I need to know I’m not the only one who felt truly, inexplicably sad after the finale. It’s the end of a decadent, manipulative, scheming era, guys!
Previously on Gossip Girl season 6… Dan was evil, then good, then evil and then a question mark. And he loved Serena, then didn’t, then loved her. And Nate was told by his inappropriate high school lover to go after Gossip Girl one more time. Then there was Georgina Sparks, lurking around and being Dan’s unofficial publicist because she’s one of the only good characters on the show. Lily was back with Bart, but hiding from him. But, who cares because he’s dead! See, Blair and Chuck witnessed Bart falling to his death. And that was murky territory since they could have saved him. So now, two of our lead characters have participated in accidental murder… Which is shady and gross… but, don’t worry because we’re going to sweep that under the rug!
Because this was the Gossip Girl finale, I was able to get excited about this episode. Not so much for the rest of this season. I mean, we can all admit the quality of the writing and plot on GG has declined, even when the Gossip Girl fashion didn’t. (The hair styles also, mostly, declined, oddly….Someone must have hated Blake Lively…)
A lot of newer characters like Sage and Ivy were in play, even though I’m not sure anyone ever warmed up to them. But it was great to see Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg) in heavy rotation. There was also Uncle Jack (Desmond Harrington), Cyrus (Wallace Shawn), Eleanor Waldorf (Margaret Colin) and all sorts! Plus, Taylor Momsen had a guest appearance as little Jenny Humphrey. Plus — Eric (Connor Paolo), Vanessa (Jessica Szhor), Agnes Andrews (Willa Holland), and Juliet Sharp (Katie Cassidy)!
Gossip Girl is… Dan!
Who would have surprised us to be revealed as Gossip Girl? I don’t know, maybe Rufus? Dorota? Well, no matter. It’s Dan! Did the series always know Gossip Girl was Dan? I don’t think so. Which is nuts, because it’s not like they had Lost-quality secrets to deal with. They just had to tell us who the identify of one anonymous blogger was! They just had to pick one name that made sense. And they … well, didn’t really.
While the finale worked hard to be like “oh, see these are times it totally could have been Dan” I think there were way too many times it makes no sense for Gossip Girl to have been Dan at all, even based on where he logically was doing during posts happening. (Especially since the show pointed out that Jenny didn’t have the password or access to the site, but she could talk to Dan about having anything removed for her.) Basically, it was a cheat.
Dan could not have been Gossip Girl for a million reasons during the course of the series. I like the idea of him being that. And I like to believe they figured out it should be Dan in season 5… But I don’t think they ever set out knowing who Gossip Girl would be. And that became a problem for their finale. The more I talk about it, the angrier I get… so let’s just move on. Dan is Gossip Girl, blah blah. Whatever! (He WAS the only real writer,I guess…)
Serena and Dan + A Very Special Dan Serena Wedding
I didn’t like this pair together anymore, and it doesn’t really make sense that they’d reunite. But via flashbacks, we could remember how much we used to like them. Serena’s wedding dress of white and gold seemed very her. And so, I suppose it was nice in the end that they got their happy ending.
The Chuck Blair Wedding
Wanting Chuck and Blair to get married right away meant there was no time to remember that Chuck and Blair did a pretty horrible thing. It was unusual that no one even questioned why Chuck and Blair were having a rushed wedding.
I loved seeing everyone running down the stairs to the fast wedding. And the wedding itself was gorgeous.
Blair’s wedding Dress (Ellie Saab) was… actually nice. As was her tiara and her earrings. For the type of wedding she was having, it really worked.
Five Years Later…
We knew Nate was older because he had his hair slicked back.
Chuck and Blair had a kid… who wears suits. Henry! Or Henri? What happened to Blair’s season 6 minor crush named Henri?
Blair’s silver dress at the end was amazing.
Eric was back!
Taylor really was back! With the flash back I thought that might be all we got of her.
Rufus and Lily really weren’t back together. Sad! But Rufus married Lisa Loeb!
Georgina and Jack?
And I loved how it all ended on Serena, the same way it started. Even though season 6 made her seem so sad and desperate, we can remember how great this character used to be. And maybe will be in her future, too?
Misc. Gossip Girl Review Notes:
- A great Bonnie and Clyde cover opened the episode.
- I loved the flash back to high school. With all the old looks, I wonder if Blake Lively and Penn Badgley had any old loving feelings. And I did like the attempt to bring much of this Gossip Girl story back to being about Dan’s POV into the Upper East Side.
- I loved Nate, suddenly. I’m not sure why. Because he was protective and it was hot?
- The Ivy and William storyline was incredibly boring and predictable.
- Kristen Bell and Rachel Bilson cameos! God, loved that. And those two are actually pretty friendly, so I liked imagining they really are friends who hang out a lot.
- I really can’t believe Rufus and Lily didn’t make up for the finale. What was the point of William, just to give Lily someone so she wasn’t an old maid? Gah.
There was a nice cohesiveness to the finale. Which is funny to type… because in many ways there was such a garble of things going on… but somehow… they made it work.
Goodbye to Leighton Meester, Blake Lively, Ed Westwick, Penn Badgley, Chace Crawford. They were our core teenage cast.
To the parentals like Matthew Settle and Kelly Rutherford, you’ve earned applause.
Also, good luck to Kaylee Defer and Sofia Black D’Elia. You weren’t used well on Gossip Girl, but there’s always future projects.
To all those and more, we wish you luck.
And though this is not at all the saddest thing going on in the world by any means, I still found myself sad about the ending of Gossip Girl. It was … an interesting show. I wouldn‘t call it a great show. I think the quality declined greatly after the first few seasons. I think a lot of the lessons people will take from the show are ultimately pretty unhealthy… But it launched careers for Leighton Meester, Blake Lively (et al), gave us great fashion, and gave us more of the good ol’ New York City.
And even when NYC’s a bitch, we love her. Or love to hate her. Really, we’re all so emotionally unstable we can’t settle on just one stance… Which was kind of why the fictional Gossip Girl site was invented… We love, we hate, we scheme, we grieve, we wear ugly shoes and kiss the wrong people… We’re basically so awesome we never stop. I don’t even sleep anymore. So maybe it’s time for a spa retreat. On a high mountain with monks and no talking or texting or – you’re right, I’d never make it through one day of that.
Well, I’ll be updating, blogging, tweeting, pinning, liking, tumblring, viggling and such later, so this really isn’t goodbye.
XOXO
Gossip Girl
