This article is part of an ongoing series exploring the hit CW teen drama Gossip Girl. Read the first and second parts here and here.
Throughout this series I have referred to the work of Josh Schwartz when discussing the creative impetus of Gossip Girl. It’s a sort of shorthand, a synecdoche if you will, and I by no means want to appear as if I’m neglecting the fine work of the other writers, including co-creator Stephanie Savage and staff writers Felicia D. Henderson, Joshua Safran, Lenn K. Rosenfeld, Jessica Queller, and K.J. Steinberg. Television is an inherently collaborative medium, and when analyzing an ongoing series it’s especially intriguing to detect changes in voice and tone as the story progresses.
How these voices and tones are realized in the show depends on the dynamics of the room and the showrunner. Is a show so forcefully and uniquely bound to a showrunner that the series is defined by him or her, such as in any show run by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Studio 60)? Is the room looking for leadership in a way that a shakeup at the top drastically changes the show’s nature, as what happened to NBC’s Heroes? Or is the template and story larger than the writers themselves — no soloists, all chorus — like a House or a Law and Order?
I’ve heard various reports about shifts in quality in Gossip Girl as the series goes on, so it will be interesting to see what kind of path it charts.
10:45 PM George: you know all the eps are puns of movies
me: yeah
George: which plays into the question of is GG just satirizing these films or is it self-consciously aware that it is just another work of fiction building on the burlesque of cinema?
10:46 PM me: that’s an interesting notion
10:47 PM some titles like dare devil seem to just be going for a plot-related pun
but then others, like bad news blair, actually do provide some insight
in that ep blair’s character went through the ups and downs similar to the eponymous baseball team
10:48 PM and I think we’ve both addressed how gossip girl is a highly self-aware show, even reflexive at times
it’s one step away from breaking the fourth wall
George: holy shit if they ever do that i am going to go nuts
10:49 PM me: I wouldn’t put it past them, I heard some crazy things happened during the later years of the OC
10:50 PM alternate universes and flash-forwards?
Although I may have gotten my sources wrong
George: good lawd
man this is a good stretch of episodes
there is another punch in here
10:51 PM but there are shifting alliances, betrayals, regrets, and THE PAST
me: this is always the big tease, after a punch I lose all coherence for about 5 to ten minutes
10:52 PM George: lol yeah, i immediately go back and try to understand how it got to that point and how/if i can incorporate it into my own work
e10 has to date, imo, the best music cue/ending montage
1.09 “Blair Waldorf Must Pie!” (tv.com) Dan invites Serena and her family to spend the holiday with his family, creating an uncomfortable situation for Rufus and Lily. The children are unaware of their complicated romantic past. Meanwhile, Blair’s freaks out when she learns that her father isn’t coming home for Thanksgiving. Nate spends the holiday with his family, but their awkward dinner quickly goes from bad to worse.
10:55 PM the episode title references the film john tucker must die, whose main theme seemed to be that the solution to any love triangle — any love polygon, actually — was polyamory
I doubt that will come into play here but who knows
We’re starting with a flashback
which is obvious because here serena is the “bad girl”
10:56 PM a much different character from the serena we’re used to
wow, we see dan’s connection to serena before they even “meet cute”
always a potent narrative element
10:57 PM this is actually a character enriching moment since infatuated dan remembers serena but not vice versa
thanksgiving episodes
10:58 PM the general story of thanksgivings tends to be about family dysfunction
much awkwardness
secrets and lies
I wonder how far GG is going in that direction
10:59 PM “nate gets a free pass and I’m the slut?”
boom feminism
11:00 PM this calls into question the divide between male and female “honor”
male honor defined by violence and strength (punching)
female honor defined by virtue (aka not being a slut)
11:01 PM The van der woodsens seem befuddled by thanksgiving
11:02 PM Okay, serena and dan’s families colliding at thanksgiving
this is going to be brutal
like albee brutal
11:03 PM We see blair’s father, another parent added to the menagerie
Reference was made about how blair’s dad ran off with another man
Gotta brush up on my queer theory
11:06 PM
I just mentioned albee but I’m actually reminded more of harold pinter right now
the flashbacks show the characters’ past naivete
serena an oblivious lush
blair with a semblance of a happy family
11:07 PM nate confident and outgoing
11:08 PM I mean, if there’s a constant motif throughout this series, it’s how these kids’ parents do not give a fuck about the heavy amount of alcohol all these kids drink
honestly, that is a bigger gulf of separation for me than their wealth, I can’t fathom it
11:09 PM a year passes, and the home-cooked meal is replaced with the alienation of catering
delegating what should be a labor of love to the working class
11:10 PM lily joins the ranks of people on this show who have read a book
although it is nicholas sparks
Dan, you and I share the same mind
Making fun of Nicholas Sparks is classy
11:11 PM Gossip Girl uses the upstairs downstairs trope
11:12 PM in which the hired help is the repository of knowledge
everyone’s getting disinvited from the waldorfs
the archibald thanksgiving is frigid beyond belief
echoes of citizen kane
11:13 PM The Humphreys’ thanksgiving is obviously the warmest and most inviting
cause you know the creative class knows how to rock it
11:15 PM We’ve got another love triangle threatening to explode
Lily and Alison grabbing the mashed potatoes, fraught with symbolism
11:17 PM Blair’s dad’s pie being sent down to the doorman
Marx and Freud could battle that shit out for hours
11:18 PM the series of flashbacks, designed to get into blair’s head
wait
don’t tell
me
eating disorder
YES
OH MY GOD BLAIR
DON’T THROW THE PIE UP
11:20 PM I love how Rufus’s songs are so laced with history
11:21 PM It’s actually a really smart way to convey backstory
also makes a comment about the power of art to transcend its original context
George: and you haven’t heard his hit single yet
me: oh man
11:22 PM Is it by any chance called “Sleepin’ With Lily”
George: lol, that’s the B-side
me: The awkwardness of everyone’s thanksgiving has reached a critical mass, and we’re not even halfway through
11:25 PM Okay, this scene in the bathroom with the shower nozzle (sounds dirty out of context doesn’t it) is literalizing this triangle pretty clearly
referencing the title perhaps?
Also I just got the other meaning of the title, tying into Blair’s eating disorder
11:26 PM It’s interesting, Ryan Murphy used a similar storyline with his queen bee in “Popular”
11:27 PM Eating disorders as literal expressions of the failures of consumerism
compounded with the extra demands placed upon women to maintain their image
11:28 PM hatred of their own bodies as a reflection of a hatred of something in themselves
but the thing is that these eating disorders are exacerbated by the outside culture itself
11:29 PM i mean, part of the reason for anorexia and bulimia is that girls want to look like serena and blair
gossip girl is reflexive but I didn’t know it was this much, it’s incisive
11:30 PM the interesting part of the lily-rufus-alison love triangle is that it is an example of the creative-capitalist divided I mentioned earlier
alison and lily were both creatives but chose different paths
11:31 PM and rufus is stuck in the middle, trying to exist in both worlds as artists often tend to do
okay, the timing of alison walking in right when lily is talking about kissing rufus is a bit much
11:32 PM don’t think pinter or albee would go there
wow, this is a pretty brutal thanksgiving
blair’s eating disorder
the captain collapsing (OD?)
11:33 PM there seems to be another class divide between nate’s parents
11:34 PM nate’s dad seems as if he has to maintain his position through work, rarefied as it may be in the financial sector
while his mom is true old money, the very definition of idle rich
it’s telling that so far she is the least sympathetic character in the entire cast of the entire series
11:35 PM even chuck has shown some semblance of humanity
11:36 PM but this little monologue from her is revealing
his position was handed to him, but the intended moral seems to be position that isn’t earned is untenable or at the very least encourages moral decay
11:37 PM Gossip Girl, for a show about the wealthy, seems to espouse a very meritocratic viewpoint
Cedric sighting!
11:38 PM Dan and Serena imagining their parents having sex, the awkwardness keeps ramping up
Alison is forcing the love triangle issue
11:39 PM this never works
reference the title!
polyamory is the only solution
The kids set up their own low-rent thanksgiving, and it’s probably the most congenial out of all of them
11:41 PM jenny makes a good point about how kids never imagine their parents as young as they were
it’s the quintessential cycle of the coming-of-age story
11:42 PM they manage to shoe in football into this episode, hitting all the thanksgiving tropes
11:47 PM This ep seems to show a great divide between serena in the past and the serena we know now
But if we go back to the theme that growth has to be earned
It seems like a lot changed in that year in boarding school
11:48 PM It couldn’t just be all “the nate incident” which caused it
11:49 PM Of great interest is the fact that the omniscient gossip girl was absent from this episode
it’s also the episode in which the great dramatic moments were all filial and internal, as opposed to the juicy soap-opera theatrics of previous episodes
11:50 PM An episode like this nevertheless needs the foundations set by the others to work
1.10 “Hi, Society” (tv.com) Serena has no intention of attending the upcoming Debutante Ball, until her grandmother, CeCe, announces that she simply must go. Unfortunately, Dan isn’t exactly who CeCe wants as an escort for Serena, and she makes her opinion heard loud and clear, causing a rift to form between Serena and Dan. Although they are officially broken up, Nate asks Blair to go to the ball with him. She accepts but only as friends. Then a jealous Nate begins to suspect that Blair is seeing someone else. Meanwhile, social climbing Jenny finds herself faced with the decision of either attending her mother’s art opening or following her dreams to the Debutante Ball, even though her parents don’t want her to go.
11:52 PM Debutante episode, there always has to be one of these when dealing with the upper class
Episodes that deal with parties: 10
11:53 PM Yes, Chuck is back! “Don’t F with an F’er”
Dan, yes, debutante balls are classist
11:55 PM Events like these, I won’t spend much time in the discussion since it’s so obvious
But they’re all about image and presentation
Social bonds reinforced in order to cement the structure of a class
11:56 PM Once again Jenny jumps at the chance to be in a subordinate position
One wonders if her social climbing parallels Lily’s
11:57 PM Dan is speaking my language, let’s let him write this piece
11:58 PM Oh man, Blair’s still sleeping with Chuck, this is such a highly-charged plotline especially for a teen-sex love triangle
12:00 AM blair’s pin, a bauble with actual thought behind it
12:01 AM jenny is once again placed with a dilemma between her family and the social hierarchy
a recurring theme
12:03 AM oh man, jenny throws the class bomb in her mom’s face
that was brutal, jenny is the character most conflicted about her social position
oh god, cancer
12:04 AM leveraging it to have serena debut is pretty crazy though
12:05 AM Blair is doing the age-old act of juggling
Love Triangles 101
12:07 AM Oh man, Carter the sleazeball returns
It seems like Serena’s grandma is running a power play
12:08 AM One of the elements of the upper class is with their massive amounts of leisure time everything turns into jockeying for position and gamesmanship
12:10 AM
Chuck, the master of the double entendre
12:11 AM Serena’s grandma is probably the most disgusting representation of the worst excesses of the upper class
12:12 AM Although one might suspect this has something to do with Lily’s past
12:13 AM Blair’s definitely enacting the madonna-whore dichotomy here though
12:14 AM nate’s the good guy that can provide for her, chuck’s the bad boy she can sleep with
Wow, Serena’s grandma is leveraging her wealth for her social power plays
this is fairly sickening
12:16 AM Serena wants to teach english in south asia, pretty classy
And yet her grandma wants to force her down the typical upper-class path
12:17 AM It’s almost cartoonish at this point but it’s actually a pretty powerful theme
Chuck performing more espionage
He really would be a good fit for the CIA
12:19 AM Dan’s attempting a direct confrontation on the issue, I’m not sure that was the best choice
They’re playing right into her hands
12:20 AM Oh man, Chuck is performing a false flag operation, that’s even crazier
oh, is this going to be the punch moment
12:21 AM a punch at cotillion would be grand
12:22 AM Visually it’s interesting that Nate’s wearing the light tux, making him stand out the most
is he supposed to be the white knight in this situation
Neuroscience!
12:23 AM Yes! social disruption
That was amazing
12:25 AM Chuck is so Iago
OH YES
PUNCH!!!!1
PUNCH!
I love this show
12:26 AM Once again Jenny’s forced into an untenable social position
Serena wants to be herself
I wonder how cognizant she is of what that means
12:27 AM Oh man, Serena and Carter have a past
12:28 AM And more evidence of Celia’s social manipulation
Interesting, Lily is addressing the same issue of knowing one’s self
12:29 AM And Chuck swoops in
Chuck for DCI
12:30 AM Oh man
Blair calls it off
But is it meaningful
Boom and the hammer drops, Celia just piles lie after lie
12:31 AM “A woman has to earn the right to create her own rules”
Celia may be a disgusting character but it can be argued that she is the way she is because of the society she was forced to grow up in
12:32 AM When confronted by the patriarchal framework placed upon her she let it subsume her completely in order to survive
Lily tried to reject it but in the end fell to its power
Serena is attempting to resist it, and apparently succeeding
12:33 AM However it’s probably going to be a core plotline throughout
12:34 AM Oh man, Chuck’s operation suffered from blowback
It’s exactly like the CIA
12:35 AM “Every choice you make defines who you turn into”
Again, evincing the pernicious nature of the upper class, affecting everything below it
12:37 AM what’s interesting about Gossip Girl, which separates it from other teen shows is that it is very cognizant of the interaction between teens and their parents
and how one is the reflection of the other
most teen shows are extremely myopic and blow up the problems of the kids to melodramatic proportions
12:38 AM The OC was great in that it showed the parents and kids co-existing and having their own sets of problems
GG takes it one step further and shows how all those issues are interconnected
1.11 “Roman Holiday” (tv.com) Blair’s father, Harold, comes home for the holidays with an unexpected guest: his boyfriend, Roman. Blair cannot hide her disappointment and makes a plan to get rid of Roman forever. Jenny and Vanessa help Serena get the best Christmas present ever for Dan, who has a surprise of his own for Serena. Then when Chuck texts Blair that Nate is with him in Monaco, Blair worries that Chuck may tell Nate about their hook-up. Meanwhile, Rufus refuses to remain the understanding husband any longer after Alison’s former lover calls the house.
12:42 AM Yes, the New Yorker!
12:43 AM Amazing magazine, by the way
You’ve got to be kidding me
Published in the New Yorker, that’s like fucking impossible
12:44 AM Wow, let’s place a burden of inferiority on Serena
Okay, I’m only going to make one 2400 reference per article, otherwise it just gets depressing
But it’s interesting how many high school stories set up a protagonist as a writer or aspiring one
12:45 AM One might say it has something to do with the nature of writing being an observant and reflective exercise, thus allowing for insight
Or perhaps it’s just the writers of these high school stories writing about themselves
12:47 AM Chuck’s in monaco
12:48 AM One of the most powerful elements of the upper class is their extreme mobility
as opposed to the working classes who tend to be mired wherever they are
12:49 AM Blair’s dad is back… with Roman!
Okay, I am not as well-versed in queer theory so I may go off the rails in this part of the discussion
I’ll end up saying shit about how the candy canes are phallic symbols
(that’s probably not right)
12:50 AM Oh man, the drama bombs keep coming, alison’s still entangled
12:51 AM I love how Dan pointed out that people can still hear asides if it’s just taking a step away and whispering
12:53 AM Seriously, there is like a backlog of 1,000 stories for the new yorker
12:54 AM Serena’s trying her hardest to impress Dan
It’s cute
But at the same time her first idea of a gift is a materialistic one
12:55 AM It’s interesting how this is the reverse of what happened on their first date
Oh man, Rufus confronts Alex
12:56 AM will there be another punch? I suppose that’s too much to ask
12:57 AM Well, the gay couple is being played for buffoonery
…I guess
That’s all I’m getting, honestly if someone wants to provide some commentary on that end please help
12:58 AM It’s funny that Chuck can still exert influence halfway around the world
1:01 AM I wonder if there’s going to be some Gift of the Magi going on with Serena and Dan
that’s where I would go
1:02 AM What can you buy for 50 dollars? 3/4 of a DVD boxed set
Blair throws down the best line this ep
1:04 AM Serena and Vanessa doing their bonding thing, this is great
again, a lesser teen drama would milk this for tension
1:05 AM But like on the OC, Schwartz and the others realize that normal people try not to be vindictive petty assholes for no reason
1:07 AM As Alison and Rufus’s relationship descends into collapse, Rufus seems prepared to hop back onto the Lily-Bart Bass deal
This show is really making me dig love triangles again
1:08 AM I love how Jack has to own a hedge fund to be a potential romantic partner
also that googling has become a fact of life
1:09 AM Wow, Blair’s pulling out the social manipulation
1:12 AM [2400 reference deleted]
1:14 AM New love triangle except this one’s gay
Okay, I’m actually embarrassed how little I have to say about it
1:15 AM except maybe the fact that Gossip Girl as a show is so untroubled by homosexuality that there’s nothing embedded in it that separates it from the myriad of heterosexual couplings on the show
1:18 AM Blair, gay marriage is gonna be legal in New York, you should be more accepting
1:20 AM I guess I’ll point out that everyone is celebrating christmas
No room for christmukkah up here
1:21 AM 10-8-05’s significance is revealed
It’s interesting how Dan’s stories have as much personal resonance as his dad’s songs
Art transcending its original context
1:22 AM and it ends up snowing for real!
1:25 AM Blair is such an interesting character in that her social manipulations end up being petty and ineffectual, and that even if she’s supposed to be a bad girl she has a good heart
Interesting compared to the pure darkness of, say, the characters in Cruel Intentions
1:26 AM Of course, at the same time, a series has to play things differently from a two hour feature
holy shit bart bass dropping the proposal bomb
1:27 AM debeers up the place
1:28 AM Nate’s in monaco? I don’t know what to make of that
1:29 AM Anyway, it seems that the major themes of the show are coalescing
I mentioned before the fears I had about the show being uncritical of the upper class
1:30 AM And while I wouldn’t say it’s a naomi klein-esque scathing critique of capitalism
it makes several interesting points in the way it humanizes some of the members of the upper class
1:31 AM in that those who worked their way to the top, who have thought critically about their position and what it entails, who have some cognizance of their class, are sympathetic on some level
1:32 AM while those who blindly accept the class structure and all it entails, those who purely inherit and who haven’t had to work for their position, are eaten up to one degree or another with devastating issues
1:33 AM and the other major theme is that everyone has to be in a fucking love triangle
1.12 “School Lies” (tv.com) Serena, Blair, Nate, Chuck and the rest of their friends break into the school swimming pool for a night of fun, but when someone nearly dies, the school threatens to expel the person responsible for the break-in. Everyone agrees to keep silent, but this creates major problems between Serena and Dan, because Dan is not ready to take the fall for someone else and risk his future. While working on a documentary project about private schools, Vanessa accidentally captures Blair and Chuck discussing their affair. Meanwhile, Lily tries to tell Rufus how she really feels about him.
1:34 AM okay
number of episodes about parties: 12
1:36 AM Oh man, Chuck’s blackmailing Blair
intense
1:37 AM Chuck insinuating incest, awesome
And Serena knows what it’s about
Vanessa’s making a documentary
Hey, maybe it’ll end up in sundance
1:38 AM Even though the pool is at school I am not counting this as a school episode
1:39 AM WTF
Is someone going to die in this show
1:41 AM Oh yeah, for anyone who sees this episode, CPR is deprecated in favor of CCR, you’re not supposed to breathe into the person’s mouth [Drowning is one of the cases in which you're still supposed to perform rescue breathing. Don't want to put false info up on The Hypermodern -- OM]
Okay, so this is a school episode now
1:42 AM 10,000 words is an extremely long essay
almost a novella I’d think
1:43 AM Oh man, is this gonna go prisoners’ dilemma
the circle of silence
skull and bones — good shepherd — CIA
1:44 AM I made a comment about how maturity is the cognizance that one’s actions have consequences
I wonder how this episode will play that out
1:48 AM Documentary evidence, Vanessa’s pulling some zapruder shit
1:49 AM Turning “essay writing” into a party, that’s new
1:50 AM Chuck and Dan’s conflict exemplifies the divide most clearly
1:51 AM Dan’s got his class consciousness first and foremost
1:52 AM oh man, dan-chuck tension
1:54 AM The Rufus and Lily relationship could have been played cheaply but it’s actually done well, both in terms of its rich backstory and its reflection of the show’s themese
1:55 AM I love how this headmistress is all c auguste dupin with this shit
Why is Vanessa not in school
1:57 AM Chuck goes back to the point that even if Blair is queen bee at her school her machinations are rather petty in the grand scheme of things
she’s rather benign
chuck, now chuck is an entirely different animal
1:58 AM oh man
now Lily sees a reflection of her future in this resaurant
1:59 AM she’s probably the most nuanced character at this point
2:00 AM I have now upgraded her from the alcoholic kirsten cohen
maybe better than her
Nate is the first casualty of this investigation
2:01 AM I wonder how John Nash would break this down
2:02 AM Serena as the brains behind this whole thing, I had a hunch but this is interesting
2:03 AM [2400 reference deleted]
2:06 AM This talk that Serena and Lily are having is great
and boom, Gossip Girl mirror
the incest joke that Chuck makes at the beginning comes back into play at the end
2:07 AM Dan is number two in his class… I wonder who number one is
2:10 AM And Blair manages to monetize the relationship between her and Vanessa
2:11 AM aka how commodities exist in social relationships with each other and people exist in material relationships with each other
yes, Serena just dropped an Upstairs Downstairs ref
2:13 AM Lily keeps getting forced into untenable positions, it’s almost tragic
2:14 AM and parallel to Jenny, who hasn’t had much to do in these past 4 eps
Oh man, Chuck is amazing
2:16 AM And once again wealth and privilege manage to isolate people from the consequences of their actions
2:19 AM As the show sketches more of these characters’ backstories in
2:20 AM The most visible gap is still the sea change between the wild child Serena of just a year ago
And the thoughtful, contemplative, honest Serena that we see now
2:21 AM One, I don’t think such a change has been fully explained yet, so there’s still some backstory to be mined there
2:22 AM Two, it calls into question how Dan was infatuated with the… drunk floozy, I suppose you could call her… that we have seen and heard of
2:23 AM I have faith that the show will justify both of these points in the long run, it’s a lot more incisive than most people give it credit for
For example, one of the themes is about the reshaping of identity
2:24 AM Most high school stories go from one point to another, with the unpopular kid becoming glamorous and loved by the elite
But Gossip Girl is taking the intriguing inversion in which the queen bee is attempting to refashion herself into a a better person
2:25 AM It’s not a journey you see very often
2:26 AM And if we’re going to make more comparisons to the OC (it’s unavoidable with the Schwartz-Savage connection) Serena is light years beyond Marissa Cooper in terms of verisimilitude and character depth
The OC Season One was grand television, but GG Season One comes from the hands of a savvier, more sophisticated set of storytellers, ones that have learned and grown
2:27 AM I just really, really, really, really, really hope it doesn’t go down the same road as OC seasons 2 onward
[2400 reference deleted]
lol @ the ep 10 montange (just youtubed it). Awful. So is it like Sex and the city only with hot, rich power teens (who have unrealistically perfect pecs)? Because the vo writing is basically co-opted word for word in that scene. BTW why are you guys watching this shit?