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One of the bits of character development that's been building up in Breaking Bad is that Skyler is afraid of Walt. Although she's long since made the decision not only to tolerate his criminal activity but to abet it by laundering his drug money, she's afraid of him. She's afraid that his criminal rivals will harm the family. She's afraid that as he's spinning out of control he might harm the family. A scene in S5E1 shows that Skyler has become a person who scares people, too.
Backstory: One of the subplots in previous seasons was that Skyler's former boss and affair partner, Ted Beneke, was skimming money from the IRS to keep his struggling manufacturing business afloat. He owed over $600,000. Skyler, as the bookkeeper, is in jeopardy from the IRS, too. Late in s3 she concocted a plan to give over $600,000 of the drug money to Ted as a surprise inheritance from an overseas relative. When Ted spends the windfall on a fancy car and restarting his business instead of settling his tax bill, Skyler tells him the money is from her and demands he pay the IRS. Ted refuses, even to the point of telling her, "We're done." Skyler then enlists crooked lawyer Saul Goodman to send goons to force Ted to write a check to the IRS. The goons don't hurt Ted directly, but Ted does suffer an accident when trying to escape them. He trips on his carpet and bangs his head against the wall. He's badly injured.
In this episode: Skyler visits Ted in the hospital after the accident. He's alive but in terrible shape. He's wearing a head brace, the kind that positions his head with metal pins, because he broke several vertebrae. Skyler starts talking but is unsure what to say. She obviously doesn't want to acknowledge her role because it could easily mean criminal charges and significant financial cost. But before she can do more than say Ted's name to get his attention, Ted volunteers to her that he "won't breathe a word."
"I've got kids," he says.
Clearly Ted's worried that Skyler is an ongoing threat to him and also now his family— just as Skyler feels that about Walt.
Backstory: One of the subplots in previous seasons was that Skyler's former boss and affair partner, Ted Beneke, was skimming money from the IRS to keep his struggling manufacturing business afloat. He owed over $600,000. Skyler, as the bookkeeper, is in jeopardy from the IRS, too. Late in s3 she concocted a plan to give over $600,000 of the drug money to Ted as a surprise inheritance from an overseas relative. When Ted spends the windfall on a fancy car and restarting his business instead of settling his tax bill, Skyler tells him the money is from her and demands he pay the IRS. Ted refuses, even to the point of telling her, "We're done." Skyler then enlists crooked lawyer Saul Goodman to send goons to force Ted to write a check to the IRS. The goons don't hurt Ted directly, but Ted does suffer an accident when trying to escape them. He trips on his carpet and bangs his head against the wall. He's badly injured.
In this episode: Skyler visits Ted in the hospital after the accident. He's alive but in terrible shape. He's wearing a head brace, the kind that positions his head with metal pins, because he broke several vertebrae. Skyler starts talking but is unsure what to say. She obviously doesn't want to acknowledge her role because it could easily mean criminal charges and significant financial cost. But before she can do more than say Ted's name to get his attention, Ted volunteers to her that he "won't breathe a word."
"I've got kids," he says.
Clearly Ted's worried that Skyler is an ongoing threat to him and also now his family— just as Skyler feels that about Walt.
