‘Breaking Bad’ Creator Vince Gilligan Addresses Finale Theory, ‘Better Call Saul’
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was relieved by the fan reaction to the series finale, “Felina.”
Gilligan told Entertainment Weekly it meant a lot to him that fans liked the episode, but that there was one particular theory that kept popping up.
“However, having said that, when I heard anecdotally that a lot of people were of the belief that the whole thing had been a dream, then I was kind of scratching my head because that to me, as a fan of storytelling, that to me, is the antithesis of a satisfying ending,” he said.
Gilligan added that the only time that the “it was a dream” ending worked was when it was first used in the Ambrose Bierce short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
“It worked beautifully in that short story from [123] years ago. It does not work well to a modern audience,” he added. “It certainly doesn’t work well for me that these people I’ve invested all my care and close attention to for years on end, that nothing they’ve accomplished happened to be real: It was all some bulls**t dream. [Laughs] I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Who would find that…what’s the word?… fulfilling?”
Vince Gilligan also said that he and Peter Gould are still deciding how much of the Breaking Bad spinoff, Better Call Saul, will be a prequel and how much of it will refer back to its predecessor.
“We think, by and large, this show will be a prequel, but the wonderful thing about the fractured chronology we employed on Breaking Bad for many years is the audience will not be thrown by us jumping around in time,” Gilligan said. “So it’s possible that we may indeed do that, and we’ll see the past and perhaps the future. Nothing is written in stone yet, we’re still figuring it out.”
This isn’t the first time Gilligan has addressed the theory that the series finale of Breaking Bad was a dream. Back in October, Gilligan said that the theory that the finale took place in Walt’s head doesn’t make sense “because Walt would therefore have to be dreaming about things he would otherwise have no knowledge of.”
As for Better Call Saul, Netflix recently announced that it would stream the first season after the season finale airs on TV in the US.
“Breaking Bad is widely recognized as one of the great TV experiences in this new golden age of television,” Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said. “It has also proven very popular with Netflix subscribers around the world. This spin-off promises to continue its tradition of powerful storytelling.”
