At the beginning of season three, having realized that her husband is involved in illegal activities, Skyler demands that Walter move out of the family home and starts divorce proceedings. Skyler threatens to turn Walter into the authorities if he does not stay away from the house and their two children, whom she believes Walter has placed at risk as a result of his involvement in the drug business. Skyler’s leverage, then, is constituted in her ability to give Walter up to legal forces which, if put into effect, would comprise a coercive act. Simultaneously, however, she repeatedly refuses to explain to her teenage son, Walter Jr. (R.J. Mitte), or to her sister Marie (Betsy Brandt) and brother-in-law Hank, “what Walter did,” despite their frequent demands or requests to know.
Skyler’s refusal to allow Walter to see his own children seems especially harsh and punitive to Walter Jr., Marie, and Hank. However, she cannot explain the situation to Marie or Hank, the DEA agent, because doing so, in fact, would be to turn Walter in. Further, as Skyler explains to her lawyer, she does not want her son to find out that the father he so admires is a criminal. As a result, she bears the opprobrium for the marital separation and Walter’s estrangement from his children, the negative perceptions of which she does nothing to refute or clarify to others. The blame she incurs from her teenage son is particularly cruel; he either rails at her with fierce anger, for example, calling her a “bitch,” or ignores her, refusing to speak to her or otherwise interact.
For his part, Walter denies the gravity of the situation, insisting their separation is temporary. He believes Skyler will alter her stance once he has explained to her that everything he has done has been unselfish because he has acted in what he believes is the best interests of the family. Referring to the great sacrifices he made for the family, Walter fails to listen to Skyler or respect her wishes. Perhaps most disconcertingly, he allows—even encourages—his son and other family members to believe the marital separation and his banishment from the children are the result of Skyler’s inexplicable, unreasonable impulsiveness. He does so, in part, because Walter cannot bear to be perceived as a bad guy and so permits that characterization to fall to Skyler. Additionally, he believes he can use her apparent status as guilty party in order to exert more emotional pressure on Skyler to relent, due to the pain her son’s anger is causing her.
While Skyler takes responsibility for what is not her doing in order to protect others, Walter refuses to be held responsible for that which he is indeed culpable. Further, as Skyler continues to spurn his attempts at reconciliation or to accept the justifications he makes for his actions, Walter grows increasingly frustrated and angry. His lawyer, Saul (Bob Odenkirk), assures Walter that Skyler will not make good on her threat to give him up to the authorities due to the ensuing repercussions. These include professional embarrassment and potential job loss for her DEA brother-in-law, trauma to her children because their father is a drug dealer and their mother turned him in to the police, and the risk of having her home confiscated as the proceeds of drug sales. Following this conversation, Walter unilaterally moves back in by breaking into the house in order to circumvent the locks Skyler has had changed.
When Skyler returns home, she finds Walter there refusing to leave and, thereby, forcing his presence upon her:
Walter: It’s my house too, Skyler. I’m staying. End of story.
Instead of departing as she repeatedly demands, he openly challenges her to turn him in. Skyler does call the police but, perhaps for all the reasons Saul has outlined, cannot bring herself to provide them with the full story. She tells the police only that Walter is there “against my will.” When the officer explains they need legal grounds to remove him and pointedly asks Skyler if Walter has broken any laws, we see her struggle over whether to speak. At this moment, the other officer asks Walter Jr. his impression of events.
Walter Jr.: It’s my mom’s fault. She won’t even say what my dad did…. I don’t know why she’s being this way. My dad, he is a great guy.
Rather than react to the unfair accusations being made against her, Skyler is silenced by the feelings her son has for his father. She cannot bring herself to disillusion him. This marks the moment of Skyler’s defeat and Walter’s victory over her.[5] The threat to surrender Walter to the authorities has been Skyler’s only power over him. Her inability to make good on Walter’s dare has undermined what little power she has within the family. Power now reverts to Walter. Skyler becomes his emotional captive, just as Krazy-8 previously was his physical prisoner, as Walter forcibly reclaims what he perceives as his rightful place in the home and with the family.
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.
5
Skyler explains to her lawyer, the only person she ever confides in, that instead of having her family pay all the material and emotional repercussions for Walter’s illegal activities, her plan is to wait until her husband’s lung cancer ‘resolves’ the situation for them.