SPOTTED: A group of high school teachers who look to be the same age as their students, if not younger. It’s parent-teacher conference time, Upper East Siders. And for some reason I, Gossip Girl, care about parent-teacher conferences. Could it be because I am a teacher? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. You know you love me. XOXO Kate Keller. I mean Gossip Girl.
Emily: So as we get into the second episode of this Gossip Girl reboot, I think we’re getting a better idea of what this show is and isn’t going to be. And that would be a great thing to explore this week on the blog. The first episode sets up the show, its characters, and the storylines. But the second episode starts to set our expectations. We’re learning the rules of this world and how the characters are going to exist in it. We’re learning about what’s important to these people. I for one feel like I have a firmer grasp on the show’s trajectory. At least for now. If this series is anything like the original, it will go off the rails sooner rather than later.
But for now, what are your thoughts on where the show is going and what we’re seeing develop in this second episode? Are there any things you thought about episode 1 that you changed your mind about in episode 2?
Kelli: Well, I am still firmly not on board with the Teachers-as-Gossip Girl conceit. At the beginning of the episode when we see Kate crafting her next GG post, one of the other teachers is like, “I even had a student raise a hand in class today!” And they’re like, “yeah, they’re so scared of Gossip Girl!” Again: why would these teens have any reason to believe that Gossip Girl cares about whether or not they are speaking up in class or treating teachers well? This makes absolutely no sense.
Emily: Right? Gossip Girl isn’t Santa Claus.
Kelli: She sees you when you’re sleeping.
I will say that I was a little surprised that we so quickly went from the sisters being at war over a boy to being “made up” (I’m sure that will fall apart later)—and especially that Julien gave in so easily just because it seems like Obie was “happier” throwing shit around in an art supply store or whatever with Zoya. It seems like that particular relationship might not be the big dramatic plot point for the rest of the season that I thought it might be, since Obie and Zoya are basically together now.
Emily: Yeah, with shows like this, you usually get a little more push/pull/sexual tension before the lead and the guy she likes finally get together. Think Dan and Serena, right? Zoya is kind of our Dan here.
Kelli: It’s weird, because in a way, Obie is also… Dan?
Emily: We are all Dan. Everyone in this show is Dan.
Kelli: Except for Max, who is obviously Chuck.
Speaking of Max, I was right about my very obvious prediction from last week that the weird threesome energy was going to start up. I care a lot less about Max and Audrey as a pairing; at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that they had sex after her semi-breakup with Aki, and I guess that was supposed to be surprising or something, but I was way more interested in Aki and Max making out at the baths. The sexual tension there is REAL.
iconique
Emily: It seems obvious to me that Max, Audrey, and Aki should just be in a polyamorous relationship with one another. I see no conflict here.
Kelli: Maybe that’s where this is going? A functional polycule on TV? For the first time ever? It seems like Aki is really trying to deny himself the feelings he clearly has for Max, and like he wants to have a normal relationship with Audrey and not deal with whatever sexual identity crisis he is on the verge of. But I’m into him and Max as a couple. Audrey can figure something else out.
Speaking of Audrey, we got a lot more of her this week, back-story-wise. What did you think about her this episode, and where do you think things are going for her re: the revelation at the end of the ep?
Emily: There are so many of these characters whom I feel like I still don’t know. Audrey is one of those. She seems… interesting I guess? Just in that she gives me blonde Blair vibes. But I still look at her and think “Blonde Blair.” I don’t know that I have a picture of her in my mind as a character yet. I still feel like the show tried to introduce too many characters at once. Audrey was one of those that hasn’t stuck with me because of that.
Kelli: Yeah, I feel like they threw everyone in at the beginning and we’ll be getting more character-specific subplots within each episode moving forward. So this week it was Audrey’s turn. I definitely feel like I know her better than the other two girls, who are still complete non-characters in my head. I don’t know their names.
Emily: I’m wondering if they’re going to end up even being characters? They’re feeling more and more like background noise. Especially since they’re just really shitty people.
Kelli: True. I guess they could be like Blair’s two friends in the original GG who just followed her around doing whatever she said. It’s also weird to me that these are Julien’s good friends when Julien seems to have a moral compass of some kind and these two obviously don’t. At least Audrey seems to care a little bit about other human beings? Anyway, we learn that her mom is kind of a mess because she recently got divorced, her clothing line isn’t doing well, and she has a serious drinking problem. Audrey just wants her mom to show up for her. At the end of the episode, Audrey’s mom reveals that her clothing line is finished. She says “Things are going to change around here,” which I can only assume means Audrey is about to be poor. Of course, her dad is still in the picture, so I guess it won’t be that bad for her. God forbid she has to move to Brooklyn. Or worse…. The Upper West Side.
Emily: Yeah, I’m having trouble caring because even with her mom’s failing business, this bitch is still going to be richer than I am. Boo hoo.
Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about another prediction I have based on this episode. To TOTALLY switch gears here. Kate meets Zoya’s father at this parent teacher conference thing, and is it just me or DID SPARKS FLY? These two are going to be a couple.
Kelli: Yeah, I wrote “is this teacher gonna try to fuck Zoya’s dad” in my notes, so I think we are on the same page here.
Emily: Okay, cool. So I didn’t make that up. I’m here for it. Zoya’s dad looks young as hell, by the way. The first time I saw him, I was like, okay we are at the point where I am the parents’ age on these shows. I’m not okay with this.
young dad is young. (via HBO Max)
Kelli: Yeah, he does. It’s weird. But also, a lot of the people playing students on this show are not very much younger than me, so it all evens out in the end. Speaking of Zoya’s dad, I was also surprised that the Dads Finding Out thing came to a head already, since that was the set-up for what seemed like the whole show in the pilot episode. I feel like a lot of the plot threads they introduced in episode one have already reached a climax in episode two, and we have four episodes left for the FIRST HALF of this season. I’m having a hard time figuring out where I think this is going, aside from the few things we’ve mentioned.
Emily: Yeah, there’s Max’s whole flirtation with a teacher thing, which creeped me out so much. But besides that, I feel like that plotline has to be more of a slow burn. There’s no way they can resolve that in the next episode… can they?
Kelli: I certainly fucking hope not. Though part of me wonders if that teacher character was just introduced as a red herring to push things forward between Aki and Max.
Emily: Yeah, that teacher grossed me out TO NO END. I really hope he just goes away. The whole thought of a teacher hooking up with a high school student is just not hot at all. If it does resolve, may it be after Max graduates from high school. Which will be a long time from now.
Kelli: I would like to note that someone at a party referred to that teacher as the “Fuck of New York.” I have nothing to say about this, I just wanted to make sure we knew that this phrase was used.
Emily: I’m so upset about that.
Kelli: One other lingering thread is that Julien briefly thought about exposing Zoya via Gossip Girl in order to get her away from Obie, but after her change of heart she told GG not to give up the dirt, and in exchange got GG verified on instagram to get her follower count up. Obviously, that information about Zoya being kicked out of her previous school is now the Chekhov’s gun of this season. I’m so sorry, Chekhov. I know you didn’t want this.
I will say two positive things that I noted during this episode. Number one, the outfits are getting cuter—mostly on Zoya. Of course the poor girl has the cutest fits. She has to try harder than everyone else. Number two, the music on this show has been pretty good so far. That was something about the original show that also stands out in my memory—it wasn’t all great, but they usually had a decent soundtrack. It feels very current.
Emily: Yes, thank you Gossip Girl for keeping me young and on top of what the kids are listening to these days.
Kelli: There was one point at the party where the song “Put Your Head On My Shoulder” by Paul Anka started playing, which is currently being used as part of a remix in a very popular Tiktok trend. I thought that was funny.
Emily: Okay, yeah. Let’s talk about social media while we’re here. So I normally appreciate the incorporation of social media in television shows and such. But the amount of time these kids worry about their sponsorships on Instagram and their social media brand? It made me really nostalgic for the old Gossip Girl. One of the things that worked for me about the old show is that teens like Serena van der Woodsen weren’t sitting around all day cultivating their image for social media. Serena van der Woodsen was just cluelessly bopping around town being effortlessly charismatic and doing a lot of stupid things because she wasn’t thinking every moment about how it would “look” to her “followers.”
Gossip Girl created online buzz around Serena, Blair, Nate, Chuck, and everyone else. They were too busy being rich and fabulous to create that buzz for themselves. And they didn’t need to. I know it would be unrealistic to make a contemporary show about teens that didn’t factor in social media, but it also took away a lot of the charm of the original show for me. How do you feel about it? Is this just another indication that I’m just an old?
shoutout to these bitches. what are their names? that’s one secret i’ll never tell. (via HBO Max)
Kelli: I mean, I don’t mind it. I think they do a better job with it than some shows that try to incorporate social media. I think it’s realistic that Julien is an influencer, so it’s most important to her out of everyone what she looks like on instagram. It’s really just her freaking out about how many followers she has and her two minions also freaking out about how many followers she has because I can only assume that they have followers by association. I think social media is such an enormous part of being a teenager at this point (or let’s be real, a human being) that it would be impossible to make a show like this without it. I don’t know that I find it any less charming than the original show because looking back, I’m like, was it charming? Or was it just The Moment? Lol.
Emily: I don’t know. I just have trouble caring about “losing followers” or “gaining followers” as a major plot point. It all seems very trite. And yeah, a lot of teen shows are just full of this kind of meaningless shit, but I just cannot bring myself to care about the “tragedy” of losing followers or getting your posts flagged.
Kelli: I mean, that’s entirely fair, but also I don’t think it’s that different than a huge part of Blair’s plot on the original show being whether or not she stays “on top” as the “queen Bee.” It’s just that popularity takes a different form now than it used to. Someone being popular online translates to them being popular in real life, and Gossip Girl as a book series and as the original television series is all about popularity.
Emily: But we don’t see that online popularity manifesting itself as popularity in real life. In that 10 minute span where Julien is maybe losing some followers because she broke up with her boyfriend, she’s still hanging out with all of her friends at the cool parties. She’s still fabulous and rich. It’s very abstract, this kind of online popularity. At least in what we’ve seen on the show.
Kelli: FOR NOW, EMILY.
Emily: Yeah, but I can only based my opinions on what I’ve seen. So far, I give zero shits about Julien’s followers. They’re numbers on a screen and not characters on the show.
Kelli: I get what you’re saying but I guess I just see it differently. I think popularity in either circumstance is hard to care about. I don’t remember really caring about whether or not Blair was on top either. I cared about who was fucking who and, eventually, whether or not Serena killed someone, I guess.
Emily: Yeah but no one has killed anyone yet. Literally half the episode was about followers and losing sponsorships and getting flagged. Like everything that happened on Instagram was more important to the story than what was happening in real life. Is that accurate to our times? Sure. But it’s also not fun to watch. And it’s DEPRESSING AS FUCK.
Kelli: Again, I don’t feel as strongly about it being not fun to watch. But I will say that Myspace and Facebook were big when I was in high school, and the discussions about whether or not you were in more people’s Top 8s or how many friends you had were a big part of that ~social experiment,~ so I guess I find it relatable in a way.
Emily: And yet the original Gossip Girl was on while all of this was happening, and they managed to find ways to make stories outside of who was on Chuck Bass’s Top 8 on MySpace. LOL. Imagine.
Kelli: LOL. Well, things have definitely evolved. Unfortunately.
Emily: EXACTLY.
Kelli: Which I guess is like… if we don’t want to watch that kind of thing, then this show shouldn’t exist. Because I don’t see how it COULD exist without it, at this point in time. And the question of whether or not this show should exist is totally a valid one.
Emily: That also makes me wonder though, speaking of if this should exist, how Gossip Girl could POSSIBLY be relevant in this kind of environment. Because in the original, like I said, all the online buzz about these popular kids was coming from Gossip Girl. Now, teenagers are much more in control of their own narratives and images on social media. Gossip Girl is just one of many voices online, and why would you care about what Gossip Girl said in the sea of voices? Especially when you have your own followers who look to you for what’s true and what isn’t? It just doesn’t make sense. So yeah, in other words, maybe this show shouldn’t exist. LOL.
Kelli: I guess the best thing I can compare it to is an account like @deuxmoi on instagram, which is basically just a celebrity gossip account where people send in anonymous tips about celebs they’ve met and their experiences with those celebs. And you’ll have one person be like “Sarah Jessica Parker is a huge bitch, I served her coffee one time,” and someone else writes in like, “Actually, Sarah Jessica Parker was so sweet and gave me a huge tip when I served her,” and nobody knows what’s real, and yet this account has one million followers.
Emily: IDK I’ve heard Sarah Jessica Parker is a bitch.
Kelli: On that note. Anything else?
Emily: Yeah, I guess overall, I was pretty underwhelmed by this episode.
Kelli: I was underwhelmed except for when Max and Aki were making out. I was whelmed at that point. Briefly.
Emily: I might have been if the creepy naked teacher hadn’t been watching them. Hated that.
Kelli: Good point.
Join us next week, followers. XOXO.
