Critic Reviews

The teens feel less like Gen Z caricatures and finally have problems worthy of our attention.

Outside of Gossip Girl as a revived cyberbully, the show expands the cast of core characters into a group of friends with dynamics both familiar and refreshing.

This is Gossip Girl, so obviously there are love triangles and betrayals and backstabbing and upsettingly grown-up teen machinations. Some of those threads titillate. Some are incredibly dumb. Which is to say, it is every bit the soap opera you’d expect. Those are the diversions that hook you in each episode. ... But these diversions only work because they’re bolstered by some actually heady thematics.

In its second season, Gossip Girl has morphed into exactly what you want from a reboot. The costumes and directorial work are more refined and swoon-worthy than the original, and even though the drama is new, it feels familiar. There is a real sense that this is a new chapter in a beloved story.

Although there’s nudity, cursing, and suggestive marketing material, the show’s plot lines like walking red carpets, dueling parties, cruising bathhouses, and finding out parents’ secret romantic trysts seem, well, safe.

Gossip Girl Season 2 doesn’t take any huge leaps, either in terms of the timeline or storylines it covers, but that’s okay. The show knows what it is and what it’s good at, and it’s smartly leaning in to highlight fan-favorite characters we didn’t see as much of in the first season.

Overall, the whole production seems much more comfortable in its second outing. Many characters feel more lived-in and less reductive, and the writing has gotten much funnier.

The revised premise, which I’ve been asked not to say much more about before the premiere drops, requires some willful suspension of disbelief. But if you can make that leap, the setup works surprisingly well.

The camp aspects of the show aren’t funny, but the excess often is. ... The men of “Gossip Girl” are almost uniformly inept, ineffectual and/or incessantly annoying. ... But the women in the show—and their relationships—often ring true. Even better, they’re entertaining. So are their witty asides.

The old magic isn’t back yet in a woke reboot that forgets a guilty conscience is no substitute for a guilty pleasure. But when these privileged teens get their digital knives out the result is wicked, compulsively watchable fun and deliciously addictive.