How ‘Higher Name Saul’ Recreated the ‘Breaking Unhealthy’ RV and Extra

SPOILER ALERT: Don’t learn when you have not watched the eleventh episode of “Better Call Saul” Season 6, titled “Breaking Bad.”

When set decorator Ashley Marsh came upon “Higher Name Saul” was going to revive the enduring RV from “Breaking Unhealthy,” she was psyched. And fortunately, the unique “Krystal Ship” had been stored safely saved on the Sony lot. There was just one concern: the RV was “fully gutted on the within.”

Now, “Breaking Unhealthy” had all the time used two “RVs” — one absolutely purposeful car for exterior and driving pictures, and a separate soundstage for taking pictures the inside. To recreate that set for “Higher Name Saul,” Marsh “religiously rewatched ‘Breaking Unhealthy’” and took “8,000 display grabs.” With cautious consideration to element, the crew needed to exchange each beaker, tub of methylamine, round-bottom flask and extra. Every part we see contained in the RV on “Higher Name Saul” was new.

“We had to return and purchase the whole lot,” Marsh tells Selection. “We actually simply stared at images till we found out what this stuff had been.”

To verify the RV inside seemed precisely prefer it did in “Breaking Unhealthy,” Marsh then got down to discover a 1986 Bounder — the identical mannequin used for the outside pictures — to assemble seats, lights, a mini-fridge door and window coverings. Her search ended with Frank Sandoval, who runs a “Breaking Unhealthy” RV tour firm in Albuquerque. (He additionally appeared in “Breaking Unhealthy” Season 5 as an additional.) After signing an “ironclad NDA,” Sandoval was blissful to lend some components of his Bounder — which shuttles vacationers round Albuquerque to fan-favorite “Breaking Unhealthy” areas — to the “Higher Name Saul” crew.

Based on Marsh, Sandoval was the one individual they may discover that had the precise window coverings proven in “Breaking Unhealthy.” Whereas the standard TV viewer would by no means discover such a minor incongruity, Marsh says that collection co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould emphasised that followers will inevitably “minimize collectively aspect by aspect” the flashback scenes from “Higher Name Saul” with the unique ones from “Breaking Unhealthy.” “We needed to be hyperaware of how proper this wanted to be,” she says.

What was thrilling for Marsh is that this episode of “Higher Name Saul” reveals the RV inside in a approach “Breaking Unhealthy” by no means did: in movement, with Walt and Jesse making ready to go someplace. This allowed the set decorators, together with Gilligan and writer-director Thomas Schnauz, to think about how the meth cooking duo would possibly pack up their gear for journey. When taking pictures the inside in movement, the particular results crew hooked up airbags beneath the set to make the RV rock forwards and backwards, emulating driving by way of the desert.

To reshoot the “Breaking Unhealthy” scene wherein Walt and Jesse maintain Saul (Bob Odenkirk) at gunpoint in entrance of a shallow grave, the “Higher Name Saul” development crew dug a grave behind the studios in terrain that was much like the desert, whereas the greens crew introduced in grime.

Engaged on “Saul,” in addition to 2019’s “El Camino: A Breaking Unhealthy Film,” Marsh has had her justifiable share of set-decorating challenges. When “Breaking Unhealthy” launched Ed the Disappearer (Robert Forster), who runs a witness safety program out of his Greatest High quality Vacuum store, the placement was a vacuum retailer in actual life, which required little or no alteration. Once they returned for “El Camino,” it had since been fully become a furnishings retailer. So, Marsh and set ornament purchaser Rachel Srigley had been tasked with reworking it again into Greatest High quality Vacuum, a course of that took three months.

“Rachel was doing analysis on vacuums to seek out the very same fashions, the very same colours,” Marsh says. “We cleaned out each vacuum retailer on the town for all of their components — something that was shut, simply to get the amount.”

Nonetheless, Marsh says the trickiest activity she’s had within the Gilligan-verse is adorning the division retailer in final week’s Gene-centered “Higher Name Saul.” Within the episode, Gene orchestrates an elaborate heist of Armani fits, Air Jordans and linen shirts for cab driver Jeffy (Pat Healy), whereas distracting the mall safety guards with fresh-baked Cinnabons.

“It was an empty Sears,” Marsh says, “with actually nothing inside. Not a rack, no pegs, not one single factor to hold something on.”

The crew needed to import tons of couches, racks, fixtures and lamps, in addition to “truckloads” filled with clothes. In the meantime, Gene’s rhyming directions for Jeffy (“One, Armani fits and run! Two, Air Jordan sneakers for you!” and so on.) served as a information for designing the shop.

It wasn’t the primary time Marsh needed to construct a retailer from scratch. The truth is, between Season 4 and 5 of “Higher Name Saul,” the Cinnabon that Gene works at in Omaha (which is filmed in Albuquerque’s Cottonwood Mall) went out of enterprise. Fortunately, the manufacturing crew was capable of buy a number of what was left — tables, chairs, Coke machines, the huge cake mixer — however Marsh says they nonetheless “needed to painstakingly return and reverse engineer what was lacking and put all of it again collectively.” Teaming up with Cinnabon, they had been additionally capable of reacquire the specialty oven, dough sheeter and proofers.

“I’m a nerd,” admits Marsh. “A part of why I actually love going again and recreating units is you may actually dive in and get enthusiastic about issues that most individuals would discover boring. It’s like enjoying a giant sport of iSpy, however on an expert stage.”