Much against our reviews of the previous “Gossip Girl” episodes, we found that we actually liked the finale of Season 2, and for better reasons than the fact that it is over. It has been a season with a whole lot of nothing with the characters barely making any progress as people. One saving grace has been the frequent introductions of people from the original “Gossip Girl,” with different messages each time but also bringing a degree of self-awareness that maybe the reboot is not up to the mark of the original. Either way, if we had to sum up the entire season, we would call it inconsistent and underwhelming. We just found it hard to care beyond a point. The first season still had some oomph, but the second just isn’t it. This is how the finale goes.
Spoilers Ahead
The After-Effects Of The Reveal At The Summit
Episode 10 “Gossip Girl” Season 2 starts by showing everything that happens after the events of the last episode. Helena, Obie’s mom, has been arrested, and Nick Lott is still grappling with the wrench thrown in his career. Max did end up sleeping with Heidi, and when Aki and Audrey came to apologize to him, he told them that he needed space. It is a mutual agreement that all three of them must not see each other, but Aki and Audrey notice that they want to be together. Aki points out that neither of them felt as bad when they made Max get together with different people. As for Max, Heidi is insistent on causing trouble, and she sends the tip to Gossip Girl about them having spent the night together. Kate is enjoying her new-found power, and she feels that she is pretty much unstoppable now. Jordan cautions her to be careful, but she is on a different high altogether.
As for Julien, she calls for a meeting with all her friends so that they can decide their next move. Julien apologizes to everyone for excluding them from her plans, which is the reason they keep ending in disaster. She wants to do something collectively so that they are successful in achieving their goal. The group comes to an agreement and decides that Aki’s father, Roger Menzies, the media mogul, can help them. While he is figuring out a way, Julien and Audrey seemingly make up. Aki comes up with a plan where they send a tip to Gossip Girl, which comes with a link. Once she presses that, they will have access to her account. Obie warns Kate of it, but before she can see his message, she presses on the link. Realizing what she has done, Kate asks Jordan for help, but he has already put all the security measures in place. This makes the group realize that someone among them is in cahoots with Gossip Girl.
When Obie and Julien get back home that night, Heidi, in a moment of arrogance, admits to Obie that Jakarta was not a mistake. It was a cold, calculated move to take over the Bergmann empire. What happens next involves a bit of technology we do not completely understand, but what we can decipher is that Obie told Gossip Girl about his sister and used Julien’s phone somehow. But he was not as clever as he thought because Julien discovered this. The group meets again, this time without Obie, and they seem to understand why he would do what he did. They are not angry with Obie, but they come up with a plan to take down Gossip Girl, where Zoya would reveal herself as that at the Met Gala. This would be on the heels of them posting scandalous news about themselves through the account. The day arrived and whatever our opinion of the fashion, we did not miss that Julien wore a Taylor Swift outfit, which we genuinely liked.
Most of the secrets revealed on the Gossip Girl page are worthless scandals, but two of them really stirred up something. Monet reveals that the union fiasco was Camille’s fault, and Nick took the fall for it. As for the other secret, after Heidi tells Audrey about her and Max, she sends the tip about Audrey and Aki getting together without Max, breaking their pact. When the tip about Max is posted, he admits to Aki and Audrey that it has just made him realize how much he wants to be with them. But the damage is already done because the news about Aki and Audrey comes out, breaking Max’s heart. On the steps of the Gala, a man offers a modeling contract to both Julien and Luna. When Julien quips that Luna is just her stylist, the latter is angry at her friend’s inability to think beyond herself. As for Obie, he requests access to Gossip Girl and posts the news about his sister. He even goes as far as to record her confession live, but a short-sighted Monet prevents that from happening.
While this was intensely frustrating, there was also a point of relief. Max breaks up with Aki and Audrey when he realizes that he is the outsider in their relationship. It was heartbreaking indeed, but we had never doubted that he would be better off without them. The Met Gala ends with Zoya making an entrance as Gossip Girl. It really makes the headlines, though she is escorted out.
‘Gossip Girl’ Season 2: Ending Explained: Is Gossip Girl’s Identity Revealed?
After the gala, Julien is feeling dejected as Gossip Girl has not outed herself as she had predicted. As for Obie, he finds that Helena’s lawyer wants to support Heidi because they claim that they need her ruthlessness for the company. Having found no solution to his problem, he helps Julien by coming up with a plan. He gets an article published saying that Gossip Girl’s story is being bought for a movie. Seeing that, Kate throws caution to the wind and shows up at the venue, claiming to be Gossip Girl. Seeing that it was a trap, she tries to justify that she was just doing it to make the children better, but her actions have been beyond that for a long time now, and she is arrested. This is the end of “Gossip Girl,” as the kids know it.
Two months later, everybody is vacationing in Rome, though Luna, Monet, and Max are noticeably absent. Luna’s campaign is all over the town, and her friends ask her why she isn’t angrier. Honestly, Julien shows real maturity when she tells them how she has no reason to be angry because Luna got the campaign fair and square. Zoya meets a boy, Phillip Price, who asks her out. When she tells the gang about this, they all claim to have met someone that day. Could the common denominator be Phillip? We will find out in Season 3, if it happens. Another thing we are curious about is Julien’s mother. She meets her aunt Naomi (or Mimi). She asks her why she doesn’t know anything about her mother’s side of the family and asks to meet her later to talk more. As for Max, he gets thrown out of a club where he runs into a mysterious stranger. It looks like he is back to his rakish ways, though they are more out of heartbreak than anything else. It is all going to come together in the coming season.
What We Can Expect From Season 3?
When “Gossip Girl” Season 1 of the reboot was released, it was the most-watched thing that weekend. It was highly anticipated in a manner that showed the love the OG had earned and sustained over the years. But watching the first episode proved that this new series wouldn’t be able to live up to it. The thing is, the old one worked because it was politically incorrect, with characters that did not fear being problematic. A show like that could not be made in the current climate and with good reason. That is why it has been relegated to a guilty pleasure for many, despite its popularity. In the decade between the series, there have been many more shows released that have pushed the envelope. The reboot should have realized that it wasn’t just competing with its parent show; it was competing with everything else that followed. The original “Gossip Girl” is still enjoyable because of the sense of nostalgia. It wouldn’t work with a new crowd; it is just going to stay popular with the old viewers.
Comparisons are inevitable between the two shows since the reboot is just following the format of the old one: that of rich people’s problems getting out of hand and being resolved in one big party at the end of each episode. Come to think of it, the reason we weren’t wowed by this reboot could be that the fans of the original have outgrown this kind of story, and the new audience doesn’t care as much. Not to mention how none of the new actors really hit a chord with us. While Julien was the primary protagonist, we couldn’t believe how annoying she was, and minus the charm of Serena van der Woodsen, she was insufferable. Zoya literally had nothing to do with the whole of the second season, and Monet was just some caricature that really served no purpose. We think that though the makers had found their Serena, they couldn’t find their Blair and kept pushing it around between Zoya, Monet, Audrey, and finally, Luna.
Additionally, we agree with what someone said in Episode 10: that there is no great love story like “Chuck and Blair.” Neither the original nor the reboot are meant to be taken seriously, and while that should have given the writers a wide arena to experiment with, their hands were tied by their limited imagination. Imagine if Gossip Girl had actually tried to enter the scandalous lives of the rich instead of their children, who did not know any better. Or if it had dedicated itself exclusively to exposing their crimes like those of David Calloway, Camille de Haan, or Heidi Bergmann, with the lives of their children being thrown into the mix instead of the other way around. That would have been something new and fresh, which would have retained our attention and gotten the showrunners the budget they were seeking to continue the series into a third season. But it’s not likely to happen, and maybe that is why we really don’t require a third season of “Gossip Girl.”
The loose ends are not so intriguing that they need tying up. Probably that is why it hasn’t been renewed, and it doesn’t look like that will happen either, but if we were to speculate as to what a few more episodes could bring, we would start by suspecting that it is probably Phillip that all of them ran into, maybe with a different alias, but Phillip nonetheless. We saw Julien coming out of the Fendi building. Could this mean another feud between the friends? In the first season, it was Zoya; in the second, it was Monet, so is it Luna’s turn now? Obie still has to deal with the new situation at home. There have to be consequences initiated by Heidi for revenge. But to sum it up, probably the only character we care about is Max, who has been surprisingly nice and honest throughout, unlike the rest of them.
But the biggest question is if there is going to be a third season, who is going to be the next Gossip Girl? Our bet is on Jordan, who might want revenge for having his girlfriend taken away from him. But that is too predictable. Maybe the makers will try a new angle. Taking a detour from the original “Gossip Girl,” the makers made the identity of the titular character obvious from the start. If there is really going to be a third season in the near or far future, the makers might want to play it safe by retaining the anonymity of Gossip Girl and bringing back some of the charm of the original show. We are not really excited about it, but we know we are going to watch it anyway, if it comes out. It is just that kind of show, so let’s see if the cancellation is permanent or reversible.
