The Bold Type's treatment of its sole Black female protagonist has been frustrating

The Muse

Aisha Dee's character Kat's romance this season with Alex Paxton-Beesley's Ava, a conservative who defends conversion therapy, has been criticized by fans and Dee herself. "A majority of the show’s fans have expressed their anger online at the abrupt turn of her story, and some have been bewildered at the reactions, as it is only a show and characters should and can grow in a variety of ways," says Tarisai Ngangura. "But the thing is, the online response is not a question of growth, but a critique of a writers’ room that distilled politics into something as low stakes as a disagreement on Netflix versus Amazon and pineapple or no pineapple toppings. It made homophobia something that should be 'discussed' with civility when there is logically no way anyone should be expected to be polite when their life is being debated and found undeserving of liberty. The Bold Type is a nonserious show that through its four seasons has tried to deliver serious goods, often with a predictable, candy-coated outcome that makes you roll your eyes but still tune in for the fantasy of it all. But Kat’s trajectory this season has put on display the lack of diversity behind the scenes and simultaneously illuminated an inability to show compassion and nuance for her story, especially when you look at the two white female leads on the show; one deals with a miscarriage and marriage, the other with illness and family loss. Kat is presented as myopic, reactionary, and dangerously impulsive, and while the latter can be a character trait, in her case it’s the entire basis of her personality and identity. In a political reality that feels more fraught than any in recent memory, a showmance that would have been annoying during the best of times is an absolute failure now. More than anything, the Ava/Kat pairing speaks volumes about the limitations of progressive white feminism. White women can afford and choose to look at their partners’ politics as a mere difference in opinion because when those 'opinions' are exercised in the voting booths, they do little damage to their comfort and livelihoods."

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• The Bold Type producers respond to Aisha Dee criticizing the show for a lack of diversity in the writers' room: “We applaud Aisha for raising her hand and starting conversations around these important issues," the producers said in a statement. "We look forward to continuing that dialogue and enacting positive change. Our goal on The Bold Type is and has always been to tell entertaining, authentic stories that are representative of the world that Kat, Jane and Sutton live in — we can only do that if we listen.”
• The Bold Type had planned two more episodes to film before the coronavirus shutdown cut short Season 4: "We didn’t reshoot anything," says showrunner Wendy Straker Hauser. "We just sort of reordered a few things. It’s hard to get specific about it, but we did whatever we could just try to make a finale out of it and heighten certain situations. But it was a very jam-packed episode to begin with. Our journey was not finished. So we left it on a big bang, that’s for sure."
• The Bold Type made a last-minute change to Thursday's finale