So good! The law of Conservation of Awesome is in full effect as Nate and Chuck's absence and presumable canoodling on the coast make way for major Humphrey fun. S flakes out on B's annual slumber party to go on a "real date" with Dan, so B invites little Jenny Humphrey instead. Dan cashes in all his nickels and dimes to take Serena to a tony restaurant and freaks out in predictable ways, but manages to be totally charming while he's doing it. S pays for the dinner on the sly, but instead of wigging out like always happens on TV shows, he agrees to her logic and takes her to a dive bar instead, where they play pool and are adorable. Meanwhile, Lily has reneged on her plan to let Eric come home for the weekend, depressing him further. Blair's insane sleepover -- which starts at baseline with Kati and Isabel making out -- ramps up in a Truth Or Dare way, to the point where she's pretending hilariously to be a celebutante on serious drugs so that Jenny can smuggle Eric out of the Ostroff Center. Team Blair head to a club where Jenny more than proves her Mean Girl skills, causing the breakdown of a relationship with a simple phone call.
Lily hears about Eric's escape and thinks Serena's to blame, but because Serena forgot her phone, Lily and Rufus get to do the French Farce Tango yet again. Rufus sends S and Lonelyboy on yet another date-turned-rescue mission, and Lily shows up Chez Humphrey wigging out. They cook together in a really comfortable, romantic way, and she finally spills the beans about Eric's suicide attempt. Just as they're getting close, Lily accidentally answers the phone -- Rufus's estranged wife Alison -- but it's okay: earlier, Rufus got a strange man when he was calling her, so he's feeling no guilt about entertaining Alison's old rival. Dan and Serena locate Eric, Jenny, and the rest of Team Blair at the club, there are fisticuffs and craziness, but Dan lets Jenny go off with Blair so that he and Serena can take Eric back to Ostroff -- where Lily finally decides to check him out for good. Jenny gets punk'd and locked inside Eleanor's store but bullshits the cops impressively, showing back up at the sleepover and telling B she can stuff her stupid soiree, but they'll be having BFF coffee Monday morning. Blair, Gossip Girl, and yours truly all fall head-over-heels in love with Jenny Humphrey, and Dan and Serena finally kiss a whole lot. What a perfectly satisfying hour of television! WATCH THIS SHOW!
My my, doesn't Blair look effective today. She's wearing an intense battle pony and a black suit that is possibly bedazzled. There are cupcakes and all kinds of brightly-colored food, makeup, racks of clothes, and a boa on a mirror. I'm so confused, Gossip Girl! What's the story? "With Blair's boyfriend Nate helping to close up the family yacht for the season, Blair is free to focus on the most important event of the fall: her annual sleepover. A tradition since the year 2000, each one more decadent than the last, no expense or reputation is spared. With everything from trundle beds to truffles in place, all that's missing is sleepover star and Waldorf BFF Serena van der Woodsen..." Well, and rape star and recapper BFF Chuck, but I guess you covered that with your Nate euphemism. I'm sure Chuck's closing up his family yacht real nice. There's a full rack of clothes for each of the guests, but the best one is, of course, Serena's, because "Serena" here is metonymy and the real thing that is coming to the party is Blair's total dissatisfaction with life. Plus, even if you don't know what "metonymy" means, you can tell by the gorgeous, overjoyed smile on Blair's face that she is fucked.
Rufus is hanging stuff in his gallery when Dan comes by with a giant bag of change that he's going to Coinstar into romance, because Dan is many things but one of them is always "kinda sad." He offers to take the check from his mom's art therapy sale last week to the bank, and Rufus avoids the question so they can have a conversation about Dan's Ninja Turtle Donatello piggy bank. "How long can a man have a piggy bank and still call himself a man?" Dan asks, and as usual when he tries to get man info from his dad, it's not really rhetorical. He looks great, though, and that's what's important. "This is Serena van der Woodsen! I can't just take her to a movie, I want this to be perfect." Okay, I don't care if it's six pounds of krugerrands, you're not impressing me with a bag of change. Upgrade to a bank account, Humphreys.
Rufus hems and haws about the check, because the check desperately wants to be a symbol of how Dan's the only one who's figured out that Allison is never coming back, and Rufus can't handle it. Rufus wants to drive the check upstate to Hudson and hand it to her himself, which will obviously cause her to climb into his pants and their imaginary marriage will finally turn real again. But Dan's too nice to explain that, so he makes reference to some absurd Seinfeldian joke about Allison's thirtieth birthday, which involved a clown and his llama. No, it didn't. Dumb. Rufus is sufficiently swayed by his suspension of disbelief that this actually ever happened, and agrees to call her first.
Serena surprises little Jenny Humphrey in the hall at Constance Billard, all, "Hey, girlfriend! What's the haps? What's that 411, princess? What are the cool jams?" She tries to get the info about this mysterious coinage-inspired date but Jenny's not spilling. Looks like this is one Girl that isn't into Gossip today, XOXO. "Can you just give me a hint? Are we going to some secret club to see the best unsigned band in Brooklyn?" Nope. A) Because you already did that, and B) because I'm guessing Dan would inflict Sufjan Stevens on a sister before she even knew what was happening. "Or a guerrilla art exhibit in DUMBO?" No, because: Brooklyn. "Or hey, isn't the New York Film Festival still going on?" Yes, but no, because boys like Dan only talk about movies, they don't have the attention span to actually watch old movies, or they pick and watch one movie from every pretentious filmmaker in existence and pray for a reason to talk about it. But they don't take pretty girls to old movies, because if you're sitting in the dark, a pretty girl is just a girl, who is even more bored than you are. Jenny laughs at her, but Serena makes the valid point that in their world of constant opportunity and chances to embarrass oneself, you have to dress the part. "Well, I'd say jeans and a t-shirt's a safe bet. The Humphrey men do casual Friday every day." Who are these Humphrey Men? Show them to me. And secondly, Jenny, you forgot how Dan's even more of a wannabe than you are. Serena takes this at face value, and then her crazy suicidal brother calls from the booby hatch.
Eric and Jenny say hi via Serena, and he asks if Jenny's given S any details about the date with Lonelyboy, because he hasn't seen any posted on GG.net yet. "All packed?" Yes, he chatters on and on, and we realize that Lily's relaxed her hold on him enough to let him come home for the weekend. No suiciding, though. She's sticking by that one. "I don't think I even remember what a weekend is!" They talk about maybe running into each other, between Eric's homecoming and Serena's date, and because it's this show, that's how you know one or both of them is not happening. S rings off with Eric as she and Jenny approach the Blair Army; B grins wolfishly. In addition to Kati and Isabel, there are also two blonde bitches.
"What was that I heard? Eric's coming home? Perfect timing." S replies the worst way possible ("…?"), and you can see Blair willing her silently to remember the sleepover before she has to remind her: "Well...it gives your mother and brother time to bond...alone...tonight...while you get drunk on schnapps and moon the NYU dorms from the limo?" Serena has no idea. "S, it's only the most important night of the fall?" She finally remembers and feels like a jerk: "...Oh, the sleepover." B prefers the term "soiree," because "sleepover" is so sophomore year, which is to say last year. S begs off: "I have that plan?"
"Serena, when there's a Waldorf soiree, there's nothing else on the social calendar." Serena shakes her head but nothing is very tense, which I like: it's not the declared war of the last four episodes, just a conversation between friends. Albeit one that could spiral into murder and prostitution if somebody doesn't keep an eye on Blair. "Blair, the plan is Dan. Remember? The guy you realized is actually a human being and worthy of your time and attention?" She No Offense/None Takens with Jenny, whose personal jury is still out on Dan's worthiness because I think she's starting to realize that, Serena or not, Dan's social currency is not half of hers at this point. Serena explains, and not for the first time I think, that this date is unbreakable, which means that no matter how you put it, the soiree is not really on a fixed date, which means somebody's being a bijou little amount of dick here. "...Maybe we can swing by later or something?" Blair explains something very simple and, I've found, very useful: "I'm not a stop along the way. I'm a destination." If S doesn't attend, Blair snaps, she'll find a replacement on the waiting list. Which Kati and Isabel produce, of course, immediately. B and S say goodbye sweetly; Blair's disappointed but not in a homicidal way, because she finally trusts Serena again. I think that was my favorite part of this very excellent episode, the way Blair just waves her off and attends to the business at hand: finding a replacement. Jenny Humphreys around awkwardly for a sec, and then Blair realizes she has a way to cause even more chaos than if Serena had come to the party, and that clears up the last little bit of rain cloud over her head, because the only thing Blair loves more than Serena is destruction.
"...Little Jenny Humphrey! Why didn't I think of you before? You have no plans [obviously] -- you're coming to the soiree." Jenny does the who me? ankle-dip of modesty but her eyes are hungry. Kati and Isabel are similarly bewildered. "Thing is, if you come, you'll have to be up to a little more than just sleeping." Jenny says she's up for "anything," but if she's been reading Gossip Girl like she says she has, I'd think she would throw in some caveats. "I'm up for anything but drug smuggling." "I'm up for anything but stabbing cops." "I'm up for anything but surrogate pregnancy." They agree to meet at stately Waldorf Manor at seven, and there's, like, a thunderclap of doom. "Oh, a girl's first sleepover -- something she'll never forget. Let's make sure of it," growls Blair delightedly, and the blondes take bets on how long she lasts, and everybody laughs. Out in the bay, Chuck giggles and doesn't even know why, and Nate's like, "If you don't take this seriously I'm putting my clothes back on."
Ostroff Center, where Lily is backpedaling because she just realized her son has deep mental issues. Eric's point is that the doctor said he could go, they already discussed it, he's packed and everything, but Lily's point is that she is the mommy here. "I don't want to argue about this. I need time to think." She mentions the mountain of paperwork and stuff that they'll have to do to get him out, and Eric complains that she's going to keep him there forever. Lily's point is kind of valid: "If you still think I'm 'keeping you here,' that just proves how not ready you are to come home." She takes off, and Eric is very angry. I'm more concerned about Lily's outfit: a pale yellow linen jacket, giant snake bag, and a dark blue-green complicated satin old lady shirt where the sash around the top of the shirt is made of the shirt. It's all very Blair Waldorf.
Dan shows up at the Palace in a suit, of sorts, and it's a very nice brown suit and tie, but the shirt...oh, Dan. Imagine if you will that tigers came in paisley. Meanwhile Serena's wearing her usual: intrepid outdoorsman from the waist down, olde-timey princess from the waist up, and a scarf that is one inch wide and two kilometers long. Dan assumes that she's not dressed for their date, because in Dan's mind, a date is something that you apparently dress like a Miami stage magician to accomplish. She pretends she's running late and goes to "slip into something less comfortable." They replay their "conversation through the wide-open door" maneuver from last week so that Dan can ogle her changing bras. He makes with the crazy random Dan talk, and as usual, her ability to keep up with his crazy random Dan talk is why they are friends. He's like, "All hotel rooms look the same," and she's all, "Yeah, it's like a government experiment," and he goes, "Most government experiments don't have plasma TVs or maid services," blah blah cute cute. She takes off her bra and the music screeches to a halt because Lily's home. Finally.
"Dan. Does Serena know you're here?" He stares and feels like an adorably dirty old perv, which is what he is, and he's like, "She let me in, or some other tall blonde girl let me in, or whatever," and Lily is more amused and less hateful every time she runs into old Dan: "It makes jokes." Cute. He watches her put down her fifty shopping bags and she explains that, like her daughter, she shops when she's got stuff on her mind. "So where are you taking my daughter tonight?" Dan...well, here's Dan's response: "I don't know. I thought maybe we'd do a walking tour of New York underground, visit my friends the mole people. They're great, except they only ever eat leftovers." She smiles, daring him to get quirkier so she can call security. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I just said any of that. I have this thing, this nervous tic, where I never stop speaking, like, ever. In fact, when I was a little boy, my mom used to say there was never a word I met that I didn't like." Lily's just about done with him, and somehow he pulls it together beautifully: "You know what else I like? Your daughter. I really like your daughter." Lily considers whether to cut him a break or just, you know, cut him, but before he can get even more charming, Serena appears in a lovely black dress and his jaw drops. Lily gives Serena a small black purse instead of the giant brown purse Serena's carrying, and while changing cargo S asks where Eric is. "Oh, he was too tired to come home tonight," vagues Lily, and pulls an impressive array of tics and sidelong glances out of her repertoire to get S to shut up about Eric in front of Lonelyboy. Even though Eric is just another in a long list of Lily's secrets to which Dan is privy. S and Dan bounce; Lily tells her to be home by one: "Bonus points for 12:45."
On the street outside the Palace, Serena spots a grey Vespa and immediately goes apeshit. "Oh my God, a Vespa! I can't believe it! I love Vespas! Oh, my gosh. You don't understand, I spent one of my favorite summers riding all around Italy on one of these. How did you know? My mom won't let me learn to drive 'cause she says that's what drivers are for, but really, Dan, this is amazing. Really. Come on. Where are the helmets?" Wouldn't that be romantic? My friend Lauren swears that you see Dan on a Vespa at some point, but I never spotted it. Either way, this is not what she thinks it is, which is a romantic date. Dan doesn't have time for romance because he is very involved in class warfare, but I don't blame her: if anybody on this planet could be assumed to own a Vespa, it would be Dan Humphrey. A driver waves to them, and instead of shushing him and being like, "Yes, Serena, we are going on a romantic date," Dan full-steam-aheads back into his original horrible date plan. They climb into the town car and even Gossip Girl is like, "Both of these idiots, I tell you." Meanwhile, Chuck's like, "More champagne?" and Nate's all, "I don't care who paid for it, just pour."
Dorota welcomes Jenny to Chez Waldorf and takes her Hello Kitty sleeping bag and bunny rabbit slippers, hopefully to burn them. How come Jenny doesn't get to be all, "How long can a woman have a Hello Kitty sleeping bag and still call herself a woman," but I guess that's the secret title of this episode, really. Dorota shows Jenny into the room where all the madness is happening. Blair is wearing a dark blue negligee and of course looks completely fabulous. She heads for Jenny, adamantium at the ready, and Gossip Girl's like, "Oh, girl. Keep an up-to-date passport on your person at all times and do not walk away from your drink unless you want to wake up in a bathtub full of ice."
Poor old buggery bloody Dan. How could he possibly think this would fly? He's sitting in a five-star across from Serena, questioning the maître d' about the food, all, "How's the braised quail? How's the laypin?" Dudebro is so not feeling him either: "Lapin. And it's delightful." Of course, Dan doesn't know this very simple word that everybody knows, so he's taken aback at what it is, and instead he asks for chicken, whatever whatever. Serena's like, "Sorry about all that bullshit, give me the lobster bisque and Muscovy duck, please." (So later on she can yadda-yadda the whole date to Blair and be like, "No, I mentioned the bisque.") Dan half-assedly tries to Seth Cohen his way through the minefield of irony he's planted all around them, where he's like, "I'm pretending to have just been here the other day even though we both know I'm way out of my league, but by pointing out the wide disparity in our lifestyles and then hanging a brightly colored jewel upon it, thereby making it even more awkward, I somehow sidestep the question entirely." Instead of pointing out that he also could have sidestepped it by actually taking her out on a real date instead of a bougie unreal concept of dating out of some kind of Robert Redford movie, she listens to his funny, inane prattle for awhile ("Wanna play Mistress Or Second Wife? Because it's harder than it looks, believe me. So's her face!") and then goes to pay the bill herself, because this is sad and stupid. That'll end well. While she's gone, he cancels his order with the hateful help of the maître d', who is the total star of this entire scene. The duck was $78. That's a lot of Canadian pennies and quarters and Chuck E. Cheese tokens right there. Afraid his appetizer might contain less than the US Recommended Daily Allowance of maître d' saliva, he closes with a hasty merci, and dude starts hocking up a loogie before he even leaves the table.
Dress-up montage! Longtime staple of sleepovers, soirees, and TV Night Thursdays at Jacob's house. Jenny in a pink sack dress is pronounced "too Beyoncé," wrapped up in weird wool and scarves is "too Mary-Kate," and, in an outfit that can only be called "too Hannah Montana," is called "too Hannah Montana." Finally she comes out in a lovely yellow toga dress and looks great, even though it's obviously another Waldorf Original based on the complete lack of lines or discernible qualities. My favorite person on Project Runway every year is the Alexandra Vidal/Chloe Dao person that acts like Banana Republic is couture, yet on this show it drives me nuts. I don't know why. Blair loves it, surprising even herself with how much, but Jenny says she doesn't feel entirely comfortable in it. "Well, as my mother always says, 'Fashion knows not of comfort.' All that matters is the face you show the world, and your face looks like it's going to a bat mitzvah. But before we continue the renovation..." She stiffly walks to the bar and grabs a martini, offering it in a strangely robotic way, still smiling in a terrifying manner: "Martini." Jenny protests that she doesn't like vodka, and Blair seizes on this: "Oh, that's nice. Because this is gin, as it should be. It's a party, Jenny. Either swallow that or swipe your Metrocard back home. It's up to you." Everybody stares, because Blair is awesome, and Jenny finally giggles and sips. B smiles, satisfied for the moment, and decides it's time for Truth Or Date. "Oh, I love Truth Or Dare!" Jenny blurts stupidly. "Once I had to eat an entire bag of marshmallows!" Blair nearly vomits at the thought, but turns it into scary instead: "That's nice, little Humphrey, but that's not how we play." Jenny asks, of course, and Blair's only reply is a smile three times as terrifying as any she has heretofore unleashed, and then a quick cut to Kati and Isabel full-on making out. Jenny's jaw is on the floor, and B's got her arm across Jenny's shoulders, giggling wildly. "I think I'll go Truth," stutters Jenny, and B pretends to be disappointed.
Rufus is hanging out in the dark gallery, still not having called Allison. He finally sighs and dials it, and of course a dude answers. He hangs up, laughs at himself, and dials again, because obviously it wasn't Allison's number, but of course it was, so the guy answers again and Rufus finally asks for Allison. "Hold on a second, she just got out of the shower." The guy's name, we learn, is Alexander Bancroft. Of course it is. He stumbles around and finally tells Rufus he's "just a friend," but when Allison answers, Rufus hangs up. This is an adult, who in charge of his own business as well as the welfare of two children, doing this.
The vision of waiters clearing plates means a huge sigh of relief, because that means this awful portion of the date is over and we didn't even really have to see it. Serena asks if Dan wants some of her duck and bisque because his "entrée" was so small, and he just says it was amazing. Also revelatory: "I didn't realize, uh, fish could be creamed." Uncomfortable. Serena waves off the dessert menu, which Dan was planning on buying, but she's not having it, so he asks for the check. Which Serena finally has to admit she's already paid. Dan immediately goes to the obvious place ("You know, I can pay. It's not like I don't have the money") and Serena's like, "How do I say that we both know you don't?" but because she is awesome, she wants them both to get out alive: "I'm sure you do. You just shouldn't have to spend it here." Perfect answer. The solution to the Ski Trip Conundrum is realizing the difference between being aware of money and being hyperaware of money: Dan's still stuck in the trap of thinking money describes you, and Serena's still figuring out a way around that one, because she's never had to deal with it before. "I don't understand. Did I do something wrong?" And Serena explains herself in her usual awkward way: "No. Look, I wanted a date with you, just...not the date you thought I wanted. It's fine." And then Dan does something entirely surprising: he actually gets it. He takes the most sensible, awesome, romantic, believable approach, takes off his tie, and offers to take her out on a real date. Good boy!
"If it's a real Dan Humphrey date that you want, then it's a real Dan Humphrey date that you're gonna get. Let's go." Oh, man. I love that so much I think I want a Real Dan Humphrey Date. I love that this show took the easy way out, when usually this story (in real life, but especially TV) revolves around all kinds of weird masculinity issues and lots of fronting and bullshittery. I love, love that Dan would just, like, allow things to happen in a normal way. He's pretty awesome through the whole episode, actually, but this little reversal is really fun storytelling too. My friends make fun of me for loving this show because it's like being trained to be sympathetic to rich bitches, but the actual truth is this: Whatever the problem is, it's never money. Feeling sympathy for rich bitches like Serena is the exact same thing as feeling sympathy for poor bitches like Dan Humphrey, because the problem is never, ever money. That's your insecurities doing that. So: always have an up-to-date passport on your person, carry a gun when Chuck is around, and when bajillionaires invite you to dinner, let them pay for dinner and don't be weird. These are very important life lessons! Thank you, Gossip Girl!
Blair plays with the doorman's hat while one of the blondes is like, "Wasn't easy getting his whole uniform, but: done, and done." Jenny wonders what the doorman is now wearing, and B tells her not to worry about it, just keep drinking. Eric texts J with an adorable phone camera picture of him screaming: "SOS still in prison!" Blair, of course, answers and sees the message before Jenny. "Is that Eric van der Woodsen? I thought he went home for the weekend." Without taking her eyes off Jenny, she hands the phone back and tells Isabel to lead the group to Visconti for a meet-up in an hour. "Let's ramp this up, shall we? Truth or dare? And you already used your truth." Alone, Jenny's still a dipshit: "So...dare?" She dares Jenny to jailbreak Eric, and Jenny's like, "Blair." They are at an impasse. Gossip Girl is like, "Spotlight on Little J, now put to the test by one Queen B. Will J take the bait and turn from Brady to Britney, or will her goody-two-shoes mindset turn into the night's biggest buzzkill?" Fingers, toes, all things crossed. Jenny smiles her little smile and agrees. So excellent.
Eric's sitting glumly on the bed at the Ostroff Center when Jenny surprises him. "Your SOS was heard and answered. Come on, we're breaking you out." Eric has the presence of mind to wonder about the "we," because God knows Dan would never do anything this amazing: B, leaning and swaying at the intake station with lipstick smeared all over her face, hair wild and crazy, looking totally awesome and deranged. "Okay, I have a problem. I have a big problem. It starts with a capital Rx." The nurse, who is I believe a little amused by all this, asks which drugs. "Mmmmm. Caffeine, nicotine...ketamine...GHB, PCP, LSD, didridiazepam, lorazepam...all the -pams, really. You know, I don't discriminate." Nursie allows as how apparently she doesn't. She calls in a code yellow on B and goes to find a doctor, and B calls after her, "And I'd love a cappuccino!"
Blair grabs her purse and sneaks all Spy vs. Spy back through the door to grab the kids. Eric, of course, gets scared the second he sees Blair, loony makeup or not, because she's scary no matter what. She gestures vaguely at the horror of her insane getup, like, "I know, I look crazy." Then she smiles at him and levels: "I heard you were bored, and figured I owed you one." He grins hugely and says it's more like fifty she owes him, and she's like, "Right, whatever, let's go."
Zoom in on one of many purses that seem to be special guest stars this week, where Lily's sitting around the Palace room in her nighttime best. It's the Ostroff, calling to say about how Eric just flew over the cuckoo's nest. "He was with who? Young, blonde and beautiful? Yep, that's his sister." Not technically true, but given the chemistry between them, not to mention their eerily identical selves, not entirely untrue either. She sighs and calls Serena, but her phone's still in the original brown bag. "Ugh, of course," Lily grunts. I want to know what Lily does all the time, once the shops close down. I'm guessing after a bottle of Chardonnay she gets pretty awesomely weird. Like, I want to pan into the Palace suite some time and have her hair all ratted with a glass of wine in her hand and the other one pumping in the air all, "You said that I was naïve! And I thought that I was strong! I thought, 'Hey, I can leave! I can leave!' But now I know that I was wrong!" and then just hit the floor, completely naked with like ten strands of pearls and cat glasses. Because obviously that was their breakup song. Maybe when we flash back to Eric's suicide attempt it will be something like that. I certainly hope so.
Oh, a dive bar. People playing pool. Oh, look, beer. Remember when I said I would go on a date with Dan Humphrey? I was not exactly speaking truthfully. I was just trying to be nice. So Dan skins some rubes for the money for Serena's Muscovy duck and then hands it to her, which is kind of awesome, and then they front on each other about whether or not Serena's got game. She does not. We're playing with gender and class stereotypes here, not rewriting them. So he agrees to play her, thus allowing her to play my own personal ultimate trump card, which I call The Gosh, No, At Thirty Years Of Age I Have Never Played Pool But I'd Love For You To Teach Me. This is a platinum strategy for landing a dude, and while you may feel embarrassed doing it, as you should, just remember: guys are not terribly clever. They don't care if you're telling the truth, they just want to touch your ass. If you're comfortable with that, then pick up that cue stick the wrong way and get ready to act dumb. The only one that works better than this is How Many Innings Are There In This Baseball Game, but that's kind of Advanced Placement because people will more than likely call you out if you do it wrong, so choose your moment. Meanwhile, Nate's going, "Gosh, no, Chuck, I've never played Twister before. How does it work?"
Rufus Humphrey listens to the phone ring with Lisa Loeb on repeat, and finally answers: "This better not be my wife." Ha! "Rufus! Do you always answer the phone like that?" Double ha! He starts, like, smoothing down his hair and kicking the floor immediately, because he is gorgeous. "Listen, I need your son's cell phone number. It's an emergency." He asks if it's a "real emergency" or a "Lily emergency," but really it's both, because Lily van der Woodsen, you are holding your daughter's cell phone in your hand. You know who has Dan's phone number? The girl dating him, whose phone you are holding in your hand. She tells him Eric's missing, but then has to cover up her terrible secret that everybody except Rufus already knows, so she's like, "Missing! From...the...Palace Hotel!" Rufus points out that Dan and Serena are on a date, so leave them alone, but also if Eric is with Serena, which is Lily's belief, then they are having a whale of the time, so leave them alone. "I have a situation here," she says, desperate, and she has a right to be, and Rufus is just like, "A situation? Your son is with your daughter and my kid. I trust them, why don't you?" Which would also be valid, if Lily wasn't keeping secrets. She starts with that "RUFUS" shit and he hangs up on her, hilariously. Not only is it okay that Nate and Chuck are off on some gay adventure we'll never hear about, but the Lily-Rufus storyline is the best part of this episode. How double-weird.
B hauls a giant drink through the club, where Jenny and Eric are about to freak out from how awesome and cool it is. This dude follows her from the bar with suggestions to go fuck in the bathroom or coat check, and she spits, "Well, my answer is usually Never Say Never, but for you, I'll make an exception." Team Blair high fives about this, and dude's boyz are like whoa. Visconti throws a tiny party for Blair's bitchiness as she flops down on the couch between many adoring girls. "Who let the hedge fund mafia in here? I thought matchy-matchy was over." Jenny, inspired, points out that her Dare is complete, and asks B for her choice: "Truth or dare." Blair, high on her own propaganda, is like, "You have to ask?" Little J Dares her to make out with Hedge Fund Mafia guy, "and mean it," and she heads over to the guy, taps him on the shoulder, and takes him down. The entire bar starts cheering for her crazy awesomeness, and when he breaks the clinch, he's like, "I hope Amanda never finds out!" Who? His girlfriend, of course. "Amanda never has to know, does she?" says Blair, and he gets very toothy.
Back at the Team Blair table, she awesomely produces his phone, and dares Jenny to call Amanda and fuck everybody up for fun. "Done and done. Hello? Amanda? Hi. This is Bl-- Claire. Yeah, I just had my tongue down your boyfriend's throat, and he neglected to tell me you existed until after it was over. Just thought you should know. He's a real catch." Blair loves Jenny so much it's amazing; everybody toasts her. "Sleepover of the year!" Blair giggles and has fun and everybody's enjoying themselves, so of course Gossip Girl has to tell us what we just saw, about how Jenny's Mean Girl career just started right in front of us.
More billiards and bavardage at the Dirty Sailor with S and Lonelyboy, all this Sethy nonsense about how "there aren't enough words to describe the kind of bad" Serena is, et cetera. She finally plays the "teach me to play pool" card, and he's totally game. You can imagine the visuals, so here's Dan's dialogue: "All right, come here. Now you have to remember, in pool, it's all about -- take this stick -- remember, it's all about the angles.... Bring your hand back here... Be slow and just follow through..." And just as things are getting hot, the song Serena played on the jukebox starts playing. They talk about how Dan didn't know she liked this kind of music, which I don't recognize so I can't say, except I like that Serena and Dan like some of the same music. They get kissy, but then Dan's phone rings before they connect: "There's something vibrating in your pocket, and I really hope it's your phone." Droll. Dan notes that Rufus wouldn't call unless it was important, because everybody has to work around Dan's Serena obsession all the time, and hangs up promising to solve the problem. Serena is adorable: "No! No no no change of plans! I like this plan of you teaching me the angles! Remember? Cute girl with total lack of pool skills? ...What could it possibly be that's more important than this right here? Can't it wait till tomorrow?" Um, no, because crazy Eric has flown the coop.
Lily comes busting into Rufus's house and without stopping is like, "So I made some calls, but as it turns out, none of my people know your people. Shocking, but true. Either Dan Humphrey is an alias, or your son is not very popular. Regardless, I need that number." Rufus grins because Lily is awesome, but quickly apologizes because Lily is scary. "I called Dan." She calms down and thanks him, but Rufus admits that Eric's not with Serena. Lily wigs a little, but he says that Serena was able to get Eric on the phone, and they're going to get together with him and all. "Yeah, and you didn't think to call and tell me all of this?" Rufus is amused by her freaking out, and tells her he was about to, then offers to let her wait at his house. Which was the whole point from moment one, for both of them. She sits. "Fine. And I'll pass on a glass of that non-premium liquor that you're drinking, but I will take something to eat. Thank you for offering." He is, of course, flabbergasted, but she tells him to get in that kitchen and start cookin' for Mama, so of course he does.
Serena and Dan stare about Visconti and Amanda shows up, shoving Serena all, "Are you Claire?" And Serena's great: "What? No?" She shrugs it off and they head down to the bar, where Amanda is going apeshit on Hedge Fund Mafia guy. He realizes somebody ran off with his phone, and gets really aggro with Blair, so Dan arrives just in time to jump in the middle of it. Blair is not really amused, preferring to take the guy down herself: "Your phone is at our table. If you weren't so drunk and drooling over every girl in this place, you would've seen that." She gives Amanda a similar takedown, and S tries to get between them, but B's not feeling that either. Little Jenny Humphrey pipes up and cops to calling Amanda, horrifying Dan, and everybody talks over everybody else, about the sleepover and all that, and Blair admits she's the one that made out with the guy, on a dare. "A dare? What are you, children?" Dan points out that actually, yes, because Jenny's all of fourteen, and there's more yelling. Jenny tells him, correctly, that he's just making the situation worse, and he refers to her yellow dress as a "cocktail napkin," and then there are more fisticuffs, and Dan is ejected from the club. Meanwhile, Eric strolls up all, "See, Serena? Everything's fine!" She grabs him and heads outside as well, and Gossip Girl smirks about Dan's hero complex while Blair just sighs and takes another drink.
Lily and Rufus cook together, awesomely, handing plates and bottles back and forth in a complex choreography that sells their chemistry and history in a way that five episodes of awkward exposition never did. They chat about Lily's control issues, and how Rufus never complained about her bossiness because it was not allowed under said bossiness, and Rufus says that he thinks kids just want to have their boundaries made clear to them. Lily agrees that Serena is clearly looking for a relationship, but she's at a loss with Eric. "You're awfully concerned about a 14-year-old boy breaking curfew," Rufus says, and Lily finally admits that it's not Lily's curfew he's breaking, but that of the Ostroff Center. "Is it drugs? Drinking?" He gets really intent on her face now, and she's like, "No, he's a good kid. Just lonely." He asks if Eric's depression is really bad, and she even spills about the suicide attempt. Rufus is quietly devastated by this info. "No, I don't know why. I don't know what I did, or didn't do, but I just don't know what to do to...make sure it doesn't happen again." I never really thought Lily was being a bitch about it, because this is very serious business, but of course this is a very important scene to have because you never really heard Lily's side of this, and it's a very scary side. Not to mention that suicide is constantly being tossed around on TV and everywhere so you forget what a BFD it actually is, or what it does to everybody around the person, and they've not really been selling that part until now. Of course, making this point now means we get to be worried about Eric's inevitable freak-out coming down the pike, too. "All you can do is be there for them," Rufus piths, and then the phone rings. "Oh, I hope that's Dan or Serena," Lily says, and of course it's Dan. "He's with Dan and Serena, and everyone's fine." Lily immediately makes for the door, but Rufus stalls for just the second necessary for her to chill out and realize she's got a good thing going here. "This isn't gonna travel well. Why don't I just stay here and I can eat it quickly? It would be a shame to let it go to waste." Aww. You know what is awesomer than sexy Lily and sexy Rufus having sexy French farce run-ins? Lily getting to have a friend.
Serena jumps up Eric's ass down on the street, but Blair's like, "He was bored. He needed fun." Serena points out that "fun" in this case meant taking tweens to the bar, but Blair's like, "I thought you'd be happy!" Serena is just appalled and turns into her mom, such that even Eric is like, "I wasn't kidnapped, Serena, I left of my own free will. Blair was trying to do me a favor." Blair is vindicated, but S is still not impressed. He tells her it was worth getting in trouble, just to be out after dark and talk to somebody that's not Lily or Serena. "Even if it is Blair." (Inevitable but hilarious No Offense/None Taken with Blair, who is loving every second of it. I want Blair and Eric to hang out every single night, they are awesome together.) Serena softens and apologizes that this was his only option. "We'll work on Mom," she promises. Just like every episode. "...And since she knows you're okay, I guess there's no real reason to rush. How about we walk?" Blair almost barfs at the thought and heads back in: "Call me!" S says she will, but B and Eric grin hugely: "I was talking to Eric." Love how the parallel structure is like, "Family freak-out! Family freak-out! ...Fuck it, let's have dinner."
Dan gets in Jenny's face about how "this is not who you are," and instead of shooting him in the face, she accuses him of trying to parent. Wish somebody would. He's like, "We are not doing this right now, let's go." Um, no. None of this finger-snapping BS when you don't even know the situation, I don't care if she's in kindergarten. She explains to him in very small words that she is not going home, she is going to continue her night. She assures the others that she's coming, and apologizes that things got "out of hand," which actually they really didn't, but explains that she's fully aware of the scariness of Team Blair, but also, she's well-acquainted with Team Jenny, of which she is a charter member, and she can handle herself and not go crazy just by hanging out with them. This is a tall order but you're allowed to try, I think. "Look, I'll be tucked in bed in a half hour. I promise." Dan: "Family freak-out! Family freak-out! ...Fuck it." Jenny leaves and he offers to walk Eric back to the Center with Serena. Meanwhile, Chuck is tucking Nate into bed, and they are both dressed like firemen for some reason.
And just when you think this very satisfying episode has it all wrapped up, complete with a little memo about how you can fuck with the eagles as long as you remember to land a couple times a week and at least rehydrate, Gossip Girl's like, "Bitches, we got two more acts!" Yes! I love it when there's bonus show on this show! Gossip Girl tosses up the suggestion that Little Jenny, by successfully negotiating Operation Apeshit Amanda and Operation Shut Up Dan, has shown up Miss Blair herself, which is why the game of Truth Or Dare just went extreme. Blair pressures her into the Waldorf Boutique to steal a jacket off a mannequin, knowing that, key or not, she's got about twenty seconds before the alarms go off. By which time Blair and the girls have disappeared, of course, and Jenny's locked inside. She does the totally cute ankle-dip of "oh, hell," and there's another commercial break, during which we get the scenes from week: "They can hide behind their masks...but they can't hide their true desires." At a masquerade ball, N's true desires seem to involve S, duh, and B's true desires seem to include going completely nuts. Also duh. I'm guessing my true desires will include about sixteen jokes about David Bowie's codpiece, but we'll see.
Rufus cleans up after Lily's dinner, and she starts talking about a photograph of him from the old Lincoln Hawk days. "What? You took that photo? You weren't even at that show!" Because obviously Lily's secret bohemian side includes a genius for photography, because that way she wouldn't get her hands dirty. I love it. "Excuse me, if I remember, the first song was about me, the second one was about your motorcycle, and then there was the one about that surf town." They discuss the surf town dreamily, including "the villa" where they..."yes indeed." Hopefully not applying a segue, Lily's like, "God, I must have taken eight rolls of film that night." They discuss the photography and the terrible choice Lily has made between her art and her hobby of picking up rich husbands, and she mentions the black dress she was wearing that night, and he corrects her, just like she wanted him to. I love these guys! More phone ringing interrupting more sexy times at Chez Humphrey, so Lily heads over to answer it (Rufus: "...And if it's my son, be nice to him") but it's Allison. Lily's eyes bug out of her head, and Allison hangs up on Rufus, who tells Lily not to worry about it even a little bit, because of Alexander Bancroft, who's the cherry on top of the free-pass sundae Rufus is about to devour. Lily vanishes after a sweet goodbye: "Thanks for babysitting me, and thank you for being such a good friend." Aww. They take a long time to get that door open and shut again, too.
The cops demand ID from Jenny, but of course she's fourteen so she has none. They press a bit harder, and finally she explodes with lies! "My name is Blair Waldorf. This is my mother's shop, her name is Eleanor. I left my jacket here earlier, I mean... Which irritates my mother to no end, and I completely forgot about the alarm..." She tells them they can't call to confirm this, because Mom's in Paris until Thursday, but turns the cute up full force: "It's six hours ahead, if you want to call! She's gonna be so angry..." The cops suggest that perhaps they cannot abandon a fourteen-year-old girl to her own devices with no way to validate her story, but she offers to close up the shop in front of them, with her set of keys. The cops are befuddled! Team Jenny!
Dan and Serena walk back downtown discussing how ironically depressing the Ostroff Center is, and how much they love their younger siblings, and S decides to finally lay some truth on Lonelyboy. "Worry looks cute on you. But look, I've seen Jenny in action, and my hunch is she doesn't let herself get pushed into anything she doesn't want to do." Dan has his doubts that Jenny's actual idea of a great Friday night is "painting her face full of makeup and stumbling out to a hip bar in high heels and hanging out with a bunch of drunk Wall Streeters who don't even care if she has a name." S is like, "Not the point, and not her idea. But it's okay for her to want to be friends with the people she goes to school with." Dan, adorably: "Why? I'm not." Which is like the point of this entire show: "Yeah, and if you made half the effort she did, maybe we would've met a long time ago." Point. "Then so maybe you would've kissed me already." Aww! So perfect! I love it. Of course, Dan has to spin some retarded metaphor about how they've finally found "common ground" by standing basically in the gutter, with no five-stars or town cars or dirty pool halls or bad '80s music, as though as long as they don't go anywhere or do anything or look at anybody but each other they'll be fine, which is okay but not really optimal, given that honestly the only weirdness in this world is the weirdness that you mix up with your own special recipe, and nobody ever really gets to be safe in that kind of secret Nowheresville for the rest of their lives, but eventually he kisses her. Eventually.
Rufus, hilariously, sits in Chez Humphrey brooding in the dark and listening to old Lincoln Hawk CDs, but: at this point shouldn't he be brooding about Allison? It would be awesome if actually the cause of the Lily/Allison split was Rufus, dogging them, and the song were actually about Allison the whole time, because Lily will go crazy about that, but I don't know. Don't read too much into it. Maybe he's just feeling nostalgic and not actually brooding. Whatever brings the Lily and Rufus scenes, man. And I hope Allison shows up soon too, just because.
Lily sits on Eric's bed, smiling sweetly. He apologizes, and she tells him she's springing him tonight. "I'm not sure exactly how this is gonna work," she says, but I like that we're moving on with this plot and I hope Eric gets to go back to school soon. I hope they get a house soon too, although all three van der Woodsens in a single Palace suite is pretty funny to think about. Especially in the morning. All that hair. He jumps up and grabs his stuff, and she smiles, but she's obviously terrified.
Jenny comes off the elevator looking totally beautiful, and Blair rouses, smiling at her. Jenny tosses her the keys and Blair grins appraisingly: "Well, well. Looks like you came to play after all." She pats the trundle bed to her own: "Sleep tight, you've earned it." Jenny thanks her for the invitation, but says she's going home. "It was a blast!" B's affronted; nobody ever leaves a sleepover. "Well, I guess there's firsts for everything. Oh, and I'm keeping the jacket, if that's okay with you." Blair's eyebrows almost knock a hole in the ceiling, but Jenny's not even done: "Monday? Lunch on the steps?" Blair wows and laughs at her, and agrees, and Jenny takes off. Blair falls completely in love with Jenny Humphrey. That was awesome. The camera follows Jenny into the elevator, where she turns around in slo-mo and smiles to herself, almost as scary as Blair for a sec. Gossip Girl gushes: "It was a debut the likes of which haven't been seen since Blair herself." Oh! Love it! I don't love the diva/bitchy/fabulous thing on the merits, like, I don't really get why that's a thing in itself, because it all seems very creepy-mean mommy-anima possession to me. Just because lots of people have a scary mean lady inside them telling them they are worthless does not mean you should ever let that lady out, or that you can think she's the end of the story. But I do love bad-assery, of all kinds, and I think this show does a good job of walking the line.
Gossip Girl takes us back to S and Lonelyboy kissing in the street, very romantic, for a billion years: "If Blair's gotta watch her back, Serena needs to keep an eye on her heart. We hear it may have been stolen by Lonelyboy. Putting out an APB, Gossip Girl." What a simply perfect episode! I've been rating this show so high already, so there's not really anywhere to go, but that was just a very well-constructed episode of television. Nice. Anyway, XOXO. See you week.