WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Gossip Girl Episode 1," Just Another Girl on the MTA", streaming now on HBO Max.
One of the biggest draws of The CW's Gossip Girl was the mystery behind the blogger causing havoc at Constance Billiard. With accusations and conspiracy theories flying wild, it was only at the end of Season 6 that Dan (Penn Badgley) was revealed to be Gossip Girl, playing everyone to land Serena. However, HBO Max's sequel series takes a different approach when it wastes no time revealing the identity of Gossip Girl 2.0.
Constance Billiard is a different playground in this social media era, and there's more potential for secrets to get out, especially with arrogant students who hate and insult teachers in public. This is why the new Gossip Girl turns out to be the teachers themselves, with Tavi Gevinson's Kate Keller taking charge of the gossip account.
When Kate gets back to school after a year of quarantine, the students are nastier than ever, even going as far as to get some other teachers fired. It happens to Rebecca, a past student in the Dan era who the other students once thought was Gossip Girl. She's the one to put Kate onto the old blogger's stories, and after that, things snowball into a revenge scheme.
In the staff room, Kate and some other teachers talk about how these entitled, privileged students should be turning into esteemed members of society, but instead, they're just brats. This conversation culminates in Wendy pushing the idea that they find a way to fight back. After they've all done their Gossip Girl homework, they decide to stir discord amongst the students because, if they hate each other, they'll have less time to worry about the teachers.
Not long after starting the account, Kate gets her hands on intel about the school's Queen Bee, Jordan, who used the scholarships her dad pays for to get her half-sister, Zoya, into the school. When the details spill, Zoya's upset because she felt she got accepted on her own merit. And if that wasn't bad enough, Kate gets photos of Zoya and Jordan's boyfriend, Obie, in a compromising situation from another teacher, which sets the school rumor mill ablaze.
This leads to Jordan trying to defuse the situation at her art show, but her cohorts, Luna and Monet, hijack the scheme designed to make Jordan still look like the alpha and get Zoya thrown out. This gets the socially conscious Obie to dump Jordan and befriend Zoya, with who he has a strong connection, and turns Jordan's evil eye on her sister. And after successfully taking down the school's biggest target, Kate's DMs fill up with more scandalous details to post.
Starring Jordan Alexander, Whitney Peak, Emily Alyn Lind, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Savannah Smith and Tavi Gevinson, Gossip Girl debuts Thursdays on HBO Max.