On the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Blair gives herself the gift of a very effed-up relationship with God, a Chuck-free existence, and -- with God's assistance -- reconciliation with Nate. None of them actually works out, but trust me, it's for the best. God ends up hating Blair just as much as we might expect, Chuck lands the Waldorf for a second night in a row. Little Jenny Humphrey takes a page from the urpy book of Vanessa Abrams, dragging Allison home from Hudson to reconsummate her unholy union with Rufus. Nate goes for a walk with Little J rather than attending Blair's birthday party -- evidence of which is emailed to Blair from Gossip Girl as a bitchy early b-day present -- then home, to tell his parents to eat a bag of dicks. Chuck sweeps in at the last second with a ridiculous necklace for Blair, and some awesome protestations of love and more of that killer romance. Also awesome? His identical protestations of love to good old Nate, even as he's snaking Blair out from under him for the long haul. Meanwhile, Actual Vanessa invites herself to the birthday party and gets her ass kicked by Serena on Guitar Hero, but they reconcile after Serena blows her mind with the degree of her love for Blair. Serena catches Blair and Chuck going at it, but is discrete, for now. Grossly, she also lowers herself to be friends with Vanessa, but don't worry: friendship isn't really the most stable currency in the UES.
P.S. See you November 28 I know, right?
XOXO.
"According to the Catholic Church, mortal sin can only be absolved through the sacred act of confession, but it looks like a certain WASP princess has recently found herself desperately in need of a little unburdening. And who's the man upstairs to discriminate?" Blair sits in a confession booth wearing all-black, including a veil, because this is the funeral for her virtue. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been...a while...since my last confession." I've always wondered whether it was really like this. Church seems so classy, but I don't know. I don't think I have the balls to get full-on Catholic. The priest asks what's troubling her, and lest you think we're in for the full list, which would take at least an hour, she cuts to the brilliant chase: "After being broken up with my boyfriend for exactly 20 minutes, I: succumbed to inebriation, performed at a speakeasy, and surrendered my virtue to a self-absorbed ass. The only good news is that he's a total pig who will act like it never happened, thank God. Um, sorry. Truthfully, I'm not even Catholic." He's like, "You're kidding."
B takes this as a cue to whine more. "But...losing my virginity to Chuck Bass? None of my friends will ever understand." She puts on her resolved face. "I'm ready for my punishment. Whatever you and God think is fair. Flogging, fasting, putting that thing with the teeth around my thigh, like Silas..." Hee! That reminds me of Hex, the second-greatest show ever made besides this one. Also, I didn't see The DaVinci Code, because I'm pretentious. I don't even own a TV. "How about some food for thought instead? Don't drink, keep your clothes on, try avoiding those who might cause you to stray." That's good advice. Also, carry a gun when Chuck Bass is around, and this stuff won't happen. She's like, "Word. And thank you, Father, for the very good advice." Regrettably, she then asks if he grants birthday wishes, and even the priest thinks that's adorable. Clearly the priest understands Blair Waldorf. "I'm a priest, not a genie." Well, that's fine with Blair, but anyway, just in case he runs into God, could He get Nate to come back? God's like, "No. But I do wish Chuck and Nate could get married. Gay people are awesome."
Dan and Serena, still on their Public Affection Tour of the Five Boroughs, make out in some charming little bistro instead of eating or acting like anything other than heathens. The waitresses are grossed out, and I am so, so ready to agree with them, until one of them turns out to be Vanessa Abrams, and now I wish they would get raw-ass naked and do it right there on the table, just to freak her out. Dan spots her and says, half into Serena's lovely mouth, "Mmrnessa!" Serena, awesomely, is like, "No. Dan. I'm Serena." She doesn't even bat an eye, she's just like, "Again with this?" He shivers and motions to Vanessa, who comes over to take their order and calls them "lovebirds." Everything that comes out of her mouth, that's the most annoying thing I've ever heard at that moment. She tells Dan that she actually already did tell him she was working at this charming little bistro, but that he wasn't listening, because she's boring and untrustworthy. If I were reading too much into things this week, I'd wonder if maybe that fact lodged itself somewhere in his unconscious and that he's doing this on purpose, but I can't be bothered. I do know that anybody who is actually in love does not fall into this many problems and weirdnesses and inabilities to actually have sex, though, because they're too busy being in love and having sex to wind up in hijinks so regularly, but maybe that's the show doing that.
S is polite, although she does advance her own little power game by pointing out that now, unlike the last time they saw each other, Serena has her clothes on. This activates all of Vanessa's gross territorial stuff, understandably, and she neatly turns the tables on Serena by climbing up on the elephant and riding it wildly around the charming little bistro. "Sorry about that. Walking in when you were, you know... Ssssooooo, you guys are up early. What'd you do last night? Oh, my God, I totally didn't mean to pry." Serena's like, "Bwuh?" And then Dan hands Vanessa her trophy for the conversation by saying, in unison with her, "No reason!" So Serena has kind of Vanessa'd herself at this time, by trying to be like, "I mugged down with our boyfriend and you saw it happen," and got what she paid for, which is Dan and Vanessa both going, "Dan already told Vanessa everything, stupid." So then she grinds it -- the elephant -- into the ground with her heel, all like, "I know nothing! But if you guys did the thing I know nothing about, then I would totally support that." Which is both creepy and fairly awesome, in terms of the Blair amounts of awkwardness she just heaped into their bed like so much kitty litter.
Then, Dan hands it over again, proving that he's more invested in Vanessa's mayhem and shit-stirring than he can admit: "Good to know, in the event that should happen." Meaning, "Don't worry, I'm still a virgin, and I still want you two gorgeous women to fight over me." Vanessa is thrown for a loop by this but remembers to be all, "FUCKING AWESOME, not that I know what we're talking about." Serena's like, "I'm totally lost, but I think you're both assholes," and Vanessa's like, "Speaking of lost, I should get lost." Word. She goes off to her many other customers, of which there are zero, and Dan pretends that he and Serena are totally in this together, all wry and cute: "So...Vanessa works here now." Serena tries to be sweet about it, like, "Then we should eat breakfast and each other's faces here every day, because that would be horrible," and Dan's like, "Horrible? Or my every grotesque fantasy suddenly sprung to life?" So the votes are in, and whether or not he knows he's doing it, Dan totally set all this shit up. It's nice when the coincidences stop being coincidences and start being real.
Sigh, I'm bored. What's Blair up to? Why, walking out of church with a lovely, kinda scary grin, taking off her widow's veil and putting on giant Audrey sunglasses, because she is a girl who budgets her time well. The camera takes its time enjoying Blair's awesomeness as she sets out into the city. "Absolution for my sins? Check. Now it's off to Bergdorf for some serious shopping. Somewhere there's a fat salesgirl who's this close to suicide, and I'm in the mood for flicking." Chuck's ever-present limo slides up beside her, because he's like Batman, if Batman kept trying to make you do anal, and he's like, "Church? Did your skin burn? My skin would burn." She tells him how God just told her to stay away from his sexy self, and he tries a play from the Dan & Serena Yuckiness Cookbook, all, "Would you 'avoid' me over breakfast?" No, because Blair has a tradition for every single day in the whole 365.25 days of the year. Today is the day before her birthday, known to Goethe and the pagans as Waldorfisnacht, and she's spending it in the most Blaired-out fashion possible: by going to every store in the city and telling them what she wants for her birthday, like a wedding or baby registry, so that Eleanor and Nate and her gay dad can follow her instructions to the letter.
Chuck's like, "Except that Nate is or will soon be hating you," and Blair informs him that their sex is invisible and never happened, "so I can fix this," not to mention that Chuck loves Nate as much or more than she does, which is why he's going to follow her lead on this. Chuck continues to mess with her, all talking about how he keeps replaying her "purring in his ear" and things of this nature, and then invites himself to Waldorfisnacht. She's like, "You're officially uninvited." He points out that, as a card-carrying rapist, No is not for him the same word that we know as No. "Speak of the devil, and he doth appear, wearing his trademark scarf. Careful, B. Hell hath no fury like a Chuck Bass scorned." But what's awesome is that Chuck is going to do the right thing, from now until the end of the episode, and it will look evil and scorned, but really he's just getting everybody out alive, including himself. In the most Chuck Bass way possible, granted, but still: A for effort.
Little Jenny Humphrey comes home from Hudson, and Rufus -- because time and space don't really exist for these kids like they do for us -- is sitting around having breakfast or brunch or dinner or a late-night snack. He's like, "Your mom must have been surprised to see you showing up randomly on her doorstep like some kind of bossy Vanessa Abrams," and Alison jumps out of the shadows like, "Yes, but not as surprised as you are, now that I have appeared!" There is much staring, and then Jenny -- for the third time, note -- quotes Vanessa almost verbatim about "getting people in the same room for the purpose of being balls-out honest," and it's still sad, and still kind of annoying. She does go on to make some good points in private to Rufus, though, about how it's not, in this case, strictly a relationship between the two adults that is at issue, because Rufus and Alison's inability to get it together also impacts Jenny and Dan. Which is valid, not that any parent on this show has ever, ever cared about that. He agrees with this, and promises his daughter that he's not mad about it. Rufus calls Alison, obliquely, a whore, by pointing out that once he's committed to something, he sticks with it. Unless it has to do with Lily, and then he acts like his son Dan, in a breathtakingly sexy and sweet manner. Alison blows this off, just like Jenny or Serena would, and makes waffles, because in Williamsburg, what they eat is waffles, all the time, at every meal.
Blair comes home from the jeweler's, full of tales to tell, but Eleanor's like, "Dude, did you know that Captain Archibald totally wigged out at our house last night and they took him away and how he's in jail for embezzlement and drunk and disorderly and cocaine and hitting Nate's strangely beautiful face?" Blair's like, "That is totally awful," and Eleanor's like, "I know, right? My IPO is fucked!" And then they have parallel conversations that don't really intersect, like in the Humphrey household, where they both agree that this is a terrible turn of events, but for separate reasons, because Eleanor is screwed on a business level, whereas Blair is mostly sad for poor Nate, and then they run off in opposite directions to try to get control of fate. Eleanor heads for her lawyer, and Blair looks at Nate's worried self in the newspaper that Eleanor just flung at her head, and wonders if she can somehow use this to make him love her again, but also that he needs a hug, because it is exhausting to be Nate Archibald.
Which even his mom Anne understands, because the whole time Nate is being awesome with the lawyer and trying to work out a plea, his parents are being douchebags, where the Captain is strictly maintaining his imaginary innocence, Anne is whining and trying to be everybody's mommy, and the lawyer's like, "Kid, you are the only person in this room who seems to be slightly on the same page as reality." The Captain wigs at Nate's calm and level-headed read on the situation, which causes Anne to wig out at the fact that her husband is kind of a dick, so as usual she turns her intensity onto the floor -- a trait she has passed on to her son, by the way -- and then onto Nate, telling him to go take a nap. Her husband is literally clawing the drapes and she's like, "Nate, stop standing there making rational judgments, it's causing your father to be even more of an asshole and Mommy has a headache." And he's like, "It is very exhausting to be Nate Archibald, mostly because the two of you are the biggest Froot Loops of all time." And I'm so sure after he leaves to go take his nap, the Captain and Anne are like, "Can we sell Nate on the black market? He's pretty sexy. I bet he's worth a million dollars. ...No? How about his organs?"
Dan comes in to find his family, including his stupid mom, eating the eternal waffles of Williamsburg. He points out that this is fucked up, but Rufus doesn't want to talk about the weirdness and Alison's love affair with Alexander Bancroft, because he thinks Jenny doesn't know about that part, because he doesn't understand that Vanessa is a virus that has already taken hold of Jenny and has made her start skulking and listening at doors like a creep. Jenny's like, "Are we talking about Mom's affair?" and everybody stares at her and then freaks out on everybody else, and it's hilarious. Blair would be so proud to see Jenny sitting calmly eating waffles in the middle of all this chaos. Well, except for the "eating" part. Dan points out that they live in a loft, without any walls in it, and if they're going to be sneaky, they should get an actual apartment instead of a loft, which is a place where two people at most should live, and then he takes off to scream Nate's name into his pillow for awhile. Alison stands up to caretake him in some undefined manner, and Rufus is like, "It's best to give him a while," and Alison is chastened. Which is kind of awkward in a writing way, because she's only been gone a few months (she left for the summer, it's now November) so it's not like Dan suddenly got all these new personality traits in that time. He's barely got a personality of any kind, beyond "generic Brooklyn hipster with sex issues," which is to say, "Brooklyn hipster."
Blair and Serena do girl stuff and Blair continues explaining to Serena how relationships work, which is always sad but especially now, because she's technically broken up with Nate, but is keeping it a secret until she can fix it. So the whole stance she takes of having a healthy relationship, always sad, is now twice as sad because even B knows it's a lie. Blair is like, "I can't believe he told Vanessa about the sex plan," and Serena points out that he told his BFF, same as Serena did, and B's like, "Except I'm a girl." And anyway, she continues, "When you get a boyfriend, you become the best friend, and the best friend becomes the second best friend. That's just how it has to be if it's ever gonna work." Which is good advice, but the second layer on that is: Blair just explained the first half of this season to you using vastly fewer words than I did, and it's really sweet. She's just totally saying, "Here's what I have figured out. Yes, I told everybody you were a crack whore, and yes, I tried to break your leg in field hockey and get you thrown out of school multiple times. And yes, I did uninvite you from all kinds of shit, and blackballed you, and tried to ruin Dan's sister's life in several ways as tangential attacks on you. Yes, I did spring your little brother from a mental institution and take him out for drinks. However, at the end of the day, I finally realized that boyfriends sometimes take precedence, or else there's trouble." I wish she got credit for figuring this out and then saying it like it's common knowledge. She's such a doll.
Serena, bored of hearing about how her relationship can do better when the actual true answer is obviously "destroy Vanessa utterly," turns the talk to Nate, because Blair is a caring girlfriend and obviously will enjoy talking about herself, even if it's via talking about Nate. Of course, Blair and God are working on it, but now's a bad time to talk about Nate, so she's noncommittally devoted to him in a vague way. Serena detects the wan melancholy behind Blair's kind of rote worrying about him and lie about telling him he doesn't even have to come to Waldorfisnacht, and it's the unspoken freak-out inside the lies that causes Serena to give her a big old hug. Which almost kills Blair, of course, but they make arrangements to attend the party together, and Nate can do whatever he's going to do. Blair makes this face like, "You have no idea how awesome that plan is," because if Serena's around, other people don't so much matter.
Nate Is The Marissa, Part XII. Nate lies on a divan, looking divine and listening to his iPod, when Anne comes into the room and delivers a monologue about how she has been calling him for twenty minutes and he didn't respond, but it's at half-volume, because we are hearing the music inside the iPod, not the talking outside the iPod, which makes it much better than before. Anne Archibald, I served with Julie Cooper. I knew Julie Cooper, Julie Cooper was a friend of mine. And Anne Archibald, you're no Julie Cooper. Plus, like, if Nate's going to go off on a furniture-tossing bender, he really ought to be wearing a bathing suit. It's only fair, right? They talk about Waldorfisnacht and how he needs to go to the jeweler's to pick up her chosen gift. It's funny that she only did that today, actually: wouldn't you think Blair would have done this back in September? Well, no, because it has to be the latest and in-season and whatever, so I guess it's smart to do it close to the deadline. Anyway, Anne has a much more vintage idea than the latest thing: that stupid goddamn engagement ring. Nate is like, "My sexuality is still very muddled, and I am seventeen years old, and we broke up, and I barely know where I am or what day it is, so no, I'm not giving her that stupid goddamn engagement ring." Anne is all, "I'm not asking you to propose marriage, silly, I'm just asking you to give her an engagement ring and start planning your marriage!" He's like, "I don't see the distinction," and Anne tells him there totally is one, even though she can't explain it. He's like, "Does this have to do with how you and Dad are constantly selling me out and making me your boy whore so that Eleanor will not pull out of the Bendel's deal?" And Anne is like, "I'm not asking you to be a whore, silly, I'm just asking you to have sex with Blair Waldorf for money!" Actually, what she says is awesome: "One day we'll all be family, and they won't have a choice in these matters!" She tells him to get back together with Blair posthaste and put that ring on her finger, and reminds him of the total lie that this is all his fault, due to his unspecified "rash actions," and Nate's like, "No, actually it's because Dad is a cokehead." Anne, of course, stares at the floor and levels: "Your dad is freaking out, and you need to do this." Nate stares at the same patch of floor, and Gossip Girl is loving it: "Whoever thought monarchy was dead didn't realize it just changed zip codes. So what will it be, Nate? Blair Waldorf's hand? Or your father's head?" I don't see why these things are mutually exclusive.
Nate's walking through the city on the phone with Blair after previously ignoring her Worried Girlfriend Text Messages. He nearly barfs as he floats the idea that maybe they shouldn't have broken up, even though everybody knows it was actually a long time coming. Everybody, that is, except for Blair, who's like, "Awesome! Yes, we totally should not have broken up! Except now I have the upper hand, and I am Blair Waldorf, so...you have to kiss my ass for my birthday and really grovel, even though you're doing exactly what I want." He's like, "Okay, I will." Out on the street, Nate feels disgusting on every level simultaneously; up in her apartment, Blair calls the jeweler and learns that a ridiculous diamond necklace on her wish list has been bought. Assuming this is a gift from Nate and everybody's going to be okay, Blair and God do an adorable little dance together. God's like, "You've got moves," and Blair's like, "You're not so bad Yourself!" God tells her he likes her hair like that, and Blair thanks Him and says she loves how even God will do whatever she wants, because God prefers the company of rich people, in case that wasn't obvious by now.
Dan stops screaming Nate's name into his pillow long enough for Alison to come into his bedroom so that he can say all the stuff he wanted to say to his mom. So he does, and he's like, "Number one, what the fuck. Number two, you totally slept with Neighbor Guy, and that's gross. Number three, that isn't actually the problem, because life has gotten fucking complex since you left. Number four, Jenny is becoming a total psychotic, which is pretty awesome but also scary, and I have personally saved her from getting date-raped eleven times this week. Number five, you are a giant liar. Number six, if Dad hooks up with Lily van der Woodsen, not only is she going to start abusing me, but I will turn into a freaky incest guy, which is advanced jelly considering I'm still a virgin. Number seven, I shouldn't have to tell you any of this. Number eight, our father is a variable caregiver, I don't know if you noticed that, but he is kind of a big baby." She's like, "What's weird is if you put your face and Jenny's face together, you end up with my face, and that's awesome, because TV doesn't usually try so hard with that stuff. Also, I am sorry for being as crappy a parent as everybody else on this show." Dan flounces, because really he just wanted an opportunity to bitch, just like every other second of his life.
Just like every time Nate's parents act like shitty lunatics, Nate proceeds down his checklist of girlfriends. Blair having added to the problem by agreeing to get back together, he goes to Chuck's house, so that he can forget his problems in that warm rapey embrace. Chuck's not really feeling him, though, because he's scared that Nate will have found out about Blair's virtue, so he just stands behind his suite door. Apparently having an asthma attack, because Nate can hear him through the door and thinks he's having sex with a girl. Nate, there's never a girl. Do not give in to Chuck's propaganda. He's just standing on the other side of the door, with his hand in the exact same place on the door that your hand is on, because you two are in a Pushing Daisies kind of love with each other. Nate begs and begs, evincing some pretty wild emotions about to cut loose, and Chuck finally lets him in, saying he was just taking a nap. He smoothly hides the gift bag with the necklace he obviously bought Blair while Nate spills about the ring and the whole mess, and Chuck finds himself in a weird position for not the first time.
The facts are these: Nate and Blair do not belong together, in any world, and Chuck knows this. Nate also knows this. But Chuck knows a thing that Nate doesn't know, which is that Chuck -- heretofore involved in their business on many levels -- is now involved in the mess on a bodily-fluids level. However, that doesn't change axiom one, which is that Nate doesn't love Blair, and theorem one, which is that maybe Chuck does. So Chuck has to figure out a way where he gets Blair away from Nate, because the relationship is already killing Nate, and is quickly on its way to killing Blair once she figures all of this out. Plus axiom three, which is that both fortunes, Archibald and Waldorf, are in deep trouble having to do with these things, and other things Chuck can't control. Now, I believe in Blair Waldorf implicitly. But on this level, it turns out I very strongly believe in Chuck Bass as well.
Meanwhile, Dan's apparently been bugging Vanessa at work all day to whine about his family, because they are equal opportunity jerks, but she's supportive, and their friendship, on one level, is pretty good. I like them together when she's not pulling Jenga on his life, like this five-second spurt we're seeing now. She reminds him that the Humphreys are a pretty good family, and that Alison and Rufus do really love each other, and "in the meantime," he's always got Vanessa. Dan looks at the ground and is like, "At this particular 'meantime,' I have to go be with my girlfriend now," not pointing out or possibly noticing that he's already partially stood her up. Vanessa's like, "Great, I'm going to go jump off a bridge, have fun." Dan sets up a logic proof of his own with the following axioms: Vanessa likes Dan, Serena likes Dan, Dan likes Serena, Dan likes Vanessa. Therefore, he posits, S and V are supposed to be friends. "How can you not like each other? It's mathematically impossible." He has left out the fact that Vanessa is not very likeable, and Dan is an unreliable mathematician at best. He calls Vanessa out for not even trying to get to know Serena: "Why spend five minutes trying to be nice to Serena, when I can spend day after day forced to choose between the two of you?" Um, because you spend day after day forcing that outcome and being weird as hell so everybody feels uncomfortable all the time, because you secretly love it?
Vanessa's like, "I just had a Red Bull, so fuck it. You want to see me get my nice on? Let's do it tonight. Just you, me and Serena." I am so down with that. Give these girls five seconds to compare notes and they'll kick Dan's ass up and down Park. To his credit, Dan is also down with that, but tonight's not a good night. He explains that tonight is Blair Waldorf's birthday party, but apparently Vanessa didn't get the memo that Blair Waldorf is a psycho ninja who will murder Vanessa just for laughs, because she's like, "...And?" He employs the metaphor that they might want to start by dipping a toe in, rather than diving off of a cliff headfirst, into the rocks with the sharks. At least, Vanessa thinks it's a metaphor. You and I, and Dan, know that the sharks are all too real. True to her character, Vanessa ignores all warning signs and invites herself to the shark party, and Dan's like, "I am open to being best friends with your ghost, after Blair brutally kills you, so let's hop on that Vespa and roll."
Chuck approaches Blair sweetly on the balcony, asking if she's ready for her present. She assumes, and who could blame her, that he's being gross, so she grabs him by the hair and nearly crushes his skull against the balcony. "If you wanted to play rough, all you had to do was ask!" Some chick drifts by and Blair -- still with Chuck in her death grip -- smiles warmly and says hi, wishing herself a happy birthday. She leaves, and B releases him, boredly sighing, "You nauseate me." Chuck starts in on her: "All this talk about how you have to be with Nate or the world will end. Face it, it's over." She snorts about how he sounds like a jealous boyfriend, and he's totally fake and cute, like, "You wish!" But B always sees the weak places and goes for them, so a light bulb goes off in the Tiffany lamp above her head and she's like, "No! ...You wish!" She's very toothy and amused and fascinated by this turn of events. He's like, "You forget who you're talking to, I am the rapey one," and she's like, "You rape freshmen? I rape minds." He concedes the point, given her steely psychic insight, and she's like, "So. You like me." Staring at the floor like an Archibald, he spits, "Define like." Blair's two sides begin to wrestle. On the one hand, she loves seeing Chuck this fucked up and weird, because it's a train wreck and because she has the power and didn't even know it. On the other, though, how inconvenient. She's like, "Cut it out. Now." He whines about how horrible it is on his side of the crush, all, "I haven't slept! I feel sick! Like there's something in my stomach, fluttering!" She identifies the butterflies and starts into a serious meltdown; he just stands there, stricken. "Believe me, no one is more surprised or ashamed than I am." She gets control back and smiles scarily: "Chuck. You know that I adore all of God's creatures and the metaphors that they inspire. But those butterflies have got to be murdered." There's a momentary détente, but nobody believes it.
Outside Waldorfisnacht, Nate runs into Jenny. They are both wicked nervous about going upstairs, because Blair hates one of them right now and loves the other one of them right now, for the same reasons and toward the same terrifying result. Jenny apologizes about spilling the secret about Nate's whole Serena backslide, and he tells her it's fine. They gather some wool and have what would normally be called a "conversation," if it weren't these two particular people, and then stare at some things. Jenny shows him her birthday card, which she made herself, being a Humphrey, and laughs about how it says "I'm Sorry" like thirty times, and asks him to deliver it. Instead, he asks if she wants to just go for a walk and forget about Blair for a second. I see where he's coming from, but how crass to use any excuse to keep from getting up there. I mean, I see where he's coming from, but having to have a conversation with Little J is like a sign from Blair's buddy God that you are making bad choices. They discuss how Blair is going to shoot them both in the head if they do this, but she doesn't know about it, so they can make a break for it, so then they do. Vengeance sighs heavily, puts down the book it was reading, and starts looking around for its keys.
Serena's overjoyed to see Dan at the party! And look, there's Vanessa too! How awesome! Not! Kati and Isabel stare at Vanessa like demons, and Blair looks at her with so much disgust and hatred, you'd think she was watching Reaper. "You didn't mention they were so nice," murmurs Vanessa, and she finally figures out why Dan is so afraid of Blair all the time. Too late now, rude girl. You invited yourself to this massacre. Blair stares at her hatefully some more and whispers to Serena: "Oh, sweetie, you did not tell me she looked like that. This is such a problem." Serena's like, "Yes, but why did we all assume that Dan's BFF and secondary girlfriend was a dog? He's wicked fine, he's just...poor."
Rufus and Alison have a long stupid conversation that is mandated by the plot. Basically, Alexander Bancroft was a mistake and she shouldn't have slept with him, but it was only one time, and then she thought she should give Rufus some space. Additional space to the space she gave him by totally leaving and not coming back, I guess. "This family has had way too much space!" Rufus yells. "You never should have left!" Alison is bored of having this fight over and over, and points out that she left because she wasn't happy in the first place, and now she is, in some ways, which sucks for him. "Rufus. I was there for you when you were all about your music, when you were on the road for months at a time and everything that went with it. My whole adult life has been about you. And now I'm the one that's screwed up. I guess I was a late bloomer. I just need you to care enough about me to try." Good save! That must be where Dan gets it. Rufus is also impressed with that. I hate Alison but only because I love Lily, but who knows when she or Eric will ever be around again, so I'm giving Alison points for that speech. I want to see Serena navigate Alison, because Serena's the only person I trust on this show, and her take is going to be the right one, if they ever meet, and then I'll be able to sleep at night.
Everybody's having fun at the party, until Chuck surprises B again with puppy love in his eyes. She's like, "Stalk me much?" and he asks why she's still all alone at her own party. Which could be the title of her autobiography, really. She explains that Nate still hasn't shown up, but he always calls at midnight, so she's waiting. Chuck is like, "I bet he doesn't, and also, isn't it totally weird how he only reconciled with you the day after his dad totally went to jail and imperiled his family twice as bad as before?" So yeah, he's acting out of self-interest, but that self-interest is...I'm not making excuses for him, but it's clear that he loves two people in the world: Nate, and now suddenly Blair. This is the only way for him to have them both, of course, but it's also the only way both of them win as well. Look: people only ever act in their own self-interest. The brain is not wired to do anything else. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just a fact; addicts do it in the short term, just like martyrs, and regular nice people do it in the long term. But if your self-interest is sufficiently big enough to include the welfare of other people, you can do both without selling yourself out.
Look at Nate: he's torn between acting as an Archibald, which includes love of his family and love of Blair, and acting in only his own interests, which involves...he doesn't know yet, because he's a kid, but he knows he's getting dicked around, so it involves not getting dicked around and that's as far as he's thought about it. So by running off with Jenny, he's playing a short-term game; he literally has thought as far as not going to the party, so he doesn't. Meanwhile, Chuck is hurting the only two people he loves in this entire world, in order to get some shit accomplished, for all three of them. In this particular instance, then, Chuck is better than Nate. (Of course by that logic, that means Vanessa is better than Dan "What A Coincidence" Humphrey this week, with all her advice and meddling and inviting herself places, but..."better than Dan" is kind of neck-and-neck anyway, so I concede.)
"So you're saying that Nate is only pretending to like me, and that he's actually using me to get to my mother? He wouldn't do that." Chuck's like, "Except that the reason that you and I -- and our recapper -- are completely in love with him, the secret awesomeness of Nate, is that he would die for his family. Trying to do the right thing, something nobody in the UES is equipped to do, is going to tear him violently limb from limb, and you are the cross he's nailed to." B agrees, but can't say that out loud without losing the fight, so she's like, "In other news, he is at least going to call me at midnight, because he loves me." Chuck offers to make a friendly wager on that, and she -- again -- can't lose the face necessary to back down, so the wager is this: Nate doesn't call, they fuck. Nate calls, Chuck crosses her off his rape list. She musters up her courage and faith, in Nate and God both, and promises Nate's going to lose: "He's never missed my birthday." Of course, without Blair being in a pissing match with God, we would have no show, so Gossip Girl's like, "Careful, B. There's no safe wager when you bet on a Bass. You just might lose your shirt...and your pants!"
Serena smiles sweetly at Dan, keeping her switchblade concealed: "So, you brought Vanessa as your date to Blair's party?" Dan stutters and explains "his" plan that all three of them should hang out together. "Yeah! Because it was so fun and not remotely awkward at breakfast this morning!" Dan agrees and bumbles, realizing that he has been played once again. "You're right. I actually thought this would be a very bad opportunity for us to hang out, but I kind of suggested to Vanessa that she wasn't making an effort to get to know you, so, uh, she decided to start tonight. But if it's weird, I can go talk to her." Serena's WASPy etiquette protocol having been activated by the word "weird," Serena's like, "No, absolutely not. I am a gracious and poised hostess at all times. Tell me something Vanessa likes, besides your creepy ass, and I will make an effort to bond. I will bond the shit out of that girl. She'll be begging not to know me by the end of the night, or we will make out on the dance floor. Solemn vow, one or the other." Dan's like, "How gracious and poised of you." Serena and Vanessa play Guitar Hero, and Vanessa unsurprisingly pwns her (Isabel: "You went down like Britney at the VMAs!"), so Serena decides to bust out.
Which is kind of weird. I have made a vocation of watching boys play Guitar Hero, because everybody's a little bit van der Woodsen from time to time, and I too am gracious and poised. I have never played this game, but I could watch people do it, on a competitive level. So firstly, watching Serena play the game in ways that match up to the screen in no way is painful. It's just painfully not authentic, which is weird, but not because I'm a nerd; it's because I feel like Blake Lively can do literally anything, including rock out on "Free Bird." And secondly, because that's totally Serena's sandalwood-scented theme song, Lively makes some performance choices that are -- for some people, I stress, not myself -- really kind of hard to watch. Like she swoons, and rocks out, and shakes her hair around, and on the long notes she whirls around with abandon. I think either one of these things or the others would turn you off. Maybe both. All I know is, I like watching Serena rock out, so the second thing didn't bug me, but the first thing was distracting.
Vanessa, not to be outdone, turns into a substandard Gossip Girl: "Not bad, but Skynyrd is meat and potatoes, and I'm bringing dessert, so what do you say to a slice of 'Cherry Pie'?" Which would actually be fun to watch. Serena pretends to barf and Dan takes her side, begging Vanessa not to play the song. Vanessa, guitar strapped on, is like, "There's nothing like a little '80s hair metal to put a smile on your face. After the day you've had?" All of this paragraph is wildly contrived, by the way. So Serena's like, "What kind of day have you had?" And Vanessa gets up in there all, "You didn't tell her?" And Dan, for Pete's sake, has hardly had time to do so, because Serena's been with B all day, and their only time together has been marked by continual territorial pissings, so it's not like he's keeping secrets. He tells Serena about Jenny bringing his mom home, and Serena bounces, because she's upset that he told Vanessa something huge like that and not her. Dan follows her, and Vanessa is left standing there feeling foolish, even though she did that.
Alone, Dan apologizes for not calling her with the crazy news about Alison, and Serena's like, "What, like it's not a big deal?" And he says he was going to tell her, and S -- poor form -- is like, "Why even bother, since you already told your actual friend Vanessa." Thereby handing him the whole argument. He's like, "Check it, though: I tell her everything, for the last ten years, so it's not that weird." S, showing some backbone at a really odd time where for once I cannot sympathize, is like, "You're not six anymore, Dan," and they talk about how Serena wants, understandably, to be his Big News person. Even though her Big News person is, all protestations aside, pretty much still B, but the secret issue underneath all of this is that Vanessa's a girl, so that changes things. "I want you to be that person, too, really I do. This whole girlfriend thing is very new to me, you know? I just...I don't know all the rules yet." Serena draws his attention to B's rule that the BFF becomes second BF after the SO shows up and becomes first BFF, and Dan points out the irony of taking relationship advice from Blair. I laugh, you laugh, S and Lonelyboy laugh, but meanwhile, my girl Blair is in a downward spiral. "Look, I just don't want to have to compete with Vanessa. You know, with Guitar Hero, okay, I'm way more awesome, if you didn't happen to notice. But, um, not with you." I love that speech. "Here are places I can compete with Vanessa: Guitar Hero, being fantastic, being likeable, being awesome, and all the other areas in this world that are not you. On the other hand, I refuse to compete with Vanessa having to do with you. So I win, or else you lose. Those are the options." He agrees that this is fair, so we're all on the same page. "So tomorrow, you and I will go somewhere together, just the two of us, and we will talk about my family in excruciating detail until you're just so bored, you're begging for Vanessa to take over, all right? How's that sound?" Perfect. Especially the "just us two, no Vanessa" part. Serena agrees and then rushes him out of the room, because it's almost midnight.
NO! Nate and Jenny's always good, but it's almost midnight! No cutting away! Argh! Jenny's like, "Sorry your dad sucks. In other news, I have destroyed even the brittle peace in my own household." Nate laughs and admits that he was less interested in Blair's birthday than he was in getting out of the house, because his house is nuts. Jenny's like, "I feel you." Nate, merrily hopping from plot point to plot point without regard to Jenny's introjections, shows her the ring. Which she's already heard about, from Blair, and he stutters about how he's supposed to hand it over tonight. "I'm guessing that wasn't your idea," says Jenny. Because Nate doesn't have expressions or emotions or thoughts, you'd have to guess, wouldn't you. "Blair and I broke up, and I know it was the right thing to do. I mean, we just shouldn't be together right now, you know?" Or so Chuck says. Jenny notes that he's striking a pretty definitive note, and Nate's like, "I am trying to do the right thing, but the right thing as an Archibald is the wrong thing for me and for Blair and for poor gay Chuck. The only three people I care about, besides Serena. So I'm screwed, because I will never get out of this life, and this is all my parents' fault." Jenny, proud of her one little piece of wisdom and believing that it applies to all things, is like, "It'll only stop when you stop it." Man, I wish they had started playing that one Aimee Mann song right there. It's so right for this scene and the one. Well, at least Jenny didn't quote Vanessa at him: "You need to get your dad, the DA, your mom and his coke dealer in a room, so they can be balls-out honest."
12:01 and Chuck's right there, of course, with his sexy ante-meridian self. "Sorry. I can haz blowjob now?" Blair corrects him: not "sorry," but "smarmy" is what he is. "There's a difference. If you're coming to collect, you can forget it." He tells her to turn around, where they're standing at the bar, and she's like, "You get grosser by the second." But no, he sighs, she's getting older by the second, and here's the proof. Serena puts her giant cake on the bar and tells her to blow out the candles, and tells her to make a wish. Blair's like, "That is so ironic because I did make a wish. On a priest! And it didn't come true! God is dead! Also my heart!" and runs off all willy-nilly. "Happy birthday to who? Forget cake and ice cream, I'm saving room for just desserts. Looks like Chuck's wish might come true."
Nate drops Jenny off at home, admitting that -- even though it started out shitty -- he actually had a good night, thanks to her. She giggles, and he asks if her parents won't be weird about her coming home late. She's like, "They'll just think I was with a friend," and he sweetly tells her they'd be right. They embrace, and she goes up -- but not before the many eyes of Gossip Girl snap a picture of Nate hugging a blonde girl instead of coming to Blair's birthday party. "Spotted: Nate Archibald depositing a mystery girl in a taxi after midnight. All we know about her for sure? She's not Blair Waldorf." Man, the amount of invisibility at her command, Jenny Humphrey should be a sniper. Nobody ever knows who she is! Anonymity is power, little lamb!
Gossip Girl sends out an alert to everybody's phone, coincidentally titled "Happy Birthday, B!" B sees this, gets the picture of Nate and the blonde, and runs inside. Where Chuck, K and I, and Serena are all reading the alert and going into freak-out mode. "I can't believe Gossip Girl would do this to her on her birthday!" says Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, and Serena's like, "Maybe she's wrong, it wouldn't be the first time." Blair comes running up as Kati and Iz are wishing herpes on Nate, and Blair clears the air with a hysterical grip on control. "He isn't cheating. We broke up, okay? He was gonna get back together with me, but only so my mom would help his dad. You satisfied?" Serena runs to her side, but B's not done: "We ended it. I wanted to tell you, but...part of me thought that if I didn't say it out loud, then it wouldn't be true." See? Burlesque. Once you step out of your body and into the surveillance culture, the good part is that you're a star, but the bad part is you start thinking that it's the real world. If Nate and Blair broke up in a forest and nobody was there to hear it, did it really happen? Not if B can fix it before it's breaking news. Serena comforts her for awhile, just brokenhearted for her friend, and Blair finally tears away and slams herself in a bedroom.
Chez Archibald, Nate's parents are confused by the fact that he's home so "early," which is after midnight, which they only think is early because they are his pimp. He admits that he didn't make it to the party or hand over the ring, and they're like, "Well, but it's not really her birthday yet. You can do our bidding tomorrow and take her to lunch. That's even more special and romantic and fake and nasty." Nate finally gets real on their asses. "Dad, I know you think Blair will help save you, but I'm not doing this. It's over." The parents remind him that he would die for his family, and so would they, so really this is just like a group suicide to protect their family. Nate tosses the ring on a coffee table, totally scoffs, and takes off with an excellent parting shot: "Well, you better hope for your sake they don't call your son to the stand."
Salad, wine, candles, and the smell of marital bliss greet Jenny as her parents cuddle aprés sex. At first, Rufus thinks it's somebody (named Vanessa?) breaking in to rob the house, but it's just Jenny, who grins hugely, does twelve ankle-dips, and salutes their living room sex. "As you were." In her room, her validated and joyful smile are so huge and inevitably doomed.
Back at the party, Vanessa asks Serena if her friend is okay. S is unsure: "She just broke up with her boyfriend, and then they got back together and then, um, I...don't know what just happened." Heh. Vanessa says B is very lucky, because Serena is totally awesome, and they agree that it's sometimes "challenging" to be a good friend. Providing a somewhat contrived but not unbelievable segue into Vanessa apologizing for her weird territorial issues regarding Dan, because she's protective of him. Serena nods. "And I'm protective of our relationship. I've never actually had one before. You guys just have everything in common, and, um, I'm just getting to know him. So, you know, it can be a little intimidating." Vanessa says basically that if she's intimidated by Serena's coolness, and Serena is intimidated by Vanessa, then that makes Serena look stupid. I mean, she says it in a sweet and awkward way, and Serena takes it in that spirit, but there it is: Vanessa has all the parts of Dan that Serena doesn't, but from where I'm standing, those are the shitty parts of Dan and she is more than welcome to them.
Vanessa and Serena talk some friendly smack about Guitar Hero, and whatever, Vanessa calls herself a Golden God, which always makes me (and Serena, it would seem) laugh insanely, and then Dan comes up, and they tell him to back off because they're having girl time, just like any pair of girls in history who are trying to negotiate peace have to do, when the stupid boy in between them comes sniffing around for more trouble: "The momentary illusion of a united front giving us the ability to passive-aggressively punish you for manipulating us both? Hell yes." But the reason we keep doing, boys, it is because it works. Fight smarter, not harder.
"What were you talking about?" Nothing Dan needs to know about, Serena giggles, because if it weren't for the united front game she and Blair have been playing since time immemorial, neither of them would have any game at all. Dan is willing to play along: "Oh, so you have secrets now? I see. Well, listen, um, if you want to get out of here...Vanessa can only fit two on her Vespa, but...I can walk." Which would be cute, if Serena and Vanessa were actually friends now, but they both know it's just how they have to play this, because they're playing on a completely different level than Dan is. Like, Dan would actually believe that they are BFF now and he's retroactively not done anything wrong. Serena's like, Dan, you are so sweet and naïve. "I do love me a Vespa, but...Blair is having a meltdown. You're not the only one with a best friend." CLICK BOOM! Dan's like, "Point and match." I love how he thinks he has options.
Blair recovers slowly in a stranger's bedroom and is surprised for the fifteenth time by Chuck and his omnipresent boner. "I'm not in the mood, Chuck. This is pretty much the worst birthday ever." He offers that perhaps it can be salvaged, and produces a package. "Is that our sex tape?" she asks nastily, and it's a great line, but mostly in the delivery, which is like, totally put upon and all, "Fucking great, God. Last time I believe in you!" But of course, it's the Erickson Beamon necklace from the beginning, which Chuck bought her this morning. She's, like, barely even present to protest, so captivated is she by its gleaming wonder. Chuck lays it on super-thick, in a very romantic and sexy and gay way: "Something this beautiful deserves to be seen on someone worthy of its beauty." He adjusts the necklace and her hands rest tenderly on his, almost of their own accord. They look at the necklace, at her, at themselves, in the mirror. "I really am sorry." And you know what, he really is, and that is awesome. They start to make out, and Serena comes looking for Blair so she can be the shoulder some more, but stumbles upon them making out, and it's starting to get pretty hot, so she shuts the door and looks totally freaked out. "Spotted: B, turning a year older, but not necessarily wiser. Guess Chuck's the gift that keeps on giving. Blow out your candles, B. This'll be better in the dark." Not much I can add to that. XOXO, and I'll see you the 28th.