Vince Gilligan reflects on his final Better Call Saul episode, says he came back "just for fun"

Vince Gilligan is just as much of a Better Call Saul fan as the rest of us. Perhaps that’s a given, since he co-created the show based on another show he created, but he stepped back from the series (to make the movie based on the show that he created) and still thought it “just kept getting better and better even after I was gone.”

The pandemic allowed him to be more present in the final season’s writer’s room, culminating in Monday’s episode “Waterworks,” which Gilligan wrote and directed. Being more hands-on with Better Call Saul “was just great,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It wasn’t necessary for anyone but me, but selfishly it’s just a great, great show and I wanted to take part in it, not just in the final season, but throughout.”

“I didn’t need to be there for anybody but me, but man! I had a great time being around for the final season,” he continues. “I don’t know that it was important for me. It was just fun. I didn’t feel driven to do it. I just wanted to do it for fun and because I love the show. I’m a giant fan of the show and I was very lucky to get to direct three episodes in one season.” Gilligan had never directed more than two episodes in a season of TV, and “Waterworks” was “the first episode of TV I’ve written all by myself since the final episode of Breaking Bad.”

“There’s no need for that and I wouldn’t even call it bragging rights or anything,” he added. “I just realized it was interesting just to get one to myself, but even that’s misleading when I say that. I didn’t have one to myself, because all of these episodes are broken by the writers en masse. It’s very much a group episode. You’re never really alone when you’re writing one of these things or when you’re directing it, which just makes it even better that it’s such a collaborative effort.” And with that, Vince Gilligan’s final bow in the Breaking Bad universe. (At least… for now.)