Why did Gossip Girl decide to (apparently) kill off Chuck’s father Bart Bass in its second season, only to bring him back and kill him off again? Gossip Girl (2007-2012) was practically a wealthy American teenage soap opera with its intense relationships, overly dramatic plotlines, and random deaths and family members out of nowhere. The rich group of teens in New York’s Upper East Side even deal with their parents’ drama and relationships almost as much as that within their friend group.
Bart Bass, the wealthy New Yorker and hated father of Chuck, was suddenly (and apparently) killed off halfway through Gossip Girl’s second season. Bart had recently married Serena Van der Woodsen’s mother, Lily, though had hired a private investigator to dig into her past and left her a mysterious voicemail right before he died. At the end of the season 2 episode “It’s a Wonderful Lie,” Bart is apparently killed in a car crash with the private investigator, Andrew, who had the information on Lily. For the next three seasons, Bart is supposedly dead, only returning in visions to Chuck. Suddenly, in season 5, Bart miraculously returns, claiming to have faked his death in order to protect his family from being killed by his competitors.
Bart’s death was a way to resolve Lily and Rufus getting together, see Chuck irresponsibly handle vast wealth, and throw another wrench in Chuck and Blair getting back together. Bart never really contributed much besides an interesting way to bring the Basses and Van der Woodsens together, and killing him off led to several insanely dramatic storylines for the rest of the second season. Chuck’s father wasn’t really needed throughout Gossip Girl considering he was never really a parent figure to Chuck who was practically a 30-year-old stuck in high school for the first half of the series. Bart’s marriage to Lily was never going to work out considering she was reluctant to marry him in the first place and was planning on leaving him for Rufus, so he was bound to be essentially written out anyway – a death just called for more drama.
To make one of Gossip Girl’s more ridiculous plotlines even more unrealistic, the writers decided to bring Bart back at the end of season 5 to become a bigger threat to Chuck. Bart’s original death was sudden and left mostly unexplained by Gossip Girl, but, in a major twist, is found alive and well in a hotel room when Chuck and the gang investigate Diana Payne. He explains that he survived the car crash and paid the hospital to announce he was dead so that his competitors wouldn’t go after Chuck and Lily. Chuck then seeks out Andrew the PI and his competitor who wanted to murder him, having them arrested so Bart can come out of hiding.
Bart’s first death wasn’t quite dramatic enough, so Gossip Girl crafted a second series death for Bart that involved none other than his son Chuck. Bart returning meant Chuck could finally have a father again, but he ended up betraying him and completely cutting Chuck out of the company he just spent years running. In the final confrontation between the two in Gossip Girl season 6, a physical argument breaks out on a roof building where, as Bart is trying to lunge at Chuck, he accidentally falls off the building. As he hangs onto a ledge he begs Chuck and Blair to save him, but they let him fall to his death, ending his reign over the company and their lives.
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