I’m Watching is a more informal type of post where I watch through a series and discuss each episode (while also making a lot of really random observations). Currently, I’m watching the Gossip Girl reboot.
Remember last week, when I shared my thoughts on how little I liked this new reboot of Gossip Girl and wondered if the next week’s episode would be any better? Well, it’s the next week’s episode, and it is not any better. In fact, it’s actually worse.
I’d say this was one of the most boring hours of television I’ve ever seen in my entire life. As I was watching I could feel my eyes absolutely glazing over, and I wondered when the action was going to pick up. It never did.
Continuing the rivalry set up in the previous episode, Zoya and Julien are “at war”. And when I say “at war” I mean they seem mildly discontented with each other but it never really progresses beyond that. Gone are the days of throwing your enemy into a fountain in Paris, I suppose. I miss it. They make amends at the end of the episode anyway.
That’s the one thing I thought was mildly interesting about Julien’s character – the fact that she saw the error of her ways and wanted to make amends, and that she realised that Zoya was a better fit for Obie and kind of gave them her blessing (oh yeah, Zoya and Obie together now too). It would have been really easy to just make Julien a full-on generic bitch character, but the fact that she can see when she’s done wrong and how her actions have been hurting people makes her much more well-rounded. I do appreciate that, as characters in the original series rarely had genuine moments of contrition.
There’s some sort of parent/teacher night thing, where Kate Keller and Zoya’s dad Nick (Johnathan Fernandez) hit it off. I suppose there’s going to be a romantic relationship between those two, which might get a bit tricky seeing as Kate is Gossip Girl.
Then there’s some sort of charity event thing (but nowhere near as fun or interesting as any in the previous series). Audrey is sad because her mum doesn’t want to come, but she should have been careful what she wished for because when her mum does come she has a full-on meltdown and embarrasses Audrey in front of everyone.
There’s also a really gross storyline where Max is trying to seduce a teacher from school. The teacher apparently has a reputation in the gay community as being someone really good to sleep with, and the show kind of tries to pass Max’s attempts off as comedy. It’s really not funny though. The original Gossip Girl had a similarly gross storyline where Serena got together with a teacher (although neither of them were at school at the time, and both clear adults). The fact that Max says he’s of age doesn’t make it any better though, because it’s still a student and a teacher and there is a clear abuse of power in that relationship. Thankfully for now the teacher wants nothing to do with him, but we all know it won’t stay that way. Blech.
I think that’s about all for this episode. There’s some minor drama between Aki and Audrey that lasts 0.5 seconds and is resolved just as quickly. The show is also trying to set something up between Aki and Max and Max and Audrey, but I’m not that interested in it really. I think Audrey and Max slept together when she was fighting with Aki, but the show doesn’t devote enough time to any of those characters to make me care about them, and I also despise Max so much that the only thing I want to see him do is talk a long walk off a short pier.
Until next week.
XOXO, Gossip Girl (reboot).
Random Observations
- Are there going to be any interesting parties in this show? They went back to that same club as in the first episode and then the charity event thing was a total snooze-fest.
- I don’t really understand why both Monet and Luna are both in the show when they serve the exact same function and both act the exact same way. You don’t really need two characters for that one role of “mean friend”, and it means that they both don’t get a lot of screen time or character development.
- No outfits in this episode that really set the world on fire, which is a shame because charity galas are always an occasion to bring out some amazing dress and show it off.
- Imagine running into your teacher at a sauna. What a nightmare.
- The music at the charity event was boring regular music. I would’ve loved a jazz cover of some pop song.
More like this: I’m Watching: Gossip Girl Reboot – Episode 1
