On Monday night, we’ll say goodbye to Saul Goodman, aka Jimmy McGill, aka Gene Takavic, as AMC’s Better Call Saul airs its final episode. The show, which began as a Breaking Bad prequel but is now taking place in the post-Breaking Bad timeline, is going out in a shower of critical acclaim and Emmy nominations. But wrapping up a long-running show — especially one part of such a beloved franchise — isn’t easy, says co-creator and showrunner Peter Gould.

“It’s lot of pressure. It’s very scary. A lot of sweaty palms, a lot of sleepless nights,” Gould told reporters last week. “And those of us on the show are very happy with where it ended. I hope everybody else agrees.” 

He adds, “I think the thing that I’m most proud of is, I think the show [is] true to itself, and we’re playing in the same court that we started with.”

Emmy nominee Rhea Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler, agrees.

“I think the ending that they wrote, Peter insisted upon what they have always insisted upon, which is character must dictate plot, not plot dictate character,” she tells ABC Audio.

Seehorn adds, “I think that he honored the characters and what they would do and what would happen in a way that was so honoring of the fans — and all of the storylines from both of these franchises — and still honoring the intelligence of our fans at the same time.”

In the penultimate episode, Kim gave the court an affidavit revealing the true circumstances of Howard Hamlin’s death, while Jimmy/Saul/Gene went on the run after being ID’d by Carol Burnett‘s character, Marion. What the couple’s ultimate fate will be is anyone’s guess.

The Better Call Saul finale airs on AMC Monday at 9 p.m. ET.

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The back half of the final season of Better Call Saul premieres Monday night on AMC. There has been a lot of speculation about the ultimate fate of Kim Wexler, wife of Jimmy McGill aka Saul Goodman. Because Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad, and Kim doesn’t appear in that show at all, many fans assume she’ll be killed. But Rhea [Ray] Seehorn, who plays Kim, says there are other fates for her character that are just as tragic.

“It’s fun being the one that people don’t know where she ends up,” Seehorn tells ABC Audio. “But about halfway through the series, I started to think, ‘Wow, if she is so far down a hole from where we saw her in the beginning that she actually is OK with what Jimmy is doing in Breaking Bad and is fine with it, that’s its own tragedy.'”

Seehorn — who knows how the show ends but isn’t saying — teases other possible “tragedies” that could befall Kim: She could leave Jimmy, or throw him to the wolves to save herself. But either way, she hints, “There’s just not a lot of happy endings going on here!”

Meanwhile, Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk has received four Emmy nods for his role as Jimmy/Saul, but Seehorn has yet to receive a nod. Emmy nominations are announced Tuesday, so how does Seehorn like her chances?

“It’s pretty great to be in that conversation,” she tells ABC Audio. “There’s a lot of brilliant performances out there. I’m thankful that people talk about me in the same group as some of the amazing women that are performing out there in a variety of roles. And I’m … very flattered.”

But, she notes, “It’s a hard thing to to tell yourself, ‘Oh, and now you should wish that it happens!’ Because it might not!”

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James Caan, the actor who was perhaps best known for his iconic role as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, has died. He was 82.

A tweet from Caan’s account on Thursday read, “It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.”

Bronx, NY native Caan got his start in theater before switching to TV, where he had roles in popular series like The Untouchables, Route 66 and Dr. Kildare.  After making his movie debut in 1963 with an uncredited cameo in Irma la Douce, he worked steadily, but none of his movies were very successful.

In 1971, Caan starred in the hit TV movie Brian’s Song, earning an Emmy nomination. In 1972, his former college classmate Francis Ford Coppola, who’d previously cast Caan in his 1969 film The Rain People, tapped him to play Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, which earned Caan Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.  He also appeared briefly in the sequel, The Godfather Part II.

In the years that followed, Caan, now a box-office success, starred in hits like Funny Lady, Rollerball, A Bridge Too Far, Thief and Chapter Two, but famously turned down roles in now-classic movies like including M*A*S*H, The French Connection, Apocalypse Now, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Blade Runner, Superman and Kramer vs. Kramer.

For most of the ’80s, Caan stopped acting for a variety of personal reasons, but he returned to the screen in the ’90s with Misery, Honeymoon in Vegas and Wes Anderson‘s directorial debut, Bottle Rocket.  He continued to work in TV and movies, most famously in Elf, as Will Ferrell’s estranged father. In 2012, he guest-starred in his son Scott Caan‘s CBS series Hawaii Five-0.

This fall, Caan was to have started filming Coppola’s Megalopolis.

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Rhea Seehorn stars as Kim Wexler in AMC’s Better Call Saul, whose final six episodes start airing July 11. In the meantime, you can see Seehorn starring in — and directing and executive-producing — the AMC digital series Cooper’s Bar, which is partly based on her and her real-life pals.

Cooper’s Bar, free on AMC.com and YouTube, follows an actor, played by Lou Mustillo, who hangs with his friends at the Tiki bar he built in his backyard. One day, an evil Hollywood exec named Kris, played by Seehorn, is lured to the bar and decides to turn it into a TV series. 

But it turns out Mustillo really does have a bar in his backyard, and it’s a hangout for Seehorn and the show’s other stars and creators.

“Lou is such a tremendous actor…and he has all these incredible stories,” Seehorn tells ABC Audio. “And after a while, we were like, ‘We’ve got to just film one of these!'”

She laughs, “There’s always that danger of, you think you and your friends are funny enough that you should put it on camera at 2:00 in the morning…and then not really. So it was all about the scripts.”

Seehorn says it was “pretty weird” going from Better Call Saul to Cooper’s Bar: They shot all six episodes in six nights in Mustillo’s backyard. But she says portraying Kris — “this awful, terrible woman” who’s “cartoonishly villanous” — was “a lot of fun.” 

While Cooper’s Bar is full of Hollywood in-jokes, Seehorn says the show is about the universal themes of “following your dreams” and “having a group of friends that’s your chosen family.”

And that upcoming Better Call Saul finale? Seehorn won’t spill, but she admits, “I’m still psychologically parsing out and mulling over the ending…it was amazing!” 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Rhea Seehorn stars as Kim Wexler in AMC’s Better Call Saul, whose final six episodes start airing July 11. In the meantime, you can see Seehorn starring in — and directing and executive-producing — the AMC digital series Cooper’s Bar, which is partly based on her and her real-life pals.

Cooper’s Bar, free on AMC.com and YouTube, follows an actor, played by Lou Mustillo, who hangs with his friends at the Tiki bar he built in his backyard. One day, an evil Hollywood exec named Kris, played by Seehorn, is lured to the bar and decides to turn it into a TV series. 

But it turns out Mustillo really does have a bar in his backyard, and it’s a hangout for Seehorn and the show’s other stars and creators.

“Lou is such a tremendous actor…and he has all these incredible stories,” Seehorn tells ABC Audio. “And after a while, we were like, ‘We’ve got to just film one of these!'”

She laughs, “There’s always that danger of, you think you and your friends are funny enough that you should put it on camera at 2:00 in the morning…and then not really. So it was all about the scripts.”

Seehorn says it was “pretty weird” going from Better Call Saul to Cooper’s Bar: They shot all six episodes in six nights in Mustillo’s backyard. But she says portraying Kris — “this awful, terrible woman” who’s “cartoonishly villanous” — was “a lot of fun.” 

While Cooper’s Bar is full of Hollywood in-jokes, Seehorn says the show is about the universal themes of “following your dreams” and “having a group of friends that’s your chosen family.”

And that upcoming Better Call Saul finale? Seehorn won’t spill, but she admits, “I’m still psychologically parsing out and mulling over the ending…it was amazing!” 

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

After 19 years in syndication, Ellen DeGeneres wrapped up her talk show for good on Thursday. Along with Jennifer Aniston, she was joined by two music superstars as her final guests: Pink and Billie Eilish.

Aniston was Ellen’s very first guest on her very first episode, so it was fitting that she appeared on this final show. After Aniston’s appearance came Billie, who first appeared on the show in 2018, when she was just 16. She told Ellen, “You started this show the year after I was born. This was in my house constantly. Every day. I would walk into the kitchen and my mom would be watching you.”

Ellen’s great friend Pink was the final guest and musical performer. In addition to singing “What About Us,” she also gifted Ellen with some things that will help her fill all the free time she’ll suddenly have on her hands: a homemade sourdough starter; knitting needles and yarn; and binoculars for bird-watching.

Pink, who first appeared on the show in 2003, told Ellen, “I wanted to be a singer because I wanted to grow up and change the world and make it a better place. You’ve done that in so many ways. Maybe I help people find their pain. You help people find their joy.”

Ellen concluded the show by saying, “Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. I feel the love and I send it back to you. Bye.”

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