Vince Gilligan Has Zero Regrets About Breaking Bad (Not Even Character Deaths)

When it comes to discussions of the best television shows of all time, it's difficult not to include "Breaking Bad" on that list. The crime drama consistently received overwhelmingly positive fan and critical reception throughout its five-season run, and it took home 16 Emmy Awards and was nominated for 58 in total. Created by Vince Gilligan, "Breaking Bad" focuses on Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who begins cooking meth after he is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer.

Throughout the series, many significant characters die on the path toward Walter becoming a drug kingpin and slowly embracing his own dark side. "Breaking Bad" has what appears to be a pretty tightly planned and concise story arc that wraps up neatly. Still, due to television's ever-evolving and chaotic nature, it wouldn't be surprising if a creative harbors some misgivings with how their series ended up. With that in mind, how does Gilligan feel about the series and its run? Well, as it turns out, the showrunner has zero regrets about "Breaking Bad" — even when it comes to character deaths.

During an interview with Rolling Stone in 2022, Vince Gilligan spoke at length about his time on both "Breaking Bad" and spin-off "Better Call Saul." When it comes to the former, he admitted that he had absolutely zero regrets regarding the show as a whole. Instead, he compared it to a complex puzzle, an aspect of the series he enjoyed.

Gilligan said. "There are certain moments where we thought, 'Gee, it would be better if this character lived' or 'It would be better if we could kill this character.' But none of it to our detriment, that I recall. It's a challenge: Do you want the Rubik's Cube to be any easier, if you're a Rubik's Cube puzzle-type solver? No, you don't. Especially in hindsight once you've solved it. I don't really regret anything we did."

It would be interesting to know precisely what deaths Gilligan believes would have been better not to engage in for both "Better Call Saul" and "Breaking Bad," but it's clear that none of them impacted how he feels about the shows, especially the latter. And it's clear that none of this affected the quality for the fans, who consistently loved the show all the way until its conclusion. It'll be interesting to see what new puzzles Gilligan constructs in his future projects, separate from the "Breaking Bad" universe.