A few journalists spoke to Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan - via video conference call - about his plans for the show's final 16 episodes, the possibility of more flashbacks and dealing with fan reaction...
How is work going on the final two seasons of Breaking Bad?
"Work is going very well. We are working away on the last 16 episodes and we just finished breaking episode five yesterday. We're starting today on episode six. And we started shooting the first of the episodes two days ago, in Albuquerque, and I was there for the first day - that was a lot of fun. It's just very frantic and very exciting and we're looking forward to doing the best job we can do on the last 16 and ending the series in a satisfying manner, in the right way."
Do you know how the show will end, and if so how long have you had that ending in mind?
"I have had, for a couple of seasons now, hopes and dreams for the characters. I've had very broad-stroke ideas of how I want individual characters to end up. Having said that, I've had no hard and fast ideas about how things should end until this season, with the help of my six excellent writers.
"The seven of us, putting our heads together for the past several months, have indeed come up with how we think the show's gonna end. That's what we're working towards, but we're still somewhat in the early days - we've outlined about the first third of the last 16 episodes.
"As such, these ideas that we have for the endgame of our series become more and more defined, and more and more a reality. But there's still room at this point to change things up if we get a better idea of how to end things! But as it stands, we have a pretty good idea of where it's all going to end up."
The show's featured flashback scenes in the past - can we expect more of those?
"I'm trying very hard not to give anything away, but I can tell you for sure that we have talked for many hours about doing just that. Looking back at Walt's 'Grey Matter' days - when he helped found the company 'Grey Matter' - and worked with Gretchen and Elliott.
"At the risk of sounding a bit coy, I don't want to say whether or not we did much more than talk about it. But we try to never forget about characters' pasts on the show. We try to remember details, no matter how small, and bring them back in current episodes.
"We have a great deal of fun doing that, so we do indeed love those flashback scenes. We use 'every bit of the Buffalo' on this show - we mine those moments from the past as much as we can, because they make the show feel more real and have a resonance. So yeah, look for more of those kind of moments as the series progresses."
As Walt grows darker, do you think it's still possible - or even necessary - for the audience to sympathise with him?
"That's a very good question, one that I think about a lot. In the early days, I worried very much about Walt being sympathetic. As the show has progressed, I have relaxed a bit and not worried as much about that. We had a great stroke of luck in casting Bryan Cranston to play Walt.
"I recognised from the beginning... his great range of talent, and also his humanity. He can play a very nasty, mean character who nonetheless you sympathise with. Bryan Cranston has that ability - it's like magic. I don't know quite how he maintains a likeability to the extent that he does in playing Walter White, who as the series progresses becomes a very unpleasant character at times!
"That was a concern in the early days, but I guess at this point, if we continue to understand that he has flaws as a human being and makes decisions out of pride and ego, as long as we understand why he does it, it is my hope that he'll remain interesting to the audience. At the end of the day, interesting will hopefully be enough."
As the show delves more into Walt's criminal life, is it important for you to keep including the more domestic scenes with his family?
"It is, for a couple of reasons. As you indicated, it's a bit of a tricky balance. The criminal life that he leads, that's only one part of his personality - he's a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character, I suppose. And if you have a Jekyll and Hyde story, you need both sides of that story - you need the more domestic side and the more outrageous, living-on-the-edge side. For that reason, we do our best to balance those two aspects of the story.
"And there's another more pragmatic reason - we love Anna Gunn, who plays Walter's wife Skyler. She's a wonderful actress, we enjoy working with her immensely and we like coming up with scenes for her to play. Sometimes we have episodes in which Skyler's somewhat light. A few of them along the way don't bother us too much, but if too much time goes by and we're somewhat light on Skyler, we feel bad about it because we like her so much! She's a pleasure to work with."
Are you ever worried about the show becoming too dark?
"Indeed I am. It occurred to me when I was writing the pilot episode that this is a very dark show indeed - a middle-aged man finds out he's dying of cancer before the first act break! It occurred to me that I'd better leaven it with as much humour as I could get away with, otherwise people would want to slit their wrists watching this thing!
"The show is not a funny show, but there are moments of humour and we try to milk them for as much as we can get out of them! Characters are never intentionally funny. From time to time, not often, they're in situations that the writers and myself find humour in, and hopefully the audience does as well. But we do indeed look for humour wherever we can find it, because otherwise it would be a very grim show indeed."
Do you pay attention to fan reaction or do you write Breaking Bad in a 'bubble'?
"Well, I learned a long time ago working on The X-Files to basically not go on the internet. I live in a bit of a bubble, though you don't have to and a lot of my writers do not. A lot of my writers and editors will indeed get on the internet and on the various chat rooms to pile through various fan reactions after a show airs.
"I know anecdotally people love our show and I feel very blessed for that. But human nature being what it is, you can read a thousand posts that tell you how wonderful whatever you've done is, and all you'll remember is the one that didn't like it so much. I'm particularly neurotic that way so I just stay away from it."
Which is more important to you - critical acclaim or audience numbers?
"Well, since we have critical acclaim and not audience, I would say critical acclaim! They're both important, certainly, and without audience, all the critical acclaim in the world would not help, as we witnessed here in the States with wonderful shows like Freaks & Geeks and Arrested Development - shows of that sort have had critical acclaim, but not quite enough viewership to stay on the air.
"They're both important, and I love what audience we do have - God bless every one of them for watching and enjoying the show. But I have to say the critical acclaim has been marvellous and has gotten us through some rough times in the early days of our series when we had even fewer viewers than we have now.
"It's very heartening to see that the viewership has indeed grown here in the States from year to year, as more people hear about the show. So both are important, but we have been so very lucky to have the critical acclaim. We appreciate it very much and we don't take it for granted."
