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 2.20: “Remains of the J”

The Wife:

Of all the things that happened in tonight’s episode, the most shocking for me is the following: Gossip Girl is going away until nearly the end of April? What? Why? Granted, it frees up my Monday TV schedule a little bit, but this show just came back. CW, I do not understand your programming decisions. First you cancel Veronica Mars, now this? (Why no, I am not at all bitter about the lack of VMars in my life. Not at all.)

Like every good episode of Gossip Girl (or, I should say, like every Gossip Girl-y episode of Gossip Girl), the plot culminates in a party. Jenny’s super sweet 16 to be exact. After running into Poppy Lipton, who has suddenly transformed into a 45-year-old artist since last we saw her if that haircut is to be believed, Serena realizes she needs to get back into the social scene and uses Jenny’s birthday as a way to do it. But Jenny isn’t a monster anymore and doesn’t want to have a birthday party that will be featured on Page Six or any MTV docuseries that might be called My Super Sweet 16. All Jenny wants is to hang out with her extended family, play boardgames and eat her dad’s chili. But make no mistake: she will wear a fabulous dress while doing all of that. So Lily and Serena cancel the party, only for Serena to put the party back on when she finds out that Penelope is having a party the same day. An unseen war-of-the-parties rages, with every posh face from Constance putting in their requisite appearance at Jenny’s birthday party. Jenny is less than thrilled, especially because no one at the party seems to know it’s thrown in her honor for her birthday, as it appears more like the Serena-and-Poppy show. Jenny resorts to doing the only thing she knows how to do and posts the party on Gossip Girl, ruining Serena’s tasteful society affair with passed hors d’oeuvres by filling it full of drunken teenage party crashers, two of whom have sex in Serena’s bed. The party then gets broken up by the cops, which, by Isla Vista standards, is how you know it’s a good party!

I am rolling my eyes at all of you right now.

Also ruining the party? The strange tension between the warring Chuck/Vanessa and Blair/Nate factions as each half of the fractured couples set out to make the other jealous. Although Blair is dismayed that Nate only wants to be friends with her, she still parades her possession of him around like a prize, which angers her ex-lover Chuck and confuses the hell out of Vanessa, who technically wasn’t broken up with Nate until halfway through this episode. And how does Blair know that Nate doesn’t love her in the same way he used to, despite all of her attempts to convince herself that he is now her destiny?:

“He kissed me. On the forehead. Like Chevalier kissed Gigi. Like he was a man and I was a little girl.”

I’ve got to say that Blair really creeped me out in this episode, mooning over someone who wasn’t at all right for her just because she desperately needs to feel whole in her downward, awkward spiral. I don’t like a Blair so pathetic that she delivers all of her lines as though she’s Leslie Caron (who is a great dancer, but, let’s face it, not much of an actress). Though Blair compares herself to Gigi in this episode and does deliver her lines like a young girl, I’d go a step further and compare her to another Leslie Caron character, Lili in Bob Merrill’s Carnival (or, as you might know it, the movie Lili). Lili is a young girl orphaned and brought to the circus, where she evidently doesn’t know puppets aren’t real. As she grows closer to the puppets, she doesn’t even begin to realize that the cruel Mr. Paul the Puppeteer is the man behind them who makes her feel so loved. You see, Mr. Paul is mean to her when he isn’t a puppet. He’s a mean man in general, but he secretly loves Lili, which is creepy because I’m pretty sure she’s 13 and slightly retarded. Look, kids, I’ve been in that show and I know that script and it just doesn’t make sense if Lili isn’t slightly mentally deficient. I mean, in Gigi, Caron’s character is largely just naïve about becoming a whore and needs to be groomed in womanly ways by her Aunt Alicia (Agnes Moorehead’s role, which I’ve played). There was a blankness of expression and thought in these line readings that totally reminded me of the way Lili is written. It’s different than Gigi’s naïveté, which is what I think Leighton Meester was trying to convey; it really came across as mildly delusional. More Lili than Gigi. It was a good character choice, but it caught me very, very off-guard. I want my old Blair back. And maybe I’ll get her back once she learns that Vanessa totally bedded down with Chuck Bass.

Less integral to the party-plots is the plight of the Humphrey family. Dan is all ready to head off to Yale and, what’s more, he’s received a fan letter in regards to a story he’s had published. Daddy Rufus encourages Dan to write back to his fan and give him some writerly guidance, but he’s secretly concerned with the financial aid information Dan has just received from Yale: with colleges so impacted during these tough economic times, less financial aid is available and so young Humphrey gets none. In discussing this with Lily, she suggests that, barring acceptance of actual Bass Der Woodsen funds to fund Dan’s collegiate journey, Rufus should sell his sweetles Brooklyn loft and move in with her. Unbeknownst to his children, he takes the initial steps to do this and a confrontation in regards to the matter arises in the aftermath of Jenny’s party, where Dan reveals he took a call from the realtor.

I absolutely believe that Rufus selling the loft would be in his children’s best interest as far as providing college funds for Yale-bound Dan and Parsons-bound Jenny, but there are definitely less dramatic ways to get financial aid. First of all, FAFSA deadline is June 1st so there’s plenty of time to fill that out. Dan could also apply for work-study. Dan could also apply for one of the hundreds of thousands of privately-funded scholarships available in the New York City area and nationwide. Speaking of which, wouldn’t creating a scholarship in the name of her deceased husband and encouraging Dan to apply for it be a great way for Lily to help her boyfriend’s son AND get a giant tax write-off? It could be the Bart and Lily Bass Foundation Scholarship for Young Artists or something, and they could give funds to artists who work in different mediums (playwrights, poets, novelists, sculptors, painters, photographers, dance, acting, etc.). What the fuck is Lily doing these days, anyway? I’m sure she could take some time to do some fundraising so that artistically minded kids can go to college. Just a thought, Gossip Girl writers. I mean, if the recession is hitting Gossip Girl so hard that Dan Humphrey can’t get an ounce of financial aid from Yale, shouldn’t its wealthier denizens do something to alleviate that problem?

Oh, and that fan letter? That’s from Dan’s half-brother, the missing Bass Der Woodsen. “Andrew” is “dead,” but Scott is definitely alive. On encouragement from Rufus, Dan gives his fan a call, and the minute Scott’s parents see his cell phone light up with a Brooklyn number, they go into panic mode, asking one of the best questions I’ve heard on TV in a long time:

“How do you delete an incoming call?”

This scene was hilarious, perhaps unintentionally, especially with the actress playing Scott’s mom screeching out a shocked, “HE KNOWS!” when she sees the Brooklyn number. As though that was the only Brooklyn number that would have called Scott. Not like it could have been a wrong number or anything or a telemarketer. Nope. A number from Brooklyn automatically means it’s the son of the person you stole a son from. Tres dramatic!

And, in a final note, Armie Hammer showed up this week to accompany Serena and Poppy on their impromptu trip to Spain, which is how Serena deals with getting blamed for Jenny’s party becoming such a clusterfuck. Apparently, he’s been on the show before as one of the businessmen that Georgina and Serena swindled at a bar last season, but I’m willing to bet we’ve never actually seen his face. I think Mr. Hammer really sucks on Reaper, but in his few lines on Gossip Girl I feel like he’s better cast here. The intrinsic smarminess works a bit better. And he’s got gigolo hair, which is way better than his Wall Street hair on Reaper. We’ll see how he does on the Spanish adventure when Gossip Girl decides to return in April.

Some other random things:

• I’m kind of in love with Blair’s purple cloche.
• I am also kind of in love with her periwinkle sweater and pink tweed skirt.
  
  
• Kelly Rutherford has the shiniest, prettiest maternity tops I’ve ever seen on TV. Her best pregnancy cover-up in this episode? A strategically placed knee.
  
  
• Eric also got a bad haircut, but nothing is as bad as giving Poppy Eve Ensler’s hair, which doesn’t even look good on Eve Ensler.
  
  
• I’m sorry, Gossip Girl universe, but NO ONE takes clothes off the mannequins. If someone from corporate walked by, that store would be screwed.
  
  
• Poppy’s party shirt just contributed to her reincarnation as a middle-aged woman. Beige? With bobbles? Ugh. Hideous.
  

  Truly, this is the worst article of clothing I've ever seen on this show.

  
  

• The Humphrey family crockpot looks like a trashcan. As a result, I was really concerned as to why Dan would bring board games AND trash to his sister’s Sweet 16.
  
  
• Pretty sure Vanessa’s purple party dress is the cheapest-looking thing I’ve ever seen on this show. Did they rustle that shit up at Forever 21?

 

Gossip Girl 2.16: “You’ve Got Yale!”

The Wife:

It’s hard for me to take any plot that culminates in attending the opera seriously after watching Repo! The Genetic Opera this weekend, a cult film I tried really hard to like but couldn’t thanks to a completely unskilled, overwrought score and a clunky and artless libretto. (The different between Repo! and other cult movies is that at least things like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Shock Treatment have good music and well-rendered lyrics. They might make little to no sense, but the musical aspects of them are accomplished.) The opera made marginally more sense as a place for this episode’s drama to culminate, but I still wonder exactly what business some of the characters had being there in the first place. Like, the revelation that some of these characters were even interested in opera came the fuck out of nowhere. Vanessa likes Wagner’s Ring Cycle? Who knew? Who would even know because liking Wagner is so avant garde?! And Eric knows everything there is to know about Mozart’s Magic Flute? Talking wildly about crescendos and high Fs and movements within arias with the wild passion of my friend who’s really into Brahms? Did they lump Eric with a sudden love of the opera simply because he’s Gossip Girl‘s lone gay? I can’t imagine any other reason why they would imbue him with such a weird character trait. I get that it’s important for Lily and Serena and Blair to go to the opera. They’re society people. They don’t give a shit about the music. They just go because it’s a social event. (And certain operas still have lengthy scene changes that allow for socializing between acts, as was originally intended back in the days before electricity when it was necessary to light all the gas lamps in the theatre in order to perform said scene change.) But it’s just so odd for me to have some of these characters suddenly be interested in something they’ve never previously had any interest in, all for the sake of an attempt to create a hyperbolic, operatic plot line filled with deceit, betrayal and, in proper opera fashion, sexual assault.

By the way, the entire Gossip Girl “opera” is about getting into Yale and gaining control of Bass Industries. I liked the Bass Industries plotline. I did not so much like the Yale plotline.

It’s Yale acceptance day and Blair’s father and his lover have flown in from France to feed her a Yale-themed breakfast on the day that they just know she’ll get her letter. They even spring for a Yale sweater for Dorota and give Blair a purse bulldog named Handsome Dan to tote around to show off her Yale pride. (My sister-in-law pointed out that a bulldog is not really a purse-sized dog. Blair pointed out that she will not call the dog Dan, settling instead for Handsome, which I thought was pretty funny.) This is all a bad idea, of course, to count one’s acceptance chickens before they’re hatched and it turns out that Blair doesn’t even get in to Yale at all, despite constantly having her minions refresh the page as if to make the news of waitlisting go away. Dan Humphrey, of course, is the one student from St. Jude’s to get in. (Nate, it seems, has gotten his money back and now no longer cares about going to college at all. Chuck, on the other hand, has bigger fish to fry in the form of apple-cheeked Uncle Jack. He is so over Skull & Bones at this point.) The only Constance student to get in? It Girl Serena Van Der Woodsen, who decides to lie to Blair about her acceptance, claiming to also be waitlisted, making Blair think that it was Nelly Yuki who got in instead. Serena does this a lot, this whole lying for no apparent reason thing, and she should probably stop. It would be better for everybody. Especially because in trying to protect Blair’s feelings, she also has to lie to Dan, causing them to have yet another petty relationship drama about not going to school together in the fall.

Blair talks to Headmistress Queller, who tells her that because she has the next spot on the waitlist, she will definitely get in as long as she keeps up her perfect transcript should the person accepted turn their offer down. Furious, Blair starts plotting against Nelly Yuki. (“Witch hunts are my Valium, Serena.”) Things only get worse when the new English teacher, Miss Carr, who is fresh-faced but no-nonsense about teaching, awards Blair with a B. For Blair, this is devastating. She can’t keep her top of the waitlist spot with a B in English. First of all, who the hell is this Miss Carr who spends two years doing Teach for America and then transfers to a nice, shiny private school on the Upper East Side? Clearly, she doesn’t have the integrity to teach where education actually matters, so I will not trust this character’s advice on anything for the duration of her tenure on the show. (Especially hackneyed advice such as “You should go to the right school for you.”) Second of all, Blair is being 90210 dumb about this whole transcript thing. One B during your second semester will not ruin your GPA. Especially when the snow’s still on the ground. There are plenty of other chances to keep getting As, therefore completely eradicating that B. Instead of thinking like an actual human being, Blair freaks out and demands an audience with Miss Carr, instructing her that Constance has a free pass policy for second semester seniors, where all grades are bumped up to what they should be simply so that Constance can preserve its reputation of sending its graduates to the “best” universities. When Miss Carr tells Blair that this is not a policy she feels comfortable adhering to, Blair cries out for war. Not wanting to cause any more drama, Serena tells Blair that she turned her offer of acceptance down. Dan gets all upset about this, and even Blair thinks that it’s pretty dumb of Serena to turn down Yale just to make Blair feel better/save Miss Carr from ultimate humiliation.

Miss Carr, I think you've misunderstood. I *am* B. I do not *get* Bs.

However, Blair’s ultimate humiliation plan still goes through, thanks to Iz and Penelope stirring up mischief. And what’s this ultimate humiliation plan? Why, invite Miss Carr to dinner and the opera as a sign of good faith! But tell her that the curtain rises at 8 p.m. instead of 7 and send her to a restaurant that’s closed! Ooooooooh, burn! I would be a bit put out that I’d wasted a few hours of an evening that I’d otherwise hadn’t had any plans for to stand in the cold and then not be let in to the Met, but other than the inconvenience of the thing, this was probably the lamest diabolical scheme ever conceived in the GG universe. I mean, really? Really, Blair? Really? That’s like 90210 lame. I thought you were above that. Of course, there is a complication to the plan. Just before curtain, Blair gets a call from Headmistress Queller saying that Miss Carr had spoken to her about Blair’s B and both women were willing to overlook this grade in order for Blair to keep her top-of-the-waitlist spot. When Blair receives this news, she heads to stop Miss Carr from continuing her evening of inconvenience. She accepts Blair’s apology and admission of craziness, but then turns around and calls HMQ, who calls Blair into her office on a Saturday to lands Blair with detention for Mission Opera Inconvenience, which puts her back on Yale’s waitlist. This, of course, means war. Or, as Gossip Girl herself cleverly put it: “Gon’ B startin’ somethin’.”

While I look forward to seeing Blair on the warpath in the coming episodes, I do have a question: in what fucking world does it matter to a college if you get detention after you’ve been accepted? It should matter if you get a D. It shouldn’t matter if you get detention. Plenty of straight-A students get detention. And that doesn’t keep them out of Harvard, Yale or Stanford, before or after a decision has been rendered. In fact, I’m pretty sure detentions don’t show up on your transcripts, but I could be wrong about that. My sister-in-law thinks that this might be a special rule because Constance and St. Jude’s have a unique relationship with Yalies, which is the best reason I can find for why detention should matter at all in this case.

As for Chuck Bass, he seeks Lily’s help to get back his rightful control of Bass Industries. Lily offers to help him, taking a break from all the crazy hot sex she’s having with Rufus, by leveraging her sizable stake in the company against the lesser shares held by other board members. For her help, though, she asks that Chuck move back in, adding yet another person who can be uncomfortable with the Hump Der Woodsen Humpfest. Getting Chuck’s company back proves to be a little harder than she had initially hoped, as Jack stumbles into a board meeting, late, with coke still on his nostrils. She warns him to be more concerned about the morality clause as she offers him a hankie. He then calls her the equivalent of a whore and storms off. Despite Jack’s obviously reprehensible behavior, Lily still warns Chuck to stay away from the kind of reputation-ruining pranks that Jack pulled on him. Chuck’s pranks are actually more impressive, I think, some of which include getting Jack caught with transgendered hookers, having him placed on Megan’s List as a sex offender, loading his gym bag with cocaine and actually attempting purchasing anthrax with Jack’s credit card.

Chuck, if you want my help, you're going to have to stop purchasing anthrax. That just looks bad for Bass Industries as a whole.

Lily takes Rufus to the opera that night to make their society debut, which angers Chuck, as his father was not a month dead. (Suddenly, Chuck Bass is seeming a lot like Hamlet . . .) Rufus, of course, knows nothing about opera, which kind of makes me question his rockstar status. It’s certainly not a requirement to be classically trained as a rock musician, but, frankly, I think we all know that the greats at least have an appreciation for classical music. (Trent Reznor, for example, is classically trained and you can tell when you listen to his arrangements.) I find it hard to believe that someone who loves music as much as Rufus Humphrey doesn’t even know the Magic Flute, which, as Lily points out, is mostly for children. Lily meets with one of Bart’s lawyers at the opera, and she realizes that a solution for Chuck may be easier than either of them had thought. She leaves Rufus to talk opera for a few minutes and informs Chuck that before Bart’s untimely death, Bart had planned to legally adopt Serena and Eric and Lily had planned to legally adopt Chuck, thus making them one big happy Bass Der Woodsen family. If Lily and Chuck sign the papers, she will become his legal guardian, making Bass Industries fall under her care, and any decisions about Chuck’s future with the company also her decision pending board approval. They sign the papers immediately and Lily becomes Chuck’s guardian, which infuriates apple-cheeked Uncle Jack, who was also at the opera, for no apparent reason. (Which is the same reason Chuck was there, I guess.) When Lily leaves her seats to go to the powder room, Jack follows her and locks the door behind her. He confronts her about her actions and decides that since she has taken the company from him, he will take something from her. As he starts to assault her, Chuck realizes that Lily is missing and that the door to the ladies room is locked. He and Rufus come back and break down the door, saving Lily from being raped by coked-up Uncle Jack. That rape was definitely one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever seen on Gossip Girl, but fitting for an episode revolving around the opera. In gratitude for saving her, a sign that Chuck Bass really is turning over a new leaf . . . he did try to rape two different girls in the very first episode, remember? . . Lily plans to turn control of Bass Industries over to Chuck on his 18th birthday, so long as he remains a part of her family. I’m pleased by this development, especially because I now get to call that entire family the Bass Der Hump Der Woodsens.

Also in this episode, Nate and Vanessa had a totally stupid rich boy-poor girl plot that would have been straight out of an opera had it actually amounted to anything at all. He buys her opera tickets in a gesture of kindness, noting her Wagner CDs, but secretly, she has purchased them as well, wanting to be a part of the high-class world Nate resides in. In an attempt to let Vanessa feel good about buying the tickets herself, Nate just puts his tickets in his pocket and never speaks of it . . . until Dan ruins the gig by acting all surprised that they’re sitting in the balcony for the performance. Gallantly, Nate sits in the balcony with Vanessa next to a woman with a cough, until they can’t take it anymore and move to Nate’s box to make out. Why did this plot even exist? There was no confrontation, no payoff, no anything. Worst. Opera. Ever. Almost as boring and pointless as the Nate and Vanessa plot was Dan and Serena’s half-assed confrontation about what it means for their relationship to not be going to school together in the fall, as Dan for some reason takes it as a personal affront that Serena turned down Yale. You know what, Dan? You didn’t even want to go to Yale until this year, and neither did Serena. So, why don’t you both wait and see what other schools you get into and then make a decision? If you don’t go to the same school, it’s not a big deal. If you guys really love each other and want to be together you’ll make it work. Fuck. Just fucking handle it.

I’m really not okay with so many people in the GG universe being so dumb. I count on this how to not be as dumb as 90210, but this episode kind of was. Save for the Chuck Bass plot. That shit was pretty awesome and actually like an opera.

The Husband:

Man, are my wife and I on different wavelengths this week? I really dug this episode. I seem to do that a great deal with episodes on a variety of shows that pretty much just shove every character into one location and see how tense it can get. I honestly don’t care much about why they are at said place as much as I care about what kinds of secrets and betrayals the writers can cook up. That’s why I dug s1’s nearly incoherently silly but awesome episode “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” where everyone converged on the Masquerade Ball, with or without invitation, and wreaked havoc in oh so many ways (e.g. Nate kissing Jenny, thinking it’s Blair, etc. etc. etc.). That’s why I dig episodes that step outside of a show’s comfort zone and give us emotional clusterfucks (such as beach house/log cabin episodes of such shows as Frasier, What About Brian and Brothers & Sisters). It makes up its own rules, like it or not.

Sure, Serena is lying for no reason and making dumb impulsive decisions, but when has Serena been any different? She and Dan clearly have issues when they are apart from one another, so I can understand their hesitancy to go to different schools, even if, yes, they can technically handle it if they just fucking grew up. But see, that’s why I like Serena and Dan. They make ridiculous decisions and have ridiculous fights, but they do it together. What do the Strokes say? “Alone we stand, together we fall apart”? Exactly.

But yes, Dan, what happened to Dartmouth? Are we just ignoring that? Probably, because I even forgot about it, mistaking his interest in being the usher for the Dartmouth representative in s1 as actually being about Yale. I accept this ignoring of items past, simply because I’m selfish and am giving the writers the benefit of the doubt.

This is basically my roundabout way of saying that perhaps I lower my bullshit meter in episodes such as these, where the location itself has enough character and attitude to make up for some logic deficiencies. Is this a problem? As a television critic, perhaps. But as an avid GG viewer looking for my next fix, I feel it comes with the territory. Because even if I was very surprised to see Lily take such an interest in Chuck’s future between the last few episodes and this one, I loved their joint usurpation of the one apple-cheeked Uncle Jack Bass and didn’t mind that it seemed somewhat out-of-character for her. But don’t call her a bitch, Uncle Jack, or you’re gonna get figuratively ass-raped by her.

Clearly, I’ve lost my mind this morning. Too much coffee. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

 

Gossip Girl 2.9: “There Might Be Blood”

The Wife:

Little J, fashionista extraordinaire, begins her Betsey Johnson-like career by staging a guerilla fashion show at a charity ball in town. Agnes and all of her friends volunteer to model and Jenny sews, sews, sews until she has something that can pass as a collection. The only problem is that she hasn’t told her family that she quit as Eleanor Waldorf’s intern, which causes quite a tiff between her and Big Brother Dan when he catches her heading out with her wares. Nate tries to stop her, until he decides to drive the van and go with her, which is fortunate in the end because Little J has apparently not done much research on the venue she’s planning on ambushing and only finds out when she gets there that it is a private party in honor of Bart and Lily Bass. Nate happens to be on the guest list and gets Jenny in as his date, which makes for a great excuse to kiss her in the middle of the party before her show begins, a shot that ends up on Gossip Girl, leading Dan, Vanessa and Daddy Rufus straight to her. (This also ultimately leads to Dan kicking Nate out of his house for acting like the Big Bad Wolf and seducing Little Red Riding J.)

Dear Nate, Please stop dating every chick on GG. KTHXBI.

The trio arrive too late to stop the fashion show, which Jenny is just about to hit the greenlight on as they arrive. The fashion show itself is pretty cool in concept, with slicker-covered models marching their way in Gestapo-style only to strip off the black plastic vestments and reveal J Humphrey Designs beneath them. The models shower the audience with a rain of promotional cards bearing the J Humphrey logo and Jenny’s cell number. Jenny’s clothes for this collection are not nearly as good as anything else we’ve seen “her” do on the show, are not nearly as cute as the white dress-and-fascinator combo she dons herself, and are entirely derivative of Betsey Johnson’s early work, but that doesn’t matter to anyone at the charity ball! They’re enthusiastic! They’re excited! These old fuddy-duddies have never seen anything like this! And by the end of the evening, Jenny has already received 37 missed calls from people who are excited about her work. (Or pissed off. One of the two. She didn’t bother to check her messages.) Daddy Rufus is furious with his daughter. After all, he knows the high price of fame and knows it won’t last forever, but he just can’t seem to get that through Little J’s head. He tried to teach her a lesson by having her arrested for the public disturbance she created, but Lily saves her ass by insisting that she won’t press charges as owner of the hotel. (“Well, that makes my job easy,” says the arresting officer.) So upset at her father’s betrayal, Little J runs away, miraculously packing all of her clothes (including the wedding kimono she hangs on her wall) into a single, magical suitcase and totes her sewing machine along with her on her journey through the mean streets of Brooklyn.

May I remind you that what you just did it an offense punishable by law?

Dan, meanwhile, receives news from the TA Nate seduced at Yale that the three professors who read his work find his writing to be “anemic.” Upset, Dan assumes now that he’ll never get in to a school with a decent writing program. (Yes, you will, Dan. It might not be Yale, but you are a smart kid with great grades. You will get in somewhere.) In desperate need of beefing up his work, he pulls an all-nighter after Jenny’s fashion show rewriting the Charlie Trout story he swore he’d never complete. Daddy Rufus is surprised to hear Dan has resumed that story and that he intends to send it to Noah Shapiro in exchange for a letter of recommendation, as Daddy Rufus believes in coming by one’s fame honestly . . . or something. In short, he fears that his children are trying to become rising stars too fast and that their stars will too quickly burn out, as his did. I don’t think he needs to worry about Dan, as Dan is clearly on the path to making something of himself by getting his degree in English/Writing/Whatever and going forward into the world of professional writing from there. In J, though, it’s clear that Rufus sees too much of himself. But you know something? If she becomes washed up at 40 and can channel the remainder of her money into running a gallery and owning a sweet loft in which to raise two more Humphreys, I think she’ll be okay. Rufus really seems to have done okay for himself, even after his star burned out, and I’m sure Little J realizes that somewhere in her misguided teenage rebellion.

As for Serena, the unimportant dating Cecil the Caterpillar storyline continues with the delivery of a licorice ring and Aaron asking her for a second chance, even after she calls and finds another girl answering his phone. I don’t even remember what her final decision was regarding going on a date with him. That’s how much I don’t care. Amidst this, Serena is being wooed by the Yale Dean’s numerous friends, and she insists on dragging Blair to every one of these encounters, hoping that the Yale donors will see something special in Blair and recommend her to the Dean. Serena foists one of these opportunities onto Blair, asking her to take Mrs. Boardman’s daughter Emma out to the movies while Mrs. Boardman meets with her old friends from Bryn Mawr. Emma, however, does not want to go to the movies. She wants to lose her virginity before Muffy the Lacrosstitute (a Blair coinage I adore) beats her to it. Blair and Serena try to get Emma to accompany them to the Bass Charity Ball, telling her that there will be plenty of worthy young suitors there for her to seduce, but Chuck Bass bursts her bubble and tells her that its all old geezers at the ball. (Too bad, she missed a cool fashion show.) Chuck takes her to a club instead.

“Looks like you’ve hooked yourself a Bass.” – Chuck Bass

Blair and Serena follow Emma and Chuck to a club, where they lose her briefly and accidentally happen upon Mrs. Boardman making out with a man who is definitely not her friend from Bryn Mawr. Just in case blackmail is necessary, opportunist Blair snaps a photo. The trio finds Emma just before she’s about to swipe her V card with the apparently uncircumcised Serge (when Chuck says “Lose the tulip” to the naked man, I can only assume that’s what he means). Blair tears her away from him and shows her a post on Gossip Girl that claims Muffy has beat her in the game and lost her virginity. Blair advises Emma to wait to lose her virginity to someone she loves, like she did, not in some stupid game with Muffy the Lacrosstitute.

Blair wishes she, too, could hook herself a Bass.

I was happy to hear Blair so freely admit her love for Chuck Bass for two reasons. 1.) It’s true. And 2.) I recently read this article that presents a study that finds that teens who watch racy shows like Gossip Girl are twice as likely to get pregnant as teens who don’t, a claim which I’m sure makes the Parent’s Television Council extremely happy. The study attempts to flatten out any extenuating circumstances that may be a factor in teen pregnancy (such as socioeconomic status, race, etc.) and claims that even when those factors are stratified, the results still show that teens who watch shows like GG are twice as likely to get pregnant. I feel that there’s some very bad methodology behind that claim, as no one is taking into account whether or not these twice-as-likely occurrences happen in homes where parents talk to their children about sex and its consequences. Gossip Girl is not responsible for teaching your children and presenting them with the various consequences of sex. That doesn’t make good TV, for one, and for another, parents are responsible for teaching their children, not the television set. The sex on GG is barely even that racy. And I believe that consequences do occur when Serena fucks Nate, but not when she fucks Dan because she loves Dan, just like Blair loves Chuck. All the show is trying to say, and in fact did say in this episode, is that people should have sex with people they love. Take that shit, PTC. Stop censoring things that happen in life! Like teens having sex! It happens! And that’s why it’s on TV! Not the other way around!

Okay, yelling tangent done.

When Blair brings Emma home, Mrs. Boardman is upset to see her daughter home late and in some slutty dress she borrowed from Serena (a dress, btw, that Serena would never wear by the looks of it) and she immediately sends Emma to bed. Blair is about to show Mrs. Boardman her blackmail photo when Emma runs out and says that Blair was only trying to help her and that she actually had a really nice time and thinks Blair is a great person. Blair suddenly has a change of heart and decides to speak up for Emma, informing Mrs. Boardman that Emma is a good girl, as Blair sees so much of herself in this girl and her relationship to her mother. Fortunately for Blair, Emma calls her up the next day and says that she spoke to the Dean and said that Blair Waldorf is the one person, real or imaginary, that she’d like to have lunch with. The Dean informs Blair that Yale could use more girls like her and she and Serena giddily flip through the Fall ’08 course catalogue to scope out classes and majors.

If all goes well for Dan and his Charlie Trout story, it looks like everyone will be at Yale next fall, recreating the Upper East Side in New Haven.

 

Gossip Girl 2.6: “New Haven Can Wait”

The Wife:

Over the course of our week-long stay in New York, my husband and I watched the entire first season of Gossip Girl. That’s right, kids. I have now seen every episode of Gossip Girl. I recanted a few weeks ago about my former opinion of the show, because the first season does not totally suck. It’s really just the first episode that’s not very endearing, but it sure takes off running from that point forward. Because it’s not fair of me to try to summarize the entirety of the first season and my thoughts about it in favor of the current episode, I will say the following:

• I love Chuck Bass and kind of want to be him. (I’m thinking about changing my grad school entrance essay to read simply: “I’m Chuck Bass.”)
• Blair Waldorf is extremely entertaining.
• I hate Serena Van Der Woodsen. Actually, my issue is not with Serena as a character or anything she does, but solely with Blake Lively, whom I believe is the reason Jimmy Caar made the following joke in a recent appearance on Conan O’Brien, I paraphrase:
  
  “You know how they make dogs in commercials look like they’re talking? They put peanut butter on the roof of their mouths and when they try to lick it off, it looks like they’re talking. Coincidentally, that’s also how they make Gossip Girl.”

If you watch Blake Lively’s attempts at acting closely enough, you’ll notice that her mouth does not move in a way a normal person’s mouth would to form words. This is perhaps why everything she says sounds like she’s slushing it around in her mouth. It’s far too silibant. You’ll also notice that she cannot open her eyes any wider than they are naturally, which is not very wide at all. They’re like slits in her face. Now, after seeing the first season, all of those things are exactly why they cast Blake Lively for this role. Serena has been drunk for a good portion of her life, and Blake Lively does indeed always look (and sound) a little drunk. But my problem is this: Serena’s sober now. As such, Lively’s limited acting skills just make Serena come off as incredibly boring. She’s very boring to watch. Compare her to Leighton Meester in any scene they have together and I think you’ll begin to see how much more interesting to watch one girl is over the other.

So, with that said, I’m sure you can see that my thoughts are similar to Blair’s about Serena starring as the desired end-product Eliza Doolittle in Blair’s My Fair Lady dream sequence. I love Blair’s little old Hollywood dreams. I wish I had more dream sequences like that, but not with Serena Van Der Woodsen stealing my starring role in them. Clearly, the writers are aware that Leighton Meester can act circles around Blake Lively. Even if their characters are in constant competition for the spotlight, the actresses certainly are not.

This episode revolved around everyone’s adventures at Yale College Visit Weekend, a phenomenon which I will never understand wherein prospective applicants from wealthy and legacy families are invited to schmooze Ivy League deans for pre-acceptance into the school. I suppose that’s how our stately current president got into Yale, so it must really be true. Blair, Chuck and Nate all go hoping to gain early acceptance. Blair has always had her sights set on Yale and will stop at nothing to make her dream come true. Nate turns toward Yale because he no longer has to follow his father’s footsteps to Dartmouth, but has evidently given up on getting into USC like he wanted to last season. Chuck Bass, of course, chooses his colleges based on their secret societies and thus wants to be a part of the Skull and Bones.

Skull and Bones? It's Chuck Bass calling. I fucking own you.

Brown-bound Serena receives a handwritten invite to the Yale Weekend from the Dean, but only accepts to spite Blair after Blair says something untoward to her about it. Dan, who had also been interested in Dartmouth until recently, longs to join the Yale English Department, which he claims is the best in the country. (Technically, according to the 2001 rankings, it is tied for the number one spot with Harvard, Stanford and UC Berkeley. However, Yale is number one if you want to specialize in 18th to 20th Century British Literature.) Personally, since Dan is so into creative writing, I’d have expected him to go to Purdue or NYU. But I guess since everyone else is Yale bound, Dan might as well be, too, right?

It’s lucky for Chuck Bass and Nate Archibald that Dan Humphrey joined them at Yale so that Nate, reeling from his father’s various embezzlement schemes that cost a number of Yalies their trust funds, could pretend to be Dan and not get his ass beaten by every trust fund baby he came across, as well as score some hot English Department TA tail. (BTW, the Marquez book she’s holding up is way too thick to be Love in the Time of Cholera. It had to have been 100 Years of Solitude, which is the better of the two anyway, in my opinion.) The real Dan Humphrey set the record straight when he caught Nate in bed with the TA, pretending to be Dan Humphrey, but that didn’t stop Chuck Bass from bringing his new Skull and Bones buddies a Dan instead of the Nate Archibald they intended to humiliate. After Nate frees a denuded Dan from the Yale courtyard statue (with the help of the hot TA and several implied jokes about the knot-tying skills of the Yale Regatta), Nate starts a bar fight with the Skull and Bones boys in Dan’s honor, and declares that he hopes to continue beating them up next year. Angry, the Skull and Bonesers try to take out vengeance on Chuck Bass, but Chuck Bass is prepared to blackmail them with photos from the hookercams he installed on the hookers he had previously brought to the secret society. Really, Chuck Bass thinks of everything. I think he needs business cards that read: “Chuck Bass, Champion of the Lost Weekend.”

Why don't you tell them about that guy you kind of murdered and how you're totally cribbing that dress from Robin Scherbatsky, Serena? She has that dress in grey, white and yellow and it looks way hotter on her.

Serena and Blair battle it out for the Dean’s affections and poor Blair is crushed when she doesn’t receive an invite to the private reception at the Dean’s house. Instead, she buys her way in by bribing the porcelain cat-loving Delores Umbridge of a secretary to the Dean with some precious Victorian kitty statues, a bribery tactic I will be using in my own life from now on. At the party, everyone is expected to answer the Dean’s hypothetical question: “If you could have dinner with any person, real or imaginary, whom would it be and why?” Blair had come prepared to answer George Sand, which I think is a good answer because George Sand is hella tight and also because she happens to be the Dean’s favorite writer. Chuck gives Serena Blair’s answer, so Blair switches Serena’s answer without her knowing: revealing the name of Pete, the drug addict Serena inadvertently killed. Serena handles the embarrassing situation rather well while Blair chides her on and the two step outside to handle their issue like real ladies: in a dress-ripping, hair-pulling catfight on the patio. Ultimately, the two call a truce, realize that they’re being totally retarded and become friends again. Serena gets a call from the Dean at the end, hinting at offering her early acceptance, but she refuses on principle unless Blair gets in, too. How sweet. Frankly, I hope Serena does get into Brown like she wanted to so she can have that blonde mane dreadlocked, per Blair’s suggestion. (Although, really, aren’t dreadlocks a little more UC Berkeley? Or UC Santa Cruz? Or my alma mater, UC Santa Barbara, for that matter?)

This is Blair's George Sand dream sequence, wherein she's equally fabulous and loves a hot cloche.

Back in Brooklyn, Little J tries to convince Daddy Rufus to let her be homeschooled, with help from Vanessa to prove that one can work full-time and get an education in other ways than attending Constance. I’m glad that this plot explained V’s school situation to me, because I just assumed she had already gotten her GED or something. But nope, V homeschools herself and has her sights set on NYU. After shadowing J on the job and hearing how good she is from both Eleanor Waldorf, her employer, and love-of-Rufus’ life and J’s client Lily Van Der Woodsen, Daddy Rufus decides that Little J doesn’t have to give up her dream and she can homeschool herself. After all, being 15 isn’t stopping Kira Pastinina from being a fashion superstar, and it’s certainly not a good reason to stop Little J.

The Husband:

Haha! I win! By streamlining the first season over a week was the best way to get my wife fully into the world of GG, and it’s even easier when both of us are sick on vacation and bedridden for a full day. Success! It is a GG house now, muthafucka!

Since my wife so thoroughly covered the episode — I’m still at home, by the way, recovering from said vacation illness — I’d just like to say a few things regarding what I dug about this episode.

For one, I liked everyone’s take on Yale, as it was a great bit of information about how each of the characters really think (after all those Hamptons episodes where nobody really acted the way they were originally written to be).

• Nate considered Yale to be his backup school. Now that’s some kind of a world I simply don’t understand.
• Serena referred to it as “full of the Blairs of the world,” explaining to her mother that Brown really would be the answer for her. (Since when is Brown a school anybody should frown upon? What a strange show. It does remind me, however, of a Family Guy episode when they visited the school and Chris loudly declared, “Brown’s the color of poo!” to which Brian calmly replied, “Yes, Chris. Yes it is.”)
• Dan basically thinks of it as “a place for presidents, not Humphreys,” without expressly mentioning the fact that, yes, he wasn’t interested in Yale during s1, and didn’t even mention being a writer other than one passing plot device regarding Vanessa and a short story he once wrote.
• Of course, Blair has been all about Yale for the entirety of her life, her father having gone there and her doing all the research necessary to ensure a place at his Alma Mater. Unfortunately, going into your interview with an essay titled “On Being Blair” is not the way to make yourself an actual person, nor is saying, “Everything worth knowing about me is in that folder.” Ouch, Blair. Ouch. It’s hard to, as you put it, always be the Darth Vader next to Serena’s Sunshine Barbie, but legacy or not, I doubt any real school wants somebody that acts like a rich robot.

Hopefully, Gossip Girl can deal with the college situation better than Josh Schwartz’s last teen show, The O.C. At one point, both Marissa and Ryan had gotten into UC Berkeley, Summer into Brown and Seth pretty much nowhere. Not everything went according to plan, though, since…well…Marissa died in a car accident, and out of grief Ryan chose to drop UC Berkeley to become a cagefighter. (Seriously, what the fuck, O.C.? I was the biggest show apologist for the longest time, but that was really dumb.) Then Seth stalked Summer for a while and it just got awkward. If GG knows what’s good for it, it can learn from these lessons and deal with college stuff with more tact. After all, Yale isn’t that far from the Upper East Side, and Harvard is only a four-hour drive. (And Dartmouth and Princeton aren’t far off, either.) It can be like Metropolis on Smallville — even if there are characters in both places, it’d be entirely feasible to have them all meet every couple episodes and act like every location is just next door. I don’t mind.