It was always apparent that the players returning from All-Stars were going to be something of a problem. In the words of a different gay reality competition show, "they done already had theirses". Meaning, many (not all) of the third-time returnees had little to prove by coming back to All-Stars, least of all Gabby and Tom. They're both featured on a spin-off for crying out loud! So it's not inherently exciting to have them back (at least so soon).

Tom said it himself in Ep 1 that he didn't have a mission or goal to return. He has no reason to be on FvF. His and Gabby's most interesting plot point was with the Cyan majority which was so ingenious as a storytelling tool. It was such a smart way to establish the team's status quo, scramble it and then challenge Tom, Gabby, Lake, Aiden and even Bruno's characters. Sadly that challenging didn't really happen. Tom and Aiden's storylines were probably the most affected by the Ep 2 upset, but Aiden's was, well...y'know. Tom, meanwhile, made a new ally in Natalia and their developing relationship has been a highlight of this season (with some caviats). ***TL;DR*** **Tom's relationship with Natalia is stretched out too much, but is an interesting enough conflict to carry Tom a bit further, while Gabby lacks that interesting conflict.**

In Ep 3, Alec sewed the seeds of doubt in Tom over Natalia and I only realize now that it was foreshadowing Tom and Natalia's eventual conflicts because, at the time, it was drowned out by Tom and Alec's weak rivalry (more on that later). The interaction even establishes how Tom wishes to separate people's character from their gameplay, a central aspect to his and Natalia's eventual falling out. This took several episodes to pay-off (and one could argue that it's still waiting to be fully paid off), but I commend the writers for the Nat/Tom fruit-picking sequence in Ep 4. DC is a show that often forgets to include important developments in a character's arc, so I like that these moments existed at least. 

While it runs too long, I like how the fruit-picking sequence connects Tom and Natalia's body dysmorphia and sets a precedent of Tom calling Natalia out. Additionally, I want to take a moment and say that I really enjoy their friendship and chemistry. They're contrasts who accept each other yet also challenge each other in interesting ways that we didn't fully get to see with Natalia's other relationships with butch/straight-passing queer men.

As I said earlier, Tom came into the season with little to do and this relationship with Natalia is a nice way to give him something to do. However, Natalia is the main source of conflict in this relationship and the only acting force within it. Tom's just been reacting. Thus his mini-rivalry storyline with Alec feels like overkill. You've got another dynamic where Tom is just reacting and the other person is prodding at him. That's how antagonist/protagonist relationships work (with Nat and Alec being Tom's antagonists), but they take up a lot of narrative space for a weak pay-off; too many things are happening *to* him and it drives home the fact that he's a focal character who doesn't have a point-of-view on this season.

Gabby, by comparison, has nothing going on. I REALLY love Gabby and the idea of her returning and staking her independence is interesting, but the writers don't seem to know how to write her as independent. Her major character turns are all machinated by characters around her (Tom and Nat help nourish her; Natalia tricks Gabby to not trust Anastasia; Tom leads all of Gabby's votes; Natalia takes it upon herself to confront Ara\*) and she doesn't do anything herself. Gabby's main problem isn't even that she complains; I think some emotional vulnerability is perfectly fine to depict. Plus, in a cast this big having some stories stagnating is perfectly fine. The issue with Gabby is that there's no implication that she has much else going on. She doesn't have any presence and only acts as Tom's extra vote; she's once again co-dependent, but now it's meta and not purely within the world of the show.

Tom and Natalia's friendship-turned-feud is far more interesting than anything happening with Gabby, but it's being stretched out too long. It took way too long to follow up on Tom's feelings about Natalia's manipulation (Ep 7-Ep 9) and we only got the second instance of him calling out her allegiances this past episode. To sum up, it took 7 episodes for Tom "being real" with Natalia's BS to be pay-off, but the padding in between that pay-off was egregious. Still, out of all of episode 11 the most consequential and emotionally-resonate character moment for me was with Natalia and Tom's argument. And the fact that Gabby was yet again just taking a backseat in that moment proves my point that she doesn't have much of a point being here. Sorry gal.

  
NOTE:

\* Natalia's read of Ara is deserved and I found it fabulous, but it was weakly-motivated. It sucks that, while Natalia is ostensibly close to both Tom and Gabby, Natalia's relationship with Gabby is ill-defined. Unless I'm misremembering, she and Natalia only ever interact briefly in Ep 3 on the volcano (thru Tom) and then the beginning of Ep 10 to set-up Natalia's reproach of Ara. That's why that moment felt underwhelming in the greater context of the show. Like, yeah, Natalia is friends with Gabby, but no time has been put into it. So it as someone confronting someone else on behalf of a friend of a friend.

Warm take: Tom should make it farther than Gabby because he's got more going on than her (although they both aren't strong enough to be in this season. I still love them tho❤️🩵💚)