Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Gravity Always Wins
By Jacob Clifton | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.04.2010
ly is what he would be doing.S turns on Gossip Girl to break their pact as soon as Blair's gone, but the first thing she sees is Blair breaking their pact at Cartier, checking the cost of that watch. S points out that Blair's own Cartier watch was working fine yesterday, so Blair -- hilarious, psychotic -- smashes it against a glass case and smiles creepily to herself. But then guess what, Ivva is also at Cartier, selling back the diamond watch for cold hard cash right out there in the open. Of course we know that shit will fly at Harry Winston Paris, but we do things a little bit differently here in the States. Blair snaps some pictures, but S has to get off the phone because Dan wandered into her house to ask her out for the day, while Vanessa entertains their parents with her particular brand of bullshit back in DUMBO.
Blair is on fire with crazy when she shows up at the Empire with a room service trolley, offering to have tea with Chuck and Ivva. Chuck tells B to go away and stop torturing Ivva, who has just arrived and tries once again to show some backbone in the face of Blair's unending onslaught. Blair apologizes to her for being horrible, and of course immediately starts reminiscing about the time he turned her ass out for the hotel. Chuck's proud to say he already told Ivva this, so B gets to the point: "Forgive me for being vulgar, but I've always wanted a Baignoire timepiece. Might I see it?" In that crazy society voice she pulls out when it's time to do evil. "Might I see it?" Love that. Ivva says she's having it resized, and Blair produces her phone, with video she took of Ivva selling the watch.
Ivva says something about how she needed the money for a friend, I think, and Blair goes, "That weak excuse might've worked in the former Vichy Republic, but Chuck and I are savvy New Yorkers!" Former Vichy Republic? Nice. I like my mean girls with a twist of erudition, and that's one of the coldest sideswipes I've ever seen B pull. But then it all goes to shit because in fact Ivan the valet is the friend, and he needed the money because his mother was about to lose the house he grew up in, so Ivva talked him into letting her sell the watch she got this morning so that she could give him the money, also this morning. Chuck is flummoxed that you would give money to poor people, and she says something about feeling decadent wearing a shiny watch, and Chuck turns his smarm meter up to eleven for Blair's benefit: "How could I ever be angry at you? Just do me one favor. Pick the charity for me to give my money to! Your heart will find the right one." Blair has no idea what to do with all this bullshit, but she does feel burned in some unknowable way.
Serena tries to pretend that she cares about the Milo debacle, and Dan's like, "Actually, I came to you because I know you're the one person on earth incapable of actually caring about anything so I knew you wouldn't bug me about it." Serena nods, having often wondered why people spend so much energy on things like feelings, and babies. She settles into the idea of wandering around the city all day with Dan until he's finally exhausted and vulnerable enough to submit to her will, but B calls at that exact moment.
"I saw Eva selling her watch back to Cartier for cash then I went to Chuck's and witnessed her give the world's most credible altruistic excuse!" All in a breath. Serena points out that they promised each other no boys, but then B overhears Dan prattling on about a pretzel, and so S has to explain that he came looking for her. "First: Nonsense!" is Blair's awesome response. Then she says that both Serena and Dan have just been conscripted into Operation Smile, and finally says the truest part and the one that convinces S: "Do you remember when Chuck gave his heart to his mother? That was the beginning of the end. Of everything." And Blair was a collaborator, pushing him into that relationship with both hands because she thought that's what the wife should do, and it wrecked her entire existence. So yeah, S is down to help because this could be B's like one shot at redemption.
Blair is going about her redemption in a characteristically effed-up way: Escorting Ivva around town to sample charities and see which one is best. Needy puppies, perhaps? "So much cuter than those children with the cleft palates that you were going to pick," she says, horribly. "We need to think in terms of the Bass annual report cover when making decisions like this." For some reason this most vile statement goes shooting past Ivva and she's like, "I can't believe how nice you're being!" Ivva, you're dumb. You deserve what's coming to you. Like, miss a red flag like this one, that's on you: "Tell me everything! I want to hear your whole life story."
Nathaniel's stalking Juliet on GG when Chuck heads off to do something or other, and it's not going well. Chuck says that normally he would advise Nate to play the same game and make her jealous, but New Chuck tells him to be honest about his feelings and how much he likes her. Nate hates New Chuck, and then relates to him that Old Chuck should probably be notified that Blair has taken Ivva to the Park, probably to murder her. "Eva's strong. She can handle Blair," Chuck underestimates, and then heads off to his whatever mysterious errand.
Blair texts Serena madly with the details she's getting out of Ivva, so that Serena can relate them to Dan and Dan can use his googling skills to come up with dirt on her. She grew up in a Loire valley cheesemaker farm, for example. Serena sort of flails madly as the idea goes by that Dan used to always bitch and moan and judge her about the filthy world she lives in and how it makes her filthy, and so how funny that after three seasons he's actually proud of his social espionage skills. "Adapt or die," Dan says, which is like calling her a whore all over again essentially, but nicer than usual. "As I expected, there are no regional cheese scandals of note." How can you hate a world that lets you say things like that with such relish, because they actually do, in context, matter?