The company line during the last year on how many seasons Better Call Saul will run has always been something along the lines of, “We’re closer to the end than we are the beginning.” That actually makes a great deal of sense, as Jimmy McGill more or less made the full transformation into Saul Goodman in the season four finale. With more Breaking Bad characters intersecting with the Saul timeline, there’s not a lot of runway left for the series before it catches up to Gene in Omaha.

In fact, after a season five that is expected to center on Jimmy and Kim’s relationship after the Saul transformation, there may only be one season left, according to Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul star Giancarlo Esposito, who plays Gus Fring on both series. Here’s what he had to say to Collider (italics added for emphasis):

“There is a new character coming in, Lalo Salamanca, obviously someone I’m going to have to deal with in my travels throughout the show. There will be six seasons, seems like that’s the way, the comfortable way to end this show. I am hoping for more of a collaboration in some way as an artist with Bob Odenkirk; I know as my star grows as Gus Fring [I’ll] be able to handle some of the edginess of the show more and more. And as Gene goes and comes to Saul Goodman, and becomes this nefarious lawyer, then I’ll have more interaction with him as well. So I’m excited about that.”

Obviously, that’s not a confirmation, but it also makes logical sense, seeing as how Breaking Bad unofficially ran for six seasons (technically only five seasons, but the latter half was split into two eight-episode chunks and aired a year apart) and Vince Gilligan, if anything, loves symmetry. As sad as it may be to say goodbye to the Breaking Bad universe, there won’t even be a season five until 2020, while season six may not arrive until 2022 (and if it’s split into two, that could take us to 2023), and we still have that Breaking Bad movie coming, so there will be no shortage of Breaking Bad universe material to enjoy in the near future.

(Via Collider)