Hey Upper Eastsiders. Gossip Girl here. You thought I was gone, didn’t you? Well… I’m back. And I’m now publishing exclusively on BSG. It’s where all of the cool rich teens hang out. It’s basically the Dumbo of the internet. 

Just kidding. We know that was a really convincing impression of the voice and general essence of THE Gossip Girl, but it’s actually just Emily and Kelli here to provide you with recaps of HBO Max’s Gossip Girl, a reboot of/sequel to the original show, which aired on the CW from 2007 to 2012 for six godforsaken seasons. If you’re thinking, there’s a Gossip Girl reboot/refresh/sequel?, fear not. We’re here to get you all caught up. 

(Spoilers for episode one to follow, as well as spoilers for the original GG.)

Kelli: I think we first need to put something important on the table: we were both huge stans of the OG Gossip Girl. We also tend to agree on the show’s quality level: it was actually pretty good for half of season one, but then Serena was like “I killed someone” and from that point forward it was strictly mess.

Emily: Right. If you really want to see quality Gossip Girl, watch like… maybe the first ten episodes. And then stop. Naturally, Kelli and I hate ourselves so we watched the whole thing. And now we’re subjecting ourselves to a new series that’s based off a series that was never very good aside from those ten episodes. We’re not sure what’s wrong with us either. But if you’re here and you’re a Gossip Girl fan, maybe you get it. 

Kelli: When I found out they were making this show, I was extremely confused, and I think a lot of people shared that sentiment. First of all, it’s an HBO production, and HBO’s content tends to be a little bit more… sophisticated, shall we say, than what airs on the CW.

Emily: Also the original Gossip Girl went off the air less than ten years ago, so it seems soon for a full-on reboot. Or whatever the heck this show was gonna be. 

Kelli: It was also unclear for a while whether this would be an actual remake or a sequel; the original series is based on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, and knowing that it was going to be HBO, I thought it might just be a totally new interpretation of that content. Instead, what we get is a continuation within a shared universe: we are at the same school, but we’ve moved forward in real time to a present where there is *gasp* no more Gossip Girl, because Dan Humphrey got a life. Oh yeah, spoiler for the original series: Dan is Gossip Girl and it makes no fucking sense. 

Emily: Yeah, if you just accidentally read that and you didn’t know that Dan was Gossip Girl, I don’t even feel bad about spoiling that because it’s so dumb and it makes zero sense if you go back and watch the show with this knowledge. In fact, when the teachers in this reboot mention that Dan Humphrey was Gossip Girl, I had this moment where I was like, “Oh so we’re really going with that still. Okay. Fine.” Like I wasn’t expecting them to say Dan wasn’t Gossip Girl, but I was kind of hoping we could just ignore that huge misstep the original series made there at the end. No such luck. 

Kelli: I had that exact same reaction. I was like… I hope they’re not ever going to try to explain it any more than in this one throwaway moment, because if they do, it’s going to fall apart. Also lol, when Dan comes up, one of the teachers is like, “Dan Humphrey, the novelist?” Like okay, so Dan went from running a successful gossip website about his peers to being the next Jonathan Franzen? Sure. 

Emily: Well, they also tried to compare Dan’s Gossip Girl blog to an Edith Wharton novel, which is like. Okay, the writing on that show was not that good. But I’m glad you’re into yourself, show. They also named Colson Whitehead and Nate Archibald in the same breath, and I’m like, wait, no. 

Kelli: Embarrassing.

What did you think of the way this new show handles the tone and content here? I think the creators are trying to stay at least somewhat consistent to the original, but there is something so deeply 2007 about that first series that it would just feel weird and false to replicate. 

Emily: I think there were some moments where they very clearly wanted to tell the audience, “Look, that was then, and we’re doing something different now.” For instance, when the new girl shows up with a headband, the “cool” kids are all like, “Ew, she has a headband.” And as we all know, headbands are the signature accessory of the original Gossip Girl. It was a very clear comment directly to the audience that was saying, “Hey, we’re not the same show. We’re a cool edgy new show or something. IDK we’re still figuring it out, but hang tight.”

Kelli: Also, I’m going to have more to say about the fashion later. There are things happening here that no respectable member of Gen Z would be caught dead replicating. 

Emily: We could do a whole separate blog just on the fashion choices, so yeah. Agree. (we ain’t gonna though so don’t hold your breath, readers)

Kelli: This show does take one major risk right off the bat which drastically differentiates it from its predecessor: we find out who Gossip Girl is in the pilot episode. What did you think of this choice? I ask you this as if we weren’t already texting about it. 

Emily: So. I don’t like it. At all. For a number of reasons. Deep breath. Where to begin? Okay. Let’s start with the obvious. The whole thing that made Gossip Girl such a presence in the original show (besides Kristen Bell’s outstanding narration, which is still here THANK GOD) was the fact that we didn’t know who she was. We weren’t quite sure how Gossip Girl knew everything she knew or why she was reporting on it the way that she was. That meant Gossip Girl could be anywhere or say anything at any time. Of course, the kids still don’t know who Gossip Girl is, but we as an audience know right away. That was kind of a bummer for me. And it made Gossip Girl as a concept, well, KIND OF STUPID. Like almost as stupid as if it were Dan Humphrey all along. 

Kelli: I know you have other reasons, which we can discuss in a moment, but I do want to disagree with you a little bit here. I don’t like that it’s the teachers (yes, it’s the teachers, everyone), but I think there is an opportunity to do something interesting here with changing the concept like this. We can still get exciting anonymous tips from other people who submit to Gossip Girl’s instagram or whatever, but we are also now seeing exactly how Gossip Girl is a tool for manipulation more than anything else. I like the idea of “Gossip Girl” being a collective with a motive. I just… don’t love the collective. Or the motive.

Emily: Yeah, when I talk about it being “kind of stupid,” I’m mostly talking about the motive. 

Kelli: Basically, the teachers find out that a bunch of them are getting fired for giving students Bs or something, and the students are bullying Mrs. Keller (Tavi Gevinson) for wearing Zara (which is hilarious because for those who don’t know, Tavi is a fashion icon IRL and she would never wear Zara), and so the teachers start talking about how this school used to be easier for teachers because the students were reigned in by the lurking presence of Gossip Girl in the shadows? I don’t really see the connection here, which is the main problem for me. Like, even if the students know that Gossip Girl is afoot, they still don’t know it’s you, nor will they ever (if you want to keep your jobs and stay out of jail—I’m looking at you, teacher who took a nude photo of minors through a window), so y’all being Gossip Girl is not going to make them be nicer to you or keep their parents from terrorizing you. These things have nothing to do with each other, as far as I can tell.

Emily: Right. This also gets into another big problem I have with the teachers on the show. I totally get them being upset with the students for getting them fired. But pouting because a student made fun of your Zara outfit? Would never happen. I’m saying this as someone who used to be a teacher. I didn’t give a fuck what my students thought about my clothes. I definitely wouldn’t cry about students “bullying” me or laughing if I spilled coffee on myself. This is just entirely false. Students are children. Teachers are adults. For the most part, adults just don’t care that much about what children think of them. Period. And if you do, you kind of need to soul search and wonder why you care so much. I don’t care how rich that child is. It’s still a child.

Kelli: I will not lie and say that I have never been intimidated by a high school girl, or a pack of high school girls who are all wearing cool outfits, but the thing is, I would not start an entire online gossip presence about it. I would simply talk to my therapist. I will say that the intimidation seems a little more realistic when the “students” are 6 foot tall 27-year-old models. The actor playing the student in question is literally older than the actress playing the teacher she is bullying. I know they weren’t going to hire real teenagers, but they could have at least hired some older actors to play the teachers.

Emily: Speaking of children and adults, there’s a major power dynamic issue here that’s extremely problematic since the teachers are Gossip Girl. These students might be assholes, but they’re still kids, and taking pictures of your students outside of class and posting them on the Internet without their consent seems iffy at best and potentially illegal? Like the OG Gossip Girl got pretty involved in the sex lives of the teens she reported about. If these teachers post about their students’ sex scandals on their blogs, that grosses me out in a major way.

Kelli: Yes. It’s all fun and games until someone ends up in JAIL.

ANYWAY, let’s talk about some of these terrifying students. We have Julien (Jordan Alexander) and Zoya or “Zee” (Whitney Peak), who are sort of set up as the heart of the show. The Blair and Serena, if you will, although they don’t have strict parallels to those characters. They’re half-sisters who have been pretending not to be in contact because their dads hate each other, and a lot of this pilot episode focuses around their attempts to seamlessly transition into being in each other’s lives without letting anyone know they’ve been friends the whole time. 

What did you think of these two? Any predictions for how things are going to go down between them?

Emily: This plot seemed a little convoluted. So Julien and Zee are lying about knowing each other and liking each other, but the plan is once Zee gets to the school, they’re just going to start hanging out and everything will be fine? And Julien is somehow the one who got Zee her scholarship? And Zee is mad about it I guess but also really wants it? I also feel weird about how the show straight up tells viewers, “These are our Blair and Serena characters.” Like we absolutely need those exact parallels in order to stay with the show? I keep asking these things as questions because I do not understand. They’re not Blair and Serena at all, and that’s totally fine. And if you want to be a different show, you should embrace that.  

Kelli: Yeah, I think we’re seeing again in this pilot that they’re really struggling between trying to hold onto their original viewership and feeling free to explore different things. I’m hoping that this issue sort of irons itself out as the show gets more sure of itself, but I guess we’ll see. I kind of like having a sibling relationship at the center of this, because we have a sort of rivalry and falling out, but also know that these characters are going to keep coming back to each other and that’s realistic because there is at least some incentive to stay close to your family. With Blair and Serena it was like… why do these bitches even try to keep being friends when they clearly hate each other?

I think the idea was that Zee’s dad would never let her live in the city if he knew she was doing it to be closer to Julien, so she wanted to do it first and then once she had the scholarship he wouldn’t be able to say no. So I get why she kept it from him. What I don’t understand is why Julien kept this info from her friends — which they also didn’t understand. 

More drama here features Obie, Julien’s boyfriend — or not, as of the ending of the pilot episode — who we learn is the richest one out of the group of friends, but who is also an ~activist~ who very much opposes his parents and their exorbitant wealth. I was immediately annoyed by this person, and I am immediately annoyed by this clear love triangle setup. 

Emily: Yeah, I feel like even if you were having beef with your half sister, going for her boyfriend would be a point of no return. If we’re to believe these two people are ever going to have a relationship with each other, then she simply cannot go after Julien’s boyfriend. Of course she will, but I preemptively hate it.

Kelli: Agreed. I’m also just like… am I supposed to like this guy just because he recognizes his privilege and he has an earring? It’s not working.

Emily: I guess we should talk about the other characters. The rest of Julien’s friend group is a bit of a blur to me at the moment, in all honesty. And I kind of hated how they were all introduced. I don’t feel like I know any of them as people. There were a ton of them right off the bat too. With the original Gossip Girl, I felt like there were more distinct personalities right away. You had Serena, the It Girl everyone loves; Blair, the Queen Bee; Nate, the dumb pretty boy; Chuck, the r*pist. All of that is established in the first episode. I don’t think there were any standout characters for me in the friend group. Not in this episode at least.

Do you think maybe it’s because they spent so much time on the teachers?

Kelli: Yeah, the only one who really stuck out to me was the one who seems kind of like another Chuck, minus the r*pist part (so far, anyway). He’s the sex and drugs one, and he also appears to be sexually fluid, since we see him having a threesome at a party and also attempting to seduce both members of the only remaining couple in the group: blonde girl and pink guy. Obviously we are going to see the three of them having sex at some point, but really I just ship Pink Guy and New Chuck, because Blonde Girl unironically used the term “straight shaming” and I can’t forgive her for that.

The other two girls kind of seemed like mean set dressing, but I’m sure we’ll get more of them later. I agree that their introductions were weak, and that I would have rather spent more time getting to know them than getting to know these freak teachers.

Emily: Another question I have about the teachers and appealing to Gossip Girl OG fans: do you think we’re getting so much of the teachers because they know all of us original Gossip Girl fans are all olds now?

Kelli: Probably, but it seems misguided. I am almost 30 years old and I continue to enjoy content starring/focused on teenagers, and I refuse to be ashamed.

Emily: Since we’re not running through this scene-by-scene, maybe we should end by saying our favorite and our least favorite moment from the episode? 

For me, my least favorite moment was at the end when Julien compliments Kate (Tavi Gevinson) on her outfit at the end of the episode and Kate seems so pleased. Again, I was just like, “Ma’am this is a teen girl. I don’t care how rich she is. Calm down.” Also, I hated the teachers taking pictures of these TEENS through their windows. Seems like that should not be legal and it’s hard to root for these teachers if this is how their Gossip Girl reign is going to go.

Kelli: Maybe this is cheating, but my least favorite moment is every single outfit in that scene on the steps of the Met. This show is obviously expensive and they have the budget to have amazing clothing, and some of the choices here were not just unrealistic re: the way teenagers dress in 2021, but also just… ugly. It’s also bizarre to me that the “cool spot” they go to hang out at is in Dumbo. As a person who lives in Brooklyn, I can tell you right now that NOBODY hangs out in Dumbo, especially not people who live on the UPPER EAST SIDE. Why would you travel that far just to hang out in a neighborhood that is 80% office buildings and 20% fancy salad chains? I am more willing to believe that a group of teachers is running Gossip Girl than I am to believe a group of rich Manhattan-based teenagers is hanging out in fucking Dumbo.

Emily: So let’s talk favorite to end on a high note. This might be a cop out but my favorite moment was hearing Kristen Bell’s voice as Gossip Girl. Because this show just wouldn’t be the same without her narration. So excited they were able to get her back for this. I don’t care what anyone says about Dan Humphrey. Kristen Bell is the true Gossip Girl.

Kelli: For sure. I’m really glad she’s back, and I’m curious to see if we have any other returning players in future episodes. My favorite moment is also sort of a throwback, and it’s that the first shot of the episode focuses on Kate looking out the window as she rides the train to work, because in the pilot of the original GG, the first shot is of Serena looking through the window as she rides the train back into the city. It was a fun nod to the original. Also, just realized she’s wearing the SAME OUTFIT as Serena was in that scene.

I’ll also say that even though we agreed this plot was pretty convoluted, I did enjoy it when Julien and Zee first meet up with each other at school in the bathroom and we find out that they are actually close already. It was sweet, and I liked their matching sister tattoos. Of course, my excitement was quickly deflated when I realized where this plot was going, but as an individual moment… I enjoyed it. I also like both of these actresses so far — they seem to be doing what they can with what little we’ve seen of them. 

Emily: I agree. This was a rocky first episode in many regards, but overall an enjoyable hour of television. I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with the material in the future. And yes, also hoping for some cameos from some of our favorite OG Upper East Siders. Nate Archibald, where you at?

Until next time… XOXO, Gossip Squad.