Gossip Girl Gents & ‘Rents
The first of Gossip Girl‘s fine young men is STEVE, who is the first character specified as white. Rich as sin but with the idealistic worldview of a saint, he may be our next Nate Archibald.
Meanwhile, BRAD is a boundary-pushing, sexually-fluid pleasure-seeker who loves testing the limits of his control. Ten bucks if you can guess who he sounds like…
Then there’s TIM, a half-Asian student who skates both as a sport and away from conflict. Unfortunately, his home life is full of said conflict and leaves him having to take care of himself most of the time.
The ratio of teenage girls to boys is appropriate for a show titled Gossip Girl, which means the rest of the cast is made up of parents. Presumably, the focus they receive will be less than their children – but they may also follow Runaways‘ example of elevating the adult cast.
Included among the parents is: TONY, an African-American lawyer who seeks to be honorable in all his dealings; RYAN, a Caucasian musician with an alcoholic past who’s now on the straight and narrow; and KIM, a mentally-ill designer who seeks to be her own cure. There’s also ROY, a gay architect who may be the moral pillar of the group; and GREG, a bold producer who experiments with social conventions through his own creativity.
Among the younger set of adults, there’s JULIO, a Latinx graduate school student doubling as bartender and leaving behind a trail of men longing for more of his love; KATE, an older sister who’s after college graduation full of the best-laid plans for her future; and CALVIN, an ill-used nanny who goes to bat for his charge despite his treatment.
How will this myriad of characters interact? That’s one secret I’ll never tell. Mostly because I don’t know. For that, you’ll have to wait until HBO Max drops those ten episodes, most likely next year.
XOXO,
Gossip Girl
