Attention all Upper East Siders! Gossip Girl is coming back for a second season on HBO Max, and there is sure to be plenty of drama, romance, and gossip of course. The HBO Max Gossip Girl series debuted in 2021, and is a revival and continuation of the CW’s original series. It takes place eight years after the original website was shut down, and follows a new generation of New York private school teenagers who are introduced to the brutal social surveillance of Gossip Girl, which is now an Instagram account run by their teachers.
Gossip Girl season 2 will premiere on December 1 on HBOMax, and features the return of familiar characters, including Zoya (Whitney Park), Julienne (Jordan Alexander), Obie (Eli Brown), Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind), Aki (Evan Mock), Max (Thomas Doherty), Luna (Zion Moreno), and Monet (Savannah Lee Smith). Also, a fan favorite character is expected to make a comeback, as the second season will feature the return of quasi-villain Georgina Sparks (Michelle Trachtenberg).
Season 1 premiered on July 8, 2021 and left a lot of drama to unpack. Kate made a strange deal with Julien where she promised to reveal the dirt on her friends while she tried to uncover Gossip Girl’s identity. Max entered a throuple with Aki and Audrey, and Zoya was able to stay with her dad in New York City after Julien gave them a generous donation to maintain their apartment. Zoya finds out Julien and Obie slept together and cut ties with them, and the final episode shows Julien delivering a monologue to Gossip Girl explaining why the two of them need to work together.
Season 2 is expected to pick up where Season 1 left off. Julien is still dealing with the aftermath of her father’s Me Too Movement, while her partnership with Gossip Girl is sure to backfire for both parties. Zoya is trying to distance herself from the Constance It girls, and Audrey, Max, and Aki are navigating their polyamorous relationship.
In an interview with Teen Vogue, showrunner and executive producer Josh Safran shared what viewers can expect from Season 2:
“I always knew that if we got to a season two, the characters themselves, now that they have been manipulated by Gossip Girl for a full season, would start to play into Gossip Girl's hand. That would be the place for us to go back to doing that stuff that the first show did so well because we would've, A) established ourselves as our own entity, but, B) if you're a group of teenagers and Gossip Girl is screwing with you, it took a while for Blair and Serena even to fall into... they weren't pushing each other into the Seine or into fountains early."
Safran also describes Michelle Trachtenberg's character as an “anarchist” who will “just do anything and just for any reason she decides.” He is also excited about the development of Grace Duah’s new character, hinting “there’s a major detail about her character that you learn, and as the season goes on, there’s romances and missed connections.”
Gossip Girl is an American television teen drama series that is based on the Alloy Entertainment books written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The original series aired on The CW network for six seasons from 2007-2012, and revolves around the lives of a group of upper-class adolescents living in Manhattan’s elite Upper East Side. Their lives are narrated and manipulated by a vicious but well-known blogger referred to as “Gossip Girl”. The HBO Max series is a continuation of the original series that has been given a modern twist, but will contain plenty of references and Easter eggs to the original gang.
Gossip Girl Season 1 is currently available for streaming on HBO Max, and Season 2 will premiere on December 1.
