Gossip Girl- Season 5 (TV Series)

l-r: Serena (Lively), Blair (Meester), Chuck (Westwick),
 Dan (Badgley) and Nate (Crawford)

This season of 'Gossip Girl' has become very similar to a car crash- I know I shouldn't watch it but I just can’t look away. Season five has seen just as much treachery, deceit and over-the-top indecency as the four that have preceded it, which is exactly what’s making Gossip Girl incredibly repetitive and frustrating to watch.

The principal characters Serena (Blake Lively), Chuck (Ed Westwick), Blair (Leighton Meester), Dan (Penn Badgley) & Nate (Chace Crawford) are joined by new permanent character Charlie Rhoades (Kaylee DeFer), who was actually revealed at the end of the last season to be an actress named Ivy Dickens hired by Serena’s aunt in order to con the family out of millions of dollars. This remained the last truly shocking thing that’s happened on the show since, apart from the unexpected return of…a certain former character whose name I won’t reveal for those who haven’t caught up yet.

Rhoades/Dickens (DeFer)

This season also sees Elizabeth Hurley guest star throughout the series as Diana Payne, the head of ‘The Spectator’, a gossip blog desperate to take Gossip Girl herself out of business. However, along with most other storylines in the show, what Payne was actually trying to do got caught amongst the over complicated waves of goings-on that take place on the Upper East Side.

A main problem that runs throughout the show is the fact that there are no likeable characters; as every character is out to get someone else for one trivial problem or another. The show is consistently defended by the fact that in real life, there are no strictly good or bad people which is an incredibly good point…although of course this isn’t real life…it’s a television show, which makes it extremely difficult to sympathise or empathise with any of the group: you’ll love them one minute, and hate them the next.

Since some may think I have unfairly bashed Gossip Girl, I’ll end on a positive. Since season 2, Nate has been riding on the coattails of other characters storylines, but it’s safe to say that Crawford has obtained the most use out of his character in the last 24 episodes than he has in years, and with the show set to end for good this December with a short and hopefully sweet 11 episode run, let’s hope 'Gossip Girl' goes out that way.

In short, this season has been an incoherent mess.

C-/D+

Key episodes: "Riding in Town Cars With Boys" "G.G"