I’m not going to make any pinpoint predictions about how the series will end, but I’m confident it won’t be a “Sopranos” blackout. This isn’t just the showdown for Walt. It’s a climax in Gilligan’s personal story, where he gets to leave his mark on the world. As Mr. Chips completes his transformation into Scarface, I don’t think Gilligan is going to let Walt leave the gun in the trunk, literally or metaphorically.
In honor of the occasion, I’ve pulled out an interview I did with Gilligan back in the fall of 2010 in which he explains how he got the “X-Files” gig:
"For the first five years of my professional life, I was writing movie scripts and I had had one movie made (1993's "Wilder Napalm"). Around about 1993, I was living in Virginia at the time. I was home one night on a Friday evening and a new show came on called 'The X-Files.' It turned out to be fantastic. I loved it from the first episode on and I watched it religiously every Friday after that. I happened to be talking to my agent Ronda Gomez a couple of months later. I was trying to sell movie scripts right and left and having a varied amount of success. The topic turned to other things and I said, 'Have you soon this new show on Fox called 'The X-Files'? It's really good. This is Hollywood nepotism at its finest. She said to me, 'It's so weird you mention 'The X-Files,' because it turns out the guy who created it is a guy named Chris Carter and I'm related to him by marriage. Would you like to meet him the next time you're in town on business?' And I said, 'Yeah.' So the next time I happened to go out from Hollywood, I met with Chris. All I really wanted to do was shake his hand and say, 'I love your show. It's brilliant.' I was not angling for a job, because I had a house in Virginia and my wife was there. I knew very little about working in television, but one thing I did know is that you needed to be in the writers' room for any TV show, and those were in Los Angeles. And one thing led to another, and Chris offered me an opportunity to write a freelance episode, which I did. It was made late second season, 1995. Then they offered me a staff position.
“I always say I sort of feel like Kramer on 'Seinfeld.' I kind of fell ass-backward into winning the lottery. I realized my career writing movies at that point was kind of getting cold. I was not particularly hot at the moment writing movie scripts. I figured, 'Why not work on a really great show and have the stuff I write actually get produced?'"