Chase

* Young
* Old

**Gabriela Chase** is one of the main characters in *The I-Land*. She is portrayed by Natalie Martinez.

## Life Before Prison

Gabriela Chase was raised by her alcoholic mother, who belittled and made her feel useless. This drove Chase to develop a tough personality, and took up boxing; her mother was not impressed and only made sexist comments about her. She later joined the United States Marines. In the Marines, she met her Cooper, with whom she fell in love and married. After an accident that injured his face, Chase left the Marines to help himThey lived on a ranch in Texas that was owned by her mother after his accident. This caused them trouble paying money to keep their ranch. When Cooper approached Chase’s mother to ask for money, without Chase’s knowledge, she refused and pointed a gun at him after he didn’t leave. The scuffle ended up killing her. Cooper set up the crime scene so it would appear as if Chase had also taken part in it.

Chase received the death penalty, and was in prison for two decades before she signed up for the redemption program. She was one of the ten people chosen to test it out. Her memories were then completely cleared.

## Throughout the Series

### Season 1

#### Brave New World

On the sun-soaked shores of a mysterious island, Chase awakens to find herself all alone with no knowledge of how she got there. She clutches the shell she woke up with and blows into it. She runs into a woman who can’t remember who she is either, but clutches a knife. Unsheathing it, she threatens Chase before Cooper arrives telling them both there are others on the other side of the beach.

As K.C. and Chase continue to bicker, this spills over to the rest of the group, while Hayden laments the group’s “basic” thought process as she makes the camp fire with Mason.

After finding out everyone in the group was holding a different item when they awoke, Chase heads out and finds a gorgeous waterfall with Brody where he tells her not to tell the others. They kissed and she stop him and he tried to rape her and she fights him off. As she hurries back to the group, the rest of the cohorts play in the water. until a shark approaches and appears to eat Donovan.

Back at camp, Brody takes control and begins ordering people around until Chase arrives and beats him. She tells the others about the waterfall and the attack. Brody simply shrugs this off though, telling them it was nothing and to care more about Donovan, who is potentially dead.

As night turns to day, Chase has a vision involving her holding a gun in a room, as a pool of blood oozes on the floor. As she awakens, breathing heavily, she grabs an axe and heads off down the beach. Some way down she finds Donovan washed up on shore, with his leg bitten. As she blows the horn, the rest of the cohorts arrive and hoist him up, hurrying across the beach with him.

After the day’s events, they gather together and discuss their options. Brody suggests moving inland while Cooper argues against it. As the group discuss their options, Chase tells them all she wants to leave the island completely. It’s here we learn there were 39 steps between each of the cohorts lying on the floor. As they talk, Mason and Hayden reveal they found something in the sand, and as they head up the beach to investigative, they find a sign that says “Find Your Way Back”.

The group discuss the meaning of the sign. With the exception of Chase, the group depart back to Donovan at camp, In frustration, Chase throws the conch shell which then breaks. The broken shell reveals a stamp which reads "Property of I-land". Contained in the broken shell, a blinking electronic device"

#### The Gorgeous Palaces

Chase steps on a broken shard of glass before heading into the water where she finds an inflatable raft and more sharks waiting for her. In the raft she finds a bag full of bullets and a medical case. As she heads back to shore, she gives Brody the cold shoulder before hiding the raft and the cases she’s found from him.

Alone, Chase speaks to Cooper and he tells her he wants to survive. Promising not to tell the others what she’s found, she shows him the contents from the raft, including a packet of gum that has the word 39 on it. He agrees that they should keep this a secret for now before heading off with Mason for their morning hunt.

After a particularly tense encounter in the woods between K.C. and Brody, with the group he brings up moving in-land again. Cooper squares up to him this time and punches him in the jaw, leading to a fight that eventually ends with him threatening Chase with a knife. The group turn on Brody, seeing the sort of person he is, and it’s here we see his lust for power.

As a storm hits, the group scramble for cover, split up and separated in the ensuing chaos. Cooper eventually finds Chase hiding in the inflatable raft and scrambles inside for cover. As the storm passes, she heads back to the site of the sign and finds a weird item on the ground. Just for a moment, the camera shows “Property of I-Land” on the side of the shell Chase has been blowing into, as she rushes off down the island.

After sharpening her blade, Cooper heads off for a hike with Chase through the tropics of the island, miles away from the group. Out in the wilderness they come across a large abandoned building which appears to be a hotel. With running water coming from a fountain, they hurry back to the group in record time and tell them about the beds and what they’ve found.

Unfortunately Chase’s antagonistic behaviour lands her in the bad books with everyone else who see her as a bad influence and tell her to leave. Alone, she sleeps in the raft out in the woods while continuing to have flashes to a life gone by. Grabbing her from the raft in the morning, the group drag her to the beach where they find Brody stabbed in the stomach with her knife. As she blacks out, she awakens inside a strange, futuristic room lying on a bed.

#### The Insubstantial Pageant

Episode 3 of The I-Land sees Chase awaken to a nurse standing over her. Panicking, she mentions the island but is met with a blank expression before she blacks out, awakening again to find Dr. Conrad standing over her. He tells her the paralysis she’s experiencing is really just a magnetic field to help keep the prison population under wraps. After freeing her from her restraints, he rushes out the room where he leaves her stuck in the room.

The Warden hears enough and takes Chase outside and discusses matters with her alone. She asks him about Brody and he tells her that when you do something bad on the island, it pays you back. Whatever happened, the Brody inside and outside the game is death. The Warden tells her he’ll be keeping his eye on her if she goes back inside, especially given how peculiar she’s been reacting to the game.

The board come to an agreement and decide she should be put back in the simulation. As the guards grab her and take her away, the Warden takes her outside and antagonizes her again, this time with a noose around her neck. Despite a valiant effort to fight them off, Chase is eventually electrocuted with tasers and knocked out.

#### Many Goodly Creatures

Chase returns to the beach, tied up while the group discuss what to do about her following Brody’s murder. Still tied up, she tells the others what she experienced with the Warden but no one believes her. She warns them it’s going to get worse, leading K.C. to ask her if she’s got any proof.

Unfortunately, it does get worse, quite quickly too as Hayden has a vision about stabbing a man in a car numerous times, crossing him off a kill-list. This prompts the group to turn on Chase, wrestling her to the ground and searching her as two strangers arrive on the island. The group scramble back to their feet while Chase believes these two have been sent by the Warden to antagonize and manipulate them. As it happens, the two newcomers are called Bonnie and Clyde and they begin weaving their web of deceit immediately.

They tell the group about the cases and gun Chase has been hiding from them. Clyde then turns around and stabs Hayden in the stomach, telling them it’s just the island serving justice as she was the one who stabbed Brody. As Hayden doubles over, spewing blood from her mouth, Clyde tells them they all signed wavers to agree to this experiment as the truth is finally revealed.

Grabbing the gun from the case, Chase hurries away while Bonnie and Clyde tell them things are starting to heat up. They continue, telling the group their lack of ambition may come back to cost them, as they should have been searching around the island in the first few days. They go on to threaten them, telling them they’ll be watching the whole time and that they should head for the village on the other side of the island. As they walk off into the distance, the rest of the group discuss what to do next while burying the now-dead Hayden and Brody.

With the group split over what to do, K.C., Cooper and Moses head off to the abandoned village where they find a group of huts. As Bonnie and Clyde smile from afar and mutter “let the games begin”, the various cohorts begin to have visions of their past life. As cracks begin to form in the group, Chase heads back to the abandoned hotel and begins looking around. Reminding herself this is all a simulation, she finds a bloody woman asking for help in one of the rooms; a woman who happens to be her Mother. As she keeps looking, Chase opens a door and looks on in shock over what she’s found.

#### The Cloud Capp'd Towers

Inside the abandoned building, Chase continues to look around for clues before spying a picture on the wall that appears to hold some relevance to her life. Taking it down, she rips open the back and finds an envelope full of photos, schematics and other useful information inside that may hold the clue to escaping the prison. Among the pictures is one of her and Cooper, together as a couple.

After overhearing Bonnie and Clyde discussing the game and the rules their “boss” has given them, Cooper catches up with Chase where she shares the pictures of Texas with him – including the one depicting them both happy and hugging. As they discuss just what this means, we cut back to Taylor who’s approached by Bonnie and Clyde. They congratulate her for making it to a place called Two-Land where she uncharacteristically asks to speak to their manager. They mention that the one person on the island with her is a cannibal and the food she’s been eating isn’t chicken. It’s actually her own fingers.

#### The Great Globe Itself

As the visions become more intense, Chase questions the truth of these hallucinations and whether these have been planted in their memories or not. Meanwhile K.C. and Moses head out to the water where he holds her in his arms while the visions of the past show her driving into the water.

Meanwhile K.C. and Moses arrive at the abandoned hotel where they find Cooper and Chase. They decide to hear the them out, but not before Cooper experiences another vision. Here, we see Cooper kill Chase’s Mother and make it look like a break-in. As we see him pull the trigger in the vision, it turns out he actually shoots Moses in real-time too. As Chase looks set to hit him, Clyde arrives and tells her he’ll take it from here.

A dizzying action sequence takes place, with an abundance of quick cuts and disorientating shots as Cooper and Chase fight off Bonnie and Clyde. This sees Bonnie stabbed through the mouth, followed by Chase stabbed in the stomach. As Bonnie and Clyde both fade from the simulation, Chase stumbles off to the beach, leaving K.C. and Cooper as the only two uninjured cohorts left. As Chase blacks out, she awakens back in the prison again.

#### The Dark Backward

Chase awakens to Doctor Wyss telling her she’s been exonerated for her crimes, thanks in part to her husband’s confession. Her husband, of course, being Cooper. Bonnie and Clyde were rogue agents messing with the game and for now, she’s off Death Row and a free woman. As the Warden approaches her cell, he’s warned against antagonizing Chase.

Despite being weary about leaving, Chase agrees to follow the guards, where she learns her last name was Chase and that her actual name is Gabriela. As she discusses her feelings toward the simulation, she’s brought before the Warden who tries to nonchalantly wave away his behaviour earlier before telling her there’s nothing for her out in the real world. He admits to trying to sabotage the program because of how horrible the rest of the inmates are and it’s here he tries to make a bargain with her, telling her not to mention him or the sabotage. However, she offers a counter-deal – to break Cooper free of the experiment so she can tell him how she feels.

Meanwhile Chase is debriefed whilst being asked more about the gun and the number 39. It turns out 39 is the number of steps from the end of the cell block to the electric chair. It’s a sadistic reveal and it prompts Chase to bite back against the morality of the entire experiment. The Warden chirps up at this point and agrees with her, only to see them recess as the talk turns to that of Bonnie and Clyde and their possible boss.

As they take a short break, the Warden manages to take Chase away, but Doctor Wyss catches him in the act. With him now investigated for the murders inside the game, Chase tells them the truth about the Warden, who openly admits what he did and that the cannibal was “a pretty great idea”. Breaking down the veil around them, the Warden tells Chase that Doctor Wyss is hiding the truth from her, which prompts her to ask her outright what it means later on after the tense encounter. As it happens, everything around them is true except for her own appearance, which happens to be a lie.

As she’s injected with something in the back of her head, Chase’s appearance changes to an older and visibly aged version of herself. She’s been in prison 25 years and her younger persona is simply an avatar. When the cohorts arrive on the island, they go at the age they commited the crime.

We now see Chase as her true self, taken outside where she finds the world has changed completely.

## Appearances

* "Brave New World"
* "The Gorgeous Palaces"
* "The Insubstantial Pageant"
* "Many Goodly Creatures"
* "The Cloud Capp'd Towers"
* "The Great Globe Itself"
* "The Dark Backward"