So let’s see. Dan and Georgina hooked up, in a “didn’t sleep with her but might as well have” kinda way (and thanks to Dan for that classy description), while Rufus and Lily hooked up in the more typical “boned all night and woke up confused” kind of way. Bart summons Lily out of her boyfriend’s bed to discuss their wedding -- which is today -- and the fact that she needs to grow the eff up and stop dating rock stars. Lily agrees, with a few caveats.
Dan and Blair get Mean Girl on Georgina, luring her to Central Park and then springing her parents on her; she goes to a reformatory and the whole thing takes five minutes and none of it seems to involve Serena, whose storyline this was, as recently as last week. Maybe she was too busy getting crunk enough to think that her bridesmaid’s gown is something that should be worn by anyone not currently drinking a mint julep in the Antebellum days or running a whorehouse in the Wild West.
Rufus appears to Lily in the moments before the wedding to … whatever, they agree that they are in love but that Lily should marry Bart anyway. They apparently think they’re capable of making decisions suddenly. At the wedding itself, even though Dan magnanimously forgives Serena for all the horrible things she’s done -- such as calling him for 24 hours straight while he was fucking her worst enemy, then letting him get away with it -- Serena is still weirded out. Even Blair thinks S is the bad guy here. So then Dan forgives S, and S forgives Dan...and Dan dumps her anyway, for weird reasons, but then the wedding planner makes them dance together, so they’re back together, but then they’re not again. Or something. I mean, it’s Dan.
Chuck gives a great speech at the reception which causes Blair to fall in love with him; he also spots Nate’s Dad skipping town and gives Nate the opportunity to bust him one in the face, which also causes Nate to fall back in love with Chuck. It’s all very gay and romantic.
Then it’s a week later, and everything switches around again: Blair is heading to visit her pére in France, but will be taking a week-long sidetrip to Tuscany with the newly reformed and romantic Chuck. Serena is going to the Hamptons for the summer, Dan and Vanessa are hanging in Brooklyn, Jenny is interning through Parson’s for Eleanor Waldorf (!), Rufus is on the road with Lincoln Hawk backing up the Breeders, and everybody’s okay...
Except a well-meaning congratulations from Bart sends Chuck into a caddish tailspin and he ditches B at the airport so they can both hook up with people who are not only weirder-looking than everybody usually is on this show, but not even that cute. Dan and Vanessa seem to be edging towards true love, which is just about perfect, and then worst of all, Nate and Serena seem ready to actually start dating, rather than just hooking up in front of her brother and then splitting up so Serena can murder people when she’s not even wearing pants. A lot can happen in a week, no? Can’t wait to see what all will go wrong over the summer.
I’ll see you in the fall. You know I love you. XOXO.
Spotted: Serena van der Woodsen, wandering Central Park in the wee hours in a gold lame raincoat looking utterly insane as the sun comes up over the bridge. Taking a page from Miss Georgina Sparks's Big Book Of Crazy -- or is that Daniel Humphrey's Big Book Of Lazy Stalking Gestures -- Serena has decided to spend the night roaming around town calling Dan's phone like a loon instead of going over to his house, as though by some trick of the cellular network she'll be able to overhear Svetlana giving him a blowjob. Although I guess with Georgie you can't just assume they go back to his place; she probably has a lair in the sewers like the big sexy Morlock that she is. Still, though: Serena, you could at least go wait for him there. Ask Vanessa for some tips on scaling the building, even.
"Here it comes in the morning / I'm just trying to forget / Keep it real, keep it simple / ...This city is endless / And I'm walking alone..." Anyway, she's like, "I just filled up your voicemail probably, so I guess now I have to make a decision, so I'm coming over." She hails a cab, running out into the early morning street on her teeter-totter shoes. I guess when you're eleven feet tall you don't necessarily feel like learning to walk in heels, but the occasion of your mother's fourth wedding -- in which Serena's clomping plays a major part -- is probably not the best opportunity. Especially dressed, as we'll see, as some kind of Cirque de Soleil Madam on Stilts. Plus, what about weddings one through three? Did she "wear" heels then too? Book Serena would totally go barefoot to her mother's wedding and all the society types would be like, "She smells like sandalwood, I must make her my muse."
"Sunlight creeps in between the curtains ..." Rufus and Lily wake up in bed together. BED! TOGETHER! Rufus is sporting some hot '90s Cantrellabe ink. He's also got about a billion rocker bracelets. With that puppy-dog look he gets in the morning, all he needs is some of Georgina's eyeshadow and he could turn into Avril Lavigne right before your eyes. Unless Georgie ran out of eyeshadow -- high probability there, because she's evil and has the eye makeup to prove it -- but they could still just scrape some off and slap it on him, and most of the poor makeupless children of this country, and her look wouldn't change in the slightest.
Rufus answers his phone quietly, trying not to wake Lily, and without even looking or moving or stirring in any way, she says quietly, "Who is it?" I loved that, like they're a team and she's like, "What now?" Now, though, is Leaky Hawk's manager calling to say that now that Luscious Jackson's reunion fell through but Kim Deal's still going strong, Leaky Hawk is going to open for the Breeders on tour. (I wish I was watching this with my sister, she'd be like, "Who is Luscious Jackson? Does he play the banjo?") Rufus hangs up with an OMG that is echoed by a quieter, more horrified OMG from Lily.
Lily jumps out of bed and looks out the curtains. "It's day. As in wedding day, as in, uh... My. Wedding day." Rufus is all, "Why can't I have nice things?" and Lily congratulates him on his Breeders coup, and then awkwardly thanks him for the sex last night. Rufus agrees that it was amazing, and then her phone starts buzzing. Rufus makes a hilarious Avril face, all, "It's Bart." Which of course Lily was assuming.
"Do you want me to answer it?" Lily corrects him: "Do you want me to kill you?" And he makes another hilarious sad CUL8R Boi face, and she sighs and answers it herself because a petulant Rufus is an engaging Rufus, and also the only kind of Rufus. "Hello? No, I know. Um... Well, that's because we're not supposed to see each other on the day of the wedding! ...Okay, that's fine. I'll meet you in an hour." She doesn't really want to go, awesomely: "I don't know what Bart wants, but I have to go, um, talk to him." Rufus hints around about whether there's anything in particular she wants to talk to him about, such as for example their total forever magic rainbow love, and she ignores him. "I'm sure I'll think of something." She looks over and he is still making that face and she's like, "I totally forgot this part in the morning when you girl out on me."
Blair and Chuck wake up in bed together. BED! TOGETHER! But not like that. She is grinning sweetly when she wakes, with his arm across her back; they're both plunked face down on the bed sideways, fully clothed. Ugh. She immediately throws herself vertically into the air like The Matrix, managing to somehow rearrange her outfit, smack the hell out of him, scream a little bit, and land on the other side of the room like a cat that's just been alerted to the presence of a Roomba: "Who? What? When? Where? Why?"
Chuck sits up, rubbing his arm, and reminds her that they were up late plotting chaste yet deliciously evil plots against Georgina, and fell asleep. Blair remembers how, at that time, he was on the floor. Aww, I love that Blair tuckered herself out so bad worrying about Serena that she didn't even have time to change into her sexy nightie and put on a face mask and moisturize, just fell asleep at a weird angle on her face like some kind of teenager or something. Chuck explains that he moved to the bed because he didn't want to hurt his back, and Blair asks why he worries about that. "It's not like you ever do anything athletic." Never has such an obvious, cheesy straight-man line been uttered with such earnest conviction. Chuck immediately walks through the door she just opened, and she amends: "Fine. Nothing that requires you removing your scarf." Heh. He whines that it was like one time he kept the scarf on, and only because it was chilly. "Enough about the past. Before you landed in my bed, we actually landed on a good idea."
Chuck, jumping into his jacket, tells her she's on her own for actually pulling it off. "I have a best man speech to write, and no time to write it." Blair assures him she can be "bitch enough for both" of them, and he says he's still got the scars on his back to prove it." She shoves him from the room, grossed out, and the whole time she's strong-arming him out he's like, "They say if you love something, you should set it free..." On the other hand, Blair coins, "They say when you hate something, you should slam the door in its face." And she does, just as he's growling about how much he loves when she talks dirty.
I dunno. I like them together, obviously, and it's a fine scene, but there's something indefinable about this episode that really bugs me and it's everywhere, in every shot. I don't know if I can explain it except to say that there are things Gossip Girl can get away with that The O.C. could never get away with, and there are things The O.C. -- to now, the best show ever made -- could do that you can't do on Gossip Girl. And a lot of the liberties taken in this episode -- the madcap non sequiturs of the scene above, for example -- would not have seemed out of place at all on that other show. It's just ... the whole thing feels kind of arbitrary and screwball in a way that works weird against the tone of the show.
And I hate to even say that because the writers of this episode are of course Schwartz and Savage, who made up both shows, so if anybody could tell the difference it would be them, so maybe it's just finale-itis or the strike or something. Maybe it's me. It just seems like the last two episodes have not really taken into consideration the finely tuned characterizations that make the show good, so everything just seems sort of bizarre. Like if Olivia and Elliott started talking like Lorelei and Rory, that would be a problem. That's kind of what this is like at various points. It's good, but weird.
Good: Nate. Weird: Nate's hair, which looks like a bird's nest made by lackadaisical birds with low attention span and a lot of product. What does jogging with the Captain do to this boy's hair? Is it worth it? They have another one of those "Rehab sure didn't slow you down" conversations they have where Nate desperately tries to shore up his father's virility and confidence even though his dad is a shithead, and then Captain Shithead blows some smoke about how great everything is going to be forever and ever, and also how much father/son fun they're going to have at the wedding. Only Nate Archibald could you say that to and have it make sense.
Nate asks when good old Icy Annie is coming back from the Hamptons, and the Captain explains that she is never coming back from the Hamptons because her husband is a dickface and also because their landscapers planted white roses by mistake and are now painting them red before she finds out and all the shrubs look like circus bears and there's a leak in the basement of the country house. Nate is like, "Is Mom really that sucky? Whatever, I already know the answer. I just wanted to show you my new bohemian girlfriend Vanessa 'A-Bomb' Abrams: She's vastly unpleasant and has no manners and I was thinking that maybe putting her in the same room with Mom would kill them both."
Captain's like, "Right, you have a 'girlfriend.' I keep forgetting about that, what with you constantly running off for week-long vacations with Charles Bass. Incidentally, are you two...?" Nate doesn't want to talk about it and the Captain gets gay panic and starts talking about Yankees. He could be talking gibberish, I wouldn't know, but Nate is relieved and also talks about this... sports team, and the... sport that they... play. The Captain gets a phone call which is obviously from a bad guy and tells Nate that it's his sponsor so Nate will run off and do something about his goddamned hair, and then he's all, "Don't be late, don't be early, don't be subtle, don't meet me anywhere discreet. I'll slip out right after the ceremony and there you will be, waiting, across the street from this huge society wedding that everybody on this show is attending." So I guess the Captain got his Secret Stealth Skills badge back when Asher Hornsby was Den Leader.
Serena finally manages to locate Dan's loft, even though it is in Brooklyn. She knocks on the door like an overoxygenated crack head, and then just about knocks him over with an uninvited kiss when he opens the door. I don't think, if you're keeping score, that Dan has ever looked quite as hot as he does in this scene. "I'm sorry, I know it's early but I couldn't sleep, I had to see you, and you're here, which means you slept here, which is a relief, but not a surprise..." See? Serena knows about the underground lair. Georgina comes out all like, "Serena, what on Earth are you doing here at your boyfriend's apartment the morning after I called you and said I was going to sleep with him just to mess with you?" Serena admits that seeing a fully dressed Georgie creeping around the place like a harbinger of disease is a bit more surprising than finding Dan at his house. Dan stands stock still looking hotter than anything but not committing to an emotion or reaction of any kind. The camera twirls all around them and Gossip Girl's all, "They say love conquers all, but maybe love never met Georgina Sparks. Poor Humphrey. Looks like our resident moral compass isn't such a straight arrow after all."
Georgina's all, "Oh, Serena, Dan was talking such mad shit about you that I thought you guys were broken up" and Serena's all, "Like over?" And Dan's like, "I refuse to commit to anything or speak out loud because I'm totally the bad guy here but if I play it cool I can -- as always -- find a way to make this your fault." Georgina offers to leave and Serena's like, "So you just totally got what you wanted, right?" Dan has the balls to defend her to Serena, all, "This isn't Sarah's fault!" And Serena points out that no, it's not Sarah's fault, you idiot, it's Georgina's, because Sarah is fictional and Georgina is all too real. Dan finds a way to be snotty about this. G whines about how she never wanted to break them up and Dan is totally understanding and sweet to her because, of course, the only way he can make this Serena's fault is if he refuses to admit that he or Georgina did anything wrong, so he starts building that case here, all, "Oh, did mean old Serena yell at you?"
And Georgina expertly -- of course -- plays along: "No it's not [okay], because now she's upset," like Serena's being unstable right now, and Serena finally just starts taking off her earrings to fuck the bitch up, so Dan jumps in between them. G flashes some "scared" and "innocent" and "vulnerable" Sarah eyes at them, and leaves, and Serena sits Dan down for a much-needed talk about what G is all about.
Later, Serena wraps up. "So my mom took me to see his parents, and after talking to them, all I wanted was to come and find you, and tell you everything." But I couldn't, because you were too busy selling out your father and best friend in order to play into G's whole "poor me" story that even a child could see through. He graciously and magnanimously announces that he does not hate Serena, although to be fair, she asks for it this time, and Serena explains -- for what, the eleventh time? -- that she would have told him the truth except that he is judgmental about normal things like drinking and sex, so of course you cannot tell him when you are a murderer -- and he's like, "Yeah, but that's on you, kind of."
"It's, uh, a lot. And... I get it. I get it. I mean, 'Hey, I think I killed someone, and I'm being blackmailed by a crazy girl pretending to be someone else' doesn't quite ... roll off the tongue." Right, so now the only asshole in the room is actually ... let's see ... you, cheater. Serena's all, "My self-image and self-respect are so tied up with your bullshit and I'm so like my mother in that I cannot be alone for even a moment, so can we please fix this? Will you please forgive me for not giving you the opportunity to badger me about my murder, and then for forcing you to have sex with another girl?"
Dan's moral compass leads him to confess the obvious, about the hummer from Georgina last night, and Serena does a very scary thing that we've kind of seen her do before, but not like this. It's scary like her grandma's scary. He gets about two words out and she literally stands up straight, like, if they'd been drinking tea it would have been tea clanking everywhere is how fast, and she tells him how it's going to fucking be: "-- It's okay. You and Georgina and Vanessa were just hanging out, and it got late, and you fell asleep." Her eyes slide off his face, kind of grossed out by herself, and says she'll see him at the wedding. Anything to stop the words coming out of his mouth. He gives her a big old Dan Fucking Humphrey kiss on the mothereffing forehead, like the total condescending Sparks-tasting douche that he is, and she hugs him tightly. At the door, she says, "When I told my mom not to go away with Rufus, I said it was because you and I were forever. I knew I was right." And he's moved by that, and smiles, and when she leaves he hastens over to the phone ... And calls Blair. Hell, yeah. He's learning.
Lily rushes into an empty condo near the highway, wearing a totally cute coral/orange sun dress, and looks at Bart Bass, who is standing portentously near the window. He doesn't turn around when she comes in and asks WTF he's doing flouncing around properties when their wedding is happening. But it's because this is all a big silly color-by-numbers metaphor. I lost a bit of respect for Bart Bass here, because it's just so silly to make Lily jump through these hoops when you're going to have to look her in the eye and ask either way. "This is the first building I ever bought... Sometimes I like to come here, just to... Feel how it felt the first time I saw it." Lily thinks about that and how totally weird that is, and yet how there is a strange parallel to her own situation: "Well, there is a comfort in revisiting the things that we loved, when we were young..."
See what I mean? If this were Julie Cooper and Caleb Nichol you wouldn't even blink, it would be awesome, this whole metaphor with the building and the whole "let's take time out of our busy day for a metaphor that you're not even going to understand until the end of the conversation," because they were these magnificent cartoons. But Bart and Lily aren't cartoons because Bart is really weird and scary looking, and Lily is ... It's Lily. "But the truth is, I'm not that young man anymore. I think maybe I've outgrown this place, and holding onto it is keeping me from moving forward with what's most important to me now. What do you think I should do?" Flip it for a profit? Turn it into an art space or community center? Tear it down and build a park? WTF, I'm tired of this scene. Basically he's like, "My secret wedding wish is for you to stop fucking Rufus Humphrey and stop listening to Lisa Loeb and writing about him in your diary," and she's like, "Thanks for not calling me a whore, and I promise I got that out of my system last night. Plus, the choker is back."
Dan leaves a voicemail for "Sarah," at Blair's behest. "Hey, hey, it's me. D. Um, after you left, Serena and I got in a huge fight, and... And she said all this crazy stuff. I honestly don't know what to believe, but... But what I do know is I want to see you. So, uh, call me." Blair praises his manipulative powers -- which are, admittedly, mighty -- and Dan takes a while to tell Blair how mind-blowing it is that he is stooping to her level because he doesn't normally "do plots against people," because he is superior to her and everyone she knows and everyone in the entire universe, and she just rolls her eyes and calls him a virgin. "I'll talk you through it." G immediately calls back, winning an excited grin from B: "Right on schedule."
Okay, Georgina is kind of a magnificent cartoon, which is the only part that makes this part bearable -- and in fact fucking excellent -- because otherwise it would be totally embarrassing. And I admit, if this were the only five minutes of this show a person ever saw, that would be embarrassing and uncharacteristic, but in context it's totally fly. So G is heading somewhere in a towncar when she calls back with a crazy loony grin, and she's all, "Sorry about this morning with Serena. That was very awkward, to say the least," and Dan goes, "Yeah, a little bit. Last night really changed things for me. Serena and I left things kind of uncertain, so I... I think I wanna end it. I know I do. Will you meet me?" She takes a while to answer, gloating freakishly, and then asks Dan to meet her at their spot where her dog Georgie (may he, I assume, rest in peace) first made their meet-cute so meety, and so uncutey. And then! G hangs up and totally says to the driver with a straight -- albeit bugshit crazy -- face, "We're turning around. One last battle, and the war is won." I would give my left nut to be on this show anyway even for five seconds, but I would give my left nut to be on any show and say to the driver, "We're turning around. One last battle, and the war is won." I say that all the time anyway, just not onscreen.
Blair congratulates Humphrey on being a born liar, knowing that it will obviously prompt him to say something like, "Thanks, I think," which he of course does, but then she does her whole "speak softly and carry a big stick" routine, carelessly asking about the whole "genius" part about "last night," while secretly boring holes into his skull with her brain powers. "Anything you wanna tell me?" Dan says no, he's just born to lie, and she lets it slide. Except even on this show, Dan Humphrey did not invent the concept of "night," so if he was talking to a human being on the other end of the line and said "last night" and the other human being was not immediately like, "What are you talking about, 'last night,'" then I don't see what the confusion is here. He just totally fessed up in front of Blair and said, "When you were performing oral sex on me last night it turned out that I had emotions about it," and that's a dropped ball.
Their spot in the Park by the pond, where Georgie is wearing an Olsenesque blend of gothic couture and Madonna crucifixes and generally looking like what somebody might imagine a fucked-up teenager with infinite resources and zero imagination would wear. One of the forum posters had the hilariously brilliant idea that each of Georgina's personalities each applies her own eye makeup every day. G starts pretty smooth, like, "Last night was fun and all," but the second Dan's like, "As a moral compass, I have to justify sleeping with you last night as some kind of emotional breakthrough or else what I am is a total slut which is not how I envision myself," but he backs right the fuck off that train when G grabs his hand like a total psycho and goes, "That's why I think we should be together forever!" YEAH!
Dan likes crazy, but not this crazy. He stops dead in his tracks and spills all of the beans. "Serena told me everything. All right? And I believe her." Georgina starts spinning mad lies but they're not as cool as her other ones, she's just like hitting all the buttons in the elevator and hoping it'll hit the right floor: Serena was upset, Serena is jealous, Serena lies all the time, there is a vast conspiracy against me, we are in love, I know you feel our love strongly or else you are a total slut which is not how you envision yourself, and the kicker: "So you're just gonna go back to Serena like nothing happened, and just leave me all alone?" Poor lonely Sarah and poor Lonelyboy, she's saying. Remember how sad you were for Sarah? I'm all alone.
Except she's not, because look who just showed up! Blair Waldorf, out of thin air, baring teeth like knives and producing Georgina's totally awful looking parents, who turn around both at once like Pips just as a bodyguard slides into place behind G. "The only thing feared by the spawn of Satan? Mom and Dad. Leave it to Blair Waldorf to know that bitches don't just happen, they're made, by parents even more wicked than their offspring." Nice social commentary, GG. Georgina's lackluster lying skills today fail even further and she just babbles for a while. Blair is awesome:
Blair: There, there, Georgie. It's gonna be okay...
Mrs. Sparks: -- No, this time, it won't.
Blair: ...Or it won't!
"Your parents were so worried, G! They told me everything! How you're supposed to be on the equestrian circuit, but sold your show pony for cocaine..." (!) G flips into total celeb rehab-speak without a thought, acknowledging that as a "difficult time," but one she's put behind her. "When? When you were in rehab? It's hard to get clean when you hitchhike into town, steal a credit card and book a ticket to Ibiza." G starts to lose composure: "You didn't see where they sent me, I mean, that place was awful! It was... It was in Utah! At least I lasted longer than Lohan!" Georgina!
She tries to run away, like, literally escape, but the bodyguards and her horrible parents crowd in closer. "Stay, Georgina," says Blair. "I'll go. ...Oh, that reminds me! I almost forgot to leave you the information that I discussed with your parents." Mrs. Sparks totally says, "A boot camp for troubled girls!" And B hands her the brochure ("PENANCE!"), whispering, "Haven't you heard? I'm the crazy bitch around here." She straightens up and smiles brightly. "Have fun at reform school!"
The Humphrey Men (and eventually Ladies) of DUMBO have a boring conversation of which the highlights are: Rufus fully refers to something as "an historic moment," they kind of hop about on one foot each around the fact that they both got laid last night, gross, nobody cares about Rufus's band in reality, nobody cares about Dan's relationship with Serena in reality, the wedding is happening today, Rufus acts disingenuous some more, and Dan tells his Dad about how it was Serena's fault that Lily didn't meet him that one sad night, so then a horrible plan begins to form in Rufus's mind and he bounces, and then Jenny comes out of her bedroom having inflicted the most hideous dress ever seen on this show on poor Vanessa Abrams, and the poor thing's too ignorant to even know how awful she looks in it, but luckily so is Dan, so he says she "cleans up nice," which isn't even true because she's perfectly lovely all the time except for right this second, and then the Three Biggest Assholes in Brooklyn head out to annoy the Upper East Side, one of them wearing an orange batik version of the California Raisins garbage-bag costume so beloved in our childhoods and an entire Bird of Paradise shrub stapled to the side of her fucking head, all of them po-faced and raring to be above it all even unto the people soon to be staring at them for drinking from the fingerbowls.
And then! Blair gets out of a car wearing an even more hideous dress. BLAIR WALDORF! The girl fashion was invented for! Bubble dresses were never okay! She looks like a floral pink diaper model! She looks like her tuffet has tumors! They undulate like waves of nasty! Inside, the wedding is all a-bustle. Chuck is being super-thinky, so Blair asks how the speech is going. He assures her there won't be a dry eye in the house, and asks after "Whoregina." B assures him the uppance came, and ... that's the end of Georgina Sparks. Never to be mentioned again, in this episode at least. I mean, I guess S visiting Pete's parents was the reconciliation Eric was leading her to, but I really wanted S to give G the chance of becoming human again. It seems cheaper to just leave her there, broken. You create a character, you have the obligation to make that character balance out somehow, or else they're just paper dolls. Like, I think I would have liked Marissa's Oliver storyline even more than I did -- meaning much more than most people -- if they'd given him something to work with, at the end. I mean, it wouldn't have taken much. I expect more from this show, too. Ah well, it was fun watching her go down, and even more fun watching B and Chuck and Dan pull the strings. Still, though. Way to hand over S's one important storyline to a completely different person who deserves her own.
"Dan Humphrey actually lent a hand, it was nice to see him get his dirty for once," says Blair, fussing with Chuck's lapels. "Not sure how much fun he had, though. No one ever enjoys their first time." "Except you," says Chuck, ruining it. "Save me a dance?" Blair grabs his pink floral bowtie (Lily, What are your colors? Bright red? Bright yellow and black whorehouse style? Pink and green floral prints from 1982? This wedding is confusing!) with one hand and rearing back with the other: "Now that Georgina is done, so are you and I. She was the last thing we had in common." She kicks him in the shin and takes off with a dumb "break a leg" joke to which neither of them seem to have given much thought.
Eric deals with the hyperactive Wedding Planner, while out in front, the Archibalds arrive. Chuck and the Captain greet each other warmly, and Nate gives Chuck a chilly look. The Captain -- eager to pull one last parenting rabbit out of his hat before vanishing forever -- advises them to get over their differences and let the total gay love blossom between them once more. "You've been friends a long time. Whoever she is, she's not worth it." Chuck agrees, even though he doesn't mean it, and Nate spits that this is exactly the problem: Chuck's lack of romantic feelings toward Blair.
(Which is always confusing, but kind of mirrors the whole Dan/Georgina thing: if Chuck loves Blair, then him sleeping with her has nothing to do with Nate and it's okay, but if Chuck doesn't love Blair, then him sleeping with her has everything to do with being an asshole to both Nate and Blair. And since Chuck is deeply entrenched in the burlesque of being a slimeball, and Nate loves Chuck so much that he will always support this self-chosen version of his friend just like they all do for each other all the time, then Chuck can't love Blair, which means that Chuck is a bastard, which he already was, but a bastard in a particular way aimed at poor sweet Nate's unwitting head, and the variable hair that lives on top of it.)
Upstairs, B locates S for an impromptu pre-wedding ugly dress party. Because what Serena is wearing is the queen of the ugly dresses we've seen so far. Maybe this is a joke about making your bridesmaids wear ugly shit or something? I don't get it. And you know Vanessa isn't a bridesmaid. But Serena is wearing a yellow ruffled number that wouldn't be out of place in a saloon, or swinging from the ceiling in a steakhouse, but with a wide black belt and black gloves. Why? Why any of this, but especially ... it's just so weird! She looks like she's about to sell her prize pony, not for cocaine, but for the glory of the Confederacy. Serena wonders why Lily's heart doesn't seem entirely into wedding number four -- and oh, Eric spends this whole episode in the corners of the screen looking devastated, because he loves love and hates lying and has now mentioned how it's wedding number four at least twice, possible in every episode in which he's appeared -- but B's more interested in wondering how long it'll take them to get to husband number four. Ha!
"A girl can dream," Serena muses, and Blair sarcastically segues, "Speaking of true love... Dan isn't here?" Serena says he's coming, and B asks if "all is forgiven," but she's talking about S's mental breakdown the last two episodes, and not the Georgina Surprise we're all pretending didn't happen, so S is like, "I'm working on it." But B's like, "Working on what? You are the one that lied and freaked out," and S doesn't want to talk about the G factor because she's still in creepy-scary denial mode so she's like, "Yes, right, I'm a whore, I forgot. That's what I'm working on: making him forgive me for not telling him about that guy I murdered. Thanks for the reminder."
The Captain meets a shady individual directly across the street from a huge society wedding where the entire Upper East Side right this second is, standing in plain sight. (Asher's like, "Just don't kiss him, that shit will blow up on you so fast.") The Captain bitches about how their totally obvious shady dealings were supposed to be during the reception and whatever, they do the deal, Chuck of course sees the entire thing and tells one of the waiters or ushers to watch Mr. Archibald carefully in case he tries to jump bail or do a bunch of drugs or prostitute his son or commit fraud or perjury or suicide on Bart and Lily's special day.
Lily, in her ravishing white wedding gown, is downing white wine by the flute and trying to get that bracelet on her wrist, so of course this summons Rufus out of nowhere and he's like, "Need a hand with that?"
Lily takes the commercial break to compose herself and then playfully threatens to have him thrown out. Or at least would like the option to consider, given how much security details cost. He attaches her bracelet and asks if she wants him to leave, and she's all, "I didn't say that." He says that he is prepared, at the tiniest sign from her, to run down there and call off the wedding and tell Bart and the guests to go home. She is charmed. He is being super charming, even though he can't see that it's exactly this childish romantic stuff that makes him unacceptable as a partner: "I didn't say that either." He swears they can figure it out, and she's like, twenty years of history to hash out, with my wedding happening downstairs in five? Come on. "Look, we've already had the morning after today, what's gonna happen tomorrow morning?" Rufus turns back into a pumpkin and gets angsty and selfish again, obviously. You've met rock stars before. You've met Rufus before, for Pete's sake.
"Lil, I just got a divorce. I don't wanna get married again, at least, not right away." She stands up, white-knuckling her wine glass until you think the crystal will shatter. "But I do. I've been alone for quite a while now, and you know what? It's hard. And I love Bart. Not just because he has money -- I have enough money, not that you can ever have enough money, but... I'm rambling. And I'm nervous, and ... You make me nervous." He thinks that's romantic and not scary. She points out all the other questions, not to mention Dan and Serena, and Rufus is like, "That plot point made very little sense in the first place. I reject it." She agrees, and they talk about how twenty years is a long time as though she didn't completely ignore him and marry three other guys during those twenty years during which they barely spoke yet somehow signify now.
Eric, Bart and Chuck take their places at the end of the aisle, and Bart assures Eric that of her many amazing and wonderful qualities, he's accepted Lily's tardiness. Speaking of tards and tardiness, Dan and Vanessa arrive. Do not look directly at her dress. Vanessa's all, "I hope this awkward transition between scenes makes sense and you and Lily both take too long to get dressed!" Dan whines that he has no father figure and the only person who can tie his necktie is Vanessa, blah blah, and then abruptly changes the subject from himself to himself, namely his relationship with Serena, and Vanessa's like, "Are you worried that you had sex with Georgina for no reason and that makes you a total scrub?"
Dan explains that he thought "confronting" Georgina would make him feel better -- because making Serena feel bad about herself always worked in the past -- but it didn't, because he actually knows somewhere in that pointy head of his that he did something wrong. It's so awesome that Dan and Serena are both ignoring the actual fact of things, which is that Dan is a shit because he slept with Georgina for no good reason except anger and jealousy, but doing it in the opposite directions so that Serena will always lose no matter what. Dan's like, "I have to tell Serena in explicit detail the thing that she obviously already knows and is willing to overlook because she is lonely! Then I will feel better, because we can agree that it's her fault!" And Vanessa, spotting Serena coming, vamooses like whoa.
Serena and Dan have an entire conversation about "Can I talk to you about this thing you don't want to talk about?" No, you may not. "But I have to tell you this thing you already know and don't want to talk about!" No, you may not, and also it's my mom's wedding day and I've got a lot on my plate and I'm wearing the entire second half of East Of Eden on my person right now. "Okay, I'm just going to tell you this thing you already know." Please stop. "No, see, I didn't sleep with Georgina." Oh really? That's amazing. I figured you did. "Well actually, I basically did." What. The. Fuck. Dan. The wedding planner comes running up and spirits her away to a better place.
Rufus and the all-dressed and all-ready Lily step out into the hall. This part is cool. He goes, "And here we go. Are you sure about this?" She grins and tells him to stop asking, or she'll change her mind, and he takes her hand. "I love you, Lily." "I love you, too, Rufus." They smile sweetly at each other, and then hold the tableau just long enough that you really think they're going to run off, and then everything changes. Brilliantly done: "And have a great wedding and try not to trip or anything!" says Rufus, and she laughs at him. "I can't believe you put that in my mind. ...Well, luckily I have done this before." He laughs and they make arch faces at each other, and he doesn't let go of her hand until the very last second, and neither does she, and then she goes down to her wedding.
Blair is horrified, in the seats, that Vanessa is only now finding her seat. Which is to say, she only finds a reason to be horrified once she sees Nate hugging her. The old queen to her gives her this look like, "Girl, quit. I love weddings." Which is basically like saying, "Nothing sparkles quite like a WHITES ONLY drinking fountain," but YMMV.
Sad Serena leads the walk up the aisle in her hideous dress; Lily follows, perfect as usual; Eric is still sad; Bart is happy but stoic and scary looking, of course. Chuck squeezes his arm awesomely. The reverend starts to talk, and GG speaks along with him for a while before taking an awesome left turn: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the face of this company to watch this man..." (Lonelyboy) "...And this woman... Totally eff things up. Excuse me while I pull out a hankie and pass it to S and D. Looks like I'm not the only one who cries at weddings..." S looks dead on her feet.
Later, Lily is bored as hell at the reception, while S picks at her food at another table. Dan teases her about not eating and being morose and weird just because he cheated on her last night, and asks if they can "talk" some more. She scoots with a quickness, which is exactly what she should do. Frankly, she should get on a plane and not come back until this creepy desire of his subsides.
The waiter guy approaches Chuck at Bart and Lily's table and whispers in his ear. Chuck sighs heavily and heads over to Nate's table. "I need to talk to you," he says, and Nate ignores him basically, and when Vanessa asks if things are okay, Nate says yes but Chuck says no, and hustles him away. "Before the ceremony, I saw him with a guy doing a deal. It looked like drugs." Nate bitches at Chuck for spying and lying, and Chuck looks him dead in the eye: "I know you hate me. I was in love with Blair, and I'm sorry. We do not have time to argue about this." Nate searches his face, realizes he's telling the truth and freaking out both at once, makes a scary mean face at Chuck that is also a fairly hilarious impression of how Chuck's face actually looks, and they leave. Chuck follows him, and Vanessa just sits there like, "Okay, I'll just be sitting here feeling ill-at-ease and alone while you guys go do secret stuff and come back looking guilty." Get used to it, sister.
Nate chases down the Captain's towncar outside, but even when it stops his dad won't roll down the window or talk to him. He squeals for awhile, and the Captain finally gets out to talk to him. Again: in front of God and everybody, as he's making his escape from this country, he's going to have a dramatic chat in the middle of the street. These people. "I left you a note at home... It says I'm sorry." Nate starts talking relapse and getting help and whatever, but the Captain pulls out a passport from the drug envelope, instead of drugs. "You're skipping town?" The Captain assures him that he can be a better father from Dominica than he could be from jail, hee, and asks Nate to lay off the "trial" talk. "I'm guilty, Nate. I'm facing twenty-five years." I guess running off is better than suicide, but what's better than that is facing up and being a man, and what's better than that is not committing fraud in the first place. Maybe having the Captain for his father is actually the reason that Nate is so awesome, just like as a negative example.
Nate almost starts crying because of all that fake jogging talk about how suddenly the Captain was not a dickwad, and asks about Anne. "Who do you think's paying for the private plane?" I love how she manages him. You know this whole thing was her idea after a couple of glasses of scotch: "We'll do it during the wedding. I'll be in hiding in the Hamptons. Tell them... Tell them the shrubbery looks like circus animals, that's believable. (Hic!)" The Captain says he lied to Nate's face a billion times so that he wouldn't be an accessory, and orders him to "step up right now" and be "the man of the family." Nate points out that this has always been the case and turns to go, but the Captain touches his shoulder in anguish, so Nate lays his stupid ass out all, "That's for Mom." Punched his Dad out! Again! On the tarmac! At a wedding! Archibalds don't give a FUCK! Nate stalks back past the yearning, loving eyes of Chuck and heads somewhere to the left of him. Maybe he'll go beat up Dan.
Back at the reception, B sits down for no other reason than to torture Vanessa for dating Nate. "Looks like Nate isn't a fan of the fish... Or his date." I think she just V a slut but I could just be reading her performance in a weird way. There seemed to be a veiled insult there. Vanessa agrees: "Blair, I'm with Nate and you're at the singles table. Deal with it." Blair lies that she's feeling sympathetic: "Dating an Archibald is a tortured process. The endless supply of family drama, the fact that he never really got over Serena... Though, falling for someone who's in love with Serena, you already know how that feels, don't you?" Not to mention the whole "constantly running off with Carter Baizen or Chuck Bass for secret things" part, but you can't talk about that right now because Eric just came up looking for Chuck. It's time for the toast. Vanessa goes off to look for him, having spotted him earlier running off "with [her] boyfriend."
Outside, Nate thanks Chuck, who is like, "Duh, it's your Dad." Nate apologizes for throwing all that attitude around and Chuck apologizes for... not noticing at all... and then Nate notices that Chuck said he "loved" Blair, which he's never said about a girl before, and they smile and fall back madly in love with each other, and Chuck asks Nate if he's ready to go back in, and I guess light up the dance floor, but Nate is not feeling terribly social, and asks Chuck to tell Vanessa... And I don't know what excuse he was going to give, because Vanessa shows up and bitchily sends Chuck inside so she can grill Nate some more about his dark private family stuff. She stares at him and finally he's like, "It's a... long story." She assures him she has time, and mesmerizes him with the atrocious thing in her hair until he finally gives in.
Now it's nighttime! Serena's sitting alone in the empty chairs -- it was an outdoor wedding, I didn't make that clear before -- and Dan finally tracks her down so that he can do whatever the sleazy fuck thinks he's going to accomplish, and she of course immediately tries to disappear, so he physically shoves her down onto a chair and orders her not to run away from him. So she's like, fine: "So you hooked up with Georgina, I kinda figured that when I saw her coming out of your bedroom this morning, but... I'm willing to let it go. I don't wanna break up with you." Dan's like, "But so instead, I'm going to break up with you." She is so shocked by this massively irritating and offensive turn of events that she can't even speak. "Maybe I can't just let it go. You lied to me over and over. And it was easy for you..." Serena nearly angrily points out that it wasn't, not that he has any way of knowing that, and get this, this is what he says: "I got seduced by a girl pretending to be someone else, and you knew..." SEDUCED! He was SEDUCED! By an evil VIXEN! As has befallen men since Eve first fucked it up for everybody!
Serena points out that she was being blackmailed at the time, so the whole "women are evil succubi that sap a man's will" concept is not really at issue here, and he's like, I do understand that part, but it neutralizes my moral superiority not one whit. Serena vainly airs her naïve hope that he would understand anything, ever, and then Dan Humphrey says the most hilarious thing anybody has ever said on this show. "I am the most understanding person in the world," says Dan. Humphrey. The least understanding, most judgmental, self-righteous, priggish person ever seen on television, just said with a straight and tender face, this statement. Unbelievable.
"But this? And this is not about who you used to be, your past, or who you were when we met. I mean, the only reason I was with Georgina was because yesterday morning you slept with two random guys you met in a bar..." And I mean, I wasn't giving him any credit anyway because he's full of shit, but "I only let somebody else into our messy relationship to even the score because I was angry with you" ... that's like being seduced TWICE! Once by an evil vixen and then AGAIN by Serena's horrible MISDEEDS! She's like, "Oh shit, I totally forgot to tell you that part was a lie." He asks, a valid question I admit, how that is less crazy. She pats his leg excitedly and tries to explain that it's because she thought he'd forgive her for that over murder. Which, I thought the whole thing was her trying to drive him away and kind of panicking, so I'm glad she had a whole plan in mind. Although still: how is that less crazy?
Dan almost cries and looks away, and finally Serena's like, "So what, Dan? We're exactly where we were at the Bass's brunch when we first started dating? I'm not who you thought I was, and you can't forgive that." Dan's like, "I have only increased tenfold the backlog of things to hold against you. I tremble under the mighty weight of my resentments! It tastes like power and the sense of control only victims and sadsacks understand!" And she's like, "So that's it then? It's just... Have a good summer, I'll see you back at school?" He totally goes, "I guess." Then he agrees that yes, that is how gross he is. She stands up, amazed, and clomps off through the grass. And then a swarm of vipers as long as your arm floods up out of the New York City water table, cornering Dan on all sides, and all that's left when they're done is the white rubber ONE bracelet that Dan got from Richard Gere when they were having a Superiority-Off for charity. (It's like arm wrestling, only instead of your arms, you use how you're better than the other person. Gere won because he has a Prius, while Dan is still driving Vanessa's lesbian sister's gas-guzzling band van when he needs transportation. Good show, Gere.)
Chuck clinks his glass and begins. "My father is someone who goes after what he wants, and Lily van der Woodsen was no exception. In typical Bass man fashion, his pursuit was direct and at times, not exactly subtle..." Blair sits across the room, looking completely amazing, because when she's seated looking over her shoulder at you, you can barely see her dress.
Chuck is inspired by the new vision of loveliness unobscured by her excruciating dress, and puts down his notecards. "One thing I learned from my father's courtship of Lily is the importance of perseverance. That in the face of true love, you don't just give up, even if the object of your affection is begging you to..." The guests laugh, and Blair watches him intently. "And one thing I learned from Lily is the importance of forgiveness." Serena sits down, of course, right at this word, and an instantly worried Lily takes her hand as Death Cab starts to play under the toast. ("We're not the same, dear, as we used to be / The seasons have changed and so have we...") "She gave my father the gift of a second chance," he says, referring to the time he accidentally said Bart was having a fake affair, "And in kind, I've watched him become someone actually worthy of that gift. And one day..." He meets Blair's eyes, "I hope I'll be lucky enough to find someone who will do the same for me." Blair is moved. Serena feels like dirt. "To the happy couple!" ("There was little we could say and even less that we could do / To stop the ice from getting thinner, under me and you...") They toast; Blair smiles tenderly at him but she's already on the ice and doesn't even know it.
Lily and Bart start their first dance together as Blair approaches the very adorably smug Chuck. "That was quite a speech. All your hard work must have paid off." He dances her onto the floor, and admits he was inspired in the moment. "Look, I know I said some horrible things, even for me..." Blair points out some of them, including when he "blogged to Gossip Girl" (these kids today!) and compared her to a sweaty old horse, and he's like, "What's your point?"
"What's yours?" she asks, and he says, with the weight of truth: "You don't belong with Nate." And then he whispers -- and I admit I kind of gasped -- "Never have, never will." Man, that's tight. Even better is her response: "You don't belong with anyone." And they kiss, and it's a little sad but mostly awesome, and the ice is getting thinner. Serena, on her way out, spots them kissing and gives a great drive-by WTF, thereby unavoidably smacking right into Lonelyboy. They get super awkward and he says he's looking for Vanessa so they can go. Nobody but Chuck knows that she's probably got Nate tied up somewhere demanding more and more of his personal information because she's a nosy parker with no sense of boundaries, so they try to duck away from each other, but just then the twitchy wedding planner swoops in again.
("When the flows under our feet bled into the sea / And nothing was left for you and me...") He pushes them out onto the floor for photo ops, demanded by the bride and groom, and won't take no for an answer. There's a truly, truly horrible series of flashes as they both wig out, I mean it's really awkward and demeaning, and they're staring into the flash bulbs as they go, and the guy's like, "You're gonna want to remember this night (flash!) forever, yeah?" He pushes Dan into her arms and they start to dance. This is like Hostel! It's so awful! What a great scene! Dan quietly apologizes to her, but she goes into van der Woodsen mode, buttons up, goes dead: "Just smile."
Meanwhile, Blair seems to be trying to make a temporary home for herself somewhere around Chuck's tonsils. He pulls back and says he wants to take it slow this time. It takes her breath away. "Chuck Bass is a romantic. Who knew?" All he cares about right now is that she knows. (And that Nate knows, so he can forgive him.) B leads him off the floor, by the hand.
("We're not the same dear and it seems to me / There's nowhere we can go with nothing underneath...") One last flash, and then they're gone. Serena gives Dan the all clear, tells him he can let go, but Dan doesn't want to. They keep dancing: eight couples, five, three, and then it's just them, in the center of the ice. She leans her head against his and realizes that it's over.
ONE WEEK LATER -- and Joe R is awesome for pointing out that any other show, you have to jump at least a year to change everything, if not four or five, but this show is so true to high school that a week is plenty -- Jenny calls Rufus on the tour bus from DUMBO, where apparently Alison is babysitting her while Dan babysits the gallery. She's all excited because the mail just came, and that's exciting because her letter from Parsons has arrived. You know, the one about her internship? What, you didn't know about this? Don't you know any fifteen-year-olds with summer internships from Parson's? What have you been doing with your life?
"Hold my hand over the phone," she giggles -- Jenny is like her cutest self ever this whole scene -- and he smiles lovingly on the bus. She opens the envelope, and she's got it. She scans down to see the designer, and of course it is: Eleanor Waldorf Designs. Jenny chuckles sardonically at this twist of fate, and even Rufus is like, "That's kind of fucked up, yeah?" She laughs and stares around the room, completely overwhelmed, laughing at the whole situation. That makes me like her a lot more.
S watches Blair pack for France. Blair is making up not only for her own wedding monstrosity but all of them in a super-sexy dark blue sailor-suit piped outfit with the skirt just above the knee. She's like a hot flight attendant, with just that little bit of kinderwhore creepiness she seems to enjoy. It's amazing, one of her best outfits from the whole season. Serena exposits what's going on, which is a week layover trip in Tuscany with Chuck, on the Bass plane, prior to visiting her Dad. "Sounds romantic, minus the Chuck part..." I love how Serena understands that not only is she duty-bound to talk mad shit about B and Chuck dating, but also enjoying being entitled to it because of B's constant Dan insults. "So it's worth a week with Chuck to avoid airport security?" Blair, flashing some black lace garters, assures Serena she'll frisk him, and Serena explodes with laughter. "Oh! B, gross!" Blair giggles. "What can I say? He brings out the worst in me. And weirdly, I think I bring out the best in him. He's been a perfect gentleman this whole week."
Serena wonders, as B would if their situations were reversed, which is what they now are, if that's why she's driving herself to the airport, but Blair explains that Chuck wanted to see his Dad's post-honeymoon arrival before they left. "Besides, we're taking the helicopter to Teterboro. I have to sit in the jump seat so that I can... tell the pilot if I have any thoughts on his flying." Blair, I love you. Don't ever change. Only Blair Waldorf would combat fear of flying by assuming that, in case of emergency, she'd be better off in the jump seat so she can land it herself. S asks what it'll take to get Blair to relax, and B totally moans in a disgusting, hilarious voice, "Chuuuuuck." Ha! Serena claps her hands over her suddenly bleeding ears, and then puts her hands on Blair's face. They smile sweetly at each other. "You gonna be okay? Alone, all summer, without your best friend, who always gets you out of trouble?" Serena's looking forward to staying out of trouble, and admits she hasn't talked to Dan since the wedding. "It's for the best. For him, for me. I'm fine." She gives a fake laugh, and worried B strokes her arm.
Chuck and Nate are gabbing on phone like always, about how Chuck wanted to see his father in love, and if he wants to see a man in love then he should, per Nate, look in the mirror, and like: I'm not making this up. That's actually what their conversation is like. You think I'm exaggerating but I'm really not. Nate says the whole Tuscan thing is a big deal, and Chuck puts him off and asks if Nate's going to be spending the summer in Brooklyn being dragged to fucking Matthew Barney movies and McSweeney's readings, and Nate's like, "Oh yeah, turns out I'm indifferent to Vanessa." Who knew?
Chuck, feigning shock, is all, "Nathaniel! What happened with you and Punky Brewster?" Which is such an excellent comparison to make, because as we all know, Punky Brewster was found living on the streets when her mother abandoned her in a department store, which is exactly what I would do if Vanessa were my child, and as far as we know is what happened to Vanessa anyway. Unless he's talking about the cartoon, because now that you mention it Dan does bear a certain resemblance to a magical fuzzy leprechaun that tells you the moral of the story every eleven minutes even when you didn't ask and don't effing care.
Dan and Vanessa are getting magically atrocious in the gallery when Dan finally asks what "exactly" happened with "Man-Bangs," and does an awesome man-bangs spirit-fingers move when he says it, and Vanessa -- who is looking awesomely bohemian and very pretty right now -- admits that Nate's prettier than her, but that that wasn't the problem, and it wasn't "the whole perpetually stoned, brooding guy thing," and it wasn't his past with Serena, which is obviously only of interest to Dan in this whole world, and it wasn't "the different worlds thing, right, one of you always feeling like a fish out of water," and finally Vanessa -- and I mean, what an obnoxious string of suggestions, Humphrey -- puts her foot down. "I know exactly what you're doing. Ask me enough questions about Nate, and I won't ask you about Serena." Dan counter that the best offense is always a strong defense. If anybody would know about being offensive -- or defensive, actually, as well -- it's these two.
Vanessa's worry is equal to her loveliness as she watches Dan stammer out that he's not ready to talk about it yet. "Good. Then maybe it'll be quiet for thirty seconds." I'm SAYIN'! Dan immediately tells her to get used to it: "Welcome to the summer of Dan Humphrey, babbling at your ass 24/7, from dusk till dawn. Come Labor Day, you're gonna be so sick of me..." She points out that, against all reason, she hasn't gotten sick of him in thirteen years. Man, thirteen minutes I'd be kissing him just to shut him up. But to be fair, they are totally sweet. I would like it if they hooked up. Or joined a cult on some other show. Or sacrificed themselves to save some hostages. But seriously, if they are this cool with each other when they start going out, I really won't have a problem with either of them. Dan + Vanessa is like Dan + Jenny: totally wonderful, until anybody else enters the room or conversation, and then instantly unbearable.
Just as Nate's getting off what must be his tenth conversation with Chuck today, talking about how Vanessa's a "great girl" but he has "too much going on right now" -- because when I think "Nate Archibald" I think "whirlwind of activity," don't you? -- Serena spots him coming down the sidewalk the other way, and grabs him. Nate gives that especially joyous "Hey!" I love so much, and they talk about how they've been saying goodbye to their Blair and their Chuck, and how they're rooting for their love. So say we all! Nate's like, "I guess if they're happy, I'm happy," and Serena totally goes, "When have you ever been happy?" Nate laughs very genuinely and points out that that was a crazy thing to say to a person, and she just giggles and jostles around. "I am feeling frisky. You know how I get in the summer." This last in one of her many weird voices, kind of a Tallulah Bankhead thing this time. His body language is straight-up nervous and he crosses his arms -- that is a lot of woman to have aimed at you, claiming frisk -- but he actually manages to put a sweet spin on how he of all people knows how frisky she gets in the summer. After all, last summer she took his virginity, made a sex tape, and killed a guy all in the space of about an hour. That's frisky!
"Well, you won't have to witness any of it. I'm locking myself away in the Hamptons house." They agree that it's a summer to reflect, alone, and that it'll be good to get away from everything. They nod sweetly and take about three steps before she calls his name, and he whirls around even faster than she did, and she asks if he wants to hang out at some point. "What are you up to now?" And again, the chemistry... I hate the whole "everybody switches partners" routine in theory -- especially compared with the awesome Grey's finale, which did it right -- but this couple also is very fun to watch. They both come alive in a whole other way. So that's two. The other two, meh:
Blair busts onto the Bass helipad, where some ugly random boiler room guy is also waiting. He asks if she's on the Bass marketing team and she explains she's with Chuck, who the guy posits must be terrifying, if he's anything like his Dad. Blair's like, "Terrifying? Try Tuscany, bitch." Random agrees that it is totally romantic. Then they get into a tussle about the jump seat, because Random also likes the jump seat, because it gives him a sense of control, and Blair's like, "We approve of one another."
In the Bass suite, Chuck's looking great in a pale yellow shirt under a v-neck cardigan with super-wide bands at the waist and a pattern very reminiscent of The Scarf, only cute and not dumb looking. He pops his phone back in his pocket and they talk about their romantic trips and how Bart and Lily had a good honeymoon, and then Bart fucks everything up. He starts by saying he's proud, and Chuck whines that the speech was a whole week ago, so Bart adds accolade to injury and calls him polite and modest, and then as if Chuck weren't looking green enough around the gills, points out that Chuck is also growing up. Chuck applies the brakes to this particular responsibility train, because in effect what Bart is saying is, "Everything that makes you Chuck Bass is being taken from you, and then you will be nobody."
Chuck tries to laugh it off, how he plans to hold onto his youth for as long as possible, and Bart says it's not up to him. Chuck feints left, saying that he loves B because she knows he'll never change, but Bart heads him off at the pass: "Yeah... Until you take her away to Europe on a private jet. That is gonna change everything." Chucks' freaky face falls completely, but Bart's looming over his shoulder in that awesome "let's have a conversation where we're not looking at each other" shot I love so much, and really fucking rubbing it in: "But that's a good thing, son. Having a real girlfriend will force you to learn about responsibility, sacrifice, being faithful... Taking into account somebody else's feelings, not just your own." Chuck is completely horrified: "....Ffffffeelings?" YES! HA!
"All the partying and the women... You will come back from this summer a new man. Take my word for it." He rubs his shoulder. This is so sad, because to buy this show you have to buy what Chuck's going through, which is the whole burlesque thing again and the fact that if he really dates Blair then he'll really be naked and all the grody stuff that he's all about goes away and there's nothing to replace it except, what? Blair. Eric. Bart and Lily and Serena. Stuff he already has, and a scoundrel's reputation so scandalous nobody can ever judge him for anything, so he never risks anything. Right? But also, I like Bart a lot, and he's continuing to be totally nice and cool and awesome here. And that's sad, because he's being a good father to what is, after all, a pretty troubled son, and he's so excited that he won't have to worry about Chuck all the time anymore, because he's growing up, but every word just twists the knife and scares him so much, and he won't even know that, ever, so he just rubs the kid's shoulder and tries to tell him how much he loves him, when really all he's doing is scaring him to death.
Lily comes in laughing and says hello to her new boys and introduces them to her decorator, Lydia Hearst, who we're calling Amelia, who looks very British. Chuck fields yet another text ("Can't wait to see u xo B") and the music gets louder as things start moving very slowly. Bart and Lily go laughing out of the room like a Fitzgerald dinner party, glamorous and laughing, and he focuses on Amelia as the music swells ... and then abruptly dies, as he ditches Blair's bouquet in the garbage and takes out a single flower. "...Amelia. A moment?" Amelia asks what he's up to, and he suggests they discuss her plans for his room. "And who are you?" asks the Caterpillar, but you already know his answer. First, last and always, the only thing nobody's asked him to give up, because in order to survive he's had to fool them into thinking it's implicit in his makeup: "I'm Chuck Bass."
Random asks B if everything's okay, and she reads him Chuck's text, which is a lie that Bart is getting in late, so he can't make the flight. "But he's booking something commercial..." she says, kind of bereft, and Random offers to flip her for the jump seat. She sets off after a moment of thinking about the reupholstered jet and the little cookies the attendants make you. "What's ten hours? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?" She and Random storm the helicopter, and the men follow up behind with her bags.
"They say a leopard can't change his spots," smirks GG, "But some things do change. The path not taken can become a road trip," she says, over Rufus on the tour bus, "Being grounded can lead to something groundbreaking," over Jenny creating a fairly gross Ann Taylor-looking jacket with red piping... And then, over alternating shots of the now clearly intended A couples, having a fun time in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and shots of the helicopter taking off over the city, "And whether they're sweating it out on the sultry streets or cooling their heels in the Hamptons. No one does summer like New Yorkers. Grab your shades and your sunblock, this one looks like a scorcher! Until then..."
You know I love you. XOXO.