Tonight is a night for many to get excited about as Breaking Bad returns to television to debut the first half of its final season. The show’s creator and many of the cast returned to Comic-Con this year to host a panel discussion and showrunner Vince Gilligan spoke exclusively to Deadline about what fans can expect.
The big news here is that Season 5 (which will be 16 episodes long) is the end for Breaking Bad. The movie plans that Bryan Cranston was blithely throwing around a couple of weeks ago are just rumors and nothing more:
I would never want to dampen Bryan Cranston’s enthusiasm, but I think those rumors are coming from him. All I could tell you is, never say never, but it is definitely not on my mind at the moment. I simply want to end Breaking Bad as completely as possible within these final 16 television episodes. If we’ve got anything left over, if we don’t leave it all on the field, which honestly I intend to…If we’ve got enough story left over for a movie then, then who am I to say no? But I can tell you it’s not on my mind in the least little way at the moment.
While it’s not a definite no, it’s highy likely that we won’t see a Breaking Bad movie. Gilligan himself has stated many times that he wants to bring Breaking Bad to its definitive end with these 16 episodes.
Gilligan is also very honest in admitting that although this will be the end for the show, he hasn’t come to a decision as to how it will end. When asked the question “will Walt be alive by the end?”, he said that he honestly wasn’t sure:
I love that people ponder that question, how’s it all gonna end, and even more importantly, not how it will end but how it should end. I’m not completely sure how it’s going to end myself at this moment, although we are homing in on it every day in the writer’s room.
He also teases some other possible major deaths other than Walt. While Gilligan doesn’t give a conclusive answer, we can expect the show to get a whole lot darker:
[on character deaths] I want to give you something good. On the other hand, I’ve got to be a little coy about it, because we don’t have that many characters.I guarantee that Walt is not going to start a knitting circle this season. And we’ll meet a couple of interesting new characters. And it is going to get darker than ever, although surprisingly to me, these next eight episodes are going contain more humor than I would have seen coming. But that said, we shouldn’t assume it’s all going to end well.
A lot of the cast has been saying that Breaking Bad is going to get darker and nastier this season, which is nothing but a good thing. Despite reports that the season opener is a bit calmer and quieter, we have been promised that it isn’t going to stay that way for long.
Breaking Bad Season 5 debuts tonight at 10pm on AMC.