It may feel like Orono is the exact opposite of the Upper East Side (mostly because it is), but there are actually a few surprising connections between Gossip Girl and the beautiful state of Maine. Have you binge-watched the series enough times to pick up on these connections?
1. Gossip Girl author Ceciley Von Ziegesar may have grown up on the Upper East Side, but she spent her college years in Waterville as a student at Colby! Whether the discreet Maine shoutouts are coincidental or an intentional homage to the Pine Tree State, Von Ziegesar obviously has love for her home away from home.
2. “So…you’re from Maine?”
In season four, Serena has a brief fling with Colin Forrester, Manhattan’s Most Eligible Bachelor and her professor at Columbia University. If you play close attention to the beginning of “War at the Roses,” Serena asks Colin about his Maine upbringing when she visits his office.
3. Epperly Lawrence, Dan and Blair’s boss at W Magazine, is played by Caitlin Fitzgerald, a Camden native!
4. Gossip Girl producer Norman Buckley was born in Limestone, Maine.
5. In episode nine of season six, “The Revengers,” the Bass jet crashes on the coast of Maine in Bart Bass’s attempt to kill Chuck. (Although I cried literal tears of joy when I saw that Chuck had made it off the plane in time, I would have loved the chance to dive into the Gulf of Maine and rescue him, causing him to fall in love with me forever. Sorry, B.)
6. Cecily Von Ziegesar published a series of books about a group of girls who attend Dexter, a small liberal college in Home, Maine in the late nineties. The first of the series is called Cum Laude. Even though the series is set far from the Upper East Side, it’s still filled with just as much scandal.
See? Just because Maine doesn’t even have a Saks Off Fifth doesn’t mean we’re totally off of Gossip Girl’s radar.