as someone who watched this show before i was even a teenager and had kali as one of my first representations of an indian girl in media, i don’t think i will ever fully be able to describe how utterly awful they wrote her in s5.
the lost sister already could have been done so much better but i have personally always enjoyed that episode (just not when it came in the story) but s5 was fucking insanely bad for her.
she was a plot point for an old white man and her young white sister.
she was given the most trauma out of any character on the show and i do not say that lightly. she went through torture in her youth, was stripped away from her actual family in london (so they knew her! obviously terry loves jane but kali was a LITTLE GIRL!), watched her entire (queer-coded, neurodivergent-coded, & poc mind you!) found family be killed as a result of her actions, was stripped of her identity and used as a blood bank, and then found out her blood was being used to poison pregnant woman because it failed—but it was actually meant to be used as a killing weapon for the government if it succeeded.
and you’re telling me a satisfying conclusion to her arc is that she died because a STRONG white man wouldn’t pick up two girls in one go (and let’s face it, kali was tiny as fuck, he COULD HAVE CARRIED BOTH.)
you’re telling me a satisfying conclusion to her arc is that she tells her white sister to kill herself but then maybe helps a little with the elphaba-ass mirage.
she could have been so much more. she could have gone with jane, for one, and in my heart she faked her own death and is in iceland with jane. after v2 my own solution was that vickie learns about her suicide ideation and vickie, with her clear knowledge of mental health, would be like girl? you need therapy not exploding yourself. and then they kiss. but i digress.
also the pregnant women are just killed in the upside down explosion and everyone’s fine with that including kali who feels the crushing guilt of being the ‘reason’ that they’re there? right.
lucas reduced to lumax—and i love lumax, don’t get me wrong, erica with no screen time except to add to white men’s stories (in the finale her two scenes are talking to mr clarke where she’s asking the questions so not contributing her own shit and also helping dustin with the graduation ceremony), argyle’s actor allegedly finding out through social media he wasn’t going to be back on the show, and KALI?
duffer brothers. never write indian characters again.
i would rather have her be a twist villain! she had enough rage in her to turn to evil!!
