Featured Image Credit: Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Topics: TV, Breaking Bad
Brenna Cooper
Topics: TV, Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has revealed that he's 'troubled' by the backlash which one of the characters from his hit series has faced.
It's been over a decade since Breaking Bad aired its last episode, with spin-offs such as Better Call Saul and El Camino proving the story has more to offer than just the story of a high school chemistry teacher taking drastic measures to pay for his cancer treatment.
In fact, the franchise remains a modern classic in US TV, with the series and sequels remaining available for fans to stream over and over on Netflix.
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It's fair to say that fans of the series are pretty dedicated as well, however, not all of their actions are positive.
Viewers have over the years found themselves in hot water for harassing the real-life owners of White residence in New Mexico, to the point where the owners are selling up and leaving, and there's something else which has upset Gilligan in particular - the treatment of Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) wife Skyler and actress Anna Gunn, who played her.
Speaking about the series in an interview with The New Yorker back in 2022, the series creator revealed that he still thinks of the 'animosity' which Gunn and her character received.
"Back when the show first aired, Skyler was roundly disliked," he said. "I think that always troubled Anna Gunn. And I can tell you it always troubled me, because Skyler, the character, did nothing to deserve that.
"And Anna certainly did nothing to deserve that. She played the part beautifully."
Gilligan went on to add that he's since realised that the show was essentially 'rigged' against Skyler, due to the fact that it's from Walt's point of view, meaning that as fans we were never going to get an entirely empathetic view of her.
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"I realise in hindsight that the show was rigged, in the sense that the storytelling was solely through Walt’s eyes, even in scenes he wasn’t present for," he said, adding that Walter and Jesse's (Aaron Paul) arch-enemy, Giancarlo Esposito's Gus Fring didn't receive the same backlash which Skyler did.
"I’m still thinking about it all these years later," he continued.
It's understandable why fans may dislike Skyler as a character; after all, Walt originally starts producing meth to look after his family's financial future and his story makes enjoyable television.
But if you consider the story from her point of view, her husband's selfishness leads to her family being dragged into the dangerous and deadly criminal empire, you can understand why she is the way she is.
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However, the hate at one point even got so difficult for Gunn to deal with that she had to seek police help after receiving death threats, later revealing in a 2013 essay for the New York Times that 'the hatred of Skyler blurred into a loathing for me as a person'.