While Vince Gilligan will be involved in writer and in a broad role behind the scenes, he is not the man in charge for Better Call Saul, as that responsibility falls to Peter Gould, who created Saul for Breaking Bad. Gould turned Vince Gilligan's vision for a consigliere into a fast-talking, mentally agile buffer between Walter White and Jesse and the constraints of the law, with a genius punning name and the irresistible hints of a backstory that put him where he is, which we will now see come to full gestation in the spin-off. But even with the snippets of information about his home life, and the steps that lead to him becoming the guy that criminals go to, the character's back-story never really evolved beyond imagination as Gould confirms:
"We had imagined some, but to us, nothing is set unless it's on the show. We always like to maintain a certain flexibility, because I think, ultimately, in drama, action is character. You really learn about a character through what they do, not where they were or who they were. You really learn about them through behavior. We sketched in loosely some ideas, and he certainly said a few things over the years that give you a feeling of where he's from. The way he dresses and the car he drives give you a feeling he's probably not from Albuquerque. We don't consider anything locked in unless it's actually on the show."
Along with his team of writers, Gould now gets to fill in the gaps, and that can only be a good thing.
