A Woman Worth Fighting For: Why Kim Wexler In ‘Better Call Saul’ Resonates With Fans And Skylar White Didn't

In case you’ve somehow escaped this long-running meme, I’ll fill you in. Skylar White, played by Anna Gunn, was Walter White’s wife through 5 seasons of Breaking Bad” While Gunn won multiple Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress during the series, she was universally hated by fans of the show – so much so that it caught the attention of the actors and the show creator Vince Gilligan himself. 

It came to the attention of Gunn that the Facebook page “I Hate Skylar White” had garnered tens of thousands of likes, that people were taking to social media to vent about their hatred for the character, and sometimes, even utter threats that were aimed at the actress playing her. This disturbed Gunn so much that she wrote an op-ed about it for the New York Times, titled “I Have a Character Issue.” In the article, she says she was “unprepared for the vitriolic response she inspired” and attributed the hate aimed at Skylar to societal sexism. 

Are Breaking Bad Fans Sexist, or Does Skylar White’s Character Just Suck?

Even the writer of the show Vince Gilligan attributed the disdain fans of the show felt toward Skylar to sexism. Gilligan said the following in an interview with Vulture, “I think the people who have these issues with the wives being too bitchy on Breaking Bad are misogynists, plain and simple.” 

There’s only one problem with this explanation for the widespread hatred of this female character – she just wasn’t likable. And that doesn’t mean that Skylar didn’t have the moral high ground for much of the show or that you can’t understand her character’s motivations or psychology. The main reason why people hated Skylar White is simply that the story unfolded from Walter White’s point of view, and Skylar was constantly posed as an obstacle to Walt’s objectives throughout the story. Even though Walter was a terrible person who did morally reprehensible things, Skylar is set up as an antagonist to Walt, who is the protagonist, so we naturally root for Walt over Skylar. This, coupled with the lack of redeeming qualities and the overt lack of passion, respect, and enthusiasm in their relationship, made for a truly irredeemable character. Sorry, Vince Gilligan, but you wrote her that way!

Skylar White: The Nagging Wife Who Hates Her Husband

At the beginning of Breaking Bad, we see what drove Walter to become discontented with his life, to the point of being relieved by his cancer diagnosis. His boring life with his wife, who regularly emasculates him in front of her friends and family, shows little appreciation, respect, or sexual interest in him, and doesn’t speak to him in a loving or enthusiastic way, has him wishing he were leading any other sort of life – even if that means risking getting killed by the cartel. Through flashbacks, we come to understand that Walt could have been a successful billionaire with a Nobel Prize had he not left his former girlfriend Gretchen and sold his share of the company he founded for a measly $5,000 before it accumulated its multibillion-dollar valuation.

While Walt lives tortured by the past, haunted by the thoughts of what could have been, his wife doesn’t inspire him to be the best man he could be in his present life. She loathes him and treats him like a roommate rather than a husband. She doesn’t seem to really love Walt, or at least not anymore. Since we identify with Walt as the protagonist of the story, we become annoyed at Skylar’s constant nagging, complaining, negativity, and disrespect. Ultimately, this disrespect and emasculation that he faces from his wife and his brother-in-law is the fundamental driving force for his criminal activities. He wants to prove to himself that he can be a man worth respecting by providing for his family and gaining power in the process – to become “the one who knocks.”

Not only was the attitude and general unlikability of Skylar insufferable, but then she did things that viewers deemed unforgivable, like cheating on her husband, taking the money Walt needed to save their family from potential assassination and giving it to Ted, smoking during her pregnancy, and trying to drown herself in the family pool. Just because a character is morally in the right doesn’t mean we’ll always like them. The personality and likability of a character is often what determines how much they resonate with an audience, which is why well-written villains often develop a cult following. 

When the family has a meeting about Walt’s cancer diagnosis, Skylar gives him no say in his own treatment. As the family passes around a “talking pillow,” she asks for everyone’s opinion on Walt’s treatment except Walt himself. Walt then interjects and says what he wants and needs is a choice and goes on a rant about how he feels like his entire life he never had a choice about any of it. Now that he has cancer, he feels the only thing he has left is what he chooses to do about it, and doesn’t want to spend the rest of his days dealing with aggressive terminal cancer and going through chemo. If anything, Skylar helped create Walter’s alter-ego by making him so resentful by the lack of control he had over his life.

How To Write a Likable Female Character: Introducing Kim Wexler

Kim Wexler, on the other hand, is a woman who is in the driver’s seat of the plot of Better Call Saul. While Skylar was a character in the thick of the plot who things simply happened to, Kim is someone we go along with on the journey. We see things from her point of view, see her work her way up from the mail room to a partner at HHM, and then we get a peek into her childhood. This causes us to sympathize with Kim even before she gets together with Saul. Despite being a career woman, she’s much more nurturing in her relationship with Saul than Skylar ever was to Walt. She shows reverence for Saul even when others looked down on him. While his colleagues see him as a clown or a criminal, Kim sees something more. Despite people’s warnings for her to stay away from him, she maintains a steadfast belief in him.

On paper, the relationship doesn’t seem to make much sense. Kim sounds like the type of woman who is way out of Saul’s league, but their relationship resonates because it’s genuine. You see Kim’s eyes light up when she looks at him, she values his opinion, never speaks ill of him in front of others even if he deserves it, and there’s an adolescent-like quality in the purity of their relationship. They spend their nights ordering pizza, watching movie marathons, and conning rich people out of their money at bars. Their romance is reminiscent of a teenage love, where two people revel in each other’s spirit, have fun together, and show their appreciation for each other sincerely. Most importantly, they support each other even when they don’t understand each other completely. 

Saul and Kim are fundamentally different people and come from different backgrounds. However, they certainly do complement each other. We see Kim slowly transform from the professional rule-follower who witnesses Saul getting into sticky situations and tries to minimize the damage, into someone who devises these crazy schemes herself. Throughout their relationship, both go through a form of self-discovery. Saul ditches his old life as Jimmy McGill and embraces the conman alter-ego of Saul Goodman. While Kim doesn’t shy away from expressing how she doesn’t like the name change, she knows she can’t control Saul, so she only ever expresses her concerns or disagreements once and then lets Saul make his own decisions, and she always stands by him. Kim, for her part, discovers that doing the right thing doesn’t always mean doing the legal thing, which is when she decides to take matters into her own hands and sets up Howard Hamlin.

Part of Kim’s appeal is that she has agency and self-accountability. When Saul’s commercial gets her punished at HHM and put in doc review, she refuses to let Saul help her. Instead, she takes matters into her own hands. With her incredible work ethic, she digs herself out of the hole that Saul got her into. When Kim has her own struggles with what Saul did to his brother Chuck, she passionately defends him when Howard tries to make him feel responsible for Chuck’s suicide. Whatever issues Kim has with Saul behind closed doors, she always stands by him publicly. Kim remains loyal to Saul, even when they go their separate ways and even when her moral guilt leads her to turn herself in. Kim refuses to implicate Saul, still cares about him all of these years later, and is willing to go down for the crimes they committed together all by herself. 

When Kim leaves Saul, she does so because she realizes it’s what needs to be done. While she still loves him, she recognizes the chaos they create together and how they ultimately hurt others. When we get a glimpse at Kim’s future, we see that she’s punishing herself, living a boring suburban life with nothing going for her because she thinks it’s what she deserves. Skylar never came close to being Walt’s equal, but Kim became the mastermind of the illegal acts between her and Saul. When things came crashing down, she knew she had to take responsibility for it herself. 

Who Was Really the Strong Woman?

In his lectures, clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson speaks about how men look to the female image of perfection to motivate themselves. The problem with Skylar is that she’s a representation of the polar opposite. Skylar doesn’t inspire Walt to reach his full potential, she causes him to resent her to the point of being willing to do almost anything just to feel something, even if it means cooking crystal meth. If anything, Skylar played a large role in creating the man that she hates so much.

Skylar is a victim of Walt’s actions and she’s powerless to change it. In Better Call Saul, Kim is more comparable to Walt than she is to Skylar. Coming from an upbringing where there was little opportunity for her future, Kim wanted more for herself. This is also why she comes to believe that the ends justify the means when they set up Howard Hamlin. We understand Kim’s motivations as she becomes the mastermind. Howard embodies everything that Kim wants to fight against. He’s a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth who will deprive his elderly clients of ever seeing the settlement money in their lifetimes. If Saul wins his half of the settlement, that money can go into Kim’s practice so she can do pro bono work for the less fortunate. While this article in The Week accuses Gilligan of making Kim a “cool girl” à la Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, she just isn’t an insufferable partner to her significant other and she isn’t a victim – she’s complicit in Saul’s crimes.

Closing Thoughts

Skylar White may have the moral high ground over a meth dealer who poisons children, but that’s not exactly a glowing review of her likability. While viewers should have empathized with Skylar, we’re told the story from Walter White’s perspective, which makes us biased in favor of his goals. From the skewed perspective we were given, Skylar does everything you should never do to your husband and just about none of the things that you should. 

Better Call Saul’s Kim Wexler is a much more thoughtfully written character played by a brilliant actress. Even though Kim ultimately leaves Saul, she remains in love with him and turns herself in. Kim Wexler is many different things. She’s hardworking but can have fun, passionate but can walk away from bad situations, has moral failings but experiences guilt and holds herself responsible. While audiences wanted Skylar to go away, we’re gritting our teeth to find out Kim’s fate in the series finale.

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