"Not everybody is going to be happy with the ending of Breaking Bad," writer Thomas Schnauz tells Rafael Epstein, "but it's the ending we wanted as writers."

Spoiler alert for those who have not watched the first half of Season 5.

Breaking Bad follows high school chemistry teacher Walter White who, having been diagnosed with cancer, descends into the underworld as he cooks methamphetamine in a desperate attempt to ensure his family's financial security.

Thomas Schnauz was one of a team of writers who plotted Walter White's downward spiral.

"It's tremendous fun," says Thomas of the writing process. "Everybody's really invested in making a good television show."

"It was always fun to just sort of write ourselves into corners, and write Walter White into a corner, and try to figure out how is he going to get out of this."

"I think that excitement and that problem solving... made it exciting for the audience to watch."

The process wasn't always easy.

"There would be weeks of us trying to figure out 'oh my god how do we get out of this'," he says.

With so many writers working on the show there were always decisions that not everyone was happy with.

"There were seven of us in a room," says Thomas. "If somebody had a problem with something we would talk it to death."

Thomas says choosing a favourite character in the show is like 'picking a favourite child'.

"Saul is so fun to write for because he's so funny, Walt is dark and complicated and I get great joy out of writing despicable things for him to do to try to save himself, Jesse's is just full of heart and Hank is the moral compass of the show and a tough S.O.B."

Thomas Schnauz and Rafael Epstein talk about writing the final episode, the plot points that he didn't agree with and what makes a writer happy.