Gabrielle Carteris is a character on BH90210, portrayed by Gabrielle Carteris.
Character[]
Gabrielle works as the President of the Actors Guild and seems happy with her professional life. She's not really close to the cast, but gets along with them fine, save for having to deal with Jason's constant idiosyncratic behaviour on sets. Gabrielle is kind of a 'mother figure' in the cast, only in the way that she always has to keep everyone in check lest they mess up. She's married and has a son, who recently had a daughter and she's having a hard time seeing herself as a 'grandma'. She seems to have repressed her sexuality, but the reunion weekend stirs something.
Story[]
She is seen taking public transportation on her way to the 30th anniversary reunion panel for Beverly Hills, 90210, but receives a call from the Actors Guild of America regarding a complaint filed against a director and upon hearing what this director did, she says that she’s going to kill him. When she is reunited with the rest of the gang, Gabi says how she likes that the anniversary brought them all together, and can’t believe they’re all at the reunion panel. However, she becomes somber when Jason reminds them all that not everyone is here due to death of their friend Luke Perry. Later, when asked by Theresa about what she liked the most about playing Andrea, she answered that to her, Andrea was strong, intelligent and admits that she’s trying to aspire to be more like Andrea in her own life as well. Once the panel wraps, she tells the rest of the gang how she’s a grandmother now. Eventually, the same woman who asked Gabrielle a question earlier in the day tells her that Andrea wasn’t just her favorite character, but also her first crush. The fan talks about all the possible clues she saw regarding Andrea’s sexuality, but Gabrielle says that it was network TV in the 90’s, so they would have never gone there with Andrea. Meanwhile, Gabrielle is still with the fan from earlier and gets asked if she’d fulfill her teenage fantasy and proceeds to kiss Gabrielle. She doesn’t object and two lock lips. Shortly after, she says that she has to go because she left the kids unsupervised. When she eventually makes it where the rest of the gang is and says how she can’t take them anywhere. She eventually gets arrested along with the rest of the gang.[1]
When she shows up for her court appearance, she walks past the paparazzi without engaging with the fans. When Jennie and Tori try to talk to her, she flips them off before she goes inside. Late, when she realizes Jason is serious about wanting to be part of the reboot, Gabrielle tells him that she can pull some strings to get him the chance to direct the pilot for the reboot, but he has to ask nicely. Eventually, Gabrielle confesses to Jason that while in Vegas, she kissed a woman. She eventually admits that the feelings for women aren’t a new development. At a later point, Gabrielle comes to Tori, and tells her that if she signs up for the reboot, then some things need to change. When Tori asks her what’s going on with Andrea, Gab suggests that maybe she’s exploring her sexuality. Eventually, as she's having a Friday date night, she tells her husband that she agreed to do the reboot, on the condition that Andrea gets to explore her sexuality. She gets teary-eyed as she’s explaining to him why this story is so important for her to tell. Similar to the rest of the gang, she too gets an Andrea doll that's in pieces delivered to her house.[2]
Gabrielle and her husband discuss her attraction to women, which eventually leads to an argument between the two. She wants to be able to freely explore her repressed attraction to women, but her husband tells her that he doesn't want an open marriage. Eventually he tells her that she can explore all she wants, but he’s not going to be there pining for her. At the cast's first table read, she confides in Christine Elise about how she downloaded a dating app, but has had no hits. When prodded, she reveals that it is because she only posted a picture of her elbow. Gabrielle defends not wanting to post a picture with her face on it because she was afraid of being recognized and having it be leaked to the tabloids. Especially given the fact that she hasn’t told her kids or most of her friends, and doesn't want them to find out in such a manner.[3]
While out with Christine, she gets to see the buzz from the cast photo they shot, and she notices all the traffic going onto the page talking about the reboot. During the first table read, she doesn’t feel like Andrea’s journey is being respected and unfolding organically in her sexual awakening. In Anna Blakemore's first script Andrea is having sex with a woman on page four. There’s also some dildo involved with Andrea in this script. Later, she gets into an argument with Jennie over being the one that takes charge. When she comes back, she finally vents her frustrations with the gang stemming as far back as their early 902010 days. She talks about feeling insecure due to being ten years older than everybody else on the main cast. She was at a different point in her life since she had a baby and was breastfeeding during Season 1. She goes onto say how she didn’t feel like she ever fit in and saw the rest of the cast as the cool kids. Jennie then says they were not cool, to which Tori says speak for yourself, and Brian agrees saying they were so cool.
She continues to say how she loved being on the show and just really wanted everyone to like her. Gabrielle admits to feeling scared that the executives would find out her real age and fire her. This confession eventually leads Jennie to apologize for how she acted earlier that night.[4]
A news report is heard playing and talking about about how there's some high drama on the set of 90210. The news reporter calls Gabrielle that one who is always dependable because she will help the rest of the cast weather the storm. Gabrielle is seen throughout this montage receiving a bouquet of flowers with a note from her husband wishing her good luck on her first day of shooting from Phil, who calls himself her favorite husband. While the girls are getting ready in hair and makeup, Tori asks them if any of them are nervous. Gab says she’s just happy to be working with them again. The conversation then shifts to sex scenes, where Jennie says she was self-conscious about that when she was 20, and they all agree that they are awkward in general. But all say that the guys don’t seem to get nervous. Instead, they joke that they would get stiff and excited.
Later, she takes share and in order to not get shut down, she tries to help the the gang investigate on who is this mysterious person out to get them. Eventually they amass 125 possible people that could have a vendetta against them. At some point Gabrielle follows Christine into her office, and asks if she is ignoring her. Christine says no, but that given all this HR stuff, things have gotten a bit complicated for them. She says that given the MeToo movement, Fox cares about who she sleeps with. So she needs Gabrielle to sign a consent form saying she consents to having a sexual relationship with her. She initially doesn't want to because as she has previously said, she has only told a select few about her exploration into her sexuality. Eventually, when the whole gang is talking about consent forms, she comes out to the rest of the cast about not knowing what her sexual orientation is, but that she’s exploring it.[5]
When they finally wrap production on the pilot, Gabrielle warns Tori not spend all her pilot money, but she tells Gab that apparently it’s already gone because she had a lot back taxes. Gabrielle then confides in Jennie and Tori that she and Chris are trying to work things out. Gab goes onto say that its 30 years of marriage she’s not sure she wants to throw all that down the drain in search of new discoveries. She looks at Christine which lets Jennie and Tori know everything about Gab’s love life drama. Later, when the red dress incident is repeated due to Shannen, Tori and Jennie all wearing red again. Gab jokes with the guys that this is why she wore white.[6]
Trivia[]
- In a flashback to three days earlier, she became a grandma and her son named his daughter after her.[1]
- She confesses to Tori that back in the '90s, she wasn't allowed to touch her African American TV boyfriend.[2]
- This is a reference to Andrea's relationship with Jordan Bonner.
- Gabrielle has a nightmare of 'Andrea' entering the Peach Pit and trying to befriend Brenda Walsh, Kelly Taylor and Donna Martin, but feeling left out. She goes to the counter, saying she's there to see Brandon Walsh anyway, but instead of Brandon it's Emily Valentine, who repeats her infamous line from the episode U4EA, where she says "don't go away mad, just go away".
- Then the girls crowd around 'Andrea' and badger her, asking why she's there. She then transforms into a more maniacal version of Andrea in a pink prom dress and a chainsaw repeating over and over again “you said you liked me!” and Gabi wakes with a start at her alarm.
- The other girls also reference how she attends West Beverly Hills High School, despite not living in that zip code. To which Kelly tells her she doesn’t belong here.[4]
Photos[]
Episodes[]
BH90210 (6/6)
Notes and references[]
| Characters | ||
| MAIN | ||
| Shannen • Jason • Gabrielle • Ian • Jennie • Tori • Brian | ||
| SPECIAL GUESTS | ||
| Christine Elise • Carol Potter • Jamie Walters | ||
| RECURRING | ||
| Zach • Anna Blakemore • Chris • Wyatt Jackson • Camille • Shay • Nate • Kyler Norris | ||
| GUEST STARRING | ||
| Denise Richards • Theresa • Jack Carlisle | ||