Vince Gilligan Talks Alternative BREAKING BAD Series Finale Endings

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Really, you couldn’t ask for a better series finale than the one we got with Breaking Bad. It’s cinematic in the way it ties things up and never ever overreaches, something that it could have easily done.

But there were a number of ways the show could have ended according to creator Vince Gilligan. In speaking with EW, Gilligan listed a few of the scenarios that were tossed around the writers room leading up to the finale:

There was a version we kicked around where Walt is the only one who survives, and he’s standing among the wreckage and his whole family is destroyed. That would be a very powerful ending, but very much a kick-in-the-teeth kind of ending for the viewers. We talked about a version where Jesse kills Walt. We talked about a version where Walt more or less gets away with it.

Truthfully any of these scenarios would have made sense, but the most obvious one, the one that provides the most fitting conclusion to the series, is the one we got. And Gilligan agrees:

There’s no right or wrong way to do this job – it’s just a matter of: You get as many smart people around you as possible in the writers room, and I was very lucky to have that. And when our gut told us we had it, we wrote it, and I guess our gut told us that it would feel satisfying for Walt to at least begin to make amends for his life and for all the sadness and misery wrought upon his family and his friends.

It’s not sappy or sentimental, though. And the scene between Walt and Skyler may be one of the show’s greatest moments. Perfect tone. Impressive shots. It’s a scene that underscores the fact that we’ve just witnessed what will likely go down as the second greatest series in TV history. (The Wire will always be No. 1 in my book.)

Now the question we’ll all be asking ourselves, how do we to survive in this post-Breaking Bad world. Well, we’ll probably rewatch Breaking Bad.