Garrett McNeill carved out a place for himself on Superstore as the sarcastic, aloof guy who didn’t care about anything. Well, except for gaming. He really cared about gaming. But Season 6 gave him a glimpse of what acting that way had cost him over the years. At the same time, that season also gave him an opportunity to make up for those mistakes and try to fix them.
Working at a Cloud 9 meant having a lot of responsibilities, and Garrett did his best to avoid as many of them as possible. It’s not that the man was lazy or anything like that. He just genuinely did not care about what happened in the least. He was at Cloud 9 to make less money than he needed to get by on, nothing more and nothing less. Though, honestly, it would have been difficult for him to make less money while holding down a full-time job.
To combat the low pay and high stress of his job, Garrett had a coping mechanism he used frequently. He was extremely sarcastic in response to pretty much everyone and everything. Garrett still did a good job but he did it while verbally abusing everyone who crossed his path, particularly Jonah and the customers. Most of his disdain was reserved for Jonah, though, as the guy absolutely drove Garrett nuts even though they were close friends.
But this aloof attitude did cost Garrett in the long run, something that really came to light in Season 6. Being sarcastic all the time made it incredibly difficult for Garrett to truly connect with anyone, even someone he was close to like Jonah. When he tried to be sincere with Jonah in Season 6, Episode 1, Jonah didn’t take Garrett seriously at all. It also made it nearly impossible for Jonah to believe his friend when he reached out for emotional support.
This attitude also deeply impacted Garrett’s love life. There was a period when he had somewhat of a relationship with Dina, one that came to an end years earlier. It was mostly a mostly sexual relationship but both of them were more emotionally invested in it than either of them realized. And in Season 6, Episode 3, Garrett started realizing the potential happiness he missed out on with Dina by not being more open with her.
But things did change for him, though. The series finale was full of reveals, including one that showed Dina and Garrett were finally a proper couple. He went through a surprising amount of emotional growth in a relatively short period of time. That would have been particularly difficult given that Season 6 was set during the pandemic, showing how hard it was for retail staff to navigate the early days of that period.
The defensive mechanisms Garrett used to survive Cloud 9 were built long before he got the job but working there certainly reinforced them. It was also important for him to realize that he needed to move beyond them at times to experience any substantial growth. When Garrett let his guard down, he was able to find happiness. Though the fact that he found it with Dina was a little surprising.
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