The teen soap has become a vanishing art form, perhaps because younger audiences don’t watch traditional linear TV anymore, and the short seasons of streaming series don’t lend themselves to the kind of ongoing serialized storytelling that is necessary to sustain an engaging and addictive narrative.
A modern streaming service will probably never launch a series focused on teen relationships that lasts for six seasons and 120-plus episodes, but that’s OK because my favorite trashy teen drama has just dropped its entire run on Netflix — and the ’00s CW hit “Gossip Girl” makes for irresistible binge-watching.
It’s not really fair of me to call “Gossip Girl” trashy, even if it revels in intimate betrayals and conspicuous consumption because it also holds up as one of the most smartly written and sensitively acted TV dramas of its era. People might think of a show like “Gossip Girl” as a guilty pleasure, but there’s no reason to feel guilty about getting pleasure from such clever dialogue, well-drawn characters and masterfully bonkers plot twists.
‘Gossip Girl’ is a glossy, snarky delight
The title character of “Gossip Girl” is an anonymous (at least until an unfortunate reveal in the final episode) blogger who chronicles “the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” — primarily the students at a pair of fancy private schools on the Upper East Side. Voiced by Kristen Bell, Gossip Girl herself is catty, petty and essentially infallible, and she narrates each episode with a sense of haughty entitlement. Her unwavering sardonic humor keeps the show lively even in its heavier dramatic moments.
Those moments usually come courtesy of the endlessly rotating relationships among the main characters, particularly a pair of star-crossed couples. Semi-disgraced socialite Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) returns from a stint in boarding school in the first episode, encountering brooding would-be writer Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) in a hotel lobby and immediately forming a connection.
Via a series of misunderstandings, they end up planning a date, and their epic love story begins with one of the best dialogue exchanges in the entire show: “You’d really go out with some guy you don’t even know?” Dan asks. “You can’t be worse than the guys I do know,” Serena responds.
One of those worse guys is budding business tycoon Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), who’s introduced as essentially a villain before becoming a sort of sexy antihero as his connection with Serena’s best frenemy Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) grows. Chuck and Blair tend to be more exciting than Dan and Serena because they’re more devious, but both couples break up and reunite multiple times over the course of the series, and all four characters engage in various degrees of reprehensible behavior.
‘Gossip Girl’ features a rich, complex ensemble of characters
The characters on “Gossip Girl” are rich in both senses of the word — almost all of them are obscenely wealthy, but they’re also fascinatingly complex, with shifting allegiances and motivations that may follow the dictates of nighttime-soap writing, but also remain largely internally consistent. No matter how many different people they sleep with, as they move from high school to college to adulthood, they retain their inherent charisma and their inherent insecurities, with a bit of added maturity along the way.
The main ensemble for all six seasons also includes Chuck’s best friend Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), along with Serena’s mother Lily (Kelly Rutherford) and Dan’s dad Rufus (Matthew Settle), whose storylines are just as juicy and just as convoluted as those of the younger generation. Like any good soap, “Gossip Girl” also has a massive cast of secondary characters, and once and future famous faces like Sebastian Stan, Hilary Duff and Michelle Trachtenberg make frequent recurring appearances.
Many of the central players have gone on to major careers in movies and other TV shows, but Meester, who’s struggled to find a worthy follow-up, is the clear standout across the duration of the show. Blair Waldorf is one of the all-time great TV characters, and Meester makes her mesmerizing from the instant she first appears onscreen in the pilot, surrounded by her minions as she rules the high school hierarchy.
She’s often conniving and ruthless, but she’s also intelligent and cultured, as Dan discovers during their gleefully unlikely fifth-season romantic arc. She’s the most fashionable person on a show full of fashion-conscious, style-obsessed characters, but she never seems like she’s chasing trends or trying too hard. She can be single-minded in pursuit of what she wants, but she’s also vulnerable and open, and when she first declares her love to Chuck in the second season, it’s heartfelt and honest.
‘Gossip Girl’ is ridiculous in the best way
As emotionally affecting as it can be, “Gossip Girl” is ultimately about the increasing absurdity of its plot developments, which include imposters, secret relatives and at least one character who appears to return from the dead. Serena has an affair with a congressman. Blair marries a literal prince. Dan, somehow, gets his work published in the New Yorker and also has a threesome. The show is self-aware about its silliness without condescending to the audience.
If this is the kind of show that isn’t being made anymore (the two-season Max reboot has its charms, but isn’t the same), then we’re lucky that it’s so easily available to watch now, in all its ridiculous glory.
Watch "Gossip Girl" now on Netflix.
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