Gabrielle Solis
| Gabrielle | |
|---|---|
 Eva Longoria Parker as Gabrielle |
|
| First appearance | Pilot (episode 1.01) |
| Created by | Marc Cherry |
| Portrayed by | Eva Longoria Parker |
| Information | |
| Aliases | Gabrielle Marquez (maiden name) Gabrielle Solis (former married name) |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | 31 |
| Occupation | Housewife Former model Make-up assistant Beauty pageant coach |
| Family | Lucia Marquez (mother) Alejandro (stepfather) |
| Spouse(s) | Carlos Solis (ex-husband) John Rowland (ex-lover) Victor Lang (husband) |
| Relatives | Lily (maternal grandmother) Maria (maternal aunt) Juanita Solis (former mother-in-law; deceased) Diego Solis (former father-in-law; deceased) Milton Lang (father-in-law) |
Gabrielle Lang (née Marquez; previously Solis) (born February 11, 1976) is a fictional character on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. The character is portrayed by Eva Longoria Parker.
Characterization
| “ | I should have seen how unhappy she was. But I didn't. I only saw her clothes from Paris, and her platinum jewelry, and her brand new diamond watch. Had I looked closer, I'd have seen that Gabrielle was a drowning woman, desperately in need of a life raft. Luckily for her, she found one. | ” |
Character history
Season 1
Gabrielle, a retired model in her late 20's, married Carlos Solis for money but found satisfaction with John Rowland, her teenage gardener. She questions her relationship with Carlos, commenting once that she loved him and all her teenage fantasies had been fulfilled, yet she still wasn't happy. Gabrielle absolutely despises Carlos' mother, Juanita.
The families of Gabrielle and Carlos Solis are from the Mexican city of Guadalajara.
Towards the end of the season, Gabrielle learned that she was pregnant, as a result of her husband replacing her birth control pills with sugar pills (it is implied that John is the biological father, as Mary Alice speaks of the baby to come while Gabrielle and John are having sex; however, this is academic as the child did not survive). She almost left Carlos after finding out the truth about her birth control pills, but eventually decided to blackmail him into taking complete care of the baby in return for her testimony.
Season 2
It was discovered that Gabrielle is Roman Catholic, and refuses to divorce Carlos because of her faith. This is simply a lie to cover for her desire to continue her quest for materialistic satisfaction, which Carlos could provide and for her status as being a wife. She lost the baby after being attacked when her house was broken into by Caleb Applewhite, the son of neighbor Betty Applewhite, who had been keeping him chained in her basement because she thought he had committed murder. Believing Gabrielle to be in pain from her loss, Carlos sent a former inmate, Hector Ramos, to help her deal with it. Through Hector, Gabrielle began to realize that she was more deeply affected by the loss of the baby than she would at first admit.
Her most recent rival is Sister Mary Bernard, a pretty Catholic nun who has apparently caused Carlos to turn over a new leaf, and who Gabrielle fears will eventually persuade Carlos to end the marriage. When she heard that Sister Mary's group was short of the money it needed to send Sister Mary to Botswana as part of a relief effort, Gabrielle personally donated the money, just to ensure that Sister Mary would be out of the way (at least for a while), and lied to the doctors on the medical forms for Carlos' physical evaluation so that he would be forced to stay home with her. Gabrielle also invoked the jealousy of Lynette when she planted a supposedly "friendly" kiss on Tom at a party; Lynette got her revenge by making out with Carlos right in front of Gabrielle.
Gabrielle and Carlos want to have a baby, but cannot since she cannot become pregnant again because of her miscarriage. They try adoption, but they find out that John Rowland's mother works for the adoption agency they go to, and as a measure of revenge for Gabby sleeping with John, she steps in and all but rips up the adoption papers in front of them, then tells them that every other adoption agency will know about them. As luck would have it, however, they have a chance to adopt pole-dancer Libby Collins' daughter (who Gabrielle names "Lily"). Libby changes her mind three times, ultimately taking Lily back; this left Gabrielle heartbroken.
The Solises finally decide to make their new maid, Xiao-Mei, the surrogate mother of their baby. The in-vitro fertilization works and Xiao-Mei gets pregnant. In the second season finale, Gabrielle finds out that Carlos is cheating on her with Xiao-Mei. Following this, she surprisingly does not blow up at Carlos; instead, she orders that Xiao-Mei help her throw Carlos's belongings out of the house.
Season 3
In the third season opener, Gaby and Carlos are said to be getting a divorce. At Bree's wedding party, Xiao-Mei's water breaks. Xiao-Mei's baby is born black and the doctor reveals that the wrong baby was put in Xiao-Mei, and therefore Gabrielle and Carlos will not have a child. Gaby also runs into John Rowland and has sex with him, but only this time John was cheating on his companion. John tells Gaby that he can't do this to his fiancée and leaves.
When Gaby learns that a woman is trying to kill her husband for cheating on her and holding several people at a supermarket hostage, she tells Carlos that she can relate to that woman, and she tells him that they should end their bitterness towards each other before it gets worse. Carlos agrees. Carlos and Gabrielle get divorced, but are at peace with each other. When the divorce is settled, she changes her last name back to Marquez.
After a visit from a member of the Lakeview Adventure Scouts, she decides to try to return to modeling. She meets up with her former agent and all seems to be well - until she gets to the shoot. She meets the new star, Tonya, and tries to bond by giving advice to her to no avail. She then finds out that she is to play the role of a mother in "typical" mother dress. She doesn't buy it and tries to make it work for her, even going so far as to dress up like Britney Spears and call herself "hot mom" or Tonya's "big sister". The photographer gets her agent on the phone, and she comes by the shoot and reads her the riot act, basically telling her that she can't just come back from 10 years of "playing house in the suburbs" and carry on like nothing had happened, and drops the bomb on her further by telling her that she had to pull special favors just to get her into the shoot she's in. She reluctantly finishes the shoot, then comes home, deciding to leave modeling for good. Gaby then starts mentoring young girls in pageantry and is very attracted to one of the girls' single father, Bill. They begin a short-lived romance, which ends when Gabrielle gets a stalker. She thinks that the stalker is Carlos which in turn makes her end the relationship because she feels she is not over her divorce. The stalker actually turns out to be Zach Young, who with his massive amounts of money, has been buying her expensive gifts. She ends up going on two dates with Zach, the first to meet her stalker, and the second to gain bail money to get Mike out of jail. After these dates are over, she makes it clear to Zach that she wants nothing more than friendship, but it doesn't seem that he thinks of it that way from his point of view.
Gaby met mayor candidate Victor Lang and Victor was immediately attracted to Gaby. After a series of events, Victor managed to get Gabrielle to go to dinner with him. Although she said that there will never be anything between them, Victor promised that he will marry her. He proceeds to pursue her with the help of gifts but she only feels attracted to him when he tells her about the mistakes he made during his first marriage, admitting he is only human.
After noticing how the females around look at Victor at his rally for mayor, she decides to have sex with him in the back of his limousine. After 24 hours of waiting for Victor to call, she makes him jealous at his rally by kissing another man. Later, when Gabrielle refuses to answer him after a number of calls, Victor visits her house and confesses his love for her.
After spending the night together at Victor's house, Victor asks Gaby to marry him. She doesn't give him a straight answer but it remained obvious that she was still shaken up by her divorce from Carlos. After a violent press conference emerges from compromising photos of Victor and Gabrielle in an elevator, Gabrielle comes to Victor's rescue and accepts his proposal.
After Edie Britt announces to Gaby that she was dating Carlos, she put her schooled tactics to use and tells Lynette Scavo and Susan Mayer to stay away from her. But Edie gets revenge by inviting Lynette and Susan to Travers' birthday party. Gabrielle threatens to end her friendship with Lynette and Susan, but Carlos intervenes and throws her out of the party. After she tells him she's in love with Victor, Carlos reveals to her that his relationship with Edie will never change.
After being given a parking ticket by a meter man, Gaby is told by her caterer that she won't have to pay for anything else if Victor Lang is elected mayor. Later she is arrested for kicking the meter man. Victor angrily scolds Gabrielle for making a big spectacle for his image as the newly elected mayor. After being shown Gaby's bruised wrist from her fight with the meter man, Victor hires two men to go and beat the meter man to a pulp.
When Susan announces that Mike proposed to her and the wedding is back on she calls around, telling everybody the wedding is back on, and that she plans to have the same arrangements as with her and Ian’s wedding. She tells Gaby of their plans but Gabby tells her she's now booked her own wedding for that day. Susan learns she’s taken the exact wedding she and Ian were supposed to have, which leads to an argument. They apologise to each other and Gaby cancels the flowers but leaves the same date. While talking, Gaby and Susan come up with the idea of sharing the wedding day, but the next day they realise they don't want to. To spare Gaby's feelings, she tells her Mike disapproves with the idea. When Gaby discusses it with Victor, she’s shocked to learn the press will be at their wedding and that most of Victor’s efforts is all about his image. Gaby becomes worried that marrying Victor will be a mistake. She goes through with the wedding in the season finale, but shortly after the ceremony, she overhears Victor telling his father that Gaby is the best thing he's ever done for himself and would be good for the "Latino vote" in an upcoming election for governor. After the realization that she's just being used, Gaby suddenly finds Carlos in an unused room, where he apologises for ruining the wedding, and laments about the mistakes he made in the past. Gaby then kisses Carlos passionately.
Season 4
In the fourth season, it is revealed that Gabrielle and Carlos planned to run away together, however, Edie Britt's planned staged suicide attempt (she nearly ended up killing herself when her plan backfired and Carlos got distracted by Mrs. McClusky) stops Carlos from going through with running away. Guilty, Carlos says that Edie needs him right now and the two continue to have an affair. Edie later reveals to Carlos that she knows about his secret bank account and she tells him she can trust him as long as he doesn't hurt her, forcing Carlos to propose. Gabrielle later tells Victor how she feels like she's not his wife, but a possession and she asks him if they could go away alone for two weeks. Victor looks through his diary and tells her that they can both go away during two weeks in April, which does not seem to please Gabrielle. In the second episode of Season Four Smiles of a Summer Night, Lynette asks during her lunch if anyone would like to attend to her chemo, seeing as she kicked Tom out for being too emotional. Bree, Susan and Katherine Mayfair all offer to do it. Gabrielle, however, pretends not to hear the question. When Lynette confronts her about it, Gabrielle gives in and decides to go with Lynette. Once they're there, however, Gabrielle becomes uncomfortable. She eventually tells Lynette that she was five when her father died from cancer, and that her mother told her not to cry at the behest of her dying father. He wanted Gabrielle to be perpetually smiling, and so that's the way she's been ever since. After hearing this, she and Lynette reconcile. In the third episode of Season four The Game, Gabrielle is angry when she finds out that Carlos and Edie are engaged. She breaks off the affair with Carlos and flirts with Adam, which angers Katherine, who snaps and embarrasses Gabrielle in front of Susan's party guests about the affair Gabrielle had with John Rowland. In retaliation, Gabrielle blurts out that Bree saw Katherine slap her daughter. After seeing that Victor started counting polls when he found out about the affair, Gabrielle realizes that since Carlos smashed a glass when she flirted with Adam, that she wants to be with Carlos, so she continues the affair.
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