#The One where Naja lists all her grievances again

[etherealnoir]

YESSSSS on Found making me dislike Gabi. Honestly I’m more indifferent to her but still. I love a morally grey (Annalise 4ever!) or even straight up nasty black woman character but one with complexity and depth. She’s underwritten and underdeveloped and completely caricature. Strong Black Woman to the max and it sucks. Trauma can be debilitating and obviously she isn’t handling it right but she’s written as totally unyielding and never jokes (if she does it’s fleeting) or opens up or has anyone close. I know why but the way they portray her personality is unconvincing. A black woman bestie her age would help but who would she go to? I don’t think it’s an issue of skill because the others are well rounded (excluding Lacey who is an extra and Dhan who they only let be the muscle). I wonder how much input Shanola has in terms of her character because sometimes actors ideas can be for the worse lol. But why she would want Gabi written so thinly and corny I don’t know. I don’t even buy that she cares for ‘her people’ more like she likes having them around to validate her. Found family they are not. Maybe if the show was strictly about cases and she was the tough boss I would get it but with the current premise it just doesn’t make sense. Gabi doesn’t even feel real.

EDIT: Even in her scenes with Sir, she'll like do something objectively awful to him (but still not as awful as what he did). Then she'll immediately take it back by the end of the episode with some declaration about how she's not like him and she's a good person blah blah blah. Like...look bitch. If you busted his kneecaps, nobody would blame you. If these writers are too cowardly to let Gabi get revenge, then don't write this premise idk.

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I disagree on the point that Dhan isn't fully-rounded. Gabi asking him to kill Sir for her made me mad at her purely because we've seen over the course of the season how much Dhan has struggled with his own trauma. While he doesn't seem to mind using physical force to solve problems (which is another issue all on its own tbh), there are some lines he just won't cross. She knows this. She disregarded this.

And even she knows that he was held captive for three (3!!!) whole years. And obviously he wouldn't be okay with her holding Hugh captive. So it was wild of her to act like he was in the wrong for being angry/hurt.

But circling back to the Gabi issue, the writers are afraid to make her the bad guy.

Like they don't want a Black Woman to be a terrible person, so everything she does is justifiable in some way and the characters are likely to forgive her pretty quickly. I've never liked characters where everybody just loved them and was loyal to them for no real discernable reason. And that's what Gabi is giving. It feels like someone's self-insert character, and it annoys me.

It would be nice to see her put some of her PR background to use outside of press conferences. Like IDK...it'd be nice to see her actually do research, but that usually goes to Zeke. We could see her analyze behavior and motive, but that goes to Margaret. When things are a little to hard, she just defers to Sir. So it's like...what does GABI do? She's passionate, but it all feels surface level.