Gossip Girl season 1 episode 5 review: A not so spooky Halloween

Spotted:  At the halfway point of the season, it seems like Gossip Girl has settled into a rhythm–if there is one. Perhaps the new reboot has taken one too many of Max’s “zannies.”

After last week’s dramatic episode, it’s disappointing to watch this week’s anticlimactic episode. With half of the episodes out, it seems like the tone of the series is simply slow, sedate, and boring. I truly hate to see it.

This week’s episode focused on a big Halloween party, and how Zoya and Julien could win the costume contest against competing socialites at another school. But one of the reboot’s many problems is there are too many characters.

In television, you typically have your A & B story, and maybe a C story. This week’s episode, and any given episode of this series, had at least five different plots. It makes it hard to hook into any of the characters and story and truly care about what’s happening to them when no one is really given any room to breathe.

There was a hint of the old “them versus us” this week as Zoya made a new friend who turned out to be a reporter trying to suss out the new Gossip Girl’s identity and Obie used a familiar face–Nelly Yuki–to reveal the reporter’s true identity to Zoya.

While it was fun to see Nelly Yuki, the plot reinforces another general problem with the new series, a classic writing trope:  “show don’t tell.” It seems like we’re being told a lot about these characters or being told what to think about given situations without really ever just seeing it on screen.

Unlike many fans of the original series, I genuinely want the reboot to succeed. There are still five episodes to go, and maybe they can surprise me, but at this point, that seems unlikely.

Until next week. XOXO.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Gossip Girl? Make sure to tell us in the comments below!