Anna Gunn on Skyler

ziggy

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April O Neill

ziggy wrote: »

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Yes, of course Ziggy. :rolleyes:

I've said before that in regular life, I wouldn't be keen on Skylar. I wouldn't be friends with her, let's put it that way.

But yeah, I do defend her a lot, but that's because the dislike of her is SO disproportionate to her misdemeanours, especially compared to Walt's.

I have never said that nothing was ever her fault. But in the example you quoted there, she wasn't to blame.

ziggy

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April O Neill

ziggy wrote: »

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No no, do fill us in about why Walt kept the news of the cancer from his family.

ziggy

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Polar101

Can't say I like the character at all, but I think Ms/Mrs Gunn is a good actress and does a great job with what she's given to work with in BB. It's a bit shocking to read about the feedback she gets.

Morzadec

I never quite got the Skyler hate either.

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to re-watching this show is to see if she was really all that bad at the start. I don't really remember it all that well, but I don't remember hating her particularly.

She is flawed and hypocritical but she was put in a very difficult situation. Her character motivations are very believable. You could imagine a decent person ending up doing similar to her.

As said, if you're going to compare her with Carmela, Carmela was worse as she knew what she was marrying into.

Carmela was also a very flawed character but great to watch too.

That's what it comes down too.

Overall I think Carmela was a more interesting character and Edie Falco played it phenomenally, but Anna Gunn does a good job in BB too.

April O Neill

ziggy wrote: »

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:pac:

snausages

What I find annoying are how prolonged her plots are. It's the slowest part of the show. If her arc wasn't so slow then she mightn't be so annoying.

Janice was grand because the writers found so many new and different ways each season to make her a pest to Tony. Same with Lydia. Skyler just progresses at a glacial rate.

I know BB is slow in general but some of the Skyler stuff takes the piss.

expectationlost

she was written to be hated, and gilligan wrote for meth cook to be loved

jethro081

expectationlost wrote: »

she was written to hated, and gilligan wrote for meth cook to be loved

I don't think he did to be fair. Walt is most certainly the villain of the piece at this stage. If walt was intended to be loved, he wouldn't have been written to do such horrible crap. Even tony soprano would have balked at some of the crap walt has pulled.

expectationlost

jethro081 wrote: »

I don't think he did to be fair. Walt is most certainly the villain of the piece at this stage. If walt was intended to be loved, he wouldn't have been written to do such horrible crap. Even tony soprano would have balked at some of the crap walt has pulled.

gillagan said he might have over egged the pudding by making walt so sympathetic at the start the teacher with the disabled son and the nagging wife

Vaxxine

I never hated her either. To me it seemed like a jump-on-the-band-wagon kind of thing.

jethro081

expectationlost wrote: »

gillagan said he might have over egged the pudding by making walt so sympathetic at the start the teacher with the disabled son and the nagging wife

ah sorry, initially, yes of course you're right. i thought you meant in the context of the whole show.

Footoo

What's interesting is that the people who hated Skylar all along seem to be coming around to her at a time when some of her actions are becoming highly questionable.

She's losing her moral core and people are starting to love her.. Mad stuff altogether.

Wacker The Attacker

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/758086eb22/breaking-bad-is-now-on-abc-part-2

pickarooney

Footoo wrote: »

What's interesting is that the people who hated Skylar all along seem to be coming around to her at a time when some of her actions are becoming highly questionable.

She's losing her moral core and people are starting to love her.. Mad stuff altogether.

Or she's actually becoming interesting herself. Normality is the worst trait a character can have.

vitani

krudler wrote: »

He could have told her but didn't, I'm rewatching it from the start, halfway through season 2 now. And Skyler isn't as unlikeable as people make her out to be, she's just a regular worried mother and wife whose husband starts disappearing off without telling her what he's up to, anyone would get suspicious of it not think they were off breaking the law to help their family.

I'm actually rooting for her to come out of it all better off, herself and Walt had a fantastic scene in the latest episode, who knows where she'll wind up though.

I'm watching for the first time, and am at around the same place as you. Skyler is doing my head in. I know she's worried but she's also incredibly controlling. I feel myself get tense as soon as she walks on screen because I'm waiting for her to criticise Walt about something. To give just one example, there was a small scene in the first season where Walt was standing in front of the TV, clearly agitated about something and she got offended because he didn't greet her properly.

At the moment, she is the person standing in Walt's way as he tries to make enough money for his family, and that is naturally going to lead to some annoyance on my part because I want Walt to succeed. But Skyler in herself is not coming across as a sympathetic character.

The Black Oil

She doesn't strike me as incredibly controlling. I'm trying to think of another recent TV character who is (there is someone...just escapes me) and can essentially make a whole household or workplace feel on edge simply by walking into a room. Skyler isn't that (not even in small doses), at least not for me, anyway.

pickarooney

Cranston's previous TV wife?

ricero

Hated her for cheating on walt

April O Neill

ricero wrote: »

Hated her for cheating on walt

They were separated at that stage. I mean, whether you like her or not, this is irrefutable.

smellmepower

That's a really odd article,she really doesn't seem to 'get' her character at all. Skylar hasn't had a backbone of steel at all,and certainly hasn't been completely sickened by the money.

I'm also stunned that she hasn't deliberately set about playing Skylar as a detestable,hypocritical,unprincipled,morally ambiguous bitch.Such a shame.I thought she deserved great credit for making such a complex character out of what, on paper,could easily have been a by the numbers sympathetic,hard-done by mother.

vitani

The Black Oil wrote: »

She doesn't strike me as incredibly controlling. I'm trying to think of another recent TV character who is (there is someone...just escapes me) and can essentially make a whole household or workplace feel on edge simply by walking into a room. Skyler isn't that (not even in small doses), at least not for me, anyway.

The episode I just watched had Walt reluctant to call somebody for help when the RV wouldn't start because Skyler checks his phone records. You can argue that this is because she suspects something is going on after the whole fugue state, second phone stuff, but in the second ever episode, she tracked Jesse down after he phoned Walt so she could question Walt about who he was.

As I'm watching Walt develop though, I can see why she's written like that. Being Heisenberg is giving Walt some power for the first time in a long time, and it's going straight to his head. His attitude to Jesse makes sense when you look at it as if it's like a bullied kid becoming a bully himself.

NOT that I'm calling Skyler a bully. I just think she has Walt firmly under her thumb and he's now revelling in the chance to have some control himself.

cloudatlas

She has a point about the compliant wife. Same goes for Lori in Walking Dead who also has an 'affair'. I felt sympathy for them, one thinks her husband is dead the other finds out the husband she knew is dead. They become ruthless after the fact. The male viewers have strange moral compasses imo.

April O Neill

cloudatlas wrote: »

They become ruthless after the fact. The male viewers have strange moral compasses imo.

Bingo. Couldn't agree more.

cloudatlas

Just curious do any of the lads have sympathy for Skylar now? The last episode must have brought it home, surely her status as the abused wife was irrefutably confirmed.

Tony EH

I've always thought that Skyler was a bit of a C U Next Tuesday, but then again, I hate Jesse too and he's supposed to be the "moral compass" of the show!

Strangley enough, the character I've ended up most rooting for in 'Breaking Bad' has been Hank, who I thought was a complete tool in the first few series. Both his and Walt's character arcs have been off the scale and in completely opposite directions.

The character I feel most sorry for is Walt Jr. Poor lad.

On 'The Sopranos' / Carmella issue, I can't recall ever really having a problem with her. Although every time she said "Tony", the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and not in a good way.

I can't say I'm up on all the "hate" that some actors/actresses get over the characters they play on TV, but I find it quite disturbing that there are such small minds out there that would habour such nonsense. If I "hate" a TV character for their actions, etc, it's usually a sign of good writing/acting. For that they should be commended, not ridiculed.

It's a strange old planet.

snausages

Tony EH wrote: »

If I "hate" a TV character for their actions, etc, it's usually a sign of good writing/acting. For that they should be commended, not ridiculed.

It's a strange old planet.

I wouldn't agree with that. Unless the character was written to be hated. Vince Gilligan clearly didn't write Skyler that way.

clairefontaine

I started out not liking her to feeling sorry for her, and then hating her when she wanted Jesse killed.