Blair's e-lationship with Chuck veers wildly all over the map when she finds out he's gone silent because he's gone to his father's hotel in Monaco for the holidays. What starts as a somewhat flirty exchange quickly gets ugly when Chuck reveals his knowledge of Blair's dalliance with her ex Nate -- and even uglier once he threatens to disclose their relationship to Nate, who's joined him abroad for some gay Christmas canoodles.
Howard brings his Parisian lover Roman home in the hopes that Blair will grow to love him. Eleanor deals with this all in a hell of a lot of style, and even manages to snag a Silver Fox of her own, named Jack Roth, with Roman's help. After breaking his leg and bringing in another hot gay dude named Freddy to ruin his relationship, Blair finally relents and lets Roman into the family -- but only once she's been assured that there's a room in their French château for her, too.
Rufus finally meets the strangely likeable Alexander Bancroft and learns that his wife Alison hasn't quite given up the ghost w/r/t her Hudson affair. The family decides to spend one last Christmas together, and Rufus decides to make a go of it with Lily. He calls her from the snowy courtyard of the Palace, unaware that her boyfriend Bart Bass is upstairs, on bended knee.
Vanessa gets a story by Dan published in the New Yorker, although it's not the fabled poem "Sluts" from the books. To prove how much classier he is in the show, Dan immediately craps ungratefully all over Serena's gift, a beautiful and expensive watch. Instead, Serena gets Vanessa to help her plan a Winter Wonderland and eventually has sex with Dan in it; Jenny and Dan enlist Lily for help in bringing a Christmas tree to the Palace suite. The only person who doesn't trust Vanessa's well-wishes is, of course, Blair, who threatens her with deadly cuticle scissors.
Why, it's the Constance Billard choir, singing "Santa Baby" in skimpy-yet-wintry outfits, performing the half-hunched, half-slutty scoliotic movements that serve as their goblinesque choreography. I never noticed how very flossy are the lyrics of this song! When requesting favors or material gifts, I was told by my mother and my father's mother before her, one must never appear to behave in an overfamiliar manner! "Santa baby" indeed!
GG points out that, Upper East Side-wise, one of the signs of the season -- beyond the pandering to and solicitation of the Jolly Red Christian God of Commerce while dressed as a sexy Christmas stocking -- is the Constance Billard/St. Jude's Bazaar, "where the only thing bizarre are the donated items for sale." Beyond Nate's ass and everybody else's sovereign sense of self, Gossip Girl, what on earth do you mean? Well, there's an antique butter churn, for example, which Serena notes would go well with her beloved loom. She picks up a big furry Cossack hat and plops it on Dan's head, making him even more beaver-like than usual, and he slides past Siberia on the way to Talking About Climate Change. Serena scoffs, like any good scion of the moneyed elite, and calls him the Global Warming Grinch, but he's on a roll: "I'm just saying, Christmas should be white and snowy. I'd even settle for Manhattan slush." Sounds delicious! Scotch, bitters, a pair of Roger Viviers and a copy of The Ethical Slut, toss in some gold flakes, shake violently, and serve, while shouting. Shouting? Who's shouting? Um, the quickly approaching Vanessa Effing Abrams, both from her mouth and her crazy wild snake-filled half-dreaded hair. Security! Pretentious invasion of the bitterly vanishing middle class! Front gate! Security!
...Too late. You may ask yourself, given that these children attend classes and bizarre Bazaars whenever they feel like it due to the lackadaisical Millenial teaching principles of the Constance Billard School -- and indeed, the UES's similarly hapless attention to the inexorable precession of day and night that most of us consider mandatory -- how it is that Vanessa knew where to find them at all. I will tell you: Advanced Placement Stalking & Surveillance. "There you are," she says brightly, concealing her GPS tracking device discreetly in her madwoman's reeds. "What are you doing here?" They wonder, but they will never figure out the answer. Dan and Serena are sweet kids and good people, but not so quick on the uptake. Vanessa hands Dan his Xmas gift: a copy of The New Yorker. As Celia Rhodes would say, "Do go on."
"Thank you," Dan says -- graciously, note, like a person who has heard of gratitude and etiquette -- "But you know I already have a subscription." (Of course you do. I bet the Humphreys sit around reading his copy every week discussing the shows they will never see, the shallow society happenings than which they are better, the foreign-language films they discuss at length but cannot understand. And those damnable cartoons: How they bewilder!) You might be forgiven for assuming that a simple copy of a readily available magazine would suffice, given Dan and Vanessa's shared pride in poverty, but you would not be correct. Vanessa hands the magazine to Serena, to more fully realize her triumph, and asks her to read the letter -- on official New Yorker letterhead! -- contained therein. "Dear Mr. Humphrey: We are pleased to advise you that we would like to publish your short story in our summer fiction issue featuring 'Twenty Under Twenty.'" It's a contest for young unknown writers such as Dan Humphrey, Vanessa explains over Dan's ejaculations, and she has procured (through foul lies and sneakthievery) and submitted a bit of Dan's no-doubt passionate prose, to the magazine's rousing acclaim. Which may or may not be believable, but we are not here to celebrate the mundane and believable, and besides, in the books these things happened with hilarious frequency. These kids were constantly inspiring new fragrances, pop songs, getting published or acquiring venture capital or the occasional three-picture Hollywood deal. This is one of the many wondrous things about Gossip Girl. (In the books, the piece published in the magazine was a poem called "SLUTS," and it was so awesome. I would reproduce it for you, dear reader, if I felt like combing through the archives here in my garret, but I'm afraid the chill Austin winter has sapped me of my ability to care quite that much. You'll have to trust me.)
Dan just about loses consciousness, and Serena's just dying for him, so kind and tender are her affections. "I haven't even read one of your stories!" she says excitedly, and Vanessa -- to be sure -- sticks her stupid face right up in there: "Oh, don't worry. He doesn't show them to anyone. I swiped this one out of his drawer on the pretense of borrowing a stapler." Which she did not return. I'm sure she bartered it at the Farmer's Market for a copy of Le Petit Prince in the original French, or a hand-dyed yak yurt, or whatever the hell she gets up to when not shadowing our principals like a deranged wife out of the misty Gothic heaths. Well, she's not that "into things," as we'll see, so perhaps she traded the stapler away for Annoying Lessons. Or free-trade organic shade-grown magic beans. Serena notes that the story in question is entitled "10-8-05," but as in her hazy Rolodex of memory, all she sees is that she spent October drunk off her ass, and thus cannot connect the dots, she wonders aloud what the story might reference. (It has to do with mermaids, as one might already figure, should one have ever seen a television show before.) Dan ignores the question, the better to lavish yet more gratitude and attention on Vanessa, unto calling it "the best present ever," which it totally is, not least because of how violently improbable it is. Vanessa's huge smile is gorgeous and agenda-free, but Serena's Spidey-sense begins kicking in sometime around 4-6 weeks too late, and behind them all, the Constance Billard Choir continues to pop, lock, crunch, creak, and weave their hurly-burly. Imagine, if you will, that the Pussycat Dolls were finally diagnosed and able to compete in the Special Olympics, and imagine further that synchronized musical performance were an event: their fiercest competition is now finishing their set, in the varied and delightful Charlie's Angels silhouettes favored by professional performers the world over. Strike a pose! Mm, you look weird. Strike a more flattering pose! ...No?
Alison accompanies Rufus out of a cab as he loudly complains about their cab-taking ($32), and she fires back that he was willing to wait an hour for another subway (nominally $2, but factor in please the opportunity cost in waiting with ADD man-child Rufus and the pointy low blood-sugar of Alison)...and they immediately run into Lily and Bart Bass before even getting through the gate (PRICELESS!). It's awkward as hell, because the last time Bart saw Rufus he was kissing Lily to make Bart jealous at Eleanor's party, and the last time Alison heard about the prenominate Eleanor's party canoodling, she nearly threw herself off a pier. (But given her Avian Bone Syndrome and the fact that her name is written in Satan's Book, you know that bitch would float. All the way back to Hudson, Alison could float, God willing.) After a thousand weird stares, glares and thoughts of affairs, Lily closes herself off and imposes a long, nervous, creepy silence before dismissing the Humphreys and dragging Bart Bass away by his cravat. Alison manages to make Lily's relationship with Bart whore-adjacent, but at least Rufus explains that she's been dating him -- much to Rufus's quiet chagrin -- for a while already. I'm quite torn, because on the one hand, I do love the romance of Lily and Rufus, but on the other hand, I wouldn't wish Rufus on my worst enemy, and Lily is most assuredly not my enemy. I wish a person could have an adult relationship with another adult where actual talking happened. They should make a TV show about that sometime. Although given what TV has taught us, that could only occur on the SciFi network, which implies giant reptiles, or Loud Diamond Phillips in a spider dimension. Also, it would be boring, so let's keep things ugly forever.
Inside, where the weather is -- I'm told -- "so delightful," Bart Bass points out that (barring the total Rufus & Lily Love) these things would be less horrific if she'd just let the world in on their relationship. Lily says she's just now beginning to trust him again, after the fakeout with Paulette Cho, whom I miss dreadfully. He reminds her that this was a misunderstanding based on his son Chuck's neurotic hypersexualized confusion, and then threatens to do something awful if she doesn't publicly commit to him soon. "What are you waiting for?" he asks, and she responds -- not by saying, "Rufus's scrotum to descend," as she should -- by screaming Blair's name and ushering her over. They airkiss, and Blair gingerly asks Bart after Chuck's welfare. Meester, as ever, plays a really subtle game here: Blair is into Chuck and wondering where their constantly texting and fucking relationship has gone, while simultaneously worrying that he's going to tell Nate about their relationship. What she doesn't know, and won't know for a bit, is that Chuck knows about her liaison with Nate last week: she just thinks she broke up with him and ran off yelling, like she does to several people several times every episode, so there's no reason for him to be upset as far as she knows. "Charles," Bart informs her, is at the Bass's hotel in Monaco. "I have my staff keeping an eye on him, and I'll join him for New Year's," Bart says, oblivious to Blair's crestfallen loss of focus and immediate recovery. "I was wondering why he'd been so quiet, and Monaco answers my question. Lovely to see you two. Bye." She runs off, all preoccupied and confused. Her boyfriend that she is not in love with, note, she's not really concerned about his whereabouts yet, but her boyfriend she hates, he ran off in a big gay red turtleneck, and that's what's upsetting her.
Blair texts him immediately: "Monaco, huh? Anything I need to know?" This is so confusing, because it gets all mixed up with her mom's relationship with gay Harold, like, in addition to forcing a raging eating disorder on her, Eleanor has not managed to teach her daughter a thing that every girl should know by high school, which is that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, eventually it will leave you for a Frenchman, because it is actually a duck. And yet the show is not admitting the total gayness of her boyfriends, so that's a false positive on her mirroring of the relationship, except then the show keeps setting up these parallels. You've got Eleanor who has a pretty simple and mutually loving relationship with her gay husband, and a somewhat more complicated friendship with his lover. And you've got Blair, who has a pretty simple and mutually loving relationship with her future husband, and a more complicated friendship and romantic relationship with his best friend. But then those two parallel lines cross, because Blair's also getting abandoned by her father and her "real" boyfriend, and getting into complicated drama with the other boy in each set. But all the boys, they keep running off together and not answering her phone calls, no matter who they are, how old they are, or how gay they admit to being. (And we won't even get into how her relationships with all four men are actually connected to Serena, or manage to involve her as an indirect player.) So the gay thing actually cancels itself out, and you've just got Blair with a thousand lines converging directly on her migraine, all alone. In this episode specifically: every time something happens or changes with her father or Roman, Serena will appear, and that phone goes ding! and the story with Chuck changes again. Watch.
Serena comes running up as Blair's simultaneously clearing her text window and realizing that her father's plane landed 27 minutes ago. Blair brandishes giant candy canes -- a Waldorf father/daughter tradition -- and heads out to catch a cab, with Serena chasing behind her, shouting French encouragement. Out on the street, Blair screams at a taxi cab as it passes her by, and explains that Eleanor has welcomed the gays into her home for Christmas Eve, but has reserved (in keeping with Thanksgiving) Christmas Day for herself, her daughter, and poor old Dorota. Serena is her usual sweet, exuberant self, crowing that least Blair will have a couple of days with Harold before he hightails it back to the Continent. "No, it'll be more than just a couple days. I'm gonna convince him to stay in New York," says Blair, just asking for it in a very Jenny Humphrey manner. She calls Roman a "phase," but not the gay kind: "My father belongs here. With me." She assures Serena that the relocation to France was only intended as scandal-avoidance. "Time to come home, don't you think?" As a cab finally pulls over for her, she remembers that Serena wanted her help with Dan's gift; ever more important now that Vanessa has managed the most impossibly, implausibly "Dan-like present ever." Blair shrugs, hilariously: "Why don't you just buy him a new outfit for Cedric and call it a day?" They giggle, Serena notes Blair's characteristic lack of interest in the Dan Issue, and they wave goodbye.
Harold comes running into the House of Waldorf, shouting his Blair-Bears and accolades to Blair-Bear's wondrous beauty. He then reveals...Roman! Blair goes into her usual Disappointed WASP routine: sadness, excitement, Firestarter amounts of rage in reps of three, taking occasional breaks to faire la moue. Huge awkward hug and a fake smile, and then Roman drops some wildly French farce bullshit like a bomb in the sudden brittle silence: "You are still perfection. Delicate, yet full with flavor, like a macaron." Proving once again that her breeding far outstrips our own, Blair manages not to run shrieking from that little speech. Eleanor shares an elaborate WTF with her daughter before choking out a tittered "Imagine my surprise when the elevator door opened and out popped both of them!" Harold suggests that this is the perfect opportunity for Blair to get to know Roman better, and she responds by giving him his giant candy cane, and only a painful moment later offering the other to Roman. You'd have to know Blair pretty well to grasp where her eyes have just suggested he shove it. Roman is pleased as punch, Harold is touched, and Eleanor and Blair just stare at each other like reluctant tricoteuses.
Rufus is rocking a shorter haircut, kind of dorky-cute, which manages to take years off while simultaneously turning him into a fair approximation of a model citizen. He and his wife exclaim loudly at their son's sudden writerly success, and Jenny -- whose dialogue elves have once again fallen down on the job this week, after a promising beginning -- notes that now that he's got his publication and his dream girl, he might as well just die now. I won't disagree, but I don't exactly think he's peaked. Dan, in a bit of plot frommage, then begins picking up Christmas cards at random and reading them aloud, for no reason. He only gets through one (from "The Smiths," inspiring such a flaccid bit of "humor" from his wooden sister that I won't dignify it with reproduction), gets about halfway through a letter from Alexander Bancroft, the Hudson Wife-Fucker, before realizing what he's holding, and going cold all over. "Alison, meet me on the 24th..." Firstly, who reads that fast without comprehending what they're reading? People that can barely read. Secondly, where did A.B. send that letter from, 1782? Who commits anything, much less extracurricular courtly fuckery, to paper? I know I have some stationary around here someplace, and I could probably rustle up a stamp, but certainly not for something I wouldn't trust to email. If I were additionally a whore in need of such things, which I am not. Rufus takes Alison six centimeters to the left for a laughably dramatic "aside," prompting Dan to remind his dipshit drama queen parents that they live in a one-room loft in DUMBO and thus can hear everything that their stupid asses are saying. Man, for one brief second that hurts me in the feminism, I wish this were 1782. Back when women and not Nate were chattel, you could do some fucked up things to Alison for this. I still have nightmares about the mysterious cupping torture in Dangerous Liaisons, but if it were Alison, I just call that Hilarious Christmas. Over Jenny's satisfyingly sad, crestfallen disappointment, Alison assures Rufus that it is over with Bancroft, and thus they are finally -- for about the fifth week running -- ready to just be a family. Rufus is like, "Humphreys, we are not going to let your mother's whoredom ruin Christmas." Even Christmas itself is like, "Nice try."
Central Park, where Blair is wowing at her mother's ability to be okay with the surprise gayness of the season. Instead of pointing out that her capacity for forbearance is implicit in the red cape-cloak from Mongo that's threatening to consume her body and soul, Eleanor's like, "What would you have me do? Scream? Turn our daughter into a giant bulimic sociopath? Act like a scorned wife? I've had years to get used to your dad's total gayness." Harold and Roman chitter-chat about old-man gay stuff, and Blair's like, "Roman doesn't even know how to ice-skate! Take him away with you! Drop him off at a nail salon on your way to the meeting!" Eleanor explains that she is not to be arsed about getting Roman away from Blair, cutely, because she has to "mentally prepare" for her big meeting with the CEO of an Underpants Company. Everytime they drop the name of this Underpants Company, take a drink. At the end of the night, you too will find that prancing around with your boobs hanging out and marrying Seal seems like a good idea. Roman's tiny gay French ears perk up: "[Underpants Company]?" (And you would not be particularly faulted for thinking that this is a total diss, because in fact it's super dumb to think that this show, in a real economy, would come anywhere close to Underpants Company, because they have Underpants Company in every mall, large and small, and it's kind of the Forever 21 of underpants, so there's no real cachet. But just as you know that when Paula Abdul takes a refreshing sip of Cola Product she's really drinking moonshine, you know that when they say Underpants Company, they're really talking about something like La Petite Coquette. Or whatever is flossy-flossy, I admit I just picked that name out of a copy of Forbes; I don't claim to know anything about Lady Underpants beyond what Oscar De La Hoya wore to my last Christmas party.) Eleanor explains to Roman that she's designing quote "a line of retro-chic sleepwear and lingerie," which sounds cute, as long as retro means like fifty years, and not a hundred. Blair says she's very much looking forward to the samples, because apparently she and Serena are both planning on flouncing around the Xmas tree looking like hookers tomorrow morning, and then totally tosses Roman at her mother like a tiny gay French grenade: "Why don't you tell Roman all about it?"
Having gotten rid of her mother and soon-to-be stepfather-in-civil-union, she pounces on old Harold , telling him how awesome and bulimia-remedial it is to have him in town, after her mom so crudely blocked him from coming to Thanksgiving. He asks after the ever-handsome Nate, who he just adores, and she explains that Nate's in Connecticut with his mum. And if you hadn't already guessed that Anne Archibald and Nate's maternal windfall came from Connecticut, you don't know your New England stereotypes. "He said he would try to catch a train and make it to the party tonight," she says, not even noting the giant asterisk that attends every promise poor old Nate ever makes. They talk about how the annual party is just one more thing Harold gave up when he gayed up, like, how do they even keep all these parties straight enough to miss one particular one, and he tells her he can't very well attend, because of his inability to be two places at once. "You know that chateau near Lyon that I told you about?" They bought it, the two of them. "The house is flooded with light. The fireplaces are big enough, I mean, you can walk into them. The gardens are incroyable." Is Blair's dad secretly David Rakoff? I wouldn't move to France for anything less than Vanessa Paradis. Or...I can't think of any other French people! Go see The Golden Compass instead!
Some totally hot old Silver Fox type approaches Eleanor and gazes longingly at her, asking for directions to the skating rink, for his -- he takes pains to point out -- niece-child. Eleanor's like, "Fuckin'...it's right over there, idiot!" She doesn't know too much about flirting, see, because she just got divorced a month ago, and most of the flirting she did before then was with her gay husband, in lieu of having actual sex. Dude admits that the "throng of children in mittens" should have tipped him off, and then lingers for a long time like he's waiting for a tip. Eleanor stares at him like he's stupid or blind or something, and he finally peels off and walks away, casting yearning glances back over his shoulder. Maybe he's just wondering why she's dressed like a holiday float. Roman points out that the handsome man was flirting with her, and she pronounces this "absurd," but he totally, obviously was. And Eleanor is a very pretty woman, she has expressive eyes and a lovely mouth, and the fact that she's minorly crazy, well, when you're getting up there like old Silver Fox, maybe you're willing to let that slide. Roman thinks to himself, "[Something sneaky and romantic that will get Eleanor off my back, in French.]"
Eleanor notes, at the rink, that it's going to be awfully dull for Roman to just sit and watch the father-daughter skate; B recommends going to the petting zoo and feeding the sheep. Roman asks if perhaps he couldn't just join them, crashing one more imaginary Blair party, and Harold and Blair -- with differing degrees of enthusiasm -- agree that this is a great idea. Harold runs off to get him some skates, and Blair does the super-WASP Slow Burn for about the sixth time this outing. Her sneakiness and worriedness are at about a 50/50, with top notes of insane jealousy, which anyone in experienced in Blairology can tell you is the Perfect Storm. I hope Roman lives. Serena did, but just barely. Just Blair-Bearly.
Vanessa is managing, for once, to work her insane outfit: a purple shirt under a leopard kimono-shrug. It's so very Vanessa but she looks great. Dan's got a pile of New Yorkers near his open laptop in what would seem to be the only coffee shop in New York. Just tell me where Vanessa works, and I will get my coffee elsewhere; it's not that complicated. Serena approaches and wonders if he's autographing the magazines and selling them on eBay, because he's so poor, and he stutters through the explanation that he's looking at people who've been published in the magazine and generally working himself up to a coffeeshop literary masturbatory frenzy. As one does. Dan complains to Vanessa that he can't possibly top her gift until he rigs an Oscar for one of her documentaries. (Oh yeah, she's also incredibly talented in the books, just like the rest of them. She will go ahead and film a black-and-white 30-minute film about pigeons eating condoms, and invariably some mogul will be like, "Kid, you got moxie." It's actually fairly hilarious, like, Serena goes from book to book being a muse for all kinds of people, and Blair too -- fashion, rock stars, parfumeries -- but then, in the topsy-turvy world of the books, Dan and Vanessa, the artsy sucky ones, have to be contented with national publication and movie deals.) "You got in on your own merit," Vanessa says. I like her in this episode, actually. "The only gift I gave you was to lick a stamp, and as for me, the annual Dan Humphrey Christmas CD Mix is more than enough." So sad, so true, so Vanessa and Dan. He's pretty adorable agreeing that his Xmas Mixes are truly the bomb, and that Vanessa has very low expectations from life.
Finally alone, for the nonce, Serena squeals and proffers Dan's present. And you know whatever is in the bag, Lonelyboy's going to douche out, because that's what he does. "What's in the bag?" he asks, but you already know the answer: Your failure, in gift form. "Perfection! Look, I know it's not Christmas yet, but open it, please. I can't wait. I'm too excited!" Oh man. So he opens it, and it's some kind of rich guy watch that cost a billion dollars, weighs 87 pounds, and looks like a tank you wear on your person. I love those watches. Dan? Not so much. He's not really into things, per se, because all things are sour grapes to his broke ass. "I noticed the other day that you don't wear a watch, and then it occurred to me it's because you don't have a watch, and you're gonna need one to be punctual for all the meetings with editors and publishers now that you're a fancy...and apparently, self-important...writer." He goes into a fugue about how he never had a watch before, but on this show I can't see what good that would do, because you never know what time or what day it is anyway.
Poor Serena immediately takes note of his crestfallen, self-important disappointment in her thoughtful and beautiful gift, and assumes that it's for a valid reason: "You don't like it. You want the brown band..." He's such a dick I can't even believe it, but again: it's not that he's bad, it's that he's too real and I can't abide his realness. "No, no, no. I love the band. I love the whole thing. It's the most amazing watch I've ever seen," and it is, it's the most amazing watch ever made, "But I can't accept this." UGH. I thought we solved this problem. Serena does the obligatory, "it's more of a gift for me because I had so much fun picking it out for you," which is the rule for situations like this, but he's not having that. "Serena, I buy a book for my dad every Christmas. I think the most elaborate gift I've ever given has been a pair of rubber boots from L.L. Bean." Which: gross, first of all, and I'm sure they were for Vanessa's ass, and secondly, you buy your dad a book every Christmas, huh? How sweet. And then we all sit around the campfire sewing clothes for each other and talking about how not into "things" we are. I hate the Humphreys so much. I'll buy you a book called How To Win Friends And Influence People In Ways Other Than Making Them Feel Like Shit Every Time They Do Anything Nice, And Thus You Won't End Up In Williamsburg Married To Vanessa With Stupid Self-Important Montessori Children Eating Granola You Made Yourself Out Of Bitterness And Bohemian Bullshit. And yes, I know they have that at Powell's, but I will buy it at Wal-Mart just to prove a point.
"So then I overdid it?" Because as usual, the problem here is not Dan's basic ingratitude or inability to let a moment go by without making things awkward and useless, but Serena's inability to...what, exactly? I do not know. Be less rich or less comfortable with her life, and more willing to pretend that money matters and tells you who and what you are, like in Dan's life. The reason class warfare only rarely comes to much is that the only people interested in engaging in it are people like Dan, with no money and even less clout. "I think even your underdoing it would be overdoing it," says Dan, just in case you thought you were supposed to root for him this time, or any time. Serena tries desperately to be sweet about this, because it's not a dialectical argument: he is caught in a rich/poor binary and can't deconstruct his way out of it, so it's his way or the highway, and the highways are ruining our delicate environment and green spaces, so it's his way. She asks him to set the rules, since this is all his game and apparently buying gifts for the people that you love is evil: just tell me upfront how much I'm supposed to spend, where I'm supposed to buy it, and how to barter my wares for it at the Farmer's Market. The deadline, they decide, is tomorrow morning (also known as Christmas, which is when they should be doing this anyway), and the spending limit is a paltry fifty dollars. Which isn't a lot to me, and I'm poor as hell, but is probably a lot for Dan and his stupid family in the DUMBO loft. She's disappointed, but making it work. If it were me, I would set aside the rest of his gift money and buy Blair something awesome, and then prod Blair into showing it off to hurt Dan, which wouldn't take much, and then let him do the math. And then I jet off to Aspen with Blair and Nate and if Dan got weird about it I would just say, "Don't worry about it, you're just poor. Right?" Vanessa stops her at the door and offers to show her Dan's favorite used book shop, and Serena rightly tells her to get a firmer grip on her horses and let Serena be the girlfriend for like five minutes. To Vanessa's credit, she takes this sweetly in stride, but not so much to Vanessa's credit, honestly either way she wins: either Dan's intractability regarding reality will cause this errand to destroy Serena, or her gift -- which already won the grand prize -- will win by that much more.
Rufus enters a publick house, as mentioned in the troublesome correspondence of A.B., and sees a very cute Ralph Fiennes-type sitting at the bar with his garters crossed as in the fashions of the day. "Sir, might you be 'Alex'?" he asks this worthy gentleman, and with a flourish the gentleman gives assent. Yes, he is the selfsame Alexander Bancroft of the letter. "And prithee," asks this worthy fellow, "Who might you be?" Forsooth, he is Rufus Humphrey. "Zounds!" exclaims the fellow. "Unless your wish is to be carried out of here like a blackguard, I surmise the best course of action might be to absent yourself from my wife, and leave off your attentions." Alexander Bancroft, heretofore known as A.B. in these proceedings, begs the angry artist and merchant to settle himself. "Sent you a letter unto my home? To my wife, at the DUMBO loft where we make our primary residence? Where my children do even now bend and tremble with the extent of their mother's whoredom? Whatever it is that you two have shared and tendered, it has now ended. Acquaint yourself with the facts!" Alexander Bancroft begs, worriedly, for the intemperate Rufus to sit himself down and share a cup of ale, but the Humphrey Man will not be assuaged! "She asked of you to let her alone, and to take your leave!" With compassion, the altogether appealing and seemingly blameless Bancroft shakes his head and considers the Humphrey Man kindly. "I do beg your pardon and clemency, good sir, but that is not what your good wife said when last we spoke." Rufus begins to shake like the very timbers under a gale: "Excuse me. You spoke to her?" They gaze, each upon the other, and realize Alison's whoredom has outplayed them both, in capacity for endurance and in base mendacity. Methinks Rufus will be swiftly forgiving, for, what has Alexander Bancroft vouchsafed him but the answer to a prayer, on the wings of a dove as white as the Lily?
At the rink, B's hating on life and Roman is fucking up the ice, dangling from Harold like a spastic ornament. Harold is awesome, lovingly murmuring: "Damn it, you can do it. You can do it. Look at all these children. They're skating around fearlessly. Come on!" Roman mentions that the stupid skating children have a lot shorter way to fall. I grew up in Phoenix and Albuquerque, though, so even Roman's windmilling capers look like Olympic-level ice dancing to me. Harold asks Blair for some assistance for his wildly flailing SO, and she finishes up her text to Chuck, begging off that her laces are undone. Chuck's response: "Only 1 question: how did you fake ur virginity for N?" Her jaw drops, very adorably WTF, but I mean: WTF? Harold sends Roman solo across the ice for a hilarious sequence, with Harold yelling encouragement, Roman flying straight at her in total peril, and Blair beaming a huge smile, arms outstretched. It's terrifying. "Blair! Come give us a lesson!" At the last moment, Blair still smiling hugely and sweetly, a poisonous missive still written on her pocketed phone, she sticks her foot out just right, tangling Roman in a web of evil and pratfalls, and he goes down. You just...have to love her. "Spotted spinning at Wollman Rink -- the Blaircapades. All the grace of Nancy Kerrigan, but packing the punch of Tonya Harding," gloats GG. She makes a super sad face and skates over, while Harold cossets him in Frenglish. Roman protests his own clumsiness and Blair sweetly helps him up and away from the ice, joyful, fakely sad, hilarious, adorable.
Getting into the Waldorf elevator later, B is once more piqued. "I cannot believe that Daddy decided to stay with Roman instead of having tea at the Carlyle with me. The ER Doctor said he would make a full recovery!" Heh, like Harold would be all, "Laters, cool?" Eleanor points out that she and Blair had a wonderful time, injury included, and Blair apologizes. "It's just not the same. I don't understand how that French fox stole my father, and your husband, and always seems to come off like a-an innocent lamb." (And, as seems to happen at least once an episode on this show and on Battlestar Galactica, Blair elides the /s/ between "fox" and "stole" in such a way that really, she's calling him a French fuck. Loves it. Eleanor muses cattily that Roman was not always so innocent, and Blair jumps on it. Eleanor...who knows how much she knows, ever? She plays this scene like she's just being scatterbrained and carelessly gossiping, but you could say the same about the emotional abuse w/r/t the eating disorder too, so who knows? She's a beautiful, ugly enigma. "Well, when I first met him, he was going out with this model named Freddy, and Freddy was a horrible scoundrel." Blair, who knows a thing or two about scoundrels v. nice gay guys you might marry, plays the perfect note of innocent and naïve interest. Eleanor expounds almost wistfully: "He was absolutely infatuated with him. Freddy had him under some kind of spell. I was the one who got him to break out of it and turn his life around." Stop and do a toepick on that line, because it's heartbreaking. "Don't mention Freddy to your father. It is a sore subject." Blair immediately asks Freddy's last name, throwing up one last red flag that her mother will ignore, and as the door closes on them, Eleanor does this hilarious face, like, "Whhhaaaa?"
Into the House of Humphrey comes stalking and stomping the Humphrey Man of the House, and to Alison's exclamation that his telephone has been turned off, Rufus turns a gimlet eye. "I kept your date for you, with Alex. He's actually a pretty cool guy...other than the fact that he's in love with my wife." Alison looks at the floor, like maybe that's where she misplaced her sense of propriety or honor. "He told me about your phone call," says Rufus. And you know what, if her ass had stayed in Hudson none of this would be a problem for me. I believe in marriage, even though it's kind of a White Only drinking fountain in the current clime, but mostly: you left, so leave. I hate wishy-washiness. I would not be lying if I said that I would never have had a problem with Alison if she'd not come home and gotten Jenny's hopes up again. Although it's been worth it to see Rufus squirm. Also, her ponytail in this scene looks totally cute. "He...felt that I owed him an explanation, and he was right." Here's the explanation: "You are a symptom of my tackiness, and I have cured the disease." It's not like this is the first time that this has ever happened: she left her husband, went to pursue art, got lonely. It's not that complicated. Rufus wonders why she didn't tell him that part, and she totally lies like scum: "Because there was nothing to tell!" Um, do you even know what married is? That's totally on the list of topics you should chat about. "I told Alex that I was back with my family, and to stop calling." I bet if she'd sent it in some kind of letter it would have gone better. "Dear Alex: Please stop calling me, but also, keep calling me, because all of us desperately want out of this family. Also, I am hungry for some food. Signed, So Very Weak."
All the bullshitty lies and bavardage out of the way, Humphrey Man and Humphrey Woman ask some very pertinent, very grownup and responsible questions that make me proud of them both, and this is a good scene thanks to them, although they should have asked them, um, about six episodes ago. Which, since it's this show, could have been yesterday. "Would you have come back if Jenny hadn't shown up to bring you?" A: No. "If I hadn't, would Lily be here right now?" A: Yes, for the love of God and little white tulips. These are two excellent questions, and they're both finally brave enough to ask and answer them, and I give them credit for that. Alison's pointy little face summons up the class to note that she does in actuality suck, and Rufus brings it in for the micromanaging explanation of shit that the audience already knows and doesn't need saying: "I guess by turning our backs on these other people, we thought we could fix ourselves." And Alison completes the equation: "A: Maybe other people aren't the problem." Right. "Maybe we changed." Wrong. Maybe you didn't, and haven't since junior high, and have thus ruined lives all over the place. "And at what point do we admit that no matter how much we want it or how hard we try..." Alison completes the thought: "It's just not working." It's less a question than it is the actual answer. I loved Julie Cooper because: she got pregnant with Marissa, and that was the end of Julie Cooper (while Kirsten got an abortion, and didn't get stuck at quite that same place). Julie stayed that age, that romantic dreamy Jimmy-loving age, barely out of high school, for the rest of her life (note that her happy ending was finally finishing college). And really, all three of these, Rufus and his blondes, are in the same place, basically: they weren't done being kids, but then they had kids, and went on three separate but sad vectors, and now this story is the chance for all three of them to grow up. Whether or not they should have been adults at that time, 17 years ago, is not the point: we need to know that they have the option now, and I love that.
Dan and Jenny are sipping some delicious Only Coffeeshop In NYC coffee while she browses GG.net and wonders why she's not headline news today. Dan approaches her for not the first of many times, wondering if she's ready to talk about it. One way I will never talk shit about Dan, even when he gets irritating about it, is the big brother thing with Jenny. We never got to see that on The O.C., because Seth and Ryan had a vested interest in being equals, and everybody else was basically single-child households -- and even when they combined, Kaitlin was Taylor and Summer's big sister anyway. "Dad said he didn't want to ruin Christmas, that's all I'm trying to do," says Jenny, and credit where it's due: that's cool of her. Dan assures her once again that she has him as a resource, to the point where we all kind of know that he's the one that wants to talk about it. But because it's Dan -- great wonderful sweet silly Dan -- he wants to "talk" in such a way where he can reassure Jenny and thus reassure himself through a speech, when really Jenny's WAY too self-involved to actually care, plus she knows she fucked up bringing her stupid mom home in the first place. They look at various websites for Serena presents -- it's the 24th, mind you, so this is an empty and pointless pursuit -- and none of them are even slightly appropriate, so there's a whole Humphrey of BS filler where Jenny's like, "Look, a year of cheese for $600," and Dan is like, "I would make my own cheese if I could," and Jenny's all, "You're gross because you said 'make my own cheese'!" and I swear, entirely different people are writing this show for the Humphrey parts, because it's always like this: laborious and nonsensical buildup to a laborious and irrelevant punchline.
I believe that Jenny can be awesome and that the Humphreys one day won't feel hammered into the awesomeness of this show. Santa Baby, I've been an unbelievably good boy this year. Please, bring me a Humphrey storyline that doesn't feel like the queerest filler in the Sovereign Republic of Queerdonia. You're halfway there: just marry Lily off to Bart Bass, ship Alison off to Hudson or Hell or something, and get Jenny to bitch out on somebody other than her parents, and you're golden. Dan and Serena already make each other interesting the way it is, and I love their romance, so just get it done. Assorted Humphriana leads into the self-evident fact that Serena's Xmas is going to suck no matter what, because she and her mom and boobyhatch brother are living in a hotel suite, to which facts Dan responds as if he didn't even think of that, and then it's decided: though the Palace does not allow Xmas trees (for real, that is a dumb rule) and you've got it. And we've seen it already so we know what's going to happen, and it's going to look totally awesome, and Dan is great and whatever, we're done here. Dan and Jenny will give the van der Woodsens a Christmas tree and thus spackle over their hideous existence. You know, I don't have a lot of native Xmas spirit. My Christmas is what I call Scary Christmas: the "Carol Of The Bells," everything lit with candles and white-only tree lights, lots of velvet and everything sounding like it's coming from underwater at the end of the year. But one thing I could count on with that other show I keep mentioning is the amount of Xmas cheer you get: every year, somebody saves Chrismukkah -- Ryan gets a stocking, Lindsay makes yarmulklauses, everybody wakes up from their comas -- and you cry a little bit, and it's so wonderful and you're part of a family. And I just realized it's unfair for me to expect Chrismukkah from this show, even though there is token effort in that direction with the whole Gift Of The Magi thing that Dan and Serena do for each other. But really, what I want is every single character on the entire show in one room wearing silly hats, because that's how my Christmasses usually go, and that's Chrismukkah to me. Give me a hug!
Also Blair, who's sitting in her constantly evolving bedroom listening to Chuck's voicemail message ("Leave a message, and I might listen") and begging him not to tell Nate about their constant dirty sex. "Chuck, you are not answering my calls, to torture me I am sure, but please." She once again hangs up and of course Serena immediately enters, because that's B's whole life: boys, Serena, Dad. The nominal reason for demanding that S visit her in the middle of the Xmas Showdown with Lonelyboy is to get Serena's login for her modeling site of long ago. Because the internet is mysteriously connected to itself and this will somehow serve B's madcap designs on her father's relationship. Serena protests that she did like one print ad for Gap when she was twelve, but devotedly enters her password for Blair. The energy in this scene is wonderful, because Serena knows Blair is planning something fucked up, because Blair is only ever planning something fucked up, but Serena will only ask about one-fourth of the questions she's begging, because usually it's best not to get too involved. And honestly, back in the day of Bad Girl Serena, that was wise because you know it would service Bad Girl Serena, and now it's mostly to keep her hands clean. Mostly I love how fiercely they love each other, where Serena can just sweetly rest her head on Blair's shoulder and wait for her to finish her demonic shit without even asking.
"BTW," Blair says aloud and in real life, "you're late." Serena reminds her that she's lucky Serena came at all, as though she wouldn't have even on Xmas Eve with Dan pretentiously hovering, which is what's happening. "Any idea what you can buy for under $50 these days?" No. That is a dumb amount. A McSweeney's. Assassination Vacation. All the hipster Brooklyn things I can think of, Dan already has, plus he's not into "things." Blair's like, "A single entrée at a mid-priced restaurant? Three-quarters of a DVD box set?" She offers, offhandedly, a pair of those Wolford stockings she's always wearing, but Serena knows even Dan's not gay enough for that. Although if Vanessa bought him Wolford stockings he'd be like, "I was wondering if I could get on Cobrasnake or Vice with just a fucked-up amount of hair gel and some eyeliner, but this puts me over the top." And honestly, if you doubt the veracity or common sense of GossipGirl.net at any time, I would refer you to the bewitching Cory Kennedy, who is only a name you know because of real life GG.net. "I don't know. Why don't you buy him a gold money clip from Cartier and say it's $49.99? He won't know the difference." Word. Problem solved, since it was never actually a problem except in Dan's pointy little insecure head. Blair dials Freddy Parnes's agency with S's head on her shoulder: "I'm booking me a model." Serena's like, "I'm content to wait and see what the evil fruits of this incomprehensible plan actually are before I pass judgment."
That Damn Coffeeshop, at night. Serena approaches Vanessa's jigowatt smile with quote "hat in hand, tail between my legs and off [her] high horse," and Vanessa smiles down at her from her own horse. "I spent the entire day searching for the perfect gift for Dan. Now all the stores are closing, Christmas day is looming, and, um... I need your help." I love this: "Turns out I can't even pretend to know what self-important poor people are into, and you're the most self-important, and the poorest, so let's do this." Vanessa allows as how she could take this opportunity to gloat, but won’t, which is kind of like taking that opportunity squared, but does at least inject into her passive-aggressive one-upmanship that she likes Serena, which is a step toward her salvation. "I found a first edition J.L. Hall book, an original Italian poster of The 400 Blows, and a Montblanc fountain pen." All of which, V agrees, are very thoughtful -- and they are, I mean, Truffaut's self-important phallocentrism is what Humphrey Men are made of, along with snips and snails and speeches, second only to Rabbit Angstrom himself -- but all of which exceed by some large amount $50. Which is dumb, because I mean, Serena can at least count, and all three of those are perfect gifts, so WTF, but Vanessa gets right the fuck in there with the irritating: "Right. Well, Dan's not really that into 'things.'" Right? So fuck it. Give me a grocery bag, some Cray-Pas and twenty minutes and I'll have you begging for actual "things."
Eleanor Waldorf, full of gifts and smiles and welcome, kissy-kisses all the grownups in the world not named Humphrey to her wonderful -- and Underpants-Branded -- Christmas soirée. She talks up the Underpants Tree with its Underpants-Branded lipstick ornaments, barf, and offers eggnog. Meanwhile, Lily is receiving a call from that Rufus. "Hey," he says, "It's me." She's superbly noncommittal as he admits that the whole running-into-each other thing at the Constance Billard Loom and Churn Festival was weird, and she agrees, "Especially after our last phone call." She reminds him, though that call was totally sublime, that they're not allowed to talk...BUT, if there's something he's got to say, in his adorable man-child way, he should go ahead and say that. "Is there something you want me to say?" he asks, earning himself a punch in the face. She asks him to be a grownup instead, all, "Okay, pussy, why are you calling?" and he biffs it, wishing her a happy holiday. No nookie for you. You had me, and you lost me. Lily lies and says she's flying to Anguilla with Bart immediately, for sex and presents, and he can languish in his wussy life forever. Immediately after hanging up on his ruthlessly sackless ass, she's like, "Blurg. Anguilla. What is the matter with me?" I think it's Random Urchin Friendly/Unmanly Syndrome, myself, for which the only cure is Husband Number Five. That might actually kill him.
The Silver Fox enters Chez Waldorf with a gift, freaking Eleanor the heck out. She rushes over to him, like a hostess, and then demands to know what the fuck he's doing these, which is somewhat less hostessy. "Well, I was hoping to see you again. I thought it great good fortune that Roman tracked me down at the skating rink and extended an invitation." You did, did you? "Great good fortune," you thought it? I'm in. Come on, Eleanor. She shakily invites him to enjoy the party, and sprints off in the opposite direction. And the stars in his eyes... What if there were something more romantic than the hash Rufus has made of Lily's brain? You're soaking in it.
Eleanor gets very Blair around the facial area as she tracks down Roman and demands to know what the fuck he was thinking, inviting strange men to her home. Um, what he was thinking was, "Eleanor's so great, except for the intense emotional abuse of her daughter -- what if she had sex with a hot straight dude, and thus discovered how great sex could be, and then left us the fuck alone to have a life without her and her psycho daughter constantly trying to destroy us?" But what he says is, to be fair, more diplomatic and way cooler: "Jack came? Go talk to him. Bring vodka." Which honestly is the correct and short answer to a very long, sad question: "You have before you two men: one wants to bone you and the other does not. Get over yourself." But E's not having it, whispering, "You practically picked him up off the street!" Roman shakes his lovely head. "And but then I googled him, and his name is Jack Roth [not Cyrus Rose, so no Aaron yet], a prominent hedge fund guy with offices in London and Barcelona." Which, points for trying, except hedge fund jokes are over, and also were only ever funny in the under-35 set. "And he finds you very attractive." Which, she's gorgeous, which is why surrounding yourself with gay dudes, who are constantly pairing up, is a bad idea, especially in the fashion world. "Well, that's no excuse, and I am doing just fine without your romantic help." Roman asks the very pertinent (and impertinent) question, "Are you?" Which...is mean and fucked up, but also material to the case before her.
"Eleanor, we've been friends for a long time." She kind of laughs, but not in a way where it's not true. "Since before Marc Jacobs went into rehab." And you know, I really, really like the whole relationship between Eleanor and her husband and Roman, and I like how they expect us to follow along, how she was married to a gay dude and dealt with it, and was friends with this supermodel and knew it was going to screw things up, but dealt with it, and then her husband ran off with her friend, and she dealt with it, and all of these things have happened in the last year, but she dealt with them. I like that. I like how even though the absconding just happened in the last year, she was already well aware of the deals she was making. That's so real, and not just in the world of this show: that everybody's got burlesque and there's not a marriage in this world where you don't take the easy way out in order to make it work. That makes her staunch and, if not perfect, admirable at least. Nobody is in a place to judge somebody else's families, because everybody's got a thing we avoid in conversation. Honestly, I think it characterizes why I'm so mad about this show: it's easy to say, "Rich people, meh. You don't have to worry about it, because rich people suck and their lives are secretly horrible behind the mask." Because that's true. But the show takes the step, which is that behind every mask is an actual life, so you're dumb for just getting off on the fact that their lives are weird and sucky, or for thinking that people deserve misery for having more money than you do. You can take it at that level, and enjoy it, but the real truth is that behind the money and the mask, these people are still people, and dealing with shit that makes the money unimportant. My dear friend Karen was talking a while back about how of course I love this show, because it chops off most of Maszlow's hierarchy and says, "And then what?"
I'm comfortable in a world where the usual tragedies and wars and fights and terrors happen in a place where survival, food, shelter, are not the issue, but the pain and fear and ugliness are exactly the same. If you had no material worries in this world, you'd still feel fucked up and weird and wild the majority of the time, because people fuck each other up regardless. And that means we're all equal, and all equally fucked up on Christmas, which is why nothing Dan pulls is really that awesome to me, but also not that big a deal to me. He appalls me a lot of the time, but I can't get too exercised about it, because he's asking the right questions about the wrong stuff. It's just privileging one kind of pain over another kind of pain, and I cannot abide that: you will never get anywhere in the scale of compassion until you disregard that particular money-related criterion. Pain is the asymptote and we're all trying to angle our way away from it. Like how the real similarity between E and B, or you and me, is Eleanor's ability to turn universal truth into a powerful weapon: "Friends don't steal other friends' husbands." And at this, Roman is sad, but not too sad, because Roman knows about burlesque. Whether it's the world of money you're getting excluded from, or the world of love between two people, as in Eleanor's case, you have two options: get over it and let Serena buy you dinner, or a watch or whatever, or freak. Go for the Silver Fox or let yourself dangle uselessly from your totally gay husband. Either way, your happiness is at stake, and either way, you're the one doing it.
Sorry. You know who looks great? Blair. She's wearing a cute oldster white dress, and an insane red velvet headband that looks like a crostini. And what she's doing, speaking of her mom and her various friends and lovers, is trying to track down Nate (Harold), to see if Chuck (Roman) called him yet. "Did Nate say where he was going? No, no, don't disturb Mrs. Archibald [further]. Um, I'm sure he's on his way here now. All right. Thank you." No he's not, and you know that. But it's Blair, and she's just retreating to knowns. Sure, her dad might be world-destroyingly gay, and her mom might be freakishly okay with that while simultaneously freakishly not okay with that, and sure, her quasi-BF might have disappeared once again, along with his BFF, but in doubt, assemble the knowns.
Eric, Vanessa and Serena are all cuddled up doing...shudder...crafts on Blair's bed. Already the Brooklynization of Serena has begun. Get that glue gun away from her before she graduates to knitting! "Dorota's gonna kill you if you get glue on that comforter," Blair intones, and Serena apologizes for turning her room into an "art studio." Oh God, the horror I felt when she said those words. This has the stink of Abrams all over it. Vanessa finds something on the internet that causes Eric (don't you miss Eric?) to giggle and Serena to gush all over her about "how amazing Vanessa" and "thank you Vanessa" and "you're a true friend Vanessa" and all the other phrases that tell you Serena has had enough to drink. Blair goes from happy to suspicious in the time it takes Vanessa to say, "Good. I'm glad I could help. I think he'll really love it!" Like...I love Leighton Meester. It's literally like two different people are operating her face sometimes. She goes from beaming with Serena-love to Destructive War God in five seconds, and nobody sees it. "Vanessa? I think I'd like to help with this little project. Would you come and help me find another pair of scissors?" It's like she's talking in all-caps and bolded, but still with a huge smile on her face. I got goosebumps. Vanessa also gets those -- and again, to her credit, she takes it in stride, with a not-showy rolling of the eyes and a parallel shrug, as though mentally saying to herself, "I might die in the three minutes, but by God Dan will have his Christmas miracle" -- before rolling off the bed and into B's bathroom. The About To Get Fucking Awesome Meter shoots up to a nine of ten, or what we call a Mean Girl Orange Alert.
In the bathroom, Vanessa is beginning to look a bit worried. Mostly this is due to the fact that Blair has picked up a gleaming pair of barber's scissors and is toying with them like a cat with the head of a small woodland creature. "It's so nice, what you're doing for your friend Dan. Helping his girlfriend make his Christmas present. Serena is so grateful, because she likes to see the best in people. I like to see the truth." I only took Latin, French, Spanish and Ancient Greek in school, but I did get born speaking Blair, so I'll translate: "It's cool that you've pulled the wool over Serena's eyes, because in her current phase of Not Being An Evil Whore, she enjoys thinking she's making friends. You and I know better. So even though I respect the level on which you're playing, I know that I could kill you right now and Serena wouldn't be too upset about that, although it's in her best interest to think you're on the level. On the other hand, you're not really a problem for me right now, so you can live. Be afraid." Vanessa, cracking a bit around the edges of her remote lack of self-interest and total investment in Dan's relationship with Serena, blurts out a paltry, "Oh yeah?" Um, yeah. "I think you like Dan a little too much. Just thought I should let you know someone's watching. Merry Christmas." Vanessa literally flies all the way back to Brooklyn without her Birkenstocked feet once touching the ground, as Blair continues to toy maniacally with the cuticle scissors, and back out the bedroom. Serena's like, "What? Bye, you're the best! XOXO!" Blair, having brought her particular flavor of Christmas Cheer And Death Threats, heads back downstairs as well, just as Lily (LILY!) is heading into the room.
Even Lily feels the chill, saying hello to Blair without looking her in the eye, and then addressing her children on the bed. "When you two are done hiding up here, I'm taking you both out for dessert." They protest: Dan must be satisfied! Within his bullshit hipster qualifications and rubric, which are neither necessary nor appropriate. "This is important for our family," Lily promises. "It'll just be the three of us." Serena knows that this means it's three plus one, one being the dude she's about to marry. I love how even the show itself can't muster much of a protest against Lily's serial marrying of rich dudes. I mean, seriously. "Whoever it is, I don't care. I'll just meet him at the wedding," says Serena, hilariously. Lily, as usual, takes these bald accusations of Lilyness in stride: "Fine, fine. Then I will just tell you who it is, because you're gonna be seeing him around from now on. It's Bart Bass." BTW, Lily is pretty tipsy and thus even more adorable in this scene. She finishes off this jaw-dropper with a cute sip of her champagne, and looks at her blonde children like, "Did I just blow your whole mind? Me too!"
Eric and Serena blurt simultaneously, "Bart Bass?" This part is awesome. Serena abjures her mother that under no circumstances may Lily even date Bart Bass, and Lily points out that one second ago, Serena said she didn't care who it was. Eric is adorably outraged, like an expensive puppy: "He only has one facial expression! He scares me!" Serena chimes in, for the crowd favorite line this week: "And he raised Chuck. That scares me." Word. Word word word. They've planted Bart as somehow not the problem with Chuck -- all he ever says to his son "Charles" is "Stop being gross and Stop fucking up," which are the things Chuck does wrong, but so very well -- and yet, this show pays so much attention to family and history and stuff that I have no doubt we'll see the ugly side of Bart soon enough. I think Bart and Chuck's Mom are the problem there, because Chuck's problem is one word long and it's spelled W-O-M-E-N, which in a family situation like Chuck's means usually that the divorce was hideous and Chuck was on the losing, which is to say his mom's, side -- and has since jumped the fence in the attempt to get his father's favor. We'll see, but I bet I'm right. Lily accuses Serena of being, "as usual," overly dramatic. I can't think of one case that we've seen where that's the case. In other news, she's hardly "marrying Bart," because after all, this isn't her first rodeo. She knows that prior to snagging the rich old douche, you have to pay lip service to how it's so very "casual," and anyway, she's not asking Serena's permission. If it were up to Serena, we'd all marry poor people. She leaves all sassy and champagned deliciously to the hilt, and Eric and Serena look at each other. Which would give me pause, because I imagine, as their parent, I would be thinking something along the lines of: "Well, last time I tried to kill myself and you went slutty and abandoned ship. I don't...really know where to go from here. Maybe we are overly dramatic."
Little J and Lonelyboy hustle a Christmas tree down the boulevard, giving mad Humphreiana about how they stole the tree for Serena, or didn't steal it, or something something, he left a donation so in theory they didn't steal it, like this is the post-Apocalypse looting and whatever. A whole lot of words for not a lot of stuff. Then some cadgy Humphriana to get us back to the topic, which is Rufus and Alison. They talk at length about how Jenny's plan to get Alison back to DUMBO was stupid and made more unhappiness for everybody, blah blah, and how if she had not done this, she and Rufus could have been happy for years in their fantasy that they were a family. For once, Dan says more with a look than he does with the endless talking, and they agree that truth is better than lies, even when the truth is awful. I can't recap it because of Jenny's deplorable acting in this scene, so I'll just say that I love Dan Humphrey, and don't let anybody tell you different. It's not his goodness or his earnestness that I despise. It's just that...Dan is like looking at an x-ray or MRI, stuff inside that should stay inside, and I -- and the rest of the cast -- have developed a lot of bullshit layers and lies so that the Dan part doesn't get out. That's like the definition of culture: don't let your Dan talk, ever, or else you're heading for some seriously messy shit that somebody is going to have to clean up. The Dan part of a person is the best part of any person, but it's also the part that rules and etiquette and the entire Blair persona have been developed in order to hide, and when Dan drives me nuts it's because I'd rather not, but secretly he's always there, trying to bust out of us all. And within the story, I daresay that's why the people in Serena's world hate Dan too: he's like this giant Visible Man that comes stomping through things saying true stuff that everybody already knows, showing you viscera and the colons large and small, and this is stuff that everybody has spent years covering up, and it's just too awful to look at. He's like the Dwight But that doesn't make the opposite true, which is why this scene -- terrible embarrassing acting aside -- is actually pretty neat. Dan is my favorite for the exact same reason that I hate Dan the most, and either way, Little J is sad and half-smiles and nods, and gets one step closer to being the total bitch that you have to be.
B texts lazily on a divan while Eleanor gets potted and pissy, and finally heads over to deal with Silver Fox Jack. "So. You... Ice-skate?" Jack allows tactfully that he sometimes does this, although she's "much more talented" than he is, and Eleanor hands him an Underpants Store giftbag. "Well, I haven't skated since ages, but I used to love it when I was a girl." He tells her that he must have been very beautiful, out there on the ice, and they're both being so courtly and cute that they could very well be talking about the literal Ice Age, but before I can get all wrapped up in Jack Roth, Freddy the Scoundrel of Roman's Life enters, and he is mad hot, so screw it. Eleanor excuses herself from Jack's side and demands to know WTF Freddy is even doing there. Which again is the awesome grownupness of her and Harold, that she would be like, "How dare you interrupt the gay happiness of the man that broke my heart and my gay French frenemy who ruined my family?" He tells her Roman invited him, as instructed, and Harold and Eleanor both freak out about that, but Roman whines for a second that he is no longer a total slut. (Freddy gives an awesome speech like so: "How does one explain the indescribable pull to see an old lover, to feel that jolt of electricity?" You go, girl.) Harold wigs and Roman freaks and Eleanor, of course, figures it all out: it wasn't Roman, obviously, but Blair. And I have to wonder what on earth she was thinking: this is a very complicated plot, like, she was just hoping that by creating enough chaos, she could somehow get all the things she wants? That's very Blair. "If I fuck it up enough, I'll be able to recombine the pieces in a smart way." B gets scared as Eleanor demands that Freddy tell the truth, if he wants to be the featured model in her spring catalog. He gives up the ghost -- that Blair promised him a cruise and to renew his gym membership -- and E tells him to fuck right off, because he's off the call list. That's sad, kind of. She throws him out, and as classily as one can, he thanks her for the champagne, and she wishes him a Merry Christmas. Then both Waldorfs turn to Blair, who actually looks afraid for once. "Looks like daddy's little girl isn't sugar and spice and everything nice after all." Gossip Girl, have you been paying attention?
Eleanor begs Harold not to kill their daughter, but Harold is still stuck on how Blair is so super-sweet and would never intentionally destroy anybody, like she does in every episode. Eleanor takes the shortcut and doesn't bother explaining how that's their daughter's entire MO, and just tells him that Roman was never the problem. She wasn't being cruel to him, she was lashing out at Harold, obviously. "She was so looking forward to spending time with you alone, and then you show up at our doorstep with your lover? Without a word of warning. How did you expect her to react?" Harold's hope was that she would act like a person; Eleanor laughs so hard at this that Harold also smiles sheepishly and admits that it was naïve, like he should have known they created a monster with their total narcissism and manipulation. "Blair learned scheming from her mother and unrealistic dreaming from her father. She tries really hard to act all grown up, but don't you be fooled. She's still a little girl who needs her daddy." Eleanor and Harold look at each other with so much love, and so much history, I love it. I would never, as a queer fellow, plan to marry a lady -- not even such a one as Eleanor, or her daughter -- but if I accidentally somehow did, she's the one that I would marry. She's so down. "Look, be gay all you want. I live there. But when the chips are down, you get your ass in there and fix it. I've known both you and Roman for a thousand years, and I'm the one that turned our daughter into a scary monster, so I know you're the only one that can fix it. If you love Roman, help me help you help Roman to live through Christmas. Because his ass is dead unless you fix this."
In the courtyard of the Palace, the fucking Humphreys are making asses of themselves with their stupid disallowed tree, huffing and puffing and polyblending in front of everybody in their stupid Polar Fleece and reversible nonsense. Note please that this is not the last time a stupid ass Humphrey will show up in this spot dressed inappropriately, or carrying undue baggage. They drop the tree and and discuss how they're going to get it past the "humorless concierge," which character the show is so half-assedly interested in making real. I wish his ass was all over the place, like on Samantha Who?. They talk about sneaking it in various ways and how very heavy it is, and then Lily appears to make everything wonderful as usual. This is ... this is the Chrismukkah moment. And I'm happy for it, but this is like the fifth week where this same scenario has been the Chrismukkah moment, so it's kind of understated. Instead of like ten angels blowing horns as she appears, it's more like three or two. "Hey, Mrs. van der Woods...er...Lily, hi." Lily's heart melts, as did mine, when he says this. "Dan. Jenny. Tree," she hellos. Dan explains about the no-tree policy, "which is why Dan's about to ask you for a favor," mumbles Jenny adorably. "Ah. Does it involve distracting Dexter and sneaking into the elevator?" asks Lily, positively radiant and adorable. Dan's like, "Yeah." She tells them it won't work: "Never. He has the eyes of a hawk, and he takes his job very seriously." Which we've all noticed. "But Bobby at the service entrance... I think he could be bought." They smile. "Come." It's been over ten years, but every Christmas, I just want to hang out with Kelly Rutherford. Even more, this year. She is an actual mathematical constant in my life. Lord.
Pretty sure we're in Rufus's gallery in Williamsburg, where Serena and Vanessa's secret Christmas plan is almost fully created. Serena tells her that Dan's just texted that he's on his way, and she squeals her Vanessa-ward thanks. "It's really no problem. And since there are no problems, I should go." You know, Vanessa is great this week. She's still Vanessa and it's not cheap, but you really see the awesome side of Vanessa and how strapped to the wheel she actually is. Vanessa, all you have to do is not break into people's houses and I will love you. I support your love of Dan and your mostly sweet ambiguity about Serena, I really do. Just stop creeping about and we'll have a triangle I'm not biased about. She's fucking gorgeous, smart, quick, and funny. Serena begs her to stay, and Vanessa's like, "A) No way, gross. And B) All you have to do is plug it in, so what am I for?" And again, like every week, who knows how much Serena knows, begging her to stay and "see Dan's face." Does she know, is this a power play even above the usual Blair games? Or is she just honestly being sweet and knowing they both love Dan? To keep it interesting, I want to say that Serena is at least fractionally fucking with Vanessa, but that's not how we're playing it so I'll shut up. We've seen Blake Lively play hella complex so it's not that she can't do it, so this is a choice, so let's go with it: part of Serena's New Paradigm is that if she's not a dick, then neither is Vanessa. "I'll tell him how much you did," she promises, and Vanessa -- understandably -- begs her not to: "It's your present. Just enjoy your night." Which frankly is where Vanessa becomes the good guy in that exchange. Poor old Vanessa watches from just beyond the door -- baby steps -- as Serena twirls and dies of joy, in the room that they've made, and finally leaves. And what they've done is awesome: fake snow blown around with fans, a simple pallet on the floor, cutout snowflakes on the walls, and a projection on three walls of a snowy forest. That is so totally tight, and given they already have all the supplies from that installation a while back, really good use of their resources. I give Vanessa an A- for the week, because craftiness does come in handy, and she really is martyring herself in a way not even I can complain about this week.
B calls Nate, but has to hang up on his voicemail when Harold knocks and enters, about to do the right thing. I mean to say that once again, the show trades Nate and Harold for each other with barely a breath to stop and think. "Can I come in? Our flight leaves in a few hours. I wanted to say good-bye." He sighs and sits, and the love for his daughter just sings through every movement, it's great; never more so as she carefully keeps herself just beyond his touch, as we've been doing for generations, so that he'll try a little harder. Dads work a certain way. He asks her forgiveness for playing it this way, and springing Roman on her, but levels: "I knew that having him here would be hard for you, but I love you so much, and I love Roman, and I was hoping that if we were all thrown together, that something...perfect would happen, and that you would love him, too." That's Blair language, that's Blair talk. "If I combine these chaotic things into a room, something perfect will happen, but I don't know what it is." Which is kind of what Vanessa told Jenny to do, although it worked out in that case even weirder. Blair finally tells him how her plan was to fuck up the entire universe, like every week, and this would somehow result in him moving home, except for how he bought this gay vineyard and probably they're going to get gay married. He sheepishly admits that gay marriage is on their gay agenda, and thus the destruction of America, from way over in France. "Great," she scoffs. "There's no room in your life for me anymore." He hands her a CD, tied with a ribbon, and motions toward her computer: "Sweetheart, there is always room for you. No matter where I am, no matter who I'm with...this is part of your Christmas gift."
And oh, maybe a little bit of that old Chrismukkah Spirit after all. The CD is full of pictures of a gorgeous estate, right outside Lyon. "Your house in France. It's very nice, Daddy; I'm sure you and Roman will totally enjoy it." And Harold shows her the room they've picked out and decorated, just for her. The place in their lives. There's a cute picture of Roman, holding "a cat named Cat," just like in Breakfast At Tiffany's, which was Roman's idea. "So...Merry Christmas, sweetheart. We're hoping that you'll spend the whole summer with us." Blair's actually touched, down to the bottom place where she misses him all the time. The whole summer. She's so beautiful.
Serena brings Dan into the art space they created, the snow falling blown by fans, the snowflake cutouts, the projected winter wonderland. "Merry Christmas. Do you like it? Do you think it's cheesy?" The things that they give each other: the appearance, the burlesque, of Christmas, over the environmental issues interfering with real Christmas: this is how their relationship should work, 24/7/365.25: I will give you the fantasy that we can't really have. Because of the Palace, because of global warming, I will give you the fantasies we have in common. He takes off his jacket and is beautiful, coming into the fantasy, boggled. "I had help from my elves," Serena giggled, doing exactly what Vanessa wanted, as sweetly as possible. Dan sits on the bed and explains that her secret $50 present is back "at home," but that his real, his Dan, his perfect present he could have offered all along, his gift he could have given her that would have taken all the stress away, the watch and New Yorker and all of it, that answer to a prayer: he has it here for her, now. (And honestly, this makes Vanessa even better this week, like maybe for all time, and if you didn't already assume that the "10-08-05" story was what it was, this is pretty Christmukkah, for everybody at once. Vanessa gave Dan and Serena the story of Dan and Serena. As she will for the foreseeable future. That's pretty cool.) Serena unfolds a series of spiral-bound pages and realizes it's the story. "Um. Well, I was accidentally invited to a birthday party where I met a girl. She only spoke two sentences to me, but I've never forgotten her." Serena finally realizes there's a level of weirdness/sweetness about Vanessa's gift that nobody could have expected, and they kiss. Vanessa gave them both the gift she wants most.
And frankly, at this point, with the snow in their hair, there's not much to say. In the middle of a forest which is both unreal and more real than they realize, with no burlesque at all, with the history of their love continually unfolding around her, back two years and into the future, Serena finally makes love to Dan. And outside the box, outside the burlesque and the gift of snow, up on the rooftop, it begins to snow for real. The snow comes falling down, the lie becomes truth, the story stops being fiction, snow falls on New York, inside the gallery and out. When Blair and Chuck made love, I made a big deal about it: once you start taking off clothes, if you're brave enough not to stop, you see the person for real. The film falls off the projector, and it stops being a story you tell yourself and starts being a story nobody tells at all. And here again: in the middle of a video forest, in the middle of imaginary snow, the story turns true, further than Harold and Eleanor, or Rufus and Alison, or any of the stories grownups tell so they can go on living. The snow comes down, a gift from heaven. It couldn’t have gone any other way. Where they meet is the end of lies and the beginning of whatever happens after that. It's completely awesome, really. And you know I hate romance, and Dan, but sometimes stories come true, and it's good. This is one or two of those stories.
Snow blankets the city on Christmas morning, fictional snow made real, and Serena and Dan wake together, on a bed in the middle of a forest of snow. "The arts and crafts were impressive, but how did you manage the real snow?" Serena giggles into his shoulder that she's well-connected, and Dan tells her that somehow, she has managed the best Christmas ever. I won't complain. They rouse and go home, before their families wake up and the stories start ending.
Eleanor walks Jack to the door. YES! He whispers to her, in the Waldorf foyer, and she giggles into his shoulder, that she is a marvel, and that it's a wonderful surprise, to find men like him wandering Central Park. What a perfect Christmas morning for her! And the boys enter, Harold and Roman, and wish them a good Christmas morning. And it is. They're so happy for her! "The flights were all canceled because of the weather. I wanted to tell Blair in person." They beg Eleanor not to worry -- that they have rooms at the predictable Pierre -- but Eleanor waves them off, still wanting to hold Jack Roth. They'll stay Chez Waldorf, as they should have all alone. Eleanor promises to call Jack, smiling back at the gays: "I'll be spending Christmas with my...family." Which is a gay joke, but also an excellent promise. She's proud. She should be. She has managed to wrangle a family out of thinnest straw, out of disappointment and fear and pain and dreams gone all kinds of wrong. She deserves to be proud that she's still standing., and with so many beautiful men in her foyer. You make your deals. Blair comes down and rushes to her father's arms, and welcomes Roman to Christmas, and they head in. "Come on, you," says Eleanor to Roman, and ties a ribbon around what she has made.
Serena enters, finally, the Palace suite, which now contains a wonderful tree, topped by a huge red bow even bigger than one you might find on Blair's head. Dan already gave her the best gift imaginable: tangible truth of a long-term love affair, so recently requited -- but it's a fucking suave touch, and one that gives Lily and Eric something they needed too.
Rufus looks crazy hot in a red aprob and grey-brown Hensley, buttoned up like a college kid. He looks at Dan with a sneaky grin, and gives him obligatory hell for coming home so late. The message Dan left said the "tree shenanigans" were taking all night, but he didn't think it was literal. As though Dan is capable of being figurative. "Big production. Uh, luckily Serena's mom was there to help with the plan." Rufus realizes that Lily lied about Anguilla, and then that he has no room to talk, and thus goes silent. She never knows how his relationship with his wife is doing! It's constantly confusing! Alison and Jenny enter, sniffing chocolate chip waffles -- because in DUMBO we eat waffles at every meal, I repeat -- and Rufus grins: "With hot caramel sauce. Your father's Christmas specialty." Jenny giggles, knowing full well this is a Christmas present for her specifically: Rufus is going to run off to the gallery so that Alison can spend the day with her beautiful children, before leaving town again. One last Christmas, with no lies and no surprises. It's not ideal, but as Eleanor or Dexter in the Palace lobby can tell you, it's more than enough: it's perfect. All four Humphreys are sad, but willing to live in one last Christmas with no lies.
The Weepies -- remember when the Weepies were just something you liked, and not the voice of Christmas? My God, I loved them so much back in my Vanessa days two months ago -- play as Gossip Girl welcomes us to the closing montage: "Hear those silver bells? It's Christmas time, in the city. Some families actually do make the yuletide gay, managing to leave their troubles far away..." How subtle of you, Gossip Girl. I see what you did there. Blair, dressed in Underpants' finest, opens her mother's gift of a giant cape, and thanks her again and again. "Oh, look! You look like a brunette Catherine Deneuve! Quelle magnifique!" Apparently Roman can't think of any French people or phrases either. Blair sits down to Dorota, showing her how to use the phone she bought her second mother: "It's so we can text. Do you like it?" Dorota thanks her, and inwardly rolls her eyes. If you were Dorota, it would be easy to blur the lines. I wish Blair were my daughter, even 18 hours a day. You wouldn't even have to pay me much.
"Other families have a merry little Christmas even when their troubles aren't so far away..." meaning, of course, the Humphreys, where they're giving Rufus hell on the why and wherefore of his leaving Xmas morning so Alison can be with her children. The parents are sad, and ashamed. But they are also right, and they love their children. And honestly, there's a lot to love. You could do a lot worse than Dan and Jenny. I'd want to spend one last day with them too, if I were Alison. And she looks so much more beautiful than she ever has. She is more lost than Lily or even Eleanor, if you think about it. How much of it is Jenny wanting a mommy and how much of it is knowing that neither Rufus nor Alison is capable of being alone? They apologize, which is one gift, and they love, all together, all at once, which is really the only thing Humphreys are good at.
"Some presents might end up getting returned..." Bart gives his lover's son Eric a Florida sweatshirt, recalling how much the kid loved Florida, back when he was lying to cover Lily's ass about his mental patient gig. "Yeah. Wow. Uh, number one fan. You know, I'm...I'm sorry I didn't get anything for you, Mr. Bass, but, uh, I didn't know you'd be coming for Christmas." Mr. Bass begs him to call him "Bart." Sooo scary. "But some gifts are for keeps," Gossip Girl giggles. Serena -- dressed in severely Underpantsy Underpants -- runs gracious circles around the tree, trying to make Bart Bass feel at home, like she always does and always will. "Eric. Serena. I just want you to know that I have deep feelings for your mother," Bart begins, and just then Lily's phone rings. Serena takes pains to point this out. "Um, Lily, you're not gonna want to interrupt this moment." Really? He kneels: "Other presents come when you least expect them," says Gossip Girl. Out in the courtyard, Rufus shivers, snow all over his sexy Henley, talking to voicemail. "Hey, Lil. You know everything's closed on Christmas? Diners that claim to be open 24/7...it's false advertising." Lily looks at Bart down on the floor and shivers. "And everyone knows the biggest present comes in the smallest box," says GG, enjoying this more than she ought.
"So, uh, Alison's leaving. She's spending time alone with the kids. And I seem to have walked all the way from Brooklyn to your doorstep without a jacket, in the snow." [PS: Bullshit. I mapped it out on Google Maps and it's 7.1 miles to the Palace at least, and Rufus Humphrey is not a hardy man. I'm not sure I could do it, and I'm a bearish twice his weight.] "So what the hell? I miss you...and I have been missing you for a while." He hangs up, the victim of his own stuff. "Lily," says poor Bart, "Would you do me the honor of being my wife?" Her phone alerts again: Rufus has left his sad little message. Lily looks from Bart to phone, Bart to phone, begging the writers to have finished at least one more script before the strike...
Harold focuses his camera: Eleanor, Roman, Dorota, beautiful Blair, all screaming "Frommage! Cheese!" Perfect. He captures a picture of this sudden, miraculous family, and I suspect wonders how long it can last. I admire what Eleanor's managed to do here, but I have no illusions about it. "Then there are those boxes you wish you had never opened," cautions GG. Blair gets a text message: Chuck (fully dressed, gaily) with Nate (nude) on the beach, cuddled up tight: "Don't worry, B. Who would I tell?" Which sucks, because Blair went from missing Chuck and not caring about Nate, to missing Chuck and having him crap on her about Nate, to missing Chuck and having him threaten her with Nate. All of which are, frankly, within bounds, even if she doesn't know that Chuck knows that for the brief time she broke up with him at the last party she was finally getting Nate in bed, sealing what she thought was one of a number of deals -- only to realize Chuck had a reason to be angry, because she didn't know Chuck knew about her hookup with Nate. What becomes a burlesque to prove she's not into Chuck has just become his prime weapon against her, and now the party can start. "Have a holly jolly Christmas," says GG. "XOXO."
Jan 2, something bad is going to happen at school. Chuck is going to tell everybody not to talk about the thing, and it's going to threaten Dan's scholarship or poor-person exemption, or whatever Dan's deal is. Blair's going to threaten V for something we can only assume is awesome. But tonight, everybody gets the family they deserve, and secretly want: Blair gets a surfeit of dads, Eleanor gets some actual hope, Lily has suitors galore, Dan and Serena are once again doing great, and everybody else seems relatively content for once. I hope your holidays are way less interesting, and at least equally joyful. XOXO.