I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

S01E17

Spotted: Lisa Loeb, looking exactly the same as she always has, singing the song she's always sung, and playing host to Rufus and Lily's reconciliation and boot-knocking. That part was awesome, because of course their sad, Laura-Ashley-lunchbox-purse love could only be reignited at a “Where Are They Now?” party for lame '90s bands. It also goes well with the storyline, which is straight out of Boy Meets World.

The good? Seeing an entire storyline based on the fact that Dan is sometimes a judgmental prick, which does more to rejuvenate his character into awesomeness than anything else could. Also: seeing Nate, Blair and Chuck team up to save Serena after she goes on a bender. Apparently after she dropped the murder bomb on Blair last night, she stumbled out into the street and engaged in bad behavior like getting hung over and losing her phone. Chilling! Lock up your daughters! In case they lose their phones!

The bad? The murder was less of a murder and more of the Serena van der Woodsen consequence-free spin. The guy in the sex tape, which is not even of a threesome, did a line of his own coke preparatory to boning Serena, and keeled over dead. While it's understandable that she'd be this freaked out and drama about it (sixteen-year-olds seem to really overreact when people drop dead in front of them, not to mention the fact that this story would have played out a lot longer before the Strike), but from a narrative standpoint, it's kind of anticlimactic. Big reveal: Serena dutifully called 911 and then waited outside to watch the paramedics wheeling his dead ass off! Somebody page the Parents Television Council! We are out of control!

So Lily -- after a Rolling Stone interviewer mostly nonsensically moves the Rufus plot along -- sees the non-sex of the non-sex tape, freaks out on Serena for about five seconds at the rehearsal dinner, and then Blair talks her down. She takes time out of her day to drive Serena to the guy's house so that his parents can tell her she didn't do anything wrong, and the whole problem is solved. So Lily's confrontation of Serena about the non-murder, and Serena's absolution of the non-murder -- arguably the point of the entire show right now -- both take place off-stage. OMFG! Scandalicious!

After Serena lies to Dan that she cheated on him during her bender -- Which she did not! I'm so scandalized! -- Vanessa and Dan learn that Sarah is really Georgina, but don't seem very interested in that info, even when Chuck and Blair show up to murder her. (That part was pretty awesome.) Then Dan and Georgina go off and fuck while everybody peacefully stands around staring at each other and refusing to give a damn about anything, wearing chic outfits. It's basically like, imagine The Hills, but with even more staring and chewing and ennui.

Okay, so obviously the worst episode of this show -- which this is -- is still better than anything else that was ever on television -- which it also is -- but the whole thing's very interesting. I don't know anything for a fact, but this job has taught me a little bit about television, so here's what I'm thinking. Basically every television season, from the monster-length ones like The O.C. to the itsy ones like Weeds, generally operate on a three-act structure. Blame Aristotle or whatever, but generally you have the first act, The Little Bad, which in this case was Blair, taking out her misery and loneliness on Serena. Then you have the second act, which resolves the Little Bad (Blair's fall from grace; Jenny's rise) and then the third act, presaged in the first act, coming to fruition: The Big Bad (Georgina).

Every episode of this show starts with a very simple, whispered question: Why did Serena actually leave? I always wondered why, since we'd seem to have exhaustively covered that, and now we know: the third act. Usually, a pilot gets ordered to season with a thirteen-episode commitment: that's the first two acts, a complete story, with the back nine ordered later. But Gossip Girl, because of its total awesomeness (and the fact that the CW is no longer majoring in awesome), was given a 22-episode order sometime around like the first or second episode.

And what should have happened is a normal 22-part, three-act structure like any show. But because of the Strike, it went on hiatus at exactly the same time it would have ended if it had been a thirteen-episode commitment: "Thin Line." That' s a complete story: the reconciliation of Serena and Blair, and the fall of the House of Waldorf. And you'd still have nine episodes of the Big Bad to finish things out.

Except that post-strike, the third act got cut by half. Half: from nine to five. The whole season being broken a year or two ago, including the finale, there's no way around that. Something had to take the heat. There had to be an episode to serve as the Serena for the season, and cover the ass, and this is it. week, that was already set in stone: it's the finale, whose elements are implicit in the preceding 17 chapters; last week, the best episode of the series to date, worked perfectly. This is where the crunch happens because this is where it has to happen. And you know, in five days I've really turned around on it. I was disappointed by the blur of movement that it represented, but looking at it as an episode unto itself, it's not bad. All the stuff is there, just moving super fast.

By Jacob Clifton

The analogy -- if you were, for example, Serena van der Woodsen -- would be going on a wonderful fun bender that never ends, and finally falling asleep, only to find upon waking that you've lost three days, and your mother's wedding is in the morning. That entails a lot of running around and getting the seating charts arranged and ordering the flowers, which is all this episode is: it gets everybody in place for the finale. Lily and Rufus over here, Nate and Vanessa in the corner, Chuck and Blair united in terror, Dan and Georgina and Serena facing off. Just as it should be. This is just how we get there.

"In our modern age, when you can call someone and can't find them, you can pretty much be sure they'll get the message," laughs Gossip Girl, as Georgie makes... somewhere between five and ten calls to Serena's phone, growing increasingly creepy and threatening as only a teenage girl's voicemails can be: "I think we should hang out today. Friends hang out..." Gossip Girl points out that of course, if they don't call you back, that means you're in the modern age of getting your crazy ass avoided. Or else you're calling somebody who's already lost.

Rufus is playing guitar in the kitchen when Dan enters; he asks him if "Track Me Down" should come before or after "Everytime" on the set list for his -- this is kind of sad -- Rolling Stone Top Ten Forgotten Bands of the '90s Show. Which somehow is going to be sponsored and shown on VH1 Classic (my favorite channel of all time, because any time you turn it on it's going to be either the Gloria Estefan video with the cat people, or Walter Egan, and both of those are like birthday presents from God). Rufus is very excited, because his original RS was a high-seller, and bonus, there's a follow-up article plus the concert, with an amazing co-headliner I can't wait to tell you about. Plus, the obligatory "overpriced CD sold at corporate coffeehouses for Gen Xers without taste buds or taste," per Dan. Sigh. Not hating Starbucks is the new hating Starbucks, PS.

Rufus makes a joke that's not really a joke, or anything more than a tragedy, about how VH1 "classic" he really is, and meets a blank and self-absorbed stare from his lovely son. "Uh-oh, no retort. Signs of a sleepless night. Disinterest in making your father feel old and irrelevant... That can only mean one thing. Girl trouble." As per usual. Dan explains that he and Serena have moved into a new phase of their relationship, where she lies all the time right to his face. The new part is, of course, that he's not forcing her to do it by making her feel ashamed about her entire life and soul. He protests that he has asked her the deal approximately ten thousand times, and Rufus asks if he actually meant it even one of those times.

By Jacob Clifton

"Most times, when people don't offer the truth, it's because they're afraid of what someone might think. And I don't know if you know this, but you can be a pretty judgmental guy." Which, just like with Jenny last week, drives me bats because it doesn't count if he's right, which he has been since this shit started. You're not paranoid if they're actually after you; you're not being a judgmental prick if your girlfriend really is a slut-spiraling murderess. Dan spends the entire time being a fucking saint, and getting crapped on anyway, which is so very Gossip Girl a way to address the issue of him being Dan all the time.

Well, almost perfect: "So you're saying that I should learn to be someone else around her so she can be herself around me?" (Well, no. Actually what you need to do is give yourself, Serena, and everybody else on Earth the option of being themselves without your help, but that's a baby-steps way to get there, I guess. I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you. And I mean, not to retread, but Serena's actually, if possible, grosser than Dan for being up for it in the first place. Because if a boy like Dan is in love with you for many years and is more of a virgin than most virgins, let me tell you that she has the option of whipping his cute ass into model citizenship faster than you could knock Vanessa Abrams off her goddamn Vespa. She chooses to hang him around her neck like a Brooklyn albatross, and the reason she does this is because she killed somebody. So even though the price of being around Dan is being around Dan, for everybody, she's the only one who is actually looking to pay that price, as penance. And as a reminder of what normal actually is. And the fact that all of this shit is imaginary and exists only in Serena's head, well, she's seventeen and prone to drama, plus a dude dropped dead in front of her big old pretty face.) "Couldn't have said it better myself," says Rufus, and I mean: he couldn't. Dan thanks his father politely and goes off to find Serena and get straight with her, and Rufus says he's looking forward to seeing both of them at the sad ass concert of shame.

Vanessa's just climbing onto her goddamn Vespa outside the coffeeshop when Nate, for about the eleventh time, appears out of nowhere like a sexy tiny vampire. Vanessa explains that his stalking info is still correct, but she's traded shifts to go be Rufus's roadie for the day. She asks Nate when he's going to ask her out on a real live normal no-Chasez-included date-date, and instead of immediately asking her out, Nate gets a call from B urgently freaking out about secret emergencies. He focuses back on Vanessa and asks what she's up to later: "Uh, me, Lincoln Hawk, a dirty van and a lot of cables?" Throw in some viral encephalitis and I'm so in. They agree that their date-date is the sad ass concert of shame, 7:30, she'll text the address. Which is in Queens, which we know Nate can locate, as least as long as there's sexy Hobbits involved.

The wedding planner, who is not my lovely Claudette, is running through the schedule with Lily and Bart, and reminds her about her Rolling Stone interview in an hour. Dan appears and Bart calls him "Daniel," which is awesome; Dan calls Lily "Ms. van der Woodsen," and she tells him not too much longer, with a canary feather sticking out of her mouth. Dan, as usual, is looking for Serena; wedding planner dude is not having it, giving the full powertwink: "Uh, ticktock, ticktock, ticktock, ticktock, ticktock." Nobody's seen her; Dan notes her bed hasn't been slept in, because the Bass suite is like Hogwarts and suddenly the upstairs is downstairs and the foyer is in the bathroom.

Chuck sleazes into the room all, "I knew housekeeping was hiring, but I had no idea their standards were so low." Which is weak sauce for Chuck Bass, but he's kind of softening on the Dan issue, I guess. "I hate that I have to ask you this, but have you seen Serena?" Chuck makes the obligatory "I've seen lots of Serena" smarm-by, before receiving an urgent call from B about mysterious things. "Are you drunk dialing again?" Chuck jokes -- or does he? How funny would it be if he wasn't kidding? -- and tells B that Serena never came home. "I thought she was with you," he says, and slams his bedroom door in Dan's face, the better to continue discussing his girlfriend where he can't hear.

Nate gets on the elevator Chez Waldorf, and just as the doors are closing Chuck jumps onboard. It's awkward, but it gets more awkward when they reach the residence and find it empty. "Maybe this is Blair's idea of a perverse double date," says Chuck, which I still maintain is the fastest means to an end. Dorota tells them to wait, and Chuck makes himself comfy. Nate stares around because he's never comfy, ever.

"You're not calling me back, and you're not picking up. I thought you understood me, but maybe I should make myself a little more clear and come to you." Needless to say, that's Georgina talking, getting the crazy eyes even behind her shades. "We can talk about it over coffee. I brought it just the way you like it... dark but sweet." I think Georgina sometimes just says things to sound creepy, like Chuck does. I mean, if you really try to parse that, it's not even that creepy, I mean, it's how Jordan Catalano took his coffee too, a boy who makes Nate Archibald look positively devilish and debonair. She rounds the corner and into the Palace courtyard, where Dan, of course, is standing looking bereft and wandery. She turns around without breaking the beat, all, "Aw fuck," but he spots her and her Olsen Twins chic and giant alien sunglasses immediately.

Georgina greets him with the fakest-sounding laugh so far, and shifts right into Sarah mode. He's like, "I'm totally suspicious and weird! What are you doing here?" Seeing a friend visiting from Portland, of course. You can tell Dan's off his game by the fact that he approves this story without even demanding this "friend's" social security number and DOB. He gets very sweet and sad: "Oh, I just... I came looking for Serena, but she, uh, apparently didn't come home last night, so I'm just... I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what to think. She's been... Well, let's just say she's not been herself lately. So I... I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what to do exactly." Aww. Georgie, acting kind of sad and crazy herself, suggests that he call her, like she's been doing, only when Serena sees Dan's name, she'll "immediately pick up" and tell you all about it. Jealousy doesn't go too well with crazypants either, sister.

His phone of course rings, from S, and he answers very happily: "Hey, I've been looking all over for you!" But it's not S, it's Drew. Drew Who? "The bartender at 1OAK. Some girl left this phone here last night, it's been ringing off the hook all morning. You were the first number on the speed dial..." (Note: never call the first number, always call the parent or home listing. You are trying to solve a problem, not create more.) "Tall, blonde, left here around two with three guys. Skipped out on her tab, which was pretty substan..." Dan hangs up and feels horrible some more and can't even summon up the strength to complain about this latest screwy development. "Spotted: Lonelyboy on the Upper East Side, learning the lesson that nothing stays missing for long..."

Blair finally arrives back home. "...Things always turn up. For better..." Nate asks if she's dicking them around or finally trying for that threesome they obviously need to get out of the way, and Blair's like, "No, this is for real." She motions toward the elevator, where Serena is busy looking busted. She's got like her shoes in a pile, those black-eyed demon eyes happening, hair all a mess. I mean, it's Serena: still hot. But for Serena, she looks fucking tin roof rusted.

"...Or for worse." Nate almost starts crying/gnawing on his fist, but eventually pulls it together, and they drag her upstairs, Blair shouting out orders all over the place. After the commercial, they've made it as far as the bedroom upstairs, where Serena is mostly interested in sleeping some more, on the floor or propped up against something, and Blair's trying to get her in the shower. This is some freshman behavior. I thought all these people were totally jaded? Just leave her in the living room until she pukes a bunch of times and then send her home in a cab. Girlfriend needs some TLC. Blair buzzes around like an entire hive of bees and sends Dorota running for everything she can think of; Chuck produces bagels. Blair starts to undress Serena in the bathroom, and Chuck calmly watches his sister getting naked until Nate finally shuts the door.

"Just like old times," Chuck says, and Nate asks if he's enjoying it. To the porcelain musical tune of Serena ralphing, Chuck shrugs. "Call me sentimental?" Blair comes out, pretty unimpressed with the goings-on, and says they might not need the bagels after all. Nate, still worried, is like a dog with a bone: "What's going on with her?" Blair explains that Serena came over and said some WTF stuff, "But was too freaked out to find the words to explain it. I went upstairs to find my mom's Valium to calm her down, but when I got back, she was gone. It took me all night to find her." This last with a tenderness and a worry that always gets to me. Chuck asks what the big thing was, but Blair's not feeling that right now: "We're here to help Serena, no matter what the problem is."

There's a bro reading the Post against the dirty van -- BEAUTY BAGS BASS -- which pisses Rufus off, and he sends the dude away. Vanessa helps him load in as he complains about the Post, which leads Vanessa to ask why he's a subscriber. He changes the subject to Dan's very awful-to-watch depression, and V explains that the situation with Serena has been a bit bumpy of late. The kind of bumpy where you can't even talk about it except through the language of Scrabble. "I think the most recent bump is our friend Sarah. Serena's a little jealous, but Sarah's cool, so as soon as Serena gets to know her, everything will be fine." (Because of course, Vanessa, if Serena doesn't like you, it's because Serena's the one with the problem.) A huge poster of Rufus looking megafine ten years ago comes scrolling down the side of the building, and Vanessa and Rufus admire it.

"Tell me where you took this photograph," the RS guy says, "What undoubtedly could be called the band's most well-known image?" Lily wouldn't go that far, but he sure would: "It's positively iconic." And it really is. There's a very neato Almost Famous vibe about the photo, which is black-and-white and shows Rufus being very rock star at the mic. "Were you and Rufus Humphrey already involved when you took it?" Lily almost chokes on her tea or whatever, and the reporter clarifies: "Rufus Humphrey, lead singer of Lincoln Hawk? Or... Was this before or after...?" She puts him off, saying she wants to talk about her work, and he assures her that he is, because he doesn't know that when you grow up your heart dies and you stop taking photographs and start marrying everybody you meet. "Why'd you give up photography? Was it too hard to continue shooting after you had broken his heart?" There's a knock on the door; Lily's Louboutins don't even touch the floor as she hastens to answer it.

Dan stammers, as is his wont. "Oh. You know, I see I'm interrupting, so I'll..." Lily admits that she's never been happier to see him, but the cuteness escapes him because he's just so very focused on not looking for his girlfriend in any way, and instead just randomly wandering the hotel that he has established she is nowhere in. Lily, seeing he's stuck in a perseveration loop, asks if he's tried calling. "Pretty sure she lost her phone." Lily mentions that Charles said he was going to Blair's to pick her up. "Ah, yes. 'Charles.' Charles, of course. Thank you so much." He takes off for B's, and Lily tells the reporter to bounce: "I'm simply going to have to ask you to leave, because I have a wedding to attend: My own."

RS is not put off so easily, because like any good journalist tasked with finding out the truth about people nobody knows or cares about, he's just got to get to the bottom of this boring story, because that's what the script for this episode says he's going to do. "Do you think you were able to take such incredible photos of Rufus Humphrey because of how much you were in love with him?" Lily clarifies -- and watch this be a pull quote -- that she wasn't even that much in love with Rufus to begin with. Ha! The reporter takes off and Lily thinks about how that was a total lie, because what actually just happened is that the reporter was the hand of God moving Lily three illegal steps across the checkerboard toward the end of the episode, because we don't have time for anything to actually make sense.

Blair's still zooming around the place like a madwoman and barely spares Dan a glance as he enters her place. She sends Dorota up with some towels as Nate comes downstairs, asking what's taking so long. "Huh. Guess I missed a chapter..." says Dan, and his jaw drops further as Chuck enters the parlor with a platter of bagels. "Or... Four. Don't, ah, don't all of you hate each other?" Blair says "Yes," Chuck says, "No," but Nate musters up a weak "Absolutely." Dan says that whole dynamic is fascinating -- and really, it is -- but he really only cares about finding Serena. Which, if Serena weren't so fixated on his opinion of her, would be the perfect time for all four of them to unite for love of Serena, but I'll be satisfied with three. They lock ranks, and Chuck tells Dan she's already gone. "She just left. You must've crossed paths," says Blair, and Dan continues to protest and call them liars some more.

"Fine," Blair says, her very real concern and lack of desire to do this apparent, but mixing into a different, fake concern: "I didn't want to have to tell you this, but... she doesn't want to see you." Dan's not really buying it, but he is just so sad! It's killing me! Blair says she's being for real, and they all look at him and feel bad. Especially Nate, who kind of loves Dan and still doesn't know what the hell is going on. (Chuck, less so on both counts.) He heads for the stairs, and they actually line up in front of him as he shouts her name. "She's telling the truth," says Nate, and Dan makes a preliminary Red Rover rev-up: "Are you really gonna stop me from seeing my girlfriend?" They tell him to chill out as he gets very excited, and of course that's the moment that Serena comes floating out onto the landing.

By Jacob Clifton

"S?" says Blair, and Serena comes down, assuring them it's all right. She leads Dan a few steps away. He is very angry, and very hurt by all of this. Nearly crying, he just stares at her: "What's happening?" Man, I have never felt worse for the kid. She won't meet his eyes. "Something is going on, and I just want to be let in on what it is." She tries to tell him it's hard to explain, but he makes it "easy" for her: "I know you're keeping something from me, and I'm sick of being the only one you don't talk to about it." She swears she's not talking to anybody about it -- in fact, she's gone out of her way not to -- but Dan's too freaked out. "Then what are they doing here, while... While I get a call from a bartender who says you left a bar at two in morning with a bunch of guys?" She looks down but he's on a roll. "What guys, Serena? Who... Who were they?" She answers, truthfully, that she has no idea. Which doesn't sound great, granted, but he's leapfrogging here anyway.

"Finally! So why are you still at Blair's? You're supposed to be here." But it's Dorota. (This whole episode is phone calls from Serena that aren't actually from Serena, because Serena's lost, which is how the season started.) "Ms. van der Woodsen, it is Dorota. Miss Waldorf's..." Lily's impatient, knows damn well who Dorota is, but this isn't a great time. She's got a wedding to destroy! "Oh, the wedding, I know. Miss Serena is here. I know it's not my place, but... Miss Serena is... Like the old days." Lily's not quite sure she wants this call: "What are you trying to say?" Dorota, who is very worried and very awesome as usual, hesitates: "I think you should worry about your daughter. Worry like before she went away." Lily thanks her and hangs up and wonders if she's killing another kid. Bart offers to come with, but she airkisses him and heads off, to do something she's done too many times before. Lily heads back inside and searches S's room, finds the USB drive in her stuff pretty quickly, and reads Georgina's note. Lily moves her lips when she reads. I don't know why that's adorable except she's Lily.

"...I can't believe I just did that," Serena shivers, hangover like a freight train, and Nate asks what she was thinking. "I mean, did you cheat on Dan?" No, she actually remembers last night for once. "Then why would you say that to him?" asks Blair, but the answer's obvious: the devil you know. "Because I would rather Dan think I cheated on him than know what I really did." Which was what? Still not interested in telling that one. "Dan puts me on a pedestal. If he knew the truth, he would never look at me again." Even Chuck's freaked at this point; Nate uses his most soothing tones. "We've seen you with vomit in your hair, making out with investment bankers in the men's room at PJ Clarke's. You don't have to hide anything from us," says Blair, more sweetly than you might think from the words on the page. "None of us are saints," says Nate. (Aww, Nate kind of is.) Blair reminds her that she fucked Chuck in the back of a limo -- "several times," Chuck mentions -- and not to be outdone, Nate reminds her about when they fucked last year at the Shepherd wedding -- "once," he says, and the three of them look hilariously at each other for a sec. Chuck breaks it down fabulously as usual: "I'm Chuck Bass."

Blair reiterates that they don't judge, and Serena starts to cry. "We're the non-judging Breakfast Club. We're your best friends. Anything you do is something we did, too." Serena promises to tell, if it never leaves the room. She is so full of drama today I can't even handle it. "You all know Georgina Sparks," she begins, and Blair shoots a glance at Chuck: "Some of us better than others... It's not like you didn't lose your virginity to her in seventh grade." He corrects her: "Sixth, actually, and I've been avoiding her ever since. The bitch is a psycho." Serena explains that something went down the night of the Shepherd wedding, and Blair cuts in: "I think we're all aware of what happened that night." Heh. "No, something else, something I've tried to escape, but Georgina won't let me. And now she's blackmailing me." The boys are aghast. "It started when Blair thought you and I had too much to drink. She told us to go outside, get some air, sober up."

Serena danced across the bar. "Oh, if the happy couple didn't want to put up the cash for the premium bar, they should've made their wedding BYOB..." We flash back to a few seconds of the excellent OMFG with Nate, and Blair cuts that short with a quickness. "Go ahead," Chuck grins. "I'll fill her in later." Ew, because he was watching. I totally forgot that part. "I left in a hurry. I felt so terrible, so guilty for what I had just done. I just... I had to get out of there." She climbed into a cab wearing Nate's shirt and headed to the Eastview Hotel. Nobody asks or seems to care how it is that Nate managed to leave shirtless, or how Serena managed to get out into the street without wearing pants. I guess she put her dress back on in the car. This just gets classier.

"Georgina and I had plans to meet up after, so I headed straight to her. Little did I know she had a surprise waiting for me..." Lily watches Georgina setting up the camera on Serena's laptop: "She's gonna lose her mind. A genuine Serena van der Woodsen sex tape..." The guy (Pete) asks how G's going to pull this off, and we see the rest we've already heard; how G put the camera on a side table with their purses and stuff, and reminded Pete that Serena goes down for anything. They make out a little bit, and Serena enters. "I didn't know it at the time, but she was taping me. Lucky for me, I was... I was too stuck on what had just happened to be much fun for anyone."

Serena sat on the bed, truly in a funk. "I can't believe I just did that. Blair's my best friend. What... What sort of person does that to her best friend?" Pete whines that this is therapy, not the party G promised him. (Which: has Pete met Serena before?) G tells him to bust out the coke, and they get down on it. Serena runs off to puke up some champagne, and G assures Pete that she gets frisky after hurling. Classy! (But realistic!) Lily fast-forwards to Serena resisting Pete's advances. The fever. "Why is it so hot in here?" Serena wriggles inside her shirt, and he helps her off with it, kissing her neck. She gives in, kisses him back, and starts to get into it. Lily slams the laptop closed; Serena stops telling the story.

Blair tells her three times to keep going, as she cries, and she finally goes back to it. "No. You know, I can't. I can't. I can't do this, Pete. Okay? I can't. Um... Yeah, how about, um... how about we do a couple lines first, okay?" This whole sordid thing with G just leaving them to it like some kind of rapey madam ... The threesome would have been so much less creepy. That's amazing. Serena hands Pete the mirror and he does a line; he's euphoric for a moment and then gets the bends. She sobers up pretty damn quick as he goes into convulsions, and screams for Georgina. The camera falls to the floor and keeps taping, as she goes for her phone. Georgina comes in, wondering why she's screaming, but gets scared when she sees the phone in Serena's hands.

"What are you doing?" Calling 911, of course. "You can't! There's drugs everywhere, we could get in so much trouble. We can get arrested. We have to go." S doesn't want to leave the still-flopping Pete, but G assures her they have to. "Get everything out that has you on it. Go." S finds Pete's phone instead, and calls 911 on it. "Hi, uh, we have an emergency. Uh, can you send someone right away to the Eastview Hotel? Room, uh, 1411, please. There's a guy. He's having seizures. I don't know what's wrong." Georgina pulls her from the room. "So Georgina told me we had to split up, then she said that people might be looking for us." S doubled back and waited across the street to make sure the paramedics took care of him, but instead got a steaming eyeful of Pete in a body bag. "I didn't know what to do. I just knew I had to leave right away. I took a train heading north, and I got a room and convinced my mom that boarding school was a good idea, and..." Never said good-bye. "It makes sense now," says Blair. Which I mean, sure. Fine.

"But what does she even want from you?" asks Nate, in fixer mode as usual. "When she came back, I told her that I moved on from the lifestyle that she was still in, but she didn't like that. So somehow, she became friends with Dan and Vanessa, and... and called herself Sarah..." Blair wonders, as anybody would, why exactly Serena didn't blow her spot immediately, but Serena explains that the tape is still in play: "It's practically a snuff film." Chuck resolves to track Georgina down, but Serena -- still with the drama -- makes them all promise not to attack G, because her nonexistent relationship with Dan, which she just ruined, might get ruined. "Watch out, S. Just because you finally tell the truth doesn't mean there won't be consequences," says Gossip Girl. Which is kind of the whole point, as Eric has tried to explain to Big Sis on more than one occasion, but we don't have time for consequences! We have time only for drama! "God, what have I done?" gasps Serena, completely without irony.

Rehearsal dinner, where Bart's greeting a guest named Sylvia as Serena enters, looking lush, with Chuck and Blair, looking lusher. "Thanks for coming with me, B. I'm really not feeling up to being social." Say what you will about the teens of the UES, but I love how when it's time to go to the party, no matter what's going on, they will suck it up, dress to the nines, and take those stiff upper lips on tour. Lily excuses herself and aims directly at Serena (Chuck sweetly whispers, "Incoming..."), jerking her discreetly away for a little meeting. Serena shifts into high gear: "I'm sorry, Mom. And you look beautiful. I hope you don't mind I asked Blair to come tonight..." Lily's like, "And you were gone all night, and even Dan couldn't find you with his Serena GPS tracking system, and Dorota thinks you're on drugs, and you have gone completely crazy?" Serena assures her -- I think not-so-truthfully -- that she wasn't on anything last night except for liquor and crazy, but Lily's not buying. "I saw that little home movie that you and your friends made." Serena's horrified, but Lily says she turned it off at the kissing. "I can pretty much guess how it ends." Serena stammers that it was just a joke, and Lily gets terrified and makes mean thin lips.

By Jacob Clifton

Nate and Vanessa have a disgusting conversation about how he's about to -- "drumroll, please" -- take the subway to Queens. Do not play into her shit, Nate Archibald! Don't go down like Serena! I love you too much! Do not apologize for your life! "Your name's on the list, but if you don't see me, just look for Dan and our friend Sarah. They'll know where I am." Nate's eyebrows perk up. "Wait, Sarah's there? With Dan?" She makes fun of him because of course Dan's at Rufus's show, but Nate explains that he's talking about Sarah, who is actually Georgina, and the problem there is ... a mystery thing he's not allowed to say, so he just describes it as "this really messed up story," and tells V not to trust her. I hope Vanessa makes a huge fucking deal about this!

So tight: Chuck taps Lily on the shoulder, discreetly handing her an address; she excuses herself with it. That's all it takes. I love Chuck Bass. Nate calls B: "I only have a second, I'm on my way to Queens." Ugh. Gross. Why? "To meet Vanessa at a concert." Got grosser! Heh, Blair. You kid. Nate explains that he and V are "hanging out," which is not even B's biznatch anyways, but whatever, Georgina's there with Dan, so even though Serena is being all drama and won't just let them off the leash so they can go kill her already, they should still know. "Where are you right now?" 74th and Lex. "Don't move. Pick you up in ten."

Lily, with the address in her hand, tells Bart she has to make a run for it and fix the Serena issue. "Now? It's our rehearsal dinner. And you're the bride." All true, but Lily's also a mom, and that's more important. Bart is cool: "So your problems are my problems, let me come and help." Not this time, buddy. Or... most times, apparently. "There seems to be a lot lately that you can't explain." The explanation is that this is between Lily and her daughter, and since this whole fucking deal is for Lily's benefit anyway, just let her go already. It's obviously a huge thing. She kisses his cheek and takes off; Chuck notices the gleaming evil in Blair's giant grin, and asks what's going on with her. "What if I told you I knew where Georgina Sparks was right now?" Chuck doesn't smile with his mouth, but he smiles anyway: "I'd say let's get the bitch." YES! "Spotted: Blair and Chuck, reunited to defend Serena's honor. With friends like these, who needs armies?" They roll out like evil! Most excellent!

The towncar pulls up outside a townhouse, which Lily reveals is where Pete grew up. "His parents are expecting you." Serena gets super scared, but Lily looks her in the eye. "Sweetie... If I've learned anything in life, it is that sometimes things get in your path, and you have a choice. You can either smash right into them, or you can adjust and move around, but you have to do one or the other in order to move forward." Word. Serena freaks, but Lily promises she'll be right by her side. Thank heavens for Blair Waldorf and the mom powers of Lily and Blair working together; and also Chuck and Blair doing black ops on her behalf, while the whole time she's streaking mascara and falsely accusing herself of murder and randomly breaking up with Dan and refusing to pull it together for even one second. OMG Serena, it takes a fucking village.

As Lisa Loeb takes the stage, Vanessa approaches Sarah with rage in her eyes. Because Sarah is crazy, she doesn't notice, and is just like, "Cool, you can hang during the concert with me, your best friend!" Vanessa asks her, in a way-awesome bitchface tone, if she's got anything to say, and Sarah's all, "No?" and Vanessa calls her Georgina with a wild intensity. She gets the scared Sarah eyes and plays innocent. "My friend says Serena told him some story about you, and he's on his way to fill me in. Unless you want to do that first?" G swears she doesn't know what she's talking about, and Vanessa assures her that, as much as she hates liars, Dan's superiority complex will make mincemeat of us all.

"I'm giving you a chance to explain yourself here." Sarah gets the crazy eyes and stomps off, and Dan's like, "Where's Sarah going?" Vanessa gives him the one-quarter of the story that she knows, which amounts to how the bitch is crazy, and Dan's like, "That girl called her Georgina too!" But doesn't put it together even though Serena actually grabbed his face to make sure he was paying attention and told him not to trust her. "I think there's some other stuff, too..." says Vanessa, but then runs off to find Rufus's set list. She tells Dan not to go anywhere, so of course he immediately wanders away. Georgina's sitting under the risers, crying. She looks like a little girl.

So long, Pete! So long, Pete's parents! We... Never actually saw you at all. In the time that it took Vanessa to call Sarah an asshole and Dan to ignore everything that everybody in the world has now told him fifty-eight times -- meaning approximately thirty seconds -- Pete's parents told them his life story and totally let Serena off the hook, so now everything is fine. Apparently Peter was an addict for ten years, and his parents have no interest in holding a 16-year-old girl responsible for the dastardly deed of what amounts to: watching a drug addict do some drugs and drop dead, then calling the paramedics. Serena still feels shitty, but Lily explains that this is because Serena is, in fact, awesome.

"Contrary to what I might have said earlier, you are a good person. Who, since that night, has been living your life with care, and compassion and respect, for yourself and for others. I'm sorry I doubted you." I just needed somebody to tell her that. Every day, but especially this week, she needs to hear it. I'm glad it was Lily. So is she. Serena's sad and bleak, and Lily holds her close. "There's something else I have to do. Will you help me?" Lily smiles, because she already knows: "Take me to see Dan."

By Jacob Clifton

Blair spots Serena, but Serena spots her first: "Hey, what are you doing here?" Blair prevaricates that she's a "big Leaky Hawk fan," and Chuck tells S -- "you're out of luck" -- that Georgina's gone. And Dan? "I'm out of luck. He's still around." Serena smiles and takes B's hands. "It's all over now. I can finally tell Dan everything. Will you help me find him?" They head off, leaving Chuck alone.

Lily's in the service corridor off the stage, about to call Bart and tell him she's fixed everything but ended up in Queens, but the stage door opens just long enough for her to hear the song Rufus is playing onstage. She hangs up without calling, and heads out onto the floor. Rufus is still singing that same line over and over and over and over and over and over. He spots her, and she is amazed by how awesome he is. They are totally sexy staring at each other, and he is a rock and roll force for like one second. She leaves as he's ending the song, and Lisa Loeb comes up to offer an encore, but Rufus hops down and trots outside, where Lily's standing around staring or something, preparatory to getting in the towncar. He stands in front of her. His black western-cut shirt has like embroidered roses on it. He is pulling it off. She tells him to get out of her way, twice, and he refuses, twice, and she kisses the hell out of him.

Blair and Chuck follow Serena into the stands; Blair's phone rings: "HUMPHREY CALLING." She passes the phone to Serena, and she nearly cries with relief. "Hey, thank God you called! I'm here looking for you right now. Where are you?" But of course, it is Georgina. "With me," she says all spooky. "I hear you told our little secret. If that's the way you wanna play it, that's how we'll play it." Serena's proud: "No. I'm not afraid of you anymore." As Dan approaches with more coffee, G continues to make with the vague thuggish threats. "Oh? You should be. 'Cause all bets are off."

Serena's mystified why G is still acting like a Gary Oldman movie. "Why? What are you gonna do?" G creepily smiles. "It's not what I'm gonna do, sweetie. It's who I'm gonna do it with." Serena finally gets it, but like hold up: I'm not sure I get it. Why is that so bad? You just told him you cheated on him, and he dumped you. You're on a break. It's not going to be particularly satisfying or meaningful sex for any parties, so this is all just burlesque anyway. It's like a special handshake with mental illness. This is exactly as much of a problem as you let it be and you're just handing it to G right here. Dan looooves hating ladies. Let him sleep with G, then tell him the whole thing, and he will not only be indebted to you for life, but will lead the brigade to destroy her. Serena, you need some lessons. "No. I know Dan. He's too good."

By Jacob Clifton

Lisa Loeb is actually singing "Stay" as Dan gets the breakdown from Georgina, who tells the following lies: Her ex went nuts on her when they broke up, busted into her car, vandalized her room, she changed her numbers and moved in with a friend and he found her again -- this girl is good -- and finally her mom just told her to change her name and leave town. It's the second round of Sleeping With The Enemy that makes it art. And the weeping is so genuine that I'm like, "Wouldn't it be a crazy twist if this was also true?" I mean, I have accepted that we're never going to have another group dance sequence or a capella "Glamorous," but I think I could stand it more if things were just crazy enough that Georgina's ex-boyfriend story were additionally true on top of her being a raving psychopath. "I hate being away from my family, but... It's better than getting hurt, right?" Dan assures her that she's doing the right thing, and she apologizes for not saying anything before, but he understands that it was a secret.

And then the girl just goes for broke: "And I also didn't want you to think less of me, because I haven't wanted to admit it, but, um... From the moment that I met you, I've been falling for you... OMG! I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't... I don't know what I'm saying!" I mean, it's Master Class when you just... That's like Errol Flynn chopping down the chandelier, I love it. There are cheers for the middle of the song before the last coda, and he's like, "Let's go talk about how amazing I am somewhere quieter," and G points out that Lincoln Hawk is about to go on, but of course Dan's more interested in being the love object, and points out anyway that his father -- from whom he inherited one half of his self-absorption genes -- will be forcing everybody to watch this on YouTube for the five years. (Ahem: Humphreys. They only hear what they want to, they don't listen hard, and they don't pay attention to the distance that you're running, to anyone, anywhere; they don't understand if you really care; they're only hearing negative. Lisa knows.) The end of the song starts up and he takes her hand, and she smiles brilliantly, and the second he turns to lead her away, she gets all scary again. I mean that eyebrow starts talking language only Nate Archibald understands, such is the crazy of its arch.

Rufus sings "Every Time," which is one of the thirty-eight songs about Lily, and it goes like this. "Every time you walk away or run away, you take a piece of me with you there," and then you just sing that part like a hundred billion times. It's catchy. Nate comes in to see Vanessa, dragging Blair and Chuck behind. V is happy to see him, but can't help herself: "Hmm. Some date we've got here. You even brought your friends, the ones I can't stand." Blair drops her with a mighty roundhouse kick to the throat and asks where Georgina is, but Nate reminds her that Serena got all drama for no reason about them not tossing Georgina's limp pale body in the river. Chuck assures him that their appetite for destruction outweighs any bourgeois fears Serena may have about her rough trade ex-boyfriend. Vanessa snots that G's gone: "She just took off. If I could only find Dan... He's around here somewhere..." Nate and Vanessa go look for Dan, even though Vanessa still doesn't know what's going on. Frankly at this point I'm concerned that Nate's grasp on the particulars might have gone a bit fuzzy. It's a long drive.

By Jacob Clifton

"You sure about that?" asks Georgina, hanging up. Serena is weirded out. Dan asks if everything's okay with G's mom, and she smiles. "She was glad I finally found someone I could trust." In the dark, you don't call the White Knight unless you want him to stay there. She's so good at Dan. She drops the battery from his phone, and puts it back in his pocket, touching him lightly. "Um... Are you sure that you don't mind missing the after party to have coffee with me?" After the crazy day he's had -- People just would not stop telling him that Georgina was a crazy bitch, and to stay away from her! It's exhausting ignoring that much good advice! -- there's nowhere he'd rather be than macking on Serena's enemy, to get back at her. Gross.

She gets totally intense and kisses him a little bit, and he kisses her back after a moment's thought, and then it flashes back and forth between them kissing and Serena staring into space like a codfish and the sex tape song starts playing again and Gossip Girl is like, I cannot believe week is the finale. "If I were you, S, I'd be worried. In the city that never sleeps, a lot can happen in one night." Dan takes Georgina's hand, and leads her off down the street for some lackluster Dan Humphrey teenager sex. "Sweet dreams, Serena. XOXO."