When Serena calls Ivy back from her Hamptons VITAMIN WATER hideaway to try and trick Bart with a low-level entrapment scheme, he finally gets annoyed enough to pull the trigger on his Nate blackmail, sending the boy to jail. The Captain -- who seems to get younger every time he shows up, or else it's just the oppression of having to look at Bart's face all season -- shows up and offers very little help, but a winning smile.
Eventually Bart kidnaps Blair for a second, demonstrating that he has the power of life and death over the three people -- along with Lily and Nate -- that Chuck loves most, and offers him a one-way ticket to Moscow. Also leaving town: Serena van der Woodsen, who has had enough of this town and, like she does every five minutes, is moving away to be alone and find herself and whatever.
One of Blair's oracular Audrey dreams provides her with two important pieces of information: One, that Bart is going to kill Chuck, and two, that the only thing that can save him is a complicated scheme involving every guest star this season -- Sage, Ivy and Georgina -- and a whole lot of old-man shaming, each scheme more ludicrous and useless than the last, as Bart manages to continually evade their dumb plans and turn them to his advantage. (Bart in fact spends much of the episode just traveling from child to child, wrecking their lives and acting gross. He is like the opposite of Serena, in terms of Being Places.)
Still mourning their tarmac farewell, Blair is astounded first by the news of Chuck's death, and then minutes later when Lonelyboy produces him (with a grandiose speech about how much he loves Chuck, no less). It's great, the whole sequence. Beautiful. Neither B nor Serena are prepared to forgive Dan his latest trespasses, and Bart disappears with Chuck immediately. After some amount of running around, she makes it up to the roof -- it was always going to be the roof -- just in time to see Chuck ... um, murder his dad.
In the end, it was a thrilling chapter, with lots of weird stylistic and musical choices to keep things moving: Dan hides the Good Serena Chapter in her stuff, as a last-ditch effort to brainwash her into overlooking the thousands of horrific things he constantly does, and you know that is going to work. Sage and Nate decide to save the Spectator by figuring out and disclosing Gossip Girl's identity, which apparently he could always do and just forgot. Chuck and Blair go on the lam...
I just wish there were a way Blair could protect herself from having to testify against the love of her life! Possibly using jewelry she already has on her person!
Week: Serena figures it out or does not figure it out (it will be the latter). Shippers will get what they always want, which is the end of the story, because they hate stories. Wm vdW turns on Ivy, of course. Jenny and Eric, but probably not Vanessa or Inspektor Pilot or Lola. Lily and Rufus and Eleanor, but probably not Harold or Roman. Kristen Bell and Gossip Girl, but probably not at the same time. Many tears, but probably also not very many surprises.