When the original Gossip Girl closed up shop, one plot twist that always rankled fans was the decision to reveal Dan Humphrey as the titular blogger. Lonely Boy! Of all people! It didn’t make sense, of course, and it’s been a sticking point for viewers ever since the six-season show ended in 2012. So when Gossip Girl alum Joshua Safran—a writer and executive producer on the original series—got the chance to helm a reboot, he set about thinking of a way to right this eternal wrong. His solution? Establishing who Gossip Girl was in the very first episode.
In the reboot, which debuted Thursday on HBO Max, it’s quickly revealed that Gossip Girl isn’t one of the students, but rather a handful of the teachers at the Constance Billard school. The plan is hatched as the teachers sit in the lounge, grousing about work. One of them brings up the old Gossip Girl blog and they rush to a computer, reading the bygone posts and marveling at the voicey gossip held within. “These posts are like a lost Edith Wharton novel!” exclaims new teacher Kate (Tavi Gevinson). How nice it must have been, she starts to think, to have a way to exert power over absurdly affluent, entitled, and occasionally cruel students, who can get teachers fired with a quick call to mommy or daddy. After a short debate about the icky ethics of dusting off the Gossip Girl mantle and spreading gossip about the very students they’re tasked with protecting, Kate and three other teachers ultimately decide, over the course of the episode, to band together and relaunch the blog. (But on Instagram, of course.)
Safran plotted this concept out years ago, pitching it to original show creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage as a way in to the reboot. Safran, who grew up on the Upper East Side and went to fancy, *Gossip Girl–*esque private schools himself, was inspired by friends of his who currently teach in those same kinds of schools.
“I couldn’t let go of wondering what the world would look like from their eyes,” he said in a recent Zoom call. “I wouldn’t do the show if I couldn’t do that.”
It was also a way to amp up the appeal of gossip. In the post-Crazy Days and Nights, pre-Deux Moi world in which he was still working out the reboot concept, Safran was interested in taking a 360 approach to the blind item. “It’s no longer the fun of just a blind item,” he says. “Why are you telling the blind item? How do you get the blind item? Who’s telling you the blind item?”
Plus, it was also a good way to avoid the Dan Humphrey decision that plagued the original series, casting everything that came before the big reveal into question. Safran is sanguine about fan irritation over the choice, admitting in numerous interviews that it wasn’t the right choice to make Dan Gossip Girl. “With Dan Humphrey being Gossip Girl, suddenly everybody has refrigerator logic and looks back like, ‘Whoa, how did that happen? How did it work?’” he says. “Of course it doesn’t fully sustain itself because we didn’t expect to even reveal who Gossip Girl was. It wasn’t even in our plans for many years. So, of course it doesn’t line up because it wasn’t like we started on day one and said, ‘Dan is Gossip Girl.’”
“This time around, I was like, Well, instead of refrigerator logic, let’s make the audience complicit in who Gossip Girl is,” he added.
In the pilot for the reboot, the teachers haggle for a bit over the logistics of how to revive the blog. They try using Twitter, but quickly rule it out. “Twitter is a glorified chatroom for meme-sharing, conspiracy theorists and Lin-Manuel Miranda,” one teacher muses in the Gossip Girl brainstorm. “If we really want to get attention, it’s Instagram only.” So, led by Kate, they launch an Instagram account and plot a way to pit the popular kids against each other, dividing and conquering one post at a time. “You ready to take the power back, do some good and save the future?” Kate asks, not fully envisioning the thorniness that might ensue as she gets to know her students and learns the full scope of their home lives.
“That’s something we didn’t watch Dan go through,” Safran says of the ethical dilemma. The audience never got to see him struggle with the idea that he was throwing his friends, his family, and even himself under the bus by posting a Gossip Girl item. Safran didn’t want such an easy out this time around. “Isn’t that interesting to think about the times that Dan posted [items] on himself that would harm him because he thought when the greater good? Let’s watch that this time.”
— An Exclusive Deep Dive Into Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back
— Joseph Fiennes on His Handmaid’s Tale Fate
— The 10 Best Movies of 2021 (So Far)
— Jane Levy on the Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist Cancellation
— Is Luca Pixar’s First Gay Movie?
— How Physical Got Under Rose Byrne’s Skin
— What Is Bo Burnham’s Inside Really Trying to Say?
— Simu Liu Is Ready to Take On Marvel
— From the Archive: Jackie and Joan Collins, Queens of the Road
— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of “Awards Insider.”