HBO Max’s Gossip Girl revival-boot wrapped its second and final season on Thursday, culminating with the most dramatic Met Gala moment since Solange and Jay-Z shared an elevator.
Showrunner Josh Safran spoke with TVLine about the finale’s biggest twists (and how they would have shaped the now-canceled third season), but let’s start with a quick recap:
Julien conspired to sneak Zoya onto the Met Gala carpet where she would “reveal” herself as Gossip Girl, hoping the attention would make the real GG jealous enough to come out of hiding. When that didn’t work, they floated a rumor that Zoya was meeting with big-time directors to sell GG’s story, enlisting one last Gossip Girl OG (Matt Doyle as Eric’s now-husband Jonathan) to help pull it off.
“We also tried to get Connor Paolo back [as Eric], but he was busy shooting a movie,” Safran says. “We were very happy to have Matt there to tell the story of their marriage.”
In the end, it was Kate’s hubris that did her in. To quote special guest star Andy Cohen, “A teacher? What a twist! Also… gross?” With GG finally slain (and everyone rightly horrified to learn that a teacher was behind it all), the gang celebrated their victory in Italy, where we got a taste of what their futures hold.
Luna’s modeling career is skyrocketing, as evidenced by her ubiquitous Oscar de la Renta campaign; Julien connected with her estranged aunt (played by Broadway icon LaChanze), who suggested there’s more to her late mother’s story than she knows; Zoya enjoyed what appeared to be a meet-cute with a fellow theater enthusiast (played by Aaron Dominguez, who would have been a regular in Season 3); and Max, freshly dumped by Aki and Audrey, was drowning his sorrows at a bar in Germany, where a mysterious stranger offered a helping hand.
And if you stuck around for the finale’s MCU-esque post-credits scene, you’d know that Roger Menzies offered Jordan a job that would turn GG into a global, teen-snitching app. Perfect.
HBO Max’s decision to cancel the series means that we won’t get to see any of that play out, but we have good news: Safran and his writing team were fortunate enough to have “mapped out the entire season,” and he was more than happy to answer TVLine’s burning questions about what was going to happen next.
Read on for our full Q&A with Safran, then grade the series finale in the poll below. When you’re done, drop a comment with your review of the episode, as well as your thoughts on these Season 3 storylines.