You don't have to be a fan of the original Gossip Girl in order to enjoy the HBO Max reboot — however, there are some references that will go well over your head if you didn't keep up with the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite. While you may be familiar with the Blairs and Serenas of the world, there are certain deep cuts only hardcore fans will pick up on — and, in some cases, even those fans will have to head to the Wiki for an explanation.
One of those moments is evident in the pilot episode, with a character named Rebecca. Who is Rebecca on the new Gossip Girl? In the pilot, Rebecca is a teacher who gives the other members of the faculty the rundown on the original Gossip Girl, aka Dan Humphrey. The Constance Billard alum, who graduated alongside Dan, Blair, Serena, Nate Archibald and Chuck Bass, informs long-suffering English teacher Kate Kellar and the rest of the crew that Gossip Girl kept students in line. She even mentions that she was once a contender to be the omnipresent blogger, before Dan ultimately revealed he was the one behind the snarky site.
If Rebecca doesn’t look familiar to you, it’s because we never really met Rebecca. Her name is, however, mentioned in Season 2’s finale “The Goodbye Gossip Girl,” in which the recent Constance and St. Jude’s graduates try to uncover Gossip Girl’s identity. (It only took a lot of Googling and command+F in all the Gossip Girl scripts to uncover.)
The non-judging Breakfast Club (Blair, Nate, Serena, and Chuck, for the uninitiated) deduces that Gossip Girl is a senior, like them, and Blair scrolls through a now archaic version of social media to figure out who it may be.
"Rebecca Sherman?" Blair poses, before thinking better of it. "No, her head's always in a book, she's not paying enough attention."
(FYI no, the actress in the photo is not the actress who portrays 2021 Rebecca IRL.)
In a funny twist, the name Rebecca Sherman comes up again on Gossip Girl showrunner Joshua Safran’s other series, Quantico. She’s a socialite — and perhaps also a Constance Billard grad?! Who is to say!
Read more...
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Images: The CW and HBO Max