>>148976156It wasn't out of spite, though. Gabriella didn't play that significant of a role on Big City Greens, so it makes sense for the writers to have felt they could sacrifice her character in order to explore the concept of little children "breaking up." It was an important albeit bittersweet moral to introduce to young viewers, and I think they pulled it off well. One thing I'll always appreciate is the nuance with which the BCG writers approach a lot of these more controversial topics. "Bleeped" and "Big Picture" are my favorite go-to examples.
What they did with Gabriella only becomes an issue because they arranged the S4 episodes to where said breakup episode premiered less than a month after a cute romantic episode with her. The whiplash is what threw off some fans.