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‘Better Call Saul’ Writer Ariel Levine Breaks Down “Calm Before the Storm” Ahead of Mid-Season Finale

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[Warning: The following story contains spoilers for Better Call Saul’s “Axe and Grind.”]

Better Call Saul writer Ariel Levine has a rather unique bragging right as she won an Emmy before writing a single episode of television.

Levine earned the award in 2017 for Better Call Saul and AMC’s short-form series Los Pollos Hermanos Employee Training, her first professional writing assignment to hit the air. In 2020, Levine, as the writers’ assistant, co-wrote Better Call Saul’s season five finale before winning yet another short-form Emmy for Ethics Training with Kim Wexler. (Levine could very well have a third short-form Emmy win had her 2019 nomination not been disqualified over a controversial runtime technicality.)

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Prior to Better Call Saul’s final season, Levine was promoted to the writing staff, and Monday’s Giancarlo Esposito-directed episode, “Axe and Grind,” marked the release of her first solo outing as writer. Naturally, Levine can’t believe the journey she’s been on since the final days of Breaking Bad.

“I temped on Breaking Bad when they were breaking the last episode, and on the Breaking Bad documentary [No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad], I’m in the background, like a deer in the headlights, as they’re toasting champagne and putting up the last card. It was my first scripted job out of college, and I was like, ‘How did I end up here?’” Levine tells The Hollywood Reporter.

In a recent conversation with THR, Levine also broke down her episode’s many twists and turns, including Kim Wexler’s (Rhea Seehorn) potentially disastrous decision to conclude the episode.

So what’s your origin story?

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV at all. My parents were of the, “TV is going to rot your brain, go read a book” variety. So when I went to college, I suddenly discovered the wonder that is television. I went to Boston University, and they have a really great student-run TV network. So I started working on Bay State, the longest-running college soap opera, and when I tried out to be a writer on the show, the person who hired me was named [Better Call Saul producer] Jenn Carroll.

And when I moved out to L.A., I reached out to Jenn again, and she happened to be working on Breaking Bad, as the script coordinator. And when they needed an extra pair of hands later in the final season, they called me up. So I temped on Breaking Bad when they were breaking the last episode, and on the Breaking Bad documentary [No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad], I’m in the background, like a deer in the headlights, as they’re toasting champagne and putting up the last card. It was my first scripted job out of college, and I was like, “How did I end up here?”

And how did the Better Call Saul trajectory start?

After Breaking Bad ended, their post-production producer, Diane Mercer, went on to another show, and she hired me to be her post PA. And when she got the call to do Better Call Saul, she brought me with her again. So I started as post PA in season one, moved to writers’ PA in season two, and then was promoted to writers’ assistant in season three [through the end of season five].

As a writers’ assistant, you co-wrote the season five finale with Peter Gould, and you were then promoted to staff writer for the final season. Was there any pomp and circumstance surrounding your first solo episode assignment?

Yeah, [“Axe and Grind”] is my first solo episode after co-writing 510 last season and 602 this season, but it was pretty by the book. One day, we were breaking an episode, and Peter and Vince [Gilligan] were like, “By the way, Ariel is writing this one.” So I did a little private dance, and then we all got back to work. (Laughs.) But that’s the way I like it. I don’t need a lot of pomp and circumstance. Back when I was the writers’ PA, I found out I was being promoted to writers’ assistant during the Better Call Saul Insider podcast. I was like, “Wait, what?”

So in the teaser, we revisit teenage Kim [Katie Beth Hall] in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and despite resisting her mother’s [Beth Hoyt] bad influence in season five’s flashback, that type of behavior seems to be rubbing off on her after a failed attempt at shoplifting. Did you view this experience as the first time Kim stepped out of line without her mother’s involvement?

I’m not entirely sure if it’s her mom’s influence. Kim probably doesn’t even know why she did what she did. We also don’t know if it’s her first time. She’s a little surprised to find herself there, and she’s even more surprised when her mom shows up and seemingly holds Kim accountable for her actions. It seems that Kim likes having that boundary set for her, but then, to have her mom pull the rug out from under her is tragic. 

I’ve often felt bad for Howard, and I feel even worse for him now that I know the state of his marriage. But at the same time, I also care about Kim and Jimmy, and want their Howard plan to succeed so they don’t get hurt. Since you showed us a rare glimpse of Howard’s personal life, do you very much want the viewer to feel conflicted about rooting for Kim and Jimmy’s scheme?

I know I feel bad for Howard. I’ll say that. It’s pretty sad, and he’s been through so much. He thought he was responsible for pushing his mentor and law mentor [Michael McKean’s Chuck McGill] to suicide, and he had to go through this whole journey to process his grief and come out the other side. And now we’re learning that he doesn’t have a supportive partner at home. But I think the concept of what people deserve, what any of us deserve, is kind of tricky. Did Kim deserve to get stuck in doc review? Did Jimmy deserve to be passed over time and again, and condescended to by Howard? However we feel about it all, I know that Kim and Jimmy have convinced themselves that they’re in the right, and if that makes us feel conflicted, it’s more drama for us all.

What Kim says to Cliff (Ed Begley Jr.) seems like a completely reasonable way to look at her relationship with Howard. He gave her a shot in the HHM mailroom, he fronted her law school tuition, but she only said all that to work Cliff and cover her tracks.

There’s a world where she also believes that, but I just think she believes more in what she’s doing with Jimmy.

Cheryl Hamlin’s (Sandrine Holt) coffee spill added to the disregard and inattention she showed Howard. Was that spill scripted?

Actually, the coffee spill was not scripted. I love this scene so much, and it turned out so well. It’s so cringingly uncomfortable. There’s this icy distance between these two, and they played it so well. Howard painstakingly makes this fancy latte and does this intricate foam art topping. He makes it as a kind gesture to Cheryl, but it’s not what Cheryl needs as she’s on her way out the door. So it was written as a way to demonstrate how these two just aren’t on the same page, and Sandrine and Patrick took it to the next level.

Just when we thought we had unlocked Saul Goodman’s famous office, you took a detour with decorative molding and whatnot. What went into the decision to delay that gratification?

(Laughs.) It’s a fun twist! It’s definitely not what you’d expect. You see the office, and you’re like, Yes! Finally.” So much of this show is about Jimmy finding his space, but there are more steps to go through. This is really a reflection on Francesca, who’s attempting to create a good work environment for herself. She’s trying to make a respectable law office, and unfortunately, she’s learning that respectable is not really Saul Goodman’s vibe.

At the end of Breaking Bad’s “Sunset,” Saul has Francesca call Hank (Dean Norris) and pretend that Marie (Betsy Brandt) has been in a car accident. This scene hits much differently now because of Kim’s car accident that rattled both Jimmy and Francesca years earlier. So between the scam call that he asks her to make here and her refusal to clean up the urine spill, were you very much trying to establish Saul and Francesca’s future dynamic?

Absolutely. I really loved getting to show Francesca’s evolution from the sweet, earnest Francesca that we saw on Better Call Saul season three to this jaded, sarcastic person who puts up with a lot from Saul on Breaking Bad. We’re not answering every question, but we’re seeing the beginning of this journey. She’s trying to set boundaries in this episode, but Saul is a bit of a bully. She gives in to pressure, and I think we can all imagine it’s a slippery slope. If he can convince her to make this phone call, he can push her to make that even worse phone call later. Once she starts to get less precious about things, like the treatment of her decor or even her dignity and her conscience, I imagine it’s in for a penny, in for a pound, for her.

When I saw Kim double back on the highway, I immediately thought of other turning points such as Jane’s (Krysten Ritter) relapse scene on Breaking Bad,  as well as Skyler’s (Anna Gunn) Four Corners scene. So what can you say about Kim’s potentially fateful decision?

On Better Call Saul, we like to give our characters choices, and that’s something that I also liked about Breaking Bad as a fan. These characters always seem to have another choice. They have an offramp. If they choose to stay on the road that they’re on, they have the agency to do so. Walt could’ve taken Gretchen and Elliott’s money, but he chose to sell meth. Kim also has the opportunity to get everything she says she wants. This lunch could’ve funded her dream. And Jimmy even says, “We’ll figure it out. This isn’t the end,” for whatever it is they’re doing, but Kim makes her choice and turns the car around. So whatever happens, happens. 

As Mike walks through the laundromat, he passes a laundry manager that was not Dennis Markowski (Mike Batayeh) from Breaking Bad. Was it too soon for him?

Gus and Mike are still dialing things in, and their operation has a ways to go before it’s what we see on Breaking Bad. So either he’s around and we haven’t seen him, or he’s not there yet.

From Jake Pinkman’s Winston Churchill poster on Breaking Bad to Vince Gilligan’s beloved FIFI, the famed WWII fighter that was featured on Saul season two, can one surmise that Vince contributed the Omaha Beach and D-Day metaphors?

I don’t know if it was Vince, specifically. We break the episodes as room, so it very well could’ve been, but we just liked the war metaphor. Jimmy and Kim have been doing all this prep and strategy, and it does sort of feel like they’re going to war. They’ve told themselves that they’re taking down an enemy for the sake of good. So the metaphor fit, and the D-Day countdown made sense for the episode, which has a very top-of-the-rollercoaster feeling to it. It’s the calm before the storm, and that all felt very “Eisenhower before D-Day” to us. But I’d completely forgotten about Jake’s poster. That’s an interesting detail.

You showed us bits and pieces of Kim and Jimmy’s plan through dilated pupils, still photos and post-it notes. So we have a few puzzle pieces but not the full picture. How do you decide on how much and how little to show us? 

It’s a step-by-step basis. Sometimes, you want the audience to be in the dark and guessing and along for the ride. Sometimes, it’s fun for people to be rewarded for paying attention, as they’ll guess the outcome by being ahead of the story. The hope is that there’s drama in the setup, as well as in the conclusion, and that people are interested in more than just wanting to unravel the mystery. So we don’t really say, “We’re gonna say stuff here and not say stuff here,” but hopefully, it’s been interesting and not frustrating. It’s a long con, ultimately.

Well, I wasn’t expecting Mike to be an astronomy buff, but I suppose he needed some sort of shared activity to bond him and Kaylee (Juliet Donenfeld) as he keeps his distance out of an abundance of caution. 

Yeah, Mike is a man of many interests and talents such as construction and pouring concrete. He loves his granddaughter, and this feels like a subject he became an expert in order to be close to her. It feels like she’s leading this hobby, and he’s along for the ride. The last couple of episodes, we’ve been waiting on Lalo and showing what all of this has been doing to Gus. And now, we wanted to show what this has been doing to Mike. He cannot see his family. He can’t interact with them because that would put them in danger, so he’s finding other ways to connect with them and see them, even if it’s from afar. So it seemed like a fun, nightly thing for them to do.

I remain surprised over Mike’s dynamic with Gus and his crew. I thought things would be a lot more harmonious given the amount of reverence that Mike showed Gus on Breaking Bad.

Mike has his own journey to go on, but Gus respects that Mike isn’t doing this because he likes to do it. Mike is surly, but he’s the best at his job and Gus wants the best. He’s a shrewd guy who has a strong sense of right and wrong, but with everything that happened with Nacho, we learned that he’s a company man. He’s definitely a company man now, and Gus respects that.

Next week’s episode wasn’t originally designed to be a mid-season finale, but in the same way that season three’s “Chicanery” would’ve worked as a climactic mid-season finale, does 607 also work quite nicely as a temporary stopping point?

I think so, yeah. It worked out pretty well.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Better Call Saul is now airing on AMC.