Sam Black

Sam Black runs the Junior Gazette like it's Fleet Street and not a school newspaper, which is exactly the point. Sharp, American, and impatient with anyone who can't keep up, she bosses her teenage staff with the ferocity of someone who has decided this paper matters more than anything else in her life. She wants control, and she wants it done properly.

The show refuses to let her be softened into a nice girl who's secretly vulnerable underneath — she's genuinely difficult, genuinely brilliant, and the two are the same trait. Gabrielle Anwar plays the brittleness without asking for sympathy, so when cracks do show they land as revelation rather than reassurance. She's a rare teenage character written like an adult.