All The References To The Old 'Gossip Girl' In The The First Episode Of The New 'Gossip Girl'

Good morning, Upper East Siders! After a 12-year wait, the new Gossip Girl is officially here. Even though we're being introduced to all new characters with (almost) all new problems, there are tons of throwbacks to the original series in the first episode alone.

As showrunner Joshua Safran has said, both shows exist in the same universe, so all the characters you know and love from the OG series are still out there in this world even if they're not explicitly connected to the current group of kids. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of Easter eggs, though! Let's get into it, episode by episode.

Season 1, Episode 1: "Just Another Girl on the MTA"

Nate Archibald is, apparently, a notable Constance/St. Jude's alumnus.

When Kate Keller, a Constance/St. Jude's teacher, is chatting with her fellow teachers about why she wanted to work at the school, she mentions Nate specifically. "This school produced great people. Caroline Kennedy, Colson Whitehead, Nate Archibald." Since when is Nate even close to being in the same category as those two people!? Whatever, this is a work of fiction, I guess.

And Dan Humphrey is a successful novelist.

Right after Kate drops Nate's name, another teacher drops Dan's, but this time in the context of Gossip Girl specifically. She describes the original GG as "like an Orwellian big sister, kept tabs on students it deemed important." And then she reveals who Gossip Girl was, saying, "It was actually one of my classmates, Dan Humphrey," to which Kate responds, "The novelist!?" So it sounds like Dan isn't as washed-up as we all predicted he would be. Congrats to that man! I guess marrying Serena really paid off.

Chuck and Blair would have been canceled if they pulled their B.S. in the year 2021.

The teachers start exploring the Gossip Girl archives, and they stumble upon allllll the Chuck and Blair drama. "This Chuck and Blair thing is out of control. Definitely pre-cancel culture," one says. "Did you get to the part where she was Princess of Monaco for six months?" another asks. "Or when a high school senior got a story published in the New Yorker?" Okay yeah, that was Dan, but still, it's fun to remember just how wild the original show was.

Headbands are totally out now.

Zoya, the new girl in school, is working to infiltrate the cool group (you know, the kids who now sit on the steps of the Met). When she approaches the group, one member votes to exclude her because, as she puts it, "She has a HEADBAND on." Has Blair Waldorf heard about this!?

The new Gossip Girl needs to borrow from the old Gossip Girl.

The teachers eventually decide the only way to gain any power over their students is to reboot Gossip Girl, but on Instagram. As they strategize how to make this work in the year 2021, they move to only focus on the "It Kids" in the school. "Just the popular kids. The Serenas, Blairs, Nates, and Chucks. Make them think there's another Dan Humphrey in their midst." Saucy!! And they also decide they need their own Blair and Serena, a female feud to stir up intrigue and drama. Not super feminist of them, but hey, that's not really the goal here.

They pick Zoya and Julien, two half-sisters who were raised separately but are just now coming together for the first time, as their new B and S. But Zoya and Julien figure it out pretty quickly. "There were these two girls that she was obsessed with forever ago. It's kind of a badge of honor that she chose us," Julien explains to Zoya. She says they need to take a play from the Blair and Serena playbook and beat Gossip Girl at her own game. YES.

Kristen Bell is voicing Gossip Girl.

And it's WONDERFUL. Hearing her say, "Hello, followers," literally sent chills down my spine. She's back, baby!

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This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com. Minor edits have been made by the Cosmo.ph editors.

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