The year is 2009 and you’re obsessed with Gossip Girl. You can’t help it either, with its wardrobe and drama and mysteries and that whole Chuck and Blair thing—it’s just that good. But as the years came and went, we’ve come to realize something:
Society had not moved on from Gossip Girl…so the only logical thing to do was, of course, to make something of a reboot of it.
Does that idea make you excited? Does it make you actually a little pissed off because no one has new ideas anymore? Well, whatever sentiment you hold for this idea, the Gossip Girl reboot is here and we NEED to talk about it!
warning: spoilers ahead
Plot
Much like the original Gossip Girl series, this fresh sequel/reboot takes place in New York, among the elite of the Upper East Side. This series highlights an interesting group of privileged friends, led by influencer Julien Calloway, that has its new year of school disrupted by a twist…the arrival of Julien’s previously-estranged half-sister Zoya.
So what’s the story there? Well, it’s pretty regular mom-left-to-have-a-second-family type of story that brings the two sisters close together despite the circumstances. Or at least that was the plan until the sisters’ relationship goes from friendly-despite-all-odds to full-on rivalry because of Gossip Girl coming back to life!
Yes, you read it right. Gossip Girl is now back online (on Instagram, specifically) and is hell-bent on ruining (or at least ‘structuring’) every member of this clique’s life. Why? Because of Gossip Girl’s “pure” “unselfish” motives, of course.
And, yes, that’s another curveball, by the way. Remember when we had to wait six seasons just to find out who Gossip Girl was and did not find out because Dan Humphrey still does not make sense?
This time we won’t have to wait because we find out in the first half of the episode who Gossip Girl is—a group of teachers who are being ‘bullied’ by the main clique in question and are struggling to reclaim their power over the student body.
Characters
So with all of that drama laid out in the first episode, the characters must be pretty interesting, right?
Well, that depends on how you see it really. See, if you really focus, you can see that every character kind of represents an older, original character, though they’re a little tweaked.
First we have Julien, who’s actually pretty interesting as a character, even if she’s set on being the Blair-ish Serena of this series. As an influencer who’s hooked on looks but is actually perfectly sweet in real life, it’s clear this character is going to show us a thing or two about hiding who you really are for the world as well as struggling with family.
For the others, we have Obie (aka the new Nate) who feels extremely guilty about the effects of his parents’ jobs on working class people and tries to help any way he can. We also have Luna and Monet, who (so far) are only mean for the sake of being mean and overprotective.
Interestingly, we have Akeno, Audrey, and Max, who are set up to recreate the Carla-Polo-Christian storyline from season one of Elite (yes, really), as well as the teachers, who all struggle to complete their duty of teaching their students and drilling into them important values…so they resort to anonymously blackmailing and kinda-cyberbullying them online. Makes sense.
Our thoughts, so far
So, here’s the thing. As of the time we’re writing this, only the pilot has been aired. And, sure, that is one long pilot and it’s done in a way that pretty much gives away most of the plot points for this season, but it’s still only a pilot and we just don’t know where this season is going to literally take us.
So far, the plot of Gossip Girl is entertaining and we can’t say it fell short on that end. When it comes to questions (like, why the hell are the teachers beefing with sixteen year-olds), though, we have a lot.
And that’s what’s going to make Gossip Girl the perfect thing to watch, either because you’re curious or you’re ready to hate-watch.
