Vulture interviewed Gilligan to find out what the writing team is thinking about in this "schizophrenic" time. “It’s going to be polarizing no matter how you slice it," he said. "But you don’t want 10 percent to say it was great and 90 percent to say it sucked ass. You want those numbers to be reversed.”

Gilligan didn't reveal any plot twists, but he did share what the writers are thinking about when writing the show's final episodes:

1. Even Gilligan doesn't know how the show is going to end, yet, but he's hoping to create something that will mix the element of surprise with a sense of inevitability:

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Willa's top 10 (because she couldn't resist adding five more):

1. "Homeland" (Showtime). For the purposes of this list, I am using “best” as a synonym for “shows I most loved to watch,” which explains why “Homeland,” even with it’s deeply ferkockte final stretch, is here. Did the whole show kind of implode, selling out its realpolitik premise for a schmaltzy present? For sure. Did I always want to see next week’s episode desperately? For sure. As implausible and downright ridiculous as the last three episodes were, there was a good five-week span when “Homeland” tore through plot and expectations faster, more satisfyingly and with better acting — Claire Danes, the best of the best — than any show this year. “Homeland” couldn’t maintain its own momentum, but I wouldn’t have missed an out-of-control minute.

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Way before your favorite show was ever recapped -- or you signed an online petition after it was kneecapped -- Salon bet big on TV writing. Beginning with the first piece by Salon founder Joyce Millman and her pioneering Blue Glow column -- on through Carina Chocano, Heather Havrilesky, Matt Zoller-Seitz and Willa Paskin -- sharp thinking and dazzling writing on the most obsessive and obsessing of mediums has been a crucial part of our mix.  We're lucky enough to be living in a golden age of TV writing now, so we've canvassed the best in the business to help create a definitive list and awards for the year's best in show. And we're naming it after our own early effort, which beamed an early signal out to a new and enthusiastic audience.

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Enjoy:

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Last night’s episode of “Homeland” contained two pulse-racing scenes, both of which hinged on big, fat coincidences, raising the specter of the damned “P” word for the season to come. I’m talking about “plausibility.” “Homeland” is not exactly a realistic series — prisoners of war turned terrorists don’t often get tapped to be vice-presidential candidates and have twisted love affairs with the mentally unstable CIA agents who suspect their real motivations — and yet plausibility is an issue, and I suspect will only become more of one as the season goes on.

As with the past season of “Breaking Bad,” which got hounded with “plausibility” questions — how realistic is it that Walt and Jesse would have done that train heist? Is leaving that incriminating book of poetry on his toilet something Walter White would really do? — it’s not whether the story lines could really happen (because none of them could really happen), but whether the story lines seem like they could really happen in the totally fake world we’ve already bought into. It’s a head-scratching dynamic (and, when you don't find the coincidence in question that glaring, it can be a frustratingly nit-picky one). Here are two series founded on myriad, bedrock implausiblities that only set off audience bullshit alarms with the misuse of relatively small-time coincidences. And yet, they sure do. With the suspension of disbelief stretched to the limit, every request for further suspension better be on point.

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But go beyond the surface, and the two men — one an unbelievable fictional creation, and the other Walter White — have much in common. Spoilers ahead for "Breaking Bad" and probably November’s election results.

Unshakable confidence: Romney wrote a book titled "No Apology," and has stuck by that motto in his campaign. For example, when Mother Jones leaked a video of him blasting half of Americans as government-dependent parasites, he didn't roll the sentiment back; he just called it an "inelegant" way of blasting half of Americans as government-dependent parasites.

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Eric Stonestreet's pitch-perfect acceptance

Acknowledging his sitcom husband, Stonestreet said, "I wouldn't be standing here without Jesse Tyler Ferguson. There is no Cam without Mitch." Then he continued, beautifully, "We get the awesome opportunity to play these two characters on TV and show America and the world what a loving couple we can be, just like everybody else, and it's an honor to do that," and added, "I never knew I'd be on TV as a gay man, but I love the pictures of hairy chests you guys are sending me." Sweet and touching and very funny.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus' win … for Amy Poehler

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"We feel so lucky, lucky not only to have jobs in these challenging times, but to have jobs that we love with people we love," said Steven Levitan, co-creator of "Modern Family."

The drama "Homeland" stopped "Mad Men" in its tracks, denying the show a record-setting fifth trophy and kept Bryan Cranston from his fourth consecutive best drama award for "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm an also-ran once more.

The Emmys refused to play it predictably Sunday, with Jon Cryer of "Two and a Half Men" earning a best actor award and Jimmy Kimmel proving a game but uneven host.

"I'm one of those pesky Brits, I apologize," said Lewis, who plays an American in the espionage thriller. "I don't really believe in judging art, but I thought I'd show up just in case."

Danes, eye-catching in a bright yellow dress that gracefully draped the pregnant actress, was effusive.

"My husband, my love, my life, my baby daddy, this doesn't mean anything without you," she said to her spouse, actor Hugh Dancy.

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1.) Best drama, or can “Mad Men” hold off “Downton Abbey” and “Homeland”?

There’s a story in the New York Times today all about how psyched PBS is on “Downton Abbey’s” Emmy hopes. Objectively, Season 2 of the British costume drama was inconsistent — Matthew’s vanishing paralysis! Bates turning into a whiny maybe-murderer! That amnesiac heir covered in bandages!— but it’s got momentum, more viewers than “Mad Men” and an audience who doesn’t really care how bad it can be. Moreover, “Mad Men” has won best drama four years in a row, and no show has ever won five in a row. If “Downton’s” not the show to upset “Mad Men," there’s always Showtime’s far more deserving “Homeland."

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One thing that strikes me is how much Gilligan is the anti-Walter White. Unlike his fictional creation, Gilligan is generous in recognizing the contributions of his fellow workers, and has a very accurate perception of where he is, why he is there, and where he is going. But as you will see, this sets up a problem that is mirrored in the drama of “Breaking Bad.” Gilligan and his team are stuck with their characters, their actions and the consequences of those actions. In some profound way, Walter White and his extended family have achieved a life of their own, and in the case of Season 5.1, as you will see, this led to some dilemmas that were not totally solved.

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Nelson isn’t just a well-informed observer; she’s been consulting on the Emmy-winning drama since its second season, helping to ensure that the show’s writers make the chemistry of illegal drug-making credible.

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Why not? What do Europeans know about keeping meth use at bay, while North America gets slammed by the drug, straining health systems, clogging the courts, and converting rural homes into chemical bombs?

Nothing. Europeans just don’t like the stuff.

“It’s a very American question, isn’t it? Why hasn’t something happened?” said Laurent Laniel, an analyst with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in Lisbon. “In Europe we don’t ask ourselves this.”

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This is the dilemma that Vince Gilligan and his cohorts have grappled with. How do you sustain interest in a lead character who becomes more and more repellant as time goes on? How many different ways can the people around this lead character express their revulsion without contaminating the viewing audience? Ultimately, in a time-tested cliché heard by every writer of every drama at one time or another, who are we supposed to root for?

Who indeed?

Vince Gilligan is an admitted Stanley Kubrick fanatic. And this entire season reflects that fanaticism. There are great Kubrick movies, and not-so-great Kubrick movies, but even his lesser films are brilliantly crafted. And they all contain what Kubrick called “non-submersible units” – scenes that are so powerful they overpower any flaws in story, dialog, plotting and casting.

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As is the fashion for serious dramas these days (see: “Mad Men,” “Game of Thrones”), the “Breaking Bad” finale was not nearly as amped up or grueling as the penultimate episode, in which Walt killed the loveable, phlegmatic Mike. Walt’s transformation into a horrible, amoral man is now so complete that the aftermath of Mike’s death— what to do with Mike’s car, Mike’s body, and Mike’s 10 chatty associates— could be dealt with quickly and calmly, no fuss, no emotion. Walt has broken so bad his decision to hire some neo-Nazis to mastermind the grisly, simultaneous deaths of 10 imprisoned men took up less than five minutes of last night’s episode. The murders went down to the jarringly smooth sound of “Pick Yourself Up,” a song with lyrics about getting to “start all over again,” because that is exactly what the murders were for Walt: a smooth way to begin anew, stabbings and burnings having become as breezy a thing to Walt as Frank Sinatra's crooning.

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“Say My Name” is another massive dose of rancid, as the curdled dreams of Walter White drag a major character into dignified oblivion. How “Breaking Bad” is going to go for nine more hours, without a mass suicide of its loyal viewers is beyond me, but I’m here for the ride.

Few series do desert standoffs better than “Breaking Bad.” The gang that argues too much to shoot straight meets their rivals in yet another tense face-off. And in this episode teaser, we get one of the most fantastic yet illogical confrontations ever. That is, if you think, as I did, that Walter’s argument about the purity and excellence of his product is reason enough for a network to program – wait – sorry – for a rival gang to distribute it.

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Last night’s episode, the penultimate episode of the series’ penultimate season, was suffused with a feeling of inexorability. As the episode closed in around Mike, the outcome took on a preordained feeling that precluded surprise. Unlike with Gus Fring’s death, which was a shock in almost every particular, by the time Walt and Mike were meeting at the river the proceedings had the stench of tragedy, that feeling one gets when reading “Romeo and Juliet” and — even knowing what is about to happen — begins to hope that this time, maybe somehow, Friar John will get to Romeo in time. He never does.

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Gunn spoke to Salon about Skyler, her predicament, her depression and the possibility of her killing Walter White.

I’m extremely worried about Skyler. It’s getting really stressful to watch her. Was it stressful to be her?

It was. It really was. There were days on set where it was like, “Wow, it’s hard to live in this place.” And thank God for Bryan Cranston being so hilarious and great, and pretty much our whole cast and crew, so we have a lot of levity. But I had to dig deep into some pretty black stuff this year. As an actor you wait for this kind of material, but it can also be very emotionally exhausting.

There have been a number of scenes that have been totally skin crawling. Every time Walt touches Skyler, I get the most serious heebie-jeebies.

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Vince Gilligan has admitted that he and his writers view writing “Breaking Bad” as a game of Vulcan three-dimensional chess. If so, last week’s “Dead Freight” was a sacrifice move, that allowed all of the pieces to arrange on that game board in precisely the right fashion. Make no mistake. The precision and plotting of “Buy-Out” redeems the excesses of “Dead Freight,” and (almost) makes that last move worthwhile. Last week’s overblown heist plot turns in on itself in “Buy-Out.” Something is not pulled off, but rather, an attempt is made to pull out, in this case, via a brilliant exit strategy that would clearly allow all of our players to escape with their lives and a nice pocket o’ change. What could possibly go wrong? Of course.

Walter.

The rollercoaster of doom crests the top and begins its final 10-episode plunge into the darkness.

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