... she just kind of sucks. At everything.

There are TV characters that are beloved by most fans, those that are absolutely despised and every sane fan wants killed off (like Arturo from Money Heist and Joffrey from Game of Thrones), and there are those characters that viewers are quite indifferent to their fate – each of these kind of characters end up serving some kind of purpose, making a decision that contributes somehow to the plot of the show. But sometimes, there are characters who seem to have absolutely no purpose that you can’t help but wonder what the endgame is.

Enter Helstrom’s Gabriella Rosetti.


The first time we see Gabriella on our screens, she has a holier-than-thou attitude which is annoying but unsurprising as she is a novitiate. You would think that after been initiated into the world of demons where everything isn't black and white, she would adjust her views but quite contrarily, she becomes significantly worse and considers herself to be the centre of the Universe right till the very end.

Her “faith” was useless.

Since Gabriella is a novitiate who has been attached to an “exorcist”, an optimist might think that her faith would somehow enable her have some strength over demons but the Helstrom universe is not kind to the faithful and they have less chance of surviving a demon attack than a faithless man with a baseball bat. Praying close to a demon seemed to achieve nothing but annoy demons.

Screenshot from Helstrom

In fact in S01E01 Mother’s Helpers,  when Gabriella purposefully marches into one of the wards armed with her cross to confront the demon called Mother, she gets blasted up a wall, bitch slapped, called an idiot, and has to listen to the demon’s soliloquy about earthworms and some type of demon politics. Realizing that her cross and proficiency in Latin is completely useless, she ends up punching the demon which has little effect.

In 1E02 Viaticum, she tries to pray away the demon that is trapped in the body of a dying man, it doesn’t work but her cliché “I know you’re in there” speech succeeded in drawing out the man so he could leave a quick I love you message for his family. Gabriella Rosetti the Instant Messaging App.

She even failed at being a passable Psychologist

Louise Hastings mentioned that Gabriella had a degree in Psychology and she “came highly recommended from the Vatican” which made her a good candidate to take over St Theresa’s “ but when Victoria/Mother’s case came up, Gabriella’s first reaction was to verify for herself that the possession wasn’t just for ”show” -  which is mostly Daimon’s reactions when he gets called for exorcism, a reaction she judges him for.

We don’t really get to see her Psychology degree in action unless you count when she got Aubrey Richard’s sister to slam the door in her face after spinning some mumbo jumbo to convince her to let them in her home (S1E03 The One Who Got Away) and how she failed to make a formerly possessed college kid feel better about himself.


In fact, she interrupted a therapy session between Dr Hastings and her ward just so she could whine about how demons aren’t being exorcised fairly (S1E05 Committed). Did she ever go back to check on Bryce and how he was adjusting to the formerly possessed group? No. She was too busy dealing with a new set of demons – which is exactly Daimon’s reality.

Completely Useless by Herself

In S01E06 Leviathan, she gets attacked while at a gas station with Damon and she is utterly helpless and has to scream “Daimon” several times. When he doesn’t show up immediately like a Knight in Shining Armor is supposed to, she ends up biting the demon so props to her for that.


When it came down to it, she was quite unchristian.

Gabriella’s crowning moment comes when she and Damon are both possessed by demons and forced to copulate. She wakes up, finds out she’s pregnant with evil incarnate, and instead of doing the humane thing and sacrificing her life (for the world), she escapes to The Blood (the very organization she judged) to ask if there was a way to get rid of the baby and survive it. Why do you want to survive it, Gabi? What happened to being like Jesus? 


While this whole mother-of-evil -incarnate was supposed to justify her character’s presence in the show, Gabi herself wasn’t special to the process; pretty much any human with a uterus would have served the purpose. It’s hard to think of a single unique purpose of this character asides maybe haughtily judging others and serving as romantic fodder for Damon. (By the way, there was very little chemistry between their characters so that one is also a flop).