We wanted the chance to tie up some loose ends and bid farewell to “Breaking Bad,” which came to a spectacular, satisfying end in September and is up for its last hurrah at the Emmys this month. Over iced tea and coffee, sweetened (but not with Stevia!), we got Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and Vince Gilligan together in West Hollywood, which led to a few discoveries and confessions, no half measures offered or accepted.

First things first: Where’s Heisenberg’s hat these days?

Cranston: I own one and Vince owns one. There’s some talk about the Smithsonian putting on a “Breaking Bad” installation, and I think that would be the best place for it. If they said “go,” I would give them everything I stole from the show. I have Walt’s hat, his sunglasses, his watch and his glasses. I have one full Walter White outfit.

Gilligan: How many pairs of underpants?

Paul: Do you have the tighty whities from the pilot episode?

Gilligan: He’s wearing them now!

Cranston: And I never take them off!

Paul: I wish I was smart enough to steal from the show. I didn’t take anything.

Cranston: Yes, you did!

Paul: OK. I have Jesse’s license plate from the first car.

Gilligan: You have the teddy bear from the second season.

Cranston: You also have the doors to the semi truck that gets shot out.

Paul: Yeah, and I also have Gale’s door that I knock on before I kill him.

You just went from having nothing to curating a small museum. What about the RV?

Gilligan: The RV is currently on the Sony lot in Culver City. The RV and Walt’s Aztec. It’s part of their tour. I want a guy in his underpants that looks like Bryan wearing a gas mask to pop out.

Cranston: Running and screaming!

Gilligan: You could pop out and hold them down and teach them about ionic bonds until they scream for mercy.

Aaron, you recently posted a screen shot on Twitter of the email that contained an attachment of the final episode. You wrote it took you “three full days of staring at it before you finally opened it.”

Paul: There were so many emotions racing through me when I got that email. My heart started racing. I was excited. I was also extremely sad. I knew this was it.

Cranston: It was all anxiety about “This is the last script we’ll ever see from the show.” So it just sat on my counter. And it’s like, “Don’t read it, don’t read it, don’t read it.”

Paul: Three days later, I’m driving over to Bryan’s house in Albuquerque with that script on my passenger seat. It was such a surreal experience. We sat down, opened up some beer, had some food and then just read it out loud together.

Gilligan: Be honest: When you guys waited three days to read that last episode, how much of the anxiety was born of the fear that, when you read it, it was going to be a piece of crap?

Paul: Zero. Honestly.

Cranston: Nothing.

Gilligan: Disappointing, maybe?

Paul: The anxiety was just the fact that, after we turn the last page, there’s nothing beyond that.

Gilligan: I’m manly enough to admit that I teared up. I actually cried when I wrote the end.

Paul: Of course you did!

Gilligan: I was in my condo in Albuquerque, sitting at the kitchen table, typing away, and I got to the end, and I had that song, not “Baby Blue,” which we ended the show with, but “El Paso” playing over and over again on my iPod.

Cranston: Just on a loop?

Gilligan: I put it on repeat. It wasn’t the Marty Robbins version. It was the Old 97s. I got to the end, typed out that bit about the crane shot pulling away from you and then wrote “The End,” and I actually had to take off my glasses and wipe the tears because I knew that was the end of very likely the most important work I’ll ever do. So it was emotional, yeah.

Paul: To say the least. (Looking at Cranston) We couldn’t speak, really, after reading it.

Cranston: It was just stunning. We just sat on the couch and chair for a while in silence.

There had to be a certain amount of anxiety too over the fate of your characters.

Paul: I had such a feeling for Jesse going into the final season, but I didn’t think there was a chance in hell he’d make it out alive. And I sent Vince an email. I’ve never thrown out any sort of suggestions or ideas ever. I mean, why would I? I just like to sit back and enjoy what’s given to me …

Cranston: (Mischievously) That said …

Paul: That said, I did want to have a little say.

Cranston: So you sent him a note?

Paul: Just to speak my piece going into the final season. It started off really as a love letter to the past five seasons, thanking him, and then it went to me saying, “If Jesse has to meet his demise in the show, can it be by his own hands?” Jesse was in such a sad, dark place. To me, it just made sense for him to end it himself. I’m so glad that was not the case, though.