'Breaking Bad' director recalls opening of final season: That flashback was so stupid!

Those who have watched Breaking Bad may remember the opening flashback of the final season, which showed Walter White buying a machine gun. Series creator Vince Gilligan claimed that he and the other writers on the show didn't figure out how to explain why White bought the gun until very close to the end of the series. Gilligan said that the prologue flashback was the "dumbest thing" he had ever done.

In an interview with the media, Vince Gilligan talked about the process of writing the final season of the show. He wanted to start the final season in a "sensational" way, but ended up creating a serious plot problem. He said: "We were really too little prepared. To some extent, I was a little arrogant and always thought we would figure it out. 'There are still 16 episodes to go, we will figure it out!' As a result, when there were six or seven episodes left before the end, we still didn't understand why we bought this machine gun. I was very scared, but the writers kept me honest. They forced me to solve the problem of the machine gun. And we thought about it while we were creating it."

Once the team figured out the origins of the machine gun, the ending began to take shape, and the ultimate destiny of Walter White emerged. Gilligan said: "After that, we figured out that he had to win. Because of his ego and arrogance, he lost everything. He lost his family, lost his soul. But no matter what, he had to win... The day we figured out that Gretchen and Elliot could be the way for Walter to win and send the money to his family was a beautiful day."

Gilligan said that Better Call Saul, the prequel to Breaking Bad, encountered similar difficulties, especially with the character of Lalo and the plot of Saul Goodman's three wives. Gilligan recalled: "The character of Lalo... ended up being very good, and that was all thanks to Peter Gould and the other writers... Peter said, 'I feel like we should show (Lalo), he should be a very scary person.' I said, 'I don't think we need to mention everything meticulously.' And Peter said to me very politely, 'I think we should mention it.' He was absolutely right. If we didn't do Lalo's plot, we wouldn't have brought in Tony Dalton, who is a huge asset to the show."

Gilligan also talked about his new show, starring Lea Seehorn, which has resumed pre-production following the writers' strike.