Did not you hear? Gossip Girl is back for another messy season on HBO Max, and we’ve got all the details.
The first season ends with a disastrous New Year’s Eve party that leaves Julien (Jordan Alexander) with her ex Obie (Eli Brown) and sister Zoya (Whitney Peak) cleaning up a major mess. Not to mention that the “won’t they” plot starring Aki (Evan Mock), Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind) and Max (Thomas Doherty) finally gets the green light (although it certainly won’t go smoothly for She). The biggest surprise of all, however – aside from Gossip Girl teaming up with Julien to uncover all the dirty little secrets – is Monet (Savannah Lee Smith), who aspires to the title of Queen Bee after Julien turns a new leaf, but there are plenty more shocking revelations to come in season two, so buckle up for the ride.
“We’ve waited until season two, so everyone is at the highest point when she arrives to fall.”
With season one’s introductions out of the way, this season of Gossip Girl, which began December 1, is all about setting the stage for Monet’s hostile takeover of Constance — and the epic return of Michelle Trachtenberg’s Georgina Sparks. According to Gossip Girl creator and showrunner Joshua Safran, who worked on the original CW series, the devious character was always primed for a comeback in his reboot.
“I always knew I wanted Michelle to come back, and Michelle and I have stayed in touch over the years,” Safran tells POPSUGAR. “When the first season was announced, she said, ‘Okay, when am I coming?’ I said, ‘Okay, you’re coming, but I want the table to be fully set and loaded so you can pull out the tablecloth and destroy everything.’ We’ve waited til season 2 until it arrives everyone is at the highest point to fall and all they care about is anarchy and the destruction of people they don’t even know this is a game for them, so the idea she can destroy anyone we find her and I think it’s a lot of fun to watch.”
Despite Georgina’s Chaos Queen title, the cast of Gossip Girl were actually incredibly excited to have her show up in their reboot, which came as a surprise to some. “I read about it in the script,” says Grace Duah, who plays Zoya’s good friend Shan, “so I remember reading it and thinking, ‘I know this isn’t who I think it is .'”
Similar to previous appearances by the original Gossip Girl characters, Georgina’s return was predicted before the writers even confirmed it as any kind of manifestation. “Sometimes they’ll write in the script who they’re hoping to get back and then revise it based on who they can and can’t get,” explains Peak. “[If] it doesn’t work, then they just have to rewrite it and it’s completely different, but I was so happy when she actually came through and did it for us.”
“She’s an icon,” Zión Moreno adds of Georgina. “I loved her on the OG series and it was an honor to work with her. She’s a screamer for sure, and there’s never a dull moment around her. It was a bit nerve wracking because you want to make her proud, but she was just really, really nice and wonderful.” Sharing her co-star’s feelings, Lee Smith wishes she had the chance to film more with Trachtenberg’s character. “I didn’t have as many scenes with her as I wanted, but I did have a good one that we were all in together,” she says. “She’s just fun on set. It was a bit intimidating, [but] I think we did well.”
Georgina’s lewd antics aside, season two plans to turn the tables on our favorite troubled teens, as Gossip Girl leaves no stone unturned in the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite—even the adults aren’t off limits. While GG’s gossips still pull the strings in the background, the group’s own actions are just as great a threat to their reality and will test them all. “We thought Gossip Girl pushed them so hard against the wall in season two that they had to fight back,” explains Safran. “[So] Season two is: Who are you when you’re actually fighting back? Maybe you’re a version of yourself that you don’t like or even know, or maybe you’re the best version of yourself and you never knew you had that strength and resilience inside you. That’s where we shot the second season.”
“Now you’ve known her for the whole of season two and you’re not comparing her to the original anymore, so it feels more like the original because your brain isn’t looking for it.”
For viewers who’ve been waiting for the HBO Max reboot to recreate the same spirit as the original Gossip Girl, there’s good news: Season 2 delivers. In defense of the show, Safran says it took two seasons to make it happen because “we decided to tell a story with completely new characters.” “I think people came to the beginning of the first season last year and were like, ‘Where’s my original Gossip Girl?’ But if you look back at the original [show], you just met the characters. There weren’t even any cliffhangers,” he says. . . Now you’ve known her for the whole of season two and you don’t compare her to the original anymore, so it feels more like the original because your brain isn’t looking for it.”
Gossip Girl is well on its way to continuing the legacy of its predecessor thanks to Georgina’s Comeback of the Decade. But only viewers can decide if the drama is bigger and better than ever. Until then, XOXO.
The first two episodes of the second season of Gossip Girl are streaming now on HBO Max.
