Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gossip Girl’ On HBO Max, A Reboot of the Salacious CW Drama That Started It All

Can you believe it’s been a decade and change since the original Gossip Girl premiered on The CW? It’s been a while since our favorite pot-stirring blogger signed off with her signature “XOXO”, but the Gossip Girl reboot, now streaming on HBO Max, is here to prove she’s alive and well. So welcome back, Upper East Siders. It’s been a minute, but we’re back with addictive updates about the lives of the elite students of Constance Billard and allllll the drama that follows them. 

GOSSIP GIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Subway trains move along the tracks in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Gist: Zoya Lott (Whitney Peak) is new at Constance Billard. The theater-loving freshman, who is attending the elite school on scholarship, seems to be dreading meeting her half-sister, Queen Bee Julien (Jordan Alexander). While the two lie to everyone (including family) that they don’t know each other, it turns out that the duo has been excitedly plotting this move for months. Despite the sisters’ best attempts to stick to their plan, things quickly go awry, however, forcing the duo apart in ways neither of them could have anticipated. It is Constance Billard, after all. What were the chances of having a quiet, drama-free start to the year?

As everyone returns to school after a long period of Zoom classes and quarantine, it’s clear that it’s going to be an interesting year – to say the least. Julien and her friend group – including her sweet boyfriend Obie (Eli Brown), Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind), Max (Thomas Doherty), Luna (Zión Moreno), and Monet (Savannah Lee Smith) – run Constance Billard, and they run the teachers, too, making these educators’ lives something of a personal hell. These teachers, including Ms. Keller (Tavi Gevinson), try their best to stay optimistic (Keller believes they’re supposed to send them out into the world as Barack Obamas, rather than Brett Kavanaughs), but in a world where they’re fired for not changing grades to make parents happy, they find themselves with few choices. When one staff member – and Constance Billard alum – informs them about Gossip Girl, the “Orwellian big sister” who terrorized students back in the day, it seems like they may have found a way to take the power back.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The obvious comparison here is the series’ original iteration, The CW’s Gossip Girl, and it may also bring to mind more recent series like Euphoria, Elite, and even The Bold Type on occasion.

Our Take: The magic of the original Gossip Girl was that it owned the absolute absurdity of its melodrama and the fact that its characters were all pretty terrible people at their cores. We still rooted for them despite their rotten hearts and materialistic values. That was the fun of it all! It was rich little brats being bitches to each other, totally unaware of their privilege and everything it afforded them. Even with its utterly nonsensical ending, Gossip Girl was a helluva ride, providing all the deranged drama, ill-advised love affairs, and underaged drinking one could ask for. Gossip Girl worked because it was ruthless and ridiculous. Everyone was horrible. It was a blast.

Gossip Girl 2.0 is trying to avoid all of the things that made the original series great (and bonkers), and some of it works. The biggest – and most intelligent – change the series makes is revealing the identity of the big bad blogger from the beginning. Rather than going down the whodunnit road, Gossip Girl explores the whydunnit of it all, putting a vengeance-seeking team behind the blog, which has been reborn as a subject-tagging Instagram page. The inciting incident for the page’s rebirth may be a little eye roll-inducing, but once it gets moving, it kind of works. Another thing the new series gets right? Its love of all things fashion and trending. Much like its predecessor, the new GG splurges on designer gowns, top-of-the-line handbags, and, yes, the most fabulous shoes the world has to offer.

While the new Gossip Girl‘s cast may not be as dazzling as the young ensemble of 2007 – you really can’t beat the star power we had in Blake Lively and Leighton Meester – this fresh group of faces still holds their own. It’s fun to see the new iterations of our favorite characters; there’s Queen Bee Julien (Jordan Alexander), who reigns with equal parts bitchiness and kindness à la Blair Waldorf, bisexual playboy Max Wolfe (Thomas Doherty, doing a note-for-note impression of Ed Westwick’s Chuck Bass), Zola (Whitney Peak) or “Little Z”, our heiress apparent of both Jenny Humphrey and pot-stirrer Serena van der Woodsen, and Obie (Eli Brown), the progressive, protesting lovechild of Dan Humphrey and Nate Archibald. Similarities noted, however, it’s hard not to feel like these characters lack the teeth of their predecessors, but only time will tell. Gossip Girl may not really know what it’s doing quite yet, but I have to admit, hearing Kristen Bell dole out the drama again is a balm for my soul (and will likely be for many others).

Sex and Skin: There’s some steamy under-the-covers sex between one couple, some covert cunnilingus, and a drug-fueled club threesome make out, but not much else. (Don’t worry, there’s lots more ahead).

Parting Shot: The little screen in her hands illuminates Ms. Keller’s face as she admires the work they’ve done so far and the power they’ve taken back. “XOXO, Gossip Girl.”

Sleeper Star: The ensemble is incredibly solid, but stylist/best friend Luna – played by Zión Moreno – weaseled her way into my heart with her deadpan one-liners and queen bitch demeanor. When she’s not pointedly moving a makeup brush across Julien’s face, she’s reducing teachers to tears or eating up lines like “Ever heard of Shakespeare? Succession? The Bible?”. I can’t wait to see what the rest of this season holds for this scene-stealing clique member.

Most Pilot-y Line: Much of the pilot is extremely exposition-heavy, perhaps for the new audience with no prior knowledge of Constance Billard and the lives of Manhattan’s elite. The dialogue – particularly in the first half of the episode – feels so much like they’re spoon-feeding us it’s painful. “Constance Billard is one of the top 10 private schools in the country, with one of the best arts programs,” Zoya tells her father, who blabs back something else about how they got there and what they’re doing. There’s obviously a need for information in pilots, but background dumps like this are a little less than graceful.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The new Gossip Girl may be a bit more self-serious than its predecessor, but the pilot and all its melodramatic moving parts sets us up for some truly delicious drama ahead.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Watch Gossip Girl on HBO Max