9 things nobody wants to admit about Gossip Girl

9. Chuck and Blair shouldn’t have ended up together

As entertaining as their series-long back and forth might have been, Chuck and Blair’s relationship ran its course long before their marriage in the sixth season, if we’re being completely honest. The “Chair” ship set sail amid intoxicating intrigue: The queen bee with a heart of gold falling for the womanizing bad boy. It’s a match made in teen drama heaven! But were they deserving of endgame?

You could argue that Chuck and Blair needed to be endgame because that’s where the story always seemed to be headed. They couldn’t make Dan and Blair endgame! All of the lids needed to go on their respective pots as dictated by the earlier seasons and fan demand. Having said all that, the plans should have been thrown out the window long before season 6. So much had happened and Chuck had done so many more awful things. Getting them back in each other’s orbit always took some finessing.

Maybe I’m just not a Chuck fan as a whole because of the aforementioned awful things (one of which happens in the pilot episode!). Maybe I think Blair didn’t need to end up with someone, as trite as the “I choose me” storylines have gotten. However, I maintain that Blair shouldn’t have ended up with Chuck, or at the very least, not as soon as she did.

8. The ships were super messy

Speaking of the show’s various relationships, the combinations got so messy so fast. In the first season, Serena dated Dan and Blair dated Nate, though Serena secretly had an affair with Nate, and Blair started to have feelings for Chuck. Then everyone dated each other, sometimes twice, in ways that had you considering how and why any of these people would still be close friends considering their complicated and incestuous shared histories. I mean, Blair dated the love of her best friend’s life! It makes for good TV, just don’t mentally zoom out too far.

7. We were robbed of the Valley Girls spin-off

The penultimate episode of season 2 featured a backdoor pilot for a 1980s-set prequel spin-off. Valley Girls would have taken place in Los Angeles and centered on 17-year-old Lily played by Brittany Snow with additional cast members Krysten Ritter, Matt Barr, Shiloh Fernandez, Ryan Hansen, and Andrew McCarthy. There had even been talk that if The CW had picked up the spin-off, younger versions of The O.C.’s Kirsten and Jimmy would have been included in the series, which would have created the Josh Schwartz-Stephanie Savage Cinematic Universe. Oh, the things we lost!

Rather than actually ever getting a spin-off, prequel or otherwise, HBO Max (then later just Max) launched its own reboot of Gossip Girl. The series of the same name from original writer and executive producer Joshua Safran premiered in 2021 and lasted for two seasons. While the reboot was excellent in its own right, in its own ways, I can’t help but wonder what could have been even if we had gotten just one ill-fated season of Valley Girls. Who knows, perhaps someday they will circle back to the idea and give it or another spin-off a shot.