TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

From Emily Nussbaum’s Breaking Bad review (and NOTE: it does reveal plot points along the way, so spoiler alert, etc):

When Brock was near death in the I.C.U., I spent hours arguing with friends about who was responsible. To my surprise, some of the most hard-core cynics thought it inconceivable that it could be Walt—that might make the show impossible to take, they said. But, of course, it did nothing of the sort. Once the truth came out, and Brock recovered, I read posts insisting that Walt was so discerning, so careful with the dosage, that Brock could never have died. The audience has been trained by cable television to react this way: to hate the nagging wives, the dumb civilians, who might sour the fun of masculine adventure. “Breaking Bad” increases that cognitive dissonance, turning some viewers into not merely fans but enablers.

The (very prevalent) tendency to dislike Skyler White among fans is disconcerting. Many people’s complaints about Skyler end up sounding like they’re upset that she is getting in the way of Walt’s drug making, murdering, kid-poisoning fun. That’s beyond bizarre; along the way, Walt’s turned into a monster concerned with the welfare of no one but himself. He’s done terrible things, continues to do them, shows absolutely no recognition of the immorality of his decisions at all, and has put his family in danger, all to satisfy his own ego. And yet we hear little from fans about how much they hate Walt, or how much they can’t stand him. It’s all reserved for his wife, Skyler—the woman he put in a truly terrible situation where there are no good choices.

Of course, Skyler isn’t innocent. But not only is the immorality of her worse decisions dwarfed by choices Walt makes on a daily basis, but she’s done the worst of them—coercing the car wash owner to sell it, giving Ted hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then trying to force Ted to pay the IRS—in a vain attempt to protect her family from the consequences of Walt’s crimes. And yet most of the disgust people express for any character in the show is earmarked for Skyler.

I don’t think most people think Walt’s justified or anything of the sort, but when there’s a murdering drug lord who puts his family at risk so, in his own words, he can build an empire, and people are raking his wife over the coals, something isn’t right.