Warning: Fullfor all of AMC's Breaking Bad up until this point...

Oh, wives of TV anti-heros. What a thankless, persecuted existence you lead. Because let's face it, if Walter White could just get rid of Skyler, he'd be free to rule the world! Or, you know, northwest New Mexico. He could bury his face in mounds of cocaine during the day and then every night he could pick a gal from his own personal harem! Stupid significant others. Always ruining man's de-evolution into darkness.Is there an element of misogyny involved in hating on "TV wives who have a different set of priorities?" Sure, in some cases. Not all, but some. All in all though, TV wives of leading man norm-breakers are villainized because they exist to oppose the entire premise of the series. If a show is about a Chemistry teacher cooking meth as a last ditch effort to make money for his family before he dies, then that premise will have to be a secret he keeps from his wife. Because she'll want him to not do that. Showtime's new series Ray Donaovan has a wife character, Abby (Paula Malcomson), who each and every week bombards Liev Schreiber's Ray with "I don't even know who you are anymore" and "Why don't you ever tell me anything?" All while she reaps the daily monetary rewards of the life he provides for her and their children.Most of the time, TV wives are written to be obtuse, but it's a characteristic that could be solved if the TV husbands properly explained themselves. Say, if Ray actually told Abby where he was going for once. Or why. Perhaps weeks and weeks of tension would be averted. But the husbands are made to never say the things they should say and so the wives are left in the lurch.

The Worst of Walter White!

Meth to the Madness

Ted-Shaming

But these TV wives are just symptomatic of a larger writing problem. Audiences have a hard time accepting any character who doesn't care about the larger, more dangerous issue at hand. Remember the whining teenage sons from FOX's Terra Nova and ABC's V? Remember how all they cared about were themselves and not the imminent threats of time travel, dinosaurs or giant space saucers? Or even teenage Dana on Homeland and her weekly mini-crises? At least she's better than those two teen boys because she, by design, wasn't aware of the larger dangers that plagued her father or the country. Still, dramatic irony did her a disservice by leaving her to only care about her immediate teenage life. In fact, in that respect, Dana is a lot like Rita from Dexter, who never knew about Dexter's killer double life.But the kind of hate lobbed at Skyler White on a weekly basis is unwarranted. Skyler White is incredible. I can see how folks might not enjoy Margaret on Boardwalk Empire, as she not only lives in luxury due to Nucky's profession, but she considers herself morally superior. But Skyler has never come down on Walter harder than he deserves. Nucky was always a gangster and Margaret opted to be with him. Walter White has changed. In the course of a year, he's transformed from a supportive, kind husband and father into a megalomanic. And we've watched him struggle with his ever-crumbling moral compass along the way. We've followed his journey. We've watched his desperate actions morph, over time, into purposefully evil actions. So why is it that Skyler isn't allowed to struggle internally? Why is she not afforded a journey? Why isn't she allowed to have the time to come to terms with the reality of her surroundings? And remember, she's not the one in control of all the changes, whereas Walter is. She's reacting, and doing the best she can.The first thing Skyler worried about was Walt's cancer. You can't harp on her for that. Then she really freaked out when he vanished at the top of Season 2. Okay, fine. She's a character reacting to things realistically. Then Season 3 began and the Skyler bashing started to swell. She realized he was a drug dealer and kicked him out. Eff her, right? She should have been saying "This is awesome, drug deal more!" Then she slept with Ted and, well, that's when fans started to become uncomfortably slut-shamey. Because she committed the worst crime a woman could commit, according to the the fandom's latent misogyny. Walter could kill, but she couldn't...Look, it's not just Breaking Bad fans. This is the double standard that fuels more of our society than we'd care to admit.But here's why Skyler's amazing.Walter would already be in jail if it hadn't been for Skyler. If she hadn't smartly helped Walter figure out his gambling story, or laundered the money through the car wash, the show would have ended two seasons ago. There's a reason why Skyler didn't want to spill her guts to Hank last week in "Buried." And it's not just that she couldn't bear to turn in Walt, or break up her family. She's been Walt's accomplice for half a year. She's the reason Walt can retire from the meth-biz with an appropriate cover story.For those of you who did have a huge problem with Skyler sleeping with Ted, or couldn't understand why she would do it when she had a perfectly happy home life and a husband who wasn't an increasingly insane meth cook, she wound up more than paying for her "crime." Not only did Ted almost immediately turn into a doofus rogue who wouldn't take her financial advice, putting her family at risk in the process, but she also, inadvertently, had a hand in accidentally paralyzing him from the neck down. So her one affair quickly turned into a nightmare.Those of you who thought sleeping with Ted was Skyler's ultimate fail need to accept the outcome of the scenario as more-than-appropriate punishment.

More Reasons Skyler White deserves better than angry roof pizza on Page 2...