If Brunson, James, and co. minimize Principal Ava from the identical material as Michael Scott, the archetypal unhealthy boss of the small display screen, they created an much more likable character by pedaling up her narcissism, which diminishes her tendency towards pettiness. Ava might embezzle cash from the college’s price range to spend on live performance tickets and pull college students out of essential classes to movie TikToks, however she not often undermines or sabotages any of her underlings to the diploma that you simply really feel unhealthy for them, or chilly in the direction of her. That’s, apart from Gregory.

In the phrases of Tyler James Williams, Ava is continually toeing the “line between flirting and harassment” in her relationship together with her new rent. Ava makes it clear from the second she meets Gregory that she finds him engaging, and continues to make provocative asides about him, addressed as a lot towards him as they’re the viewers. The way in which that Gregory virtually by no means responds, the truth that not one of the different characters handle Ava’s feedback after they witness them, and Ava’s personal shamelessness can typically create an uncomfortable feeling that’s exhausting to sq. with the exceedingly innocent nature of a lot of the feedback.

/Movie’s Ben Pearson just lately requested Brunson’s co-showrunners, Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, what they give thought to this dynamic, and Halpern admitted that, “We speak about it truly loads within the writers’ room.” He described Ava as “somebody who abuses her energy a bit on this relationship, on this dynamic, early on,” however characterised her conduct as “an influence factor greater than it is a sexual factor. We at all times would say, if Gregory got here onto her, she’d be like, ‘I am not , get away from me.'” But he by no means does, so we by no means get to see that facet of Ava. However that will quickly change.