Her reaction is practically in character with Skyler, probably why remarks about her character bug her. I wonder if maybe they overhauled the character to better match her behavior or her view on the character to make it easier for her to act. My initial take on the show is pretty fresh since its only been a month since I started watching, so I recall thinking that everyone in the show was intentionally designed to come off as not a good guy. Since I'd already found out that Jesse was not originally intended to survive season 1 I'd assumed the long term plot of the show would revolve around a battle of wits between Walt and his equally overproud brother in law with their wives as the unfortunate victims in the middle with the twist that they weren't exactly victims.

So I disliked Skyler and Marie pretty early on and to continue the House MD comparison I had in the OP it was for much the same reason I never liked Dr. Cuddy, in a sort of damned if they do, damned if they don't way. Their prolonged interaction with the main character forces them to be rightly viewed as hypocrites, either ignoring bad behavior blindly or constantly harping on it while never taking real action to stop it or remove themselves from being an accomplice to it. Had Skyler actually been the classic poor wife faithfully sticking it out with her increasingly evil husband she'd have been a fairly boring character, unfortunately she really is a bitch making her more interesting but not really very sympathetic as a character, to me anyway. I've never really approved of characters tolerating rampant criminal behavior in their spouse but she reacts to Walt like he was violent murderous criminal mastermind long before he actually evolves into one and it makes her either come off as a fairly bad person herself, minus the empathy one gets for Walt or Jesse, or as having been written to act prematurely and feel unnatural.

She's also a moron which doesn't help, starting from the moment she decides to ask her husband to leave their home rather than leaving herself, on the grounds his work might endanger them even though he very obviously doesn't engage in criminal behavior from his home and thus anyone who comes looking for him there probably will be just as happy to find out he doesn't live there anymore but his wife and children do. If your husband is involved with crime and your afraid for your family, you don't tell him to leave, you pack yourself and your kids up and leave. You also don't have revenge-affairs on your terminally ill husband turned professional criminal who clearly rationalizes his actions as sacrificing everything to see to his family's needs. There is just about no way that can't end badly, and the only surprise is that Ted ended up in the hospital from her actions not Walt's. One also doesn't show up at a drugs dealers home alone and pregnant to confront said drug dealer, at least real humans don't do that. Although admittedly one doesn't think of pot dealers as prone to violence one also doesn't tend to think of them being confronted by angry spouses of middle-aged adults suffering from terminal illness. Especially considering the state they live in, New Mexico, actually allows and has allowed since 2007 the legal use of marijuana for a variety of medical conditions explicitly including cancer, albeit I doubt smoking pot is high on most oncologists treatment lists for lung cancer. When I heard that pot excuse I'd actually assumed she was acting angry because she thought he was lying about using marijuana because he could have gotten it legally and was a bit disappointed that they didn't mention that.

Whichever, I never really liked her character but I always assumed that had nothing to do with the actress, and while I could be projecting the character on the actress I do find myself thinking right now that my assumption she was a good actress acting as a hypocritical self absorbed bitch I'm now wondering if she's not really a very good actress and was just 'playing to her strengths' as someone who is a hypocritical self absorbed bitch in real life, because the op ed really makes it hard not to got "WTF?". I also have to say I find her freaking out about the 'death threat' a bit of an eye roller, death threats and weirdos are a regrettable but inevitable aspect of public life but the remark she cites is not the sort of thing one should get worked up over. I personally have said things along the lines of wanting to kill a director or actor for destroying a character or story, Kevin J. Anderosn comes to mind, as have many of us, and with all the seriousness of when we make remarks like "I wanted to bash in my own skull by the time I got done watching battlefield Earth, and seriously considered burning down the theater as an act of mercy to spare the victims of the next showing", its called hyperbole, and one should assume that is typically the case when someone on a public message board is referencing killing an actor or author for disliking their work.

Still, I get overreaction and the world is full of crazy people and they do like to fixate on public figures and do tend to have issues distinguishing fact from fiction. So I can forgive that too but the Op-Ed might as well say "Anyone who dislikes my character is obviously a man and sexist", jeesh. I also have to agree with your point that a lot of female characters get away with some very double standard behavior without being called out on it as immoral, the Wonder Woman unaired TV pilot being a great example of that.

I was going to say I didn't agree that they don't do female anti-heroes but unfortunately the only one I can think of as the main character is Catwoman.