‘Better Call Saul’ Ending After Season 6, Giancarlo Esposito Says

Better Call Saul, the prequel to Breaking Bad, will be ending with Season 6, according to actor Giancarlo Esposito.

In an interview with Collider, Esposito said co-creator Vince Gilligan told him there will only be six seasons.

“It’s tricky with [Gilligan]. If you look at the Breaking Bad model, he said five years, five seasons, but it was really five and six,” Esposito told Collider, referring to how Breaking Bad‘s final season was split in two.

When it comes to Better Call Saul, “There will be six seasons… It seems like that’s the way, the comfortable way, to end this show.”

AMC did not comment, but sources told The Hollywood Reporter the ending of the show is “by no means set in stone.”

If Better Call Saul runs six seasons, it will be about as long as Breaking Bad. That series ran 65 episodes over five seasons. The last season ran 16 episodes, with the first half airing in summer 2012 and the second half following a year later. Better Call Saul‘s seasons have only run 10 episodes so far.

Better Call Saul is set several years before Breaking Bad and follows Bob Odenkirk‘s Jimmy McGill, who slowly becomes the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman he is in Breaking Bad. In the Season 4 finale, Jimmy finally said he would start practicing law under a new name.

Co-creator Peter Gould told THR in October 2018, after the Season 4 finale aired, that they do not have a plan for the ending, but “it really feels like we’re closer to the end than to the beginning.”

“I don’t know how many more seasons we’ve got for sure, and obviously some of that is a question of how much more story there is to tell and some of it is hopefully enough people watch to continue having it as a going concern,” Gould continued. “We’re relying very much on the fans to keep us on, and we’ll have to see. Before season five is over, I think we’ll have a very clear idea of how much further we’ve got to go.”

Better Call Saul Season 5 is not expected to start until 2020. AMC Networks Entertainment Group President Sarah Barnett told Vulture the delay is “driven by talent needs” and the network “would not override if it would result in a worse show.”

Barnett would not give any details on how much longer the show would run, but hinted the end is near.

“We know clearly the end was already written before the beginning began,” Barnett said. “The writers, they have a very particular, very clear sense of the arc of their show.”

While there is little known about the show’s next chapter, Deadline reported that Tony Dalton was promoted to series regular for Season 5. Dalton’s Lalo was referenced in Saul’s first Breaking Bad episode, and appeared in the last couple of episodes in Better Call Saul Season 4. Dalton is best known for his role in HBO Latino’s Sr. Avila.

Like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul has been met with critical praise. Odenkirk has three Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations for his performance. The show was also nominated for the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

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