Bob Odenkirk's Saul Goodman Was Only Supposed To Last 4 Episodes, Not 13 Years
Bob Odenkirk played the character of Saul Goodman for 13 years, first appearing in the second season of "Breaking Bad" to guide Walter White into the depths of the criminal underworld. Future appearances marked him as a key player within the show's supporting cast, able to function as a comic archetype as well as a moral barometer for just how far White had fallen in his quest for power. Two years after "Breaking Bad" ended, Odenkirk returned to lead "Better Call Saul," a spin-off that arguably surpassed its parent series by the final episodes. Odenkirk received five Golden Globe nominations, five Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series," and another six Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Drama Series" in his capacity as a producer for "Better Call Saul." Taken separately, Odenkirk's performances in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" are impressive. Together, they represent a process of long-form character excavation that no longer exists on television in the United States.
In an interview with "The Tonight Show," though, Odenkirk acknowledges that he never expected to play Saul for such a long time. "I was supposed to do 3 to 4 episodes [of Breaking Bad,]" he told host Jimmy Fallon. "Then it turned into my whole life." Odenkirk isn't the only "Breaking Bad" side character to see his role radically expand over the course of the series. But he's the only one whose character attained such a life of his own that he kept the "Breaking Bad" engine humming for a 63-episode spinoff starring himself. As he said earlier to Fallon, "They keep calling me back!"
13 wonderful years
A lot can happen in 13 years. The distance between showrunner Bryan Fuller's "Dead Like Me" in 2003 and his 2013 network barnburner "Hannibal" is just 12 years. "The Sopranos," "The Wire" and "Deadwood" all finished airing on HBO within 10 years, from 1999 to 2008, and "Lost" wrapped up three years later in 2011. Netflix has been releasing original programming for just a decade, starting in 2013 with "House of Cards." These are all paradigm shifts that changed the way that people watch television today. Yet it's easy to forget that these transformations happened in a relatively short period of time. The beauty and malevolence of "Breaking Bad" changed the way that TV was made in the late 2000s; by the time "Better Call Saul" wrapped up in 2022, the fracturing of streaming had changed TV yet again.
Odenkirk's career did not begin with "Breaking Bad." The only two Emmys that he's won in his career so far were for "Saturday Night Live" in 1989, and then "The Ben Stiller Show" in 1993. After toiling for years as a writer and actor, he co-starred in the groundbreaking HBO sketch comedy series "Mr. Show" with David Cross ("Arrested Development") from 1995 to 1998. Their work inspired Tim and Eric (of "Awesome Show, Great Job!" fame) as well as Key and Peele. Had this been Odenkirk's legacy, it would have been enough. Yet Vince Gilligan was impressed enough by Odenkirk's performance on "Mr. Show" to hire him years later for "Breaking Bad." Who better to play a two-dimensional sleazeball like Saul Goodman than a sketch comedy master? But then the role grew, and grew, and a job that was meant to be a guest spot changed Odenkirk's life.
The way stalactites grow
This was not out of the ordinary for "Breaking Bad," a series that thrived on chaos. Jesse Pinkman was famously meant to be written out in the first season, only for the staff to keep him once they realized what actor Aaron Paul brought to the series. The 2007-2008 writers' strike gave the staff the chance to retool their plans for future seasons, saving Gilligan from his "self-destructive impulses," per Alan Sepinwall's "The Revolution Was Televised." Odenkirk isn't even the only "Breaking Bad" cast member to transform a bit part into a supporting character role through sheer ability. Jonathan Banks, who played the popular character Mike Ehrmantraut, was himself brought on board to substitute for Odenkirk. Banks stuck around to become not just a highlight of "Breaking Bad," but a key player in "Better Call Saul." "I thought, 'I'll go in here, I'll guest star and I'll be gone,'" Banks told Sepinwall. "It didn't turn out that way."
In "The Revolution Was Televised," Gilligan refers to "Breaking Bad" as "an epic crime drama driven by process." His goal as showrunner was not just to capture the rise and fall of a bad man, but to "show the stuff that nobody else bothers to show." It seems absurd on the surface that a series beloved for its sense of escalation was built to emulate "the way stalactites grow." Yet many of the show's best-loved episodes, like Rian Johnson's bottle episode "The Fly," were just that. The process was also the heart and soul of "Better Call Saul," a series that per critic Sonia Saraiya "knows how to make emptiness staggeringly dramatic."
The role of a lifetime
In an interview between Saraiya and Sepinwall for Salon, the two critics discuss the power of time. "You spend years of your lives watching them," Sepinwall says. "So you want to see them end right." The alternative is to suffer the fate of "Lost" showrunner Damon Lindelof, punished for dropping the ball after six sporadically great years of television produced by his team. As for Saraiya, she writes for Vanity Fair that "television keeps going, year in and year out, pacing its story to match the show unspooling of our lives." Speaking personally, I've caught myself marking time not by my home address or job, but by what TV program was airing at the time. To be an actor on that same TV series, sharing a life with millions of viewers over more than a decade, must be something else entirely.
Bob Odenkirk's career might have gone in a totally different direction had he moved on from "Breaking Bad" as was intended. Instead, he will forever be known as Saul Goodman, a role that snowballed over the course of 13 years into a career-defining performance. Some might be intimidated by the weight of that accomplishment, but Odenkirk doesn't mind. "I'll always be thankful for that role," he told "The Tonight Show." "The role of a lifetime." Saul Goodman became a great character thanks to Odenkirk's talent as an actor, as well as the hard work of the team behind "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul." Yet Goodman is also "the role of a lifetime" because today, TV series are lucky to last a handful of seasons. There may not be another opportunity like Saul Goodman for a lifetime — or at least, a lifetime on television.