GIOVANNI RUFINO/THE CW Is the end of Gossip Girl near? If so, which couples will end up together?
These are the questions we asked Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Safran when we caught up with him...and some of his answers may surprise you. Aside from the future of the series and endgame chit-chat, we also talked to Safran about the highly anticipated 100th episode and what longtime fans can expect from the milestone hour.
Six Seasons...and No Movie!: When we asked Safran how much longer he'd like to the series go on, he says, "I'm hoping it goes another year and then I think it were to end then, it'd be OK. If it were to continue, I'd be super happy as well." He adds, "I think we're looking at a sixth season as our hope for now." Safran says the writers are currently breaking the season-finale script and "we are not breaking it as if it is the series finale. There is definitely a lot more story to tell." Smells like a cliffhanger.
Preparing for the End: Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Blair (Leighton Meester) together forever? Dan (Penn Badgley) and Blair running off together? Serena (Blake Lively) and Nate (Chace Crawford) riding off into the sunset? Safran says the writers don't currently have an endgame in mind. He admits that they do have plans "but then they shift. You never know that you're going to make it to a hundred episode, so they just keep shifting. Of course there are some loose ends that we'd like to tie up for sure."
Chair, Derena, Dair, It's All Up in the Air: No fans, Safran has no idea which couples will end up together at series' end. "I really don't. I'm not saying that Josh [Schwartz] and Stephanie [Savage] don't, but I don't want to think about an endgame because when you think about where you want them to go then it's done in my head and it's still living for me," he says. "That's not to say that it won't end exactly the way that half the audience wants it to, unfortunately now it's half of the audience, but I just cant say for sure. I can't tie that up."
Looking to the Past: Longtime fans of the show will be gifted with some Easter eggs in the show's epic 100th episode according to Safran. "I really wanted it to pay homage to the pilot and all the episodes before, we really did our research we watched a lot of the episodes again," he tells us. "I've been there since the second episode so I sort of have this knowledge and I tried to put in as many winks and nods and little grace notes and touches."
While the writers couldn't include all of the nods to previous episode that they wanted to, Safran says "they'll be on the DVD." Still, if you are one of those viewers who tuned out in the last season or two (Tsk-tsk!), Safran says, "I think that you can actually jump back in." While he wouldn't say much about the plot of the milestone hour, Safran teases, "I think it's a really great episode and every one of our leads has a full story."
Passion of the Fanbase: People, can't we all just get along?! The thing that makes me sad is when they turn on each other," Safran says. "They can say whatever they want to about us, they can say, ‘We hate you, we hope you die!' Honestly we can take it, that's our job." Safran says he relates to fans who prefer one couple over another thanks to his Felicity obession. (Yes, this makes us love the man even more!) I remember watching Felicity and the whole sort of Noel (Scott Foley)-Ben (Scott Speedman) thing. Of course I used to get so mad because of course I was on one side. I understand where they're coming from."
What do you think, Gossip Girl fans? Should the show end after next season? Which couples would you like to see end up together? Sound off in the comments!