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Gossip Girl Boss Promises a "Great," "Emotional" Story for Chuck and Blair

Show runner Stephanie Savage says she's "turning up the heat" on Upper East Side romance

By Kristin Dos Santos Mar 02, 2010 2:55 PMTags
Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester, Ed WestwickGiovanni Rufino / The CW

Only one week left! Gossip Girl is back next Monday at 9 p.m., and to herald the return of our favorite Upper East Siders, I caught up with the mastermind behind the drama, Ms. Stephanie Savage herself.

The good news? She's "turning up the heat" on your favorite Upper East Siders, and we just might get some hot and steamy action from Chuck and Blair. (At least, it sounds like it.)

She spilled scoop about the much talked-about "Bluck" drama to come—and addressed those troubling rumors about Chuck bedding Little J—and dropped hints about a possible Serena-Dan reconciliation. Savage also revealed there is an endgame in mind...

You left us with quite the cliffhanger with Chuck's mom possibly being alive. What can you spill on that?
Chuck and Blair's main story when we come back will be solving the mystery of the lady at Bart's grave (Laura Harring)—who she is, where she came from, what she wants. I think it's a really great Chuck and Blair story that's very emotional. You see them working together and supporting each other in a way that I think fans will really enjoy.

And we've already seen the photos of Chuck face-to-face with this mysterious woman. So I take it we don't have to wait long for this storyline to be resolved?
The first contact will be made in that first episode back.

One of the things I get asked a lot by fans is whether Chuck and Blair will have any steamy sex scenes. I know it's a network show at 8 p.m. on a Monday, but any hope for any steaminess?
We're turning up the heat on all of your couples in the second half of the season. And I think you will see some of those scenes in a way that people will enjoy and appreciate.

Are you able to address the rumor about Chuck and Jenny sleeping together?
I want to leave [that rumor] alone. It's like when people said that Eric was Gossip Girl. Saying 'What? Are you crazy? Eric's not Gossip Girl!' is somehow giving credence to it.

What about Dan and Serena? They've been off-again for a long time, but some of the fans still love them. Is that relationship totally dead, or could their romance be resurrected?
I think that the Dan and Serena love story was the spine of season one and in a lot of ways the premise of the show grew out of their Romeo and Juliet relationship. They are definitely in each other's stories this season and in the second half of the season, especially when Serena's dad comes back. Dan will have a big part in that story. And I think that's a very powerful methodology and couple methodology that we would never wanna turn our backs on completely.

Giovanni Rufino / The CW

Will any couples be finishing the season together?
I'd rather not say. Because the end of the season is so far away! We have 10 episodes before we get there.

The fans are so invested in the show's relationships, and divided on who should be together. Are there ever any heated debates on which way to go in the writers' room?
That's what is so interesting from our perspective, because I've never been on a show where you feel there are really other genuine options. Like, maybe Serena goes with Nate, but maybe she goes with Dan and maybe Jenny could go with Nate. Do Vanessa and Dan belong together? Or do Serena and Dan belong together? On The O.C. we just didn't have that. It was always very clear that Ryan and Marissa, and Summer and Seth, went with each other, and you couldn't really imagine mixing those couples up. It's really fun as a writer to feel that there are genuine possibilities that can be explored. I feel like we have an endgame in mind, but we're also very open to discovering things along the way—relationships that are not in the books, relationships that may even be surprises to us. You want to have an idea, a game plan, a map that you're following, but we're open to possibilities if you find something along the way that you want to stop and explore.

In the first year, there was a lot of talk about a Gossip Girl spinoff. Is there any talk of that happening now?
No, I think we really like all of our characters together. We don't want to take one of our characters away from the show and put them in their own show. We don't want to mess with that cast chemistry. We'd rather keep our energy focused on keeping Gossip Girl healthy versus spreading ourselves too thin and trying to make more shows.

And what's the current talk among the writers about extending the existing show beyond the college years?
That's a long time from now, but we're very excited about the show. We feel very healthy, we feel that we're figuring out how to do the show not in high school. I think the second half of the season is really successful in that regard. The amount of fan interest is really exciting. We were thrilled when we got our season-four pickup early. We're taking it one season at a time. New York has always been much more of the franchise of the show than high school. We're hoping that having that point of view pays off in this big picture.

What are you most hoping to see when Gossip Girl returns next week? Do you think Laura Harring is really Chuck's mom? Do you feel a little bit better about that horrible Chuck-Jenny rumor, or are you still worried? And do you have faith that the "endgame" will serve your favorite romantic Gossip Girl pairing? Hit the comments!

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