Gossip Girl 5.16 Sneak Peek Dan, Blair and Charlie

5.15 Crazy Cupid Love Stills Part III

Chuck doesn’t seem too happy with what Georgina is showing him, pretty sure it may have to do with Dair. Guess Nate hasn’t learned his lesson with random girls yet….

5.15 Crazy Cupid Love Stills Part II

Charlie is a caterer at the party? Will Nate win this girl over or has she already begun to scheme? Why is S just standing there? Did she see her beloved best friends kissing behind her back?

5x13 G.G. Sneak Peek: The return of DATE and Nate gets a new girl (the real Charlie Rhodes) and remembers he dated Blair…

Kaylee Defer on set, January 23 (Gossip Girl)

SOURCE: kaylee-defer.net

Love triangles, gossiping bloggers, faked identities, oh my!

Yes, all that and much more is currently going on over at GOSSIP GIRL, so to try and make some sense of it, I tracked down GG executive producer Josh Safran to see what he could tease about what’s coming up for the Upper East Siders…

This may be a nitpicky, but was there a reason no one asked about the baby after Chuck and Blair’s car crash?
Josh Safran: I think when they asked about Blair, the [baby] might have been inferred, but the answer to that question is definitely in Monday[’s episode]. You will learn in the opening moments the answer to that question.

Good to know. Chuck and Blair also seemed headed towards a reconciliation last time we saw them, but things aren’t so smooth with them right now. What went wrong?
JS: All I can say is that who knows if Chuck survives? And if he were to survive, just because the Royal Wedding is on, doesn’t mean that Chuck and Blair’s connection has dulled in any way.

What kind of input have you heard from fans about the Chuck-Blair-Dan triangle?
JS: Both sides are so vocal. One of the things that makes me so sad is when you go to look at something, say a YouTube video of scenes from next week, and there are all these things that say, “This has been marked as spam.” When you go to look at it, it’s all things that say, “We love Dair!” Or “We love Chair!” So they’re fighting each other and marking it as spam.

Well, given that passion for both couples, do you ever allow yourselves to take their opinions into account when you’re shaping stories?
JS: We’re so far out that as of right now, we’re breaking episode 20 and episode 11 hasn’t even aired. So it’s like…we can’t. Even though we are aware of it, we are too far out to do anything. As you can see, we’re a pretty serialized show and we definitely know our beginnings, middles and ends as we start the year. We spend a lot of time coming up with the whole arc. And so it would be hard to deviate from those arcs anyway.

Does that mean there’s no hope for Dan and Blair?
JS: Uhh…there is always hope. There is always hope. I will say the first half of the season was sort of Dan taking a backseat, watching Blair’s triangle with Chuck and Louis. In upcoming episodes, that triangle widens to a square.

Will Blair become more aware of Dan’s feelings or will he be more active about pursuing her?
JS: One of those things will happen.

You tease very well, sir.
JS: I know, I’ve been told this today!

Let’s talk about Serena for a moment. What can you tease about her upcoming storyline?
JS: Serena has a big story coming up, she has a big arc coming up. Last season was very Serena-centric with Juliet and the backstory, and we knew that this year with Blair and the wedding, [that] would take more of the focus. And now with the wedding approaching, there’s a bit of a hand-off of Serena’s story coming into focus. Especially with the Charlie/Ivy of it all. Serena is at the forefront of that story as that story continues.

Do you think the Charlie/Ivy character can stick around after her secret is revealed?
JS: As you saw in the last episode, she tried to reveal her secret and no one believed her. That’s a very strange prison to be in — to suddenly get what you want and realize you don’t want it and no one will let you out.

And what will Rufus and Lily’s involvement in this be?
JS: In the next episode, Rufus and Lily get very into that story. They get further down into that Charlie/Ivy story.

If they were to find out her true identity, do you think this family could accept her for who she really is?
JS: I think that would be a very tough struggle, but I think that’s to be determined.

Fair enough. What can you say about Nate and his arc?
JS: Nate is going to come to a resolution of the story of who was behind the crash in the upcoming episodes. And, also, he’s now running The Spectator, and that will create a whole host of problems for him as well.

The storyline with some of the characters trying to take down Gossip Girl feels in many ways like it could be a final season storyline. Have there been any discussions with the network and studio about how long you want the show to run?
JS: As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t the final season. As far as they’re concerned, I have no idea. We’re definitely not writing it as if it is. When we came up with the whole idea of the Gossip Girl of it all this year, we just felt like that was the organic story and it was time. That story will take some surprising twists and turns and we have not dropped it by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s really the baseline of the entire season.

Do you have plans to ever unmask Gossip Girl?
JS: In the past, I would have said we do not have plans. In the present, I will only have to say watch and see. There’s a spoiler in that. Sort of.

Will we be seeing more storylines with Dan’s book?
JS: Absolutely, 100%. It’s the subject — or the organizing principle, I should say — of an upcoming episode, written by Amy Harris, who wrote the first episode with the book and the book party. We had a lot of fun with the book in a new way that I think the audience will love.

And still no plans to release it in real life?
JS: Look, if someone had the time to write a 600-page book, we would totally do it. We just can’t. We have 24 episodes. We’re dying! [Laughs] We’re just so tired.

I know, and I know I’ve been asking you about this for months…
JS: No, you don’t understand. I have the prop book and I’m like, “This is so cool” and then you open it up and there’s nothing there. I’m like, “This is so depressing.”

It’s such a tease.
JS: I know! Someday.  Like the Laura Palmer diaries when TWIN PEAKS was on the air. They released the Laura Palmer diaries! Oh well.

Next time Dan writes a book, maybe you guys can starting writing the book a season or so in advance and you can get it on the shelves!
JS: Dan has a new book that we’re going to hear about very soon. So maybe we should get started. There, you got another spoiler. I need to stop talking now, I’ve given you more than anyone else!

Well, a few quick questions before I let you go — I know your team made the pro- and anti- Dan Twitter pages for a recent episode. Will you be doing any more fun social media things in the future?
JS: We’d like to. We really had a lot of fun with that.

I do adore how your episode titles are a play on famous movies. Are there any upcoming titles you’re excited about?
JS: Um, the Valentine’s Day episode is called “Crazy Cupid Love.” That’s the only one I can tease at the point.

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What tease has you most excited?

Monday’s episode of Gossip Girl was fittingly titled “The End of the Affair” — so if you’re familiar with the Graham Greene novel or the Julianne Moore-Ralph Fiennes film adaptation, you might have guessed what was going to happen to Chuck and Blair post-car accident.

Faced with the possibility of losing Chuck, Blair made a deal with God: Save Chuck and she’ll stay away. Immediately after, she’s told he’s emerged from his coma. “When we start a season, we talk about what works have inspired us as writers. This year, there was The Talented Mr. Ripley and The End of the Affair,” Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Safran told TVGuide.com. “We knew were going to tell this story.”

Now, it’s doubtful Blair will meet her maker (a la Affair), but Monday’s episode has left us with several burning questions as to what’s to befall our hapless Upper East Siders. Safran, as always, did his best to answer tease:

OK, Blair’s found God — now what? “It’s a surprising revelation, but it makes sense that she has faith,” Safran says of Blair’s, ahem, Hail Mary play for Chuck’s life. He noted that of all the characters on Gossip Girl, she’s the one who has been exposed to religion, via her mother’s marriage to Cyrus if nothing else. And God won’t just be making a cameo, either. “When her faith is tested, it takes her to a new place. She’s gone through this terrible thing, losing this child, feeling in that moment she had to make a deal with God … We felt this was a new place to go to for her, one that will take her somewhere we’ve never been with the character.”

Reasoning aside, Blair’s made her choice. Does that mean Chuck is doomed to fall back into his playboy ways? “All the growth he’s made is definitely going to be tested,” Safran says. “Will he slide back? He’ll be struggling.”

We’ve seen jealousy bring out a dark side to Louis. Should we expect it back anytime soon? If the royal wedding doesn’t happen, it won’t be because Louis has another freak-out session. The paranoid prince is gone. “He and Blair maybe lost their way, but he feels like they have it back,” Safran says. “He’s going into the wedding believing that. He’s definitely not the jealous, suspicious Louis he was.”

Who’s out to get Nate? Here’s one suspect you can rule out: Nate’s former boss and lover Diana Payne. Safran says that while Elizabeth Hurley will be back in this second half of the season, “Diana played no part in causing the accident meant for Nate.” So who could be after The Spectator’s new editor-in-chief, and why? “Nate’s got enemies, but he doesn’t quite know who they are yet,” Safran says. “The answer hits closer to home than Nate would like.”

Gossip Girl has seemingly aligned herself with Nate — are we going to see her? Well …Safran doesn’t say no. “I can’t answer if we’ll ever see her, but she’s a big part of the story now,” he says. “Diana wanted to take her down, and now Serena is after her.”

Speaking of … Serena’s back to making googly eyes at Dan — is there hope for them to rekindle that relationship, even while he’s pining for Blair? Safran says the series’ 100th episode (revolving around Blair’s wedding day and airing on Monday, Jan. 30) contains some answers. “Just as the writers looked back at what’s happened over the last 99 episodes, we thought, maybe so should our characters. Serena will be going back and revisiting her history, and you know, you see things a little more clearly with hindsight being 20/20,” Safran says. “Their story is about to return, but maybe in a new way because while Serena is looking back, Dan might be looking forward.”

Dan mentioned that he’s already following up Inside with a second book. Are we going to hear anymore about it? You better believe it. “His second book is going to be very integral to the second half of the season,” Safran says. “If his first book ruffled a few feathers, this one will ruffle a lot more.”

You mentioned The Talented Mr. Ripley is part of the framework for the season. Should we then assume we haven’t seen the last of Ivy, who we last saw high-tailing it out of the hospital believing she had caused the car wreck? Ivy will be back — especially now that Lily and Rufus have unknowingly stumbled upon the real Charlie Rhodes. “That was the introduction of the real Charlie — and it’s not the last you’ll see of her,” Safran says. “She’s going to be surprised to find herself pulled into the drama.”

Source: tvguide

During the fall finale of “Gossip Girl,” viewers saw a future princess and a wealthy businessman get into a high-speed accident while being chased by the paparazzi. To many, this may have seemed like more than a passing reference to how Princess Diana died in 1997. But according to the “Gossip Girl” EP Josh Safran, that really wasn’t the case.

“I don’t really know if it fully entered our brains until later. I’m not saying it wasn’t unconsciously there, but we were not looking to be that event or disrespect that event,” Safran says. “We’ve actually been talking about an accident of that sort a long time because the paparazzi chase our actors around.”

Of course the question now isn’t whether Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Blair (Leighton Meester) will survive (Safran admits they will), but what happens to their relationship and what does it mean for the royal wedding. On that matter, Safran was mum. He did, however, offer some insight into Charlie/Ivy’s (Kaylee DeFer) immediate future after she told Rufus (Matthew Settle) she’s not who the family thinks she is.

Safran says the van der Woodsen’s response to Charlie/Ivy’s admission “is dealt with in the first episode back [Jan. 16]…both whether they think she’s crazy, what they believe and how she reacts.”  He adds that the family “honestly want to believe [she’s part of the family] so much that they made it so. But I think what you will find is that the one person who isn’t so comfortable with them still believing is Ivy herself.”

In a couple of other tidbits, Safran notes that Billy Baldwin’s return as Serena’s father will extend into multiple episodes. While he won’t make Rufus’ life miserable, “he may piss off some other people.” Additionally, Safran says Elizabeth Hurley will reprise her role as Diana Payne, but not for a few more weeks.

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