Why Élite on Netflix Is the True Heir to Gossip Girl‘s Messy Throne
Photo Courtesy of Netflix
In the new Gossip Girl revival on HBO Max, queen-bee-turned-influencer Julien (Jordan Alexander) maintains her reign largely through the prowess of ladies-in-waiting Luna (Zión Moreno) and Monet (Savannah Lee Smith). The duo are the true masterminds behind Julien’s schemes and also the ones who seem more concerned with power in the first place. Yet for all their barbs and one-liners, they don’t care to take control themselves, explained only by some vague notion that propping up Julien’s brand will land Monet a coveted internship—as if she couldn’t get it herself.
Their one-dimensional characters represent just one symptom of the problems plaguing the season’s first half. Power plays have no emotional weight. Debauchery waters down into brand sponsorships.
But in Netflix’s Élite, there are no minions. Every messy, hedonistic teen is a player in their own right.
Premiering first in 2018, the Spanish show blends Gossip Girl’s teen soap sensibilities and luxury with a Big Little Lies murder-mystery plot. This latter connection is strengthened through the show’s dual timelines that cut back and forth between the past and present-day police interrogations. The premise goes as follows: After a high school collapses, the construction company bankrolls scholarships for three working class students to attend Las Encinas, Spain’s most exclusive private school. Suffice to say, the school’s uber-wealthy don’t take kindly to the newcomers, and the resulting clashes culminate in murder.
Class divide provides Élite’s thematic backbone, as the show revolves around power and privilege: who has it, who doesn’t, and the lengths people will go for it. But what keeps the series entertaining is that while the protagonists might masquerade as adults, they’re still teens at the core. It helps that most of the actors are in their early 20s and look the part (attractively, of course). They feel deeply and dramatically and can’t help making bad decisions, especially when it comes to their love lives. This is a show where first-time anxieties coexist alongside casual blackmail.
Élite also makes use of character tropes that will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen either Gossip Girl iteration (or any other teen soap, for that matter). There’s the self-proclaimed nice guy outsider, the power couple whose relationship has grown stale, the queen bee who wants it all, the smarmy daddy’s boy with a tortured side, the bad boy with a protective streak. Yet the show works to add new dimensions to these archetypes.
Season 1 juggles an ensemble of 11 main characters across the eight 50-minute episodes, and does an impressive job crafting an intricate web of relationships and shifting loyalties. While the initial “have” vs. “have nots” conflict gets complicated by new attractions and jealousies, by the penultimate episode (the bluntly titled “Everything Explodes”), the bloody conclusion comes into sharper focus, and nearly every major player has a believable motive.
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