The Methodical Way Vince Gilligan Develops His Characters by Showing How They Solve Problems

Video essayist Thomas Flight takes a look at the sublime writing style of Vince Gilligan, particularly the methodical manner in which he develops the characters of in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and El Camino, defines them through the problems they face and how they implement solutions to move forward. Flight notes that these solutions are often non-linear in time, rendering the audience unaware of the resolution until much later.

Gilligan often reveals to the audience these points out of order. This non-linear approach is a central aspect of a Gilligan storytelling and it’s been around since the first scene of ‘Breaking Bad’, where we see Walt trying to escape from a meth cook gone wrong but the audience doesn’t yet know that he was cooking meth …the rest of that episode is spent back solving to get us to that moment.