That’s really divergent for you guys then because in Breaking Bad, Walter White was famously on somewhat of a set path with Vince’s “Mr. Chips to Scarface.”

That’s true. It’s interesting when we talk about the difference between improvisation and planning. On Breaking Bad the first time I met Vince I had just seen the pilot and one of my questions was “well, what happens next to Walter White?” And Vince said. “I don’t know. We’re gonna find out.” He may not have known what was going to happen next but he knew who the character was. He knew what the arc of the series was going to be even if he didn’t know the specifics. In an odd way we have that and we don’t have that on this show. We know Jimmy McGill will become Saul Goodman. That’s canon. We won’t change that. But we also know he becomes Gene and we have no idea what will happen to Gene. It’s a combination of two very different approaches. I can tell you the truth: sometimes it makes my head feel like it’s going to explode keeping it all straight.

What’s it been like adjusting to a post-Michael McKean universe on Better Call Saul?

You know, what happened with Chuck last season was probably the most difficult decision that I’ve ever been a part of in the writer’s room. We kept fighting ourselves and saying “there’s gotta be another way” because we love Chuck, we love writing that character and we love working with Michael McKean who is a wonderful performer and a wonderful guy to work with. It’s a huge adjustment. It’s an earthquake for us. It changes the show but we knew it was inevitable. By the time we got to the end of the last season we knew this was the way we had to go. It was the only path forward. What it means is that season three is a major turning point for the show and for Jimmy. It’s not necessarily immediately clear in the first episode or first couple of episodes where it will take us. It was rough but I think we made the right decision. The one other thing I will say is that the beauty of our universe is that we don’t necessarily have to say a permanent goodbye to any actor or character. We move back and forth in time and it gives us a back door when we have those tearful goodbyes.

Good point. No fewer than two dead men are main characters on the show.