Gossip Girl Review: Hope Sinks (Season 1 Episode 5)
Brace yourselves, Upper East Siders:Gossip Girl Season 1 Episode 5, “Hope Sinks,” may be the strongest installment of HBO Max’s reboot yet. Despite its title, “Hope Sinks,” it makes us hopeful that the series could deliver on all the tensions it’s been building.
Not only does this episode conclude with a number of surprising twists, but it gives us what we’ve been looking for the whole time: a reason to get invested in this group of friends and their relationships to one another.
The episode opens when a student brings a gun to school, a response to being bullied in Gossip Girl’s comments. “Hope Sinks” doesn’t elaborate nearly enough on the incredibly sensitive topic of school shootings, but it would be interesting if the series leaned further into the cyberbullying aspect of the story.
The incident does force Kate (Tavi Gevinson) and her colleagues to reconsider their course of action, a surprising turn of events that reverses their roles, at least temporarily.
Although Kate has been pushing Gossip Girl harder than anyone, it’s Jordan (Adam Chanler-Berat) and Wendy (Megan Ferguson) who attempt to justify what’s happened. They cling to Gossip Girl, while Kate decides it may be time for a break.
Unfortunately, Kate’s moment doesn’t last very long. That’s probably for the best since her sudden realization that, yes, cyberbullying is a bad thing feels sudden and undeveloped. This is one storyline the show could have done better with this week.
While the future of Gossip Girl hangs in the balance, the teenagers of the Upper East Side prepare for Hulaween, the biggest Halloween bash in the city — and a chance to land on the cover of the likes of Elle or Vogue.
Zoya (Whitney Peak) and Julien (Jordan Alexander) get along much better in this episode, and honestly, their on-screen relationship manages to be more engaging when they aren’t butting heads.
Luna (Zión Moreno) and Monet (Savannah Lee Smith) do enough of that for them, but the dynamic between the group is more fun than it’s been in previous weeks.
Gossip Girl seems to have struck a good balance between sassy remarks and friendly banter. You can almost see Julien, Audrey (Emily Alyn Lind), Luna, and Monet heading out to brunch or going on shopping trips — like real friends!
Luna, in particular, gets a few moments to shine this week. She’s clearly accepted Zoya as a permanent part of their lives now, and she’s moved from trying to sabotage that to working within those confines.
Obie (Eli Brown), on the other hand, continues to struggle with Zoya’s inclusion in the friend group. Their relationship drama seems like it will be ongoing, but what did we expect after their instalove in the series premiere?
Obie’s hypocrisy stands out stunningly as the episodes continue, but it’s not entirely clear if we’re supposed to view him through that lens. He’s been partying with his rich, shallow friends since reaching puberty, but he draws the line at Zoya doing the same.
Perhaps Obie simply wanted a way out of that world, but this scenario reads more like Obie wants Zoya to remain unchanged, with no growth to speak of. The fact that he’s known her all of a few weeks makes his frustration more off-putting.
Speaking of off-putting, the relationship between Rafa (Jason Gotay) and Max (Thomas Doherty) continues this week, with Aki (Evan Mock) playing the voice of reason.
Although things remain difficult between Max, Audrey, and Aki, the latter tries to stop his friend from doing something he’ll regret — even if it means akwardly confronting their teacher.
Truthfully, the trio’s brief moments on-screen together this episode are more fun and interesting than anything we’ve seen from Rafa and Max so far. The chemistry between Max, Aki, and Audrey needs to be capitalized on.
Of course, it seems Gossip Girl isn’t trying to play up the Rafa and Max romance, so that would be why their dynamic isn’t as fun.
It’s a tad unbelievable anyone would side with Rafa even if Aki was stalking him and making advances, but the threat of those lies — and being expelled over them — confirms Aki’s suspicions about him. Unfortunately, Max isn’t willing to hear him yet.
While Aki deals with Max’s new relationship, Audrey has problems of her own to contend with: her mother trying to move both of them away and make her change high schools.
Television may use moving way too frequently to spark tensions betweens parents and their kids, but Audrey and Kiki (Laura Benanti) have a very believable on-screen relationship.
The hurtful things they say to one another will make you cringe, as though you’re watching a mother and her daughter scream at each other in real life. It’s hard to know who to root for, either, since they’re both a little wrong.
As all the drama leads up the Huluween, Zoya also meets a new boy — something that will no doubt have you thinking, ugh, not another love triangle. Simon (Mason Versaw) takes the bus like her, doesn’t judge her like Obie does, and can hold a conversation.
Poor Zoya doesn’t realize an important fact about a show like this, however: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
When Hulaween finally rolls around, Julien and Zoya’s plans to go dressed as Beyoncé and her sister Solange don’t get the intended results. The reason? Someone leaked their costumes, so most of New York shows up in similar attire.
Meanwhile, the girls’ rivals from another school show up dressed as Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Wooden. It’s a delightful throwback to the original series, and it gets better when Julien and Zoya hurriedly attempt to regain the spotlight by changing their costumes to Dan Humphrey and Chuck Bass.
It’s references like these that make fun callbacks to the first Gossip Girl without causing the new show to get lost in its legacy.
Gossip Girl is absent from the Hulaween drama, mostly because Kate’s busy having an existential crisis in Zoya’s bathroom. While she helps Zoya’s father hand out candy, she comes to a surprisingly undeveloped conclusion: Maybe Gossip Girl is doing some good after all.
The episode needed to explore her mindset more deeply and give better examples of what she believes is so worth going back to the platform. Gossip Girl’s Instagram gets a completely fresh start this week, but it misses some major developments at the party.
First, Monet is the traitor in the core group’s midst. She released the information about Julien and Zoya’s costumes, and she breaks things off with her friends at the end of “Hope Sinks.” Monet just got way more interesting, so hopefully the show continues to follow her.
Zoya also finds out that Simon is a reporter from New York Magazine, hellbent on tracking down Gossip Girl. She seems to be a primary suspect, but thankfully, Obie exposes him before he publicly pins the blame on her.
Simon’s introduction does make you wonder whether the teachers will have bigger problems to deal with moving forward though. Will Kate regret her decision to continue Gossip Girl after all?
Max also discovers that he isn’t the first student Rafa’s dated after he runs into one of the teacher’s exes. That revelation, moreso than Aki’s warnings, pushes Max over the edge.
Watching him tell Rafa off is nearly as satisfying as realizing that Gossip Girl isn’t going down the same road as Pretty Little Liars after all. (Now all that’s left is to get this guy in jail, please.)
What did you think of this episode of Gossip Girl? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Gossip Girl airs Thursdays on HBO Max.
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