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| “ | Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family. | „ |
| ~ Skyler to her husband. |
| “ | If I have to hear, one more time, that you did this for the family... | „ |
| ~ Skyler confronting Walter's lies for the final time. |
| “ | There is more money here than what we could spend in ten lifetimes. I certainly can't launder it, not with 100 car washes. Walt...I want my kids back. I want my life back. Please tell me...how much is enough? How big does this pile have to be? | „ |
| ~ Skyler trying to convince Walter to retire. |
Skyler White (née Lambert) is the tritagonist of the television series Breaking Bad. She is the wife of Walter White and the mother of their two children: Walter White Jr. and Holly White.
Throughout the series, Skyler becomes suspicious of her husband's unusual behavior when he secretly begins to cook crystal meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman. She eventually learns the truth about Walter's descent into criminality and reluctantly begins to launder his money to preserve the family. As time goes on, Skyler's marriage with Walter grows increasingly estranged as she notices her husband's morality diminishing and ends up growing to fear Walter in the midst of partially getting involved with his criminal activities.
In Breaking Bad, she is portrayed by Anna Gunn, who won two consecutive Emmys for her performance in 2013 and 2014. In Metástasis, she is portrayed by Sandra Reyes.
Personality[]
| “ | Skyler is a pragmatist who will do pretty much anything to keep her family together. | „ |
| ~ Vince Gilligan |
While Walter at times acts reckless, arrogant and prideful, Skyler most of the time does not. While Walter purchases extravagant champagne, sets fire to expensive cars and actively aids his DEA agent brother in law in his investigation leading to his downfall, Skyler is careful and cautious, committed to ensuring a proper cover story for herself and her family. Having said that, there are instances where she does show a prideful and controlling personality, such as the case when she revealed to Ted Beneke that she was the one who gave him $600,000 when he bought a Mercedes instead of paying his IRS debt, giving a vast chunk of the money Walt made to Ted which forced him to resort to extreme methods in his battle against Gus, and faking a suicide attempt to voice her disgust of Walt's behavior.
She is highly intelligent and capable at accounting and money laundering, allowing her to deduce Walter's second life with little to no information at her disposal.
Disgusted by Walter's moral decline which she has fallen victim to, Skyler is a pragmatist willing to do whatever it takes to keep her family together. As she becomes increasingly aware of Walter's actions, she becomes powerless and scared of the man her husband has become, trying to drown herself in a suicide attempt. When she believes that Walter "killed" her brother in law Hank Schrader, she finally snaps and defends herself and her son from Walter, insisting that he leave them alone. However, during her last interaction with Walter, there are signs that she may have still cared about him, as she does appear to be slightly relieved once Walter reveals he did what he did for himself and allows him to feel their daughter one last time, thereby ensuring a bittersweet end to their relationship.
Biography[]
Skyler Lambert was born July 30, 1972. She studied accounting and met Walter White while she was working in a restaurant as a hostess near the Los Alamos National Laboratory (where Walter worked at the time). They married and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, buying the house in which they live over the course of the series. They had a son named Walter Jr. who was afflicted with cerebral palsy and had an unintended baby on the way. The only member of her immediate family that is known is her younger sister Marie, who is married to a DEA agent named Hank Shrader.
Overall Skyler is a caring but dominant housewife and mother with another on the way at the start of the series. Instead of holding a job, she writes stories, sells items on eBay, and does other miscellaneous sources of revenue. She later becomes suspicious of Walter and pieces together the fact that he has become a drug manufacturer who started cooking crystal meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman. She tries to distance herself and even slept with her boss Ted Beneke, but he refused to leave his family. She later agrees to launder Walt's money to keep the family together. She pushes to buy the car wash Walter used to work at in order to successfully launder the money, despite objections from their criminal attorney Saul Goodman.
Trouble soon emerges when Walter and Jesse find themselves endangered by their employer Gus Fring, who later threatens to kill Walter's family should he intervene with his plans to eliminate Hank for investigating onto his drug empire. Skyler believes that Walter is in danger and confronts him when he repetitively denies the fact. In response, Walter frightens Skyler by proclaiming that he is the danger. Eventually, Walter succeeds in killing Gus by teaming up with his archenemy, Hector Salamanca, in an elaborate plot to trick Gus into believing that Hector has gone to the DEA to grass up his rival's criminal activities; Gus and his enforcer Tyrus Kitt would later confront Hector in a nursing home, where Hector kills the duo and himself with a suicide bomb that Walter had planted to eliminate Gus. Later on, when Skyler and the family learn of the incident, she contacts Walter and asks if this was his doing.
By then, Skyler has grown to fear Walter and resolves to keep their children safe from him as much as she can. This continues as Walter continues to build his criminal empire, killing Gus' right-hand man Mike Ehrmantraut and later ordering hitman Jack Welker to have his gang murder ten of Gus' associates in prison in the process. Soon Skyler is relieved when Walter claims that he will quit his life of crime, but this backfires when Hank finally learns the truth about Walter's criminality and vows to take him down. As the situation escalates, Skyler learns about Walter's fallout with Jesse and urges her husband to eliminate his former partner - telling Walter "We've come this far... what's one more".
Eventually Walter is arrested by Hank after he and Jesse team up to lure Walter into a trap. Shortly afterwards, Hank informs Marie about Walter's arrest and she in turn tells Skyler about this. Then Skyler is forced to tell her son the truth about his father's criminality. They later go home to find Walter with a truck that contains a barrel of $11 million, whilst frantically packing for his family to go on the run. Skyler then demands to know what happened to Hank, and her fears grow when Walter ignores her and tries to get the family to pack their things.
Skyler then concludes that Hank is dead and accuses Walter of killing him; Walter denies this as he tries to explain that Hank and his partner Steven Gomez had in fact been murdered by Jack and his gang. Thereupon Skyler, finally having had enough of her husband and determined to keep her children save from him, grabs a knife and orders Walter to get out. She slashes his hand when he tries to grab the knife and a scuffle ensues. Walter overpowers Skyler, only for their son to rush to their mother's defense. Shortly afterwards, Walter Jr - having finally seen what his dad has become - turns against father by phoning the police and reporting that Walter attacked Skyler. This causes Walter to flee, but not before taking Holly with him. When Skyler realizes this, she rushes after them and is horrified when Walter drives away with Holly.
Later on that night, the police have come to Skyler and Walter Jr before Marie joins them. Soon Walter contracts them and Skyler speaks to him. They have a tense conversation on the phone when Skyler demands to know where Holly is, before Walter then berates Skyler for turning against him and telling their son the truth about his criminal activities. After denouncing his wife as a "stupid bitch" for what happened earlier, Walter continues to berate Skyler by stating that she knew nothing about him when he built up his criminal empire. While unsettled by Walter's behavior's on the phone call, Skyler is somewhat relieved as she realizes that Walter has just confessed to his crimes and cleared her of any involvement in it; Walter, knowing that the police are with Skyler, had done this to prevent his family from being implicated in his crimes.
Soon Skyler demands to know what happened to Hank. The family, particularly Marie, are left devastated when Walter confirms Hank's death by stating "You're never gonna see Hank again". Skyler then asks Walter once more about Holly, but he hangs up after saying that he "still has gone things to do". Walter would leave Holly at a fire station along with a note of his home address; Holly would later be returned to Skyler, who is still under police investigation as her husband has become the most wanted criminal in the United States.
A few days later, Skyler is startled when Jack's nephew and right-hand man Todd Alquist leads their gang to break into her house; they force Skyler into keeping quiet about their involvement in Walter's criminal activities. Walter flees Albuquerque only to come back months later to atone for his actions and to avenge Hank. While planning his final showdown with Jack and his gang, Walter visits Skyler one last time. He provides her the coordinates to the location of where Hank was murdered and buried, which in turn would fully exonerate Skyler and make her free from criminal charges. When the discussion turns to how Walter's criminal life began in the first place, Skyler believes that he is going to claim that he did it for the family and attempts to shut him down for it - only for Walter to actually admit that he ended up doing it for himself, which seems to give her some sense of relief. Because of this, Skyler allows Walter to see Holly one last time before he eventually leaves them alone.
Once Walter has left, he would avenge Hank's death by murdering Jack and his gang whilst at the same time rescuing Jesse - who ends up killing Todd as well. Thereafter, Walter dies and the family continues to live out of their old family home. However, as revealed in Better Call Saul, Skyler was able to get a deal with the federal prosecutors and it can be assumed that on Walter Jr.'s 18th birthday, the family was able to obtain the $9 million that Walt gave Gretchen and Elliot in the form of an irrevocable trust, which would allow the family to have a better life.
Gallery[]
External Links[]
- Skyler White on the Breaking Bad Wiki
