Bob Odenkirk doesn't remember anything about his heart attack last summer after he collapsed on the set of "Better Call Saul." Even the week after he went home is sketchy. He vaguely recalls his wife, Naomi, and adult kids, Nate and Erin, being with him and time spent with his "Better Call Saul" co-stars Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian.
Odenkirk, 59, thinks about his near-death experience often and feels a bit cheated on one level. If his heart is going to stop, he would have liked just one grand, existential moment of awareness and maybe a couple answers about what's next. Instead, he just got a big blank space.
Of course, that's not all he got. Odenkirk also received a monumental outpouring of love from complete strangers on social media. After all, audiences treasure Saul Goodman, the fast-talking attorney who provided "Breaking Bad" with moments of comic relief and turned into a cautionary tale and tragic antihero on "Better Call Saul," now in its final run of episodes.
It is the series' sixth season, and the first part wraps up Monday on AMC. The last six episodes start July 11 and end Aug. 15.
"But Saul's not a good guy," Odenkirk says. "He's very selfish. So I don't think it's that."
This ignites a good-natured debate about how "Better Call Saul" made us feel something deeper about Odenkirk's character, introduced as Jimmy McGill, a man of many talents, one of which is scamming.
Odenkirk thinks the "outpouring of warmth came from COVID, which freaked everyone out and led to this feeling of 'Can we just not have more bad things happen to us for a little while?' And then, you know, I'm not a movie star. I'm just a guy who acts and works hard. I think people see me and think, 'If I was an actor and had a great bit of luck, I'd be like him. He's not a flashy guy. He's not even particularly gifted. He just shows up and goes to work.' People can relate to that. And maybe that provoked a certain amount of empathy."
Odenkirk isn't pushing false humility. He likes to analyze things and this is his genuine take on why the world joined hands last summer and wished him well. He doesn't consider himself some wise old sage, but he does think people can learn things over the course of time and even change. That belief has been at the heart of the many arguments he's had over the years with "Saul" creators Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan.
"My pitch to them is always: Sometimes people learn the right lessons from challenges and trauma" from a bad thing that's happened to them, Odenkirk says. "They become bigger and more gracious and not smaller and ground-down."
The first five seasons of the series have opened with a flash-forward of Saul, now going by the alias of Gene Takavic, living a bleak, empty, low-key life in Omaha. The last time we see Gene, he believes he's been made and needs to change his identity and disappear again. And then he seems to see something and changes his mind.
"It's weird, because it sounds like maybe I'm pitching that Saul becomes this goodhearted, generous, caring person. I can't tell you where he ends up, but it's not like he has some revelation of humanity. I think he gets to ... " Odenkirk pauses. "I think I've said all I can say. But I like where his journey ends. And I think you'll like it, too."
