Ten times better than the pilot, which I thought was already awesome. Among the numerous f-bombs getting dropped (yes!), Chuck's dad throws a Sunday brunch at the Palace in order to help him transition out of the constant raping. Serena drags Dan, so everybody's there except Rufus and Jenny, who spend the whole day at the Farmer's Market, decrying blogs and sewing their own clothes. Well, first Jenny visits Blair for no reason and ends up worshipping her, even as she knows she's being tainted by the evil. She looks way good in evil, though.
Serena's trying to figure out why Blair's mad at her again, and Nate admits he told about the hookup. Blair discovers their clandestine mid-brunch summit to discuss their tumultuous friendship when she tries, once again, to get that whole virgin issue out of the way. S finally steps up hardcore, and she and B call each other whores for awhile. It's not like they're wrong, but that's kind of beside the point. Bad Girl Serena rears her head once again, showing not only how we got here but also that she can give B a run for her money any day of the week. And it is now barely NOON! I love these people!
After Rufus talks D up, and D promises to keep her affair with Chuck's dad a secret, Lily decides maybe Dan's not so bad. Chuck gets a second black eye from good old Dan, who takes off and won't talk to Serena, due to her whole class and lifestyle being absurd and corrupt. By sundown Sunday, here's how it settles out: Dan is out because he was never in; Chuck is still in because he's rich and kind of harmless; Blair and Nate will continue their mercenary, affectionately loveless relationship; and Serena is completely all alone, deleting pictures of her former life from her phone and eventually tossing the whole thing in the trash.
Gossip Girl -- who rocks the mic in this episode, start to finish -- leaves us with an interesting question. Now that B's doing her usual MO to induct Little Jenny into the Team Blair Army, is J going to pack it in and be a good little soldier, or stay loyal to her brother and their first love, Serena? Girl, I feel you: I can't decide either.
I don't know if they're going to do this every week, but this episode's super-long, neato previouslies are set up and narrated by Gossip Girl herself, like a multimedia entry off GG.net, which is just brilliant. Of course, if you actually need the recap, you won't know why that's cool, but still: neat. I kind of lost track for awhile and started thinking about how you should probably luxuriate in the previouslies when you're just starting out, especially if you can't even hold onto the Top Model audience -- people who were, like, grown in labs to adore this show -- and especially when you're up against Addison Montgomery, possibly the most appealing person in the television universe, and then I came back to reality and I was like OMG but seriously, because is this the same ten-minute recap of the pilot that they had online? Because I'm tired now, and the show hasn't even started. "So," Gossip Girl bottom-lines, "Now that S is back, will the Upper East Side ever be the same? We're all just dying to see what she does !" Then there's...that weird, creepy, echoey Lost-ish whispery "I'll never tell" promo sequence, and still no credits. Unless those were the credits, in which case I am sad, because 80 percent of any given show, for me, is the credits.
Some sweet kind of song that reminds me of dancing penguins plays over a long montage of cooks and chefs and whatnot preparing a brunch feast. I had no idea that you ate food at brunch; I was always given to understand that brunch was some kind of French term for "we're drinking in the morning." This is fascinating. I do enjoy a nice egg dish with my alcoholism. Gossip Girl presumes that we care why she's up so very early on a Sunday, but in fact you'd be wrong to wonder: she's a girl who gets up early every single day. After all, she asks, why waste precious time "dreaming" when you could be getting your shit together for, par exemple, drinking in the morning? I guess so. Apparently, breakfast on a Sunday is that strange ritual called "brunch: champagne, a dress code, and a hundred of our closest friends and enemies." Gossip Girl is just a tad nouveau riche sometimes, telling us what rich people are up to all the time like this. "Well, as a rich person, I can tell you that rich people -- such as myself -- do this thing at this time." Like how if ever you say the word "classy," Serena and Blair, little hobgoblins come in the night and make you trashy. Anyway, she's up this particularly brunchy morning because Chuck's dad Bart Bass is hosting an annual brunch for his "foundation." And everybody's invited, but when we say everybody, we mean rich people. Such as Gossip Girl.
When we say everybody, we do not mean the Humphreys. In fact, the only people on this show we do not mean, when we say everybody, is the Humphreys. Which is fine by me. Don't they have a Farmer's Market or protest to attend? Perhaps they should go buy some fabric and sew some clothes, instead of brunch. Brunch should be beautiful, elegant, and simple. Meanwhile, off in Williamsburg (or Park Slope, or the West Side, or wherever the hell they live this week), Dan is physically pulling up the garage door that serves to divide his room from Jenny's, in the palatial loft with which their poverty has somehow gifted them. I mean, it's kind of sad to be separated from your big brother's bedroom by a fake wall on a block and tackle, but on the other hand, their apartment is totally bad-ass. Anyway, Jenny tells him to stop asking her if she's okay about almost getting raped in a leisurely fashion on the roof last night, because she's pragmatic and has done with it. Not to mention, she's still got kind of a thing for Chuck. Which is yucky but I guess understandable. She admits that she's a huge dipshit for going anywhere with Chuck unarmed, and demonstrates this by snarking on Dan for showing affection and care in asking if she's okay. He tells her it's nice that she trusts people, but they agree that this doesn't include Chuck, because Chuck is not "people," because Chuck is not human. Jenny turns the convo from her PTSD to something way more interesting and important: the awkward ending of Dan's date with Serena, heretofore called The Wave. You know how sometimes you're watching a sitcom and the people get really intense and won't stop talking about something, some little catchphrase or something, and you're wondering why you're not laughing, and then you realize the premise is really flimsy and forced, and that's why? Catch The Wave.
We flash back to last night: Serena, Dan, and Jenny pulling up to the Palace in their cab. Serena stares blankly at them for a second, wondering what's going to happen, and finally gets out after it becomes clear the answer is "nothing." Dan mumbles something unsexy; Serena smiles sweetly and tiredly, and leaves. In that second, Jenny urges him to walk Serena to the door, and as he heads that way, S slams the door behind her, bonking him wicked hard in his adorable head. The cab jolts forward, because it's a very high-speed lifestyle, taxi-driving, and dude's got places to go. They scream and the cab jerks to a stop again, startling Serena, who stares at them and wonders if this is a Brooklyn thing, and the Humphreys are going to drive-by her. Dan protests to Jenny that he has brain damage, and Jenny points out that when you have brain damage, you don't have it together enough to realize you have brain damage. (As proof I give you: Jenny.) Serena stares in the window opposite, wondering if he's going to kiss her or stop-start the car a few more times or open fire or whatever. Instead, he drools for a second, and then waves awkwardly. They take off again, and she waves after them sadly with a very "I carried a watermelon?" kind of vibe.
morning/right now, Eric's asking Serena about The Wave. Serena floats the theory that Dan in fact despises her, and that this was a Wave of spite and hatred. A Wave of Detestation, if you will. Eric calls bullshit from his hospital bed, expositing that "no guy in the world has ever hated" Serena, and she's like, "I know, right?" We click back and forth between the hospital and Jenny's bedroom, as Dan whines that he's waited his whole life for the chance to date Serena, and then managed to close with an awkward, brain-damaged Wave. Jenny tells him it's going to be okay, it's not like he got raped or anything. But Dan is sad! Because what if he missed his one shot? She tells him that now, at least, he's got nothing to lose, including his dignity, which is already gone. This activates his pining powers sevenfold! He realizes he's got to head over to the Palace, apologize for the Wave, tell her he likes her, and get a second shot! A more awkward conversation I cannot imagine! Jenny's like, "Heck yeah you are! But change your clothes and take a shower." She's kind of Waldorfy in the morning. Over at the hospital, Serena's doing a little bit of pining on her own. She tells Eric quote "whatever," because Dan's "just so smart and funny. And nice!" How arousing. Eric says this sounds like love. I think it sounds like this "Dan" is possibly a pug. Serena, encouraged to talk about herself even more, segues into her other great love affair, Blair. Who was so mean to Serena for no apparent reason, at KOTL, but surely it can be fixed for the fifth time in 24 hours, if Serena just tries super-hard. Eric stares mutely as Serena talks herself into heading over to see Blair, just like Dan just did her. Parallel structure!
Blair's putting on a cruddy-looking dress at her house. To be fair, it's a lovely color, but if these are the fruits of Eleanor Waldorf's fashion empire, I'm surprised she could even hook a gay dude in the first place. It's all flat drapes and prom-dress shelving and...I can't think of any other home-improvement metaphors to imply the Softer Side of Hell this dress came from, and…it's also not that bad. But I will say this, without exaggeration: if the first word that comes to mind when I see your dress is "sturdy"? "Craftsmanlike"? "Stalwart"? Anyway, the dress is a staunch character indeed, for being such a plot point. Blair whisks around the place with a thundercloud over her head about how Serena "better stay away"; Kati/Isabel giggle, "We love sleeping over at Blair's!" They then hope that she never gets this mad at them; it's clear from her eye-rolling and their even-vaguer-than-usual responses that they actually have no idea what Serena actually did, which makes sense because the fact of it costs Blair more face than Serena, so why would she tell anybody. But what's telling is that they...don't really wonder about it. Blair's mad, so they're...not mad exactly, but definitely on her team in an undefined way. Blair gets a creepy smile on her face and pulls out her phone to call Nate, like that's going to show Serena somehow. I think Blair vastly overestimates Serena's ability to consider other people in any way real, or anything more than interchangeable supporting characters in her own movie. Team Blair and all, but she's not really making sense right now.
Phone vibrating on a pile of poker chips, Nate awakes looking either hellish or totally hot, depending on if you like your boy dishabille in the ruins of a tux (yes) with about six tons of rouge and foundation on his face (no). Thank God the good hair from last week's re-shot prostitution scene stuck around! Blair is almost embarrassingly chipper on the phone, telling him to get some "strong coffee" and jump in the shower, and calling him "sleepyhead." (He is wearing more makeup than David Bowie in Jim Henson's 1986 film Labyrinth. A film, I stress, which made its cinematic debut the same year most of these actors were born. Guzzle that one down like a champagne brunch, why don't you.) Sleepyhead rings off and tosses the phone drearily, calling to Chuck, who's asleep a few feet away, in bed with some ladies. Chuck offers Nate some ass, and Nate declines, but does ask them to fetch him some water, and they ask if he wants ice in it, and that's when you realize they're hotel employees. We, in English, don't even have a word for whatever Chuck is. ["I read that sentence and said, out loud, '"Louche"? …Shit. "Roue"! …Shit!' Jacob is wise." -- Sars] Nate and the ladies have a laugh at Chuck's black eye, and Chuck admits that if he knew where Dan was, he would quote "kill him." "With what, your pussy-ass scarf?" asks Nate, albeit a bit more kindly, and Chuck whines that his stupid pussy-ass scarf is his signature piece. It's ugly as hell, and not even in a cool gay way, so there you go: just like his Snagglepuss soul. "Better a broken nose than a broken heart," Chuck says, doing something mysterious to his smoothie. It's like an eyedropper of something. Probably wheatgrass or something, but it's a testament to the oogly-boogliness of Chuck, and this scene, that I was like: "Heroin? Speed? Artificial testosterone?" It would explain some things. My notes say, "I don't get it, so that must be rich stuff. Gossip Girl, what is that stuff? Drugs?" It's not that I'm unclassy, rape jokes aside -- more that I would never make my own smoothies. Nate's like, "Broken heart what? I didn't say anything about Serena." And Chuck's like: "Neither did I. Ha! Ya burnt!" Well, he keeps smoothing and smiles sagely, but that's totally what he was thinking. In the language of flowers, hemp means "fate," and that's Chuck: he never lies, and he's never wrong.
D offers to get J in touch with somebody to talk about her near-rape, but because Jenny is a psycho in addition to being a dipshit, she's like, "Good point, there's somebody I want to talk to." And lest you think it's a professional therapist or law enforcement officer, I'll tell you right now she's talking about Chuck, via Blair. She's so messed up I almost admire her. In other news, Rufus looks kind of shitty this morning, but that's fine, because Dan is now totally hot. They equalized their hotness or something. "Shut Up & Drive" starts playing for the first of one billion times as the following things happen: Nate comes to the Palace looking for Serena, Serena heads out to look for Blair, and Blair deletes her calls and messages from Serena with a flick of her insouciant wrist. Gossip Girl fully throws down the gauntlet and becomes the awesomest character: "The tables are all set, and when the guests arrive, we can start dishing. Here's what's on the menu!" Then she slides us a total blipvert of the entire episode. That's so fetch! I love you, Gossip Girl! You are so clever with your meta-cleverness!
At the Palace, our first Lily van der Woodsen spotting of the night is fittingly enough accompanied by Rooney's "When Did Your Heart Go Missing." Serena's looking for a pair of Michel Perrys, which seems a little garish for Serena's style, but we'll see. Serena is having such trouble, Lily points out, because she still hasn't unpacked -- she's got a point, but unless my timeline is way off, the pilot started Friday evening, and it's now Sunday morning, so like chillax, Lily. Serena tosses some black boots aside and points out that unpacking would be stupid anyway, because it's not their house, it's a hotel they have to live in because Lily was unsatisfied with the walls in their place. Lily finds the shoes, and they're just as bizarre and neon emerald lime green as I was thinking they'd be; Serena whines that Lily's gotten her to go to brunch, so whatever else could she want? Lily shakes her head: Serena loves parties. "This isn't like you!" Serena advances the obvious fact that the "me" of Serena is kind of up for grabs right now, so if she says she doesn't like parties, then Serena doesn't like parties, and Serena is as interested as everybody else to find out what "Serena" actually entails at this juncture. Lily does her usual "Now I'm being real" thing and asks Serena to please fill her in on what "Serena" is actually all about, but Serena has no answers, so Lily changes the subject to Dan and Serena's date last night. Turns out they didn't even hit Lincoln Hawk -- I guess they were just killing time before the show, when stupid Jenny's texts came in -- and Lily's pleasure is evident when Serena admits they ended up at Kiss On The Lips anyway. "Must have pleased Blair," Lily posits, and Serena gets a determined look on her face. "Not that pleased. Which is why I'm going to talk to her." Lily asks her to get back in time for brunch: "The more you hide yourself away, they'll think you have something to hide." Serena, of course, mentions Institutionalized Eric in this context, and Lily's like, "Duh, that's totally different." I'm totally on Team Lily, actually. She gets no credit at all. Serena hops out to the street and jumps in a cab...just as Dan's rounding the corner to come find her. Ahh!
Dan approaches the mean concierge from before, wearing this totally rad chocolate brown military-cut coat that flatters his...everything. All of his stuff benefits from this jacket, and I want one. The dude tells D to have a seat and wait, although -- he cautions -- Serena once went out and didn't come back for six months. "But feel free to sit and wait." And I get that the Palace is where half these people live right now, and who doesn't love a snarky concierge, except...no he didn't. Don't shove repetitive exposition where it does not belong, because it sticks out twice as much: when did this happen? Why haven't we heard about it, when her one-year disappearance is causing such a wild stir? How many months out of the year do the van der Woodsens live in this hotel? Further back than eighteen months ago, did S go live with Blair for six months while her family was previously living at the Palace Hotel? Why should I have to be asking myself these questions when I know there are no answers? Because I think this is a clue to the episode's denouement, which is all about Dan realizing that Serena's rather untrustworthy, so this should be a slightly creepy scene where the concierge is like, "Fuck with the eagles, you have to learn to fly," but instead it comes off very confusing and makes it seem like Serena has a personality disorder that causes her to go all Margot Kidder/Celestia Heche from time to time. Please don't distract me with amnesia when I'm just now finally figuring out why people wander the streets going "Penn Badgley...Penn Badgley...Pennnnnnn Baaaaaaaaaaadgley."
Nate meets Lily at the Palace elevator. He looks awesome in his louched-up tux ["le jinx!" -- Sars], and turns on the Parent Charm Rays full force. He's like a totally different person around adults, it's brilliant. They walk easily together, and Lily even tells him she thinks Serena has a little crush on him. (Lily's kind of a traitor. If my mom pulled that with some dude, I would send her rats on her birthday.) But of course, she giggles, N and B are the perfect couple. Since nobody knows where Serena is -- except for Lily, whom she told in the last scene -- Lily tells Nate to talk to the concierge about locating her daughter; the concierge in turn tells Nate to wait in the lobby with Dan. "I had a feeling you'd be back. Dan, is it?" Lily's so smooth. "...Humphrey, yes." He stammers and says he hopes she's had a pleasant 21 hours since they last met. She's like, "It was very pleasant. Until just now. Gentlemen," she breezes off, and again: advantage Lily van der Woodsen. Nate and Dan stare at each other, and Nate is...either doing a really great job of not really caring about Dan one way or the other but also finding it weird that he's here, or else he is the weakest actor on the show. I feel like this is a conundrum we're going to be exploring for a good long while.
S arrives at B's house with "two bone-dry caps and Audrey," and Blair is rocking a tiny black négligée, very sexy, under a sheer white dressing gown. She looks like a million bucks but she's spitting nails anyway: "Must've blanked on the part where I invited you over," she hisses, smiling and breezing out onto the ground floor without even looking her way. Serena, as usual, begins obliviously running at the mouth: "Coffee, croissants, Breakfast At Tiffany's. It's our tradition!" Blair sits down in a Berger chair in the foyer and starts flipping through the paper, with a vicious smile on her face and no attempt to meet Serena's eyes. "I have new traditions now." Serena protests that they're not "traditions" if they're new, but Blair's so checked out of the conversation that she's riding a bicycle through 1859. One of those big mothers with the one giant tire. Pennyfarthing, she's riding a pennyfarthing through the foggy moors of Serena's self-hatred. It's so awesome. She's got, like, a baguette and some wildflowers she just plucked from the side of the road, and she's whistling. In an enormous hat. Little bluebirds and big kind ungulates outside are getting her car washed and ready and leaving banana peels in Serena's path, and Serena has no idea: "Look, B, I'm really trying to make an effort here. I thought it was okay between us!" Blair's mouth says, "It was, until I found out you slept with my boyfriend," but her eyebrows are saying, "I just blew your fucking mind! Again!" Serena asks the number one question you do not ask at this moment, which is "How'd you find out?" Um, obviously Nate told her. Serena stammers and Blair beats it back upstairs, tossing one final insult: "I always knew you were a whore. I never thought you were a liar too." Serena begs to make it right, but Blair informs her that there is no way. "Just stay away from me, my boyfriend, and my friends." With a gleaming, vicious grin: "You're done here." And you'd think that something would happen in the rest of the episode to reverse that, but...nope, Blair's got it covered.
Jenny arrives at B's sometime later, and Blair screams at the absent maid, without turning around. "Dorota! I told you I didn't want to see anyone!" When she finally sees who her visitor is, she goes lupine, grinning so hugely you can see every meal she never ate. "Jenny! What do you want?" To bring back the calligraphy pens she borrowed for KOTL, pens which therefore almost inadvertently cost Jenny her virtue, that's what. Blair, Jenny, Gossip Girl, me, you, Sam Endicott, everybody agrees that this is a lame excuse, but not even Gossip Girl is jaded enough to guess what Jenny's really after. Of course, it's right up Blair's perverted alley: "You wanna know what Chuck Bass is saying about you..." Is he saying anything? "Not yet, anyway. He likes to brag about his conquests, not his victims." Ah, well. Maybe rape. Blair checks her out for awhile, makes a call, and stands up. "Come on. You can help me get ready for brunch." A devious plan is hatched; retiring up the stairs with her new friend, Jenny is heard to compliment Blair on the flowers in the foyer, which so recently replaced the zinnias she's had there for a year. "They're hydrangeas," Blair responds. Heartlessness, and vanity.
Which, let's take a brief moment to unpack that, because Blair's right about Jenny, but you can't be human and understand why: Jenny wants to cross the fourth wall over to the GG.net side of her computer screen; she wants to become a celebrity. It's not about popularity, it's about whatever's beyond popularity. I think sometime this conceit is going to iron itself out, but even if it doesn't, like: we bought vampires, we bought hot robot chicks, both of those things turned out very well, so now we just need to buy GG.net in order for this to make sense. Or rather, for it to be even sicker and sadder and scarier than it naturally is, because this is not some kind of Stockholm Syndrome issue. It's just Jenny, too young to understand the terms, but willing to make a deal.
Rufus and Lily head into a Brooklyn coffee shop, Lily protesting that she'll be thrown down and tattooed, and he laughs: "This is Brooklyn, not the Warped Tour." He chuckles that she has several tattoos of her own, including a heart-shaped one between her... "Don't be cute," she interrupts. He whines that in fact he's "better-looking every day," which is simply not true. He looked much hotter on Friday, and a bit less through Saturday. At this rate he'll be hideous by Christmas. Rufus presses her once again as to why she's reestablished communications after years of bourgie quietude, and Lily explains that Dan is in her hotel lobby. Rufus orders Lily's coffee for her without blinking, and she's touched that he remembers. She's also a hoss: Americano with an extra shot? That tastes like the Devil's own butthole. Lily's my hero! She jokes around about how she's so intensely into Rufus, what with his low-income tax bracket, bad v-neck t-shirts, and awful jokes. Before she can even get to the gaywad leather choker, she interrupts herself to ask/blurt, "Why would your wife leave?" Bad form, Lily. That's just tacky. She keeps going for his jugular. Maybe she's aiming for the choker. "She has better taste than you," is his counter quarte parry, and it's not bad. He repeats the question, and rather than repeating the obvious answer, his son, again, she just sighs. "An unfortunate twist of fate." He asks if she's seeing anybody, and she won't answer. "No, not serious? Or married." She tells him that's quite enough, and he tries again: "Forbes or Rolling Stone?" Silence. He agrees to leave her alone, and she sums up that Dan is not the right kind of influence for Serena right now, because he is poor and...I guess because he's Rufus's son. Rufus responds with a clear-eyed, compelling honesty, that actually Dan is probably exactly what Serena needs. Aww. Now just set Dan up with some nuts and everybody will be square.
Good old Dan is super-nervous out in the Palace square, and looking fine. He asks Nate what he possibly has to discuss with Serena, beyond makeup tips, but Nate's not talking. Dan jokes that he is sticking with "I was in the neighborhood," but since it's a lie, he's working on something else. Nate finally asks, either with a mixture of interest, bewilderment, jealousy, and condescension, or else he's not a very good actor: "She likes you?" Dan doesn't know, and either Nate is amused, bitter, and somewhat sympathetic, or else not a very good actor: "That's Serena. You'll never know." Chuck comes out wearing sunglasses and nearly gets the vapors that Nate ("Nathaniel") is talking to Dan, and Dan's face goes black like weather when he sees Chuck, of course, so then Nate kind of weakly protests their ensuing slap fight and gets in between them, and Dan's like, "This hotel doesn't have your name on it," and Nate's like, "Kind of it does, though?" Dan protests that he lives in Brooklyn, this week, and not the Ozarks -- "No offense to the Ozarks," he asides, as though what's offensive about that statement doesn't fit handily inside what's offensive about this entire show, snug as a hand in an Hermès glove -- and that Chuck is perhaps taking his "class warfare" bit a little too far. Chuck tries, once again, to rape Dan Humphrey, and once again Nate gets in the middle of it. Dan offers to give him another black eye to match his little gift from last night, and then there is skulking and wandering and Dan Humphrey being hot and bored outside the Palace Hotel and staring at that one green light blinking on and off.
B looks amazing in that ugly blue dress, of course, and Jenny drools on herself. Blair talks down the family brand, all, "It's average. The color is last season, and Stella McCartney has a better one at Bergdorf." Jenny dipshits about how she's "been meaning to go by Bergdorf," like you can't tell just by looking at her. Jenny Humphrey is full of lies. She spots Blair's childhood Cabbage Patch doll over in the corner, a sure sign that the people who wrote this are in their early thirties and thus know what a Cabbage Patch doll is, and blabbers, "My brother used to have one of these! His name was Cedric." Blair laughs boredly, stripping down, checking herself out in the mirror: "Your brother's name is Cedric?" No, Jenny explains, it's Dan, as in Serena's date last night. Blair pulls it together and focuses on Jenny: "So, does that mean you're friends with Serena?" Jenny can't see the barely concealed switchblade that Blair produces from thin air at this point, but she knows it's there, and she treads carefully. "I don't...have a problem with her. But if somebody did have a problem with her, I...wouldn't have a problem with that either." Blair considers this, decides it's acceptable and a little adorably doofy and suck-uppy, and grins wickedly. "You know, if you like that dress...you can have it. I'm sure you'll find some way to repay me." Jenny falls all over pissing herself with gratitude: for the dress, the right to kiss Blair's patootie, and "the other thing, about Chuck." ("This sure doesn't taste like an iced tea!" "It's from Long Island.") Blair gets real at this point, for a sec: "If you wanna be part of this world, Jenny, people will talk eventually. And you need to decide if all this is worth it." Obviously it is. In real life nobody talks like this, nobody acts like this, and everything is just a little sadder as a result. Jenny makes a thousand faces and stares all around, and Blair's loving every second of it.
Dan finally gets to talk to Serena: he apologizes about The Wave, and she giggles, and he stammers, and she's fairly shaking when he completes the picture: "Are you hungry?" She is, actually, she's had the worst morning, and Dan asks if she wants to talk about it, either before, after, or concomitant with the aforementioned eating, and then: the inevitable Lily. "Great! Just in time for brunch," she grits, making it clear that Dan and Serena will now be parting ways. "Mrs. van der Woodsen," Dan gamely greets her, and she is fairly awesome in response: "Dan. Still here." Serena blabbers that the whole brunch plan was set only before Dan got hungry, but now that plan has to change, because you can't let a boy starve. Lily's prepared to make an exception: "He's not invited." Serena is steadfast in her disinterest in brunch, leveraging a threat to bring Dan along: "We have plans." Lily, nearly broken, offers a deal, immediately after pulling a big My Roof/My Rules card: "What's it going to take you get you dressed and out that door?" Um, Dan. Obviously. Ya burnt! And also, you don't follow up My Roof/My Rules with an offer to compromise. It defeats the entire purpose, and it's inconsistent to boot. This parenting, Lily. It could drive a child to suicide and/or sluttiness at the Shepherd wedding. I'm just saying: you got played.
D and S are very nervous at the brunch, but not as nervous as they should be: there's a lady pretending to be a statue, with creepy marble veins drawn all over her, standing against a pillar. In fact there are multiple statue ladies. This is what classy means, Gossip Girl? This shit right here? Because I remember the Benetton window in 1985, and I thought that fuckery was tacky back then, when I was seven, and even more persnickety than I am right now. At a table by the windows, gorgeously lit, are Blair and Nate, Chuck, and Kati/Isabel. Blair's at first horrified, spotting Serena, but then she starts laughing. "You gotta be kidding!" Chuck is also pleased by this turn. Gossip Girl once again rocks, all, "Looks like Blair and Chuck showed up with quite an appetite...FOR DESTRUCTION!" Gossip Girl, I adore you. Dan and Serena and their metric tons of trepidation slump toward the camera and through it, awesomely giving us a blackout to commercial.
Jenny and Rufus give us a quick, pointless scene at their house in Brooklyn, talking about how the dresses she makes are better than Eleanor's, why did B give her the dress, Jenny makes dresses way better than B's mom, and why don't they go to the Farmer's Market. So then they go to the Farmer's Market. What a pointless little moment. Rufus doesn't seem to have an opinion about Blair, the innate corruption of the East Side lifestyle, or the ways in which Jenny is imperiled by these things, just like Serena -- which is still the point of this episode -- but I guess it gets them to the Farmer's Market and away from brunch. Still, a more pointed critique of the brunch crowd, or a more obvious sign of Rufus's oblivion w/r/t his daughter's continuing danger, would have made it work.
Brrrrunch! Gym Class Heroes' "The Queen & I" plays us, finally, into the Wild Brunch proper, where S and D are giggling at the buffet. Nate catches Serena's eye and nods her over. It seems as though she's going to blow him off for a second, but soon enough she leaves Dan to it. He reaches past one of the statue ladies for something, tries to strike up a conversation with her, is rebuffed and cute, and then spots Chuck staring at him. I think the statue ladies are another blown opportunity, given the whole belle dame sans merci thing they're setting up for him, but I guess as silent observers -- as sexy, decadent furniture -- they're not symbolically a total loss. Or I guess it could be a Pygmalion thing, considering where everybody ends up at the end of the episode. I don't know. I think I'm abstracting out about it because it's so creepy to look at. Chuck and Dan pout at each other for awhile, and peel away. Every time this happens, which is ten or twelve, it's funny to growl like a bulldog. It's also funny to see Dan going Hulk-faced every single time Chuck's in the shot -- it's emotionally realistic, but also seems to imply some kind of short-term amnesia or ADD or Memento Disease, on Dan's part: "Croissant quiche tartlet RAPE Serena statue lady RAPE ballgown brown jacket RAPE silver fork blueberry crêpe RAPE." Like every time he sees Chuck it's a surprise.
Chuck's dad steers him away, noting that the dress code for this particular event is "black tie, not black eye," which is clever, but...not at all true, looking around the room, so whatever, Bart Bass. He calls Chuck "Charles," which is interesting given the whole territorial pissing thing Chuck always does to the names of his fellow boys. Is he being ironic, or is he trying to position himself ahead of his class maturity-wise because he's so intimidated by his father, which is why his sexual antics are so over-the-top? I mean, if Chuck raped a tree in the woods, and nobody was around to see it or hear about it, would he actually follow through with it? Is he, in fact, the biggest gossip girl of all? I say yes.
"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Chuck admits that he is, but "only of [his] own making." Good of him to recognize. Or is he bragging. Mr. Bass asks rhetorically why Chuck thinks he does all this socialite shit: "For you. So you can meet people, become a part of something, make a change." Stop with the raping. Chuck sneers. "Really? I thought it was an excuse for an open bar," not to mention the statue ladies. Speaking of, Bart Bass says, how about you lose the scotch: "It's barely noon." But if you can't get drunk at brunch, then...what is brunch?
Out in the hall, Serena begs Nate to shut up and listen, because why the hell did he tell Blair? He stutters, and an old society biddie comes busting through, so he protests that they can't talk there. "Why, because Blair might see us?" Characteristically, Nate hands Serena the key to Chuck's suite. "I'm not sneaking around with you!" Serena coughs, but eventually she gives in. Nate is like this immovable object that eyebrows at you until you give in. "Fine. Ten minutes." Ten minutes 'til you get punk'd, then. Obviously.
Blair's charming the hell out of Nate's dad, telling him how Eleanor's in Paris today, due to some kind of drama at the atelier. Eleanor is one busy bitch: Friday she's both partying and at her country house, Saturday she's bugging the shit out of Blair, and now on Sunday: Paris. I want to live the fashion lifestyle. Nate Sr., by way of reminding us that Nate is his child whore, comments on Eleanor's career: "She's really going places!" Without thinking, Blair gets very Summer Roberts for a sec: "Hopefully places far far away, ha!" Nate Sr. does not laugh. Silence is his only retort. She's like, "Kidding?" Nate arrives to save her, and escorting his father away has to endure more of this shit: "You're taking care of business, as discussed..." Nate weakly protests that not everything is a business deal, and his dad snorts. "Talk to me in thirty years." He drags Nate over to some guy who has some company where they have some internships or something.
Blair and Chuck go back to fuming about Serena and Dan, how they told them to stay away! And yet they did not. Chuck asks if B's worried about Nate or something, just as a shot in the dark, and then -- I can't tell if he knows what he's doing, but I hope so -- passes Blair his other suite key, telling her to try and lock it down with Nate again. "The key to my suite, Nate's heart, and your future happiness." How horrifying. She takes it, and he smarms, "I'm honored to be playing a small role in your deflowering." Luckily she didn't eat at brunch, or she'd be barfing now; instead she calls him disgusting, he agrees, and asks her to report back with details. Blair heads out Nateward, getting crazy on him immediately, all, "What are you doing right now? How about me?" He hesitates, due to his meeting with Serena, but it's too late: "Better offer, or...?" Of course not, he says, and she drags him off toward the room. Chuck...ugh...watches them leave. They mack in the elevator, and then she pushes him into Chuck's suite, where S of course is mighty confused: "Nate?" Blair can only respond with a bewildered, grossed-out "Serena?" Not so tongue-tied is our Girl, who hits a motherfucking hat trick with this one: "Spotted: N and B, hot and heavy in the halls of the Palace Hotel...only to find S already waiting! Sparks were flying for sure, but will it be a three-way? Or D-Day?" Gossip Girl, marry me.
S, N, and B face off. Nate stutters at length about how he's only meeting Serena upstairs to talk about why he's not allowed to talk to her anymore, which of course sets Serena off, because who does that, and Blair's like, "Fuck all of yous, I'm out," and Serena steps. "No, I'll go," she hisses. "Let you get back to your quickie." Well, Blair is not having that, and gets up in her face about how actually, sex is a big deal to some people. Serena laughs nastily, because clearly: "In Chuck's bed? Classy." Then Blair does this awesome thing where she talks as she's backing toward the door, all sneaky and spicy, "I bet your new friend Dan would love to know how classy you are!" She jumps backwards through the door so fast and evil I thought she was going to, like, bounce around the walls like some wicked parkour speedball, vanishing all awesome. Serena and Nate stare blondly at each other. Serena's so shocked she actually asks if Blair's going to do it. "It's Blair," says Nate succinctly. "Shut Up & Drive" starts playing again as they chase after her, Serena haranguing him all the way about how there's nothing wrong with keeping secrets, if it's just going to hurt someone. They debate this philosophical point at length, as they run and run, back to brunch.
The song fades out for a moment to check in with Dan, who's creeped and getting some air. He stumbles onto Lily and Bart Bass, discussing their affair! Oh snap! You go, dude we just met five seconds ago who doesn't know the difference between black tie and business casual! Snag that babe! Lily's complaining because she doesn't really want to keep their relationship a secret, but she also doesn't want to be one of many: "Tell your harem of shopgirls and models that you're seeing someone!" He whines that those kinds of conversations take time, but she's all, "They've got nothing but time, Bart! They're twenty-five!" As she smiles to herself about this awesome line, she spots Dan. He is rooted to the spot in terror. "Excuse me," says Lily, "I gotta go kill a motherfucker. Air kiss!"
Lily chases the terrified Dan into the hotel foyer, where she lets him know that she is totally unimpressed by the eavesdropping on her old-lady business. He protests that he was just looking for S, but she gets snotty with him: "I don't see her. Do you?" Lily's 'tude is no match for Dan logic, though: "No? That's why I'm looking?" Lily starts into one of her "Listen, I don't know who you think you are" speeches, but he's got it covered: "I don't know anything. I didn't hear anything." She looks him right in the eye: "But Serena doesn't know." He nods, explains that he doesn't either, and that he's going to head inside to brunch and mind his business. The Rihanna song busts in once again as he leaves Lily staring into space, wondering if Rufus was right and Dan is, in fact, a little awesome. I wonder too.
Blair reaches the ballroom, jerking her head all over the place looking for Dan. She finally spots him and heads over, smoothing her dress down and getting that scary smile again. They shake hands and she introduces herself as "Blair Waldorf, Serena's friend." He asks if she's seen her, and Blair lights up like a Christmas tree. "Yeah, actually." Blair's hilarious this whole part, because honestly all she wants in this whole world is to stir shit and tell Dan what's going on, and things keep happening and she keeps getting interrupted, so then she just waits her turn to speak, and starts trying to tell him again. And people keep running up and complicating the issue, but she's not going to speak until she has the floor and the perfect opportunity, so every time the brass ring comes around she tries to grab it and create maximum drama, and every time she misses it she just grins and waits for it to come around again. Her appetite for destruction is truly awesome. You know, probably my most favorite thing about Kaitlin Cooper was her love of train wrecks and freakshows like Taylor and Bullitt, and that same joy and adoration for disaster is all over Blair's face this entire time. It's like her condescension and excitement with the...personification of desperation that Jenny is becoming, times a hundred. I love a girl who loves a spectacle.
Anyway, imagine this complicated engine with lots of moving parts and gears and blades, and everything's spinning: that's brunch right now. S and N come running up just as D's paying attention to B, who explains that S has been in the Upchuck Suite waiting for B's boyfriend, and of course S and N protest and N tries to explain once again the whole "talk about not talking" thing, which B again pronounces stupid, and then D asks if this has to do with N showing up in the Palace lobby this morning, which causes B to briefly lose composure, and then Chuck walks up smarming irrelevantly, which causes D to combust irrelevantly, as designed, and then ask once again what's really going on, giving B her fourth opening to spit it out, but S starts making that crying face and begs her to stop, so B gives the fake smile and offers S the chance to tell the story herself, but Chuck offers to do it for her, so then everybody yells because how did Chuck know, and all he will say is "I know everything," because he is a lurker and a pervo, and Dan's like, "And apparently I know nothing," which causes everybody to be like "duh," and then S starts trying to explain and apologize about how it was a long time ago and whatever, and Chuck reframes this as equivocation and speaks with the voice of fate: "Look, Serena, stop trying to pretend you're a good girl. So you slept with your best friend's boyfriend! I kind of admire you for it." Because he's the voice of grossness, but also -- I think we can agree -- because if you sleep with Nate, you're Chuck's hero, because I don't know if you get this yet, but Chuck's kind of a homo about Nate. Sorry, "Nathaniel."
So Dan and Serena are sad for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because this entire social circle is B-A-N-A-N-A-S and neither of them can escape it, which means whether you like it or not, everybody's slept with everybody else and Chuck knows what your panties smell like. That's just how it goes, and it's very sad. And Blair's like, "Whatever, just thought you should know." Because the last thing Dan needs is to fall madly in love with this perfect girl in her perfect world and then realize she's a used-up road whore, leaving him alone with merely a Cabbage Patch Doll for company. "You talked to my sister?" Dan yelps, hilariously, but before Blair can lay down some more awesome, very true science on Dan about his imaginary love story, Chuck takes the opportunity to perv out on Jenny some more, just to get a rise and possibly some more vigorous embraces from Daniel, and drop the first f-bomb of the night. Dan gets right up in his face about the "unfinished business," i.e. "unfinished raping" and how it is not going to happen on Dan's watch, even though Jenny's kind of into it from what I can tell, and then Chuck goes wild. "Oh, Daniel. So little time, so many sluts to f[uck]." Well, Dan's not having that at all, so he shoves Chuck really hard into a waiter, but all I can see is the glow off of Blair's immense delight. She's shining like a diamond over there. And this isn't even her drama! This is merely tangential chaos!
Chuck giggles and wipes the blood from his gigantor nostrils, and in the background you can see Kati and Isabel, dressed like crazy old homeless women with, like, hats and handbags and a bunch of costume jewelry, with no idea what the fuck is going on at all, and I would like it if they were in the midground of every single shot, just staring like that. Something tells me they will be. They look like the Olsen twins. They look like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Dan yells at everybody, to Blair's immense delight, that the show is over. Chuck is a jerk, however this time was Dan's fault, and he's leaving. Serena offers to go, but he's in extra-pouty mode: "I'd prefer you didn't." Oh, snap! So Serena leaks some more from her eyeballs, Dan's off to go be poor on his own fire escape, his count of enchanted objects has diminished by one, and there's just Nate going, "Are you happy now?" And Blair is being completely honest when she admits she's not even close. Of course, Chuck can't resist offering some sex around, but nobody's in the mood to rock. Except for Gossip Girl, that is, who gives us one last round of awesome, fading on Chuck's creepy old smile: "Some might call this a flustercluck, but on the Upper East Side, we call it Sunday afternoon." That's two practical f-bombs, if you're counting. I know I am!
S chases D out into the hotel square, apologizing for the characteristically horrific behavior of Blair and Chuck, but Dan wants to be clear: "It's not just them." She knows what he means, and admits that the UES world is crazy and weird, but he's like, "See, but you're a part of it." She points out that this is not news, but he whines that he thought she was different, even though she's from the Hills and he's from Reseda, but she's on top of it. "Um, sorry I'm not who you thought I was, but on the other hand, all of that stuff is in the past, and all I can do is try to change. And if you can't accept that, then you are a bigger asshat than I am." She's right, but frankly, I would go further with it, because out of all of them, this actually makes Dan look the worst, because he's pissed that she's not imaginary. Boys are so gross. Like, "I just thought that she grew up in this environment and appeared to be one way her whole life, but in fact there was this secret real her that was being saved just for me, that came out of nowhere and has no basis in reality, that could allow her to be in this world but not of it, all form but also all content, which means I would get to date the popular, pretty girl but not have to deal with one iota of the bullshit that goes along with that. It was the perfect solution, and you ruined it! By existing!" I mean, honestly I think he's just as freaked out about the creepy, nasty world itself, and how he will never fit into it and she will never be able to escape it, so where does that leave them, but mostly it's like, Serena has the right to exist, and Dan can take it or leave it, but he's not allowed to spit on it, which is what he's doing. Which is fine, because he's not good enough for her anyway. You know who's good enough for him? I can't wait until you meet fuckin' Vanessa. Oh, and this whole conversation is delivered in classic soap opera style, where they're both facing toward the camera and talking into space, which I always love. Serena's very broken up about all this -- because she's doing the same shit, thinking she can redeem herself through lowering herself to Dan's level, which is just as twisted -- but her exit line is far, far better: "I guess we both made mistakes." He turns and watches her head back into the Palace, and just before she turns, expecting him to be there, he takes off. He almost was. Bummer. It's well-executed and I like that nobody gives up too much ground there. But also: GOOD! TAKE YOUR BROKE ASS HOME!
That night, literally at least six hours later, Dan is sitting at the kitchen island Chez Humphrey, writing poems and bleeding internally from true love. Rufus and Jenny come home with some Farmer's Market crap, and Dan morosely tells them that while yes, he did find Serena...he subsequently lost her. I'm sure this wordplay happened while he was being poetic about it. Before Rufus or Jenny can even make facial expressions in response, Dan's all, "It's fine! Really! It's all for the best. Serena has her friends, and her family, her whole world. It has come to my attention their customs are too strange, their ways too alien, for this poor pilgrim to ever again be light-hearted. I'm fine. I have known love! How many among us can say that, in truth? Pray, don't worry for me. I shall die alone, of a broken heart, with only these poems and a weird desire to beat up Chuck some more to sustain me. And tomorrow I shall awake in the bright morning light and I will put on that uniform and I will tie my necktie, and I will shine my shoes and step out into the seething, vibrant life of the city, for Father -- Father, are you there? -- Father, my life must continue. There are a thousand stories out there in the city, Father, and I would hear them all. And my dear sister, please, if your older brother, who holds you so tenderly in his heart, can make one request: please do not tell bitches about Cedric, my Cabbage Patch Doll. That is private. But let us not dally too long on that unhappy thought. This heart will continue to beat; these hands will continue to work. And one day, long years from now, and probably far away from here, I will look back upon these years with bittersweet fondness. For though it was not a happy one, this weekend, still: it was life."
Jenny: "Weird, or whatever." He heads out, still ruminating on the carelessness that shadows men's souls, but he takes a moment to admire Jenny's flowers from the Farmer's Market: they're hydrangeas, just barely beginning to bloom.
Nate, lying chastely beside Blair, staring at her back, tells her that she needs to get over it, or break up. I agree, but then I want them to stay together, and I don't think he does. He touches her shoulder and she squeezes his hand, with her eyes closed, as another Bravery song (yay!) starts playing. Over in Williamsburg, Dan's squatting around all moodily on the fire escape, and Gossip Girl gives us a couple more for the road: "S's mystery man is a mystery no longer! His name is...oh, who cares. Now that he and S are over, so are his fifteen minutes." Inside, Jenny models her blue Sears dress for herself, with the flowers in a vase beside the mirror. "But his sister J was spotted wearing a new dress, gifted from B herself. An Eleanor Waldorf original is the uniform of B's private army. But will J be a loyal soldier, or side with S's rebel forces?" I stumped for this assignment hardcore all summer because I love this, I love it when you talk in war metaphors with teenage girls, because...teenage girls invented war. My friend Karen has a t-shirt that says "I Survived Eighth Grade." Serena walks down the road in slo-mo, having left brunch, per Gossip Girl, with "no friends, no boy, and nowhere to run." Chuck stares smokily into space, in bed with a statue lady. One by one, Serena erases the pictures from her phone: herself and Blair, the three of them, staring at Chuck who's just done something heinous. Jenny puts her hair up, turns to the side, like a statue come to life; Blair holds onto Nate's hand like she's drowning. "The ultimate insider has become a total outsider. Your move, S. And you know who'll be watching..." Serena pitches her phone into the trash and keeps walking, and the crane pulls back until she's lost in the crowd.
week: Catfights at field hockey like Freaky Friday, Chuck in some more three-ways; possibly D-Day. Please, please stay this awesome, Gossip Girl. You know we love you.