The Good, The Bad, and The Obie

Let’s talk Gossip Girl (2021)

The Good, The Bad, and The Obie.

Let’s Talk Gossip Girl (2021) 

[Trigger Warnings: Mentions of sexual assault, grooming, drug use, and suicide. I will not go into detail on any of these topics, but they are mentioned because they are plotlines in the show.]

Enough time has passed, we have to admit that the Gossip Girl reboot was not that good. 

In honor of Season 2 of Gossip Girl (2021) coming to a living room near you on December 1st, I thought it would be a perfect time to air my grievances about the first season. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve been seeing me complain about the direction that this reboot took. I genuinely believe that it has potential, but there’s so much that could’ve been done – specifically in the first six episodes – to make it ten times better than it is. 

Gossip Girl (2007) changed my life when I was 13, for better and for worse. For the worst, Chuck Bass negatively impacted my taste in men from ages 14-17. For the better, besides Santana Lopez from Glee, you all have Blair Waldorf to thank for my wit. 

I remember being so into it that I wrote my own version of it with Black girls and sent my friend the chapters. She was so kind to read that monstrosity. Actually, it was a mix of Gossip Girl and Lisi Harrison’s The Clique. I called them The Diamond Divas, it was disgusting. 

If you’re here and you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll be honest, I don’t think you’re going to have a good time reading this. But I’ll be nice and offer you a description. Spoiler warning, obviously, for both Gossip Girl (2007) and Gossip Girl (2021). 

In 2007, a teen drama television series based on a book series written by Cecily Von Ziegsar named Gossip Girl aired on The CW network. It was about a faceless blogger who revealed secrets about teens living on the Upper East Side in New York City. It aired for six seasons and ended in December of 2012. 

Gossip Girl (2007) is a cultural classic, if you bring it up around a group of people someone is going to know what you’re talking about and have lots of big opinions. Whether they’re Team Serena or Team Blair, whether they shipped Derena or Serenate, or whether they thought the eventual reveal of Gossip Girl made perfect sense or no sense at all (the correct answer is no sense at all) there’s always a conversation to be had even 10 years later. Even if that conversation is just – “You’ve never seen Gossip Girl!?”

When the news first hit Twitter that a new modern version of Gossip Girl was in the works, I’ll admit I was very intrigued and kind of excited. It’s always a risk to reboot something so beloved, but I had faith that it could be done. I still have faith, even with all the problems I can see the potential that Gossip Girl (2021) has to grow moving forward. But in order for growth, we must address the issues.

HBO Max was a very smart platform to put this show on, I don’t think a modern version of Gossip Girl would’ve worked if it was a Netflix original series. But also in terms of the writing, releasing a new episode weekly instead of putting the entire season out for an audience to binge was the show's saving grace (I don’t think it was intentional), because the space between episodes helped distract me from the pacing issues. Now that I’ve binged it, I know that if I were to come across it later than everyone else and started watching for the first time…. I probably wouldn’t have finished it. 

To be fair, this also could be because I was viewing it from a more critical lens this time around. But then again, the love triangle was enough to make me want to axe this issue altogether because I just couldn’t take the unnecessary drama. And when I say unnecessary, I mean like it literally has no payoff. 

I am of the opinion that a lot of the time, unnatural quick-pacing television has become normalized because of the death of the 22-episode-per-season era. But I’ve definitely seen good seasons of television that only had 10 episodes, I think it’s all about how the pacing feels. The pacing in the GG reboot feels empty and packed all at the same time. Mind you, this is a 12-episode season with an average episode run time of 50 minutes, time that could’ve been spent wisely. 

While I could spend this entire issue complaining about every little thing I didn’t like about the GG reboot, I don’t think that’s an enjoyable experience for anybody. Well, I would enjoy it, I love complaining. But I don’t think it would be an enjoyable reading experience for anybody. So instead, we’re going to discuss what I liked about Gossip Girl (2021), what I didn’t like, and what I would change if I was in the writers’ room. 

Disclaimer: I am NOT a professional writer by any means nor do I think I am a better writer than the writers tied to this show.  This issue of my newsletter is my second time publishing my writing for the public, please do not take this seriously. In fact, if you disagree I encourage you to tell me what you would do instead because I like reading other people’s thoughts. Please remember to unclench and have fun. 

Starting with what I liked. I feel like the GG reboot highlights the spectacles of New York elite life very well. Especially how it’s changed in the last decade compared to the original. I enjoy how sleek and curated everything is, particularly since this Gossip Girl is happening during the age of social media. Speaking of that, Gossip Girl being an Instagram account was such a good decision, I genuinely believe reviving the blog would’ve made the viewing numbers go down. When’s the last time you’ve even heard someone say the word blog? (No offense to the Tumblr girlies, I’m sure you hear it all the time but that’s just not my ministry.) 

Their dedication to the social media of it all is something I will always give them credit for. Everything is pretty current, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a teen focus group, other shows should definitely take notes (I’m unfortunately looking at you Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin). When Zoya showed Obie’s mother pictures of her and Obie from a #Zobie fan page, I audibly cackled.

The only mistake I can say they made there was having Gossip Girl post that Zoya was getting evicted on her STORY? This is not Deuxmoi, get it together.

The absolute best decision that the casting directors made was hiring Thomas Doherty to play Max Wolfe. His performance delivers a level of depth that the writing consistently fails to bring all on its own. During a lot of the scenes, I would catch myself wishing I was seeing more of him and his dads. That plotline is easily one of my favorites and the most memorable. I wish it wasn’t intertwined with the pedophile teacher but trust me, we’ll get to that. 

I do really think they have a lot of the campy fun moments that the original had down. Like the Thanksgiving episode is a lot of fun! Rafa blackmailing Kate and the other teacher, I don’t know his name or care to learn it. Aki and his mom trying to figure out what Obie’s goddamn problem is (same) while Julien, Obie, and Audrey try to keep Zoya from finding out that Julien and Obie cheated. Max’s dads fighting in front of everyone. Aki revealing that he, Audrey, and Max slept together. It’s all very entertaining! I laughed a lot. 

Plus the reveal that Julien’s dad locked Zoya’s dad out of the room while their mom was DYING? GAGGED ME. Like my jaw dropped.

I love Zoya. I’d like to think of her as the redemption Jenny Humphrey never got. All of my critiques of Zoya are of the plot lines she's involved in, and us failing to just see her as a character more than an extension of Obie and Julien. Or the manifestation of Kate’s guilt. Other than that I think she’s cute and sweet and I can’t wait to see where Season 2 takes her.

I love the costume design. The biggest problem of the original Gossip Girl was the outfits. How could I ever take Blair and Serena seriously as IT girls if they dressed like the clerks at Bloomingdales and Bergdorf’s wanted to see them fail? They did slay occasionally, but to be an IT girl you must slay consistently. When the Monet De Haan and Luna La pictures dropped on the timeline, my immediate thought was, finally they’re dressing like they give a damn.

Strong and Independent 

Broke Ass 

Even though I’m going to complain about the friendship dynamics later on, Audrey and Julien’s friendship is something I enjoy. They genuinely do feel like best friends who have known each other since they were babies. When Audrey finds out Julien slept with Obie (spoiler alert for episode 7 of the Gossip Girl reboot) the way that they freak out together and she tries to convince Julien to get back with him is such an adorable scene. It’s one of my favorites.

I almost feel like the most interesting things about this show are the things that are the side plots, like Audrey’s mom being addicted to drugs and alcohol and attempting suicide. (The way they glossed over that is so strange.) Zoya feeling like she killed her mom and Julien resenting her mom for leaving, the small moments of friendship between Max and Luna, Audrey and Julien, and Max and Julien. All of these things make me invested but they’re reduced to throwaway lines or small scenes that are set up for the bigger plot... But the bigger plot doesn’t feel like it’s worth anything. 

And it’s fine if you disagree with that, I know that we’re currently in our “Let people have fun.” era of media but something that I know about myself is that I’m always more into character-driven plots than anything else. I’d rather have insight into what could lead to a character doing something and why they would do it rather than just watching drama unfold for absolutely no reason. I’d like to be able to answer the question “Why is Julien acting like this?” with a profound answer.

Okay now for my dislikes, a much longer list than my likes. I’m sorry but I did warn you that I was a complainer after all. 

A lot of my issues are in the first six episodes of the series. I do genuinely enjoy the back half, if for no other reason except that it’s a lot of fun. The first six episodes feel like they drag on because I don’t think we get enough character lead-in to give a damn what happens to any of them.

I do realize the point is to enter the characters' lives amid their separate chaos, and don’t get me wrong, I do think jumping into a character's story without an “introduction” can be valuable as a storytelling tactic. The fondest example I have of this is the pilot of Succession. When the Roy’s all come together for their father’s birthday party, the story feels lived in, they feel like siblings and father and child, I can clearly see the dynamics between each character. 

Even with the original Gossip Girl, we jump right into the height of everything. Between the drama with Blair, Serena, and Nate, Eric being admitted to a mental hospital after attempting suicide, and Dan and Jenny’s parents just getting divorced – there is so much going on but I felt like I was watching someone’s life. 

To me, the GG reboot doesn't feel lived in, it feels rushed. I feel like someone put a bunch of people in front of a camera and tried to gaslight me into believing that I was watching someone’s real life even though I just watched them call action. 

Apparently, the kids in the reboot were supposed to be friends since they were babies, but like I mentioned before, the only characters I sense that in are Audrey and Julien. But everyone else feels like new friends, like they just met each other in freshman year. Luna and Monet feel like they don’t even know the others and they only hang out with everyone because of Julien. Max and Luna feel like they have a bond but it doesn’t seem like it goes deeper than keeping each other's secrets. Max as a character doesn’t even feel like he understands platonic relationships in the first place, there isn’t a character in the group he hasn’t flirted with– besides Obie but like….I wouldn’t either. 

Jumpscare!

When Zoya steps into Constance Billard for the first time, we’re supposed to feel as if something has shifted. But truthfully, I don’t. I barely know these people, they already seem unhappy around each other. And Obie immediately going after her just feels like he’s an asshole, boringggggg. We’ve seen this before! Is this supposed to feel more mind-blowing than Serena and Nate cheating on Blair because Zoya is Julien’s sister and not her best friend? It doesn’t! There’s so much more between Julien and Zoya than some boy! Their mother abandoned Julien and got with Zoya’s father, where’s the resentment that Julien projects onto Zoya for being the family their mother wanted? There’s already a level of playing the victim that Julien does but her character feels so unsure like they don’t know who they want her to be. She constantly does things or cosigns things that Luna and Monet want her to do and then immediately apologizes because “it’s not her”... But it kinda seems like it is. I wish that they would lean into that, secret anger issues and vicious actions that she tries to deny she does. Like Dark Betty in Riverdale Season 1 (except to be fair, I don’t think Betty ever really denied that part of herself, and before the Riverdale fans try to cast a dark spell on me because I know y’all do that over there, I have never watched past the first season and I watched it while it was airing in 2017.)

I already see a lot of Serena Van Der Woodsen in her and I guess it is true to the Serena Van Der Woodsen way to throw stones and hide your hands (sorry to all my Serena truthers, but you have to admit she plays the victim) but Julien’s story is so much more than that. Julien not being able to see the error of her ways because she sees herself as a victim of Zoya’s mere existence makes way more sense to me than her constantly getting “manipulated” by Luna, Monet, and Gossip Girl every single episode. Like girl, you fell for it again? 

The love triangle between them and Obie could be way more impactful if I knew why either of them liked him or why he liked either of them. To me, it feels like he only likes Zoya because he thought they could be performative together and I really couldn’t tell you why he liked Julien besides their history which we never even saw or understood in the first or back half of the season. And as for them liking him, I would give up my firstborn baby to understand what appeal they see, truly. 

I have an issue with Luna and Monet. Wait! Put the pitchforks down! I love them. They’re so funny and I would gladly watch them have an attitude for no reason any time. However, they’re capable of so much more than that. For example, I wish we knew why they were so invested in Julien’s career. I would’ve loved to see more of Luna and Monet benefiting from perks, getting into parties, accumulating some of Julien’s followers, etc. so when Julien starts faltering and going “clean” their irritation doesn’t feel like it’s for no reason. I am very aware that I am saying this knowing we’re going into Season 2 and will be seeing Monet’s takeover (I assume based on how we closed out Season 1, at the moment that I am writing this we have gotten no trailer) but I wish that we would’ve seen deeper into her mind. For someone so smart and so cunning, why doesn’t she feel like she could achieve Julien’s career on her own? Why are the only options for her Zoya and Julien as top dog? Seeing a level of insecurity in her would’ve helped me understand why she was so affected when Julien didn’t behave the way she wanted her to. 

I am an advocate for a villain that’s just bad, no sob story, no dead parents– just bad. But Monet’s character feels very one dimensional, the only reason I’m rooting for her to take over from Julien is that Savannah Smith is very gorgeous and talented and Julien has done absolutely nothing in her reign. I would also like to see some drama that means something and I think they can achieve that with this storyline. I just would’ve preferred some buildup. 

I’m not going to spend a lot of time complaining about the teachers, I think it’s all been said. It’s creepy. The notion that Gossip Girl is whipping disrespectful students into shape and making them more interested in school is just not believable, considering Audrey and Zoya are the only two I’ve ever seen with a book. They keep saying that their “experiment” is making a difference but they’ve never shown any inkling of that, the students still look at Kate like she’s a nuisance every time she’s around. And Kate and the rest of the Losers Squad are taking up valuable time that could be used to develop other more important characters. Like why do I know so much about Kate Keller and Nick Lott being into each other, not only do I not care, it’s boring! 

I have a lot of issues with the OG Gossip Girl reveal, but here’s the thing, the greatest thing you can do with your reboot is be better than the original. It’s never been done before, but that’s why it’s so exciting to try. How did you achieve being more creepy than Dan Humphrey’s Gossip Girl? I didn’t think that could ever be done. 

I would just like to take this time to point out that I am anti-Dan Humphrey being Gossip Girl, it made more sense to make it Eric. The second they changed the plot the story fell apart. No, I don’t believe Jenny Humphrey was okay with Gossip Girl telling everyone she slept with Chuck. Are you kidding me? Do you guys remember that time that Jenny’s boyfriend was cheating on her with Eric? Doesn’t it make more sense that Eric posted that so that the boyfriend could claim him instead of Dan posting it and Jenny being like “Oh no sure that’s fine, destroy the popularity I worked so hard for.” Like HELLO?

Anyway, back to the point.     

I think two of my biggest issues with Kate and Obie are that the writers don’t think that these characters are bad people. Because they’re being conveyed as two of the characters who are most socially and politically aware (besides Zoya), they’re supposed to be better than everyone else. Kate is actively exploiting minors but at least she feels guilty and other teachers seem to be worse than her. Obie gaslights and manipulates both Zoya and Julien, is a performative activist, and ices out his best friend for not coming out to him when he got outed. But it’s clear Obie just wants to be loved and is lashing out because of his intimidating mom. I would think that the writers know what they’re doing is wrong, but I’m constantly being put in the position where I think I’m supposed to be feeling sympathy or feel like at least these characters are nice... But I don’t. They suck. And it’s okay if they suck. 

This feels like a perfect time to bring up Rafa, our resident groomer. He won’t participate in Gossip Girl to expose teens, but he will sleep with them though! After surviving through Ezria, I was so annoyed to see a teacher/student plotline in another piece of media I was watching. It is arguably the worst, most embarrassing, revolting trope to exist on the planet. I know that some people had faith that during the first few episodes of the show, Rafa was going to reject Max and it was going to be a reversal of the popular trope we all hate. But I knew it wasn’t going to be that, I knew that he was trying to get Max to approach him so he could claim to be baited and pressured into being in a relationship with a teenager. 

It’s just so irritating because it was unnecessary. Max’s struggle with his parents and his clear issues with intimacy is far more intriguing than watching him get groomed and having nothing satisfying happen to the perpetrator. And yes, I do think that Max’s intimacy issues did have a hand in Rafa manipulating him, but I feel like that could’ve easily been conveyed in a toxic relationship with someone his age. As far as the throuple goes, I am very intrigued to see what happens but I didn't feel like their dynamics changed as far as their friendship, because it felt like they were never really friends in the first place. Like they try to sell to me that the reason that Max can’t have casual sex anymore is that he’s had sex with two of his best friends and now he has feelings for them. But since when are they best friends? Audrey doesn’t even seem to like him as a person, being with him just seems like something she wants to try.

I will be honest I do see the chemistry between Aki and Max, but I do have a special bone to pick with Aki’s character. 

How can I put this nicely… Evan Mock’s performance as Aki Menzies is hollow at best. I hear it’s because they begged him to be a part of this show, but at least get him an acting class! I don’t mean to be nasty, but his performance took me out of a lot of scenes. It’s sad really, because of how Aki is written, he would be one of my favorites. I love a sweet boy who texts his father just to say hello. There’s so much potential within his storylines with Audrey and Max. And especially within his exploring his sexuality but his lack of connection to the lines he’s saying and the things that Aki is supposed to be feeling is distracting. It’s crazy because they give him some of the funniest lines and he just delivers them with empty eyes. 

So now let’s do a quick recap of the things that I would change because I do feel like I got into it a bit while I was complaining. One of my favorite things to do is to talk to my friends about different routes shows and movies could’ve taken, so again, this is just for fun! I am not a professional. 

Starting with where we spend our time, I would scratch the entire teacher plot to start. I don’t know if I would prefer knowing who Gossip Girl is or having there be a big reveal at the end, but I do know I would prefer it not to be literal adults. In the original, Gossip Girl being the narrator worked, she moved the plot along. I didn’t need to know who was behind it, I liked the feeling of seeing the characters do something bad and having everyone in the room's phones go off. 

I’m not a big fan of love triangles but I think the way to do the one between Obie, Zoya, and Julien would be to start the first couple of episodes and keep Julien and Obie together. I think I would’ve enjoyed seeing the resentment grow between them and then also watching him fall for Zoya in the process. That way I’d also get a gauge of why he even liked Julien enough to want to go back to her later on. 

In the pilot, Obie also mentions to Julien that the way she’s been acting isn’t her. Monet and Luna constantly are begging Julien to return to how things were. I think we should’ve gotten to see that. The impact Julien had on the school, on social media, and how her and Obie’s relationship dynamic was originally. That way I would’ve felt a shift between the group and between her and Obie when Zoya comes to school. 

I would’ve liked to see Julien and Zoya fight over something real. As I mentioned before, resentment because of their mother that Julien feels she can only project onto Zoya because their mother is gone. People starting to shine the spotlight on Zoya and Julien being envious. That way when Julien starts sabotaging her, there’s meaning behind it and when they finally reconcile and build a friendship it’s more impactful. 

Unfortunately, it’s too late to call for a recast of Aki seeing as Season 2 was already filmed, but I will say if I watch that season and he’s still delivering lines the same I will become very nasty! 

I think the last thing I would change is how the characters are presented, but luckily I do think this is something that can be fixed in Season 2. I think getting more insight into who the characters are as people is essential for the audience to feel connected and invested in the story. Drama that comes out of nowhere can only work for so long. But like I said I do believe that this show has a lot of potential and I will be seated on December 1st when it airs. 

To complain or to praise? We’ll see.