Villainess Review: Gemma (Sabotaging the Squad)

I really love Lifetime Movie Club's string of original films; they've been doing this for two years now. Some of them are films that I learned a few months in advance, and that includes the latest one, Sabotaging the Squad (originally titled, Cheer, Drama, Murder). The film already starts off on a dastardly tone, as we see a woman, revealed to be named Krista, is attacked, and--as the film reveals--killed...by someone she apparently knows. We later see our main protagonist, Missy Clark, whose daughter, Arielle, is on the 360s, a cheerleading squad that Missy was once a part of in high school.

Missy is later visited by Gemma, her former school and squad mate; in fact, it's revealed that they were the co-captains of the 360s. Missy was hired by Sasha, who was in charge of the squad, as the new coach of the 360s, and as for Gemma, Missy instantly hired her as her assistant. Within moments, however, Missy isn't exactly welcomed by the other cheer moms: Tawnya, Candi, and especially Darlene, who had been wanting to become the squad's coach for quite a while now. In addition, they're all quite pushy, especially Darlene, who has been overpushing her daughter, Heidi, to take bigger roles on the squad.

Things go from just catty to sinister, as right before regionals, the squad's new uniforms are suddenly missing, and after the 360s had to wear their old ones, it resulted in a 3rd place finish. We also saw a teenage girl lurking about, and she was revealed to be Rachel, Krista's daughter, who stated that her mother was actually murdered, and she believes one of the cheer moms did it. Also, we see Missy become strangely ill on numerous occasions, as well as locked in a bathroom during one performance.

So naturally, the "Real Housewives of Cheer" are all suspected, and none of their personalities help them whatsoever. Tawnya mentions her mayor husband every five seconds, and she's basically taught her daughter to be ruthless, Candi is basically Sex and the City's Samantha Jones without any of the charm (can't stand the show, but I'm a Kim Cattrall fan, hence the reference), and then there's Darlene. Darlene has been the defacto leader of the "anti-Missy" campaign for this whole film, so she's under the most suspicion. Gemma basically voiced her own suspicions against the trio, and a party with all of the women, as well as Sasha (more on him later), doesn't help things, as Missy becomes ill again, to the point that she's near death.

Missy confronts Darlene, who name drops Candi, leading to those two getting together. The name drop revealed that Candi and Sasha had been hooking up, and they were shown together discussing attempts to keep their illicit relationship quiet, but after Candi leaves, she's suddenly bludgeoned to death by a hooded assailant. So that's two bodies that have dropped, no one knows where Candi is, and as for Rachel, she suddenly has a new suspect: Gemma. As Rachel revealed, Gemma was at Krista's house on the night in question, and when asked about this by Missy, Gemma stated that she asked Krista (who was the previous coach) if she could be her assistant, but that failed, and well, that's that.

Yeah...any Lifetime movie fan knows that there's more to this story. So we see Darlene and Heidi back at their house, the latter goes to her room, and while the former's deep in thought, she hears a loud knock at the door. It's Gemma, who suddenly presents a pair of gloves with blood on them, claiming that they belonged to Darlene. As Darlene expressed her shock over this discovery, this happens:

So Gemma has been the maniacal villainess all along, because Lifetime 101 states that while anyone close to you can be a threat, it's usually the closest ones who are the most dangerous. After chloroforming and abducting Darlene, Gemma does the same to Arielle, and sends a text to Missy revealing that Arielle is held captive. Missy heads to a gym and finds Candi's body, as well as Arielle and Darlene before she's knocked out by Gemma. So Rachel was right; Gemma killed Krista, with the added reveal that Gemma was having an affair with Krista's husband, Trevor, which Krista knew about. Krista was having an affair of her own with the aforementioned Sasha, and a verbal confrontation went from the affair to Gemma wanting to become a coach, with Krista saying that Gemma wasn't talented and didn't matter to anyone on the squad.

Gemma later attacked Krista and strangled her to death, and regarding Candi, the madwoman committed that murder as well, as Candi had known too much about Gemma's affair. As it turned out, Gemma had been jealous of all of the members of her squad, but mostly Missy, with Gemma claiming that she was in love with Missy's eventual husband, Adam, and later accusing Missy of stealing Adam from her. Her plan now was to kill all three of her victims, and portray Missy and Arielle as being victims of an evil and deranged Darlene, whose anger over Missy becoming coach would serve as a motive, and would commit suicide after "killing" the duo.

As Darlene set her cellphone to record, Gemma ordered Missy to drink a water bottle containing a poisonous concoction, threatening to kill Arielle if she didn't comply. Once the cellphone alert pinged, Arielle headbutted Gemma, who later knocked out Arielle before attempting to strangle Missy to death. Gemma would later be struck by Rachel, who was avenging her mother, and afterwards, the villainess was shown in handcuffs, arrested for her crimes.

Sabotaging the Squad hit Lifetime Movie Club on June 2, 2023, and featured Brittany Goodwin as the evil Gemma. For Goodwin, this is her second Lifetime film in less than two months, and both times, she's been the villainess. While I was enjoying the first round of this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs (the Golden Knights/Jets series), I also enjoyed seeing Goodwin go wild as villainess Rebecca Jones in A View to Kill For, but she managed to top that amazing role with this epic appearance in this film. Marvista's trailer gave away Gemma's evil role, and seeing this film on LMC was an absolute treat! Gemma was introduced as that typical supportive BFF, but as we see, it covers up her true psychotic and jealous demeanor. She was bloodthirsty, vicious, conniving, and ruthlessly insane, and Goodwin's performance was absolutely top notch!

Hours prior to watching this film, I watched one villainess donning that wonderful "hoodie of evil," and in this film, it was Brittany Goodwin's turn. We are treated to a flashback scene of Gemma in her hooded disguise as she kills Candi, and we truly see the insanity in Gemma as she glances over a piece of her evil handiwork. I was already a Brittany Goodwin fan after seeing her in A View to Kill For, but this film increases that fandom. Goodwin's done her share of Hallmark films as well, and we should see her back on Lifetime later this year in A Jealous Friendship, a film I've been waiting to see for a long time.

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Check out Gemma's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!