Peter Gould, Michael McKean on Season Finale; Rolling Stone Lauds Saul

This week, Peter Gould and Michael McKean discuss the Season 3 Finale with Entertainment Weekly and several other publications, while Rolling Stone explains how Better Call Saul quietly became one of TV's best shows. Plus, Vanity Fair is very worried about Kim. Read on for more:

• Peter Gould tells Entertainment Weekly, "It’s only after he has that terrible scene with Jimmy that Chuck’s downward spiral begins. So to me, that means — however important what happened at HHM might have been — somehow it’s the scene with Jimmy that’s the trigger."

• Talking with Variety, Peter Gould says, "The big piece of suspense for me is not necessarily just what happened to Chuck, but what’s going to happen to Jimmy when he finds out what’s happened."

• Peter Gould, speaking with Deadline, notes, "Kim has had this accident and it’s jolted Jimmy, and it’s caused him to re-evaluate everything that he’s been doing, and to try to reconnect with his brother and also to try to undo some of the damage he did in the previous episode."

The New York Times chats with Michael McKean, who says, "One of the things that made Jimmy Saul Goodman is the burden of, if not guilt, then that nagging feeling of having being somehow involved [in Chuck’s demise]. So that’s what he has to deal with, and it’s one of the things that made him wind up in a Cinnabon in Omaha."

Vulture interviews Michael McKean and Peter Gould, and the former says, "Chuck’s an element of this story, and he’s also an instrument of Jimmy’s change. He is a catalyst —in a kind of strangely unforeseen way, one would assume. I thought it was good storytelling, usable storytelling."

Entertainment Weekly speaks with Michael McKean, who explains, "If people really, really thought about it and didn’t think of Chuck as just an ogre, and remember that he’s a human being, I really think the question is: How do we deal with somebody like that? How do you help someone who thinks that everyone else needs help and not him?"

• Chatting with The Hollywood Reporter, Michael McKean says he learned of Chuck's impending death "about halfway through the season. I knew Chuck didn't have any place in Saul's world, so I could have figured something was going to happen."

Rolling Stone asserts that Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould "somehow defied the odds and slowly, almost stealthily created a second canon-worthy drama, without attempting to recreate the glories of their previous smash hit – all this despite the increased presence of BB characters as the two shows' timeframes draw closer and closer together."

Vanity Fair declares, "There’s no character on TV I worry about more than Kim Wexler, the grammar-obsessing, silk blouse-wearing, Moscow mule-drinking, NoDoz-carrying, bad boy-loving, fiercely independent, workaholic lady lawyer on Better Call Saul."

• Vince Gilligan explains to The Hollywood Reporter that Chuck's death seemed "fitting in terms of knowing where Jimmy McGill is heading as a character. He's going to become this morally calcified, really kinda unpleasant individual. How did he get there? Maybe this was a big part of it."

Forbes explains how the Season 3 Finale "ends on a note that’s both as horrible as anything on Breaking Bad, a moment both shocking and inevitable, but ultimately one that’s fully and exquisitely earned."

Uproxx talks to Gennifer Hutchison, who speculates about Jimmy and Kim: "But where that goes from here, especially with what happened to Chuck, and the pressure that that’s going to put on their relationship, I think that could be problematic for them, for sure."

• "I find it kind of amusing that Gus has spent much of this season preventing other people from killing Hector. [Laughs] When Hector is someone he very much wants dead. But yeah, that’s a pleasure that he wants to save for himself," Gennifer Hutchison says to TVLine.

• Examining Chuck's condition, Esquire says that untreated mental illness is "a tragedy that happens every day, to real people, and it's rarely depicted on screen this insightfully."

• Patrick Fabian says to TV Insider, "I'm just trying to run a business and Jimmy's trying to sabotage it, Kim has left me and my partner is in and out of a space blanket every other episode. It's not exactly the life Howard had envisioned for himself, I don't think."

Uproxx has "questions about where things go from the end of the episode," including "What does this do to our Jimmy-to-Saul the timeline?" and "What other movies did Kim rent?"

Bustle discusses how Hector's heart attack "establishes the new drug cartel power dynamics between Gus and Hector that will occur in the future."

Vulture, behind the scenes of shooting of the Season 3 Finale, talks to Peter Gould, who says, "We really love getting out of the studio. Sometimes it’s very challenging but it also gives some reality and grounding to the show. Otherwise, everything on TV looks like Los Angeles or New York."

Uproxx, speculating on Kim's fate, writes, "What’s more likely at this point is that the strain on her relationship with Jimmy and/or some specific shady action he takes will be the straw that breaks her back and sends her out of his life in a way that makes her a total non-factor in the near future."

• Looking to Kim's future, Rhea Seehorn explains to TVGuide.com, "It's just as much of a tragedy for something awful to happen to her, and she's no longer there as it is to see Kim lose herself so much that she actually can put up with this stuff. Either way would be a tragedy."

• Rhea Seehorn tells The Hollywood Reporter she wonders if Kim is "happy. I don't even know what 'happy' means to Kim at this point or that point in the future."

• Talking about Kim with TVGuide.com, Michael McKean says, "Kim is still a mystery to us, and she's so smart and she potentially has such a great heart. She doesn't let herself own herself yet. But she's beginning to."

• Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould play Breaking Saul trivia for Vulture, while Vulture gets Rhea Seehorn's and Jonathan Banks' takes on their fans.

• Peter Gould muses to Gothamist, "Maybe there's more to say about this man who started as Slippin' Jimmy and became Jimmy McGill and became Saul Goodman and eventually becomes Gene, the sad little Cinnabon manager. Maybe there's more to say about him. Maybe we haven't seen the end of the journey quite yet."

Newsday calls Season 3 a "spectacular season that officially ranks Saul with Breaking Bad."

TVLine's top quotes from last week include Lydia saying to Mike, "Drug dealer? If that’s all that you think he is, then you don’t know Gustavo Fring."

Salon writes, "As Better Call Saul looms ever more closely to irreversibly shutting the door on Jimmy McGill, it’s also doing a tremendous job in depicting the difference between merely having nothing to lose and having nobody to disappoint on top of that — a truth that dates back to the Old Testament."

• Talking to Cinema Blend, Patrick Fabian says, "It's been a pleasure these last couple of episodes to have it out with Kim and have it out with Jimmy in the basement there, calling him Gollum and all of that stuff. Because I think Howard has been angry at all three of them on various levels, basically since the show started."

TVLine asks, "Wasn’t Kim’s car accident on Better Call Saul just as shocking and devastating as any Breaking Bad death? And is what Jimmy did to poor old Irene just about the worst thing we’ve seen him do, including as Saul Goodman?"

Cinema Blend asserts, "Jimmy's con on Irene is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and he has officially become the Walter White of his own series."

• For recaps and reviews of Season 3, Episode 10, "Lantern," check out A.V. Club, Den of Geek, Entertainment Weekly, IGN, IndieWire, The New York Times, Observer.com, Screen Rant, TVLine, Uproxx and Vulture.

Watch the latest episode of Better Call Saul on amc.com and AMC apps for mobile, XBox One, Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast. Explore the episode with Peter Gould, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Michael McKean and host Chris Hardwick on the Season Finale of Talking Saul.

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