In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Spotted: Serena van der Woodsen, buying a pregnancy test after finally swiping Lonelyboy's V-card. But before anybody can bring her down, a chance mention of Blair's affair with Chuck hits GG.net, and pretty soon everybody knows it's B that's having the pregnancy scare -- and that she has no idea who the father might be. In short order, Nate and Chuck break up and Blair gets dumped by everybody, from her boyfriends to Serena herself.
Rufus tries to hit the dating scene with that art buyer Bex Simon, and almost screws it up badly, but eventually rescues himself as charmingly as ever. No other parents make an appearance, besides the very worried Eleanor, but Jenny and Eric are both pretty mesmerizing this week, and Kati and Iz play the vindicated vultures better than you could have imagined.
Jenny and Chuck's gossiping causes a radical shakedown of Constance Billard Girl Nation, resulting in a new queen named Hazel (who looks exactly like Blair and Chuck's imaginary kid would have) and a new second-in-command: the powerfully frightening Jenny Humphrey, finally coming into her own. It's really brutal and pretty heartbreaking, watching Blair go down; she and her mother finally arrange for a midnight extraction to Lyons with all the solemnity of Rushdie's travel agent.
Dan tells Serena he loves her, but it takes the benefit of Eric's time as an in-patient to explain why this creeps her out so bad: she's afraid of turning into her mother. She gets over it, and Dan explains that one of the reasons he loves her so is her fierce devotion to Blair, which sends her to B's helipad at the last minute. The season ender inverts its beginning: Serena talks Blair out of leaving town, and they agree to stand and fight together. Even Gossip Girl is like, "season: Blair destroys the entire Upper East Side one bitch at a time." You know you love it! XOXO. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Someone calling herself UES4Ever, implausibly, has written to Gossip Girl, implausibly, to ask the following question: "What's the difference between gossip and scandal?" And I think that GG attempts to answer this question, but she goes to that vague Carrie Bradshaw place she sometimes goes, so I don't know. "Anyone can commit a minor indiscretion and generate a day's worth of buzz, but in order for gossip to birth a true scandal, it requires the right person to be in the wrong place: take one It Girl on a pedestal..." Some bitch standing like three inches away snaps about a billion pictures of Serena, who is fully comparison shopping for a pregnancy test.
Serena doesn't notice, of course, even though she keeps throwing sneaky looks all over the place as if she doesn't want anybody taking pictures of her comparison shopping for pregnancy tests, but doesn't investigate the twitchy tweener right in front of her, taking pictures with a nasty TMZ glee in her eyes. This is the kind of thing I am talking about. She's so pretty but she just doesn't get it. The news passes from phone to gadget to object, and various scenarios play out: some girl is like, "That guy almost made me spill my coff-- S is pregnant?" Some prep dudes are getting stoned in Central Park and stoner-laughing at their cell phones, people are colliding into each other seemingly at random, so perturbed are they by Serena's pregnancy, the usual: "...Add a crowd eager to see her fall, and give them the means to knock her down."
Meanwhile in DUMBO, Little Jenny Humphrey is screaming like somebody just stabbed her literally in the face. It's a pretty awesome scream. Because they all live on top of each other in a rathole, of course, Dan and Rufus come running all two steps into her room. Spotting Rufus, Jenny adorably regains her composure and explains: "I was just testing my screaming? To see its screaming efficiency." Dan's hands flutter with some vapors or something, and Rufus is like, "What are you hiding?" They try to crack her security parameters, which consist mainly of flailing, and she protests that they're invading her privacy, which Dan points out is nonexistent, because they all live in a single tiny room full of waffles and self-righteousness. Dan and Rufus lock eyes and then carry her bodily away from the screen, while she levels with her brother that he's going to regret it, and Serena's pregnancy is revealed. Rufus and Dan commence freaking out and Jenny bounces.
Meanwhile, Serena and Eric are trotting down the lane when he gets it, and asks if there's anything she wants to tell him. She tries to bring up his bizarre highlights, but he's like, "My total gayness is funny. Your pregnancy is not."
Dan sits in his sister's bedroom, begging Rufus to say something instead of just transmitting his silent disappointment. Rufus gives him a speech about how he and Alison always knew Dan was "special" and that he has some kind of amazing destiny that they have always planned for him, but that this plan did not include having a baby. Dan agrees that this is quite a plot twist, but realizes right that second that he loves Serena. He does a good job of being seriously freaked out, but also self-absorbed in his own romance, and neither of them are very comforting to his father, who suggests maybe Dan should talk to Serena and find out if it's even true before he starts buying diapers and how-to books. Although it's Dan, so probably he would go to the obscure video store and purchase some kind of Danish parenting movie from the 1960s about nudist colonies or something. Dan's like, "Screw reality, did you hear my declaration of love? That's way cooler than actually responding rationally." Rufus nods, and gets very worried, because jumping off the deep end for no reason at all is kind of his MO.
In the courtyard at Constance, everybody's laughing and whispering as Serena walks by. "Yes, I'm pregnant, and it's yours!" Serena is so cool. Dan comes up and they get super-awkward for a while, and then just as Serena's about to explain that she's not pregnant, and sometimes gossip is not true, he's off! "No, wait, wait, wait. Me first. I'm sorry that you didn't feel that you could tell me, and no matter what you decide, I want you to know that I'm here for you. Because I love you." Serena's like, "Great, but I'm not pregnant. So you get points for being a good boyfriend or whatever, you are the moral compass by which we all captain our ships on the stupid ocean of life, whatever, thanks. You love me, that's adorable." Dan continues to wig out post-fake-partum, and she's like, "I need to go see Blair right now. I'm sure you'll still be shaking and stuttering on this exact spot when I get back?" He shakes and stutters and nods, and she gives him a harried little kiss and runs off. But mostly he's freaking out because he said "I love you," and she didn't say it back, so now he's going to get so totally annoying you won't even believe it.