Skyler: A Love Declaration
Aug. 22nd, 2012 05:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSkyler White is not one of those characters you fall in love with at first sight. Or second sight. She's not a witty quipper, a female warrior or a morally ambiguous male (though her own moral ambiguity will unfold in the course of the show); when we meet her, she's the pregnant and dominating wife of the main character whom he has to hide things from, read: coming close to the macho male's worst nightmare without being "cool" in a way viewers of either gender can identify with. Why, she even is busy typing a story for her creative writing class while absent mindedly giving her husband a hand job. (The most common summary for the White marriage pre show usually reads "Skyler has emasculated Walt".) And it's not until the last third of the first season that Skyler starts to get scenes outside of the "Walt lies to Skyler"/"Skyler has an inkling she's lied to and investigates" paramater. So no, I'm not surprised Skyler drew hostility. Back when I marathoned the show, I saw her mostly as a commentary on Walter through the first season until, again, the last third, was pleasantly surprised to get more development in the second, but really fell in love in the third. By now, she's become my favourite Breaking Bad character. And the show, which as opposed to certain other shows which started promisingly but then narrowed their focus to one or two main characters and flattened the others (*cough* Dexter *cough*) widened its focus and detailed narrative attention (from which Skyler, Hank, Marie, and various gentlemen in the meth business all benefited), gave me plenty of reasons. Some of the more prominent ones are below the cut.
1.) Skyler is smart. Which we find out through show, not tell. It starts her ability to question Walt's lies (and to be fair, he's not nearly as practised a liar then), continues when we see her figure out quickly what's wrong about the books when starting her job at Ted's in s2, and continues to get showcased in s3 and s4 when she immediately points out the lack of logic or believability in Saul's money laundering ideas, comes up with an alternative plan that is believable and does make sense, and when she comes up with the gambling lie as an explanation to Hank, Marie and Walter Jr. as to what Walt was up to, which, again, makes more sense and is far more plausible than Walt's early ideas (the "fugue state" comes to mind). That Walt, why by s5 has become an excellent liar, takes a particular pleasure in tearing down her ideas in their big fight scene in 51 strikes me as among many other things payback for having his (and Saul's) ideas dissected and regarded as useless in s3. Mind you: the fact both Skyler and Walt are highly intelligent is probably one of the things that drew them together originally to begin with. That, and the fact they're both control freaks, but I'll get to that. Anyway, if in the hilarious comicbook vid the show's website let "Jesse" create in s2 Walt's superhero name is Dr. Chemistry, Skyler's would be, slightly paragraphasing Donna Noble, SuperBookkeeper, because as with Walt and his chemistry, the show lets us see repeatedly Sykler is brilliant at her job (even more so when doing it for criminal purposes or pressed against the wall, as when she fools the IRS, not that Ted the Idiot appreciates it). I dig competent people.
2.) Skyler is not a saint. She's not magically immune to corruption (which would make her not believable on this show), far from it. Mid s3, she originally starts to compromise because Walt's drug money comes in handy to pay for Hank's therapy, but you can tell she gets increasingly caught up in the excitement and attraction of having that much money at hand, the challenge of finding a way to process it. Sharing Walt's distaste for sloppiness, need for control and anger when confronted with people who piss her off means also Skyler doing things like insisting on buying this particular car wash (after meeting the owner, that charmer) and coming up with a scheme to pressure the man into selling. That Skyler eventually draws a line, gets a reality check and rejects self justification for the criminal life isn't because she's not tempted, or innately good. It's because she responds differently than Walt did to the reality of death, both being in bed with it and being responsible for it.
3.) Skyler puts her ego behind the welfare of her children. One of the reasons why I started to admire Skyler was that she was willing to be the "bitch mother'" in her son's eyes in early s3, in the immediate aftermath of her discovery of Walt's meth producer career, in order to get Walt out of the house. It's something Walt, who so thrives on admiration and being needed by both his biological and his emotional son, would never have done: making himself look bad, not "cool" bad (as in, behold me, I'm evil, hear me roar), but dismissed as mean, petty and hysterical, as long as it gets the job done. Skyler's method in s5, when she's at her most powerless, to negotiate Walt to a point where he has to give in and let Hank and Marie take the children, is the same, only more so: she's willing to look crazy/suicidal and to be separated from her children if that's what it takes to keep them safe. Again, she and her husband are not completely different in their methods; Walt is willing to play the cancer martyr part, to look weak, or to cry in order to manipulate Hank and Marie, but note all of Walt's roles still have him cast as the noble good guy. Skyler's roles, whether it's playing the bimbo unable to count in front of the IRS man, the bemusingly mean wife in front of her son or the suicidal wreck in front of Hank and Marie, cast her in the most unflattering light possible, and they get her no emotional gratification, on the contrary. But she's willing to do it if it gets the job done. Walt started out the show with the self-justification of doing it all for his family, and believed it for the longest time though the audience started to stop believing it as early as 1.05 when he declined Elliot's and Gretchen's offer to pay for his therapy, and definitely stopped believing it by the time s2 ended and all bills were payed. Skyler? Actually does it for the family. And by "it" I don't mean the money laundering, which brings more to my next point.
4.) Skyler is able to accept responsiblity. The older I get, the less patience I have for characters who keep insisting that whatever crap they deal out is always someone else's fault. *looking at you, Loki and Morgana, among others* It's a human reaction, yes. And I'm not immune to it, either (is any of us?). But the thing is, at some point you have to be able to say, yes, such and such in your life was rotten to you, and this and that circumstance was awful, but that still doesn't entitle you to deal out misery to others. And no, you're not the eternally misunderstood hero, and the world doesn't owe it to you to acknowledge you as such. Skyler has rarely been more awesome as when she not only rejected Walt's "bullshit rationalizations" for his own doings but for hers as well. Again, the second part is important. Skyler could have taken the easy way out and just blamed Walt for everything. He is after all responsible for the majority of the current horror she finds herself trapped by. But she, too, has made bad decisions, she's aware of that, she acknowledges it, and she blames herself for them, and no one else. By s5, Walt has arrived at full Dick Cheney mode about the "collateral damage" his career as Heisenberg caused; stuff happens, you know. But Skyler rejects that, because the rest of humanity is still real to her, and because she's aware that her own well being doesn't give her the justification to screw over everyone else.
5.) Skyler knows how to twist the knife. Again, she's no saint. If you back either of the Whites into a corner, they will bite. The marital warfare between Walter and Skyler has the fascination of a train wreck, and while the odds are stashed in Walt's favour, Skyler has in her arsenal the devastating psychological/emotional put down. Choice examples: "I fucked Ted", "I'm waiting for the cancer to come back" and "Did he tell you about my affair as well?" She does have a mean streak, and being a hobby writer, knows how to use it verbally. It contributes to making her a complex and eminently watchable character, and gives me hope for her instead of clawing my eyes out now that Walt has taken any freedom she has away, including even the freedom of her own body. (If the image of him sliding into bed with her is one of the most chilling the show came up with, and it's accomplished by keeping us in Skyler's pov, with her devastated frozen face in close up and Walt only an out of focus shape behind her, ever talking. It's one of the things which made the image two episodes later of Skyler in the pool, drowning out for once the sound of Walt's voice, so efficient.)
6.) Skyler provides the much needed apostate pov. If we saw Walt only in his own pov, or Jesse's, this would be a different story. And one in danger of buying into it's, and Walt's, own hype. But we don't. Skyler is the third major pov character on this show (Hank is the fourth, but with a little less narrative room), and you know the old Rokoko saying about no man being a hero to his own valet? No husband is ever Heisenberg to his own wife, to apply it for this show. It doesn't mean Skyler through four, now soon five years never shows Walt understanding or respect. As Walt himself mentioned (for manipulative purposes), she was there for him during his chemo therapy. After she took the money for Hank and Marie, she told Walt she understood his initial impulse better. But, see above, she never buys into his bullshit rationalizations, and once the full reality of what he has become was revealed and sunk in, she refuses to prettify it by even pretending admiration, let alone giving it. From a Doylist pov, Skyler keeps Walt distinctly life-sized. Walt squaring off against drug dealers in the desert makes him look cool. Walt trying to gaslight his wife in their suburban home makes him look both creepy and pathetic. (BTW, it makes Walter White a richer character, too. Throwing a temper tantrum that ends up with the pizza on the roof in a trademark display of the show's black humour during the time when he's banished from home is so utterly human and utterly un-Cool Male Action Hero or supervillain that I wouldn't miss it for the world.) Skyler is the one character who doesn't drink the cool-aid (her earlier love for Walt hadn't needed seeing him as Big Bad Heisenberg, and her current loathing is so so painfully well-aimed because she still refuses to acknowledge the "super" in his villainy), and for this, and all of the above, I love her.
1.) Skyler is smart. Which we find out through show, not tell. It starts her ability to question Walt's lies (and to be fair, he's not nearly as practised a liar then), continues when we see her figure out quickly what's wrong about the books when starting her job at Ted's in s2, and continues to get showcased in s3 and s4 when she immediately points out the lack of logic or believability in Saul's money laundering ideas, comes up with an alternative plan that is believable and does make sense, and when she comes up with the gambling lie as an explanation to Hank, Marie and Walter Jr. as to what Walt was up to, which, again, makes more sense and is far more plausible than Walt's early ideas (the "fugue state" comes to mind). That Walt, why by s5 has become an excellent liar, takes a particular pleasure in tearing down her ideas in their big fight scene in 51 strikes me as among many other things payback for having his (and Saul's) ideas dissected and regarded as useless in s3. Mind you: the fact both Skyler and Walt are highly intelligent is probably one of the things that drew them together originally to begin with. That, and the fact they're both control freaks, but I'll get to that. Anyway, if in the hilarious comicbook vid the show's website let "Jesse" create in s2 Walt's superhero name is Dr. Chemistry, Skyler's would be, slightly paragraphasing Donna Noble, SuperBookkeeper, because as with Walt and his chemistry, the show lets us see repeatedly Sykler is brilliant at her job (even more so when doing it for criminal purposes or pressed against the wall, as when she fools the IRS, not that Ted the Idiot appreciates it). I dig competent people.
2.) Skyler is not a saint. She's not magically immune to corruption (which would make her not believable on this show), far from it. Mid s3, she originally starts to compromise because Walt's drug money comes in handy to pay for Hank's therapy, but you can tell she gets increasingly caught up in the excitement and attraction of having that much money at hand, the challenge of finding a way to process it. Sharing Walt's distaste for sloppiness, need for control and anger when confronted with people who piss her off means also Skyler doing things like insisting on buying this particular car wash (after meeting the owner, that charmer) and coming up with a scheme to pressure the man into selling. That Skyler eventually draws a line, gets a reality check and rejects self justification for the criminal life isn't because she's not tempted, or innately good. It's because she responds differently than Walt did to the reality of death, both being in bed with it and being responsible for it.
3.) Skyler puts her ego behind the welfare of her children. One of the reasons why I started to admire Skyler was that she was willing to be the "bitch mother'" in her son's eyes in early s3, in the immediate aftermath of her discovery of Walt's meth producer career, in order to get Walt out of the house. It's something Walt, who so thrives on admiration and being needed by both his biological and his emotional son, would never have done: making himself look bad, not "cool" bad (as in, behold me, I'm evil, hear me roar), but dismissed as mean, petty and hysterical, as long as it gets the job done. Skyler's method in s5, when she's at her most powerless, to negotiate Walt to a point where he has to give in and let Hank and Marie take the children, is the same, only more so: she's willing to look crazy/suicidal and to be separated from her children if that's what it takes to keep them safe. Again, she and her husband are not completely different in their methods; Walt is willing to play the cancer martyr part, to look weak, or to cry in order to manipulate Hank and Marie, but note all of Walt's roles still have him cast as the noble good guy. Skyler's roles, whether it's playing the bimbo unable to count in front of the IRS man, the bemusingly mean wife in front of her son or the suicidal wreck in front of Hank and Marie, cast her in the most unflattering light possible, and they get her no emotional gratification, on the contrary. But she's willing to do it if it gets the job done. Walt started out the show with the self-justification of doing it all for his family, and believed it for the longest time though the audience started to stop believing it as early as 1.05 when he declined Elliot's and Gretchen's offer to pay for his therapy, and definitely stopped believing it by the time s2 ended and all bills were payed. Skyler? Actually does it for the family. And by "it" I don't mean the money laundering, which brings more to my next point.
4.) Skyler is able to accept responsiblity. The older I get, the less patience I have for characters who keep insisting that whatever crap they deal out is always someone else's fault. *looking at you, Loki and Morgana, among others* It's a human reaction, yes. And I'm not immune to it, either (is any of us?). But the thing is, at some point you have to be able to say, yes, such and such in your life was rotten to you, and this and that circumstance was awful, but that still doesn't entitle you to deal out misery to others. And no, you're not the eternally misunderstood hero, and the world doesn't owe it to you to acknowledge you as such. Skyler has rarely been more awesome as when she not only rejected Walt's "bullshit rationalizations" for his own doings but for hers as well. Again, the second part is important. Skyler could have taken the easy way out and just blamed Walt for everything. He is after all responsible for the majority of the current horror she finds herself trapped by. But she, too, has made bad decisions, she's aware of that, she acknowledges it, and she blames herself for them, and no one else. By s5, Walt has arrived at full Dick Cheney mode about the "collateral damage" his career as Heisenberg caused; stuff happens, you know. But Skyler rejects that, because the rest of humanity is still real to her, and because she's aware that her own well being doesn't give her the justification to screw over everyone else.
5.) Skyler knows how to twist the knife. Again, she's no saint. If you back either of the Whites into a corner, they will bite. The marital warfare between Walter and Skyler has the fascination of a train wreck, and while the odds are stashed in Walt's favour, Skyler has in her arsenal the devastating psychological/emotional put down. Choice examples: "I fucked Ted", "I'm waiting for the cancer to come back" and "Did he tell you about my affair as well?" She does have a mean streak, and being a hobby writer, knows how to use it verbally. It contributes to making her a complex and eminently watchable character, and gives me hope for her instead of clawing my eyes out now that Walt has taken any freedom she has away, including even the freedom of her own body. (If the image of him sliding into bed with her is one of the most chilling the show came up with, and it's accomplished by keeping us in Skyler's pov, with her devastated frozen face in close up and Walt only an out of focus shape behind her, ever talking. It's one of the things which made the image two episodes later of Skyler in the pool, drowning out for once the sound of Walt's voice, so efficient.)
6.) Skyler provides the much needed apostate pov. If we saw Walt only in his own pov, or Jesse's, this would be a different story. And one in danger of buying into it's, and Walt's, own hype. But we don't. Skyler is the third major pov character on this show (Hank is the fourth, but with a little less narrative room), and you know the old Rokoko saying about no man being a hero to his own valet? No husband is ever Heisenberg to his own wife, to apply it for this show. It doesn't mean Skyler through four, now soon five years never shows Walt understanding or respect. As Walt himself mentioned (for manipulative purposes), she was there for him during his chemo therapy. After she took the money for Hank and Marie, she told Walt she understood his initial impulse better. But, see above, she never buys into his bullshit rationalizations, and once the full reality of what he has become was revealed and sunk in, she refuses to prettify it by even pretending admiration, let alone giving it. From a Doylist pov, Skyler keeps Walt distinctly life-sized. Walt squaring off against drug dealers in the desert makes him look cool. Walt trying to gaslight his wife in their suburban home makes him look both creepy and pathetic. (BTW, it makes Walter White a richer character, too. Throwing a temper tantrum that ends up with the pizza on the roof in a trademark display of the show's black humour during the time when he's banished from home is so utterly human and utterly un-Cool Male Action Hero or supervillain that I wouldn't miss it for the world.) Skyler is the one character who doesn't drink the cool-aid (her earlier love for Walt hadn't needed seeing him as Big Bad Heisenberg, and her current loathing is so so painfully well-aimed because she still refuses to acknowledge the "super" in his villainy), and for this, and all of the above, I love her.
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Date: 2012-08-23 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-23 03:52 pm (UTC)Yes indeed. Skyler and the way the show uses her assure me I'm on the same page with what the show thinks its saying. As you say, this keeps the ethos of the show grounded. And it's really interesting that whereas in past seasons Jesse was paralleled/contrasted with Junior, this season he gets paralleled/contrasted with Skyler, both Doylist wise (Walt's attempted gaslighting of both, though as
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Date: 2012-08-24 01:50 am (UTC)♥
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Date: 2012-08-24 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-24 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-24 04:34 am (UTC)