User blog comment:Mattalamode/The Miss Simian Problem/@comment-30307603-20170413180738/@comment-31194372-20170413190518

I'm not saying that Gumball being vanilla is a bad thing. If anything, the fact that he doesn't have a ton of definition to his general character is incredibly important to the show in that he doesn't grow tiresome. Characters like Anais can be particularly carved out because they aren't constantly in the spotlight to a point where their routines become completely predictable. It's good that Gumball is fairly generic nowadays because it allows the character to be utilized in more ways. He's composed of enough to be consistent while at the same time allowing him to adopt slightly different sets of behavior when certain episodes demand it.

My issue with "The Apology" is that it's just an uneventful episode and one of the few that I would actually call genuinely forgettable. There's a lot of great moments, especially Richard's signature and the prolonged spit-take, but it never finds an interesting angle for Miss Simian and the ultimate change-of-heart isn't pronounced enough to have any impact. I guess it's nice to see Gumball showing some heart, but in general, the show tried to take too many different angles, with none of them being particularly strong.

I agree that Miss Simian isn't really a character that needs to be further developed because that would rob her of her purpose on the show. It's just an issue of the limits of the character not being pushed at enough, and without that effort to flesh her out even the slightest bit more over the course of the past five seasons, the character just isn't that exciting anymore.