Charlie's "girlboss" moment will probably come during the finale if there is a big fight with Adam. Funny how, in other forms of media, if a character has a violent side underneath the positive persona they show in public, it's a sign they have emotional/mental issues.
What did Viv mean by this?
Charlie very obviously, transparently has some kind of mental issue. She has a childish, head-in-the-clouds, over-optimism about her own plans, enough for other members of the cast to openly describe her as delusional, and given how likely her idea of rehabilitating people to spare them Heaven's wrath is to work in practice, it's arguable that she is, in fact, 100% delusional. She's not a girlboss, she's a girlfailure. A certified loser womanchild, or so the show's writing tries to convince us. The point of her characterization is to make you ask what the fuck sort of nutcase tries to negotiate with grown-ass adults by showing them her plans literally illustrated in Crayola and sung Broadway-style. Everything she says and does is deliberately absurd and calculated to make you question her sanity and maturity.
The trouble with her incompetence is that it's kind of an informed trait, and not actually reflected in the proceedings. Everyone says she's crazy and delusional, but the fact remains that Charlie is in possession of a very nice hotel that isn't run like Fawlty Towers, isn't in the process of falling over, and doesn't have holes in the walls and rats' nests everywhere. How she acquired the building, who the hell even built it or owned it previously, none of this has been explained. It doesn't appear to be a bad place to stay at all, as long as you can handle Charlie being Charlie. Her only real problem is a lack of tenants, which can be chalked up to either their distaste at the whole concept of a live-in therapy center masquerading as a hotel, or a simple lack of knowledge of its existence.
So, in summary, the plot tries to tell us that she's incompetent when she simply hasn't done anything to really establish herself yet. Lute, Adam's subordinate, says it best. Charlie really
doesn't matter. In fact, Charlie beats herself up over failing in her negotiations with the angels, when really, the main reason why they moved up the date of the extermination was because Carmilla
killed one of them. Charlie wasn't anything to the angels at all, except someone to tease and prank for their own amusement.
This is a perfect example of the difference between showing and telling. The plot is
telling us that Charlie is important and what she does matters on some level, because she owns the titular hotel and has a bunch of orbiters. However, it has yet to actually
show us concrete evidence of how this is the case.
There are still some more episodes this season. We'll see how this goes.
The worst thing about this is me and the wife were literally yelling at the TV that Charlie could probably beat Val straight with both arms tied behind her back. At least, that's what the show is telling us. And what's more, it would've led to a number of more interesting character moments:
Charlie dealing with losing her temper and beating the absolute life out of someone to get her way,
Angel beginning to fear Charlie as much, or more, than he does Val,
Lucifer hearing about his daughter growing a spine, AND Val starting shit with his child (love her or not, Lucifer SHOULD NOT be the kind of guy who will take a slight like that lying down),
and Val spiraling downwards ever further, being even more aggressive and violent because Charlie humiliated him, just off the top of my head.
These would still allow for the scenes we got (even more justified because Val got his way, and had his dominance actually reinforced by essentially commanding the number 2 of hell, so his snit fit barely makes sense), plus given fans a lot more to chew on.
It would have meant more development for Charlie, sure, but there is also the risk that Angel would end up so shit-scared of her that he decides a free room just isn't worth it, ditches the hotel, and runs off to join the circus, so to speak. It could backfire.
Also, it would have been extremely awkward for her to start a fight at that juncture, since she had already burned through all of her disruptiveness coupons by literally starting a fire in the studio. There is an opportunity for this conflict to pick back up at a later date (and with Alastor's conflict with Vox, and Vox's partnership with Val, it almost certainly will).
Does Charlie even realize that Angel is Val's literal rapemeat? Does Charlie know that Angel intentionally goes out and gets himself roofied as a form of deliberate self-harm? There is a potential here for her to learn these facts and go absolutely apeshit on Val at some point. In fact, given the now-established antagonism between them, it would be immensely disappointing if she didn't end up beating the literal shit out of him.