Gossip Lady Herself Is Ruining the New ‘Gossip Lady’

Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson) has all the time been considered one of Gossip Girl’s extra morally questionable characters. However the highschool teacher-turned-Gossip Lady mastermind herself has lastly reached full villain standing. It took till this week’s episode, the penultimate of Season 2 of the HBO Max reboot—which discovered each Julien (Jordan Alexander) and Camille de Haan (Amanda Warren) waging conflict on Gossip Lady—to let her free.

Issues are falling aside for the members of Manhattan’s elite as we close to the tip of the season. Julien has alienated Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind) and Zoya (Whitney Peak) along with her fixed scheming; Monet (Savannah Lee Smith) has fallen from Queen Bee to persona non grata; Obie (Eli Brown) remains to be one way or the other probably the most boring character on tv, regardless of conspiring to ship his mom to jail; Grayson de Haan (Rick Worthy) places out a bounty on Gossip Girl’s identity, placing an finish to her posting; and the throuple’s bond is beginning to break.

All this involves a head on the annual Rhinebeck Summit, or, as Obie so eloquently places it, “that complete bonding for billionaires factor.” It’s an occasion so unique, the de Haans can one way or the other add 4 extra visitors to their checklist on the final minute — together with Kate, who sneaks her manner in as Monet’s tutor, however is admittedly there to attach with Camille; Nick Lott (Johnathan Fernandez), who’s supposedly coming to ship some crucial paperwork; and Nick’s two plus-ones, his daughter Zoya and her half-sister Julien.

Satisfied that Camille is on GG’s facet, Kate makes an attempt to strike a facet take care of her to acquire incriminating paperwork on Grayson to get him off her again. The catch: Camille will solely meet with GG in particular person. For a second (after an applicable quantity of hijinks) Kate beats Camille at her personal recreation, conserving her id a secret and getting her fingers on these top-secret paperwork. But it surely doesn’t take lengthy for the opposite shoe to drop: It seems that Camille had been enjoying GG the entire time. After Kate makes use of the docs to accuse Grayson of union-busting, he turns round and blames all of it on Nick, thus destroying Nick’s popularity as a authorized skilled.

Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Max

It was unhealthy sufficient when Kate was posting images of a 14-year-old Zoya Lott altering in Obie’s condo, driving a wedge between two teenage sisters. However getting Nick fired, even by accident, has taken her to a complete new degree of evil. When Kate went after the kids of Constance Billard, posting about their intercourse lives and petty rivalries, it was undoubtedly icky—but it surely was the sort of icky that Gossip Lady followers may overlook. If the drama is juicy and absurdist sufficient, we will forgive the truth that, at its core, the present is a few 20-something white lady utilizing her place of energy to anonymously cyberbully her teenage college students, a lot of them non-white.

However, trying again on the reboot to this point, it’s laborious to not discover that Kate has a sample of inflicting real-world injury to Nick. Injury that can’t be mounted by a heart-to-heart or a sleepover social gathering.

What makes Kate’s continued abuse of Nick is that he’s the sort of particular person Kate portends to champion. He’s not wealthy like the opposite Constance mother and father, and he raised Zoya to be respectful of academics and her friends. He must be the one guardian Kate goes out of her manner not to destroy. And but, he’s the one she’s damage probably the most.

Within the very first episode, Kate uncovered the reality about Julien paying for Zoya’s scholarship, placing the freshman’s schooling in danger. Later within the season, her GG accomplices—Jordan (Adam Chanler-Berat) and Wendy (Megan Ferguson), her fellow academics—helped expose the truth that Zoya and Nick have been residing in his mom’s rent-controlled condo, which basically brought about them to be evicted.

And now, she has inadvertently helped body him for union-busting, making him unemployable in New York Metropolis and a goal for potential authorized motion. Let’s put it in one other manner: A white lady probably ruined a Black man’s life for no motive apart from to guard her personal ego and preserve spying on minors. And we’re simply purported to… be okay with that?

Longtime GG followers know that loads of unhealthy, horrible, unforgivable issues have occurred due to the nameless blogger, but it surely felt much less sinister again when it solely affected (largely) wealthy white individuals. It doesn’t matter what occurred, irrespective of how horrible or devastating the plot twists, the principle characters would all the time bounce again due to their youth and privilege. It’s a part of why Serena accepted Dan when he revealed himself as Gossip Lady within the unique collection—on the finish of the day, everybody survived, regardless of all of the rumors. (Virtually everybody. RIP Bart Bass.)

Cara Howe/HBO Max

The truth that we didn’t know the id of GG till the very finish of that present additionally helped us forgive him for his misdeeds. By the point the viewers discovered about Dan’s double life, it was too late to be mad at him for what he’d performed to destroy his finest buddies. Who on the finish of Season 6 remembered the time Gossip Lady revealed a tip about Jenny sleeping with Chuck? Not me. Possibly if we’d identified Dan was GG on the time, extra individuals would bear in mind Dan as a creep who shared particulars about his teenage sister’s intercourse life on the web, and never the Lonely Boy all of us crushed on.

Revealing GG’s id within the first episode of the reboot, nevertheless, was an important twist on the time. However almost two seasons later, it feels contradictory. Gossip Lady introduced Kate as a personality you root for, however what she simply did to Nick makes that not possible. Not even one of the best redemption arc on the earth may make Kate remotely likable after this, and it makes on a regular basis and energy spent on her Season 2 arc really feel like a waste of time.

Followers spent eight episodes watching Kate beat Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg) at her personal recreation and get not one, however two love pursuits! That’s greater than we will say for Luna (Zión Moreno), Zoya, Monet, and Shan (Grace Duah), all of whom have been tragically underused. And for what? Placing Kate front-and-center may need been a enjoyable concept at first, but it surely may develop into the present’s biggest mistake.