Hey, purveyors of the world wide web—Gossip Girl here. What do you get when you mix the romantic lives of rich parents and the premiere of a Jeremy O. Harris play? Mess. That’s what. Read on for our thoughts on last week’s episode, but don’t forget: no eating, speaking, or direct eye contact will be tolerated.
Kelli: So, this episode is pretty different from the first two episodes of this season, which I think we both agree is a good thing. We are still dealing with some of the dynamics of social media and online popularity, particularly with Zoya’s plotline, and the teachers are still Gossip Girl and it’s still stupid, BUT… this episode revolves around one climactic event that sees almost all of the characters in the same location, each of them wrapped up in their own interpersonal drama. What did you think of this episode as compared to the rest of the season so far?
Emily: If I had to rate this episode, I would give it three XOXO’s out of five. So XOX? The first episode was, like, XO. The second was X. Just a quick peck.
But seriously. This was the best episode so far because it was less about all the social media BS. Yeah, we had Julien at the beginning going out with every rich dude she could get her hands on so she could look cooler on social media. But she pretty quickly learned this was dumb as hell, thank goodness. I was really worried this was going to be a thing. But it’s almost like Gossip Girl heard my feedback from episode 2 and directly took action in episode 3, so I can’t really fault this episode for much.
You also make a good point that here we’ve got that model episode where everything culminates in a big event that everyone in New York City attends. Which is just wild to me because it’s Manhattan and there are a bajillion things going on, but yes, everyone is at that same play on the same night. Totally unbelievable, but also totally a staple of the original Gossip Girl, so this felt like a return to form.
Kelli: I want to focus a little bit on Max in particular, and the situation with his parents. Last night, I was talking with a friend about this episode, and they pointed out that this felt like a surprisingly specific and well-done representation of a certain type of relationship dynamic in the queer space. Max’s dads have been together for many years, but Max discovers that one of them is on gay dating app Scruff and lists himself as “newly single.” Max devises a plan to expose his dad’s cheating and things unravel accordingly, but it’s the issue at the center of this relationship that I found to be pretty interesting and something I haven’t seen a lot of on television.
Essentially, Max’s dad Roy (who’s name I just looked up because I didn’t necessarily want to refer to him as Cheater Dad) is feeling less attracted to Gideon (The Cooler Dad), and it’s pretty clear that the reason for this is that over the years, Gideon has begun to embrace a more “feminine” side of himself — he likes to wear dresses and makeup, he has his hair long, etc. Towards the end of the episode, they have an argument where Roy says that Gideon has changed so much since they first got together, to which Gideon replies “I have grown, you’re the one who’s changed.” This is complicated, and while I think the show ultimately sides with Gideon here, I think the writers do a decent job handling this carefully and leaving some room for nuance.
Emily: I agree. I’m also much more interested in hearing about these parents’ stories vs. the teacher’s stories. So Gossip Girl, if we’re going to do adults, put your focus here. Again, this is something that the original Gossip Girl did well, incorporating the parents’ stories into the show without having them take over (usually). The parents and their complex lives tell us more about their children as well.
Kelli: Yes, knowing about this relationship dynamic gives us more insight into Max as a character. Since he is sort of the Chuck Bass stand-in, they could have easily gone down the same boring “my dad is rich and doesn’t love me” route to explain his behavior, but something like this is way more interesting to me. I also really liked that he essentially broke down after what he caused between his parents, and even that he ended up sharing that moment with his teacher; I think that was the show’s way of reminding us that Max isn’t just a sex-obsessed drug-addled caricature of a person. He is a teenage boy. Despite the fact that he DOES NOT look it, he suddenly seems so much younger than before.
Emily: Yeah, and that makes Max way more interesting. Finally. In episode 3, he becomes a character and not New Chuck. We hated Chuck the first time, and we didn’t want a new one.
Kelli: Now that we’re past my favorite thing about the episode, let’s get into some… other things. Alongside Max’s Dad Dilemma, Julien is also dealing with her dad’s secrets. How did you feel about the way this all went down?
Emily: Julien’s anger about this made less sense to me because… her dad is single? Like it’s totally understandable why a parent would maybe want to keep his dating life and his family life separate, at least until he knew it was pretty serious. The whole second apartment thing was a bit much, but he’s rich so I guess it’s NBD. Unless I’m missing something?
I also want to note that Julien’s dad’s girlfriend is played by Elizabeth Lail, the actress who played Guinevere Beck in the first season of You. Who else stars in You? Penn Badgley, AKA the original Gossip Girl Dan Humphrey. Gossip Girl worlds colliding!
Whoa…..
Kelli: Yeah, I agree, and I felt like it was rude of Julien to fuck with her dad’s new girlfriend the way she does here because none of this is Elizabeth Lail’s fault. But at the end of the episode Julien and her dad make up, which seems to be a running theme. I can only assume we are going to get more of this girlfriend since she is played, after all, by an established actress.
Emily: We’ve obviously got to talk about this teacher storyline too. In this episode, Gossip Girl is *gasp* almost found out! Apparently parents are complaining about Gossip Girl snooping on their kids, and they’re pressuring administration to get to the bottom of what’s happening. This brought up a lot of questions for me about the original Gossip Girl. Namely, why did this never happen in the original Gossip Girl? Did these parents just not care that someone was putting all of their children on blast? Or were they just not as aware? What was the deal there?
Kelli: That is a great question. I guess maybe they were less aware? I don’t know. I can’t rationalize this, or anything about this dumb plot.
Emily: So anyway, the teachers start freaking out that Gossip Girl is going to be found out, so they decide the only way to get these investigators off their backs is to point the finger at someone else. How did we feel about this development, and why do we still not care?
Kelli: Yeah, all that this did was make me hate these teachers more. One of them decides she doesn’t really want to be involved anymore, and the rest of them manipulate her into making “her own choice” to post something on GG while at the school, which gets her caught by the FBI-level investigative team (???) that the parents have hired to get to the bottom of Gossip Girl. The computer science teacher is like, “oopsie, I guess the firewall I built wasn’t as strong as I thought,” but really he turned it off intentionally so that she would be caught. Then they’re like, “oh, we’re now getting tips sent in from other places, so we’re going global and we’ll be untraceable.” I genuinely do not understand what this even means, but luckily I don’t care. These teachers are desperate and boring, and none of their drama is intersecting with the student drama in any meaningful way at this point, which just makes them feel like they are on their own separate and worse version of this show. I hope this season ends with them surrendering Gossip Girl to the students, tbh.
Emily: I guess we also need to talk about this play they all go see. Aaron. I have feelings. Like I feel like whoever wrote this episode doesn’t go to very much theater but really wanted to sound like they do. At one point, they have Zoya going on and on about theater in a speech that I think is supposed to sound really smart and impressive. But she says “revisal” instead of “revival.” How did no one catch that? Or did no one in this whole production know what word to use?
Kelli: Yeah, that was dumb, but honestly it makes more sense to me that a 14-year-old girl wouldn’t know the word “revival” than it does that she would know anywhere near this much about theater. She is fourteen. I was also “into theater” when I was fourteen, which meant that I knew all the words to the RENT soundtrack. This is also a good time to mention that Aaron is staged at the Public Theatre, which is where Emily and I went to see a production of Hamlet and met OSCAR ISAAC and KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY. I’m sorry, but I had to say something.
Emily: Sweet memories!
Kelli: I guess we can touch on Zoya’s plot this episode, even though I think it was pretty weak. One of Julien’s minions, Luna (I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve heard her name), starts the hashtag #Zugly which is really just online bullying 101. People are posting pics of Zoya doing terrible and disgusting things such as eating or laughing in public, and calling her ugly and gross and poor. Some of this felt… kind of racist? Which was odd, considering Luna, her fellow minion, and Julien are all also women of color. I guess in their case it was more classist, but we can only assume that a lot of the other students engaging in these targeted attacks are white, and that felt gross. But then again, I am also a white person, so what do I know.
Emily: I’m also just like… in what world is Zoya ugly even when she’s eating and laughing? Impossible.
Kelli: Zoya tries to go along with Luna’s suggestions to make her the new It Girl, but after trying not to eat in public or have opinions for one full night at this play, she’s over it and back to herself. This whole thing sparks a conversation between Zoya and Obie about his treatment of Julien and whether it’s fair of him to blame her for “losing herself” when he was also pressuring Julien with his own expectations, and he and Julien share a moment of closure and forgiveness at the end of the episode that I didn’t really care about because Obie is boring and lame.
Emily: I can’t wait for Obie to be revealed as the total fuckboy he would be in real life if this were a real person. In other words, Obie is worse than boring. He’s a boring privileged white man. Do not care.
Kelli: I want to go back to Luna for a second, because I am starting to have real issues with her and minion #2, who is named Monet, which I only know because sometimes I get instagram ads from the HBO Gossip Girl instagram and one of them has her name on it. While we are getting more information and backstory about all of the other characters on the show, I still know next to nothing about Luna and Monet other than the fact that they are evil, and that Monet is into girls.
Emily: I totally forgot that because that’s how little I care about Monet.
Kelli: In this episode, she is basically making out with some chick in the background while Luna plots Zoya’s destruction, which felt like an odd choice. It is okay to have unlikable characters, but so far these two are hardly characters at all. Their dialogue is the most affected of anyone on the show—to the point where I barely understand what they’re talking about because of how much unnecessary wordplay they’re using—and their only motive for all of the shit they’re stirring seems to be keeping Julien popular on Instagram, and themselves by extension. With Julien, we see her struggling with her outer life and inner life, public versus private, but Luna and Monet don’t seem to have any inner lives at all, and that is a problem. I don’t understand their motives because I don’t understand anything about who they are, and it’s really starting to irk me.
Emily: Right, and at this point I can’t think of any backstory that would make any of the things they’re doing or saying okay or understandable on any level. So they’re just cardboard cut-out evil characters. It’s 2021 and tv viewers expect better.
Wait who are these people?
Kelli: Finally, things come to a head (get it) with Aki and Audrey this episode, because during Max’s post-show drug binge, he reveals the secrets they have been keeping from each other re: their relationship with Max. At the end of the episode, they make up again, but things are clearly not normal between them. When do we think this threesome is going to happen? Mid-season finale?
Emily: I’m getting real Nate and Blair vibes from Aki and Audrey. Just, like, if Nate had pink hair and was queer. But these are two people who have been dating for so long they don’t really know how not to date each other. But there’s also zero sexual chemistry between them. So maybe there will be a threesome, or maybe it’ll just get to the point where these two just stop having sex with each other altogether. I could see it going either way. Or maybe both things will happen. Threesome and then no sex ever again. Only time will tell!
See you next week, Upper East Siders!