Vince Gilligan reflects on "the dumbest thing" he did while making Breaking Bad

Most people are in pretty firm agreement that “Felina,” the final episode of Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, is a fairly excellent final episode, giving some measure of resolution, and maybe even a touch of reluctant redemption, to the story of broke bad chemistry teacher Walter White. Certainly, it’s one of the most poignant and dramatic television episodes ever produced in which a major plot point hinges entirely on a remote-operated machine gun firing wildly and killing an entire room full of bad guys while our heroes hit the decks.

Now, Vince Gilligan has revealed that he considers the machine gun to be “the dumbest thing” he did in the entire running of the celebrated show—although not necessarily in the way you might assume. (I.e., that the final plot resolution of one of the most bracing character studies of modern television could have been designed by Wile E. Coyote.) No, a recent Variety interview, timed to the 10th anniversary of the finale, reveals that Gilligan actually had that damn thing hanging over his head for an entire season of TV.

The biggest single fear we had was what to do with that damn machine gun. At the beginning of the final run of 16 episodes, we had Walt buy a machine gun in the trunk of a Cadillac. That was the thing I remember freaking us out the most because we did that, I committed to that. One of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my career was committing to the idea of Walter White buying a machine gun when we did not know what he was going to do with it. We had no clue. There were literally months on end when I was completely freaked out. We’d be in the writers room’ for a full day, and I’d be slowly banging my head against the wall — not enough to hurt myself but just enough to jar the ideas loose. And everybody was kind of worried about me.

We would argue that Gilligan’s eventual solution—trunk-mounted remote-control murder gun—was not, perhaps, the most elegant fix to such a problem. But, as he noted, it did unlock the basic idea that Walt had to win, in the end, somehow—even if only by finding a way to take care of his family, and go out on his own terms.

Elsewhere in the interview, Gilligan—always a great read—also talked through his thoughts on a (very) hypothetical Walt Jr. show, and revealed the basic shape of what he and Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn will be doing together next.