Every TV show has their haters. Every TV show has characters viewers love to hate. Skyler White of Breaking Bad is no exception. If there ever was a character a fan base poured their vitriol on, Skyler White is it. Even with the show’s final episodes of the series, fans didn’t surrender their rage over this woman.
And what better character to pick for this week’s Women Who Wow Wednesday than the complicated Skyler White?
If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad and would like to, suffice it to say this post will contain spoilers. Be warned.
Walter White (Bryan Cranston) just found out he’s dying of lung cancer. It’s aggressive. Apparently it’s Stage IV, but hasn’t metastasized to any other part of his body. The news of his pending demise is the catalyst for his journey into the dark world of drugs. He wants to secure his family’s future with the proceeds from the sale of methamphetamines. Joining him is former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) who takes care of the business end—sometimes with unexpected results.
What first starts out as a small-scale operation on the streets of New Mexico, expands to include cross-border and overseas sales. Additionally, like all fledgling drug empires, any business conducted will include coercion, blackmail and murder.
Married to the wannabe drug kingpin is the oftentimes-confused Skyler White (Anna Gunn). She drifts from being a mother, an accountant, a mistress and a cashier, to Walter’s conscience. She is the proverbial voice of reason to Walter’s manic appetite for money and power.
Without giving any details to the online stories of disgust directed toward this character, it’s safe to say fans of the show could do without this woman. Despite her ability to maintain a household, cook the books for a multi-million dollar enterprise, and standing up for what she believes is right, fans still despise her.
Her sin? She has more than a professional relationship with her boss, lies about it to her husband, and kicks him out for being a drug dealer.
What could possibly redeem this woman of her sin with the audience after having sunk so low as to betray her husband with her lies?
She has one quality no one can deny. How does that saying go? Oh, yes. Of course. “It takes one to know one.” Skyler has the uncanny ability to spot when Walter lies. Call it a sixth sense, but no matter what it is, she knows perfectly well when her husband lies to her. That makes someone like her extremely dangerous. Even though she may appear fragile, vulnerable, and at times, weak, she can spot a liar. She knows what the truth sounds like. That ability is enough to make her a larger-than-life hero.
Now, if only the show’s fan base could see that. Then, instead of hating, they’d admire her.
Have you seen Breaking Bad? What are your thoughts about Skyler White?
Looking to God 
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We disliked her intently. Not for the reasons noted… we wanted to see things go off the rail and she kept insisting on normalizing everything.
I like the idea of morals being turned upside down by complex characters. Like Charles above, I haven’t seen Breaking Bad and haven’t come across the fan rage, but it sounds like an interesting exercise in character description and how we define what is good and bad. Maybe that’s why I’ve heard so many good things about this show. Villains who aren’t actually villains and heroes with a dark streak are so much more interesting than the two dimensional characters-by-numbers you get in a lot of programmes.
And that’s the thing. Morals mean nothing when characters decide what they think is right instead of doing what is right. Breaking Bad throws this complexity at the audience every weak and we lap it up wanting more.
I never saw the series, so I’m a little lost. Fans hate the lying, adulterous wife while loving the drug-dealing, murdering husband?
You got it. Simple, isn’t it?
Surprisingly so.