Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk

Holy balls.

So Chuck spends the whole episode careening around in a crack-fueled rage in the wake of Bart's death. It's been a few days -- during which Lily's also been going privately nuts, Dan's been taking care of Serena, and Chuck has been missing -- since the accident, and today marks the funeral. Dan and Aaron cockblock each other about Serena for awhile, and then Chuck shows up with a wildly inappropriate show of disgust and hatred for, in order, Dan, Lily, even Eric. Nate and Blair spend the early bits of the episode following him around like good girlfriends, but B sort of loses interest once she FINALLY SAYS IT ... And he doesn't care.

Everybody runs around trying to find out the big old Lily secret, and CeCe lies and says she'll pay off greaseball PI guy, but then doesn't, so it goes to the highest bidder: Chuck Bass. The reason for that is that she wants Lily to come clean so that she can make a fresh start... Even more surprisingly, she visits Rufus to tell him she wants her daughter to make a life with him, and can't do that until he knows the secret. Chuck reads the report about the secret, then a last-minute plea from Lily about the people that love us convinces him to A) burn it and B) go directly to Blair's house, where he cries in her arms like a baby.

Dan and Serena are totes boring some more, but basically Serena gives Lily permission to be with Rufus and agrees to stay with Aaron even though he pretty much sucks, which is sad for Dan, but not as sad as Dan's face when he sees Rufus sitting around the house looking suicidal after learning about the secret. The secret! The secret! Of course, Lily thinks they're running off to Cornwall to have '90s nostalgia sex and fall ever more deeply in love, but no.

Scared by Bart's death, Cyrus -- with the help of Little J -- manages to move his and Eleanor's wedding up to the day after the funeral. It's really quite beautiful, and of course Blair is ecstatic about it, and Dorota looks like one million dollars. Everything's happy and sort of wonderful, and then you get that bonus act: Chuck's gone missing because B "deserves better," Serena flies off to Buenos Aires with Aaron Rose being douchier and nastier than he's ever been, and the heartbroken Rufus confronting Lily with just one question: Was their child a boy or a girl?

See you Twelfth Night 2009, when Chuck apparently: goes even more apeshit, visits an opium den, and jumps off a building.

How much like real New York is Gossip Girl? Find out. Come back Monday for our full detailed recap.

"More towers than Trump, more bucks than Bloomberg... Bart Bass definitely made his mark on Manhattan. The passing of a public figure can shake a whole town, but the real story is always the one happening in private, away from the headlines, at home."

But what's home? Home was the Palace: that was where they made their family, and that was where it fell apart. Now home is just another rental apartment, where Lily runs when she's deciding. Bart's home was divided. At home, in the Palace and at Lily's second apartment, there are funeral flowers, and the staff set out the clothes for the bereaved: a suit for the mourning son at the Palace, a black dress for the widow in her other life. The widow's mother sits at the breakfast table, surrounded in bounty and tasting nothing, reading the New York Journal while my favorite Bloc Party song, "Signs," plays. It's about the year of magical thinking, our desperation in the wake of loss:

Two ravens in the old oak tree and
One for you and one for me and
Bluebells in the late December
I see signs now all the time

Half of bargaining isn't about getting him back, it's making sense of the world he left you stranded in.

The mother of the widow calls her grandchildren to the breakfast table, and they demur; nobody's hungry these days. She gives them that wise look they all share, their Rhodes-side birthright. She speaks in epigrams and riddles; like every mother and every father she gives with one hand and takes with the other, watch: "In times of great uncertainty, it's even more important that we continue our daily rituals." Serena protests that she hasn't eaten so much as a Cheerio since arriving; Eric blurts that they all know she's got gin in her coffee cup. Serena giggles with him, giving him a tiny shove, and CeCe smiles that secret Rhodes smile. "My point exactly. Life must go on, as it always has." Serena brings her brother to the table and asks after their mother.

Lily isn't eating much, or sleeping; she hasn't been in the days since the Snowflake Ball, when her husband died. "All she does is make lists and yell at people," Eric says, and they all shiver blondely, visions of Waldorfs dancing in their heads. "People mourn in their own ways," CeCe says, and thinks about her future.

"What happens tonight," asks Serena, "When it's all over and there's nothing left for her to do?" What happens when the rest of the world comes crashing back in, loud into the silence? What happens to their family? Eric's thinking ahead: "Maybe she'll move into the Palace and hole up with Chuck." He's mourning in his own way: "Ah yes," CeCe snorts. "The bottomless minibar and the comfort of the twins in room service. It's a scandal!" Lily enters, looking productive and quoting with a Rhodes smile: "People mourn in their own ways, Mother. I've been assured by the hotel that if Chuck isn't alive and ... well, well, at least he's alive." At least he's alive, seeing signs everywhere. Bargaining.

"The truth is out. That changes everything, doesn't it?" Lily swears it doesn't have to. Bart caged them all up in his Gossip Girl boxes, his cages and cameras; she forgot how good it was to tell the truth, to let the secrets out. But only insofar as they were current, as long as they were about now: after Pete Fairman, after Serena's return, after Eric's recovery, after the wedding and that last sweet night with Rufus. Mapplethorpe secrets. But this secret is from before, a long-ago secret, and it involves Rufus. Bringing the long-ago compromises and sacrifices made and never told into this new life? Lily and Rufus of today are not the Lily and Rufus of six months or a year ago, much less twenty years ago. That can stay hidden, right? She has a chance of happiness, finally? "No, it doesn't have to."

"There could be no better time for a clean slate," CeCe says, because she doesn't know Rufus. "There could be no worse time, Mother. This is the last thing I want to come out." You might think she was talking about her family, about publicity, about protecting Charles and Serena and Eric, but she's not: "Pay him." CeCe is saddened by this sudden loss of gumption; Lily is disgusted, like a resentful teenage daughter. Sometimes a thing happens, or something breaks, and you stay that age forever: we've talked about this with Rufus, and with Georgina, and to some extent with Blair. And we really only see it when CeCe's around, but it's true of Lily too. And now we're going to find out why.

It is the easiest thing in the world to love Nate Archibald. It's one of the things that Blair loved most about him, and it's one of the things that they all love about him. It's one of the things he takes with him when he stops loving you back. But then, nothing ventured is nothing lost. Chuck said goodbye to him when he said goodbye to Serena, and to the family: Nate's goodbye was lost in that, and they both knew it. And so, now that he's said goodbye to Lily, and last of all to Eric, there's only one goodbye left.

It is the hardest thing in the world to love Blair Waldorf. It's one of the things Chuck loves most about her, and it's one of the things they all love about her: the way she makes it worth it. She twists underneath it like a wild thing, afraid to give up too much ground; she knows that once she admits her hunger she'll never stop. There is not enough love in the world, in a person, to satisfy Blair Waldorf, and she knows that. Waldorf women have a magic too: her mother uttered a secret, ancient curse over her crib, when all the kingdom was asleep. Not. Enough.

"That's a nice picture," Lily says with a sigh, and touches the Journal. She thinks about her future: "Remind me to send a thank-you note to the photo editor." You never know when you'll need goodwill. You will always need goodwill. The marriage lasted six months.

"Is that tuna?" she says, speeding into the kitchen as her daughter begs CeCe to talk to her. "We're doing Comfort Food," Lily grits at the scared chef. "Nobody's comforted by a tuna tower!" CeCe nods at her grandchildren, and raises her voice. "Darling, where are you going?" Lily says she's going out, for a walk in the park. It's just so hot in the apartment, "With the cooking, and the..." The drowning responsibility, the gaping future, the new lack of anything resembling a plan. "And the cooking." She kisses her mother, smiles at her daughter, brushes lips on Eric's forehead. Serena stares at her grandmother, and thinks about her future.

Mozart plays over the movement in a concerto for which Blair Waldorf and Cyrus Rose have only begun to tune up. Thanksgiving was ruined for a moment, when he dug his funny fingers in and helped himself to her pie; she pointed the finger, begging her mother to make him stop. But Eleanor didn't complain, didn't judge, didn't frown: she fed him. She picked up that stolen pie on a fork and tasted it, and hummed, and they put it into their mouths and chewed. We're still missing the signs but they're there.

They feed each other all the time, Eleanor and Cyrus. They make happy food noises and cuddle together, in love with love and sex and food. He takes her to be nothing other than what she is; her beloved is hers and she is his. They feed each other, all the time.

Blair sits at breakfast with her mother's boyfriend, bagel loaded to the hilt; it tastes like the delicatessen and Jewish Rose mornings. When they're alone it's not so complicated: she waves it triumphantly across the table, to show him that she's eating; he raises his to her appreciatively, like a toast of champagne.

Eleanor enters and the bagel tastes suddenly less savory. "Oh, that's a good picture," she says, tapping the Journal and sitting sweetly on the arm of his breakfast chair. "Lily should send a thank-you note to the photo editor." She asks her daughter about the mourning son, but Blair has no information. "He hasn't returned any of my calls or texts. But the hotel says they keep sending up food, so there's something alive in that room." At least he's alive, at least someone is feeding him.

"You should try some capers with that," Cyrus says grandly, "And just a tickle of the sliced onion." Blair heaps capers on her bagel without a face or a noise: "Maybe I'm underestimating his emotional bond with Kim and Kristi from room service, but I just think that at a time like this, he should be with someone who cares about him." Cyrus frowns at her breakfast, looking at it like Eleanor used to look at things, for the opposite reason: "Not enough! Not enough!" Does he know what he's doing? It will never be enough.

"That is exactly why we are getting married, so that we can always be around to care for each other." Eleanor tickles her lover's face. They feed each other all the time. Dorota enters with the paperwork for their trip to Paris. "Christmas in Paris!" Eleanor giggles, and Blair frowns: "How can you even think of your vacation the day that we're putting Bart in the ground?" Eleanor is irritated, but Cyrus merely smiles: "Because, my dear, in the midst of death, we are in life." Eleanor kisses his head, calling him a genius. Cyrus says, "More life, Not enough, This is love." Blair says, "Less noise, Too much": Blair never says, "I love you." Cyrus says trust, eat, give in to abandon, love yourself, there are no limits. And Blair -- Blair Waldorf, whose life is defined by limits, by control, by the unsaid and the unloved and the uneaten -- says, "Maybe you are right." And it's going to kill her.

"Maybe Nate's heard from Chuck," Blair says, and heads away. She returns for her bagel, and doesn't meet her mother's eyes.

Dan knocks on Serena's door; she's wearing a sleek black one-shoulder dress and a complicated, urbane necklace full of river-stones. He's there to see her, to see how she is surviving. What she can't say is that she never liked Bart and never expected them to stay married; that this is a tragedy for other people. She'll get all the attention, because she's Serena, but she was never a Bass -- not like Chuck, not like Lily or Eric. She loves them individually, but she's never been part of a family in any grand sense. She spent holidays with the Waldorfs and the Archibalds, or under CeCe's hand; later it was the Humphreys, but never Claus, nor Klaus, nor any of the rest. She's doing fine.

Not that anybody really expects her to care. Funerals are just big enough to stir up a lot of shit, but too big to really touch you unless you're in the middle of them. Everybody else, even Eric, has other stuff on their minds, and that's how funerals work. Funerals put ritual and scripture and song and tradition between us and death; they are necessary because if we were allowed to feel loss unmediated by these things -- if we mourned in our own way, off book and with no one watching -- we would start screaming and never stop. Watch.

So when Dan, and in a moment Aaron show up, it's with a few graceful nods to the inevitable and to the etiquette of death before getting down to it: the fact that life must go on, and if you're in high school that's mostly about sex. It's a truth universally acknowledged that more people get laid the day of a funeral than any other day of the year. It's our last defense.

"Thank you so much for being such a rock these past few days," Serena says, out of obligation. "It's meant so much having you around." They moon about, staring at each other, testing the lines and limits, talking about how "natural" it all feels to cling to each other in the middle of a storm. And when Aaron presents himself, with the same line and the same desires, the same aim, she bemusedly considers them both, side-by-side, in their matching outfits, before responding. "I'm ... actually gonna go to the church with just my family, so... I'll see you both there?" They are both disappointed; the latest round a draw, a tie for the role of strong boyfriend, at the funeral on her arm, telling the story to the world: this is where she shelters.

Lily's trip to the park has, of course, brought her to Rufus. They haven't spoken since the Ball. It was like Anna Karenina by Anna Wintour: dancing the mazurka in front of everyone, offering up the truth and falsities of their lives like Levin with his diaries. They stand under a bridge. "All I want to say is that I'm here," Rufus says, possessed of the same desires and the same aim as her daughter's suitors. "If you want me to keep my distance, I can do that too. I, um, can't imagine what you're going through..." Lily nearly laughs, because of course he can: he danced the mazurka too. "Well, actually, you can better than anyone else can. Everyone's so concerned about the grieving widow, but as much as I feel... shock, and loss... mostly I feel guilt." Rufus begs her not to blame herself, not to fall prey to bargaining; she remembers there's a voicemail left on her phone, Bart's last words. Rufus offers to listen to it with her -- shooting for "stalwart" and ending up, as usual, at "creepy" -- because he can't imagine that Lily ever loved Bart, can't allow her the complexity of loving Bart, and she kindly turns him down. She's got complexities to spare, and secrets Levin never wrote. "Lil, I'm waiting for you this time. Six months, six years. I'll be here."

A soft smile and another in a long series of grand gestures that ultimately mean nothing, under the bridge in winter. Leaving the park, Rufus walks right past CeCe, who followed her daughter; she watches him pass and looks out, into the wilderness.

Chuck knows a bar where all they play is Xu Xu Fang -- a nice trick, since they don't have an album out yet -- and it's appropriately menacing for the pose he's striking today. Imagine if Belle & Sebastian were really, really mean and that's Xu Xu Fang. They like horses, or they think they are horses, or something. They're fun. He ignores yet another call from Blair as the P.I., Andrew Tyler, enters looking haggard and offering half-assed condolences. "Skip the sympathy. This is business," Chuck says blearily. He's wobbling on his stool, further gone than we have seen him.

Being Chuck Bass is a difficult business. But I think that one of the reasons he and Blair get along so well is this: the control and abandon they share, the moderation they lack. Chuck performs his burlesque to get attention from his father, while simultaneously hating himself for indulging; Blair's relationship with excess, with food, is performed for attention from her mother, and at her warped behest. Jenny tempts Eleanor away, just as Dan does Bart: they turn the volume up, up, up. Cyrus Rose has tamed the beast in Eleanor for now, leaving a space for peace and happiness in Blair's life; Bart Bass has died, taking away with him not only the possibility of failure but the possibility of redemption, approval, acceptance. And if Eleanor had died, and Bart had lived: what would Lily's affection and general disinterest in discipline have done to Chuck, eventually?

I see signs now all the time:
I believe in anything
That brings you back home to me

Chuck demands to know the final secret, the thing Bart learned the night he died, the bargain that will put the world back together. Tyler lets him know that others are interested, or will be, and Chuck reminds him of the fact that he is on track to be very rich, very suddenly, and Tyler congratulates him, desultorily: " There's someone else who's about to come into some money, and I think she might be more motivated than you are." Chuck's face twists, horribly, into a parody of disgust. "Lily? That bitch is the reason my father is dead." Tyler says he'll keep Chuck updated, and offers to let the kid buy him a drink. "I'm sorry, I can't stay. If you'll excuse me..." He drops cash on the bar, for the drinks and for the ridiculous bottle of liquor he takes away with him. "I have to go bury my father." He stumbles, staggers, shuffles; he limps away.

"They say that when someone dies, their secrets are buried with them. But on the Upper East Side, sometimes the dead still speak..."

Lily stands on a bridge in the park, and listens to a voice that's gone forever. "Lily, we need to talk. And not about how my wife is making a fool of me with her old lover. I know the real reason you were in that hospital in France." She deletes the message immediately.

For my sweetheart the melancholic
You have crossed the river Styx
The waves have taken you away

"Biko" plays over beautiful shots of the mourners assembling, gathering, ushering themselves in, away from the cold. Dan and Aaron stand on the steps, anxiously waiting like twin sentinels. Serena texts Dan they'll be arriving soon, and he self-importantly tells Aaron the news; Aaron receives the message a few seconds later. "Well, I got it first," Dan says desperately, ugly; Aaron scrambles: "Yeah, well, it's probably my service. 401 area code..." Rhode Island, RISD, college, maturity. Whatever weapon you have, use it.

Jenny gets out of a cab in H&M, carrying that ridiculous safety-pin Bodhi clutch like a badge of overdesigned, overthought fashion, and joins the boys; she informs them that Eric's just around the corner and shoots a look at Aaron when Dan hisses in response. The limo arrives, and she darts out, grabbing Eric and pulling him past the crowd, toward the church doors.

As I lay my head on your chest
I can hear it your veins
Wake me up when you come to bed...

Serena's in a studded-collar Burberry coat and hoisting Chanel; Aaron desperately snatches and grabs at her when she's in range, ordering her jealously and faux-caringly, afraid she'll go to Dan without thinking: "Hey, come here..." She gives him the fakest hug of all time and then flows into Dan's arms like water. Aaron is disappointed and disgusting; Dan leaves to pay his respects to Lily.

Near the door Jenny asks how Eric's doing; it's hit him hardest of the three. Bart brought him Florida souvenirs -- "Go Marlins!" -- when he thought Eric was just on a long vacation, and when the Ostroff Center came to light he loved him just as much. Bart gave him everything he couldn't give Chuck, because Eric was a reminder of life; Bart gave him a father. And now he is gone, and he's taken his son with him, and Eric is alone again, in the house of the Rhodes women.

"Have you seen Jonathan?" he asks, last remnant of Levin's diaries, the last secret that proved Bart loved him back, in his way; Jenny asks why he would be there. He would be there because that's what boyfriends do. "I just thought he might want to be here." Because the boys are fighting to hold Serena up, and everyone's holding Lily up, and nobody's there to hold up Eric. Eric, who was accustomed to Bart in a way not even Chuck could be. Eric, the only one who honestly loved him.

CeCe does the talking, about wreaths and arrangements, before pointedly asking Lily if Rufus will be there, since his children are; it's what boyfriends do. "I followed you to the park today," she says without shame, and Lily sighs from a lifetime of surveillance. "Of course you did, Mother." CeCe excuses herself to kiss Dan sweetly, warmly; to remind him they have a bond. He wore her husband's suit, in the Hamptons; he showed her the face he barely ever remembers to stop hiding, his kindness and his loyalty and his inability to stop loving so wildly. "...Where is Charles?" Lily asks, voicing the question she's been asking for days.

Was my love not strong enough to
Bring you back from the dead?

Charles is gone. Chuck is gone, broken and shattered and shambling on Blair and Nate's tired arms. "We should have just driven him to the door and dropped him off on the steps," Blair grunts with the effort, while the love of her life stares through people and places and things. "No one should see him like this," Nate says, sounding like a long-ago Blair, back when they all covered for Serena. "He needs to walk it off." Blair helps him walk; he leans on her dreadfully, at a sickening, canted angle.

Don't you know that when you stand you stand up for the both of us
Remember that when the darkness looms

"Maybe we should have just left him at the Palace," Nate says quietly, concerned as always less about appearances and more about the meaning behind them. "It's his father's funeral," she replies, "He needs to be here. It shows respect." Chuck mumbles, almost laughing. "Respect? My father wasn't showing much of that in his final days."

Nate and Blair don't know what he means -- "When we found him his shoes were on the wrong feet!" -- but we do. That last day, the last words he ever said before the Ball, are ringing in his ears: that every time things moved forward, Chuck found a way to move them back again, to break it up and screw it up and turn what could be lovely, nasty. And the thing he said later, when he called his father to force their family back together, and summoned him to his death. And that night not so long ago, when Dan took them both in his hands and soldered them together again: if he hadn't done that, this wouldn't hurt so much. If Bart had died before that night, Chuck would have known his place: dishonorable black sheep, hated disappointment. But Dan taught him, as Blair taught Jenny, that his father loved him more than words can say. Their relationship came down out of the realm of myth, of fairytale long-gone mothers and the kingdom of disappointment, and into what matters. The mistakes he made after that night couldn't be blamed on anything but him, because he knew the truth: Bart loved his son so much it hurt him, and when he was disappointed it hurt twice as much. Dan dragged him off the burlesque stage and made him what we are seeing now: the boy who risked loving his father back. Chuck in real life.

"Chuck, remember how in the eighth grade, you used to help yourself to the decanter in the Captain's library?" Chuck nods: it's where he first got the taste for single malt. "That's right," Nate says sweetly, and firmly. "And you'd have to go home to a four-course dinner without passing out in your consommé?"

"I didn't want my father to think less of me. What does that matter now?" The worst, the very worst thing about high school is realizing this fact: that nobody's watching. This show is about how everybody's watching you, all the time, but there's a way in which it's inordinately comforting to know you're being reined in. But down among the orphans, once that's taken away, you have a very serious set of choices to make, because nobody's going to tell you otherwise. Nate had to become a man when the Captain went away the first time, and Chuck must become a man now. That's a secret nobody is going to tell you because it hurts too much to repeat. How much stronger would Lily be, without CeCe and her meddling and her money still smothering her after all this time? How much stronger would Blair be, without Eleanor? There are some questions you shouldn't ask.

"Chuck, am I gonna have to stick my finger down your throat?" The signs are there, and nobody's seeing them. We're not seeing them, right in front of our faces. She gleams impossibly brightly for a moment, warped and scary, flirtatious and inviting: come inside this place with me, and look what I am showing you. Listen to the words that I'm saying. We're always feeding each other. This is love: "Nate'll hold back your hair," she says, wheedlingly, and Nate recoils. "What," she spits at him, seeing herself from the outside, begging him to listen, to pay attention. "No, no. Sorry, Blair. You had me and then you lost me." There are madnesses no three can share; there are madnesses no two ever should. Another arrow lost in the forest; another flare put out by the rain. "Just... straighten his tie." Nate does; that's what Nate does.

Was my love not strong enough to bring you back from the dead?

Lily embraces Dan, and thanks him for his concern and care for Serena -- "And for our whole family" -- and Dan tries to sucker her into the it's-so-natural conversation again ("I can't imagine it any other way"), but Lily's not really talking about Dan, or about Serena, or about their family, or about Bart: "You are a true gentleman. Your father raised you kids right." Dan thanks her, confused, and CeCe pulls her away again, into the awful whirl of the funeral.

Chuck comes running over the hill, screaming incoherently at Dan, demanding to know what the fuck he thinks he's doing there, how on earth he could bring this reminder and this kindness, this cruelty and memory of cruelty, into the world he's been creating. His legs are suddenly strong, full of rage; his eyes are wide open, staring Dan down as he comes running at him. Dan's honestly confused -- "He's just upset... and loaded," Blair explains -- but before Dan can move out of the way, Chuck arrives.

"What are you doing at my father's funeral? You think he'd want you here?" Yes. The awful truth is yes. "Chuck, if this is about the article, you know I didn't write it..." This isn't about the article, it's about what he wrote instead of the article. The thing Chuck can't talk about, the spell that brought his father back to life; the story of Charlie Trout and all the pain and life and death it brought into their house. "Do you think I care about your failed attempt at investigative journalism?" He grabs at Dan, twists knuckles in his lapels, and whispers to him, intimately. "My father is dead because of your father." My family is dead because of your father. And I watched it happen, and I made another mistake to save us all. And now we are broken.

So toughen up Biko toughen up Biko toughen up
This world isn't kind to little things
So toughen up Biko toughen up Biko toughen up
I need you be strong for us

"What? Chuck, look, I'm sorry about this..." Even in the grip of something scary, Dan tries to comfort, reason, calm him down. To be there for Chuck, who needs it, in a way that he's only pretending to be there for Serena, who doesn't. Serena inserts herself between them -- and if it were any other girl, this would mean Dan is a douche, but Serena could piledrive them both with one bangled arm tied behind her back and you know it -- and tries to remind Chuck, in a particularly brutal and ill-advised way, of exactly who's on his side: "Chuck, Dan has been helping us. Unlike you." The "us" includes Chuck, it's a reminder of what he has, and if you doubt it at least Chuck doesn't: "Helping us? Do you have any idea what his family has done?" Only help us to become a family of our own; only forge us just strong enough to break. Only give love and the possibility of love, and then take it away again.

CeCe regretfully asks Dan to leave, and Serena puts one massive foot down: "No, Grandma. That doesn't make sense. It's not fair." CeCe reminds her that, of all of them, Chuck is Bart's son. Bart's remaining blood tie, just as Bart is the last of Chuck's old family. "He doesn't have to make sense today," she says, which is the truest statement of the episode and the least significant: he doesn't have to make sense, but he does. The things we say in grief, fear, pain, are the things we'd all do well to forget but it doesn't make them less true: it makes them more so. Dan backs away, promising he understands, and Chuck is nearly slavering now: "You have no idea."

And he doesn't. One of the other consequences of Chuck calling from the Ball is that Serena and Dan never had to know what their parents were doing; that was Chuck being honorable, again, and it burned him, again. And now Dan and Serena can go on in blissful ignorance about their parents' culpability, and Chuck can go on bearing it alone. But that doesn't mean they get to watch.

Aaron, of course, instructs Serena to let Dan leave, and she finally gives in, of course, and Chuck stares after Dan until he's far enough away, then shoves past Blair and Lily both, heading toward the church doors. Lily chases after him. "I know you're upset, but we all really need each other right now..." Chuck nearly shoves her down on the churchyard gravel: "Don't touch me, whore." He keeps walking, so full of secrets he's bursting. Secrets, the things he hates the most. "Charles, please! You need to be with your family!" Chuck whirls, Eric standing a few feet behind him, almost reaching out. "My family? I don't have a family."

I keep writing these songs for you
To steal you from your grey
And we can dance in our front room again

He doesn't even spare Eric a glance.

"If the Lord is our shepherd, it looks like one of his lambs has lost his way... Or maybe make that a black sheep. We bring nothing into the world and we leave nothing behind, but that doesn't mean we don't leave a big old mess when we go."

Chuck's family stares, in shock and terrified for him. Eric's heart is breaking; Lily shakes with adrenaline and loss, and her mother holds her close.

Every time you walk away
Or run away
You take a piece of me with you there

Rufus sits at home, playing his one hit single, "Everytime." He wrote it for Lily; Lily and Lincoln Hawk are two memories that won't stay buried and entwine themselves around each other. It's a song about loss, and about the year of magical thinking: she walks away, and takes the pieces with her, but she always comes back.

"You're back soon," he says as his son enters. "I wouldn't have thought Bart Bass would be one to have a short funeral." Dan admits that Chuck forcibly ejected him before he even got inside. "According to him, uh, my... My father killed his father." The guitar strings twang in a way that would be ridiculous in any other context, but I'm afraid I don't have much laughing in me this week. "Why would he say that?" Rufus asks; he blinks his eyes innocently and lets Chuck continue to carry the burden alone.

"Well, I don't know, Dad. I mean, do you... Do you have any wild guesses? Any thoughts?" Rufus pours coffee, jittering and nervous, cowardly and confused. She hasn't given an answer yet: could mean something, could mean nothing. He hopes it means something; he hopes to read the yearning and the terrible rage of a mourning son like tea leaves. "Who knows? The kid's dad just died, he's upset." Dan nods: That's what CeCe said too. Another bearer of the secret, another person protecting Lily and Serena and Dan from the truth.

The whole incest taboo thing with Rufus and Lily and Dan and Serena not dating at the same time has always seemed kind of silly, a conceit, you know. Like way worse things haven't happened in the families they know: child labor, prostitution, rape, B&E, murder, extortion, kidnapping, Vanessa Abrams... But in this episode it's absolutely necessary. The characters talk a good game about how they're consciously mirroring the finale last year: Serena's request that Lily marry Bart to keep the Humphreys off the table, Lily and Rufus both agreeing to smile like they mean it, etc. That this is a reversal and payback, somehow, for the things that they gave up or had taken from them. That's exactly half the story.

Because you don't have four players here, you have eight. Four sets of parents and four sets of children, playing a complicated dance Jane Austen would probably have a name for. The parts of it aren't going to stop whirling, so we might as well jump in anywhere, so let's see. Eleanor's food stuff with Blair = Bart's burlesque stuff with Chuck = Rufus's van der Woodsen stuff with Dan = Lily's Humphrey stuff with Serena. Four cases in which the son carries his father's burden and the daughter carries her mother's, and everybody knows it, and nobody says anything. It's everybody that takes over their parents' roles in this episode: the controlled characters abandon the burlesque and themselves to emotion and worse, and the freer and more authentic characters are bound tighter than ever before:

Blair flees from her mother's particularly sick brand of control into the overgenerous arms of Cyrus Rose, almost begging for a relapse in her hunger for love. Chuck flees from his father's controlling surveillance into a nightmare of his own devising. And Dan and Serena, played like knights in a chess game by their adulterous parents, put themselves into straitjackets they don't even understand yet: Serena knowingly and deliberately playing out the Rufus/Bart conundrum in Aaron's arms, and Dan retreating into a loneliness we've only ever heard about. Dan and Chuck's paths now seem like parallels down a tunnel, sold out by their parents and orphaned by their own inability to play the game properly. And echoing B last week, when the Roses disappoint Blair and Serena -- and eventually, you know they will -- it's going to unleash horror. And it all starts here.

Rufus shivers some more, nervously and sort of hatefully: "CeCe's in town? That's nice for ... Lily, to have her ... Mom here..." Dan shrugs, having forgotten CeCe and Rufus ever met, pushing Rufus and Lily's history to the side like he and Serena always do, refusing to let Rufus and Lily's unkind memories of CeCe taint the friendship that he shares with her. How she gives with one hand and takes with the other. But Dan's zeroing in on it: "Did you, uh, did you think of going today?" Rufus casually, elaborately shrugs at the idea. "Why not? I mean, you're one of Lily's oldest friends..." Rufus looks his eldest son in the face, and lies to him. "No, I know. It's just better this way."

Nothing feels right when left here on my own
Left last night it seemed like way too long

Rufus leans, casually fake and fakely casual, against the counter: as thought it's not a remarkably transparent and desperate segue but a polite change of topic. "So, how's Serena?" Dan says, in effect, that Aaron won this round of the Boyfriend Wars, and Rufus perks right the motherfuck up. "You two have been spending a lot of time together since the accident..." Dan's getting more and more suspicious, because what Rufus Humphrey knows about dissembling wouldn't fill the white label on a first-run bootleg import: "So?" So like it or not, Rufus explains, death changes things. "Clarifies them. It brings some people closer together, pushes others... Further apart." Like Bart's death, for example: brings me and Lily together, pushes you and Serena apart, and don't you dare tell me otherwise. "I just thought maybe..." Dan assures his father that they are just friends, barely believing it himself, but that's good enough for Rufus: "Oh. Good." Dan asks what the hell he means, and Rufus mumbles something stupid and awful, and Dan reassures him like a colicky two-year-old: "No. We broke up twice, and it's over. It's very much over." Rufus thinks about that; he thinks very fucking hard about it.

I'm so used to judging Rufus and Lily as parents -- you may have noticed -- that I don't really get around to judging them as people. That's because Lily is usually exemplary, separate from her parenting, and Rufus, likewise, is... Somebody you would date, but not marry. Nice enough, not technically stupid, chock full of tenderness and love feelings; former rockstar, total emo sadsack, given to strumming the guitar at night and crying at the drop of a hat, youthful if by "youthful" you mean "abruptly arrested" and "adolescent." I can't say I'm officially over the Type Rufus phase of my romantic development -- with the caveat that I live in Austin and these boys are like silverfish here -- and I mean, I never said he wasn't hot. (Not enough!)

And not exactly a four-star review of a person either, if you see my point: in this case, Rufus and Lily can both go straight to hell. Not because of the flirty/adultery thing, not because of Chuck, or them pulling Allison and Bart (or even their kids) into their forty-year debacle of an affair, but because what they are doing wouldn't be okay if it were other adults, much less their own children, being forced to carry this weight and be the deciders for a thing of which they're still not aware, or forced into changing their own lives and patterns so that Rufus and Lily can try for the umpteenth time to ignore the million and one reasons they should never, ever be together.

Nate and Blair hustle Chuck into the Palace suites with Chopin in the air; the wake is in full swing. They cluck over him, lovingly, begging for a response longer than a few syllables, and hope for the best. "You don't have to stay that long," Nate murmurs, "Just let people shake your hand, say hello, you're done." Blair, happy to see him acquiesce, admits to worrying he wouldn't want to be there after the scene at the church; "This is exactly where I want to be," he replies menacingly, "I have business to attend to." Not exactly comforting, but close enough to normal Chuck. "Okay, that's fine, but let's just find you a quiet corner, get some food in your stomach," she clucks, and he breaks away from them, running up the stairs slowly, at a tilt as CeCe watches: "I'm not in the mood for food." We're always feeding each other. This is love.

"You're really sweet with him," Nate says; he always liked her best with Chuck, the notes he brings to the surface, the softness in her eyes for him. "Me?" she scoffs. "Sweet? Nooo." She's tied in knots with it, for a moment: to admit her feelings for Chuck on any day would be a sin, but for anyone, for Nate, to see her worrying about him more than she should? "No, you are. I mean, worrying about him, offering him food. It's downright maternal." Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and besides being my very favorite guy on this show, Nate is additionally not a broken clock.

"I'm not maternal, I've just been spending too much time with Cyrus and I'm turning Jewish." It's a Cyrus thing, then. A food thing, an ethnic thing. He's a feeder; can't be helped. Certainly not her responsibility. She needs a father as much as Chuck needs Lily. "Come on, I see kugel," she says, and for the first time in history Blair Waldorf drags someone to the buffet. Can you see them yet? The way the stars are lining up? The way she opens herself up to love, to acceptance, to the possibility of a Serena life? Serena, who never has to watch herself because it always works out; who doesn't mainline self-control until she's contracted to a single point, like a black hole? Joyful, unhurried, unworried, able to feel and to nurture and to care without wondering how she'll pay later? That is Cyrus's gift to her: Not enough.

"I found that sermon surprisingly thought-provoking," Cyrus is saying. "All that stuff about life, and death, and our time on earth being so fleeting..." Eleanor feeds him. Again. Eleanor feeds him, smiling: "Darling, it's a funeral. What was he supposed to talk about, the stock market? What's the best pizza in town? Although that is quite good," she says, tasting the food with him. "No, I know. But I want to get married!" Eleanor grins indulgently and says she does too: "That's why we're engaged." Cyrus stamps his little foot: he means now. Blair whirls from the kugel to stare at him, as he says he wants to get married tomorrow. She joins her mother in a chorus of No. "Why not? Life is so short, it's all uncertain. I don't want to live another day without being your husband! What do you say?" More life, he says. Not enough, he says. Why wait, he says. And Blair hears every word.

"She says that's crazy," Blair hisses, and Eleanor agrees, but he's a lawyer, it's not in his blood to stop now. "Well, we'll do it at the apartment, just the family. Simple, elegant, fast." Eleanor begins to sway, to be swayed, and sees how this could be romantic, and Blair nearly claps her hands at them like last week: "Mother." Eleanor looks at her in surprise, a little of that warning, that steel, at her temples: "I thought you were supportive of this union?" Blair nods, hands open: "I am. As something that happens in a vague, far-off future that never really lands on me, because I'll be away at college. Not as what I'm doing tomorrow at seven o'clock..." Jenny enters as Cyrus's mouth opens wide: "Candlelight! That's perfect!" Blair rolls her eyes and Eleanor says she has nothing to wear for tomorrow; Jenny helpfully pipes up and offers to make something: "What'd you have in mind?"

Blair, looking like she's about to carve the words FUCKING HUMPHREYS across Jenny's cute little face, is like, "You. Minding your own business." Eleanor muses about how she'd imagined "something in a jacket, very YSL," and Jenny -- I think -- pulls a bad line reading in response: "Okay, Mick and Bianca 1971, great reference." (The way that she emphasizes "great" makes it sound like she's patronizing Eleanor for her tastes, but the sweet smile on her face -- and the fact that it remains unslapped -- makes the think the original line was written to infer gratitude, like, "Thanks for that great reference, I know exactly what you mean and can totally do that for you." Given Taylor Momsen's one of the best actors on the show, though, I can't say that for sure. I just can't figure out how the line, as written and acted, isn't infra-Vanessa, reaching up towards Lexi amounts of obnoxious. Although I will take this time to note that there is no Lexi this week, so I'm guessing maybe no Lexi ever again, which just proves that prayer works.)

Blair's no help, because this line was inevitable: "Yeah, I hate to interrupt this fascinating chapter in 'Favorite Moments In Fashion History,' but..." Eleanor's done with her daughter, and grateful to be talking to Jenny again; she's the Eric to Eleanor's Bart and everybody always knew that. She shares the things with Jenny that she can't with Blair, and doesn't even bother hiding it. (Which, if my math is correct, means that she'll eventually make friends with the Dan of Bart -- one Vanessa Abrams -- which is disgusting. Although how awesome would it be if Vanessa made a secret guerilla documentary exposé about Eleanor's child labor violations that somehow, at the last second, Vanessa used to reconcile Blair's relationship with her mother?) "Jackets are tricky," Eleanor says, peer-to-peer, and Jenny nods sagely: "I know. But, um, I also know someone who owes you an all-nighter, and she would be honored." Eleanor wavers a bit before finally giving in, watching Cyrus's face light up: "Well, I think you should tell her that I said... Thank you." Jenny (Jenny would write thank-you notes, if she were literate) honestly and with much poise thanks Eleanor for the chance to make amends, and then -- adorably -- Cyrus literally goes "Yippee!" Even Eleanor laughs at him, because how awesome is Cyrus Rose is a question with an answer that won't fit on this page. He runs off to call the rabbi and tell Aaron the good news.

And where's Aaron? Upstairs, scrambling desperately to triumph over Dan. Who knew when you're brainwashing your high school poon into completely changing who she is and everything she loves and believes in, that all it takes is a douchey high school senior from DUMBO to fuck it all up? Aaron picks up the pace, trying to be as romantic and grown up as possible, like, to the point of becoming a notary public is how far he would go. "I want you to come to Buenos Aires with me for Christmas," he says. (Frankly, considering Chuck and B almost took a private plane to Tuscany last year, S might be more impressed if he was like on Jeopardy or something, because you know Dan would fail at that unless the categories were like, "Films You Think Are Obscure," "Mutual Masturbation With Prep School Dudes," "Pissing Off Literary Luminaries," "The Sweet Bro Soccer Lexicon," and "The World Of Xavier Roberts.")

Serena points out that her life is somewhat in disarray, if he hadn't noticed: "My family is a disaster. My brother is lonely, and my mom is losing it, and Chuck has publicly disowned us..." (Again: the "us" includes Chuck. Nobody questions that for a second, least of all Serena, whose "us" has included Chuck as long as she known him, even when he was trying to rape her over her grilled cheese with truffle oil her first week back in town.) But Aaron, who officially became Public Enemy #1 at some point in this episode, just douches it up to here: "Are you sure it's your family you don't want to leave? Or is there someone else?" Serena doesn't punch him, because how insensitive, but she does at least look at him like he's stupid. "Dan? Is my friend, Aaron." For the one-millionth time, not that Aaron's wrong exactly. "You don't have to worry." Aaron sleazes somehow that he's not worried, because the trip is his "gift" to her and her acquiescing to his orders will be her "gift" to him. She fully goes, "But I already bought you a book!" Which is adorable in many ways, not least the way she says it, but he is not assuaged. "I'll read it on the plane," he says, so she laughs and vacillates, and he touches her shoulder: "Just think about." She nods and brushes his arm, and agrees to do so. Which as we all know means for Serena the opposite.

A Beethoven sonata can only mean horrors. CeCe drags a protesting Lily away to inform her that a careful analysis of Chuck's lurching insanity -- and quick review of all the shit he was screaming at the funeral -- has officially upped the threat level from "Everybody mourns in their own way" to "Chuck knows something bad about you and Rufus." Lily's response is genius: "Mother, I just came from burying my husband. I do not have the time, inclination, or frankly the mental capacity to go head-to-head with Chuck." Which any of the characters, adults or children, would be wise to remember, but there's a second layer here in which I think she's drawing a line between "Charles" and "Chuck," Charles being the son, and before that family friend, that she's loved since he was young, and Chuck being the monster everybody else knows, who nearly threw her in the dirt earlier, and called her a whore. She knows better than to fight either of them, but never really accepted the latter until today. Which is bad news, because Chuck needs her a thousand times more than Charles ever did. Even more than Charlie did, and does.

But there's a little bit of resentment there, too, beyond the dustup at the funeral; after all, her husband's last words didn't reach her until today, and they were full of malice and blame: "And what he knew, he already told Bart, so there's nothing to worry about, now is there?" CeCe says she won't know for sure until she debriefs him, and sends her upstairs. She goes, unwillingly but a daughter. CeCe's phone rings that instant, with the offer of a private auction: "No, I'm afraid that's impossible. I'm rather busy right now, which you would know if you read the papers..." Her face changes at his words. "I'll be right down."

Eric's spent most of the night wandering. Jenny's all tied up now with the Roses and the Waldorfs, and Blair would help him if she didn't have bigger scarier children to manage; Serena's got some Rose issues of her own to deal with, and yet another case of the Humphries; his mother is distracted and scared; his grandmother is off with the gumshoes; Nate maybe doesn't remember his name. He's just a kid, after all. And his brother is gone, to a hot red seething place he can almost remember, from before when he was broken. He's scared to see it, to touch it; afraid of what he'll see if he looks into those eyes. It almost killed him, once. And his father... His father is gone. His father was never his father. The marriage didn't last six months. He got strong enough to hope -- just strong enough, like Charlie Trout -- and Asher let him down, and Jonathan let him down, and Bart let him down, and died, and Chuck is gone. Eric's spent most of his night wandering. But when CeCe moves out of the way, he can see the elevator door, and walking toward him from it is Jonathan, the only person left, asking for forgiveness. There's Jonathan, right on time. It's what a boyfriend does.

Chuck's going nuts in Bart's office, sloppy and hurried and unsteady; she tries to make her voice light, soft and friendly, firm and comforting at once. To reach out and touch him just softly enough with it that he will stop, and rest, and be calmed. "If you're looking for Bart's will, you don't have to worry," she says. The trivia of death, she's saying: leave it behind. Come be with your family. But that's not what he is looking for. There are no trivialities tonight; there's no worrying here, just business. "But you should be," he snarls without turning. "I'm going to find your file."

She almost laughs. He already knows what he's looking for, what CeCe said he knew. He hates secrets as much as she does: he knows about Rufus and the mazurka, he was there. He brought her back to herself, and reminded her she was a grownup, that she has a family, and three children, and that she owed her husband the truth. He was a good, strong son when he didn't have to be. He reminded her of who she was. "Well, it's not here, so you can stop ransacking the place and look at me." Begging now, with that set to her jaw and those tears in her eyes. "I can't look at you, Lily. You disgust me." She stays cool, says his name softly, just once. "Charles." To bring him back to himself, to remind him who she is: a mother, with three children. With a good, strong son.

"Disrespecting your marriage. Betraying my father with Rufus Humphrey?" There's a bit more steel in her voice now, as she reminds him: "I did no such thing." He was there, after all. He presents such a good burlesque, this precocious dissolute good-hearted brute, that you could forget what he is: a child, just a child, on his way to becoming a man. You could rely on that too much. They've always acted this way: she found him curled up on the Palace courtyard grounds, drunk as a skunk, and all she did was laugh. You could expect that of him then. Expect rationality, when his family falls apart. Rhodes women have done this for generations. "He was coming to fight for you. Talk about dying for nothing." Finally realizing he's in the process of crossing her off his list, she forgets herself again, speaks out of turn, adult to adult. "The only reason he got in that car is because you called him. If you could have just stayed out of it..." She's talking to his back, which is shaking like sobs. But he's not crying. Choking on it, crushing it down, carrying them all on his back, but not crying. Not yet.

Lily changes course, having already said the unforgiveable, trying to spin it: "But you couldn't, could you, because you're just like him. You have to know everything, control everyone, trust no one..." Chuck's back is a coiled spring, a mousetrap, a viper: "Are you saying this is my fault?" She rushes forward, horrified, begging him not to hear that behind her words, or the shame she's carrying too. "No! It's no one's fault." He finally looks into her eyes, face twisting, and says the secret she's been hiding: "Yes it is. It's your fault." We all mourn in our own ways: First it was Dan, then it was Rufus, then it was all of them, and now it's her. "His blood is on your hands."

Lily slaps him, hard, then gasps. "I am so sorry..." she says, honestly appalled, but he shakes it off. "As soon as that will is read and I get my money, you will never see me again." He leaves her there, leaves her behind, leaves her in her shame, and heads downstairs, roughly demanding his coat. Serena and Nate and Blair rush toward him, at the foot of the stairs, but he brushes them off. "Gotta go. Can't talk." Blair asks where, but he won't tell, because he's still carrying them all: he'll go buy his family's secrets, since he couldn't get around Andrew Tyler, since the last secret wasn't in the safe. "Everyone you know is standing in this room," Blair protests, and Chuck explains drunkenly that he doesn't feel like being there. Eric steps forward, strong Eric: "We want you here. I just lost my stepfather, I don't want to lose my brother, too..." But one look from Chuck tells him all he needs to know; he starts to crumble even as Chuck stares into his eyes, and keeps talking, underlining it, cutting this last tie: "When are you going to get it? We are not related." Eric's heart breaks as he storms away, the one he loves the most, the last of his family. Nate tries to stop Blair going after him, but she shoves him away and runs to the elevator as it's closing.

CeCe returns to find Lily having a headache on Bart's office sofa. "Andrew Tyler was just here." Lily asks if he honestly came by to pay his respects, and CeCe shakes her head. "No, he wanted me to pay him." Lily breathes, equal parts relief and exhaustion and fear. "He knows about the hospital in France." CeCe jerks. "That's why Bart was coming to see me the night of the accident. Tyler told him." CeCe nods: that's what he's offering for auction now. Lily quakes. "Oh my God, you have to stop him." And CeCe speaks in riddles and epigrams and gives with one hand while taking with the other: "Do I? I'm not sure." Lily's voice goes all Mia Farrow, suddenly, as she gapes at her mother: "After all this time, now you decide that the right thing to do is... To tell the truth?" It sounds foreign, imaginary, implausible, deadly.

"The truth is out. That changes everything, doesn't it?" Lily swears it doesn't have to. Bart caged them all up in his Gossip Girl boxes, his cages and cameras; she forgot how good it was to tell the truth, to let the secrets out. But only insofar as they were current, as long as they were about now: after Pete Fairman, after Serena's return, after Eric's recovery, after the wedding and that last sweet night with Rufus. Mapplethorpe secrets. But this secret is from before, a long-ago secret, and it involves Rufus. Bringing the long-ago compromises and sacrifices made and never told into this new life? Lily and Rufus of today are not the Lily and Rufus of six months or a year ago, much less twenty years ago. That can stay hidden, right? She has a chance of happiness, finally? "No, it doesn't have to."

"There could be no better time for a clean slate," CeCe says, because she doesn't know Rufus. "There could be no worse time, Mother. This is the last thing I want to come out." You might think she was talking about her family, about publicity, about protecting Charles and Serena and Eric, but she's not: "Pay him." CeCe is saddened by this sudden loss of gumption; Lily is disgusted, like a resentful teenage daughter. Sometimes a thing happens, or something breaks, and you stay that age forever: we've talked about this with Rufus, and with Georgina, and to some extent with Blair. And we really only see it when CeCe's around, but it's true of Lily too. And now we're going to find out why.

It is the easiest thing in the world to love Nate Archibald. It's one of the things that Blair loved most about him, and it's one of the things that they all love about him. It's one of the things he takes with him when he stops loving you back. But then, nothing ventured is nothing lost. Chuck said goodbye to him when he said goodbye to Serena, and to the family: Nate's goodbye was lost in that, and they both knew it. And so, now that he's said goodbye to Lily, and last of all to Eric, there's only one goodbye left.

It is the hardest thing in the world to love Blair Waldorf. It's one of the things Chuck loves most about her, and it's one of the things they all love about her: the way she makes it worth it. She twists underneath it like a wild thing, afraid to give up too much ground; she knows that once she admits her hunger she'll never stop. There is not enough love in the world, in a person, to satisfy Blair Waldorf, and she knows that. Waldorf women have a magic too: her mother uttered a secret, ancient curse over her crib, when all the kingdom was asleep. Not. Enough.

But then, nothing ventured is nothing gained: there's only one prince in the world who loves her enough, who has saved up his love for all his life just for her, without knowing it, until it threatens to split his seams. They both know it could end the world. So they wrap it up in ribbons and call it by other names, and when it burns too hot they take out their knives and fight, to keep it from destroying them both. This is the last goodbye; the one that breaks them all the way open. For a moment she's running up that hill again, watching him hurtle toward the funeral; running headlong toward a private death. For a moment she can't speak.

"Chuck! Stop! Don't go. Or if you have to leave, let me come with you." He unsteadily assures her he's grateful for her concern, and she shakes her head. "You don't appreciate anything today. But I don't care." He begs her to stop with his eyes, hears the train coming, but she knows better. "Whatever you're going through, I want to be there for you." Chuck throws it in her face, like a crucifix, threatening now: "We talked about this. You are not my girlfriend."

Waldorf women have a magic, too, and she knows when it's time to break it open. Find the right words, sing the right song, just softly enough that he'll stop, and rest, and be calmed. Remind him of himself, drag him back across the line: "But I am me. And you are you." He starts shaking again; she takes his hand so tenderly he won't notice. "We're Chuck and Blair. Blair and Chuck." The right words, as he's breaking in her hands: find them. "The worst thing you've ever done, the darkest thought you've ever had... I will stand by you through anything." Chuck scoffs: "Why would you do that?" Why would anybody? Why, after the last goodbye, would anyone follow him where he's going now?

"Because I love you."

He almost cries. She nods, holding his eyes. Begging him to drop, let it fall. Let the week of danger stretch out into infinity, into no danger at all. Laying herself down at his feet, letting him win; giving him the thing he was too afraid to ask for and she was too afraid to give. To come back from this brink. "Well. That's too bad," he says, but it's not what he means and it's not what she hears:

Not enough.

You never wanted to alarm me
But I'm the one that's drowning now

"Spotted: Chuck Bass fleeing his father's funeral. And Blair Waldorf shedding tears for the dearly departed."

Because she's taller, Serena holds Lily's red umbrella over Dan's head as they're walking down the street morning, the day of the wedding, with coffee and muffins. "You know, if you're about to apologize for Chuck, it's really all right. I mean, he's upset, and there's bad blood... It wouldn't be entirely true to say that I get it, but I'm fine not getting it." I literally could not stand it if he knew the gift he gave Chuck before Bart died, if he understood how twisted it got later. Nobody should know these things about people. "That's really big of you? But that's not actually why I called." Serena folds up the umbrella and tells him about Aaron's Buenos Aires plan. Her eyes are full of hope, begging him to stop her. Sadly, he is Dan Humphrey.

"Okay well um I've never been so I don't know how helpful I can be with travel tips..." -- Serena rolls her eyes -- "...I mean I know that it's uh summer there, so... Pack a bikini?" She tries to get him started: "Dan. When we heard about Bart's accident, we were in the middle of a conversation?" He remembers: it was about sex. Aaron and Serena, Lexi and Dan. "But that never happened," Serena points out hopefully (and skillfully; I can't think of a nicer way to let him know she still hasn't "extended herself" to Aaron), "So..."

Still not getting it. "Sooo... I mean, I guess now it will, right? At least for you..." Serena is just about to lose her shit; it's like watching someone stupid play Pictionary: "Or..." Dan shakes his head, just honestly confused at this point. And after all, he and Rufus decided in a completely separate conversation that the Dan/Serena door was closed and locked, so why wouldn't Serena know that and agree? "Well, are... Are you asking me to ask you not to go?" Which is a little direct, and not really the point, but while girl games are infinite there's always a point, which is that somebody has to say it, and Serena will be damned if she's the one, because she's got a good thing going on, and Dan's being particularly obtuse today, but...

You know, it's challenging to find Serena and Dan's relationship interesting even when Blair and Chuck aren't skateboarding the volcano rim and turning in career-making performances. But I am totally sympathetic this week, because -- while it's never really repetitive, because their conversations always lead somewhere by the end of the episode -- in this one they have the Herculean task of embodying not only the Lily/Rufus/Bart triangle with Aaron, the Lily/Rufus historical parallel from their own past, and the Chuck/Blair "you go first" thing, but also their own actual storyline. And all the while, this actual storyline is being constantly fucked with by all the other people nudging it this way and that in realtime. Without Lily and Rufus pushing them around -- dishonestly -- in order to make their own shit work out, that would still be a pretty intense deal.

And then meanwhile, Serena should not be dealing with Aaron or Dan right now, because her brothers need her, and then as far as Dan's aware, his father is rapidly losing touch with reality, so like, this is an impossible scene to write because of all the narrative craft and structure that's required, and the way they got around that is by letting all that stuff be there and be implicit, and then just do this funny, cute scene that manages to make both of them look pretty much totally adorable. And if that involves Serena acting like a gawky teenage girl, and Dan like a lunkheaded teenage boy, well, that's Serena's storyline right now anyway, not to mention that they are in fact teenagers, who have every right to act this way.

Anyway, Serena's vacillating, like, "I can't say that out loud, but what I am drawing here is clearly a CAT so why do you keep saying TRUCK, trucks don't have whiskers you idiot," and he gets all Quit Fucking Around on her, which is not at all what she's doing: "Look, Serena. If you want to go, go. If you don't, then don't. I can't tell you who to be with." Serena, still in there fighting, for which I love her: "No, but you can tell me how you feel." Dan's like, "Fuck you, how do you feel? About your 'boyfriend" that's taking you to 'South America'?" Serena's sort of had enough, so she's like fine: "I mean, he's really great. I like him a lot?" Begging him to blow this off. Instead, because he's Dan Humphrey and kind of wonderful and bumbling and clueless, he goes: "WELL THAT'S YOUR ANSWER THEN!"

Her hands literally flop around in defeat, and then he gets twice as neurotic and adorable and goes, "You know what this muffin is apricot I think yeah it uh I wanted cranberry they gave me apricot I gotta go back" and then ... runs away. Literally just goes zooming the heck off down the sidewalk. And Serena just sort of stares into space for a second like, "How the hell did I fuck that up? I'm Serena van der Woodsen, I shouldn't have had to work it a tenth that hard and it still should have worked out. What the fuck is WITH everybody today?"

Dvorak, finally, as Blair comes downstairs and into a supermassive wedding prep explosion. It looks lovely. Cyrus asks what she thinks, and she offers a halfhearted mazel tov, and he takes a closer look at her: bereft, no shine in the eyes, nothing. "Blair, I know this is all happening awfully fast for you. I just hope you know how happy I am not just to be with your mother, but... To have you in my family. I love you." She nearly starts crying right then, as he takes her hands. "Very, very much."

Completely at the end of her rope, Blair just loses what little composure she's got left. "I told Chuck I love him," she says, still smarting and ashamed; Cyrus is overjoyed for her, because Cyrus says More life. "Really? That's wonderful!" She shakes her head. Not enough; think yourself into a fairytale and you'll embarrass yourself every time: "No it's not, it's horrible! I thought that if I could finally say it, then everything would change, but he is just as selfish and soulless as ever!" Her shoulders go round and weak. "Only a masochist could ever love such a narcissist." Cyrus, unaccustomed as yet to Blair's particular mode of speech, just shakes his head, confused. And that's when she hurls herself on him, freaking the fuck out.

"Help me," she sniffs, and he wraps his arms around her. "You don't need help," he says kindly, looking her in the eyes. "He just needs time..." Blair throws herself into his arms again, laughing at herself through the tears: "Wait, not enough." Cyrus nods, and holds her so tightly, and she rests her head on his shoulder, desperate for a father again. "Don't worry," he says. "It'll all be okay." Eleanor walks by and is struck by the sight; she smiles lovingly at them, the little scene they don't know they're making; her beloved daughter's perfect comfort, and knows she's made the best decision of her life. "You'll see, dear," Cyrus says, and holds her gratefully. All it took to open her heart was love, but to hold her together afterward: will love be enough?

Looking for somewhere to stand and stay
I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away

CeCe returns to the Palace, ducking away Lily's questions about her meeting with Andrew Tyler. "Serena's at breakfast and Eric's out with Jonathan, so we can talk," Lily says firmly, and CeCe says only that it went "very well." Accustomed to her mother's scheming, Lily assumes it's back under the rug. "Thank you, Mother. This was the right thing, I know it was." CeCe doesn't lie, exactly; she speaks in epigrams and riddles and gives with one hand while taking with the other, but she doesn't lie: "If you say so. But the closing of this chapter leads us to the opening of the one."

CeCe pours her coffee carefully, modulates her voice no less so, offhand and conversational: "What are you going to do about the fact that you're in love with Rufus Humphrey?" Lily stares at the ceiling. "Well, I'm not sure I'm gonna do anything, at least not right away." CeCe, smugly sipping: "So you are in love with him. I was fishing." Lily's almost amused. "Oh? Well, you caught me. Considering the circumstances, I have tried with all of my strength to fight it. It is a curse I do not wish on my worst enemy." And as Serena walks in, she nods. "But I love Rufus." Serena is shocked. "So that's why Chuck was so upset," she says, and storms away to her bedroom, Lily in hot pursuit, begging to explain.

Serena takes off her scarf. It's not like Dan was taking the bait anyway, so what does it matter? It all makes sense now. Nate had to become a man when the Captain went away the first time; this season has been a carnival of rage for Serena as she uncovers and looks at more and more of her memories and understands the depths of her mother's fallibility, and that's a secret nobody is going to tell you because it hurts too much to repeat: "Don't bother. You love Rufus, you always have, and you married Bart anyway, and now he's dead." Lily almost laughs. "Well, I might have fleshed out some of the more subtle nuances, but yes, I suppose that's the gist of it. So go ahead: How could I, Bart's body's not even cold... Whatever horrible things you're gonna say to me, just go ahead and say them." But this isn't Serena's fight anymore. "I should have seen this coming." Lily reminds her of their deal, how she broke up with Rufus in deference to her daughter's relationship with Dan. Serena's logical: "Has Rufus told you he wants to be with you?" He has. Finally, yes, he has.

Serena sits down. This is her choice, coming down the pike. Since the story itself doesn't allow both, she has to weigh this morning's calamitous disaster with Dan against the fairly enjoyable relationship with Aaron before she speaks again. She can't know how manipulative Rufus has been, which should inform this choice, so it seems clearer than it should be: "Well, this may sound strange coming from me, but... If you want to be with him, then you should. Maybe it's your time now. After all that you've been through, you should at least try." Lily asks about Dan, and Serena gives a fatalistic hum. "I'm gonna try to make things work with Aaron. We're going to Buenos Aires for the holidays. That is, if it's okay with my Mom?" Lily agrees; she'd agree to anything. She throws her arms around her daughter; the tears in her eyes are tears of joy.

Jenny's steaming the wedding jacket when Dan arrives, complaining in a bizarre accent from some imaginary Scottish antipode of Argentina that she's off on holiday with Aaron. "Uh well she hasn't actually decided yet but he invited her and she's not sure so I think I tipped her in the direction of saying yes." Jenny asks why the eff he did, and Dan's like, "Because she asked me not to?" He realizes how boneheaded he just was, but says it's in fact not because he's a moron who had no idea what was going on, but because he's above "stupid games." Um, stupid games like, "Please ask me to go back out with you so I can go back out with you and we can have some sex?" That's real esoteric.

"If you play the game, then Aaron ends up dancing the tango alone and Serena would be with you," Jenny explains, and then garners one of the best lines of the episode: "You still have feelings for her. Right? Okay, so do you think you could put them into words? And speak to her out loud?" I was so hoping he'd be like, "That's just a stupid game!" But instead he nods delightfully, like a bobblehead of himself, and he's like, "YES. Or uh oh if she flies away first!" Jenny points out that there's an entire interfaith wedding still coming in this episode, because it's Gossip Girl and there might well be an earthquake and the Kennedy/Nixon election and half-human half-cat hybrids still coming in this episode, so he's got a couple minutes to play with.

Jenny hands Dan Eleanor's garment bag and they head out just as Rufus comes in wearing the most god-awful grey turtleneck you've ever seen, as in "I miss Rufus's rollneck ladies' cardigan" awful, and the one shticky not-smart writing tic happens where they redux Frances Housman carrying the watermelon one hundred thousand times in the most irritating diminishing-returns way possible, but whatever, he's carrying the fucking garment bag and that's why he's going to Eleanor's house on her wedding day and if you like hearing the same joke thirty times in ten minutes, have I got the soul-sucking running gag for you. Anyway, Lily calls Rufus the second they've left, coincidentally, and asks where Jenny and Dan are spending Christmas, and they're going to visit Alison of course, so Lily asks him to go with her on the trip they didn't take last year, because she doesn't want to wait six years, and Rufus doesn't want to wait at all, and they both know everything is going to be so beautiful and perfect because of all the times they've tried to make it work the only thing still standing between them is them, so ... why not leave tonight? Tonight, yes you heard correctly, on Bart's dime, the day after his funeral. Six years, no. Six months, that's even fine because it's longer than the marriage lasted. But I draw the line at six minutes, you fuckers.

Back to the Xu Xu Fang bar, where the current platter a-spinning is their hot track "These Days," a sort of eerie opium dream that seems basically to concern itself with suicidal anomie. (The first time Chuck and Tyler met here, it was called "The Mourning Son," which needs no explanation except to say: yesterday morning Chuck was a mourning son, but now the song which best describes him begins, "These days, things are just okay.") Tyler arrives and congratulates him on being the high bidder... "The only bidder, actually." Chuck, looking if possible even worse than previously, immediately grinds out, "If Lily didn't spend every dollar she has, maybe it's not worth it." Ouch.

Tyler says that CeCe told her Lily wants to stop hiding her past and come clean, and Chuck considers this drunkenly. His speech is labored and confused. "Tell me what's the point in me paying to know something if she's going to tell everyone anyway?" Tyler advises him to take the deal and lock down the possibility: "You're about to become the richest kid in New York. If I were you, I'd want to make that decision myself." He slides the secret across the bar, and Chuck hands him this bizarre bag of money. He stands up and puts one hand heavily on Tyler's shoulder, at first like he's holding himself up but then he whispers that Chuck whisper into Tyler's ear: It's a pleasure doing business with you.

(At which point The Chad -- who finds this show fascinating in this whole other way I respect but don't get -- cracked me up by accident. "Did you just say He's gay for everybody?" And The Chad looks at me like I'm a moron: "I said I think he's my favorite." And I'm like, "Um, that's why he's my favorite.")

Serena on the Rose-Waldorf chuppah: "Oh, it's beautiful." Aaron on his douche high: "And so are you." Not content to just be stupid, he pushes the asshole envelope as well: "You know what could make this moment even better?" If a flaming piece of a long-abandoned satellite came crashing through the roof and ground you into a fine paste? Serena admits she's decided to go to Buenos Aires, and there is gross kissing, and of course the Humphreys arrive. Jenny asks if Eleanor's freaking, and Eleanor's hysterical voice comes screeching down the stairs: "Is that Jenny Humphrey? Where are my clothes?" Jenny nods and heads upstairs, telling Dan to wait for her. He points at the garment bag, and Aaron's like, "That's so lame I have to flee this scene." Serena sweetly smiles and then looks at Dan for a second before wandering to another corner of the room to get away from him.

Dan says her name and she's like, God, what. "Dan, why are you really here?" Um, to tell you not to go to Argentina. Too late! "But uh oh just tell him you're not." Serena's like, "It's not our time, dude." Dan of course doesn't know about the gross machinations of Lily and Rufus, so he goes, "So what? It's you and Aaron's time? You guys have a time now?" Yeah, it's called Shut Up Dan O'Clock, and it rolls around every five seconds. "It's not about Aaron, it's about our parents. They're in love? They never stopped being in love?" Dan literally goes, "Ohhhh. That explains a lot." I'm sort of in love with Dan Humphrey myself these days.

Serena explains about her stupid deal with Lily last year, and how even if she tried to pull that shit again her Mom probably wouldn't fall for it. "So you're gonna give up on all of this -- on us -- for your Mom?" Serena points out that their relationship is an epic fail on numerous fronts, and Dan's like, "Maybe it would work this time!" because he is his father's son, and Serena tries to explain how this entire season she keeps trying to be friends with him and he keeps fucking it up: "Dan, we're... We're connected. We always will be, but... I'm dating someone else now." Someone vile, but who understands human language.

Blair comes downstairs, just in the nick, and summons Serena. "We need your fashion advice," she says, because apparently the wedding party will be dressing like whores -- Mick and Bianca 1971, don't you know -- and not-too-hatefully asks "Humphrey" what he's doing there, and you already know the answer (this time provided by Serena) and B shrugs and drags Serena off. She's like, "We'll talk after the holidays, where I'll be boning Aaron senseless in a South American summer haze, okay?" Which is what Dan deserves, anyway, even if I wouldn't wish that greasy awful fate on anybody, least of all Serena, and she gives him a good strong hug and then does that Serena thing where she walks a few steps, forgets the conversation is over and turns around, remembers she just said goodbye and hugged the person, and then continues on her way. I love when she does that.

Chuck's reading the big damn secret when Lily comes downstairs and spots him, finally home. "I just can't believe you'd want this to become public knowledge," he says slowly, stretching it out, and Lily goes: "What. Is that." She already knows, so Chuck just folds it up and confirms her fears. "But my Mother..." Chuck explains that CeCe lied to Lily about buying Tyler off, and lied to Tyler about Lily's new leaf. "Judging by the look on your face, I'm guessing it wasn't your idea to come clean." Lily's completely thrown; Chuck doesn't care at all. Hatefully, still seated, taps the secret on the back of the couch. "time you see her, I'd ask, but until then I'm more than happy to further her agenda."

Out of options, Lily finally remembers to be human. "Charles, um, I beg you... Please don't turn away from the people that love you. They're the only chance any of us has, and your father never learned that. I hope that you do." He won't look at her, so she turns to go. But she really does love him.

"Signs" by Bloc Party again, over an awesome montage: Eleanor and Cyrus taking their vows from the pastor and the rabbi, with Blair and Dorota on one side and Serena and Aaron on the other, holding hands. Dorota looks incredibly lovely; Blair spends the ceremony trying not to smile with glee.

Eleanor breathes deep. "I, Cyrus, take, you, Eleanor, to be no other than yourself." Eleanor lowers her head. "I give you my love. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Aaron loves that, of course, because it's his theme song; Blair's a little hurt by it, but sweetly overcome by the moment. Cyrus slides the ring onto Eleanor's hand and she giggles; Blair's beautiful smile in this moment is incandescent, and Dorota is overjoyed, and Blair covers her eyes when they kiss. Elsewhere, Dan walks down the street, all moody with the realization that he just got crunched by everybody.

You never wanted to alarm me
But I'm the one that's drowning now

Chuck stands at the fireside, holding the secret. The people that love you are the only chance you have. He is surrounded, enfolded, by so much love. He hates secrets, and he loves his family. He's said his goodbyes, but those things are still true. He is a good, strong son. She reminded him of who he was. He holds the secret in the flames until it lights, and the considers it. He drops it in the ash bucket and watches it burn.

At your funeral I was so upset
So upset, so upset
In your life you were larger than this
Statuesque

And Lily is packing for her escape, and after much thought removing her wedding ring and putting it in a velvet jewelry box; and Rufus is packing his bags in that dorky turtleneck, and carrying them to his door like they contain the future; and Blair is giggling and shrinking away as Cyrus pops the champagne open and toasts the Waldorf-Roses; and Serena is toasting with water, Aaron at her back; and Dorota is whispering to Blair, and she slowly backs away from the celebration and heads quietly upstairs.

"What do you think you're doing here?" she says, but drops the act when she sees him, broken on the bed. His eyes are empty, almost afraid and almost sad and almost asking. He doesn't have to. She throws herself on him, against his strong back, and she takes the weight it carries; she curls herself around him. Around Chuck Bass, his aching loneliness and pain and anger: the beast in the cage, who knows the tigers and the monsters in her and doesn't care at all. The worst thing she's ever done, the darkest thought she's ever had, and Chuck Bass loves her for them. Around Charles, the good strong son, the calm and patient boyfriend he waits so eternally to be, to stand with her through anything, if he were only brave enough. Around Charlie Trout, limp as a doll, leaning back against her, being held. I am me, and you are you. She calls him back across the line, with her arms around him, and everything drains out until there's nothing left, just pieces she collects and holds together. With all the strength in that tiny fierce frame.

Rufus writes a note to the kids, explaining that he's going out of town but it's "all good" and that they'll have much to talk about when he returns, but to enjoy Hudson. He signs it "Love you guys!" (with completely different handwriting from the rest of the note) and there's a knock at the door. He opens it, and snarls. "This can't be good." CeCe nods and he tries to brush past her, but she's not fucking with him this time. She's being honest. "There's something you need to know." Rufus resists, pointing out there always is, from her, and she backs up, snorting at his usual lack of class. "Throughout my whole life, the only thing I have ever wanted is my daughter's happiness. Now, the means to achieving this might shift with time, but my goal remains the same." Rufus hatefully tells her to stow it: "Uh, since this is about Lily? She can be the one to tell me. Or not tell me. I won't allow your meddling to come between us again." CeCe protests that Lily was given the chance and didn't take it: "In fact, she asked me to pay a lot of money to make the problem go away." Knowing this will prove something to him, will break the spell of love just long enough: that's what they do in the UES, throw money at problems instead of truth. That's the part of Lily that scares him.

Rufus nods, still thinking CeCe's the enemy. "The real problem is that she's in love with you," CeCe begins, and further to this issue, "So long as she holds on to this, the two of you don't have a chance in hell of making it work." Rufus realizes she's trying to help, and nods. Well. If that's what she's doing, I mean, what's scary here is that you wouldn't put it past her to have set this all up, and tried all of this "just come clean" stuff for the express purpose of Rufus finding out, and eventually just throwing up her hands and bringing it to him herself. If you were trying to game Rufus you couldn't do it better than this: "I want her to have that chance. Don't you?"

"Slow Show" by The National plays over the bits. It's cinematic and sad and applicable to everything, by ear, but some of the lyrics are pretty pointy.

Can I get a minute of not being nervous
And not thinking of my dick?

I made a mistake in my life today

In the car to the airport, Aaron "jokes" that the first time they "actually sleep together" it'll be on an airplane: "Most guys get candles and lingerie, my girl's gonna be sporting earplugs and a neck pillow." Ugh, he just honestly makes me ill at this point. Lexi was not the first sign, but it was the brightest. Serena laughs at him: "Hey, you're gonna be fighting me for that neck pillow when your chin is on your chest and there's drool all over your shirt." Aaron has the audacity to ask how she knows for a fact that he drools, as though she's never met him, and she laughs, promising that it's going to be so good: "This trip, us, all of it." He asks if she has any regrets, and she responds that she doesn't; his hand on hers like a vise. She cuddles against his shoulder, but finds it uncomfortably bony and oily, and steals the neck pillow back. It's a victory of sorts, I suppose. Whatever weapon you have, use it.

A little more stupid, a little more scared
Every minute more unprepared

Looking for somewhere to stand and stay
I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away

Dan comes into the darkened loft, totally lost. Rufus spins dramatically around in his chair, looking totally unhappy for the first time ever. "Well," Dan nags as he turns on a light, "Thank you for telling me that you're in love with Lily Bass again, or still, or whatever it is. It would have been really useful information to have before I tried to stop Serena from flying off to South America..." Rufus says darkly, "I will never be with Lily." Dan's confused: "Serena just said..." Rufus stands, looking and sounding rough as hell, sounding angry and nasty: "Serena doesn't know what the hell she's talking about." Dan asks WTF is going on, if he's going on a trip or what, and what's with the note, and Rufus -- is he drunk? -- just weaves and crumbles the note into his pocket: "Just out." Dan watches his father leave, more fucked up and sad and out of it than he's ever seen, and grabs his phone.

Aaron and Serena stare at her phone as it rings. She swears she doesn't want to answer. Aaron gives her permission to answer it, to still have feelings and misgivings about Dan, which is magnanimous of him, and just asks, again, for time. "I think I might be falling in love with you," he adds desperately, and she ignores the call. Dan stares at the phone, while Aaron kisses Serena as they head to the airport.

Blair and Chuck lie curled on top of the sheets, still in their clothes, even their shoes. She holds him, his hair in a wave across his face and the pillow; they are beautiful. At the end of the burlesque, at the end of their performances, finally: when all the poses and stances and affectations drop, when the end of the world comes, when you forget all the bullshit and maneuvers and the million ways of hiding. When they admit their hungers and their loneliness and their needs, their love, what then? They look like children. They're just children.

For, my sweetheart the melancholic
You have crossed the river Styx
And the waves have taken you away

Rufus spots her in Grand Central before she sees him, wearing her traveling clothes and standing in the center of the room with her bags. She smiles delightfully at him as he approaches; it turns to ashes. He puts his hand on his hips and asks it like a slap across her face: "Just tell me one thing. Was it a boy or a girl?"

As I lay my head on your chest
I can hear it your veins
Wake me up when you come to bed

Blair reaches out to him in the night, but he's not there. There's a note, in Westwick's handwriting. A goodbye song after all. She begins to weep.

I'm sorry for everything.
You deserve much better.
Don't come looking for me.
-- Chuck

Was my love not strong enough to bring you back from the dead?

Not enough.

Is Gossip Girl a true depiction of how the other half lives in the Big Apple? As if! Check out our Gossip Girl: Non-New York State of Mind gallery for proof.