Gossip Girl was a legendary teen soap that thrived on the dysfunction and drama of all of it’s characters. None of the characters in the series were particularly good people (or even if they started off decent, eventually they seemed to give in to their baser instincts), but some of the characters were distinctively worse than others.
Although none of the characters went from bad to good, some of them went from terrible to slightly less awful, or at the very least some of them went from boring to entertaining. But unfortunately, for some characters the reverse was true. Here are 5 Gossip Girl characters that got better over time, and 5 that got worse.
Better: Georgina Sparks
Now, clearly when we say “better” in regards to Georgina Sparks, we’re not talking about Georgie getting better in the moral sense. Miss Sparks always showed up on Gossip Girl to make a messy situation even messier, and she had no shame in her game, so it was hard not to love her.
And as the show progressed, her schemes and machinations only got more interesting and more complex, and she became a woman who was truly worthy of living in the Gossip Girl world.
Worse: Bart Bass
None of the parents on the Upper East Side were particularly good at raising children, and many of them weren’t particularly good people, period. However, the only person who could one-up early Bart Bass when it came to being a monstrous parent is later Bart Bass.
Once we got to know Bart, it was easy to understand how Chuck may have wound up the way he was, and honestly the very fact that the audience cheered when Chuck let his own father die really demonstrates how awful Bart was more than anything ever could.
Better: Eleanor Waldorf
Although the parents of Gossip Girl were almost as messy as their insanely narcissistic and spoiled children, there were a few bright spots when it came to the elder generation’s character development throughout the series. Or at the very least, slightly less dark spots.
Eleanor Waldorf was one of the slightly less terrible parents as the series went on. At the start of things it seemed like she had almost no regard for Blair and was more than happy to outsource her parenting to Dorota, but as time went on we got to see a softer side to Eleanor, and she really proved her mettle as a parent and woman.
Worse: Serena Van Der Woodsen
Oh, Serena. After her conspicuous absence from Manhattan’s elite, Serena Van Der Woodsen made her return to her old stomping grounds and was extremely ardent about her desire to change into a better person.
And while she arguably did behave in a slightly better way comparatively, it really didn’t seem like Serena changed all that much in the long run. Her dramas and self absorbed, inappropriate behavior was a mainstay of her character for the entire series, and honestly her immaturity and lack of personal development got very tiresome after a while.
Better: Nate Archibald
Obviously everything in television is subjective, and different audience members can be intrigued or disinterested by different things, however there is a pretty solid argument to be made that in the beginning of Gossip Girl Nate Archibald was the least interesting character on the series. He really didn’t have any personality or relevance to speak of, and his main purpose seemed to be to just stand there looking pretty.
But as time went on Nate seemed more and more like an actual human being with thoughts and opinions, and it was actually nice to see a relatively normal guy in the series.
Worse: Vanessa Abrams
The Upper East Side has a way of corrupting the innocent, and one of the most glaring examples of this is the evolution of Vanessa Abrams.
Vanessa was Dan’s long lost BFF who showed up at an inconvenient time for Dan and Serena’s relationship, and while Vanessa seemed to be above all of the petty infighting of the rest of these rich kids, she eventually succumbed to the drama. Well, not only did she succumb to it, she wound up becoming one of it’s worst offenders, losing the few friends she had before leaving town for good.
Better: Chuck Bass
Even at his best, no one would ever call Chuck Bass an objectively good person, but that should give everyone a good idea of just how terrible he was when he started the series. Even among the spoiled brats of Gossip Girl, Chuck was pretty much reviled, and he truly earned that ire through his constant machinations and abuses that he carried out towards his peers.
Yes, Chuck did end the series tacitly murdering his own father, however at least he learned to aim his worst impulses at people who were actually awful.
Worse: Jenny Humphrey
There seems to be a running trend with the characters of Gossip Girl. Many of the characters who started the series as monstrous little trust fund babies evolved into adults who were slightly less monstrous. And the characters who started off like normal people really devolved into worthy compatriots to these wealthy Manhattan brats.
And there are very few who exemplify this devolution more than Jenny Humphrey, a naive and innocent girl at the start of the series who transformed into a nasty queen bee who could rival Blair Waldorf.
Better: Blair Waldorf
Blair Waldorf really gave it her all when she decided to usurp Serena’s crown as the queen bee of the Upper East Side, and as Serena was the protagonist of the entire series it was easy to dislike Blair at first.
However as time went on and Blair developed as a character, it was increasingly hard to dislike her. She was shockingly easy to relate to and had a lot of shining qualities beneath that prickly veneer.
Worse: Dan Humphrey
To be fair, even though Dan Humphrey may have arguably been the coolest and most relatable character at the beginning of Gossip Girl, there were always seeds of the insufferable jerk that Dan eventually became.
Dan was one of the few refreshing escapes from the unnecessary and over the top drama, but as time went on Dan didn’t just get down in the gutter with the rest of the drama queens, he literally became the queen of all drama queens. The revelation that Dan was in fact gossip girl was a strange ending to a pretty unappealing character evolution.
