After Cancelled Gossip Girl Reboot, Creator Josh Safran Reflects on the Show’s Legacy

In this reported op-ed, writer Elly Belle explores the legacy of the now-cancelled Gossip Girl reboot, in conversation with creator Josh Safran.

Every story is about feelings, and almost no show exemplifies the messiness of emotions better than Gossip Girl. From a bird’s eye view, the original Gossip Girl and its now-cancelled reboot explore the depths of cruelty we can throw at each other in some of our lowest moments. Look more closely, and you’ll see that Gossip Girl has always been laser-focused on one feeling in particular: shame.

Unlike other shows where viewers love to root for characters’ downfalls, Gossip Girl has always made it easier to root not just for “bad” people’s downfalls but their redemption arcs. It’s given us characters we hate to love but do anyway. In the old series, the conniving, all-knowing, voice following Manhattan’s elite turned out to be none other than outsider “Lonely Boy” Dan Humphrey. It was revealed that the point all along was just for him to be noticed, and that celebrating and shaming his contemporaries was more about his own sense of self than anything else. But the reboot takes these underpinnings of shame and shaming — as well as the obvious social climbing and status commentary — to a somewhat different place.

The Gossip Girl reboot, which HBO Max cancelled last week before the season 2 finale could even air, reexamines what accountability truly means and looks like. And its main characters this time around seem to actually be invested in it for the sake of the greater good.

From Obie (Eli Brown) and Aki (Evan Mock) who respectively attempt to hold their families accountable for the harm they cause in the world at large with their companies’ dirty deeds, to Julien’s (Jordan Alexander) determination to not let her dad off the hook for his history of serial abuse, accountability is at the revival’s core. It’s not just about the characters wanting to hold others accountable, though. In the revival, they’re also more willing to grapple with their feelings and the pain they wreak on others by handling their feelings poorly. They go to greater lengths to take responsibility, and also “fail” harder than ever.