Appeal in the Case of The People v. Sally Reed by Jordan Breedlove

This petition seeks to overturn the ruling of public opinion that has found Barry’s supporting lead, Sally Reed, guilty of being an unlikable woman. The court of viewers, critics, and pop culture (hereafter referred to as The People) previously deemed her irredeemable. I request a reconsideration on the grounds of cultural double standards and character context.

Found guilty in the spring of 2018, Sally Reed was charged with narcissism, hypocrisy, and emotional instability. The People presented witness statements from major publications, including “Inside Barry’s Wretchedly Self-Absorbed Female Lead” (Vanity Fair) and “Sally Is the Most Annoying Character in TV History,” submitted by now-banned Reddit user r/JosephBudden.

Barry, created by and starring Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader, follows a hitman turned actor. Seeking righteous redemption through the arts, Barry abandons contract killing for acting class, where he meets Sally Reed, played by Sarah Goldberg.

The People first met Sally in the pilot episode, where she prepared to read for Magnolia’s Linda Partridge just before Hader’s Barry mistook her for a literal woman in distress. Thrown off by his awkward (Objection: relevance) sudden presence, she proceeds onstage, delivers her lines as if she were reading the back of a prescription label, and is quick to blame Barry. In the span of her ninety-second introduction, Sally experiences excitement, irritation, devastation, and hopefulness. Previously regarded as emotionally unstable, Sally is only exhibiting the standard traits of what she wants to be: a Hollywood actress.

Sally Reed is ambitious and performative in a career that demands both. The very traits that should secure her success are instead met with the mediocrity of her counterpart, Barry. Outspoken and unwilling to ignore hypocrisy, she is punished for telling the truth and is sentenced to public disdain, online mockery, and cultural dismissal. The ruling against her remains profoundly biased, failing to recognize that Sally is a product of her environment. The People were swayed by societal pressure rather than objective fact, which is a precedent this Court of Public Opinion continues to uphold.

My first witness testimony comes from Breaking Bad’s Skyler White, played by Anna Gunn. Sally Reed’s flaws were judged through a gendered morality, where moral women are punished for intervening in male chaos. When Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, was building his cerulean meth empire and leaving dozens dead, broken, or robbed in his wake, the New York Times noted, “The consensus among the haters was clear: Skyler was a ball and chain, a drag, a shrew, an ‘annoying bitch wife.’” A decade later, Sally Reed faces the same conviction. She is deemed an obstacle to Barry’s chaos, crime, and nonsense (Objection: argumentative). Skyler White wanted her family safe and content, a wish once shared by Walter. When his actions redefined what “safe” meant, she adapted. She accepted that Walter could no longer be part of the family she fought to protect. Their shared dream split into clashing visions, and she was penalized for it.

Sally Reed wanted to be an actor, and Barry wanted purpose and freedom from a past steeped in violence and toxicity that followed him into the acting studio. Barry could have wandered into a cooking class and produced the same destruction. He brought chaos to Sally, and she merely adapted to it.

Mad Men’s Betty Draper, played by January Jones, faced a similar vilification. A 2012 HuffPost article, now archived but still remembered, found her guilty of “unchanging narcissism and selfish petulance,” naming her one of the year’s worst television characters. When it comes to Draper and Sally Reed, The People ignored the social, professional, and psychological pressures driving their behavior. Draper was isolated and repressed into cruelty. Betty is recalled as a cold and efficient parent, lacking emotional depth and an unconditional love for her duties. Her husband, Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, was not physically present in the home enough to even be remembered as a parent at all. Betty Draper was labeled “shallow,” “vain,” and “petty,” accusations that refused to consider a time when a woman’s value existed only through her husband’s approval. Isolation and repression lead to cruelty and lashing out. Sally and Betty are reactive to the circumstances they are given.

Charges like these are nothing new. It has long been a crime for women in the media to be anything other than docile, demure, and poised. With time, opinions shift, and The People occasionally revisit their verdicts. As Variety reported, “‘Breaking Bad’ Was Rigged in Walt’s Favor and Undeserved Skyler Hate ‘Troubled’ Anna Gunn, Vince Gilligan Says.” Even as hindsight begins to favor the so-called unlikable woman, the charge persists, finding new defendants in every era of fiction. The People may reconsider past cases, yet they continue to indict new women for the same offense.

One Battle After Another, released in September 2025, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a father and member of the revolutionary group known as the French 75, who is searching for his daughter, Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti). The group’s matriarch, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), is one of its most complex figures. Fiercely devoted to the cause, Perfidia risks her life and her body repeatedly for the movement. Her loyalty draws the attention of the Colonel (Sean Penn), an older officer with authority over her unit. Their relationship begins as strategic but soon reveals the imbalance between power and survival. The Colonel controls access to protection and information, and Perfidia trades her autonomy for the safety of her companions. After months of enduring this arrangement, she flees and is later captured for killing a security guard. In custody, she is offered immunity in exchange for the names of the French 75. When she accepts, she is branded a traitor, a title that erases the coercion that defined every choice she made. While the film itself questions whether that betrayal is the full measure of her character, The People have deemed her nothing more than a rat, repeating the cycle against female characters for failing to acknowledge their circumstances before delivering a sentence. Even in online discourse, The People remain divided. A Reddit thread on The Big Picture podcast described Perfidia as “a murderer, rat, adulterer, and deadbeat mother,” while noting that if her and DiCaprio’s roles were reversed, audiences “would have no issue” forgiving him.

The People continue to punish these women, allow time to take its toll on their flaws, and later look back with regret at their hasty judgments. It is a cycle without progress, one that has claimed Skyler White, Betty Draper, Guinevere Beck (You, played by Elizabeth Lail), Janice and Carmela Soprano (The Sopranos, played by Aida Turturro and Edie Falco), Wendy Byrde (Ozark, played by Laura Linney), Shiv Roy (Succession, played by Sarah Snook), and Sally Reed. The charge has found its newest victim in Perfidia Beverly Hills. This court now has the opportunity to use the appeal of Sally Reed as precedent and ensure that the mercy of hindsight is not required for Perfidia.

The above evidence proves that Sally Reed was judged through cultural bias and double standards. She was not sidelined in her story but made her own moves to become who she wanted to be. She vocalized the hypocrisy around her and was shamed for it. She deserves the same grace granted to her male counterparts and the freedom to make mistakes as she pleases.