2013 had a number of highlights, but one of the more bittersweet moments was the end of Breaking Bad.  The AMC series concluded its five-season run in September, bringing an end to the story of Walter White.  The reaction to the series finale was mostly positive, but some complained that the show wrapped up a little too neatly.  Creator Vince Gilligan recently spoke a bit about the finale and its reaction, addressing those who complained about a lack of surprises and talking about how he and his writers settled on how to end Walter White's journey  He also spoke about the upcoming AMC spinoff series Better Call Saul, revealing that he’d love for Jonathan Banks’ Mike to have a role on the show.  Hit the jump to read on.

Speaking with EW, Gilligan talked about how he and his team of writers decided to wrap up Breaking Bad in the series finale:

“The challenge was to ‘be satisfying.’ That was the two-word goal that the writers and I were basically consumed by for the better part of a year. In the early going of trying to break the finale [story], we were under the impression that to satisfy was to surprise the audience. And it finally dawned on us one wonderful day that the key to satisfying an audience doesn’t necessarily reside within surprising them, even though the show itself had thrived on the many twists and turns of plot that it had given the viewers over six years and the many surprises that it had held in store. Nonetheless, at a certain point, it feels like a moment where fate or destiny takes over in Walter White’s life — it feels like Walt is probably not gonna survive this show. And in fact, he shouldn’t, because the promise in the very first episode is that he is going to succumb. Having said that, the little surprises along the way in the last episode, like the fact that Walt does not succumb to the cancer — the thing that was promised all along – but rather he gets hoisted on his own petard. He’s the engine of his own destruction, but in a way that’s hopefully satisfying.”

Gilligan went on to say that his one big regret from Breaking Bad was how unrealistic Jesse Pinkman’s teeth were, him being a meth-head and all.  He noted that it was impossible to make Aaron Paul’s perfect teeth look ugly.

With regards to the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, Gilligan previously noted that the show could be both a prequel and a sequel to Breaking Bad.  Now that Gilligan and Better Call Saul showrunner Peter Gould have started putting together a writers room and firming up plans for the series, he has a more definitive answer regarding its nature:

“[Peter Gould and I] think, by and large, this show will be a prequel, but the wonderful thing about the fractured chronology we employed on Breaking Bad for many years is the audience will not be thrown by us jumping around in time. So it’s possible that we may indeed do that, and we’ll see the past and perhaps the future.”

Gilligan also noted that the challenge with Better Call Saul is finding the drama in its lead character:

“Nothing is written in stone yet, we’re still figuring it out, but the thing we realize is tricky with the character is that Saul Goodman is very comfortable in his own skin. He seems to be a character who is pretty happy with himself, especially when we first meet him. He seems to be a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, and that makes him everything that Walter White is not. And that also makes for tricky drama. When I say drama, even in a comedy, you want drama, you want tension and conflict, and a character that at heart seems at peace with himself is intrinsically undramatic. [Laughs] So we’ve been thinking about how to address that issue.”

As for possible Breaking Bad cameos on BCS, Gilligan said the one main actor he’d love to have back is Jonathan Banks as Mike:

“The character that springs to mind would be Mike (Jonathan Banks). That would be a great deal of fun. I would say the sky’s the limit, at least theoretically speaking.”

Gilligan went on to acknowledge, however, that the success of Breaking Bad has made its actors very in-demand, so scheduling will be a bit of a hurdle.  You can read the full interview over at EW, where Gilligan also talks about his acting role on the upcoming season of Community and his new CBS series Battle Creek.