WARNING: Vague spoilers through the most recent episode of Breaking Bad. Read at your own discretion.
Skyler is my favorite character on Breaking Bad. Seriously. This isn’t a new development: I’ve loved her from the beginning. But over the course of the past three seasons, she’s become the most sympathetic character. In my mind, she’s our point of identification, the sane person caught in the middle of Walt’s bullshit, trying to keep her head above water and protect her family. Skyler gets shit on the most and offends the least. She’s the victim in all of this.
These are my opinions, and I understand they’re contentious. You don’t have to love Skyler the way I do, of course, but hating her seems unjustified. Again, these things are subjective: I can’t help if there’s just something about Anna Gunn that rubs you the wrong way. But what has the character of Skyler really done to earn your hatred? How can you dismiss her as the show’s weakest link? (Especially when that position so clearly belongs to poor Walt Jr.)
Here is what bothers me about the Skyler hate: it’s the same misplaced hostility faced by countless TV wives in the past. And while you certainly can dislike a female character without being a misogynist, so much of the vitriol against Skyler uses the gendered language you might expect: She’s a bitch, she’s a cunt, she’s the shrew wife.
What it comes down to is that Skyler, the ol’ ball and chain, is a thorn in Walt’s side. She’s not submissive or even faithful. She questions his behavior and she challenges his plans. And somehow, that makes her a bitch.
Here’s what all of Skyler’s critics seem to forget — Walt is a fucking terrible person. Whatever noble causes he once had are gone. He’s a power-hungry egomaniac and a danger to those around him. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy Walt as a character, but I can’t fathom siding with him. Meth aside, this is a man who let his friend’s girlfriend choke to death on her own vomit, who poisoned a child just to spur his plan into action. Hating Skyler for the way she responds to Walt is absurd: she’s reacting out of fear and a desire to protect her loved ones.
But she’s a pain in the ass to our main character, and that makes it easy to dismiss her as a “bitch.” We see this often in sitcoms: the obnoxious manchild of a leading man gets a free pass on being an imbecile, while his wife — the one who calls him on his bad behavior — is a nag. In some ways, Malcolm in the Middle is a good example of this, and not only because of the Bryan Cranston connection. It’s not quite the same in that Lois is admittedly a nutball (this being the heightened reality of a sitcom), but I still think she is unfairly maligned. Look at her husband and her asshole kids — is it really any wonder she spent so much of the series losing her shit?
Skyler isn’t without fault: she’s been put into a situation that has forced her to do some terrible things. Which is not to say she’s justified, but rather that her mistakes are a product of her circumstance. There was a time when I would say the same about Walt, but it’s clear he’s no longer doing this for anyone but himself. Skyler’s transition from ignorant wife to scheming accomplice is about protecting her son, her baby, and herself. She’s not mad with power or rolling around in piles of meth money. She’s simply the only one holding it all together.
I’ve posed this question on Twitter and on Facebook, and now I ask it here: Why do you hate Skyler? Of all the characters, she really does strike me as the most blameless. Whether or not she’s a saint, she’s about the furthest thing from a villain. And it’s silly for me to get so worked up, but so much of the response I’ve seen does tend to stem from this anti-feminist conception of a “good wife,” which Skyler isn’t. She’s a bitch because she’s difficult. I can’t accept that.
There’s no denying that, at her most confrontational, Skyler makes things harder for Walt — but can you really argue that he doesn’t deserve it?
I hated Skyler season 1, I admit it. Her husband is dying of cancer, okay so he’s being a bit secretive, so you stop talking to him? It was an overreaction (based on what she knew). Walt was still a good guy and she was awful to him, I felt. My opinion has radically changed as Walt has descended and Skyler has shown herself to be pretty smart. Her attention to their story is something that Walt never cared about (thus spawning all the problems with his wife in the first place), but this is just the thing that will actually save their ass. Also telling someone they can never see their child again, you just don’t do that unless they are a sexual predator or a murderer (and she once again didn’t know that he was).
I dislike Skyler because of her treatment of Walt in the first season. Walt began as a weak-willed character, unable to do or say pretty much anything without Skyler’s approval (seen particularly in the “pillow talk” intervention scene). She was like a current that swept Walt away, taking him in whatever direction she deemed fit; considering only what she felt Walt wanted, not actually taking the time to find out what he might really want.
I see Walt’s actions throughout the series as a direct and violent reaction to the control exerted upon him by the external world: represented in person-form, I feel, by Skyler. Of course, we learn that Walt is a man that is dangerous if left uncontrolled (perhaps we all are), however if Skyler had given him some control in the years preceding the show’s start point (or encouraged Walt to take some control, since he probably wouldn’t have assumed control on his own before the Cancer set in), then perhaps his Übermensch-esque spiral would never have taken place.
Skyler was a “bitch” because she refused to let Walt be himself in the show’s beginning, which I see as a major Catalyst leading to Walt’s power-craze. However, once Walt tipped over the edge and revealed his dark side, I do think Skyler was (mostly) justified for her actions.
I think you and other bloggers have hit the nail on the head. Objectively, she’s understandable, reacting to the atrocious and dangerous actions of her husband. Dramatically, however, she’s insufferable. We know that Walt is bad, but that’s the fun of the show. We want to see him succeed in his meth enterprise, enjoy the satisfaction of his consquests, enjoy his new car. He’s the man of action — good or bad. Skyler is the woman of reaction.
When she was active, she was much more likable: assisting Walt in money laundering, inventing the gambling story, helping Hank’s recovery. In season 5, though, she’s nothing but a buzz-kill, a passive zombie whining and standing in the way. I understand the horror the characters is facing. But the way she’s dealing with it is really unattractive to watch.
My biggest problem is that she straight up told Walt that she “fucked Ted”. The person’s past is irrelevant- there is nothing about that is likeable.
I’m sure its not entirely rational but my dislike of Skyler as a character is due to her inconsistency.
One minute she is furious at Walt for disappearing for long lengths of time, then the next she is doing the exact same thing to him in revenge. She kicks him out over his lies and his crimes but then commits a few of her own and lies about them.
To me the problem in their relationship started not because Walt’s wrongdoing, but more because of how those crimes affected his personality. When she held all the power in the relationship she seemed happy but every time Walt attempted to gain any control over things, she took action to stop him. (ex, Wanting to avoid treatment, not wanting to accept charity, even the way in which he would launder his money) It seems this season she is resigned to the fact that she has lost all control in the relationship and she’s practically catatonic. Its almost a 100% flip from where they started in episode 1.
I really don’t think there is a strong reason to like either character but the reason I have more sympathy for Walt is that despite his actions being more heinous, none have been done to directly hurt her. She has cheated on him out of spite, stolen money from him to give to the man she cheated with, attempted on multiple occasions to keep him from seeing his children, and has threatened to have him arrested multiple times as well.
As far as I’m concerned they deserve each other.
Yes. Her inconsistency and her hypocrisy. I feel like at least Walt’s actions, while not justifiable, are understandable for the most part. He also doesn’t hide from the fact that he’s the bad guy. She still has this holier than thou attitude that is hard to swallow. I sympathize with her some of the time, but even though Walt has done terrible things, I find it much easier to root for him. He seems to struggle through his moral dilemma. He did things with good intentions to begin with. Skyler, she had no good intentions when she cheated on Walt (with a man who was also a criminal. Hypocritical much?). It was purely out of spite and to hurt him. Keeping her kids from Walt? Unnecessary and unfair to the kids. I totally agree with you. Walt at least has never tried to hurt his family. Even when he let Jane die, I do think a lot of that had to do with his (though he won’t admit it) concern for Jesse. Skyler gets angry with Walt for lying, but she does the same thing. She also put her baby at risk when she smoked. Walt never did anything like that. Instead of being honest and confronting him directly, she went behind his back and got his phone records or even went to find Jesse. Really? Instead of telling him to stop selling Walt meth, why didn’t she just tell her husband she wants him to stop? I don’t know. It’s not like I really hate Skyler, but I find myself more on Walt’s side than hers when they clash.
I understand your rationale about Skyler but disagree wholeheartledy. First and foremost, she is a hypocrite. Everything she hated about Walt was attractive or perhaps just ignored with Ted. Walt was seriously trying to provide for his family once he found out about the cancer and there was nothing about that Skyler would accept. Honestly, the show would be better with her dead just like Rita in Dexter.
Skyler drives me CRAZY because she flip-flops all the time. First, she asks to many questions and then wants to get into the business with Walt, then later she says “I’m your hostage… Waaaa waaaaa waaaa.” THAT’S YOUR OWN FAULT! She should just listen to Walt when he says not to worry.
fuck you i will hate her all i like she is a whore.
Honestly I just can’t stand her “me me me and I and more me and did I mention ME” thing. Seriously, how self absorbed can one get? She is such a hypocrite and she treats people like tools. I’m saying this based on her personality and the way she generally acts towards people, not on what she does in the business. I find Skyler to be a terribly unlikable person on her own, so no what Walt does is his deal there is no need to compare. And that has absolutely nothing to do with feminism or about being a villain but about a repulsive character and just that.
I like every single character on the show (except Jr…ZZZZ). I like Skyler. In fact I agree with every point you’ve made. I was shocked to read people hated her. Yes, she can be a bit moralistic, esp in the first season, she was holier-than-thou, but I like the way her character has developed. It’s authentic. I find it so incredibly dumb that people don’t like her because she “fucked Ted.” Seriously? How Puritanical are you people? If I’m waiting for anyone to die on the show, it’s Walt.
I supposed, people doesnt like her because he did not understand why walt was an artist XD
It’s simple. The writers have nailed this female character behavior. When she had the power over the relationship she was happy. Walt’s life was not what he wanted, he was stuck in a rut, dying….. but she was happy. When all was not what she thought (in her control) she behaved like a child acting on pure emotion and tried regain power “I fucked Ted”. When Walt didn’t allow her to regain the power and she realized the positon the early lack of support and poor decision making put her in she realised she fucked up…..and Walt wasnt going to let her off the hook. She played victim and sent the kids off as her only point of control. She’s an idiot who was focused on herself the whole time and deserves to be in the position she put herself in. Based on what you wrote I wouldn’t expect you’d be able to see or acknowledge any of the above.
1. People dislike her because she is manipulative, self-obsessed control freak. And not in the good way, but in a boring, spoiled, repetitive and irritating way. When she starts loosing control over her’s previously timid and obedient looser of a husband who dared to grow a pair, she:
1. Tries passive-aggressive torture by constant sulking
2. Plays a hot-shot accountant and seduces her boss, another timid man, to provide for her when her husband is dead, than uses it as a weapon against Walt to prove that she is more capable than him.
3. Tries to be better than Walt in the “being bad” dept. and uses her lies and manipulation skills to get what she want from people. Trying to run his business, showing poor Walt his place. To her, he will always be an incompetent looser.
4. Tries passive-aggressive torture by constant sulking, this time torturing the kids as well.
you nailed Skylar and why she is so supremely unlikeable. She’s hypocritical, judgmental, controlling, manipulative, narcissistic, rigid, selfish, and on and on ad nauseum. In a show full of self absorbed, morally confused, blaming, childish and unkind characters, Skylar wins first prize primarily for her hypocrisy and constant moralizing about others’ sins combined with her total lack of self awareness. I had to stop watching to post this just because she is so despicable and irritating!
well i am not even going to read your stupid reasons, I only say that when you love a persona in other words your husband, okay at first you get angry and disagree with him about selling drugs, but when you love a person you do not fuck your boss and you do not wait to cancer to come for walt’s dead, seriously that is why she is a bitch, because she is his wife and instead of being a support she is another type of cancer to walt
I love how you didn’t even read the post, and then go on to prove exactly what the original article was saying. You hate her because she is not a “submissive, faithful” housewife to poor, victimized Walt. She should just shut up and let Walt do whatever he wants, right? Her opinions and feelings of safety don’t matter whatsoever. Wow.
lol what a stupid reply! It has ZERO to do with her gender or role in the relationship as a ‘submissive’ or whatever the fuck. Skyler fucks her boss out of spite, when she REALLY had no reason to take things that far, and then rubs it in his face. How do you NOT see that she’s a bitch? Gender has NOTHING to do with it. If a husband did that to his wife, I’d claim he was an asshole! Seriously, you people have to stop making excuses for bad behavior from women just because they are female. Amazing how distorted peoples moral systems are when it’s really not supposed to be THAT complex. Stop making it about the damn gender!
The author confuses disliking Skyler with some kind of implied defense of Walt. This is absurd. Walt’s character is independent of Skyler. They are two independent adult human beings. Why does disliking Skyler imply a defense of Walt? I could rightly despise them both for different reasons.
Personally what rubs me the wrong way about Skyler is that she comes across as a very selfish person – and that has nothing to do with Walt’s lies. In fact I think using Walt’s character to ‘defend’ Skyler is a way to apologize for her character flaws, and they are abundant. From the beginning, far before Walt’s descent into crime, she appears controlling and distrustful. She would make a good SS interrogator. An example of her selfishness is her insistence on Walt’s course of chemotherapy, against his own judgement of the facts, which are considerably more reasoned and informed than hers I might add. It is Walt that will have to suffer the physical consequences of the difficult treatment that could render him violently ill with statistically insignificant chances of life extension. This should be Walt’s decision and she shows zero compassion in her response. Another example is her treatment of her sister and her problem with theft. She is quick to judge and to control. She silences her own sister when she is trying to reach out to her.
The list goes on and on. I must admit that I find the scenes with her to be tedious. While Walt may have descended into moral chaos and become capable of intensely evil acts, the show IS ultimately about that transition and the forces at play in society today that would cause an admirable and, in fact highly talented human being to step by step fall into the abyss.Walt is dynamic and fascinating. He is the reason the show is fascinating. Skyler is a static annoyance.
I’m amazed that Skyler’s affair is what people can’t forgive. Seriously, people can’t resist a good slut-shaming, I suppose. And saying someone is annoying over and over again isn’t critical analysis, sorry. Someone up thread called her a whore, someone else commented that, like all women, she lost her shit because she lost her upper hand in the relationship. No, that’s not gendered at all. Pffft.
He admits to making meth and killing people then tells her, in a scary/throaty voice, “I’m not on the edge, I AM the edge.” Actually, the only sane response to that is peeing your pants. Esssh.
He is also the danger. He admits it.
Ahem.
It’s not to so much slut shaming as it is, adulterous shaming. She had the affair to deliberately hurt walt by attacking the very thing she knows he treasures the most. His family. At this point all she knows is that her terminally ill husband has put himself in extreme danger so that she and her children will not be left with nothing when he dies.
I do hate “Skankler”, and as most people notice I think she’s a hyprocite, she’s not a victim, she’s in that situation because she wants to be in it, let’s say she wants to protect her family, I can think of a thousand ways to protect her family that don’t involve being Walt’s accomplice. By the way, kudos to Anna Gunn, she’s an excellent actress.
I didn’t like her from the beginning, and I just started watching it a month ago (borrowing the first 4 seasons from our son), way before he ever even started cooking. Because she’s humorless and controlling. And again, I felt this way watching the first couple of episodes. Uncle can’t tell a slightly off color joke in front of her 15 year old son. Son can’t mention Wonderbra at the breakfast table. For god’s sake, he’s in high school, you think he hasn’t heard much worse in the hall? She smiles slightly but I don’t think I have seen her laugh once, truly laugh. It’s not so much that she tried to control Walt’s treatment (because most spouses make a knee-jerk emotional reaction up on hearing that news) but that she won’t LISTEN to him. And she continues to not listen to him. However, Walt has not been a good husband. The lies, the continual and frequent absences, the passive approach to letting her make all the decisions for him and them, which I suspect has been for the duration of the marriage. I think he’s probably always been slightly selfish, to wit, not telling her about his diagnois.
I don’t understand why it isn’t crystal clear why many people (mostly men) don’t like Skyler. She is extremely bossy, disrespectful (to the point of having sex with another man) and blind to Walt’s world while he never mistreated her once. The only thing he did is lie, but any reasonable person could understand why he did that. He has done bad things to other people but for Skylar and his family he has shown nothing but immense love.
At the same time Skyler is so self-absorbed she cannot even try to see things from his perspective. No, instead she kicks him out of his own house to live in a lonely apartment while she gets to live in his house with his kids and has sex with someone else. The fact he has to break in in his own house is ridiculous to start with but no, Skyler is shocked when he does that. How could he be so disrespectful to ME?!?!?
Knowing all this, isn’t it extremely easy to understand why people don’t like her?
Skyler White has completely ruined the plot progression outside of the meth dealings. Usually the show is split up between family matter and Walt’s meth business. Usually they are intertwined, but each story has developed it’s own complex plot. Now Skyler has completely stopped the family plot progression. Her reason is WE ARE IN DANGER! She doesn’t know from who or what or why or how they are in danger. They are just in danger. I didn’t Skyler White had a sixth sense, but in the show the only things she knows are that ‘Walt is the DANGER!’, Gustavo Fring was killed in a bombing that has no evidence whatsoever of being connected to Walt, and that Walt deals meth. Skyler is just being a nuisance flat out, she actually hasn’t done anything meaningful for like 10 episodes. Now Walt is being a dbag and not telling Skyler what is going on exactly, and Walts vagueness only serves to fuel the fires of Skyler’s horrible actions, but this notion that Skyler has of Walt being dangerous to the family is absurd. Above all things Walter White is a family man and every person who has seen an episode Breaking Bad knows that. Obviously we have seen a darker side of Walter White emerge (a reflection of Gus almost), but that doesn’t escape the fact of him caring and loving for his family Being that he would never ever put his family in harms way. Last season proved that when he stayed away from Hank’s house and brought the real danger away from his family. All in all Skyler White needs to gtfo or get her shit together, but AMC was really clever with their mid – season finale in that Hank figured out who ‘Heisenberg’ is. Can’t wait for this summer!
Because smoking cigarettes in the house is “doing what’s best for her family”…
How To Not Get Killed By Gus Fring:
Option A) Buy New Secret Life
Option B) Kill Gus Fring
Walt: Honey, I chose Option A. Where’s my money at?
Skyler: I gave it to Ted.
Walt: Option B it is, then.
**Walt kills Gus**
Walt: We’re safe now.
Skyler: You are dangerous. We are in danger. I’m scared of you. You should’ve chosen Option A.
Skyler never says that he should have chosen option A. She says she is scared of the murderous ‘one who knocks’ who, by season 5, has become an amoral egomaniac. You’d have to be insane to not be scared of Walt by season 5.
So many of the reasons for hating Skyler seem completely unjustified to me. I’ll list my problems with the ones I constantly see repeated here:
1) “Skyler’s actions were done out of spite to hurt Walt. Walt did not intend to her Skyler or his family”
Skyler sleeping with Ted was done to hurt Walt, yes. It was also done to get a drug dealer out of her house. All of her other actions have been in the interest of her family, other than her smoking while pregnant. She was completely, completely justified to try to get Walt away from his kids. Did you guys even watch series 3 and 4? Walt’s family was in frequent danger, by the axe murderer brothers, from Gus and from the possible ramifications of the DEA catching Walt. Given these events, Skyler was completely right to try to protect her children.
2) “Walt did everything for the right reasons, Skyler did everything for the wrong reasons”
Let’s examine Walt’s meth cooking. Let’s talk about his actions even before Grey Matter. He gets into the meth business even though he knows that drug dealing is so dangerous, even though he knows that getting caught would ruin Hank’s career, even though he knows meth cooking will ruin the lives of thousands. He cooks meth for his family, but there are so many ramifications from the start, it is already not justifiable in my mind. I can understand why you could disagree here. What I can’t understand is why ANYONE could POSSIBLY still argue that Walt cooks meth for his family, that he puts his family before himself, etc etc etc, after he rejects the Grey Matter money. The Grey Matter money was a way for Walt to provide for his family without any of the ramifications explored above. And it is fairly his money anyway. But no, for his pride, and just for his pride, he rejects the money and continues to cook meth. The danger this will put his family in, the fact that it will ruin Hank’s career, that fact that he will be destroying the lives of thousands, doesn’t factor in to his equation at all. Because although he cares about his family, he cares about his pride more. There, right there, Skyler’s disdain towards Walt is already justifiable.
Walt getting back into the meth business in season 3 is completely, completely unjustified. As Walt had already said, he had more money than he could ever spend. He had clearly surpassed the 737,000 he needed to support his family. Why did he go back into the business? Because Gus appealed to his ego. Notice how Gus’s speech to Walt higlights the word ‘man’ so much? This is clearly very deliberate; Gus knows that Walt cooks meth for his pride. His family is already provided for.
Skyler sleeping with Ted was done to get Walt out of the house. It was cold and cruel and Skyler at her worst, but it is to an extent understandable. And her giving the money to Ted is perfectly understandable too. She was culpable in the tax fraud; if Ted went down, she could go down, and any investigations into the Whites’ financial affairs would inevitably lead to Walt’s meth cooking.
3) “Skyler is a hypocrite, a control-freak, and a selfish person”.
I’ll examine ‘hypocrite’ first. There is definitely some hypocrisy in Skyler’s character. She does leave him for a period of time, leaving him worried. This is for a day. She does not pretend she is in a fugue state and leave her in complete panic. It’s not nearly as bad. She does lie to him, but at that point they are no longer together. She should have been upfront about the Ted situation, she was completely wrong to keep it a secret, but again it is nowhere near as bad as Walt’s constant lying to Skyler. Walt lied when they were still in a committed relationship, for one, and his lies went far deeper. And possibly the most frequent ways in which Skyler is called a hypocrite is her sleeping with Ted, a criminal, after leaving Walt for being a criminal. Again, there is some hypocrisy there, but Tax Fraud pales in comparison with Meth Cooking. Apples and oranges.
Next I’ll examine ‘control freak’. Again, there is some truth in Skyler’s controlling nature, but I feel it is exaggerated. A lot of people talk about the pillow scene as a prime example of Skyler’s controlling nature. I encourage that they watch that scene (and plenty of others) again. Skyler yells over Marie, but she lets Walt speak and say everything she wants. She is far less controlling in this scene than is made out. She lets Walt deal with the money for his treatment as well, as well as just being a good, caring partner, in many scenes throughout the first two seasons. I’d encourage you to watch series 1 and 2 again. She can be a bitch at times, but most people seem to forget the good bits.
I think the main reasons for Skyler’s selfishness that people cite has already been covered above.
Is there anything I missed? Anything you strongly disagree with? I’d be interested to see some replies. There’s nothing inherently wrong with people disliking Skyler, I just hate the misogyny and irrational, blind hatred associated with many of the people that hate her. There’s nothing wrong with disliking her if you have good reasons for it. But many people don’t. They just hate her because they think all Breaking Bad is about is Walt becoming a badass, when it is truly about a good man turning bad. By season 5, we shouldn’t still be rooting for Walt. I certainly don’t any more.
How can anyone believe skyler has any other agenda than to be a controlling cunt (british usage. Her character consistently acts out and whines when she does not have control or the final say. Following the whole story it seems that throughout their relationship she has always had the dominant role in their relationship and then when walt alterego emerge, her dominance became threatened and she has to retaliate in any manner she feels she can exercise contorl, i.e. cheating, withholding the kids, deciding how to launder the money. Walt should have sent her to Alaska to find some investment properties. Walt should not be excused either, he has plenty of flaws – mostly for condoning her all the previous years before his balls dropped.
Seriously? Walt’s flaws are in condoning Skyler? Not murdering? Not ruining the lives of millions through meth manufacturing? Not having an ego that spans America? His main flaw is letting his wife control him? That’s just not what the show is about at all.
I can see why people don’t like Skyler. Her actions can be contradictory, but she is, for the most part, completely in the right. Meth dealing isn’t some sort of power play for her. She is genuinely scared for the lives of her and her children, and why wouldn’t she be? Her husband is a meth manufacturer, her whole family had been threatened with death, Walt has been on the brink of death multiple times, and Walt himself has now become as murderous, amoral egomaniac. If I was skyler I’d wish death on him too, no doubt about it. She cheated because Walt had forced himself back where he wasn’t wanted, against her will. Her actions aren’t justifiable, but to at least some extent understandable. She withheld Walt from his kids because it’s clearly the right thing to do. Gus threatened to kill them, and having your kids living with the biggest drug dealer in America would be so undeniably stupid and selfish it’s something Skyler would never even consider. The money laundering is about the power to her though, to be fair. She doesn’t feel safe with the laundering being done without her knowledge, and she has no good reason to feel this way. Her interfering did more harm than good. But being a control freak, which Skyler is, doesn’t make her worthy of detest.
Skyler is by no means perfect, but she’s the clear victim in the show, the clear better person, who does the right thing for the most part and is deeply sympathisable. For the life of me I can’t understand the hate she gets. To me it seems to be a combination of idiocy, misogyny (neither in your case) or just poor writing for Skyler leaving the character inconsistent and therefore annoying (the reason I’d argue you dislike her).