New Mexico Law Review
[edit]
In May 2015, the New Mexico Law Review published a collection of eight articles by legal scholars, each dedicated to dissecting legal issues presented by Breaking Bad.[208][209] The articles discussed issues such as whether the attorney–client privilege would protect communications with Saul Goodman,[210] and whether Walter White could have filed a lawsuit to force his way back into Gray Matter Technologies.[211]
In a 2018 cast reunion, Aaron Paul commented "Why did our audience not sympathize with this poor woman? I really felt for Anna, because she's just such a beautiful human inside and out, and she played Skyler in such a fierce way, and people just dragged her character the most."[190]
Vince Gilligan has defended both Skyler and Anna Gunn, saying at the same 2018 reunion "I figured Walt would be the one that'd be hard for people to sympathize with. Suddenly, lo and behold, we're hearing this animus toward Skyler White. To this day, it confounds me. Anna Gunn gave such a brilliant performance. We never tried for sympathy or lack of sympathy, we let the chips fall where they may. I would change that if I had a magic wand."[190] He later buttressed these sentiments in a 2022 interview, adding "I realize 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. Even Gus, his archenemy, didn't suffer the animosity Skyler received. It's a weird thing. I'm still thinking about it all these years later."[191]
Bryan Cranston has also defended Gunn and Skyler, saying "If you look at the elements that were involved in this—husband she finds out is lying, husband she finds out is doing something illegal, is doing something that puts her family in lethal danger, and she's being chastised—it's like, 'Wait a minute.' It baffled me from an objective standpoint."[190]
In 2018, Gunn reflected on her experiences on the show, saying "This is not about me, Anna Gunn, and it's really not about Skyler. It's about the way people are connecting to him (Walter). It's also about the way that people still hold on to, perhaps, older ideas of what a woman or a wife should be or how she should act, or how she should behave. In the end, change isn't always comfortable and isn't always pleasant, but it's good that it was brought to people's attention and consciousness."[190]