David Pierson - Breaking Bad

This complex series of events, occurring in the first three episodes of season three (“No Mas,” 3/21/10; “Caballo Sin Nombre,” 3/28/10; and “I. F. T,” 4/4/10), serve to narratively position the couple in emotional terms. Their relationship plays out in the form of increasingly escalating emotional maneuvers between the two characters, fought over the meaning of marriage and what each partner owes or does not owe the other.

Following Skyler’s failed appeal to the police, she feels trapped in her own home, miserable and deeply resentful of the constraints imposed upon her by her husband. She spends most of the time locked in her bedroom with her infant daughter, Holly, while Walter continues ‘playing house,’ by performing a simulation of happy family, established primarily through the domestic tasks of cooking and child care. Dressed for work in the morning, Skyler waits until she hears a door shut elsewhere in the house, hoping to sneak out of the bedroom without having to encounter Walter. Instead, when she unlocks the bedroom door, she finds an open bag of money waiting for her on the hallway floor: Walter’s black duffel containing half a million dollars. Walter itemizes the expenses for which the money is intended after his death (college tuition, health insurance, groceries, gas, the mortgage). When Skyler attempts to respond, he cuts her off, refusing to let her speak. Instead, he continues by explaining that he didn’t steal the money; rather, he earned it. Walter explains that he must live with the guilt of what he did to earn the money. But, he insists, all that will have been for nothing if Skyler refuses to accept the money he has earned.

Walter’s persistence that Skyler accept the money derives from several motivations. First, it would make him feel better, providing him with some measure of absolution for the bad things he did to earn it. Additionally, her acceptance of the money would draw her into his illegal activities, also making her guilty because she is aware of the money’s origins. In effect, her acquiescence would render her ‘moll’ to his illegal ventures. But most relevant for this discussion, he stakes his claim for her to accept the money on the basis of an economic argument, located in his role as primary breadwinner for the family. For this reason, he earmarks the money for family expenses, for mortgage, groceries, health insurance, and the children’s college tuition. Similarly, this accounts for why he repeatedly emphasizes that he has earned the money.

Walter’s belief that he is fulfilling—even excelling at—his marital and familial role as economic provider constitutes his side of the story, which he earlier chastises Skyler that she has not yet heard. Indeed, he is convinced that his motivation is so reasonable, so evidently laudable, he fully expects she too will be won over by the dutiful selflessness he has exhibited for the sake of the family. At a certain level, Walter does not believe—cannot imagine—Skyler will fail to see events in his terms: not only acceptable but admirable because he carries out his role as husband and father, understood primarily as breadwinner. Yet clearly, Skyler does not accede to the situation within the framework Walter has established.

We may conjecture that she opposes Walter because he has acted in ways that affect the entire family without having consulted her and, as such, unilaterally has altered the family’s fundamental operations, practices, beliefs, and values. We can suppose that she does not approve of Walter’s drug involvement on moral grounds, as well as because they are illegal. And certainly we can surmise that Skyler is in conflict with Walter’s choices because they endanger not solely himself but the entire family, for example, as Gus’ threats of physical harm or Saul’s explanation of the economic risk make evident.

Ultimately, Skyler manages to recoup some power later in the episode “I. F. T.,” if only temporarily. The turning point occurs when, at work, she resolves to have sex with her boss, Ted (Christopher Cousins). Approaching Ted in the photocopy room, she kisses him, then asks the divorced Ted if his children are at home with him. This scene then immediately cuts to Skyler returning home later that night. None of the sexual encounter between Skyler and Ted is shown. For, the point of her ‘extra-marital’ affair, in a situation in which the couple disputes whether their marriage remains intact or not, does not rest with the act of having sex with Ted. Therefore, their sexual encounter is treated in a narratively expedient manner, implied not visualized. Rather, the significance of the event resides in the emotional impact it has on Walter when Skyler tells him. The motivation for and importance of Skyler’s affair with her boss lies not in the physical action but in her ability to affect her husband.

Thus, she returns home that evening to find Walter reveling in his domesticity, cooking a family dinner for the waiting Walter Jr. and his friend Louis (Caleb Jones). Wearing an apron, Walter calls Skyler into the kitchen where, while preparing a salad, he pretends family normality as he asks Skyler how her day was and chatters away about inviting Walter Jr.’s friend to stay for dinner. He also tells her that he feels better about their talk that morning—although she was not given the opportunity to speak—concerning the drug money and his motivations for earning it.

Skyler remains silent, simply staring at Walter from the doorway as he cheerily prattles away until, finally, she approaches him, picks up the finished salad, looks him directly in the eye, and utters a mere three words: “I fucked Ted,” the I. F. T. of the episode’s title. Now their positions are reversed as Skyler takes the salad into the dining room and calls the two teenagers in to dinner, her turn to chat in a normal family manner while Walter remains stunned and speechless in the kitchen, leaving him as the spouse who feels alienated in his claimed home, as the episode ends.

Skyler’s hard-won victory provides her with some measure of feeling she retains control over her own life, however fleeting that sensibility. Walter has prevented Skyler from voicing her own position or has failed to actually listen to her when she does. By having sex with Ted, Skyler has managed to command Walter’s attention, making her presence felt . Initially, her act of having sex with Ted may seem disconnected from the core of the couple’s conflict, concerning Walter’s drug-related activities. On further reflection, however, we can see that Skyler also stakes her claim on the rights and responsibilities involved in marriage and family.

Walter conceives of Skyler’s objections as existing only in the means he has taken to reach his end goal—providing financially for the family. He cannot comprehend that she could object to the end he has achieved. For this reason, Walter remains firmly convinced that his wife will accept his behavior once she has heard his viewpoint, constituting why he has done what he has done. Yet Walter’s end goal, in addition to his means, is precisely that to which Skyler takes exception. For, the couple contest different meanings of what it is to ‘protect’ or ‘take care’ of the family; indeed, of what ‘loving’ one’s family means. Walter situates his role in taking care of the family in financial terms. In contrast, Skyler prioritizes guaranteeing the family’s safely from physical harm and, in addition, from emotional harm or pain, as events involving her son make clear.

On the one hand, Walter’s and Skyler’s characters are intended to represent role-reversal or gender neutrality, exemplified by his participation and delight in domestic tasks and her strength and independence as woman, wife, and mother. On the other hand, to the degree that Walter asserts his economic role as breadwinner while Skyler fights for the physical and emotional safety of her family from her position as nurturing mother, the two take up traditional gender stances.