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Breaking Bad: Could Sunday Have Been the Series Finale?

Breaking Bad finaleIf you watched the season finale of Breaking Bad on Sunday night, it may have crossed your mind that it could have easily served as a series finale. When the episodes were being shot, the fate of the TV series was still very much up in the air due to contract issues between AMC and Sony. Thankfully, the show was renewed for 16 final episodes.

Was this episode conceived as a possible last episode of Breaking Bad? A recent Time interview with creator Vince Gilligan answers that very question.

The show’s future at AMC, if I’m remembering the timeline right, was still in open question during the production of this season. So were you working towards something that could have worked as a series finale in a worst case scenario, and did you also have to work with the idea in mind that there could have been multiple seasons after this one?

Gilligan: Yes, exactly. Right on all accounts. I tend to — I’m pretty neurotic and somewhat negative as a personality type and I — while most of the time I don’t think it helps me in my day-to-day life, I think that’s one area where I benefit from being that is when I think in terms of how much longer will the television show go on and to that end should I give, just in case season four is the last season we ever do, should I give the audience as much of a proper ending as possible. And the answer is always yes. At the end of every season the answer to that question is always yes. Let’s try to have as satisfying a season-ender as possible because you never know. In television, it may serve as the series-ender. Season four was no exception to that. Conversely, though, I knew that everyone involved, the studio and the network, wanted to find a way to make it all work out for an additional season or seasons. And to that end I didn’t want to do too much with a season-ender and therefore hobble myself and preclude later possibilities.

You can read the whole interview here.

What do you think? Would you have been satisfied with the season four finale if it had been the last episode?


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