‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 Department Store Heist Was Not Filmed in a Real Store
Better Call Saul Season 6 finally returned to Gene Takovic, after not showing him in the season premiere. It was worth the wait because “Nippy” was an entire black and white episode about Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) living as Gene Takovic. He enlisted cab driver Jeff (Pat Healy) in a heist of the mall’s department store, but that was not actually a department store at all.
Better Call Saul writer Alsion Tatlock, co-creator Peter Gould and director Michelle MacLaren were guests on the Better Call Saul Insider podcast on July 26. They explained how they created the department store for “Nippy” in an empty space. Better Call Saul Season 6 airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on AMC.
No department store wanted ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 there
Filming is disruptive to business, so it’s understandable Better Call Saul Season 6 couldn’t film “Nippy” in a real store. Gould thought they could at least film after a store closed, but no dice.
“When we wrote this, I think we kind of assumed we’d be able to shoot in a real store,” Gould said on Better Call Saul Insider. “We figured it’s Albuquerque, they love us. Everybody loves us. Who doesn’t love us? It turned out nobody loved us enough to let us shoot in their working store, probably for good reason. But it meant that the art department had this incredible job that they had to do. You see every single direction in this place and there’s not a moment when you even begin to question it.”
‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6 built a department store
Most malls have a department store as an anchor. The Cottonwood Mall in Albuquerque has lost its anchor so they at least had space for Better Call Saul Season 6 to build a new one.
“It did not exist before our incredible designers and builders created it,” Tatlock said. “It was just an empty space and Denise Pizzini and her team, all of the art directors and designers on our show created this from scratch.”
Gould credited Ashley Marsh with stocking the fake department store with valuable clothes for Jeff to steal. MacLaren further explained where they constructed the store.
“We had an empty space in a mall,” MacLaren said. “So we shot in Cottonwood Mall which is amazing because all the scenes where we’re walking through the mall are real. There happened to be a department store I guess that had gone out of business. It was completely empty. There was nothing in it. But it was connected to the mall which was amazing. So we were able to shoot everything at that location.”
The reason they had to film in a real store
It was a good thing Cottonwood Mall had an empty department store. Better Call Saul needed it connected to the rest of the mall where Gene has been established working at Cinnabon.
We wanted to take advantage of the light when it was day being in the mall. There’s a lot of skylights in the mall. We needed to shoot certain things night for night. Then the department store didn’t have any windows. It had some doors and we had to black them out. It was open to the mall and there were skylights in the mall we’d get light from. So we had to shoot away from the entrance. There was a lot of planning in the order of shooting to deal with the lights. As a result, we were able to do splits but we actually shot while the mall was open sometimes. We just cordoned off certain areas. It doesn’t look like the mall is that busy. We had a lot of lookie-loos that were off camera.
Michelle MacLaren, Better Call Saul Insider, 7/26/22
