Gossip Girl 2.25: “The Goodbye Gossip Girl”

The Wife:

This finale had its moments, but over all, I think it was rather silly and disappointing. Let me summarize the episode’s main crisis: Gossip Girl sends out a mean text during the Constance-St. Jude’s graduation ceremony calling Dan an insider, Serena irrelevant, Blair a weakling and Chuck a coward. For some reason, this hurts everyone’s feelings and Serena decides its time to declare war on Gossip Girl and find out who he/she really is. I enjoyed the mini Scooby gang scene in which the four plus Jenny try to surmise who GG might be while at their post-grad brunch at Chez Bass Der Woodsen, but their attempt at detective work in this moment was the only highlight of this plot. Serena gets a flash of brilliance and sends a tip to GG, as GG must be in the room with them. Jonathan’s phone lights up, but it turns out he’s only been hacking into GG’s server for months, overseeing the kinds of gossip she chooses to post and what she chooses to hang on to. (Like any good reporter, GG saves her juiciest information for the moment in which it will have the most impact.)

Love Blair's dress. Hate Serena's.

GG, knowing what Serena has been up to, sends out a blast filled with very juicy information about how Blair slept with Apple-cheeked Uncle Jack on New Year’s (a revelation that was totally anticlimactic; I had hoped they had done something far more scandalous than that), Vanessa slept with Chuck and a whole bunch of other crap that basically neatly sewed up all of the secrets the main cast had been keeping from each other. This makes everyone pretty angry, and disappoints little J, who had hoped to earn her place as Queen next year (and thus destroy the monarchy from the inside) by spilling that bit of gossip about Blair and Jack Bass. I realize the nature of the show is peppered with these gossip blasts from an anonymous, omniscient narrator-god type of figure, but to have so many secrets be released at once in a melee of shallowness seemed less like something Gossip Girl would do and more like something the writers needed to do to move the story into closure, as well as set up new dynamics for next season. It was a little deus ex machina (or deus ex text message?) for me, and that wasn’t the only instance of something tied up a little too neatly.

Post-party badness, Serena tries to trap Gossip Girl into meeting her, but is surprised to see everyone she knows show up instead of the mystery blogger. Once the entire assemblage arrives, they all receive a text from Gossip Girl basically saying that each and every one of them is Gossip Girl, because she’s nothing without the tipsters who send her posts. And to announce that she plans to follow them to college, but there they will all get to start with a clean slate, since she’s already blasted out all of their worst secrets. I’m not going to complain about not meeting Gossip Girl in the flesh, mostly because I don’t want to, as it would kind of ruin a major creative point of the show. But really, Gossip Girl? Did you honestly think that pointing out to these people that they are all Gossip Girl was somehow going to change them and make them earn that dear ol’ clean slate? Because it’s not. She’s not saving them at all from the labels she put on them at graduation. Dan is an insider. Serena is irrelevant. But Blair and Chuck, though . . . she might have changed them a little bit.

The Blair and Chuck bit of this episode really worked for me, actually – as did the resolution between Rufus and Lily. Serena tells Blair that Chuck had confessed his love for her, so Blair, on the advice of her mother, suggests that she take charge of her feelings and get Chuck to admit directly to her how he feels. And so she heads to Nate’s post-grad party, where the secret-spilling GG blast will take place, dressed to kill and slowly removes articles of clothing, asking Chuck if he likes them until she’s stripped down to her amazingly sexy shapewear and asking him the ultimate question, “And what do you think of me?” But even though Blair is bringing shapewear back (and really, it needs to be brought back; a good foundation garment does wonders), Chuck can’t admit he loves her and breaks her little heart when he finds out she slept with Apple-cheeked Uncle Jack. After a good cry, Blair resolves to give up on Chuck and stop chasing a guy who will never love her back, even though she remains slightly tortured by constant updates on his European whereabouts from Gossip Girl. That is, until she runs into him outside her apartment building one day, his arms full of gifts because he toured Europe to buy Blair her favorite things as an admission of love and an apology. Here, by the way, are my exact notes during this scene: “Awwwww! No, B! Accept him! Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaase???? Yay! He said it! Yay!” I think from that you can safely infer that Blair was about to turn him down, but then he finally admitted he loved her, with those chocolates from France and her favorite stockings from Germany. And I was made happy. Chuck + Blair 4evah.

Rufus and Lily, meanwhile, after some awkwardness about sitting together at graduation, suddenly realize they’re old because they have 18-year-old children about to go off to college. So Lily drops by the Brooklyn loft with some weed she found in Chuck’s room (at least I think it was weed . . .) and a six-pack. She and Rufus hang out and reminisce about the good ol’ days and, eventually, he realizes he still loves her, despite that whole thing with the investment scheme and mutual funds and whatever, and makes her a ring out of one of his old Lincoln Hawk flyers and proposes. It is, perhaps, a little more low-key, even, than a vintage ring, but perfect.

As for Jenny, without her winning piece of gossip stolen from the GG server, she assumes her chance to be Queen and end the monarchy from the inside is ruined, meaning that Penelope’s chosen replacement, a new girl who looks like a tiny Rashida Jones, will terrorize the school. But after being cast-off by Chuck, Blair tells Jenny that she wants her to be Queen and, just as Baby Rashida Jones is about to be crowned with a sparkly rock and roll headband, Blair shows up to coronate Jenny. Because she can. Why Jenny had to look like a hot tranny mess throughout this entire episode, I’ll never know. But she’s Queen now, and she officially rules no more headbands (except her sparkly one) – a rule I heartily disagree with.

This hot tranny mess is your queen now.

Nate apologizes to Vanessa, and she announces that she’ll be at NYU next year, too, making Serena the only person who won’t be in the city come this fall. (It seems that, without his Yale money, Dan will also be going to NYU, although that fact was never mentioned until this episode.) By the episode’s end, Nate announces that he’s quitting his internship at the Mayor’s office because the deputy mayor hit on him (perhaps because he told Gramps Vanderbildt about his affair with the Countess?). He invites himself along on Vanessa’s backpacking trip, as a friend, and a random dude says he’s going with her instead. But seeing right through that guise, Nate is persistent and wears Vanessa down, so they’ll spend the summer nomming peroghi together after all. But the interesting thing in this scene wasn’t any of that, it was the random dude: Secret Hump Der Woodsen Love Child Not-Dead Andrew (a.k.a. Scott), who has transferred to NYU and is lying to his parents about being in Portland, all so he can find out more about his birth parents, or so I glean from the creepy news clippings he carries around with him. I had waited for some kind of resolution with the Hump Der Woodsen Love Child, and I’m glad to have some. That’ll be a good storyline to play out for next year, as we’re unsure if Scott’s motives are purely to get to know his parents, or to wheedle some money out of them/leech off his half-brother Dan’s New Yorker fame.

I’m also glad that Georgina will be back next year, but really displeased with her integration into this episode. While the coda about her enrolling in NYU and asking specifically to be Blair’s roommate was fantastic (except that I doubt Blair will deign to live in a dormitory by any stretch of the imagination), the most deus ex machina part of this episode was Georgina’s call to Dan to simply say that his Yale money is back in the bank. Ex-Jesus Freak ex machina, apparently. I’m sure they’d like to reveal next season how Georgina got everyone’s money back, but at this point, it just seemed a little too neat. Gossip Girl often burns through storylines very quickly, creating drama and resolution that exists within no more than a three-episode arc, but they usually tie things up better than the entire “Who is Gossip Girl?” plot of this episode and Georgina’s sudden ending of Dan’s money crisis. It made the episode seem, to me at least, a little haphazard. I’ve definitely seen better work on this show, and too many good finales this season to count this one among them.

Other notes:

• Serena is a fucking tool. How does that bitch think she can get away with not wearing her cap during graduation and, instead, twisting her tassel up in her fucking hair? If the show just stranded Serena at Brown next year, I’d be perfectly happy with that because she’s such a vapid dickbag.
• Nate’s party had some good music. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs rock.
• Can Nate and Vanessa end up in Hostel III and die during their backpacking trip in Europe?
• Also, Serena’s been using Carter Bayson to hunt for her dad? Because he’s in Tahiti? Why?
• I am kind of in love with Blair’s Diane Von Furstenberg Sofia Loren dress that she wore under her graduation gown. French Connection had something with a pattern similar to the pattern on the bust two seasons ago and I always thought about buying it, but never did. Unfortunately, I’m a grad student now and can’t spend money on fabulous things anymore.

The Husband:

I definitely liked the finale far more than my wife, and while it couldn’t reach the high standard set by the s1 finale, what with the wedding and lost love and Chuck’s ultimate dismissal of Blair, I think it worked quite well. Everything it shot through too quickly was stuff I really didn’t give a shit about. Instead, it did a great job saying that, despite the fact that high school is done, it’s never really done, and that even after graduating, your problems are still going to follow you. And since everybody except for Serena is going to be in NYC (and she won’t be too far away in Rhode Island anywhoozle), those problems won’t have to travel too far. And this way, their stories can still connect with what Little J and Eric at up to at Constance-St. Jude’s, as that drama isn’t going anywhere. It’s actually a neat little restart button, and I’m okay with that.

And while I was starting to get super-sick of Blair and Chuck’s will-they-or-won’t-they, I found that not only was Blair’s strip-seduction to be the sexiest thing on this show so far, but their final embrace was remarkably emotional for me. I still think Blair has a long way to go to really get me to embrace her as an actual human being of a character after some of the shenanigans this season, but maybe NYU will humble her a bit. Because she clearly doesn’t want to go there, despite the fact that it’s a prestigious private school I’ve wanted to attend for a decade now.

Now let’s hope that the show doesn’t lose its verve now that college is starting. But since the show was never defined by its high school (don’t forget, we have never seen any of them in class), I doubt it will be defined by college. These people’s lives are too big for that to happen.

 

Gossip Girl 2.21: “Seder Anything”

The Wife:

You know, for someone whose mother has been married four times, you would think Serena would know the ins and outs of the marriage process, but in this episode, I learned that she’s really stupid. Too stupid to get into Yale on her own merits and certainly too stupid to get into Brown. As funny as this comedy of errors Seder was, it was never really dramatic because the tension upon which it was built was actually non-existent. And I knew it, and I can only hope that other viewers knew it, too. Just because you get drunk in a foreign country and wake up a priest and ask to be married doesn’t mean you’re married. You have to get a license for that, and the signed license makes it real and legal, not whatever some dude says in a church or synagogue or whatever. And because Serena is too dumb to figure out simple process analysis (having been at, like, at least one of her mom’s marriages), she ruins Cyrus and Eleanor’s first Seder though a series of lies and entanglements.

1. Thinking she’s married, she calls Cyrus for legal advice on a quickie annulment.

2. Dan, taking a catering job to help pay for college without his dad’s knowledge, overhears, as he is playing cater waiter at this very Seder.

3. When Lily and Rufus show up for Seder, Serena pretends she came because Blair invited her, which Eleanor thinks is really weird because Blair made it absolutely clear she’d be off doing her own Blair shit. (Which was an actual plot, and thus will be discussed later.)

4. Gabriel shows up unannounced at the Seder, and Serena pretends that Dan is her boyfriend and the reason she left Spain unexpectedly. She has really got to stop using Dan as a relationship crutch. It’s just confusing and, actually, kind of mean to Dan. Serena and Dan spend the rest of the dinner pretending their together, leading Eleanor to think that Dan is officially the worst cater waiter in the world, and also making Rufus and Lily question their children’s involvement. My favorite bit about this ridiculous detail was that Gossip Girl announced Gabriel’s arrival with a rallying cry of “Baruch ha ta ai dios mio!” If my husband ever decides to become more Jewish than he is and I ever have to host a Seder, I’m totally starting it by saying that. Best. Thing. Ever.

Dan! Look cool! I might be married to this guy, but am probably not.

5. After much confusion at what was either the best or worst Seder ever, Serena tells everyone that she was pretending to be Dan’s girlfriend so that Rufus wouldn’t find out he was playing cater waiter.

6. Lily calls Serena on her shit for ruining the Seder: “You could have thrown in a couple of boys from the lacrosse team and it would have been the Constance mother-daughter luncheon all over again.” And then tells Serena she got into Brown. Surrrre she did.

7. Rufus makes an art sale during Seder dinner and then announces that he’s going to sell the gallery, thus Dan doesn’t have to be a cater waiter anymore. You know, unless Dan wants to work and earn his own money and have honest life experiences that he can write about. Because those totally aren’t useful, like, at all.

8. After dinner, Gabriel tells Serena they’re not married. Which was totally moot at this point because there was no way they could have been. Thus, nothing actually happened except Serena totally ruining Passover. (Although, gentile Eleanor helped, too, by continually seating guests in the empty chair left for Elijah, which is, for the record, inconceivable! Haha! Yes! Wallace Shawn is back and I can make Princess Bride jokes!)

In Blair Land, she’s continuing to have major anxieties and actual real problems by losing her spot at Yale. I love that these anxieties express themselves as dreams about Eliza Doolittle, because they’re supremely entertaining to me. She is instead spending all of her time fawning over Nate, who asks her to meet him at Cousin Tripp’s rehearsal dinner because he has a surprise for her. She believes that the surprise will be her admission to the Jr. Committee at the Whitney, as her new non-collegiate avenue of choice is to become a professional socialite, doing charity work and other such things that make the rich and bored feel good about themselves. But when she arrives, Nate’s surprise is his admission to Columbia, which is only made worse when Tripp’s bride-to-be tells Blair that she was rejected from the Whitney committee. Grandpa Vanderbildt sidles up to Blair and convinces her to get Nate’s ear by offering her a position on the Whitney committee, as well as a bridesmaid’s position in Tripp’s wedding if she can get him to stay Yale-bound.

That Gramps Vanderbildt is smoove!

But Blair ultimately fails at this endeavor, as Nate stands up to toast at Tripp’s rehearsal dinner to announce that Gramps Vanderbildt was the man who had the Captain investigated. Gramps Vanderbildt tells Nate after his outburst that he only turned the Captain in after personally confronting him and giving him a chance to change, in the interest of preserving Nate’s family. But the Captain refused, thus sealing his fate. Nate, however, is tired of lying, and he wonders aloud why Gramps never mentioned this before. Seeing how tired Nate is of lies, Gramps tells his prodigal grandson about what’s been going on with Blair. Nate then turns on her and refuses to hear any explanation she may have. This right here is probably Nate’s best line ever, so revel in it:

“You sold me out for a picture in the style section.”

Post confrontation, Blair finds her way back to Serena for some much-needed girl bonding time, while Nate makes his way back to his best friend Chuck, who was having a strange feud with Jenny during this episode as well as repeat sex with a Russian ballerina (and as Chuck Bass does not repeat sexual partners, this was a very disappointing revelation for him). Chuck tells Nate that he’s a fool to want Blair to be anything other than she is, and so he shows up at Chez Waldorf. Blair heads downstairs to apologize to Cyrus for missing the Seder and to accept his offer to help her get into NYU. How much do I love Wallace Shawn? This much:

Blair: Can you forgive me?
Cyrus: That’s why God invented Yom Kippur.

Word. From around the corner, Nate muses that it looks like he and Blair will both be in NYC next year, and the two share apologies for being dicks toward each other. Hugs and kisses all around. As usual, I’d much rather have Blair with Chuck, but that time will come. I know it will. And when it does, it will be glorious.

Also, Gabriel is still with Poppy and they may be playing some mean dirty trick on Serena. And I don’t care.

Other funny:

• I may have hated the genesis (Husband Note: or “exodus,” nyuk nyuk nyuk…) for that comedy of errors at the Seder table, but I was pretty amused by it. I just really hate Serena and her problems that aren’t actually problems ever at all. (Remember when she killed that guy, but actually didn’t kill him at all? Yeah, like that.)
• “Last night’s entertainment. She’s a synchronized swimmer. She can hold her breath for 5 minutes.” – Chuck
• “No, I’m furious. First, you trash the apartment. Then you run away to Spain.” – Lily, who should be thankful that her daughter runs away to places with such culture! And not to some trashy model’s apartment like where Jenny ran away to!
• “You’re the wife of the landed gentry and I’m a cater waiter at a Seder.” – Dan, who should become a children’s book author if all else fails, because although he clearly didn’t think about the obviously legality issue of Serena’s marriage, either, he sure can rhyme good! I am poetry!

The Husband:

To be fair, the show doesn’t expect us to know anything about how marriage is done in Spain, or if it’s done differently in different regions of the country. A tiny bit of research would show that, yes, you need to do a whole lot more than say “Si” to a priest, and it’s along the same lines as the marriage process in any Western first world country.

Hell, maybe she did, in fact, sign something, but was too drunk to remember. I can find no info in regards to marriage under-the-influence rules in Spain, but if my recent viewing of the film Donkey Punch is any indication, laws are kind of screwy in that thar España.

But since the show is pretending that we know nothing about Spanish marriage laws, it’s not a mean trick Gabriel and Poppy are playing on Serena – they are, as I proclaimed way before the final scene, trying to embezzle a fuckload of money out of Serena and her ridiculously rich divorcée/widow of a mother, which would indicate that Serena and Gabriel are, in fact, married. And as the season is coming to a close, and the creators were talking about doing a Anne Hathaway-inspired story about a boyfriend embezzling money for the end of the season, which would in turn bring back Michelle Trachtenberg’s Georgina to take care of the mess (after, you know, trying to ruin 17 Again), then I think we’re going to have to stay in the GG fantasy world of unlawful-but-lawful marriages. (Wife’s Note: By the way, embezzlement is definitely a mean trick in my book.)

Fuckin’ Armie Hammer.

The last few episodes have been a blast to watch as far as entertainment quotient is concerned, but I’m starting to drift away from these characters emotionally. Why? I think that, right now, the stakes aren’t high enough, and right now we’re mostly watching rich people having minor problems that could be easily fixed. The show works best, in my opinion, when it really backs its characters up against the wall until they do something either extremely cunning or terribly…terrible. Even Chuck is just kind of dicking around being all mopey and lovestruck. (And goddamn it, Jenny, don’t end your episode’s story by making googly-eyes at the man who tried to rape you when you were 14. I’m not sure if I’m interested in you and Blair competing for the same man.)

And yeah. What were Jenny and her lab partner doing at the Hump Der Woodsen home?

 

Gossip Girl 2.14: “In the Realm of the Basses”

The Wife:

It’s a new year on the Upper East Side and there’s a lot going on for Chuck, Blair, Little J, Serena, Dan and their respective parents. Completely absent from this episode are the obscenely boring Nate and outsider Vanessa, as well as Eleanor Waldorf and Cyrus Rose. I’m sure they’re off on an extended honeymoon somewhere, but I missed Cyrus a little bit this week. Now I can’t write an “inconceivable” joke in this post, and that makes me really sad.

When we last left off, Chuck had gone missing and Blair has spent the holiday season trying to find him – finally getting word that Chuck’s suave and apple-cheeked Uncle Jack (Desmond Harrington) has located the sole Bass heir smoking opium with Thai prostitutes in a Bass hotel in Bangkok. It’s good to know that Chuck is the kind of guy that goes to find himself and dull the pain by hanging out in opium dens. How very . . . Byronic of him. Chuck’s return, while quieting Blair’s fears that she’s lost Chuck forever, dishevels Miss Waldorf so much that she no longer cares for high school pursuits, completely blowing off Penelope and her mean girls in their petty judgments of Little J and Nelly Yuki. Worse, though, is that Chuck’s return interrupts Blair’s preparations for her impending meeting with New York’s (and, consequently, the world’s) most exclusive social club that never takes girls of high school age, the Colony Club. Blair tries to save Chuck from expulsion when he flagrantly smokes weed on campus by sitting in as his guardian, until apple-cheeked Uncle Jack sweeps in to save the day, stealing Blair’s caretaker role and making her very suspicious of his intentions. Now, I decided immediately that I love Uncle Jack because he looks great in a grey suit with a lavender tie and I kind of want to bite his cheeks of his face. But he is a Bass, and Blair has every right to be suspicious, especially because Jack seems to be very good at letting Chuck wander off when he’s supposed to be taking care of him.

Chuck disappears again immediately after his disciplinary meeting with Headmistress Queller, and Blair later finds him at Victrola, which he purchased back with his mighty Bass inheritance just the other day. I think the only thing I love more than Opium Zombie Chuck is Opium Zombie Chuck + Burlesque Dancers. She tries to convince Chuck to come home with her, but he refuses, insulting her for admitting she loved him before he disappeared to Thailand. He invites her to the party he intends to throw at Victrola that night, hoping to further devalue her affections by asking her to grace him with a dance. She returns home for her Colony Club meeting visibly upset after briefly stopping to talk to Serena and beg her to help with Chuck. Ever the social climber, Blair manages to compose herself smartly in a beret and a vintage-inspired rhinestone collared LBD for her Colony Club meeting – a combination that I couldn’t decide if it was more reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn or Ava Gardner, but amazing either way. She meets with the prepped out UES matrons who immediately begin to try her patience by insulting Blair’s dearest friends: Serena and Chuck. Rather than give in to these wicked biddies who never grew out of being high school mean girls, Blair defends her friends and storms out to find the person she loves most in the world: Chuck Bass.

With the grey shawl, I think its a little more Ava than Audrey. It's fucking awesome, whatever the inspiration was.

Meanwhile, Little J has returned to Constance full time, apparently forgetting entirely her multi-episode crazy person bender in which she was virtually expelled and couldn’t figure out how to not have her dresses burned. (Step 1: Take your dresses out of the trashcan before a crazy model lights them on fire. Step 2: Take your dresses out of the trashcan. Step 3: Punch crazy model in the face.) While hanging out at a Pinkberry with Eric, Little J notices how badly Penelope, Iz and Hazel are treating Nelly Yuki, seeing an echo of how she used to be treated. She tries to save Nelly Yuki from Penelope and the girls by stealing Nelly away from the degradation of having to wipe down Penelope’s yogurt-covered shoes, and then trying to show the girls how stupid their “Girls of the Steps” clique is by sitting at their Pinkberry table and inviting the entire sophomore class to hang out at Pinkberry with them, leaving no table at all for Penelope and her lackeys.

So, look, I have an irrational attachment to certain seats as well. I get feeling a little venomous towards those who take your seat. But you quietly fume about that, like George Costanza would. You do not call your parents and insist that someone who sits at your table and invites a bunch of people to “your” yogurt shop is bullying you. Headmistress Queller tells Little J to work out the issue herself, and then finds out that the best way to show Penelope that she means business is to blackmail her with the information Nelly Yuki knows about Penelope (she’s having an affair with someone at her dad’s company), Hazel (likes to get drunk and make out with her cousin) and Iz (whose secret is apparently very fearsome and unmentionable). By the time Jenny confronts them with this information outside Victrola, she has managed to cover up her roots (good for you, honey) and finds out that Nelly Yuki was only playing her to get on the good side of Constance’s new “queen bee,” which everyone just assumed slightly-less-crazy Jenny wanted to be upon her return. But new, not-so-crazy, best-friends-with-Eric doesn’t care about any of that. So Nelly abandons her after all of her good deeds and returns to her abusers.

Serena returns from Argentina, thankfully, without Aaron Rose. She broke up with him three hours into their flight to Buenos Aires, which I say is a goddamned Christmas miracle. Free of Aaron and fully aware of the waning affections between Rufus and Lily, she immediately gets back together with Dan, much to Blair’s disgust. But Serena and Dan’s happiness hinges entirely on the secret that Daddy Rufus is keeping from the kiddies, and Dan, apparently having the heart of an investigative journalist, will stop at nothing to find out why his father was in Boston for two weeks. He and Serena rifles through Rufus’ things and, after Serena sneaks out to see Blair, having been instructed by Rufus that she is not to be with Dan at the house if Rufus is not at home, finds that his father had been calling orphanages in and around Boston. I couldn’t tell if Dan immediately thought this meant that he was adopted or if he knew he had a missing brother or sister out there, but, either way, the hint of an answer drove him to find Opium Zombie Chuck at Victrola and pump him for the secret. (Only after Rufus accidentally lets slip that he thought Dan may have found out from Chuck already.)

Welcome to my den of debauchery.

At the club, Chuck willingly tells Dan the information about his secret brother, noting that the good deed of killing the Bart Bass story deserves another good deed (as good a deed as Opium Zombie Chuck can provide). While Dan waits for Serena to tell her about their mutual sibling (kind of incestuous to continue he relationship, according to Chuck), Rufus pays a visit to Lily, informing her that Dan knows and that it’s only a matter of time before Serena and Eric know, too. She tries to apologize to Rufus for giving up their child – an act he says he’s fine with, he’s merely upset that Lily didn’t feel he had a right to know about the child at all. Unlike Lily, Rufus hasn’t had twenty years to process the information. He somehow convinces her to go looking for their son with him, calling Dan just moments before he’s about to tell Lily’s secret to Serena, insisting that Lily give the news to her children when they return, leaving Dan in a really awkward position.

Eric, meanwhile, reaches out to Chuck at the Victrola party, and Chuck refuses to come back to the Bass Der Woodsen apartment, telling Eric that he’s been glad to have him as a little brother, heading instead to participate in his favorite activity of drinking and contemplating suicide on the roof. (As Blair notes, he has a thing for roofs.) Blair and apple-cheeked Uncle Jack arrive just in time to keep Chuck from accidentally-intentionally slipping over the edge like his poor bottle of scotch. Jack almost sends Chuck over the edge himself by calling out his name and startling him so much he nearly loses his footing. (Does Jack stand to get a shit-ton of money if his dear nephew bites the dust? Absofuckinglutely.) Blair heads straight to Chuck’s side and extends her hand, reiterating what she told him when he ran away from her profession of love at the Bart Bass wake: she’ll always be there for him. She isn’t going anywhere. After screaming a Brando-esque cry to the gods that he is, indeed, Chuck Bass, a subdued Chuck takes Blair’s hand and comes down from the ledge. She unwillingly hands Chuck over to Jack’s custody, telling the man flat out that she doesn’t trust him and delivering the mysterious ultimatum that Chuck Bass can not know what happened on New Year’s. I’ll tell you what, gang, I can’t wait to find out.

I'm going to eat this man's cheeks.

Some costuming notes:

• Other than Blair’s chic black Colony Club ensemble, I also loved her steely blue tweed overcoat from this episode.
• Iz’s white wool coat with the amazingly intricate black frogs down the front is stunning.
• Little J needs to get over her lemur eye fetish.
• There is never enough Sweater Rufus Humphrey. Sweater Rufus is the best Rufus, always and forever.

(Husband Note: I vote for Drunk Suicidal Robert Pattinson Hair Chuck.)

The Husband:

I should really stop underestimating the show, which I seem to keep doing despite my utter respect for pretty much everything in the world of GG. When Nelly Yuki seemed in this episode to revert back to her nice s1 self (pre-Blair fucking with her life in order to mess up her SAT scores), I just chalked it up to the writers feeling that they needed to restart her character, that enough time had passed between the last episode of GG and now, and that Nelly Yuki had so little screen time so far this season that we wouldn’t really notice that she stopped being a bitchy “Girl of the Steps.” In other words, I’m fine in accepting sudden changes for distant supporting characters, because that, in essence, is their job.

But when she reveals her true intentions at the end of the episode regarding all of her “nice” actions, I realized…goddamn it…that I had done it again. I had underestimated the writers. She was still a brainiac-turned-shallow bitch. Aside from the fact that the show insists that Serena killed somebody, which she didn’t, and that Lily’s mother could go from psycho bitch in s1 to the nice woman we met in the Hamptons at the beginning of s2, the writers and showrunners of GG don’t play fast and loose with their characters’ motivations, and that they treat the audience as if they are intelligent and savvy.

And I’m glad that Zap2It’s TV Gal had both her wishes granted – for Serena to ditch Aaron in South America (done!) and for Chuck to stop with the wild histrionics (Opium Zombie Chuck is a complete 180 from Drunk Funeral Chuck). I hope that the lack of Aaron doesn’t lead to less screentime for Cyrus Rose, not because I want to write references to The Princess Bride (as my wife is wont to do), but because I really really like the Cyrus and Eleanor stuff.

And I want to reference A Goofy Movie and The Incredibles. “I’m not happy, Bob. Not. Happy.”

As far as episode titles go, my wife pointed out that “In The Realm Of The Basses” doesn’t work nearly as well as far as cleverness is concerned as, say, “The Dark Night” or “Desperately Seeking Serena” or “Chuck In Real Life,” but I have a bigger problem in the reference itself. The film In The Realm Of The Senses, to which it refers, is a crazy Japanese movie that is pretty much two hours of explicit simulated sex (and one very illuminating egg trick) and then a graphic and bloody murder/castration sequence. What kind of message is Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage promoting to young, impressionable teenage girls?

 

Gossip Girl 2.13: “O Brother, Where Bart Thou?”

The Wife:

So, Bart Bass is definitely dead. He didn’t even get the chance to be in a coma for awhile while the other characters hovered around him, wondering what to do with his life, fighting over his will and haggling with his PI for that final piece of information. Nope. The Gossip Girl universe just decided that it would be better if he died outright, off-screen, with all the dignity befitting the richest and most prickly character on the Upper East Side. Bart’s death has affected the Upper East Siders in a variety of ways:

• Lily Bass Der Woodsen, although she was about to leave Bart, appears to be in a state of shock. She can barely navigate putting together the funeral, which makes it extremely lucky that her mother, CeCe, has showed up to help her daughter in her time of need. All Lily knows for certain is that she still wants to be with Rufus Humphrey, who promises her that he will wait for her as long as she needs him to.
• Chuck Bass is now an orphan and set to become the richest kid in Manhattan, even with some of Bart’s money passing to his wife, Lily. Upset at losing the man he tried so hard to love, Chuck has holed himself up at the Palace Hotel and gone on a drunken bender. He is disheveled and broken down and, frankly, has never looked hotter. He also refuses to associate the Van Der Woodsens and the Humphreys, blaming Lily and Rufus for his father’s death.
• Chuck’s admonishment of his family makes Eric Van Der Woodsen really sad.
• The untimely demise of Bart Bass makes Cyrus Rose not want to spend another day not married to Eleanor Waldorf.

So the whole of the Upper East Side heads to Bart’s funeral, where a doting Blair and Nate escort drunken Chuck, while Dan and Aaron Rose accompany grieving Serena. Chuck throws Dan out of the funeral, accusing Rufus of indirectly killing Bart. Not wanting to cause further embarrassment to Chuck, Dan agrees to leave.

“Chuck is Bart’s son. He doesn’t have to make sense today.” – CeCe Van Der Woodsen

At the Humphrey loft, Rufus tells his freshly-kicked-out-of-the-funeral son that he thought Dan and Serena might have been rekindling their relationship since Bart’s demise, but Dan insists he’s just being a good friend. Rufus continues to sit around in a cozy sweater, playing “Everytime,” which he obviously wrote for Lily, and pining away for her. At Bart’s wake, Cyrus proposes to Eleanor that they get married the following day, and opportunistic Jenny Humphrey offers to make Eleanor’s wedding jacket overnight in order to make amends for being such a snotty little bitch to her former mentor. Aaron Rose proposes to Serena that they head off to Argentina for the holidays so that she can take a break from grief. When Serena insists that she has to stay with her family, Aaron, ever the tactless douchebag, accuses Serena of wanting to stay in town because of Dan. Meanwhile, an enraged Chuck storms out of the wake to go meet with PI Andrew Taylor, who has contacted both him and Lily trying to sell the final bit of information he told Bart before he died, which Bart intimated on his final voicemail to Lily: he knows why she spent some time in a sanatorium in France when she was 19. CeCe offers to negotiate with Andrew Taylor about Lily’s secret in her stead.

I'll get you, Rufus Humphrey, and your little Dan, too!

Blair tries to talk some sense into Chuck and let him know that he doesn’t have to mourn alone, finally saying the three words that she said she’d never say to him. As she professes her love and tells him that she’ll always be by his side, he gets into his limo and tells her, “Well, that’s too bad,” speeding off to bid for the secret of the woman he blames for his father’s death. As Cyrus Rose sets up for his wedding to Eleanor the next day, he tells Blair how happy he is to have her in his family, an admission so genuine that it causes Blair to break down in tears, telling her new father that she finally told Chuck she loved him and that he rejected her. Cyrus takes her in his arms and assures her that Chuck would be a fool not to love her back and that he’ll come around, once he’s no longer blinded by grief and rage. I actually loved seeing our fierce Blair break down and show her vulnerable side. It’s a nice reminder that our favorite queen bee is human on the inside, despite the frosty exterior she may present.

“Only a masochist could ever love such a narcissist.” – Blair

Serena and Dan discuss their relationship in light of her possibly going on a sexcation with Aaron Rose. Again, I don’t know why this conversation happened, but I guess Dan and Serena didn’t get to sleep with Lexi and Aaron, respectively, after the Snowflake Ball because of Bart’s accident. So now Dan will never sleep with Lexi and it still doesn’t matter if Serena sleeps with Aaron or not. Serena returns home after this conversation to walk in on her mother admitting to CeCe that she still loves Rufus Humphrey. Hearing this, Serena tells Lily that she’s going to Argentina with Aaron because she’s not with Dan anymore. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, Little J somehow convinces Dan to get Serena back and keep her from going to Argentina with Aaron. She facilitates this Aaron-tervention by asking Dan to carry the garment bag to the wedding at Chez Waldorf.

I absolutely have nothing to wear to my own wedding. I sure hope on opportunistic street urchin shows up to save the day!

Believing that CeCe has handsomely paid to keep her secret at bay, Lily calls Rufus and begs him to run away with her. Ah, but CeCe has betrayed her daughter and not bid on the information at all, giving it freely to Chuck Bass. At the Waldorf estate, Serena and Dan continue to discuss their relationship, but Serena insists on going to Argentina with Aaron, spilling the beans about Lily and Rufus and insisting that she doesn’t want to take a third chance with Dan because it would be weird to date the son of the person her mom is dating. (With which I kind of agree, actually.)

“You’re going to give all this up because of your mom?” – Dan

Cyrus and Eleanor marry in a lovely, small ceremony in the Waldorf foyer and everyone wears beautiful dresses – especially Dorota, who must have been so happy to get out of her maid’s outfit for a day and wear something lovely. (I think she borrowed Rose from Privileged‘s swarovski crystal headband, actually.) After vows are exchanged, Dorota tells Blair to go upstairs where she finds a contrite Chuck Bass who has come to cry on her shoulder after burning Lily’s secret that he paid so dearly for. Sad Chuck snuggles up tight to Blair’s gorgeous white fan-adorned dress and they fall asleep together. Meanwhile, CeCe heads over to Brooklyn to tell Rufus what her daughter should have all those years ago, under the guise of “giving them a chance for their relationship to actually succeed.” Dan returns home to find that his father’s mood has suddenly changed for happy packing-for-a-trip Rufus to sullen and stern Rufus, who announces that he can never be with Lily Van Der Woodsen.

In their limo to the airport, Aaron Rose delivers some creepy double entendres to Serena about how sleeping on the plane will be the first time they’ve actually slept together. I don’t know why she’s with this guy. I don’t know why he wants to go to Argentina. And I don’t know why he’s so fucking creepy. How could someone as awesome as Cyrus spawn someone so unawesome as Aaron? It’s inconceivable, I tell you. Inconceivable.

Please, dear lord, will someone poison this man with iocane powder? I'm certain he hasn't built up an immunity.

Blair wakes up to find that Chuck has left, leaving in his place a note that tells her that she deserves better than him. And finally, Rufus Humphrey confronts Lily in Grand Central Station, hitting her with the loaded question:

“Just tell me one thing: is it a boy or a girl?”

So Lily’s big secret is that she had a bastard love child with someone far below her station. Which is pretty much what I thought was going to go down. However, I had a dream about this episode last night in which Rufus and Lily continued this conversation, wherein Rufus discussed how weird it is for this to be Lily’s big secret. (Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain why I dream about pop culture. But I have had Lincoln Hawk’s “Everytime” stuck in my head all day, thanks to this episode.) I understand that Lily loves Rufus very much, but at 19, pregnant with a child she knew she couldn’t keep because of the scandal it would cause in polite society – why would she have kept that child at all? Just because it’s Rufus’ child? That she wouldn’t be able to raise it, with or without him? That makes no sense. As a very wealthy person, wouldn’t an abortion have been the better way to go? There would be no risk to her reputation for having an illegitimate child with a man far below her station. No risk of that child ever finding his biological parents and causing a scandal. No need to go to a sanatorium in France to have the baby. No need to be whisked away to do so and leave the love of her life in the process. Lily actually having that child just doesn’t make sense to me. At all. The only reason I can see for her decision to keep that child and give it up for adoption would be that she wanted something of Rufus’ for the rest of her life, and somehow knowing that she’d had his child would be enough. That or CeCe made her keep the baby because CeCe is weird like that and makes strange decisions on other people’s behalf.

Rufus had a right to know about the child either way, abortion or adoption. And I hope that this storyline, this strange decision to keep that bastard love child, takes us to a place where Rufus actively seeks out the son or daughter he never knew he had, because otherwise, I’m just going to find it a confusing choice for the remainder of the season. Although, it does imbue the lyrics of “Everytime” with an entirely new meaning now, doesn’t it?

“Everytime you walk away or run away you take a piece of me with you.”

The Husband:

Big drama. Big emotions. Big plot points. Nary a sliver of the snark and pomp that usually defines this show.

Yep, Gossip Girl just threw a great hour of television right up there on the boob tube, and I hope you were paying attention. It’s too bad that Dirty Sexy Money has already filmed their final episode and will not be getting a third season, because this episode is a great lesson in how to deal with the histrionics of the rich New York elite, even when confronted with such big scenarios as funerals and weddings (things that have also recently happened on DSM.) Aside from the Aaron story, everything worked beautifully for this episode, slingshotting us from emotion to emotion and revealing some big information to tide us over the show’s hiatus.

• You want some major pathos? Behold Chuck’s complete collapse, a rare instance from such a collected character, rendering him completely sympathetic despite his utter contempt for everyone around him.
• You want some soapy secrets without dealing with ridiculous musical stings and an over-the-top shouting match? Behold the final moments when Rufus confront Lily at Grand Central.
• You want some mind games? Behold CeCe’s brilliant handling of the PI situation.
• You want some great joy? Behold the Cyrus/Eleanor wedding that brings everyone together.
• Just to make things feel a bit more regular-size GG, you want some confusing, inexplicable romantic gobbledegook that really makes no sense when you think about it? Behold Dan’s entire story this week.

This is all just in one jam-packed episode.

So why aren’t you watching?

 

Gossip Girl 2.10: “The Magnificent Archibalds”

The Wife:

After her disastrous fight with Agnes, Little J has been making nice with Eric and squatting in the Bass der Woodsen estate while Lily and Bart are away. Unable to get a hold of his daughter for a week, Daddy Rufus is going out of his mind and is ready to call the cops until Lily calls him to tell him that J is just fine at the Bass der Woodsen’s. Rufus wants to immediately get his daughter back, but Lily cautions that she’d like to talk to J first and find out what’s going on in her head. She assures Rufus that she’ll set up a meeting between the two parties when Jenny is ready. Lily tries to convince Jenny that she should be back under her father’s roof until she’s 18 and is ready to live on her own. Jenny accepts Lily’s advice, but then Lily finds Jenny’s emancipation papers and wonders if her advice got through at all. Not knowing what to do, Lily calls Rufus to tell him about the papers and invites him to Bass der Woodsen Thanksgiving to talk to his daughter. While it’s clear that Jenny doesn’t want to see her father very much, Rufus assures her that he isn’t angry with her and that he’s willing to sign the emancipation papers and let her go if that’s what it will take to get her back in his life. No matter what documents he signs, he says, it will never make him stop loving her. Honestly, Rufus’ speech made me tear up a little bit. Jenny’s actions don’t deserve so magnanimous a gesture, but I would expect nothing less from a pure-hearted Humphrey man. Thanks for making me cry a little bit, Daddy Rufus.

This promo photo was just too nice not to share.

Nate Archibald, after being absent last week, was given a Thanksgiving story worthy of having his name in the episode title. His father, the fallen Howard Archibald, has somehow sneaked back in to the country with the aid of his wife in order to have some semblance of a normal Tgiving with his family. Nate is wary of his father’s presence, especially when The Captain invites young Nate and his mother to move to Dominica with him. Mrs. Archibald tells her son that she will only go if Nate does, which Nate agrees to. I guess since he’s been a dick to all of his friends and betrayed Vanessa, he may as well just follow in his father’s cowardly footsteps and disappear happily to the Caribbean. However, all is not so happy in the land of the Archibalds. Vanessa runs into Nate at the gallery when he shows up to return a Pixies boxed set to Rufus (cool). Immediately after this encounter, Vanessa is approached by an FBI agent who wants to talk to her about Nate. She calls Chuck and the two former friends of Nate Archibald stage a Natetervention, where they inform him that the Feds know The Captain is back in the States and that they believe he is plotting a crime far greater than embezzlement. The Feds believe that The Captain is planning to kidnap Nate and his mother and hold them for ransom in order to get money from Nate’s grandparents, and then flee back to Dominica, without his family. Chuck and Vanessa urge Nate to convince his father to turn himself in, knowing that if he does, the Feds will unfreeze the Archibald accounts and give Nate and his mother their house back. Nate returns home and grills his dad about the kidnapping and extortion plot, to which he confesses. Nate then delivers an ultimatum to The Captain: walk out the service exit and flee back to Dominica and never see his son again, or turn himself in and hope for Nate’s forgiveness. Despite Mrs. Archibald’s protestations, the Captain decides to turn himself in and the Feds restore Nate to his former way of life. Or, at the very least, to his former home.

Eric also got to have a plot in this episode after being absent for so many. (Eric is hella tight. I wish the writers would pay more attention to him.) When Bart and Lily return a day early, Bart tells Eric that his boyfriend may be seeing someone else. Eric asks Chuck how Bart would know something like that and Chuck offers to show Eric the P.I. records Bart has on every member of his new family. Chuck open’s Bart’s safe for Eric and allows him to access the records. He reads his file, and then offers Lily and Serena’s files to them, claiming not to have read them. Lily is furious that Bart has records on her children. (Hers she can understand, but the kids are just kids.) Bart rationalizes the dossiers as his way of protecting his children, but Lily cannot bear the thought of having her children’s every move followed, so she takes Eric and Serena, along with all three dossiers, and storms out of the Bass der Woodsen apartment on Tgives.

What's this about dossiers?

Serena continues dating Aaron Rose, even though she’s bothered by the lack of exclusivity, which makes her all the more delighted when Aaron cooks her dinner and tells her that he wants to be exclusive. She jokes that had she known it would be such an occasion, she would have brought champagne, to which Aaron responds that he’s glad she didn’t, because he’s been sober for several years. Serena is taken aback by this admission, saying that she too used to party a lot, but that she doesn’t drink now, just the occasional celebratory glass of champagne. Aaron says that he needs to be around people who support his sobriety, so Serena tells him that she can be that girl – the girl who doesn’t even drink a celebratory glass of champagne. Dan runs into Aaron at the grocery store and inadvertently ruins Serena’s lie by telling Aaron that her family would prefer a giftset of wines from around the world. When Aaron shows up at the party, he asks Serena about what Dan said, and Serena tells Aaron that Dan probably lied to Aaron because he isn’t over her yet. Aaron, then, becomes irrationally angry with Dan when the Humpreys show up to rescue Jenny. Both boys call one another liars, and take the situation up with Serena, who gets Dan to realize through sheer unblinking mind powers that it was she who lied to Aaron about her alcoholism. Dan fesses up to the lie and apologizes to Aaron, just before Aaron heads over to the Waldrof’s to spend Tgives with his dad. When Serena gets hold of her dossier, she heads over to the Waldorf’s herself to deliver the dossier to Aaron, telling him to read it, and then decide if he still wants to be with her.

At Chez Waldorf, Blair struggles to meld her family’s traditions for her favorite holiday with Cyrus’. Blair likes a homecooked meal prepared by her father with his signature pie that she always helps him bake, while Cyrus’ family prefers a restaurant Thanksgiving, which is the most unholy of things in Blair’s book. When Cyrus eats a slice of Blair’s holiday pie, she confronts her mother about this man ruining her holiday (Inconceivable!), and Eleanor suggests that its time for Blair to welcome some new traditions and stop thinking the worst of people. After all, it may be a restaurant Tgives, but it’s a restaurant Tgives at Blair’s favorite place, which Cyrus booked just for her: Ramsay Tavern. (As far as I know, it’s not real, but I think its meant to invoke any number of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants.) Blair insists that this is beside the point. Dorota then tells her that Cyrus proposed to Eleanor and that they were planning on telling everyone at Tgives dinner. Upon showing her the ring, Blair grabs Dorota and storms out, choosing to drag her housekeeper around Central Park rather than participate in a new tradition that she feels is a farce. Blair forces Dorota to ignore calls from Eleanor (Dorota’s ring tone for her boss, by the way, is Britney Spears’ “Slave 4 U”), and Dorota suggests that perhaps she and Blair could participate in some of their traditions, like feeding the ducks. Eventually, Eleanor gets Serena to send a text to Blair to get her location, and Eleanor takes off in a cab to find her daughter. As she rescues Blair from the cold streets of New York, she finds Jenny, too, with whom Blair was having a talk about the importance of family and how much Daddy Rufus cares for Little J. Eleanor gives Jenny her shawl and a ride out to Brooklyn, insisting that she should be home with her family. When Blair arrives at Chez Waldorf, she finds her holiday surprise was not her mother’s engagement, but the presence of her father, who shows up to participate in his daughter’s favorite tradition and brings her his special pie. Blair does, however, spoil the reveal of the engagement, but no one seems to mind and the Rose-Waldorf’s enjoy a peaceful Tgiving dinner together as a family.

One big happy, slightly dysfunctional family.

When Dan and Rufus return home, they find Jenny waiting for them, tearing up her emancipation papers with a face free of black eyeliner and tears in her eyes. Soon after, Lily and Eric show up for a second Humphrey Family Tgives, fresh from their second pitiful diner Thanksgiving in which Eric admits that he read Lily’s file and asks her why she didn’t tell him that she was in a sanitarium when she was 19. Vanessa shows up shortly after and makes up with Little J in the spirit of the holiday . . . until she steals a letter from Nate from Jenny’s mail pile. Aaron returns to Serena’s to tell her that he didn’t want to read her file, but instead wants to know all about her straight from her mouth. They proceed to gab the holiday away as Nate and Chuck ride around town drinking Scotch in Chuck’s limo, just as the pilgrim’s intended. In another limo across town, Bart Bass calls his PI to ask him to look into why Lily did spend time in the Ostroff Center back when she was 19. (I suspect it might have something to do with an abortion.)

A much better Tgives episode than last season’s with a lot of plots coming to an end and a lot of new ones starting. I accept this as good start to the next half of the season. Also, I’m all about Serena and Blair’s Tgives outfits. That backless green dress? To die for.

The Husband:

I am so glad that GG decided not to take Little J’s proposed emancipation from her parents and run with it for the entire rest of the season, not only because it just would have sucked up the show’s energy each time it reared its ugly head, but because it actually really worried me that J was so far gone that she would even consider it. Rufus is a great dad no matter how you swing it, and I hate to see him suffer simply because his 15-year-old daughter played naïve dumbass for a few weeks. It would have broken my heart, honestly. This new rekindling of their relationship is far more interesting psychologically, anyway, because truth be told, 15-year-olds don’t know shit.

But we do know about making mashed potatoes!

Yes, that’s right; I felt major empathy and sadness for a couple characters on a CW “chick show.” I’m deeply invested in these folks, warts and all. Deal with it.

I was disappointed that there was no November sweeps death as rumored – yes, I know I don’t do spoilers, but it was hard to avoid Michael Ausiello’s article in the pages of Entertainment Weekly – because there’s no episode next week and the week after that is December, but I’m also appreciative that they’re letting the stories breath organically and not just forcing a death just for the sake of ratings.

Still, I spent much of the second half of the story thinking up who was going to die and how. One really far-fetched one involved Mrs. Archibald killing Vanessa to show Nate what it feels like to lose a lover.

I also – and I mean this absolutely seriously – thought about something very absurd during the final minutes. When it was obvious nobody was going to die, I thought up the ways that they could still, absurdly, kill a character just for shiggles in the final minutes at Chez Humphrey. As Rufus – one of the rumored potential characters that may die – walked around his kitchen, I imagined – once again, with absolute seriousness – the 1980s Domino’s Pizza Noid crashing in through the window on a rope, tying said rope around Rufus’ neck until he died from suffocation, and then running out the front door screaming.

There is something seriously wrong with me.

OH MY GOD! Rufus Humphrey! I'm your biggest fan!

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Gossip Girl 2.10: “Bonfire of the Vanity”

The Wife:

It’s the eve of Blair’s 18th Birthday Soiree at Chez Waldorf and she needs everything to be perfect, including her mother’s new boyfriend. Unfortunately for Blair, her mom’s new prince turns out, inconceivably, to be Wallace Shawn, a man of short stature who comes complete with a catch phrase and is altogether rather less than Blair had desired for her mother.

“I was expecting Cary Grant and I got Danny DeVito!”

Blair tries her best to keep her clam about this scenario, hoping to come of age with dignity and class like her idol, Grace Kelly, but when Cyrus starts to question the exorbitant cost for Blair’s party, she has to try incredibly hard to keep her cool, chanting:

“I am Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly is me.”

Eventually, the thought of being with a short little man who once played Vizzini is too much for Blair to bear, and she sets up a lunch date to pump him for weaknesses to exploit, in typical Blair fashion. On her date with Cyrus, she learns that when he was in Vietnam, he cheated on his wife with a Vietnamese girl he truly loved, Kim-Li. He planned to bring Kim-Li back home to America, but had to divorce his wife first. Just as he filed the papers, he learned that the love of his life, Km-Li, was killed in a raid on her village. While Blair at first seems to respond positively to this story, she later tells her mother that Cyrus is, in fact, just like her father (for being a cheater) and is thus not the kind of man Eleanor thinks he is. Eleanor doesn’t quite know what to do with the news, but chooses to confront Cyrus about it at Blair’s birthday party. When he admits to cheating, she throws him out of the party.

Cyndi Lauper! You're from Queens! GET OUT!

And then Cyndi Lauper shows up to play Blair’s party and informs Blair that Cyrus had bought out all of the tickets at her upcoming Joe’s Pub gig (that Blair and her mother had wanted to attend) so she could play Blair’s party instead. Blair, seeing that Cyrus had done something nice for her/played her just as she was playing him, runs out to tell Cyrus that she respects his game and that she would be delighted to continue having wars with him for as long as her mother wanted to have him in her life. I see there being many more Cyrus-Blair wars in the future, considering how displeased Blair is to hear the news that her mother has asked Cyrus to move in to Chez Waldorf with them.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the Humphrey kids are both being severe disappointments to Daddy Rufus. I’ll start with Dan. Noah Shapiro loved the Charlie Trout story so much that he agrees to write Dan a letter of recommendation for Yale. When Dan goes to meet with him, Shapiro introduces him to an editor at New York Magazine who liked the Charlie Trout piece so much that he wants to offer Dan the chance to write an expose on Bart Bass. Knowing Chuck Bass, evidently, is enough to get you an offer to write a journalistic expose even though you have no journalistic experience whatsoever. I used to work in publishing, and I find it extremely odd that a high-powered magazine editor would take a chance on giving a cub fiction writer what could be the expose of the century. (At least, that’s how he’s painting it.) First of all, just because someone writes good fiction, doesn’t mean they’ll be a good reporter. It’s a different sensibility and a different manner of storytelling. There are indeed people who can write both ways, but I doubt Dan Humphrey, at 17, has the skills to make that transition. I don’t know why the editor wouldn’t simply, I don’t know, pay his best investigative reporter on staff to do the piece. It would probably be a lot better. But anyway, we need Dan to do it so that we can have conflict, so he agrees, despite his father’s protestations.

Dan goes to meet with Bart Bass to see if he can shadow the man a few days a week, pretending to be interested in construction. This makes Chuck Bass extremely unhappy, as Bart begins to show more interest in young Humphrey than he ever has in his own son. Chuck had previously gifted Bart with season tickets and a private box to enjoy his favorite hockey team, and is infuriated to find out that Bart has chosen to take Dan to the game instead of his own son, who bought the tickets specifically to spend time with his father and get to know him better through reliving his childhood passion of hockey. Chuck then starts a little investigation of his own to parallel Dan’s and find out just what young Humphrey’s angle is. Dan discovers that Bart’s real estate empire is based on an insurance scam he ran back in ’87 when he committed arson on one of his own buildings in order to collect the fire insurance. Just as Dan gets this juicy tidbit, Chuck uncovers from a contact at New York Magazine that Dan is indeed trying to get close to his father to write an expose. When Dan asks Bart about the fire, he admits that someone died inside the building and Chuck races in to stop his father from saying to much to a reporter. Bart Bass offers Dan hush money to kill the story, but Dan refuses to accept the bribe. As he storms out of the Bass Der Woodsen apartment, Chuck begs him not to write the story, knowing full well that it will not only destroy Bass Industries, but also Chuck, Lily, Eric and Dan’s former paramour Serena, echoing the warning Daddy Rufus had set out earlier.

Dan decides not to write the story, but sees a chance to help Chuck Bass reconnect with his father, and so sends Bart Bass a copy of the Charlie Trout story as an apology. (I notice that all of Dan’s stories simply have dates as titles. That’s gonna get old real fast.) The story moves Bart to recognize the distance between himself and his son and he apologizes to Chuck for this transgression. He also tells his son that he never blamed him for his mother’s death, and offers to take him up on those Rangers season tickets after all. I’m so pleased that Dan has chosen to use his art for good, and I’m sure Daddy Rufus is proud of him too. Chuck and Bart needed a catalyst to mend their damaged relationship, and Dan Humphrey is that catalyst. (By the way, that framed photo of Chuck’s mom looks just like Ed Westwick. I wonder if it is actually the actor’s mother.)

As for Little J, she apparently dragged her magical suitcase all the way to (I assume) the Lower East Side to live with Agnes. Agnes’ mother is involved enough with her wild child daughter’s life to phone up Rufus and inform him that she’s gone through the exact same things with Agnes but that the girls will take care of each other. The two girls head around town to meet with various business managers in order to get “their line” off the ground. Unfortunately, Jenny and Agnes don’t seem to meet eye to eye on anything at these meetings, with Jenny representing someone who has really through about the name and image of her brand and has a clear picture of what she wants to make and who she wants to sell it to, and Agnes attempting to jump in on her glory and claim Jenny’s ideas as her own. Later, Jenny starts to realize that Agnes’ unorganized lifestyle (filled with weekday hangovers) is costing her time and potential money, so she takes responsibility into her own hands and meets with a business manager behind Agnes’ back, who says he’d love to work with her alone and admits that Agnes was the problem with Jenny getting representation all along.

When Agnes gets Jenny’s contract call by mistake, all hell breaks loose. When Jenny returns to the apartment, Agnes is ready to declare war, hurrying across the street with Jenny’s dresses in hand, which she promptly shoves into a trashcan and lights on fire, despite Jenny’s protestations. Frankly, Jenny, that’s a point where you have to make a call. If a psycho bitch has your entire life’s work in her hands and is dousing it with lighter fluid and holding up a lit matchbook, you have to make a choice: do you grab the matchbook out of her hand and suffer a burn on your palm as you put out the flame, or do you cry about it and let your entire collection go up in flames? I would have chosen the burn, but Jenny instead chose the couture bonfire. Bad call, Little J. Frankly, instead of crying about it and screaming at Agnes, the best move would have probably been to punch Agnes right in the moneymaker. Hurt her as much as she hurt you, J.

So despite watching her entire collection go up in smoke, J returns home to Daddy Rufus with the parental consent forms she needs to start her business. When Rufus refuses to sign it, Jenny runs away again and meets with her business manager, who tells her that the only other way to get in business with him if her parents won’t give consent is to take them to court and sue to become emancipated. Please don’t do it, Little J! Then you’ll really be Little Jenny Orphan and you can’t be because that name belongs to someone else and I invented it! I hope Daddy Rufus will take his son’s advice and get J back by signing the papers, because it would really suck to lose our miniature fashionista.

Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

Nate and Vanessa were not in this episode at all, so our final plot belongs to Serena, and I left it for last because it is my least favorite. She’s still seeing Aaron Rose the Artist who sends her all over the city via GPS to see his favorite places, unfortunately, she takes this to mean that they are exclusive, when he believes in strictly the opposite. Per Blair’s quips:

“Sure, he starts out in his blue period and it’s all great, but it’s only a matter of time until he’s all into Cubism and it’s some other girl’s eye coming out of her forehead.”

Serena gets jealous of Aaron’s other girlfriends and breaks up with him, even though he’s Cyrus’ son, which would have been a cool story thread to follow.

“You believe in long hair, peasant skirts and sandals. But you in an open relationship? I don’t think so.” – Blair

If it weren’t for Blair’s quips about this plot, I would have been totally bored because Serena without the other characters to interact with is the worst kind of ennui for me.

The Husband:

This was a great episode. Like, season 1 pre-WGA strike good. It’s fascinating, especially, that in this particular episode Little J was far more heartless than Blair. Just like last season when she usurped Blair’s position as the Queen Bee of Constance-St. Jude’s, she’s a fascinating character when she decides to ignore her soul, only to regain it right before she loses it altogether, forever. (Like Blair’s friends, who are daywalking vampires as far as I’m concerned, especially mini-Blair Hazel.) But going all Jena Malone and emancipating herself from her parents, that’s not going to get her anywhere as a designer, as by the time the case gets to court and she wins (which she won’t), her guerrilla fashion show will have become irrelevant and her clothing will no longer be cutting edge. Seriously, haven’t you seen that Drew Barrymore movie Irreconcilable Differences?

And seeing Blair go through a complete 180 within mere minutes is always very fun, as this manic-depressive rich girl – one afraid of being mistaken as “upper-middle class” – finally meets her match in stubby little Wallace Shawn. For once, it’s going to be a happy back-and-forth war, something this show has yet to do. Sure, earlier wars on the show were happy and fun for us as viewers, but, of course, the characters involved in said wars ended up anywhere but in happy places. (I like to imagine that Georgina is floating somewhere in space, trapped in the Phantom Zone.)

It’s strange, though, that Gossip Girl and Privileged, in the last week, have both dealt with secrets uncovered via budding writers trying their hand at journalism/biography, secrets of the rich and famous doing very naughty things, and then having the secret-keeping rich person offer massive amounts of money to the writer. Yeah, on Privileged it was that Laurel Limoges got pregnant with her daughter while her husband was still in Vietnam, which isn’t nearly as bad as committing arson, but both are career-destroying secrets, secrets now known by ambitious but confuzzled young persons. Is this going to be a running thing on The CW? At least on Smallville whenever Chloe would discover some terrible secret about Lex or Lionel, they would threaten to kill her, and then everything would just kind of go away by episode’s end.

Fuck, is this going to happen on Everybody Hates Chris, too? Is he going to find out something about his boss at the grocery store? I mean, he and his siblings have plenty on Mr. Omar, but I don’t think that widow-stalking Lothario gives a fuck what they have.