The first part of the sixth and final season of BoJack Horseman premieres on Netflix this Friday, and star Aaron Paul is promising fans the farewell will be "gut-wrenching."
"It's sad to say goodbye, but we know that we're a part of something incredibly special. And Netflix gave us a beautiful home for six years," Paul told BuzzFeed News during an interview on Thursday's episode of AM to DM. "People love what we're doing."
He added, "I'm so damn proud of that show. And the final 16 episodes are just gut-wrenching, of course, but we're excited for people to see what we've been doing."
For five seasons, Paul has played Todd Chavez, the human sidekick to BoJack (Will Arnett), a horse and washed-up ’90s sitcom star. In the show's fourth season, Todd discovered he was asexual and gradually built a community for himself with other people who are asexual.
The show's depiction of asexuality has been praised online, and Paul revealed to BuzzFeed News that some fans of the show have approached him to reveal that Todd's journey caused them to better understand their own sexuality.
"I was so proud to represent that community," he said, "and so many people came up to me, or have been coming up to me, since that come out, saying, 'I didn't know what I was. You have given me a community that I didn't even know existed,' which is just so heartbreaking, but also so beautiful, you know?"
He added, "I think it's so nice to have a character on TV — especially on a show so powerful like BoJack — that represents a community that should be represented."
Paul also discussed his other big project on Netflix this year: the return of his Breaking Bad character, Jesse Pinkman, in the movie El Camino.
The actor revealed when Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan first approached him about returning to the character, he assumed he meant as a cameo on Better Call Saul.
"And then when [Gilligan] said he wanted to follow [Pinkman's] journey post–Breaking Bad, a lot of emotions started to stir up — really just excitement, because I trust the man," Paul said of Gilligan. "He's not just going to do it for no reason. He's going to do it for a very specific reason. He's the last person that wants to mess with the legacy of Breaking Bad."
Paul said that, after the series ended in 2013, fans always used to ask him what happened to his character, who was last seen driving away from his Aryan Brotherhood captors. "Back then, I would always say I like to think that he made it out to Alaska to a small town, maybe open up a wood shop somewhere, kind of kept his nose clean," said Paul.
Jesse's catchphrase — "Yeah, bitch!" — wasn't actually in the El Camino script, which forced him to improvise during shooting.
"I think it was maybe the fourth time I read the script, I realized, 'Oh my god, there's not a "bitch" in here? Where's the "bitch"?' And I called Vince and said, 'Is there a reason you didn't have Jesse say "bitch"? I mean, people want the "bitch,"' and he was like, 'I didn't even think about it!'"
In a flashback during the movie opposite Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Jesse utters the line while loading up at a buffet — the one time it's said in El Camino.
"I just thought that was a nice place to put it. I didn't think about it ahead of time. I was just in the salad line making a salad onscreen, and I was like, I'm just going to say it, and I did, and they kept it!"