Gossip Girl (TV Series)

[wild roses]

from cliqueclack.com:

Gossip Girl hit the reset button in its finale — big time. It’s not enough to have Bart Bass back from the freaking dead, but Chuck and Blair are back together, Serena is back to her Season One (nay, pre-Season One) druggie ways, and Lily is back with Bart. Basically, after years of inconsisitent character development, and now straight up character regression, it may be time for me to break up with the Upper East Side. (Eh, I’m an Upper West Sider anyway.)

The show has played out Blair with any guy, let alone Chuck. I could rehash all the arguments against Chair and for Dair, but I don’t think there is any point anymore: they have wrecked Blair’s character by making her all about the men in her life. The Louis arc was shoehorned in to give the show a 100th-episode princess wedding storyline, throwing Blair’s character under the bus by making her extra fickle over three guys and glossing over her miscarriage. I am glad Eleanor gave Blair her business, so maybe Blair would have something else in her life, but I’d rather she had earned it. She has gone from one of my favorite characters on TV to what she would call a complete “weakling.” At least the Ring of Doom was not deployed, despite the episode title. Even Chuck seemed tired of this dynamic, as he seemed disinterested at first.

I actually had some fun the season after the Louis arc was over. The tone was lighter, which is a mode the show does well, and the gang got to have some capers together. But the show doesn’t know its own strengths. There is a difference between drama and angst. Drama: Blair mobilizing her minions to keep her diary publication blowback to a minimum. Angst: Chuck getting upset about his daddy issues for the zillionth time. And Blair and Serena have their yearly falling out. Ho hum. At least they could give us new angst, right?

Usually, when a show has only 11 episodes left, I’d stick it out, but I can’t with this show anymore. GG has always made its characters serve its plot as needed, and I can tolerate it to a point, but all this regression is frustrating. It’s like Gossip Girl is allergic to being good. This show and I need to break up. The sad part is that I saw this coming but was in denial. It’s not me — it’s you, Gossip Girl.

Notes:

Lily has had a personality transplant this season. Not that Rufus is super exciting since the’ve been “married,” but she had her problems with Bart even aside from Rufus. Whatever. Season Two is apparently the new Season Six.
I’d be interested to see Blair running the Waldorf fashion empire, but I don’t trust the show to do it justice.
Dan/Serena sex on a bar just like pilot Nate/Serena sex? There are no words. It’s no surprise to find out that the show runners watched the pilot again before writing this.
At least Bart calls out Chuck for the Blair-hotel trade. It’s about time someone did that.
Hey, at least Nate has shown some growth. Bye, Lola.
Hi … Georgina? Take ‘em all down, Dan. I’ll be cheering you from afar. Dude didn’t even get a breakup scene. But the writers can’t write couples, so I can’t be bothered to get too upset about the end of Dair.
Gossip Girl herself sums up everything the best: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Adieu, show.

 

[TianSoFine]

Remember when these characters were likeable and glamourous?

 

[wild roses]

Last but not least:

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Truer words have never been spoken on The CW's "Gossip Girl," and by the titular muckraker herself, no less. We've now witnessed five seasons of Serena's self-sabotaging and Blair's on again/off again/on again/off again relationship with Chuck, and frankly, I'm a little tired of just how thoroughly things seem to stay the same on the Upper East Side.

I usually format my "GG" recaps by evaluating the top 5 "OMG" moments of an episode, and though there were plenty of jaw-dropping, credulity-stretching scenes in the Season 5 finale, they were shocking for all the wrong reasons. In the blink of an eye, five years of character development has fallen by the wayside; Serena's back to being a selfish, self-medicating party girl; Lily has tossed away yet another marriage (to her soulmate, this time) at the first sign of difficulty; Bart Bass has returned, every bit as terrible as he was before; Chuck is once again incapable of recognizing a woman's worth; Nate has yet another interchangeable love interest; and Dan is yet again on the anti-Upper East Side bandwagon, relying on Georgina Sparks to facilitate a take-down. Why, exactly, have we wasted half a decade watching these characters evolve, if devolution is seemingly so easy?

The only character who came out of the finale looking better than she did going into it was Blair, which is just as well, since the writers have spent all season treating her alternately as a chattel, emotional punching-bag, delusional Bible-basher, megalomaniacal dictator and insecure schoolgirl. Her characterization has been wholly defined by whichever man is in her life this week, leading to some truly bipolar behavior, which sometimes fluctuated between the beginning and end of a single episode.

I did appreciate the fact that it was her mother who was finally able to make her believe that she was a powerful, confident woman, instead of a reject from her revolving door of suitors. But after everything that Blair has been through this year -- a completely forgotten miscarriage, an excruciatingly public divorce from a prince -- it would've been far more satisfying if she could have come to that realization of self-worth on her own. Lord knows she's been long overdue for an ego boost, despite how many times the men in her life have tried to tear her down or tell her she isn't enough to satisfy them.

I appreciate that Chuck was hurting during his rooftop confrontation with Blair -- that his father had just emasculated him and disregarded the years of the blood, sweat and tears he poured into Bass Industries -- and that he has spent all season putting his heart on the line for Blair, only to see his affections rebuffed. But oh my god, haven't we played this storyline out five times already?

The last three seasons have been characterized by the multiple times that Chuck and Blair have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, always so close, yet so far from each other -- like ships passing in the night. Conflict in any relationship is believable -- especially since TV romances can quickly grow stale if they're kept in a state of stasis. But there's a difference between organically allowing conflict to evolve over the course of a narrative, and using convenient plot contrivances (like, say, a pact with God or an illegal-sounding dowry?) to force distance between a couple for the sake of drama. Guess which category Chuck and Blair's story falls into?

This would be fine, if the end result was any different from the myriad of other break-ups we've seen for the couple before. Blair and Chuck have been "fighting for each other" for years now, but in the end, it still necessitated Blair, ever the martyr, humbling herself for her man before the pair could have any hope of reconciliation. Despite all the cruel things Chuck has said to her over the years, all the emotional abuse, the writers determined that this newly empowered woman, complete with her own empire, should once again go and make herself vulnerable for the man who is so insecure that he scoffed at the very notion of being in a relationship with a woman who was earning more money than him. ("I don't want to be Mr. Blair Waldorf -- I'm Chuck Bass." Ugh.)

I wholly believe in the idea of redemption, the prospect that, despite physically and verbally abusing Blair and attempting to r*pe Jenny in the past (in other words, being a truly heinous human being), perhaps Chuck has changed, perhaps he is sorry, and is thus deserving of a second chance. There have been a number of episodes demonstrating his honest regret this season, his feelings of remorse and his desire to make amends. But because the writers seem incapable of coming up with a story that they haven't already regurgitated twice before, that Chuck was nowhere to be found this week. And if a person can so easily regress to that default cruelty the moment that they're hurt, how much have they truly changed?

It's pure narrative laziness on the part of the writing staff, and it actually makes me angry that well-plotted, carefully crafted shows like "Awake" are killed by the networks and ignored by mainstream audiences, but sloppy, half-hearted, character-assassinating shows (like the latter seasons of "Gossip Girl" have been) are allowed to endure. For a show that is arguably supposed to be focused on the female characters at its heart, "Gossip Girl" presents some astoundingly damaging messages to and about women, especially its core demographic of loyal teens who deserve a far more responsible series to support, one that actually treats its female characters with respect and agency, instead of as punching or humping bags for the petty, vindictive men who surround them. I would be angrier that Blair chose Chuck, the man who has admittedly "devastated" her multiple times, over Dan, the guy who makes her feel "safe" and "strong"; but judging by the way that Dan behaved at the end of the episode by going to Georgina to exact his revenge against the UES, she might have dodged a bullet there too.

Nate and Rufus seem to be respectful, loyal guys, and yet, they're the ones who receive throwaway plots and zero screen time, while the machinations of Dan and Chuck -- and the childish ways they lash out at those they love when their egos are bruised -- are examined in endless and repetitive detail. It's no wonder the actors are all desperate to get out of their contracts (which trap them until the sixth and, thankfully, final season, which was just announced by The CW).

No one should be more frustrated by the cyclical monotony of the storytelling than poor Blake Lively, who has actually proven to be a fairly compelling actress when she's given serviceable material ("The Town"). I recognize the narrative symmetry of bringing her from fooling around with Nate on a bar at the beginning of the series to fooling around with Dan (in almost a shot-for-shot recreation of that tryst) in the fifth season finale, but poetic irony shouldn't take precedence over consistent characterization. Serena started the year trying to better herself, to find a proper job and start trying to grow up, but as soon as things got difficult, she succumbed to manipulating her friends, sabotaging her relationships and once again, stealing her best friend's boyfriend out of spite. Then, when her bad behavior inevitably blew up in her face, instead of apologizing, she decided to run away, drug herself into apathy and allow a complete stranger to take advantage of her sexually. What a positive and empowering message to send to your impressionable audience!

This show, people. The first two seasons were, for the most part, frothy, frivolous fun -- back when the writers were required to come up with original storylines instead of recycling them for the second or third time. I'm not sure whether Josh Safran's leaving to helm NBC's "Smash" will be a positive or negative change for "Gossip Girl" in its final season, but I have a feeling it's bad news for "Smash." Regardless of what he does over at NBC, he's left "Gossip Girl," like its dethroned titular character, as a shadow of its former self. I don't even care who the real gossip girl is at this point, nor who Chuck's real mother may or may not be. I don't even care who Blair ends up with, since all of her suitors have proven wholly unworthy of her. I'm sure that Season 6 will definitively answer all of these questions, but at this point, I don't think the answers will be worth waiting for. I'm all gossiped out.

xoxo

from huffingtonpost.com

 

[couturecandystor]

Wow, it sounds like they ruined basically every character on this show. I'm glad I stopped watching after the second season.

 

[beaverhausen]

I still say that last episode was just one big F you from Josh Safran to the viewers..

 

[vogue28]

Huh, I failed to fathom that The Return of the Ring was the season finale. I thought the episode was too good to be true.

 

[wild roses]

It amazes me still that not only did Sara Goodman (who wrote 5.24) manage to turn me off to watching GG with one single episode, but they've also convinced me to stay the hell away from the CW.

Rooting for the actors now to be able to get as far away from Stephanie Savage and company once the 6th season ends. Glad they've started rebelling already by not appearing at the Upfronts.

 

[catherine88]

I was surprised that any of the main characters didn't appear at the Upfront.
But after all those boring episodes and season 6 coming, I'm not.

 

[Boomer]

Let the rumor mill and speculation begin!! Personally, I can see a spin off better than this idea, but they always swore there would never be a SATC movie, too, so...

HollywoodNews.com: ‘Gossip Girl’ will be ending next season, so it only makes sense that fans speculate about the possibility of the show becoming a movie.
Chace Crawford, who plays Nate, was recently asked the question and didn’t exactly give the answer everyone wants to hear, states E! News. “I don’t know if I want that, or do not want that. I don’t know what the logistics would be on that. I would imagine it’s a long shot,” Crawford commented.
Instead, fans will have to settle for now on the last eleven episodes that will come with the final season.

 

[misspistol]

Gossip Girl isn't SATC, GG has become progressively worse and it's viewers are waaaay down. NO MOVIE EVER!!!

 

[glitterpeacock]

^ That's what I was thinking. Gossip Girl hasn't been good for some time now, but the last 2 seasons of SATC were amazing.
I don't think the costume department is up to the challenge of the movie. Patricia Field might not be everyone's favourite, but she knows her characters' styles through and through. The way they've been dressing the entire cast in Gossip Girl is as if they've become parodies of themselves.

 

[Label Basher]

That huffingtonpost.com review is spot on. All the characters are so unlikeable know.

I just don't understand how the writers can't see how their story lines aren't positive examples for young people especially girls. I

don't watch Smash but I feel sorry for the fans cause that Josh Safran's clearly has weird ideas about how people should behave.

 

[Boomer]

Gossip Girl Producers: Return to “Core Dynamics and Characters” in S6

Gossip Girl’s core characters and dynamics will be on display in the CW drama’s sixth and final season this fall, according to executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage.
With show-runner Josh Safran departing to helm Smash Season 2, and producer Sara Goodman elevated to his former role, one can at least hope (if not expect) this will actually be the case.
Schwartz confirms that the 11-episode Gossip Girl Season 6 will focus on a return to the “core dynamics and the core characters” that drew fans to the show in droves at the outset.
Adds Savage of the coming conclusion to the show:
“There are definitely some things we want to see in the Gossip Girl series finale, and we think we have a great opportunity to tell those final stories and honor our characters and honor our fans.”
“We’re all really excited for this final run.”

TooMuchPurple

 

[misspistol]

Core dynamics? Blair and Nate together. Blair ruling with a Putin-esque iron fist. Serena trying to get her friends back after screwing up. Dan being soooooo different with his Jeff Buckley biopic hair. Chuck trying to r*pe 14 year olds.
When a show has to go back to the same dynamic as the first series you know they really strayed from the path. If they'd really written a good show the fans would be okay with the character's progression and change.

 

[cloudyshambles]

Core dynamics? Blair and Nate together. Blair ruling with a Putin-esque iron fist. Serena trying to get her friends back after screwing up. Dan being soooooo different with his Jeff Buckley biopic hair. Chuck trying to r*pe 14 year olds.
When a show has to go back to the same dynamic as the first series you know they really strayed from the path. If they'd really written a good show the fans would be okay with the character's progression and change.

Agreed!

What a step back for a show when they cannot even support the characters' development, it's become beyond pathetic! and they want to honor their fans? all they've done the last two seasons was slapping them in the face repeatedly.

 

[Psylocke]

^This! Agree with you both. They've screwed up so many times and instead of trying to just make up for it by giving the plots interesting twists they keep making it so obvious they failed and just make two steps back again and again. Zero development, zero sympathy left for any of the characters. And with even the fashion being crap now this show has become entirely useless. Even random daily soaps seem more well-written than GG. You can just tell it's all ad-hoc decisions based on ratings and reviews. Oh, the fans don't like Dair, so let's go back to Chair. We've run out of random people to guest star on the show, let's bring back dead people. We can't follow a story line for more than 2 episodes, so let's bring on another boring blonde that turns out to be a not-so-sneaky-and-clever schemer. It's really a miracle this show has survived this long with the writing being so poor and the ratings constantly decreasing.

 

[MissKateCherie]

I just had to upload this! The Vampire Diaries mocking GG!



http://elenasteddy.tumblr.com/

 

[Boomer]

Not that reality is a big factor in GG, but did anyone notice that at the end of the last episode Blair is in a limo with her mother in Paris, and next thing we know she is waltzing into the Casino in Monte Carlo- and says to Jack "Thanks for the call"?? Like she was down the street or something??

 

[mordant]

^I don't understand how she can just waltz through Monte Carlo unnoticed. "Hey aren't you the chick that USED to be our princess?"

 

[Boomer]

^ That's a great point, although from the way the show portrayed it, she may have never even been in Monaco!!!
BTW- doesn't a divorced princess maintain some sort of title? Your Serena Blairness, maybe?