camino, whose production wasn't even officially confirmed until Bob Odenkirk only recently mentioned that it got filmed months ago, fans have yet to learn all of the Breaking Bad cast members that will be showing up for the TV movie. In fact, the movie's first teaser trailer didn't even use Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman, despite the fact that the project centers on him in the time after he escaped the meth-obsessed neo-Nazis. (Paul said fans are going to be pumped, though.)

The only O.G. Breaking Bad character who appeared in the trailer was Skinny Pete, as portrayed by Charles Baker, and he wasn't giving up Jesse's location. So let's go over most of the Breaking Bad characters beyond Jesse and Skinny Pete who might show up in the El Camino movie, starting with the obvious third leg of that grouping.

Badger - Matt Jones

Assuming he isn't off helping the Star Trek creative team plan their next adventures, Breaking Bad's Badger almost has to return for El Camino in order to bring closure to his friendship with Jesse Pinkman. Not to mention his tangential relationship with Walter White, whom Badger and Skinny Pete assisted in the Breaking Bad finale to pose as hitmen in order to secure Walt Jr. received Walt's moolah. If for no other reason, Matt Jones' Badger needs to return in order to potentially serve as the presumably lone source of El Camino's broad humor.

Brock Cantillo - Ian Posada

As one of Breaking Bad's most innocent characters, Brock (and his mother Andrea, by extension) represented a shot at traditional domestic life for Jesse. Of course, Walt ruined that by poisoning Brock (non-lethally) in order to turn Jesse against Gus, and then Todd later murdered Andrea, putting a permanent end to that potential normalcy. Actor Ian Posada might be too old to reprise the role of Brock, depending on what the El Camino timeline will be, but it's hard to imagine Jesse avoiding any attempts to contact Brock, who would presumably be in the care of his grandmother.

Mr. And Mrs. Pinkman - Michael Bofshever and Tess Harper

If the cops are after Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, then they're likely going to have to hit up his parents. Grated, it'll likely only be to discovery that the Pinkmans cut Jesse out of their lives. They kicked him out of his house (that they owned) when the mom discovered his basement meth lab, and the parents cut ties with him permanently in Season 3 after he anonymously bought the house from them. But would they still be so against him if they knew just how tortured his life became? (As well, we might see an appearance from Jesse's brother Jake, though he only showed up for a single episode in Breaking Bad's original run.)

Skyler White - Anna Gunn

Jesse and Skyler were about as unconnected as two main characters could be in Breaking Bad, but even though Walt initially attempted to keep her innocent of everything in the meth game, she'd dirtied her hands quite a bit by the end. As far as questions that remained in Breaking Bad's wake, I've wondered how many of Walt and Jesse's crimes are able to tie back to Skyler, and whether or not Jesse would have tried to contact her after speeding away from Walt and the massacre at the neo-Nazi hub.

Marie Schrader - Betsy Brandt

One would think that Marie would want justice for the murder of her husband, Dean Norris' DEA agent Hank Schrader, but that's assuming that Skyler went public with the coordinates to find their already buried bodies. There's a legitimate chance that Marie still has no idea what happened to Hank when El Camino starts off. If that's the case, I'd bet my collection of rocks, er, minerals that Marie would take matters into her own hands in finding out more information by any means necessary. She might even partner up with Steve Gomez's wife Belinda, who was referred to but never seen on Breaking Bad.

Huell Babineaux - Lavell Crawford

Breaking Bad fans had the joy of watching Lavell Crawford reprise the fan-favorite role of Huell Babineaux in Better Call Saul, which helped set up his future position as one of Saul Goodman's bodyguards. But Huell's post-Breaking Bad fate absolutely needs to get cleared up in El Camino, considering he was left in a safe house by Hank and Gomez, who lied to Huell about Jesse's fate in order to scare him into giving up info about Walt. Hank and Gomez soon got killed off, though, presumably leaving Huell in a mentally chaotic state until hopefully someone thought to check up on him. (The Internet, of course, had fun with the idea of Huell being stuck in the room for the rest of his days.)

Patrick Kuby - Bill Burr

Unlike his on-screen counterpart, Bill Burr's Kuby has yet to make any appearances on Better Call Saul (though we'll be watching him soon in The Mandalorian). Kuby last showed up in the twelfth episode of Season 5 after eavesdropping on Badger and Skinny Pete's long convo about Babylon 5. Hank told Huell that Walt killed Kuby, but considering he lied about other stuff during that chat, we believe Kuby is still alive out there. And because fans have no idea what happened to him, El Camino is clearly the ideal way to clear that up, even if it's a stretch to connect him to the story.

Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz - Adam Godley and Jessica Hecht

In perhaps a more perfect world, the Breaking Bad franchise would continue with another prequel that focused on Walter White's college days, particularly in relation to his relationships with Elliott Schwartz and the latter's future wife Gretchen, who dated Walt for a spell. But until that gets announced, I'll just hope that El Camino can bring Elliot and Gretchen back to show how they fared in the span after Walt showed up with his financial demands. It's more than possible that their company Gray Matter could find a way to involve itself with Jesse's case, considering Walt was also the cause for his mostly ruined life.

Ed the Disappearer - Robert Forster

As it goes with others mentioned here, the chance for a post-Breaking Bad appearance from Robert Forster's vacuum cleaner-repairing Ed likely depends on whether or not Jesse's El Camino story has a direct need for a character that gives endangered criminals new identities. If Jesse aims to run for it in the titular car, at least until swapping that out, then Ed would be a pretty reliable resource to have. And for all that Jesse might not have been as clinically intelligent as his former cooking partner, he'd be smart enough not to botch things like Walt by returning to the place where it all went wrong.

Saul Goodman / Gene - Bob Odenkirk

As the lead of his own prequel series, Bob Odenkirk's rule-juking lawyer has absolutely gotten his due justice by way of getting spun into one of the franchise's most fully rounded characters. As such, his presence in El Camino arguably isn't as necessary as that of other Breaking Bad familiars. However, Saul Goodman is technically the only flagship character whose future is known: he's "currently" working as a mall Cinnabon manager who goes by the name of Gene. Beyond wanting to see a Better Call Saul connection in the movie, I think it could offer up some major insights if El Camino also taps into how Saul made that hard life turn, as a way to reflect Jesse's situation. (I wouldn't be angry if Rhea Seehorn's Kim showed up in some form, also.)

Walter White - Bryan Cranston

With only a feature's runtime for El Camino, Vince Gilligan likely won't want to spend a lot of narrative legroom on flashbacks. But assuming a flashback does come into play, it absolutely needs to feature Bryan Cranston's return to his Emmy-recognized role. And we're talking an actual return for new scenes, as opposed to Vince Gilligan dusting off some archival footage of previously viewed scenes. Alternately, Jesse likely won't be able to leave Walt's memory behind for the rest of his life, so perhaps fans can see Heisenberg reappear as a figment of Jesse's broken and haunted psyche. He wouldn't even need to speak, really, but maybe if he could knock...

No guarantees can be made just yet about what Breaking Bad fans can expect to see in El Camino, but all the details will come to light when the movie gets released on Netflix on Friday, October 11, at 12:01 a.m. PT.

With Better Call Saul slowly closing the gap between its show's timeline and Breaking Bad, fans have wondered just how much longer the series will go before closing things out. Now, it appears as though we have an answer from one of the show's stars, as Giancarlo Esposito may have let slip what has been a secret until now. Check out his quote about the upcoming Season 5, and how he says the show will end sooner than later.

Giancarlo Esposito revealed that six seasons is the magic number, adding on top of that it feels like the comfortable time to end the series. The actor behind the villainous Gus revealed to Collider the number, which is sort of the same amount Breaking Bad got before it ended, if you consider the final season's two parts as separate seasons. Is that enough time for Esposito to get his wish of more interaction with Bob Odenkirk's newly arrived Saul Goodman, or will his arc going forward be limited to interactions with Lalo?

Those nervous that it may not be enough time shouldn't be too worried, as Giancarlo Esposito mentioned in an earlier statement that Vince Gilligan's plans don't always play out the way he envisions them. Citing Breaking Bad as an example, Esposito showed that the creator ended up stretching out the series run more than he originally intended to -- with Season 5 Part 1 airing eight episodes in 2012, and Part 2 airing the final batch of eight episodes a full year later in 2013.

So, can we really believe that Vince Gilligan intends stop Better Call Saul after Season 6? Perhaps the team will reach the endgame, and like with Breaking Bad, consider it might service the story more to split up a season into two parts to make sure it fits against its predecessor as best it can.

Better Call Saul will return to AMC for Season 5 in 2020. Stick with CinemaBlend in the mean time for the latest updates in news in television, movies, and pop culture.

As the world waits for Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad sequel film to release (or sign Aaron Paul), it appears fans may also be waiting for something they didn't necessarily expect to be delayed. Better Call Saul will not be around in 2019. Instead, AMC president of the entertainment networks group Sarah Barnett revealed when Season 5 will be coming by reiterating a bit of previously revealed info that some may have missed.

As far as why Better Call Saul is being held until 2020, Sarah Barnett confirmed that "talent needs" played into the decision. Barnett told Vulture the network tends not to override those types of requests if the result of doing so would be a "worse show," so it appears this is a better option than seeing new episodes in 2019.

Sarah Barnett didn't get more specific behind what "talent needs" resulted in the delay, which could be anything from actor availability to Vince Gilligan wishing to focus more on the upcoming Breaking Bad movie. It could even be a situation where the movie ties to Better Call Saul in some way, and Gilligan and writers wanted the movie to be plotted out and finished before continuing any more work on Season 5.

The latter of the three is possible given Better Call Saul's timeline with "Gene," although unlikely given the distinctive arc of the series. As Sarah Barnett mentioned, the writers can only cover so much ground in the main story, and each season brings the show closer to Breaking Bad.

Sarah Barnett wouldn't reveal just how much time Better Call Saul has left, but given Jimmy's increasingly skeevy behavior towards the end of Season 4, it's clear his moral scale has tipped more towards the Saul Goodman way of life. While the writing team may know where it's headed, getting there and making sure it makes sense and is entertaining may require a little more time and effort than a general audience would understand.

Which is why any disgruntled fans should cut AMC and the Better Call Saul team some slack. There's plenty of great television shows on in 2019 worth checking out, so why not let one slide on through to 2020 in case that year is a little light on television hits? With that said, if Better Call Saul Season 5 gets delayed beyond that, expect a lot of fans to look like Gus Fring when a plan goes awry.

Fans can still get a Better Call Saul fix in the meantime, albeit mainly through watching the show's stars in other projects. Rhea Seehorn is appearing on the final season of Veep and an upcoming episode of The Twilight Zone, Bob Odenkirk is set to appear in the movie Long Shot, and Giancarlo Esposito will be showing up in an episode of Star Wars' The Mandalorian sometime in the future.

Nacho actor Michael Nando is also working within the Disney family, as he'll have a part to play in the movie Spider-Man: Far From Home later this year. The link continues with Jonathan Banks, who will continue to voice episodes of Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure in 2019. Who knew there was such crossover between the Breaking Bad actors and studios under the Disney umbrella?

As previously mentioned, AMC said Better Call Saul won't be back until 2020. Stick with CinemaBlend in the meantime for updates regarding the show, and other great AMC programming. As an example, check out one of the minorly upsetting things about The Walking Dead's much-buzzed fair episode.

One highly anticipated TV-related projects on the deep horizon is definitely Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad movie, which is largely still cloaked in his signature mystery at this point. One of the main theories/rumors floating around is that the crime drama feature would follow the post-finale life of Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman. When asked what he'd want to see from such a project, Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston had a good idea.

Granted, Bryan Cranston didn't delve into specific sequences that he wanted to see, such as "Jesse goes to Omaha to hang out with the mall-working Gene," or "Jesse goes back in time and punches all of Todd's teeth out when they first meet." But Cranston till has a solid thematic through-line for a Jesse-centered movie.

Despite being a meth-abuser and a criminal many times over, Jesse Pinkman still earns audience sympathy for two reasons. One is that Jesse never actually has anything particularly great happen in his life, and many of his negative decisions are forced upon him by others in higher power. So while it's still his fault that he got so caught up in the life, Jesse rarely gets to reap any rewards, facing mostly tragedies like Jane's death and his imprisonment. Which, like Cranston said, kept Jesse on a solo route worth exploring further in a movie.

The other reason that viewers ooze sympathy onto Jesse Pinkman is the person who's playing him. Aaron Paul deserves a big chunk of the credit for keeping fans tuned in as Walter White went over the deep end, and he could help close a chapter on a huge undeveloped plotline that viewers have wondered about for years now.

Speaking with Indiewire about the Breaking Bad movie, Bryan Cranston also praised Aaron Paul for his work as Jesse.

Naturally, fans would also love to see a return to Heisenberg form from Bryan Cranston, even though Walter White is dead by the end of the Breaking Bad finale. The actor doesn't know how it would happen, but he'd be interested in getting back into the role in some way. He did mention that it could happen all in flashbacks, which would create quite the difficult narrative exercise for Vince Gilligan.

Before the Breaking Bad movie news came to light, fans were clamoring to get Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul onto the spinoff prequel Better Call Saul. Both seemed willing to do so, but only within a perfect context. Neither they, nor co-creators Vince Gilligan or Peter Gould, want to see Walt and Jesse back for anything sub-standard. (Even that charity commercial they did together was gold, so they can make any material look great.) But if we have to wait until the movie to see either character's return, at least it's a guarantee, right?

We have lots of questions that need answering when the Breaking Bad movie gets here, even if we don't know where "here" is yet. While waiting to hear more news, head to our fall TV premiere schedule for all the shows that will be airing in the near future.

With Better Call Saul currently one of the more popular and obsessed-over TV shows on cable, AMC is clearly not finished mining Breaking Bad's mythology for spinoff projects. Perhaps surprisingly, though, the next chapter of Breaking Bad's tale will come in the form of a movie, with creator Vince Gilligan at the helm. Will it be all good, man?

A Breaking Bad movie has been something fans have been asking for ever since the show was still on the air, and it looks like AMC and Vince Gilligan landed on a concept and pitch that made everyone finally decide to go whole hog in jumping back to that world. How exactly Gilligan will go about resurrecting the beloved crime drama is a mystery for the moment, as is the format it will be released in. However, there are at least some clues about where the story could be headed.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, the logline for the in-development film says it will "track the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom." So, if the story is covering a timeline that follows Breaking Bad's stellar finale, then it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the "kidnapped man" is Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman. (If it's a prequelized story, then I'm clueless.)

After all, Jesse was indeed kidnapped by the neo-Nazis and made to do their meth-related bidding. It was only when Walt showed up with his inexplicable trunk-fulla-guns and laid those Season 5 villains to waste. The last time viewers caught sight of Jesse, he was indeed making his escape, and it wouldn't be a stretch to say he was embarking on a quest for freedom. Or even just a quest for a hot shower and some fresh laundry.

Another potential clue to where things are heading is the Breaking Bad film's reported shooting title, "Greenbrier." Now, shooting titles are often just temporary placeholders that don't draw major attention. Often, the temp names are random and meaningless, but is it possible that "Greenbrier" refers to the area that the "kidnapped man" heads to in making his escape?

Perhaps the most familiar Greenbrier in the country is in West Virginia, which could very well be where Jesse (or whoever) ends up in making their escape. We know from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul that Robert Forster's "The Disappearer" is capable to giving people brand new lives and identities when they're on the run for whatever reason.

To bring this round of speculation full circle, what I really want to see from this Breaking Bad movie is for the story of "kidnapped man" to cross paths with Bob Odenkirk's Gene from Better Call Saul's flash-forwards. That timeline may be deeper into the future than where the movie will start things off, but that would possibly be the easiest (and most excellent) way to tie all three projects together. Assuming that connecting everything is what Vince Gilligan has in mind.

On a slightly less speculative tip, we're obviously wondering where this Breaking Bad movie is going to show up in our lives. Obviously, the goal used to be to spin a small screen project into a feature set for theatrical releases. While that could definitely still happen, it's easier to assume that AMC will be handling the project in-house to release through its streaming service.

For one, AMC did just recently announce a smorgasbord of new and interesting projects that will expand the Walking Dead franchise in huge ways. In particular, the network will produce a series of films centered on Rick Grimes, but likely without any kind of theatrical push. AMC is planning on all kinds of additional specials, miniseries and spinoff series, too. So even though Breaking Bad doesn't have quite the same kind of universe to pull from, perhaps fans could see more than just one Heisenberg-esque follow-up project from Vince Gilligan.

Another reason why this new Breaking Bad direction appears set for television is that the project will reportedly be the first one Vince Gilligan tackles in his overall deal with Sony Pictures TV that was made official over the summer. That factor doesn't necessarily preclude it from showing up on the big screen -- I'd like to see that blue meth in IMAX -- but it's a safer bet that AMC will be putting the film directly into people's homes upon release.

Stay tuned to see what's happening next with this Breaking Bad film, which is set to begin production in mid-November, and will go until February. Let us know what you think "Greenbrier" is about in the comments, too. Maybe it's a code word that really means "Walt's Not Dead," and we just have to figure out how to put two and two together.

While waiting to hear what happens, be sure to catch up with all the Breaking Bad-related fun on Better Call Saul, which can be streamed in full on its service AMC Premiere. (Season 4 is set to hit Netflix at some point, but probably not until next year, closer to Season 5's premiere.) In the meantime, the fall tv premiere schedule is also full of great shows that will hopefully deserve spinoff movies one day.

Since television first came into existence, few casts have been more impressive than that of Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad, which made household names out of Bryan Cranston, Giancarlo Esposito and others. And while Gilligan had no intentions of ever populating the AMC drama with big-name celebrities, he can now look back and fondly contemplate how things might have gone differently. In particular, he brought up three different A-list stars that he'd have wanted to see in the world of Breaking Bad, starting with an actor who I'd welcome on any primetime series, Samuel L. Jackson.

Now, this would have truly been a reality-shattering moment within Breaking Bad, which never used its actors' star power when introducing them. Even if Jackson had been wearing an eye-catching wig and big sunglasses and a costume unlike those he's used to, he probably still would have been recognized without problems. Especially once he started to talk and place his Los Pollos Hermanos order. "Yeah, give me a number one, motherfucker."

And hey, considering Better Call Saul has already introduced Gus Fring's fast food franchise, it's still feasible for Samuel L. Jackson to take a plane to Albuquerque in order to hook himself up with as much chicken as he wants. There better not be any snakes on that flight, though.

While any potential Samuel L. Jackson cameos were inspired by the actor himself, Vince Gilligan had his own ideas for two highly respectable and lauded Hollywood icons that he might have let into the Breaking Bad fray: pathos-driven comedian Robin Williams and star-turned-director Clint Eastwood. Here's how Gilligan put it to EW:

Can anyone out there imagine a world in which Robin Williams was cast as Gus Fring -- presumably not with the full first name Gustavo -- and where Clint Eastwood was playing Mike Ehrmantraut? Jonathan Banks is obviously as fantastic as actor as the show could have landed for Mike, across both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but there are some easy comparisons to make between his portrayal and some of Eastwood's memorable performances over the years. Hell, he could even play Mike's dad or brother or something, and it would be pure magic.

But for all that he might have wanted to get those Hollywood greats into Breaking Bad from a purely fan-based perspective, Vince Gillian is fine with not having to worry about how it would have affected the creative process. Or if it would have changed how the audience felt. (After all, would Lalo Salamanca's introduction have been as mysterious if Lalo had been played by Sam Jackson?) When asked how he would have used any of the above-mentioned actors, he said this:

There are only two more episodes left of Better Call Saul, which is getting all the more close to the Breaking Bad timeline. Be sure to watch Monday nights on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. And hit up our fall TV premiere schedule to see what new and returning shows are on the way soon.

Mild spoilers below for anyone who hasn't yet watched the Season 4 premiere for Better Call Saul.

In Better Call Saul, fans knew they were getting a prequelized take on Saul Goodman's life prior to his connection with Walter White, but the black-and-white flash-forwards have been a series of short-lived surprises. The exact timeline for Gene's Cinnabon-managing stint has yet to get nailed down within the show's narrative, and co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are now dropping teases that Bryan Cranston's Walt might actually still be alive during the Gene scenes that we've seen thus far, including his hospital-bound trip that kicked off Season 4. Here's how they put it.

That's kind of a mind-blowing option for fans to consider, since the going idea for Better Call Saul is that any potential Walter White appearances would have to be in full flashback form, with him popping up during the time before his rise to underworld infamy as Heisenberg. But if Gilligan and Gould are being on the level with viewers here, then there's the slightest chance we could get a new look at Walt when he's caught up in the downward spiral that led to his death, and to Jesse's escape from the Neo-Nazis. Among other Breaking Bad-familiar situations, that is.

These comments were made during the latest episode of Better Call Saul Insider Podcast, and the "interesting" question that Vince Gilligan was referring to came from star Bob Odenkirk, who somewhat rhetorically inquired about Gene potentially coming out of hiding upon hearing news of Walt's death. But instead of dancing around that question in the normal way, the co-creators unlocked a new avenue of speculation for fans to careen down.

And they kept the teases going for just a little longer, too.

Vince Gilligan himself has copped to being more interested in the Gene flash-forwards than other show elements at this point, and his heightened interest would be more than justified if Gene's mall-manager stint actually does line up with Walt's cabin retreat-turned-revenge mission. It still wouldn't make for the easiest Bryan Cranston cameo, but perhaps Gene could be watching the local news via hospital TV, where he sees a report about Walt's crimes. Or maybe the two men's last piece of communication was through a phone call that viewers never knew about. There are ample options.

Bob Odenkirk has his own Breaking Bad crossover theories that he's interested in seeing come to life. But before any of that happens, Jimmy McGill will be dealing with his brother's death, as TV fans are coping without Michael McKean around on a regular basis. All while Gun Fring makes his own rise in criminal rankings.

While we might not get to figure this mystery out until Season 5 or beyond, Better Call Saul will keep audiences busy with Season 4 every Monday night on AMC at 9:00 p.m. ET. To see what other shows will be debuting in the meantime, head to our fall premiere schedule.

For the first time in years, Breaking Bad hit the San Diego Comic-Con celebrate its 10th anniversary with a hilarious and interesting panel. At one point, moderator and series vet Bill Burr asked the popular question of Walt and Jesse's potential to appear on Better Call Saul. After Vince Gilligan disappointingly (and predictably) confirmed that neither will be seen in Season 4, Bob Odenkirk made a curious-in-context mention about Dean Norris' DEA Agent Hank Schrader, and it made me think Hank might be the next big Breaking Bad character to show up in the prequel. Here's the quick exchange:

To be sure, no one on the stage at that point made any grand declarations confirming that we're going to see Saul and Hank crossing paths in Season 4, or any other season. But Odenkirk knew he would be stoking some fan-theory fires by making that comment, and Gilligan also knew the kinds of speculation that would run rampant. So as far as I'm concerned, it's a legitimate avenue for such theorizing and speculating, and I only wish Bill Burr had spent the next ten minutes trying to get better clarification about it. Kuby would have.

During the Better Call Saul panel just previous, Vince Gilligan did confirm that more Breaking Bad familiars would be crossing over in Season 4 to accompany Jimmy's transition into Saul, including characters who'd only been mentioned on the flagship series. He seemed to be talking more about the show's criminal element over its law enforcement element, which doesn't speak to Hank showing up. But if Bob Odenkirk knows about the "something bad" that happened, then he and Gilligan presumably talked about it, and we'll presumably get to see it at some point. Everybody is with me on that, right? Right?!?

To go from potentially good news to not-so-great news, here's Vince Gilligan's full answer for Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston's chances of appearing on Better Call Saul.

So if we're all just extremely patient and willing to allow Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould to tell their stories at their preferred pacing, then we'll almost definitely get to see Walter White and/or Jesse Pinkman making at least one appearance on Better Call Saul before it's all said and done. So be patient, people! But also keep clamoring for more Walt and Jesse!

While Breaking Bad won't be returning to audiences in a proper fashion, Better Call Saul is keeping that universe alive, with Season 4 starting up on AMC on Monday, August 6, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Check out the Season 4 trailer that was released during its panel, and while waiting to dip back in full-time, head to our summer premiere schedule to see the new and returning shows coming soon.

While not a living and breaking character in its own right, the powerful blue methamphetamine at the heart of Breaking Bad was arguably the show's most damaging force, slowly rotting the personalities and lifestyles of anyone crossing its path. And as Bryan Cranston's Walter White proved time and again, one didn't need to partake in order to face those consequences. As it turns out, though, creator Vince Gilligan & Co. did come relatively close to having Walt test his own product. Ultimately, though, they decided just to keep him hooked on making the meth, rather than on smoking it. In Gilligan's words:

It's so easy to both agree with and to playfully rebuke that last sentiment. I think it's obvious why everything Vince Gilligan said to EW is agreeable, especially when looking back to the start of the series, and not just thinking of Walt as the hat-tipping Heisenberg. Can anyone imagine how weird Breaking Bad would have gotten had Walt started sampling his own wares back when he first took the RV into the desert? I mean, the desert is a great setting for avoiding people, and Walt would have had a qualified meth-smoking instructor in Jesse, but the character would have gone careening off the deep end five minutes after audiences met him.

In later seasons, though, when Walt was on his way to taking over Gus Fring's empire, it might have almost made sense to have Walt feel bulletproof enough to see what all the blue meth hubbub was about. But for all his negatively obsessive qualities, Walt showcased a deep intelligence that made him fully aware how important it was in his illicit career for him to stay sober and grounded in the face of compounding stresses.

Luckily for the lead character's nerves, Vince Gilligan and the creative team decided against taking Walt on the wild side, choosing instead to keep his additions and impulses wholly fixated on the creation of the drug, as opposed to its usage. It's the rare gig where that's the case, too, since bakers taste their own cakes and seamstresses wear their own clothes. (Presumably.)

But still, part of me absolutely wishes that there was a one-off Breaking Bad episode in which Walt and Jesse set aside a weekend, set up a playlist of of bass-pumping jams, and spent 48+ hours getting to the heart of why the blue meth was such a popular product. I just want to hear those conversations, really.

Alas, Walter White lived and died without intentionally getting baked on his own creation, and the show didn't suffer for it. Fans should keep eyes and ears out for more Breaking Bad fun when the show's cast and crew hit up San Diego Comic-Con for a 10th Anniversary panel. Until then, check out the interesting scenes that Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul really wanted Walt and Jesse to get, and then head to our summer premiere schedule to see what new and returning shows are on the way.

Throughout most of television's history, lead characters were almost always either good guys or bad guys, so to speak, but the early 2000s changed all that forever. The rise of the antihero was led by fan favorites such as Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Omar Little and more, with many TV fans agreeing that Breaking Bad's Walter White deserves a spot on or near the top of Antihero Mountain. But it turns out creator Vince Gilligan has grown a little weary with the ongoing entertainment trend, and he's ready to see some true-blue heroes on TV again. In his words:

Anyone growing up solely watching TV that has come out in the last 20 years may not have a solid inkling of how delineated the lines were between heroes and villains for the first 50+ years of the medium's existence. Sure, there were protagonists who stepped over the line, and antagonists who lent an occasional helping hand, but you wouldn't see shows like Profit or Dexter hitting primetime in the 1980s. And perhaps fittingly, the man who created one of the most iconic "quasi-monsters we love to root for" is now ready to see television return to its roots by ushering more clearly defined heroes back to the fictional forefront.

Vince Gilligan's biggest pre-Breaking Bad gig was as a writer and producer on The X-Files, which did center on two characters who almost always did the "right" thing, but also featured supposedly virtuous government workers whose motivations and morals were consistently iffy. Not exactly hitting the anti-hero mold as it would come to be recognized, but still balancing the line between right and wrong in different ways. (And while on the Paley Center for Media stage, via Variety, Gilligan claimed after his X-Files stint, he knew he wouldn't be able to survive showrunning a series with over 20 episodes a season, so don't expect Saul to double its episode count soon.)

So when it came time to create his own TV universe, and the characters that would populate it, Vince Gilligan chose not to introduce a chemistry teacher who wanted to completely eradicate the crystal meth problem creeping through Albuquerque, New Mexico. Instead, he inflicted Walter White with a major conflict -- he's dying of cancer and has to give his family a better life beyond his death -- and basically gave Walt free rein over how to fix that problem. Which, as fans know, included some truly horrible situations, not the least of which were watching his partner-in-crime's girlfriend Jane die and blowing up half of a man's face.

Vince Gilligan remained in the same crime universe with the spinoff prequel Better Call Saul, and while the first few seasons were more about exploring Jimmy McGill before his shyster turn as Saul Goodman, the show is now heading into darker times by embracing its inner Gus Fring. Star Bob Odenkirk recently admitted he is wary of making the deep dive into Saul's persona, because he actually likes Jimmy's nice-guy personality, and doesn't share those feelings for his Breaking Bad lawyer. And it sounds like Vince Gilligan might also be slightly dreading Better Call Saul's downward spiral, which likely won't be introducing any upstanding heroes in Season 4.

With Better Call Saul Season 4, Vince Gilligan & Co. are getting even closer to the point in the timeline when Heisenberg's origin story begins, so here's hoping he finds a new project at some point where he can create his own new TV hero to cheer for without any mixed feelings to wade through. But only after Jimmy slips his way into becoming Saul for the long haul. Find out what happens when Season 4 kicks off on AMC on Monday, August 6, at 9:00 p.m. And then head to our summer premiere schedule to see what else is on the way.

While Breaking Bad ended five years ago in 2013, its universe lives on in the form of Better Call Saul. The spinoff series launched two years after Breaking Bad ended in 2015. Ever since it began, fans have been wondering if Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul could pop back in to reprise their roles as Walter and Jesse. Well, Cranston has provided some insight on that front. When asked about whether he would be willing, Bryan Cranston responded by saying:

Bryan Cranston sounds pretty open to the possibility of reprising his iconic role as Walter White. Cranston's response to EW will undoubtedly bolster the hopes of fans wishing for this outcome. And he has also shared he has "a couple of ideas" he wants to pitch to Better Call Saul's showrunners. Whether fans will be satisfied with Walter White making his Better Call Saul appearance in a cameo as subtle as a "brush-by" is anyone's guess.

It would certainly leave the audience wanting more, which could theoretically open the door to other appearances in the future. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan knows his audience well so if that were to end up happening, there is little reason to think it would be a flop. The thing about Better Call Saul is that it has satiated fans appetite for the Breaking Bad universe, while keeping the vein to the original series that started it all.

With the existence of Better Call Saul, the door has been left open for the characters to be brought back to life. It is something that has not gone over fans' heads. Will it actually happen though? Season 4 premieres later this summer. Could there be a secret cameo by Walter White?

And while all of this explains how Bryan Cranston feels about reprising his role, how does his co-star Aaron Paul feel about the possibility of bringing Jesse Pinkman back to life? Well, when asked if he is open to filming a few scenes, this is what Paul had to say:

From the sound of things, both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are willing to do it, which is a good sign. Again, the question is whether their appearances will ever come to fruition. It is in the hands of the showrunners. Breaking Bad's creator recently shared how he hoped Jesse Pinkman's life would have ended up after the series' finale and posited that the character could be revisited. Will the stars align for a Jesse and Walt appearance on Better Call Saul? Stay tuned.

The fourth season of Better Call Saul premieres August 6 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Every season of Breaking Bad and the first three seasons of Better Call Saul are currently available to stream on Netflix. For new and returning television shows you can anticipate watching over the next couple months, check out CinemaBlend's guide to TV's summer premieres.

Over the course of three seasons, Better Call Saul has proven itself to be not only one of the most engrossing dramas on TV right now, but also one of the highest-quality TV spinoffs of all time. Co-creator Vince Gilligan is more familiar with this universe than almost anyone else on the planet, and he has revealed the Saul story arc that's still holding his interest the most as the show heads into Season 4 and beyond. In his words:

Considering Vince Gilligan is the storytelling maestro behind Breaking Bad, he already knows where Jimmy McGill is going to end up after all the events of Better Call Saul are wrapped up. (As does the massive fanbase.) And while there are obviously different and unexpected places to go with Jimmy's story before that transition, there's still a melancholy feeling attached to it all, with Saul Goodman's cynical and virtue-free existence showing us what's left after all of Jimmy's inherent qualities were stripped away by his (now late) brother Chuck, New Mexico law, and various elements of Gun Fring's burgeoning criminal operation. But Gene disrupts that flow.

Gene's Cinnabon-centered reality was set up after Walter White's final arc forced Saul Goodman out of town and out of that particular identity. As Vince Gilligan put it, Gene's mostly untapped story does provide some hope within the largely downbeat Better Call Saul universe, even if the Omaha mall setting is only positive due to the lack of involvement from crystal meth kingpins. We've already seen that Gene still has some of the Jimmy-Saul fire still burning somewhere inside him, so perhaps he'll still be able to forge a proper and enjoyable final act for himself that ends happily. Even if it doesn't fully make it to TV.

Vince Gilligan shared his opinions about Better Call Saul's most interesting storyline while taking part in the show's panel at this year's ATX Television Festival (via Variety), where he also talked about how Better Call Saul actually started its existence as a comedic sitcom before the structure was more firmly planned out. He also talked about how helpful it was to have kicked of Saul's production immediately after Breaking Bad was finished, saying that he was afraid his creative juices would freeze up if he left those characters alone for too long. He also said this about that somewhat unique spinoff approach.

I hope I'm not alone in wishing for a future Better Call Saul scene in which Gene walks into a room where a bunch of people have gathered to surprise him, just to hear a lot of people joyously and excitedly calling out, "Gene!" (Akin to the trademark Norm welcome on Cheers.) Although upon further reflection, I suppose Gene would probably revert to paranoid panic if a bunch of people suddenly yelled his name out when he wasn't ready for it, which might not go well for everyone.

Better Call Saul Season 4 is set to debut on AMC on Monday, August 6, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Check out what Bob Odenkirk says fans can expect to see in the new season, and then hit up our summer premiere schedule to see when all the other new and returning shows will be hitting primetime.

Breaking Bad turned ten years old this year, and Vince Gilligan has made the rounds to celebrate that anniversary. Much ado has been made about the AMC hit's already stellar legacy, including the fact that it managed to go out on a high note with that blistering Season 5 finale. As it turns out, that exit was very much by design, as Gilligan channeled his experiences working on The X-Files to remind himself not to overstay his TV welcome with Breaking Bad. Gilligan explained:

That's not to say that Vince Gilligan did not enjoy his time on The X-Files, or Breaking Bad. It just means he learned to recognize that "you don't want to leave the party too late," and he used that lesson to decide when it was time to leave Breaking Bad behind. As a result, the intense crime drama ended its five-season run in 2013 with a massive wave of fanfare. For Gilligan, Walter White dying after rescuing Jesse from the neo-Nazi biker gang was the "high point" that the show couldn't go beyond.

It also sounds like Vince Gilligan's decision to end Breaking Bad caused a slight stir behind the scenes as well. Elsewhere in his recent discussion with media outlets (via Digital Spy), the future Better Call Saul co-creator explained that the folks at the studio wanted more content because the show had just started to hit its stride (particularly following the fan-favorite fourth season). However, they also supported Gilligan's decision to ensure that the series received a proper conclusion that could round out the Walter White/Heisenberg story in a fitting manner.

This remark isn't the first time that Vince Gilligan has credited the sci-fi series with preparing him for his time on Breaking Bad. In fact, just last year he opened up and discussed how his time on The X-Files helped him learn how to wear all of the hats necessary to make Breaking Bad run like a well-oiled machine. All things considered, it seems safe to assume that the AMC drama might have never worked as well as it did without The X-Files helping lay the groundwork.

Of course, it probably helps that the Breaking Bad world didn't stay dormant for long after "Felina" aired in 2013. Less than two years alter Vince Gilligan and his crew found themselves back in action with the prequel series, Better Call Saul, and that spinoff/prequel/sequel continues to wow audiences with its increased emphasis on side characters from the Breaking Bad universe. We're still anxiously awaiting Season 4 (which could finally give viewers the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman cameos that they've been waiting for), but it also leaves us wondering how long Gilligan and his team plans to run that series for as well.

We will keep you posted with more information related to Better Call Saul's fourth season (as well as anything else related to the Breaking Bad universe) as new details are made available to us. For now, check out our midseason premiere guide to see what upcoming shows are set to debut on the small screen this spring!

It has been almost five years since we saw Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman drive off into the night at the end of Breaking Bad's series finale. The iconic show put Walter White's protégé through one emotional and physical wringer after another during its run, and many have wondered where Jesse ultimately ended up. With that burning question in mind, series creator Vince Gilligan recently opened up about some potential outcomes, admitting he thinks Jesse got away clean and then moved on from his life of crime. Per Gilligan:

Vince Gilligan has a pretty clear point when he talks about Jesse paying his dues. Out of all the characters to ever appear on Breaking Bad, Jesse Pinkman arguably suffered more extended anguish than anyone. His fate at the end of "Felina" is left intentionally ambiguous, but Gilligan appears to be a member of the camp who wants to think that Jesse earned a reprieve with a happy ending -- although he tempered that optimism with the note that Jesse's post-Walt career prospects seem hard to figure out.

Of course, all of this talk about Jesse Pinkman's ultimate fate raises the question of whether or not the character could show up in Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad sequel/prequel/spinoff series, Better Call Saul. Gilligan also spoke about that in his recent roundtable interview (via Digital Spy) and again suggested it as a possibility, saying:

That does raise the question of how Jesse could potentially appear in Better Call Saul. Even if Aaron Paul does take a break from his time on shows like Hulu's The Path and Netflix's BoJack Horseman to gear up for a Saul cameo, it's always possible that he would just show up in flashbacks, and not the current "Gene" timeline. At this point, we will just have to wait and see.

For now, it seems likely that the ultimate fate of Jesse Pinkman will remain entirely up to viewers until Vince Gilligan and the other folks behind the Breaking Bad universe decide to provide some explanation. CinemaBlend will bring you more information related to Better Call Saul's highly anticipated fourth season as more information becomes available, and for now, you can take a look at our midseason premiere guide to see what else is coming this spring!

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Warning: Breaking Bad spoilers ahead! Don't read any further if you don't know how the AMC series ends!

Breaking Bad arguably has one of the most satisfying series finales of all time, with Walter White thoroughly decimating a group of Neo-Nazis, freeing Jesse from his captivity, leaving his family with a small percentage of his fortune, and dying peacefully in a meth lab. That said, things almost didn't end that well for him. In fact, series creator Vince Gilligan recently opened up with the rest of the Breaking Bad writing team while discussing the show's 10th anniversary and admitted that one initial pitch for "Felina" involved having Walt be the last man standing after everyone he loved had been killed. Per Gilligan's recollection:

As dark as Breaking Bad ever got (and the show did get very dark at times) it arguably never went that far. That said, Vince Gilligan and his team almost saved their darkest trick for last by leaving Walt -- by all accounts, the character whose life was most consistently on the line throughout the show -- as the only remaining character. The proposed finale would've killed Skyler, Walt Jr., Jesse, and everyone else, leaving him with nothing more than a crumbled empire. "Felina" had a notable body count, but that would've been something else altogether.

That wasn't the only ending considered by the folks behind Breaking Bad. Writer Sam Catlin continued in the discussion with Variety and addressed another possible conclusion that involved Walter quietly dying and not leaving much of an impact on the world around him. Catlin said:

Thematically speaking, that's precisely the opposite of the ending that Walter White ultimately got. Vince Gilligan and his team were eventually able to pay off that Season 5 tease of the M60 machine gun in grand fashion, and Walter was left to be found by the police -- thus cementing his place as one of Albuquerque's most notorious criminals. None of these endings would necessarily be ideal for the average, non-murderous person, but I think it's safe to say that Walt got a more peaceful sendoff than he potentially could've when the team sat down to crack the "Felina" story.

Although Breaking Bad has come to an end, this world created by Vince Gilligan continues to thrive. Make sure to stay tuned for more updates related to Better Call Saul's highly-anticipated fourth season, and hop over to our midseason premiere guide for more information on all of the shows debuting this spring.

When Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould introduced Better Call Saul to viewers, it seemed like a perfect way to extend the backstory for one of Breaking Bad's most interesting side characters. But it hasn't always been easy for the creative team, considering such a huge chunk of Saul Goodman's future has already been established. And it turns out one particular Breaking Bad line has caused some major mental kerfuffles for Gilligan & Co., and it all has to do with Saul's romantic life.

If Jimmy McGill-turned-Saul Goodman was some kind of a Casanova with a sex-crazed hot streak, then this might not be such a challenge for Vince Gilligan. But that's most certainly not the case, and the most successful flirting we've seen from Jimmy involved him lying to a woman about being Kevin Costner so that she would sleep with him. Interestingly, that was also a Breaking Bad callback (or call-ahead, as it were). But one sexual encounter does not a wife or ex-wife make, so what will the deal be here?

Vince Gilligan spoke with Screenrant for Breaking Bad's tenth anniversary, and his words will almost certainly cause fans to envision a future where Saul and Kim can finally lower their guards and become a couple, but that might actually be the worst scenario possible. In the Season 3 episode "Green Light," Saul tells Walt that he caught his second wife screwing his stepdad, which means Kim would end up cheating on Jimmy, and Kim just doesn't seem like that kind of woman. Especially when it involves Jimmy's stepdad, who also hasn't been introduced yet within this universe.

We also haven't ever met Jimmy's first wife, assuming she exists, but that's less of an issue, since there are lots of things we don't know about Jimmy's younger years. But assuming he meets, marries and divorces a second woman between Better Call Saul's "now" and Breaking Bad's future, then viewers will be in for quite an awkward and presumably mishandled treat. And we can't wait.

Of course, I don't think anyone who has watched Jimmy McGill or Saul Goodman in action would ever take any of Bob Odenkirk's personas solely at their word. Jimmy's instinct and impulse for lying are some the character's most recognizable qualities, so we wouldn't be surprised at all to discover that Jimmy has never been married in his life, and that his stepdad is as real as Santa Claus. But if even Vince Gilligan doesn't even know at this point, what chance do we have?

Unfortunately, we're still not sure when Better Call Saul will be back on AMC to lay out even more Breaking Bad connections, and to lay out Chuck's fate, but Season 4's premiere date will likely get announced in the coming weeks. Until then, head to our midseason premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows that are on the way.

From Krazy-8 to Tuco to Uncle Jack and his band of neo-nazis, Breaking Bad had no shortage of intimidating villains over the course of its run on AMC. That said, nothing can compare to the iconic presence of Gus Fring, nor his explosive demise at the end of Season 4. The whole scene and set-up felt like the natural and proper end for his arc, but Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan said finding the best and most logical way to kill such a great villain proved incredibly challenging. Gilligan opened up while discussing the show's 10th anniversary and explained:

It's entirely arguable that Gus Fring was always smarter than Walter White, and that he was better at engaging in criminal activity than the impulsive meth cook. That created obvious problems in Season 4, because in creating such a smart and all-around talented villain, Vince Gilligan and his crew inadvertently developed a character whose death was incredibly difficult to plan out. This led to the writers questioning the possibility of Gus making his first real mistake on the show, but the team ultimately concluded that he needed to remain the crafty, calm, cool, and collected bad guy all the way through his kingpin tenure on the AMC series. Not only so Walt's victory would feel worthwhile, but also so the legacy of Gus Fring wouldn't be tainted in retrospect.

Eventually, the decision was made to tackle the situation by making the showdown less about Walt and Gus and more about Gus and Hector Salamanca, who was brilliantly retrofitted as Gus' nemesis. Vince Gilligan continued in his chat with Uproxx and explained how creating that tension between the two men established a blind spot in Gus' typically logical and practical reasoning that allowed him to be exploited and exploded, saying:

The result of that narrative breakthrough? A suspense-soaked death scene to rival anything else that Breaking Bad had given audiences leading up to that (literally) explosive Season 4 finale, and one that also maintained Gus Fring's integrity and intelligence.

This is far from the only time in which Vince Gilligan and his team had to find a way out of a tight narrative spot during Breaking Bad's run. The creative team often caused a number of "logistical" problems for themselves, such as the dilemma of how they would pay off the Season 5 machine gun tease in "Felina," or how Walt and Jesse could escape the RV when cornered by Hank Schrader in Season 3. Through it all, the team managed to pull it off with award-winning results, and with Better Call Saul now carrying the Breaking Bad torch, we will hopefully see many more mind games and narrative puzzles in the future.

If you're a fan of Gustavo Fring, then you will have to wait and see what else Vince Gilligan and his team can cook up for the character now that Better Call Saul reintroduced the man behind Los Pollos Hermanos. We will keep you posted with more updates related to Better Call Saul's fourth season as more details are made available, but for now, check out our midseason premiere guide to see what other shows are gearing up to debut within the next few months.

Warning: Breaking Bad spoilers ahead! Read forward at your own risk!

AMC's Breaking Bad turns ten years old in 2018, and many fans have started to look back on the legacy of the beloved drama. A game-changing series primarily centered on an anti-hero's ability to think his way out of tight situations, that tendency to improvise was very much a constant in the real-life creation of the show as well. In fact, Vince Gilligan recently opened up about the history of the series and admitted that the tease of the machine gun in Season 5 represented the hardest plotline for the writers to figure out. Gilligan explained:

An old storytelling cliché dictates that if you see a gun early in a story, then it will have to go off by the end of the narrative. Vince Gilligan and the Breaking Bad team showed Walt getting his hands on a huge machine gun at the beginning of Breaking Bad's fifth season, but they had no idea how to pay it off at the time. They had to figure it out by the time the series finale aired in 2013. Although the machine gun eventually did pay off, the process of weaving it back into the story from premiere to finale became so tricky that Gilligan was ready to write the tease off and forget about the machine gun entirely until his team convinced him to stick with it.

Eventually, the Breaking Bad writing team did manage to figure out a way to work the machine gun into the story by creating circumstances in which Walt needed to kill an entire room full of white supremacists, who were the clear go-to bad guys for the series finale. However, Vince Gilligan also noted that the creation of Jack and his gang was more of a constant evolution than one definitive "eureka" moment. Gilligan continued:

Of course, that machine gun dilemma was far from the only "painful" conundrum that Vince Gilligan and the Breaking Bad writing team had to work their way out of over the course of the show's run on AMC. Elsewhere in his interview with Uproxx about the legacy of the show, Gilligan similarly reflected on the Season 3 episode called "Sunset" in which Hank cornered Jesse and (unbeknownst to him) Walt in the RV at a junkyard.

Although the episode made Walt look like a genius for his ability to trick Hank and escape the trap, the reality of the situation was that it took several professional writers weeks to crack -- with them even pitching the idea of Walt simply killing Hank at one point. In the end, they figured out a way to have Walt trick Hank into thinking that Marie had ended up in the hospital so that Hank would race away, but the sequence depicted in the show doesn't even come close to showing how much thought went into these major creative decisions.

With all of that said, even with the difficulties in cracking these situations, the Breaking Bad universe still wows audiences to this very day. That will continue when Better Call Saul returns for its fourth season, but for now, you can check out CinemaBlend's midseason premiere guide to see what shows are on the horizon for the next few months.

We all have to start somewhere in our professional lives, and even someone with a track record as strong as Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan had to learn from someone. When looking for creative mentorship early in his career, it appears that Gilligan found it in the form of The X-Files' Chris Carter during his time as a writer on the paranormal series. Gilligan recently spoke out about his development as a TV producer and credited Carter with showing him how to become completely involved in his shows, saying:

It's no secret that Vince Gilligan takes a very hands-on approach to his work on his shows. In fact, over the course of the last decade, Gilligan's name has arguably become inextricable from his work on projects like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul -- joining the ranks of legendary TV producers and showrunners like Dick Wolf, Greg Berlanti, and Shonda Rhimes. His series exhibit a level of quality that we don't often see in modern television, and by his admission, that seems to be because Chris Carter taught him to involve himself in the fundamental steps of a show's evolution -- from development all the way through production and post-production.

Knowing how Vince Gilligan feels about his upbringing as a creative, his comments to Vice also help us understand why Breaking Bad arguably has one of the most consistent runs of any TV show in the last decade. From there, and with three stellar seasons of Better Call Saul in the can, it looks like Vince Gilligan continues to take the well-learned lessons from his days on The X-Files and put them to good use. Jimmy McGill's descent into criminality will continue when the show returns next year, so I think it's safe to say that there's plenty to get excited about. Who knows, maybe this means the next Vince Gilligan is someone from the Better Call Saul writers room that he has similarly molded into a showrunner?

It also sounds like Gilligan plans to take those lessons outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico as well. The Breaking Bad showrunner is currently developing a project for HBO centering on infamous cult leader Jim Jones based on Tim Reiterman's book Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Given Gilligan's success in his own right, as well as the lessons learned during his time on The X-Files, we have a feeling that this could represent the perfect combination of his experience and inherent skills as a storyteller.

For now, make sure to take a look at our summer TV premiere guide, as well as our fall TV premiere guide, to keep yourself up to date on all of the major small screen debuts of the next few months!