Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

In episode 5 of Breaking Bad Walt's wife, Skyler, stages an intervention to pressure Walt to accept cancer treatment. Present in the family's living room when Walt comes home are Sklyer, their son, Walt Jr., and Skyler's sister, Marie, and brother-in-law, Hank.

As Skyler begins speaking it seems her motives are not in good faith. Though she says she wants to understand Walt's reasons, she's staged the meeting in a way that looking like she's trying to railroad Walt. The discussion initially goes her way— aligning to her predetermined conclusion— but then goes awry.

I'm going to outline the arguments in the discussion here because they align very much with the thoughts I shared in my previous blog, The High Cost of Dying, and pertain to anyone who's facing a terminal diagnosis themselves or as a close relative or friend:

• Skyler speaks first. She explains that she doesn't understand Walt's reasons. This is the part I feel is her behaving in bad faith, as Walt has told her his reasons. She's just ignored them— to the point of not even paying attention— because she disagrees.She elaborates that Walt's decision here impacts not just him, but her, their son, and their daughter, whom she's pregnant with. On this note I totally agree with Skyler. A person who's making end-of-life decisions for themselves and has dependents must consider them, too.


• Hank, Walt's brother-in-law, speaks next. His remarks are similar to Skyler's concern about the impact on Walt's family but framed more in the classic "be a man" narrative: a man provides for his family.


• Walt Jr. calls his dad a coward for not wanting to fight his illness. Walt Jr., a teenager, has struggled his entire life with cerebral palsy. He expresses concern that if his dad is giving up on himself, would he also give up on his ill son?


• Marie, Hank's sister-in-law, offers a surprising counterpoint. This is where the family meeting goes off the rails, at least in Skyler's mind. This is also where Skyler's bad faith is made plain: she wanted her whole family to gang up with her against Walt, and she is outraged when her sister supports Walt's side. Marie explains that, as a radiology technician who works in a hospital with cancer patients every day, she sees so many people whose sickness and misery are actually prolonged by the therapy— therapy which doesn't actually save their lives.


• Hank speaks up against after Marie. "I want to change my answer!" he shouts. He shifts his opinion to another "be a man" framing: die like a man. A man faces death with courage and on his own terms. At this point Skyler's intervention descends into chaos, with multiple people talking over each other.


• Walt calls an end to the free-for-all and demands his opportunity to speak. He reemphasizes Marie's point about treatment having an extremely low success rate combined with very seriously bad side effects. He challenges Skyler's position about "being there" for his wife and children. Is he really "there" for them if he's too weak to stand, too sick to eat, vomits regularly, and is in constant pain? (I'll note at this point the concern of bankrupting the family with eye-wateringly expensive yet ultimately ineffective treatment has been taken off the table by a generous offer from a friend— otherwise that would be a huge concern to include here.) Walt also contends all his adult life he's been denied agency. This is an important personal decision he wants to latitude to make himself.

These are all valid points. Well, except for Skyler wanting to stage a one-sided conversations. But her points about the repercussions of Walt's decision were valid. As were both of Hank's views, before and after his flip-flop.

The truth is navigating these kind of end-of-life decisions is hard. I don't know to what extent the show meant to shine a light on how this applies to society at large. It seems like the lesson gets lost in a story that's primarily about a mild-mannered high school teacher becoming a bad-ass drug kingpin. But the material's all there.