George Vincent "Vince" Gilligan, Jr. is an American writer best known for creating the multiple-Emmy Award-winning series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (the latter with Peter Gould). He was also a writer on The X-Files, co-created its spinoff The Lone Gunmen, and co-wrote Hancock.
Tropes associated with Vince Gilligan include:
- Black Comedy: Seems to be his specialty. Some of his standout episodes on The X-Files ("Small Potatoes", "Bad Blood", "X-Cops", "Je Souhaite") blend humor and suspense to varying degrees, while both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul begin with some comedic elements before they gradually get more dramatic.
- Creator's Oddball: Despite prominently being a writer, Vince appears a brief appearance in a Season 5 episode of Community, where he portrays an actor who stars in the VCR game Abed and Annie are playing to determine who gets to be their third roommate. Bonus points in that fellow Breaking Bad alumni Jonathan Banks also appears in the season as a main character.
- Creator Thumbprint: Vince is from Virginia, and sometimes makes sure that state is either a setting ("Soft Light", the first episode he wrote on The X-Files, is set in Richmond) or referenced somehow (Jesse Pinkman's NA sponsor mentioning Virginia's ABC stores
).
