Why would you guarantee a pilot on the fall schedule, then put it untested in the hottest time slot of the entire week? Wednesdays are the new Thursdays, not to mention the fact that three of the four nets are aiming for the same demographic, and my God, you think Private Practice skews older? I wish. It's called the Carrie Bradshaw Phenomenon and it means that from age ten to thirty-five, you always watch shows about people ten years older than you, because it's aspirational, because they wear better clothes and have more dramatic relationships than you do. What the CBP means on Wednesday night is that half of this show's target is watching Addison Montgomery dancing around naked, men are playing Halo 3 and don't care, and everybody else is watching that awful Bionic Woman show. Aren't you just asking to get the show canceled at that point? Who would do that? It's especially upsetting because this is maybe the best show in the entire universe, possibly, and every week is better than the last. Not only do Kati and Isabel continue to dress like crazy Yeah Yeah Yeah elves from Planet Cobraskank, but the school choir totally sings Fergie. It's like a fairy tale. On a sixer of Sparks and a bottle of Robitussin.
Anyway, this week's party with a fight inside is the Constance Billard/St. Jude Ivy Week mixer, where the Juniors meet and greet the collegial elite. Dan's hoping for the chance to squire the Dartmouth rep, Nate's looking to ditch since he doesn't want to stay on the East Coast, Blair's on the hunt for a Yale offer, and Serena is a shoo-in for Brown. Meanwhile, Kati (as token Asian science whiz) invented Post-Its. Who knew? Not Jenny, who wears her second-hand Eleanor Waldorf dress to the party and continues to fall deeper and deeper in love with Eric. To be honest, I see where she's going with it, because he's awesome in this episode. Also excellent? Miss Blair Waldorf, who fakes a traveling injury, among other outrages, in her agenda to destroy Serena. She employs Chuck in this pursuit, and he takes pictures of Serena entering Eric's treatment facility. This leads Blair to loudly and hilariously proclaim Serena's nonexistent drug rehab to the entire mixer. In order to protect her brother and mother, S goes along with the ruse, earning a little bit of respect from Dan and Lily both. In the end, Nate and Dan come to a sexy rapprochement, Serena and Dan get close again, Lily and Rufus can't stay away from each other, and Eric puts a serious smackdown on Blair, flashing his scars at her and daring her to continue acting heinous. She meets Serena at the Bethesda fountain in the rain, and reads her the letter she would have sent a year ago, when she was herself cracking up -- if she'd known where the hell to send it. They tearfully forgive each other, but all is not forgotten and they don't really hug or anything. week, the watchword seems to be "Fidelio." If we even get there...
After the endless recap, Gossip Girl warns us about Serena's response to Blair's non-stop assaults: "It takes two to tangle, and girls like these don't go down without a fight!" Unless they're Serena on the night of the Shepherd wedding last year! Zing!
Those awful credits, and then we're into the best teaser yet: The principals of the show getting ready for the last day of Ivy Week while the Constance Billard Choir sings "Glamorous" in the background. It's pretty awesome, but the long version is better. This whole act of the show is really interesting from a narrative point of view, because it skips around about six timelines the entire time, linking certain points of dialogue to certain events from earlier in the day, and it does it without ceasing, and it does it without calling attention to itself, and it does it without being particularly challenging to follow, which is craftsmanship. But if you were to actually diagram this act, like a sentence, it would fuck you up.
Serena looks fabulous, if harried; Blair looks, if possible, even more perfectly put together than usual; Nate and Chuck are Nate and Chuck, which is to say they're both pretty variable but well-lit; and Dan is covered in shaving mishaps. Also, I think this is the point where he chooses his lipstick shade for the episode. They've always done weird things with makeup on this show, especially with the boys, but the truly bizarre thing here is that I don't think he's actually wearing lipstick at any point. I think Penn Badgley's lips are naturally Urban Decay Chicago Sheer Frost Lube In A Tube-colored, or else this week Dan's being played by a very sexy corpse, but it's super-distracting either way. While these five people are staring at themselves in the mirror, and the song is playing, we're getting a third line of data from GG herself: "There's plenty of upside to being the spawn of the fabulously wealthy. But the downside? Super-successful parents accept nothing less from their offspring. And when it comes to college, that means the Ivies. It's more than just getting into college, it's setting a course for the rest of your life. And for those few who aren't legacies, the pressures are no less. When parents have sacrificed for their children's futures, what kid would wanna let them down?"
I am on the record as a longtime hater of Fergie. I think she's vapid and trashy and inspires trashiness and vapidness in others, and thus makes America worse and not better. She also pees in her pants. But the number one thing I can't stand about Fergie is her constant lyrical desire -- as though she even writes her own songs, or is more than functionally literate -- to have it both ways. "I'm a glamorous fashion whore, but I also eat Taco Bell in my Mustang," "big girls don't cry, but they do talk in ridiculous infantilized abuse-survivor stripper baby-voice, and refer to themselves as 'big girls,'" et cetera. Fergie to me is like some kind of My Name Is Earl nightmare where getting on COPS is the same thing as being famous. My hatred for her is no less real for being irrational and creepy in its own right. However, I will say that this show has made me love this song, both versions of it, and also that "Clumsy" is awesome. But the awesomeness of all this Fergie in Chapel is obvious, in terms of the heightened reality that this show keeps trying to tell you it's shooting for. In real life, choirs don't sing about poppin' champagne in a private jet or driving through Taco Bell "raw as hell." But in the UES, this is how we roll, and that is brilliant. I wish they would do that ten times as much as they do, because it seems really watered down and just kind of weird, instead of cracked-out Popular-style madness, which frankly is the only thing S4 of The O.C. was missing. You cannot say the words "heightened reality" to me without me immediately thinking about Mary Cherry, and I don't mean the silliness or even the over-the-topness of it, just the general feeling that these are not our people and they are not playing by our rules. God knows Dan Humphrey's the only person ever on television more irritatingly superior than Sam McPherson.
Constance Billard, the girls' school, and St. Jude, the boys', are having Chapel together, which is where Jenny is singing Fergie with her choirmates. She's wearing knee-socks, either because she's such an Alternative Humphrey and thus is an individual, or because she's stepping out with the Blair Army behind her and thus is an individual, I can't tell. We've reached the end of Ivy Week, the Billard Headmistress explains, and per tradition, the juniors of the two schools will split responsibility for the culminating Friday Night Mixer. The girls will do the thing itself, and certain of the boys will squire the various school reps as "ushers," or what was once known in the land of Sparta as the aïtas. "For those of you who dream of attending an Ivy League school, this mixer is the most important event of your life. But no pressure," she chuckles, and that means Dan.
Earlier in the AM, Jenny and Rufus were laughing at Dan for his multiple shaving lacerations, taking their shots where they might, including congratulating him on not being a hemophiliac. It was the Humphreys, and I've finally come to peace with the fact that I just hate them. Dan most of all. Anyhow, Dan was super-stressed about going to Dartmouth, Rufus and Jenny didn't care, but it's fine because when you're as self-obsessed as Dan Humphrey, do you really need the support of your family? Could it even really conceivably help you? He applied more lipstick, and explained to us, the audience, that he hasn't a trust fund or a legacy connection: merely his self-considering and self-conscious grey matter. Jenny pointed out that Dan doesn't do well under the spotlight, then continued to eat her own lipstick, half-heartedly.
Chuck offers "a little wake & bake" to his boy "Nathaniel," who reminds Chuck that they're interviewing for usher spots today, which is kind of Chuck's point. "I have my one-hitter!" he says with hushed delight. "…But underclassmen should consider this week a dress rehearsal. You are not only representing yourselves this week, but generations from our school, and your families," which means Nate, of course.
Who went running this morning, like every morning, with his dad, who accused him of running him off the path in his haste. Nate protested, but then admitted that while he may have cut him off, he certainly didn't mean to. Awkwardly as ever, Dad segued this into yet more Dartmouth talk: "You win fair and square, nothing could make me prouder... Until you get in the old alma mater, that is!" Nate whined some more about California, and Dad pointed out that, ignoring the whole West Coast thing altogether, a person with Nate's poor grades needs to at least present the appearance of "working for it." Not that Dan Humphrey, apparently the arbiter for all ethical questions in the entire state of New York, would be fooled. Nate asked why his father always treated his UCLA/USC dreams as a joke, and his father pointed out that white male supremacy is a con that's been handed down through a hundred generations through denying women and minorities equal access to higher education, and it is not Nate's prerogative to break that chain of inherited privilege. "Listen, your mother and I didn't work this hard so you can just make things up as you go along! Dartmouth, law school, Blair. Soon you're gonna have everything!" But all Nate wants is pot and Dan's approval, Dad!
Blair stares lovingly over at Nate, who ignores her and then heads out to smoke some pot with Chuck. Headmistress names Blair Waldorf as the emcee announcing this year's charity for the Community Outreach Committee, but Kati and Isabel are more interested in wondering where Serena is this morning. "...And you know what I wonder? How I'm supposed to hear anything about Yale with all this talk about Serena," Blair hisses. They are becalmed.
Blair came breezing down the stairs Chez Waldorf, giving one of her two impossible monologues this week, in a hyper and UIL-tinged manner, like an F. Scott Fitzgerald heroine before her soul is delivered by FedEx: "Do you remember when Dad gave me my first Yale sweatshirt? I don't think any piece of clothing has ever fit me more perfectly. Not to mention how adorable I found that bulldog. Remember when I asked you if I could get a bulldog? Good call, by the way, saying no. And now the big day is finally here! Soon Nate and I will be away at college -- him coming down to Yale, me going up to Dartmouth, Dad flying in for the Princeton game...I hope it doesn't make you feel old watching me grow up!" Of course, this speech took so long, and was so pathetic, that you know there's a punchline, named Dorota: "Eat up, Miss Blair, your mom would want you to have a good breakfast." Blair smiled that smile that falls, and popped one pithy grape into her mouth.
Putting aside thoughts of her bulimia and loveless family, Blair wonders aloud where Serena is. "That's what I said," complains Kati, and Isabel hisses, "When you weren't supposed to be talking!" As Blair continues to think of Serena, we head over that way -- noting, of course, that every other intro to a flashback accompanies some meaningful quote about the future that applies to that character; but here, the Headmistress isn't saying anything at all.
Lily hounded her daughter around the hotel room, complaining about how she was going to be late; Serena was well aware, but she'd already taken so much time to decide on the perfect seal-skin knee-high boots that there was no time left. Lily returned to the subject of Serena sleeping by Eric's bedside, was rebuffed, then started in about Ivy Week. "If I can get out of this hotel room, it's my sole mission in life to impress that Brown rep," Serena said, rushing about with no identifiable purpose. Lily was thrilled: "I mean, I know it's something we've always talked about, but honestly, since you've been back...I've wondered if your mind was even on college." Serena agreed that she'd been somewhat scattered in the, what, five days since the show started? -- but recent events have made her much more interested in getting the fuck back out of town. Lily asked after Dan, was rebuffed, asked after Blair, was brutally rebuffed, and Serena laid it on the line: "All I want to do is just finish high school in peace, and go away to a state with lots of people who don't know who I am, and just start over, okay?" Lily watched her leave and reminded her not to walk to school, since she was already running late.
Serena jumps out of her cab, uniform all crazy, mostly on purpose, to see the boys and girls of St. Jude's and Constance Billard flooding out of Chapel and back to class. "Oh, God," she says to Dan, who of course has blundered directly into her path. "God, please don't tell me it's over." Dan, because we're all in orbit around Planet Dan, is bemused: "What? You were there. I would say it's pretty over." She shakes her head with a rueful grin and points out that she obviously meant the assembly. "Oh, right. No, yeah. No, it just ended now." And all that happened was that the heads of the two schools said some shit and the choirgirls sang a song about Taco Bell. How horrible that would be to miss! They wish each other luck regretfully, and then Blair appears. "Oh, too bad you missed the assembly, not that it matters." I know, right? "Brown doesn't offer degrees in slut," Blair smiles, and turns on her heel. 15-love for the day, that makes. And it's going to be a long day. "Game on, ladies," purrs Gossip Girl, and now it's time for some will.i.am and field hockey outfits.
Somebody from a school or something is asking Dan why he should be the Dartmouth usher, and the answer is pure Dan. I kept thinking he was going to make me hate him, and I was so afraid about that, but whatever, I'm done, I hate him. Just hate his ass: "Well, I've given this a lot of thought, and I think I can answer your question in three parts, and I'd like to start with the third part first, if it's cool, unless, uh, that would be confusing, in which case, I can start at the beginning -- ha ha -- um, the Dartmouth principles of community highlight integrity, responsibility and consideration, uh, well, from St. Jude's, I've learned integrity, from being an older brother, I have learned responsibility, and from my parents, who have sacrificed everything to send me to this school, I've learned consideration. It really comes down to one thing: Dartmouth is my dream. And I've never asked Dartmouth, but...I think It's been dreaming of me. That -- that was a joke, or an attempt at one..." I would give him admission a year early just to fail him out for talking that shit to me. Looks like the School of Seth Cohen already did. Is that somebody's idea of cute? I can't imagine anybody intended that speech to be so irritating, which means somebody designed it to be endearing, and I just can't do it. I cannot find that shit cute. Bring your A game, or take your broke ass home. I get that he caves under pressure and that he thinks mumbling is charming, but what you've just proven to me, Dan, is that you cannot handle it. And that's not on your pedigree, that's on you. "You are the ideal Dartmouth candidate," the interviewer says, and we see that now we're talking to Nate, who replies -- smoothly, maturely, professionally -- that it would be an honor to attend Dartmouth, about which he's grown up hearing all about from his father, but that to be frank, it's not his first choice. "If there's only one usher position available, I'm sure there's someone who wants it more than me." Of all the reasons I hate Dan today and possibly forevermore, number one is that I'm now siding with Nate Archibald. And, of course, Chuck:
"Why should I be chosen to be an usher? I'm...Chuck Bass." Game, set, match. I'm not saying every guy on this show is sort of unrepentantly and triumphantly gay, all day every day, but I am asking why somebody didn't think of that sooner.
It's the end of the school day, and Mr. Tedrow, the Headmaster for St. Jude's, pins the usher list to the wall. Nate and Dan -- friendly enough -- line up to check it out. Of course, Nate has the Dartmouth position, and Dan has nothing (Chuck got Yale), but does Dan understand what this means? No, it's clearly a conspiracy against those who cannot speak intelligently, or at all, because they live in DUMBO or South Africa or wherever the Humphreys live this week: Dan's just that special. He moans on and on about how he's second in their class, and Nate's like last, and Nate's like, "Not only do you know nothing about my family or the enormous pressure I too am under, but also, how is it that you've been going to this school for X years and yet you're acting like you just took the Red Pill and suddenly you grasp vertical accumulation of wealth and you can't wait to tell everybody? Are you secretly already a freshman at Dartmouth?" Dan bitches some more and assures Nate that J.L. Hall, Dartmouth alum and author of The Petting Zoo, will be very impressed with Nate's Go Green passion. "Who the hell is J.L. Hall?" asks Nate, just placing himself discreetly under Dan's passive-aggressive little nerdy thumb. "He's the Ivy rep? You might want to pick up his book if you blah blah blah I'm so smartypants godawful."
Dan comes screeching out of the hallway and straight into, somehow, the courtyard of Constance Billard, where Serena is blindly wandering, once again. I guess they're one of those schools that are actually the same school but pretend they aren't. I should have picked up on that earlier. They blather about how he has this anger problem that causes him to be a jerk to her, and she's like, "Good luck with that," and he's all "I'll keep you posted," and the sexual energy is like so blinding. She mistakenly congratulates him on getting Dartmouth usher, and he replies that he didn't, subtly implying that this is because she slept with Nate a year ago at the Shepherd wedding: "In an ironic -- though not totally unexpected -- twist, Nate got the one I wanted." She apologizes as though this is her fault, because she feels so guilty about things that she will literally apologize to anyone at any time, and he's like, "Well, it is your fault, because you're a legacy." Not even trying to defend herself or her family, because there's zero need for her to do so, she instead tries to give him a little cheerleading: "Just because you're not an usher doesn't mean you're not gonna get into an Ivy!" He's like, "Bullshit, because your parents went to Harvard and Brown." She's all OMG and he's like, "Exactly. My point exactly."
It's not that he's wrong, and I'm not really hating on him that much, but he's being such a dick about it. The entire point of Nate Archibald is that everybody's just as screwed as everybody else, but it takes a grown-up man to actually understand this, and despite what Rufus says, the Humphreys don't really count any of those in their number, or else Dan would understand that what he's saying amounts to, "The only way you can make it right, as a Brown legacy, is to...not go to college at all, and become a homeless street person. Then, and only then, will my father's inability to provide for his family at the level to which he aspires finally be avenged."
Kati and Isabel are hovering over Blair at the Waldorf house, bitching about Serena's cheap shot, and they're totally icing her LEFT leg, which is hilarious and I wish they'd called more attention to it. Chuck calls Blair all breathy and butch about the "field hockey throwdown," the associated "mouthguards and short skirts," which: gross, go to Japan if you're like that, and his hope that somebody filmed it. She indulgently scoffs, all, "You're heinous," and Chuck asks if that isn't why she called him. "Women like to pretend they're complicated; I know better." I cannot wait for that one to bite him in the ass. Of all the wonderful things about this amazing, endangered show, I think Blair's complexity is in the top three, just below everybody's eyebrows. She sends the girls off for a heating pad so she and Chuck can plan the step in Operation Dumbo Drop. Blair's done guessing about where and why Serena disappeared: she wants answers. "And no one likes to be on the ground floor of a scandal like Chuck Bass." In the limo, Chuck grins smarmily. "I am a bitch when I wanna be," he oozes. They agree to "cause trouble" and "uncover secrets." You go, Gossip Girls!
Dan comes in all a-huff because of restricted ownership of the means of production in a capitalist state or some shit, and Rufus is all, "I made dinner that I have to talk about!" and Dan hurls himself down on the bed and Rufus asks him what's wrong and Dan screams "Nate Archibald!" into his pillow, and everybody watching -- I can only assume -- hits pause and shouts, "What's my name, bitch? Say my name!" and makes Dan scream "Nate Archibaaaaaaaaaaaaald!" into his pillow six or seven times, because with Dan around you have to make your own fun. Just don't let him find out or he'll start quoting Das Kapital at you, in his Diesel t-shirt, and anyway finally he tells Rufus to go away. Outside -- as Dan I'm sure continues to shout muffled curses into his IKEA bed linens, getting lipstick all over them -- Rufus is like, "Is it true that you feel encroached upon by the sacrifices your mother and I have made in order to give you these tiny opportunities that your brother keeps squandering?" and Jenny's all, "I am like five seconds away from going Slutsville 3000, so I'm not really a reliable narrator right now."
Chuck watches Serena entering the Ostroff Center, where her brother's in rehab, and snaps lots of pictures, giggling to himself. When he calls Blair, she's dazed on the couch with Nate, who's reading The Petting Zoo. "Mom, how's Paris?" Chuck laughs and suggests that Blair is not going to believe where he found their "little princess."
Later, in Blair's room, Chuck's showing her the pictures and congratulating himself on his scheme-y prowess. "If you weren't such a perv," Blair admits, "I'm sure the CIA would hire you in a second." Chuck laughs. "Defending my country -- there's a future I never imagined." She nods. "With good reason." Because you are a homosexual, Chuck. Catch up. Chuck offers that Serena's at the Ostroff Center for the same reason anybody else would be, describing it as a facility for "the disturbed or addicted." Blair notes that Chuck should have his own wing by now, and he congratulates her wit, asking what her move will be. "I was thinking total social destruction," she hums, and he laughs. "And here I thought you were getting soft!" He then offers to do her, and she evicts him pleasantly from the room.
Over at the Center, Serena's getting intense about her brother's forced stay. "I've been in these sessions every day for the last week, but nothing is going to change unless she stops hiding him here and lets him have his life back," she says huffily. Lily contests that it's not "hiding," it's "recovery," but Serena asks why, then, is Lily still lying that Eric's in Miami? Lily says it's because Eric's not "ready," but Serena and everybody else knows that it's really Lily that's not ready. The therapist praises them for having an honest conversation -- Serena accuses her mother of being ignorant of the entire concept -- but invites them to include Eric in this conversation that's about, you know, Eric. Eric shows some of that van der Woodsen backbone he'll be dazzling us with later, all, "Like I have a say in this? Wow, thanks." Lily and Serena immediately take the conversation back out of his hands, patting their thighs and whistling at him like Finn and McDreamy all, "Here boy! Come here! Who loves you? Who's a good boy?" Serena gets him to admit that he wants to leave eventually...but Lily gets him to admit that he might actually not be ready...but Serena gets him to admit that it sucks there...but Lily gets him to admit that he's holding the family together better by being all alone in a hospital room, and so on. Serena suggests a compromise: he can escort her to the Ivy Week Mixer. Lily is not feeling it, even though Serena points out that he'll be around people he knows, and, barring some kind of all-out assault by Blair, it should be fun and comfortable. Eric and the therapist lady agree that this sounds awesome, and Lily responds in the mature fashion: by loudly packing up her shit and leaving with haste, to help the school prepare for the Mixer. "As both Parent Committee chair and responsible mother," she adds at one last grab to save face. Her kids watch her leave and make eyebrows at each other; Serena's overjoyed, because she has no friends.
Rufus is up at St. Jude's, trying to work both his "slick rocker dad" thing and his son's "bumbling Beautiful Mind ESL" vibe. Neither of them work on the very striking day-player lady he snags at random, who informs him that all the usher positions have been irrevocably filled. She sends him to talk to the Committee chair, and the frosty chill that fills the room in advance of said chair is a sign to both of them that Lily is coming. Nameless advisor lady fully scuttles out of the room, wishing him luck and noting that Lily seems to be in a "good mood." I will miss her, she's got a certain something. Anyhow, she disappears just as Lily is arriving to tell Rufus, as usual, to fuck off sideways.
But Rufus comes busting into Humphrey House with some great news that is also a bit of a lie: he's gotten Dan "in" for the Ivy Week party tonight, with his name on the program and everything. Of course, he's not talking about the Dartmouth spot, he's talking about Refreshment Committee, which of course means serving drinks. Rufus does not explain that he accomplished this through secret means having to do with Lily's secret slutty history, but does drop the even bigger Shame Bomb that he'll be providing the entertainment. I'm picturing soft jazzy guitar renditions of "Tiny Bubbles" and "The Girl From Ipanema," and I'm right, but lest you think I went to Dartmouth, it was just the lamest thing I could think of. Dan is both impressed by and ashamed of his father and their new jobs as caterers, noting that neither "Refreshment" nor "Entertainment" existed as real committees until Rufus left the house. He further describes Lincoln Hawk as "early '90s post-punk math rock," evincing a less-than-clear grasp of most or any of those terms. Jenny invites herself along; Dan begins to weep.
Getting out of the car, Lily smothers Eric some more, cautioning him to alert her, should he get "all anxious," "light-headed," or "panicky." This kind of warning makes me all three. Eric assures her he'll be fine: "All I have to do is be normal." And in an aside to Serena: "Or at least act normal." Serena laughs that it works for their mom, showing that she's still in UES denial. "Acting normal" is clearly quite beyond the wheelhouse of anyone on this entire show. Inside, Serena immediately starts looking for the Yale rep, confusing her mom just enough that they can explicate exactly what's going on here: Serena wants to go to Brown, it's Blair that wants to go to Yale. Therefore, Serena's being a dick. Lily's like, "Right, right."
Serena launches herself across the yard at Yale, just as Blair's reminding him that her father used to do crew with him. Before he can blush and set her straight that they rowed a boat together with only the occasional above-the-waist petting, as is proper at an Ivy League school, Serena's like, "Blair, come come now, you can't row crew, you can't even get your hair wet, you're an idiot, I'm Serena van der Woodsen, let's go freshen up your drink," and whisks Yale away. Which was...kind of bad-ass? Except how Blair could easily have gotten out of that half-nelson if she'd been a bit more proactive instead of just going, "It's true, I do hate crew, but my dad once 'rowed a boat' with this guy." As it is, she just stares after them and bitches over to Chuck, whom if you'll remember is supposed to be ushering Yale. He explains he's given up on Yale and is now "trying to get into Princeton," a pretty cougar with a striking resemblance to Mo Collins. I can only assume that Chuck doesn't know about Yale's "crew" tendencies, or he'd be over there in a hot minute. "Don't get your La Perlas in a bunch," he says, which: good point, Chuck, because why does Blair have all this sexy underwear if she won't even take the Corvette out for a test drive?
Luckily, Chuck's got it covered, because guess who just walked in? Dr. Donald Ostroff, head of the Ostroff Center. And no, that's not a tic, it's a wink: Dawn Ostroff is the once-president of UPN and the now-president of the CW, also known as the network that bought a put pilot for this show and then crammed it into the most haunted, scary timeslot of '07-'08. She's totally awesome and totally scary, like any TV exec, but I can't tell you why she has done this to my beautiful show, because it makes no sense to me.
Nate's like, "I liked your book." Good, strong start. Dartmouth's all, "Thanks, but I'm a writer, so I'm going to need a bunch of ass-kissing disguised as criticism. If you're too stoned to do this on your own, here are some prompts: Is the epilogue awesome? Isn't it great how Warner Brothers is making a movie? Isn't the NYT a POS for saying the awesome epilogue was a 'cheap cop-out'? Isn't Warner a buttface for possibly changing the awesome epilogue in the movie version? Answer these questions at your own pace." Nate does an excellent job of avoiding the thirty or so land mines in that conversational gambit and sneaks by with seeming grace and intelligence, or else is not a very good actor: "Well, I can see how the ending might not seem all that commercial." Dartmouth is pleased, because God forbid you write something commercial, so Nate runs off to get them drinks, because he is terrified of charming his way into Dartmouth without even trying. I think this episode made Nate my new favorite character.
Lily and Bart Bass -- Chuck's dad that she's having the secret affair with, not that anybody has bothered to tell us why it's a total secret -- make with the kiss-kiss, and Bart welcomes Eric back from Miami. "You know, Go Marlins..." He excuses himself to go act normal somewhere else.
Meanwhile, Kati is leading some alum somewhere and here's what she's saying: "So the neuroscience project I'm working on involves the cellular signaling pathway of neuronal nitric oxide synthase. It's initiated when glutamate binds to NMDARs..." Which is funny in that Kati just invented Post-Its, but also funny because -- thanks to forum posters EmpressByNature and YesYesNo -- it provoked the discovery of some long-term potentiation in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern themselves which makes this show even cooler. Nan Zhang, the actor who plays Kati, was in the pre-med/neuro program at Johns Hopkins, and Nicole Fiscella, who plays Isabel, got her Anthropology BA from Tufts and is now getting a masters in Human Nutrition. I would not make this up, I could not make this up, I did not make this up, but it does make me fall just a little bit more in love with the whole world, you know?
Speaking of falling in loooooove: It's Jenny and Eric! Jenny's wearing her Team Blair dress, which still looks like it's cunningly fashioned from J.C. Penney's Pimp Sheets collection ("You know you sleep real nice, baby!") and beaming. And why shouldn't she be? You know who's nice to have around when you're about to jump onto a self-destructive slut spiral? Emotionally damaged young men with abandonment issues, that's right! They geek out over the fact that both of them remember each other's names and that they met at Bendel's, but before Jenny can boast that she can tie her shoes without aid, or Eric can slug her with his teddy bear and sit in the middle of the room crying, Nate's dad comes whizzing by all, "Enjoy Miami?" Eric gives a weak little "Save the manatees?" before Mr. Archibald is gone, and Jenny's like, "What are manatees? I like ponies!" He offers to tell her, but by walking backwards: "It's a long story...it's a little dark..." She's like, "I repeat: nobody even knows how buckwild crazy I'm about to go. Trust me, I can handle it." And man, if Jenny doesn't go as nuts as I'm hoping she will, I'll just cry.
Serena appears at Refreshment Committee for a drink; while Dan's serving her, he makes awkward conversation: "You want to go to Yale, then?" I don't know if he's asking because she just switched, or because their entire first date consisted of tracking down rapes in progress and halting them like Batman and Robin so he honestly doesn't know. Serena has the sense to be a little wry about it -- "No, Brown. It's just this thing with Blair..." -- but of course Dan's raging perfection is not appeased by a mere self-effacing manner. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it. I mean, since you don't have to actually worry about getting into college, why not make the entire evening about screwing over Blair?" And by the same token, Dan, since you're completely out of your element by your own choice and shitty demeanor, why not make the entire evening about your imaginary moral superiority? Serena's like, "I don't want any of your stupid fucking punch, Refreshment Committee. It tastes like the bitter tears of poverty." They stand there awkwardly as Nate approaches and pointedly ignores Serena while he gets drinks for himself and Dartmouth. It's hard out there for a pimp, but even harder for a bushy-browed boy whore. Serena's like, "For real? Seriously? Like you're literally not speaking to me?" Nate musters a "Hey," and she spits some nails all over the place and takes off, leaving Dan and Nate trying desperately to miss her.
Dan asks Nate jealously what Dartmouth guy is like. "Like a Dartmouth English lit professor I have nothing in common with?" Dan nods sagely, like he's got this shitload of things in common with Dartmouth guy, and Nate starts auditioning to be his puppy dog. "Guess I could tell him...how everything I have, I got because I'm an Archibald?" See, Nate's awesome here, because he's not only being dead sexy, but also saying the magic words of Dan Humphrey. Normally I only identify this much with the...hey. HEY! Nate Archibald is the Marissa! I have discovered the secret! Think about it! The "acting," the ethereal un-presence he brings to every scene, his placement as object of desire without giving any real justification for it...OMG this show makes so much more sense now.
Whew. Anyway, so Dan's like, "Now that you are flirting with me and being self-effacing, I find that you are a dear little thing. You should mention Theodore Geisel, the man to whom the intellectually ungifted refer as 'Dr. Seuss.' He went to Dartmouth, like you will, because you are a worthless piece of gentry trash. Furthermore, The Petting Zoo was inspired by Geisel's The Lorax." Which is hilarious, because, like, I was picturing something like Freakonomics or The Tipping Point, something financial, and now you've got petting zoos and the Lorax, which makes me think it's environmental in some way, but it all mixes together and I can just see like some Furry-Faced Flurmwit going, "I will not borrow stock and sell at a lower price! I won't short-sell flax, or wheat, or rice!" or whatever. So Nate doesn't recognize Dr. Seuss or The Lorax. The latter I can see, because that's like reading Harry Potter to Falwell's kids; Nate Sr. would bust a gut. But Dr. Seuss? That's stretching the joke a bit far. Not as far as the bit, though; crestfallen with all this ignorance, Dan tries again: "Just mention how his prose style is influenced by early Faulkner." But what he really means is, "Just mention how his prose style is influenced by smart-sounding adjective pretentious-sounding author," which is intended to either make him look super-smart -- if this is one of those infrequent dialogue times where this show rocks less than utterly -- or super-toolish, depending. And I cannot for the life of me get a grip on what the show is trying for with him at all, because people as beautiful and funny-looking as Penn Badgley usually end up playing the good guy, you know, but then why is he such a douche? I mean doooouche. Unless he's comparing himself here to "Ad Astra," which frankly I wouldn't put past him, and that would be hilarious. Nate's like, "Actually, since I've got you looking into my dewy eyes with Lorax-tinted longing, do you want to take him these drinks so I can go get real stoned?" Dan agrees, and then they...make love.
What?! I don't know what else to call it! They totally did! It was awesome! Anyway, Nate makes Dan some eggs and ruffles his hair and leaves the refreshment area promising to call him soon, just as his dad grabs the hell out of him and swings his son around like he's Cheryl Burke, forcing him finally to come out of the closet about not wanting to go to Dartmouth, and how annoying his dad's willful blindness to this fact truly is. "There, I said it! Now back off!" If I could end every conversation by screeching about my first-choice college and then mincing away in a three-thousand-dollar suit, I would definitely think about doing so. "You thought I ordered venti when I did this with my fingers, but really I was saying triple shot. There! I said it!" Swoosh, baby. Nothin' but net.
Meanwhile, Eric's explaining to the only minorly bored Jenny Humphrey that living alone with his mother at the Palace Hotel was so very lonely that he tried to kill himself. She's like, "I feel you." Lily says the Ostroff Center has the best counselors, "but what they really get paid for is to keep their mouths shut." Can't they do both? Can't somebody at the Ostroff Center counsel that we move this show to a less punishing timeslot? Like early on Saturday, when you're still pre-pre-partying at home? Or disco naptime on Friday, like Sabrina The Teenage Witch used to? The only reason I even ever saw that show was because of college, drinking box Chardonnay and changing clothes sixteen thousand times. TGIeffing save my show! Jenny promises she won't say anything, she's a no-Gossip Girl, and even offers to help him make up Florida Factoids. "I have a grandma who lives in Fort Myers!" she says excitedly. Oh, honey. You're not helping your case.
Blair Waldorf, whom I keep meaning to tell you the captioning sometimes loveably portmanteaus into "BLORF," welcomes everybody to the Constance Billard/St. Jude's Ivy Week Mixer, just as Eric and Jenny are coming back from their dark confab of gothic suicidal darkness. This is the second of her long monologues, and -- except for the brilliant note coming up at the end -- is just as thinly produced. I think Leighton's deal is that she's really good with chemistry, like awesomely good, which means she needs the person right in front of her to vibe back and forth with, but when she has to project out onto nothingness, like here -- or when she was walking around the house delivering that soliloquy to Dorota -- she feels dwarfed (blorfed?) by the lack of response she's getting from the nobody she's talking to, so it falls flat and she hits these weird yipping overly aggressive notes and then tries to dial it back, and it makes you kind of seasick to listen to, because either she's the boss of everybody or she's trying to get people to pay attention to her kind of desperately. And I realize that's the point of Blair, but I don't really think this particular thing is a choice on Leighton's part. I mean, it doesn't actually matter in the narrative -- for the same reason that Mischa didn't actually have to be a good actress because Marissa was so fake and awesomely surfacey that it came out to a zero sum, Mischa : Marissa :: Marissa : Mischa -- but it does kind of make me feel anxiety on her behalf because she's normally such a standout.
Sorry, so Blorf is like, I'm the chair of the Community Outreach Committee, blah blah, we choose a local institution that does our community good, and this year it's the Ostroff Center. And that's fine, but you already know what's coming: "This semester, our choice is a very personal one, because the center has helped one of our own." Lily's like, "The fuck?" All the van der Woodsens stare at each other in mute blonde horror and disarray and begin to circle their tiny skinny blonde wagons in the corner of the yard. "It's because of their excellent program, which aids so many young addicts and alcoholics, that a student here with us today is clean and sober. At least for now. Can I please have Serena van der Woodsen join me onstage?" That last little twist of the knife is performed expertly; she practically sticks it in Fifth Position. "S and B's last stand, and only one gets out alive! Better run for cover." Gossip Girl's pretty much phoning it in this week, although I don't know how she could really raise the bar on herself after last week's rock-out session.
Lily shudders, like a full-body shudder, and begs the universe at large to tell her that this is not happening. Eric tells her it's not, and heads toward the podium, but Serena grabs him and shoves him back into their mom. "Stay right here, okay?" Lily continues to shake all over with the willies of fear and demands that Serena think about who's standing with them right now, which is everybody. Serena pushes off and floats across the crowd toward Blair. She's wearing a pretty Grecian-inspired dress that I'm told is from Vena Cava, but I can't find it in their spring collection, and a golden printed scarf in her hair, and she looks even more sleek than usual. Blair's wearing an old-lady suit with pearls in what seems to be the exact same color she was over last week, and a bright yellow Avonlea shirt, and as usual can make it work for no reason except that she's gorgeous. So when Serena gets up there, Blair's like, "Gotcha!" But whatever, Serena's got the stage now, so of course she's going to do some kind of Dan move where she...yep, here she goes.
"Hi, I'm Serena van der Woodsen. I just want to thank my friend, Blair Waldorf, for recognizing the Ostroff Center and all of the good things that they do. Thanks, Blair." Polite applause while every stares at the only Upper East-Sider to ever do drugs. "At the Center, one of the main things that we learn is forgiveness." Dan leans over, and instead of asking why Serena's being a chump right now, gets the 411 from Jenny about how it's Eric and not Serena that has the troubles. "I've learned about how, in order to move forward with our future, we must forgive those who have wronged us in the past. And we must, ourselves, ask for forgiveness from those whom we've wronged. Without this forgiveness, innocent people get hurt..." And Blair just snatches the mic and thanks her a billion times and tells her apologetic ass to get off the stage, because way to Dan it up, Serena. Gossip Girl's none too impressed either: "Honesty may be the best policy in some zip codes, but not in this one. And not this week, because 'I Was A Teenage Drug Addict' is not exactly a winning college essay." Good one, GG, except how it turns out it kind of is, depending which of the Ivy reps has experience with addiction in their own families, which is all of them.
Blair invites Dr. Ostroff onstage to explain this show's timeslot to the crowd, and Serena heads deep inside the venue without her feet even touching the ground. Lily's hilarious: "Why is Blair outing you for a drug problem that you don't have?" That kind of sums up the whole episode, doesn't it? "...You don't, do you?" Hee! Serena's like, "Moooom!" They talk more about trust and how none of them actually knows the other ones, and Lily strikes another Mama Bear stance, all, "What's happened to Eric has put a huge strain on our family, but we are still a family," and Serena's like, "Check out what I just did, I know that." Lily gets it; Serena runs off to "go end this with Blair," as though -- again -- that's possible. Serena! How did you live through childhood without burning your fingers off? "I'm just going to touch the stove one more time but this time I mean it."
She interrupts Blair's discussion with Yale with a very teenage-junkie "What the hell was that?!" Blair sweetly excuses herself, and once again Serena's like, "So, we good?" Only slightly rolling her eyes, Blair's like, "Again, no. Because nothing I do will ever be as bad as what you did to me." Serena -- who is really not making a good show of it tonight -- is like, "...Please? I'll stop if you will." Stop what? Caving? "You're just saying that because today you lost." Word. "And you're gonna keep losing." Seriously, Serena. I'm telling you this as a friend: Step. It. Up.
Chuck calls Nathaniel "Nate" and then Nate goes for a run with his dad, which is actually closer to how families are than the Humphreys, even with the child prostitution, and they laugh about how Chuck nailed the Princeton rep, Jenny, but where is she? I think she's imaginary. I think her number in Canada is 867-5309, that's what I think. I also think they need to explain why Nathaniel sleeps at Charles's house every night. Unless it's just because these kids go to awesome parties every five seconds, in which case, can I come live with Chuck too?
Nate Sr. springs the Dartmouth alum, Jed, on poor old hungover Nate when he shows up for their run, and Nate just about blorfs about this sudden yet inevitable betrayal, and then they run through the park, and the whole time Dad's like, "Nate is the captain of his lacrosse team, as well as being an all-star cross-country runner, but none of that 'crew' stuff. Spent the night at Chuck's again, did we? Don't answer that in front of Jed."
Jenny comes to spread some fuckin' Humphrey sunshine at the Ostroff Center, where Eric tells her that Lily's not going to throw a wobbler about the visit because "Saturday mornings are spent at Bliss," which isn't that just how teenage boys always talk, and then Jenny's like, "Shit, we're boring. Let's awkwardly exposit about your sister some more." So they do.
Blair finds Serena -- wearing a nutso hat for casting spells and staying a virgin forever while working in your magical purple garden -- sitting on a bench that doesn't actually exist here at the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, like in Angels In America, and in double-checking that I learned about Thoth, and do yourself a favor and Google Thoth, because this is where Serena's headed if she doesn't kick Dan loose, I am telling you. Whenever something's bothering Serena, Blair says, she can always find her hanging around where it smells like pee, here at the Bethesda Terrace. Both of them are super-awesome, acting-wise, in this scene. Blair busts out a letter she wrote last year and reads it to Serena with her throat getting tighter and tighter: "Dear Serena: My world is falling apart, and you're the only one who would understand. My father left my mother for a 31-year-old model. A male model. I feel like screaming because I don't have anyone to talk to. You're gone, my dad's gone, Nate's acting weird..." Her voice breaks, but it's also awesome because she looks up like, "And we both know why that was, so let's move on..."