Gladly helping your boss evade taxes but completely cutting off your husband because he cooked some meth? Yikes.
Edit: SPOILER: And then cheating on him with said boss and tells Walter straight up.
I always thought this was kind of the point of her character. She's a bitch. You hate her. But then eventually you compare what she does to what Walt does, to the trail of ruined and ended lives he leaves behind, and realize the ocean of difference between being a jerk and being a truly bad person.
I mean that Walt's the biggest dickhead in the whole show is a given. But Skyler only new that Walter was some kind of drug dealer/maker when she kicked kim out.
Breaking bad could have been actually subversive If Walter actually had no means to pay for his treatment instead of the "OMG he's just too proud to accept help" narrative. Not to mention the pro-cop shit.
Could have been more subversive but then you would have a somewhat likable character. I think they were really going with assholes all around. And what pro cop shit? I am rewatching the series and remember nothing and am at season 3 episode 4. The one cop I see constantly is the fat ugly brother in law that is comically dumb and racist even to other police officers, he beats up two guys unprovoked and his cop buddies cover for him. Other than that a cop beats up Walt for speaking up at a traffic stop. If you aren't pro cop already I don't think you could call that copaganda (at least till the start of season 3)
TBH I think Skyler's a really good character, and part of that is she's kind of a shitty partner at the start. She's a total narc (she throws a shitfit about her kid getting drunk, about pot, about shoplifting) but she's also not working despite them clearly being a poor family. But then you kind realize why she's doing it-Walt's a genius working way below what he should be doing, and that's rubbed off on Skyler so much that she's doing a similar thing.
Isn't Walter unhappy about Skyler suggesting she go back to work? It was my impression that he pushed her into a stay-at-home role early on in their marriage. Maybe pushed is a strong word, but he definitely exerted some influence over her decision to be a stay at home mom.
The entire story is about a man consumed by toxic masculinity and ego.
His whole scheme is basically to remain the family's sole breadwinner even after he's dead, so i'd say you're on to something there. It's not as if Skyler would need him to provide for the kids, and that scares him more than the cancer.
Skyler is a well written character but you're 100% she's a shitty partnerand you shouldn't like her. Also if Walt is bad then Breaking Bad is copaganda.
if Walt is bad
I mean, it's right there in the name of the show
Yes she is a great character but that doesn't make her any less of an asshole, just like Walt's the biggest dickhead in the whole series.
Hot take: people hating Skylar and liking Walt is a symptom of capitalist propaganda. Skyler is set up as the foil to Walt's amoral entrepreneurial ambitions, and for the majority of the show she is struggling to survive with some amount of her personal morality intact in the face of his unstoppable march towards success and evil, which in his case are one and the same. She's not a hero; that's for sure, but I think she is a great representation of someone who is victimized by the unrelenting individualism that has taken hold of society.
amoral entrepreneurial ambitions
But she’ll gladly help her boss with his tax evasion? Lol.
True, it's a bad decision, but she thinks that the family is desperate for money. Her fear of instability is what pushes her into amoral acts. Walt on the other hand had an alternative to making meth right from the get go - the money from his former partner at Grey Matter. It was his ego that drove his decision. He couldn't bear the thought of surviving because of someone else's generosity; it had to be his own talent and work that was responsible for his well-being.
I remember watching Breaking Bad for the first time when I was like 14 and thinking the same things and generally believing Walter White had his family's interests at heart.
But then I rewatched it as an adult, and I can't believe I felt that way. Now all I can see is a lying, gaslighting, abusive piece of shit putting his entire family in danger so he can LARP as Pablo Escobar. He constantly tells Skyler they are not in danger even as he is looking for ways to kill Gus before Gus kills them.
Skyler is basically a hostage throughout this entire thing, having no choice but to live with this man who she comes to despise. And she didn't cheat on him. She had at that point made it explicitly clear to Walt that their relationship was through.
A big chunk of the reason Skyler drives people up the wall into intense loathing / hating reactions (quote: "I hate her ever-living guts", quote: "I hate her ball busting, control freakish, white bread, housewifey milquetoast ways") is misogyny. She's a wife and the wife's role in a story is to support the male protagonist. 100%. No ifs, no doubts, no quibbling. Even if the protagonist is an antihero undergoing a downward spiral into crime and murder, the wife must help out, or at least, understand.
Skyler doesn't support her husband in the wish fulfillment journey of weak nerdy white teacher transforming into international drug lord badass, therefore she makes a lot of people's heads explode with hate.
I'm not saying this applies to any of you, I'm sure your reasons for hating her are valid and based on something totally unrelated. I'm just saying this is "a big chunk" of why Skyler is one of the most disliked characters in TV history.
If you're interested in watching a discussion of the extreme hatred of Skyler and an analysis go check out Jack Saint's video, Why Do You Hate Skyler White?
Yeah, exactly. The viewers are cheering on Walt and Skyler is the bump in the road, the unfun bitch yelling at the kids to stop having fun.
I mean, the showrunners also had Skyler do all sorts of shady things to make her seem "complicated". It was an attempt to make her interesting next to Walt but basically it just removed whatever sympathy viewers might have for a person in her situation.
I was never sure if she was intentionally written that way as a speed bump to Walter's story or if we're supposed to be so invested in Walter's life that we're seeing Skyler as he starts to see her. When she's on his side he loves her but if she second guesses him his love turns to hate. We're watching this all happen through Walter's eyes without every being shown an unbiased view of whats going on between them.
Never liked Skyler's character - but my take is that she's made for you to hate her - or even the first seasons to be honest.
Without real spoiler but kind of:
I mean you HAVE to understand how shitty Walter's life is to begin with in order to relate to him and better understand how far he will be ready to go to escape it. Skyler's character is here to make YOU want to become a drug dealer.
clearly you forgot louis. he was invited over for dinner because he drove Flynn to school everyday. he really stepped up
Even Jessie is a pos, he’s just too immature and childlike to fully process it and so comes off a ignorant instead of evil.
Selling meth to people is fucked. Meth ruins communities and the people in them. I respect Skyler for leaving scum like Walt.
Yeah its good in my opinion. But if you don't care for it after season 3 idk.
