...XO! Lily's got secrets! Secret number one: Mapplethorpe photographed her in his latter days, probably with a bullwhip up her "bellybutton." Secret number two... HER NINETIES LOVE CHILD WITH RUFUS HUMPHREY. Okay, not totally sure about that one. But it's big, it's bad, and Bart's none too happy about it. In other boring grownup news, Jenny is still the only adult on this show. As she will have you know. Rufus and Jenny have all manner of fights about how Jenny's been skipping school for weeks to avoid getting abused by the Plastics, but eventually she once again tells him that she can do whatever the heck she wants, and is dropping out for good. Which is fine, because -- get this shit right here -- he would have done the same thing at her age, if he'd been as talented as her. Jenny has got it ALL FIGURED OUT.
Serena has been hanging out with celebutante Poppy Lifton as part of her ascension to the throne, which Jenny leverages to fill out Eleanor Waldorf's front row at Fashion Week. Of course, Jenny doesn't realize she's bumping the Plastics when she does so, wrecking weeks of scheming by old Blair-Bear to get back in with them again. Needless to say, between Serena being fabulous without her and getting sabotaged so close to home, Blair goes insane to a degree we haven't seen since Serena came back from boarding school. In an effort to screw Serena and Jenny at the same time, she causes all the models to disappear into thin air, and then when Jenny tries to salvage the show by replacing them with Serena and her A-list friends, she sends S down the runway in a dress of Jenny's design, thereby attempting to ruin Jenny, Eleanor and Serena in one fell swoop.
Needless to say, it backfires -- bad. Serena works it or whatever and becomes a supermodel, and Eleanor and Jenny forge a stronger bond than ever. Desperate to be included and hurting for company -- just like Chuck wanted! -- Blair re-befriends Jenny so that her mother will at least (hopefully) remember her name. Jenny's happy, because she is retarded but also because this is apparently all she ever really wanted. Plus she'll have so much more time to insinuate herself creepily into the Waldorf family -- eating disorders and all -- now that her days are free. Homeschooling is so totally the new cutting.
Poppy gives Serena a little book called Be Your Own Windkeeper and lectures her about how she needs to become empowered because the wind can make you a goddess, and Blair is taking her wind away because she is a lightning bearer. Or no, wait. That's last week's recap. Any case, Serena takes this message to heart and tells Blair straight up that she can either keep trying to bring Serena down with her Machiavellian desperation, or she can let Serena's lantern shine brightly and eclipse her completely like a true friend, but if she chooses A then Serena will murder her like that dude she killed last year.
But OMG whatever because the real story here is Dan and Chuck, who finally do it after just over a year of foreplay. Best Dan storyline ever! You see, a little leprechaun tells Dan (I'm not making this up, although I will say that this particular leprechaun works at the Paris Review) that he needs to experience new things. So of course he goes to Chuck. Chuck feeds him a bunch of ecstasy and makes him do a bunch of shots, they go to (what Chuck convinces Dan is) a sex club behind White Castle and then Chuck takes away his shoes, wallet and phone and leaves him on the street in Manhattan. Then, instead of writing an imaginative story, Dan once again writes down his experiences verbatim.
The leprechaun says that this was not real enough, and tells Dan to get inside Chuck's head (pants?) even more, so Dan plays Jedi mind tricks on Chuck and then punches a guy to defend Chuck's honor -- still not making any of this up -- and they spend the night together in jail, where Chuck admits that Bart hates him because the first Mrs. Bass died in childbirth (Unless he was Lily's '90s lovechild with Rufus!). Dan is sympathetic to the point of having strange new sensations in both heart and pants, but just before they actually do it, gay-style, in jail... Chuck finds some scrap of paper on which Dan, being a total dillweed, has scrawled notes to himself like IT'S NOT GAY IF IT'S RESEARCH and FIND OUT CHUCK BASS'S SECRET AND EXPLOIT IT INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY WRITING ANYTHING CREATIVE/GOOD. He tells Dan that he is going to be sorry, and then leaves him in a jail cell with two advancing leather daddies who are themselves straight outta Mapplethorpe, bringing us full circle. XO...
"When the white tents blossom in Bryant Park, it can only mean one thing: Fashion Week." Gossip Girl thinks about this for a moment, over unremarkable shots of fashion people and fashion things; people thinking fashion thoughts and wearing fashion fashion and drinking Vitamin Water. "The time of year when any Park Ave princess would trade her last Prada Pochette for front row seats to the best shows. And we hear the seating chart to Eleanor Waldorf's show is being made by our very own B..."
Amid a fashionable hustle and bustle, Blair has chosen once again to rock the pilgrim funeral look, having returned to a soberer self now that she's reprioritizing, and manipulates the seating chart for the Waldorf show, which is what she was born to do. She points out to her mother a particular art director who's just run off with the husband of a photo editor, in what we assume is a hilarious expositional "blind item" of sorts relating to adulterous and more than likely deeply uninteresting art directors and husbands of editors of photos, and so, Blair explains, she seated the entirety of Vanity Fair between them. Eleanor is grateful for the help, and B quips that she wanted to "avoid a catfight in front of the catwalk," playing -- you see -- off the linguistic similarities between the two heretofore unlinked portmanteaus. This is quite humorous, even to Blair's mother, who provides her with a minim of that attention and approval for which Blair unceasingly strives: "I told Laurel my daughter could make a better seating chart than that drug-addled publicist. It's a blessing she was hauled off to rehab for stealing her son's Ritalin." Still not as funny as when she ran those bitches over in the Hamptons. Just ran them the fuck down.
"And you and Serena will be with me backstage, of course?" Blair exposits loudly that this is their most sacred tradition, and that entire nations rise and fall on their successful commencement and completion of this duty, et cetera, and mentions that she has seated the Plastics and Hangers-On in the second row, and both Eleanor and her daughter agree that it is good to bribe one's compatriots with privileges, and to presumably manipulate them with the threat of taking away said privileges without cause or notice, thus making Blair the subject of "worship." Eleanor squeezes her face somewhat affectionately, and thinks privately about how it's Blair's obesity that's really the problem.
Daniel Humphrey and his fair sister make their way through a sunny crowd of be-uniformed hateful youths -- here a Dalton, there a St. Jude's, all united in disgust that Dan continues to draw breath -- discussing the ways in which not their poverty but their own self-destructive shame about their poverty has resulted in behavior ranging from the pathetic (being mean to Serena) to the sociopathic (shoplifting from friends), which has in turn resulted in the two of them being exactly where they belong: in near-boiling water, invisible and for all intents without sovereign existence. And yet there seems not a great deal of malice in it, just a sad regret of all that oxygen wasted, and I certainly shouldn't wish to overstate the case. After all, as Wharton wrote: "It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness." Dan's insignificance borders on the cosmic. And yet ...the central figure; the pivot point around which our universe revolves. Call it The Dan Show.
"Invisible suits me. I can go to school unshowered, I can forget to dress, nobody cares." People care, Humphrey; it's merely a less pleasant fate to speak with you than to smell you. "And now I have all the time in the world to focus on my Yale application, so..." All right, it would seem that Yale has now gone from solely Blair's dream school, to ... everybody's. Serena shall forsake Brown, Dan defects from Dartmouth ("Seems that Dartmouth's whole English department was poached by Yale"), and Nate...
Well. Let us not indulge our innate insensitivity to the problems of the rich and beautiful by focusing on the things Nate Archibald was simply not constructed to do. Those activities and pursuits for which he was specifically constructed have proven time and again to bring in income at a rate necessary to sustain an entire family's lifestyle on the Upper East Side, even in these troubled economic times; and besides, it's much less crude to admit our failings and disadvantages, working in tandem with them to most perfectly fulfill our potential, than stubbornly to ignore them, as though they were never there. Building these so-called "castles in the sky" is ill-conceived, especially when it's perfectly fine -- and, in some parts of our nation, laudable -- to live somewhat nearer sea level. For example, one might say, "I do think that Nate would make a lovely and attentive gardener!" Or, "That beautiful smile would so delight the lives and enhance the experiences of each customer upon their entry through those hallowed Wal-Mart doors."
In any case, having burnt through the good graces of Jay McInerney, Daniel has turned to the less-physically desirable but more powerful elfin graces of Noah Shapiro, Paris Review editor, once-rowdy blackguard-bewilder, Kerouac sympathizer and Cassady wannabe, and "pot 'o gold" sentinel and guardian -- who will be selecting those stories best suited for submission to the Yale Admissions department from among Dan's no-doubt girthy oeuvre, in exchange for nothing worthier than his immortal soul and what shred of self-respect Dan has managed to wrest from the clenched teeth of reality. In return, Jenny (or, as he calls her, "sorella mia," because he is a prig) simply refuses to explain to him that she has been contending with that dragon that strikes so many impressionable girls at about that time in life when they are proven to possess that sort of rare talent which, while constantly being discussed, is never truly evidenced nor quite believable. I speak -- of course -- of the Demon, Truancy.
At the moment Jenny can be seen hailing a cab in the direction not of first period French, as her brother believes, but of her own ruin, an art consultant of our acquaintance named Bex Simon is leading Lily Bass through her house, which has found itself all arted up. "Kiki Smith greeting you in the foyer. Elm[-green] & Drag[-set] pulling you into the main room. And making a statement on the stairwell..." A raucous and vibrant Richard Phillips, whose aforementioned statement seems mainly to be, "I have no place in this apartment!" Lily's daughter Serena enters, looking fresh as a daisy and twice as pert, ready to start her day. Which, given our usual issues with time and space, may or may not include school today. Two subjects are discussed. The first, in which the irrepressible Bex finds herself taking part without invitation, concerns Serena's new alliance with celebrity socialite Poppy Lifton, in whose company Serena spends long, alcohol-free, nights of late.
The second and more interesting concerns a miraculous photograph dating from that period in Mrs. Bass's life to which we refer privately as the "Seveneightnineties," (or '7890s, if you like), given that she seems to have accomplished being several ages at once -- and not in succession, as was and remains the custom, but scattershot and chock-a-block. During a one-decade period that somehow managed to last about three, this particular photograph captures an impossible moment in time, in which Lily managed to share an age with both Patti Smith and Punky Brewster, and -- you've seen -- is no worse for the wear. This paradoxical image was captured by one Robert Mapplethorpe, whom even Serena has heard of -- after a humorous reference to the source material of this television series regarding photographs in which one cannot be quite sure whether one is looking at a bellybutton or another part of the anatomy -- and Bex Simon is asked to procure it, as it will soon be offered up for auction. Rather than being impressed by her mother's time-travelling tendencies, to which Serena has always turned an insouciant eye, Serena is impressed that her mother has finally found courage enough to admit to being a pornographer. "You just became the coolest mom on the Upper East Side!"
In the shared courtyard between the St. Jude's and Constance Billard Schools for Sexually-Confused & Alcoholic (Respectively) Boys & Girls (Respectively) Who Act Exactly Like Adults But Are Not Disgusting Like Most Adults Because They Are Children & Have No Accountability, Charles Bass brings his ominous attentions to bear once again on the beleaguered scion of Waldorf Design. "Ah, the besieged queen." Blair tries to brush off his attempts at the step in the complicated game of chess he is playing with his own penis, but Chuck is not interested in being ignored. "Your throne's in danger, and you can't wage war on Serena without an ally. You need me." Blair assures him that there is no war, no conflict, and "now that Marcus has been booted back to Brighton," she is free to return to her old life as Queen, a title which Serena, by her own admission, takes no pleasure in. "And how do you plan on making the girls fall at your feet?" Chuck answers his own question with a witticism ironically employing the colloquialism "fall at [one's] feet" as a literal instance or circumstance, suggesting that Blair will trip them. This is not a strategy that Blair would discount out of hand -- indeed, she's employed it in the past -- but today Blair is coining her own colloquialisms instead: "A true monarch bestows favors. It's Fashion Week, and I'm the only Constance girl with clout."
Blair takes leave of her former swain and presents the Plastics with their bribes: second-row seats at the Eleanor Waldorf show, or as Penelope explains, "Total movie star seats." Of course, Blair's moment of triumph is, as ever, nipped by frost in its first bloom as Serena impinges on her ascendance both personally, having finally arrived at school, and by proxy: it's at the moment of Blair's presentation of the tickets that Hazel notices Serena in the pages of Women's Wear Daily, where she's been photographed in the company of celebutante Poppy Lifton. In that moment, the young women can speak or think of nothing else; Blair leaves in a huff, causing Serena to ask what's wrong. "I'll just leave you to your fans," Miss Waldorf spits, causing Miss van der Woodsen to roll her eyes with a curious and exhausted mixture of pity, irritation, and clairvoyance.
"Watching you fail spectacularly gives me so much joy," Chuck mutters as Blair crosses the lonely world back to him. "And you know what you give to everyone, Chuck? Misery. There's a reason you're always out here alone," she says, striking out as one who has been harmed, but without much conviction. Chuck points out -- for the education of Blair and the edification of we the viewers, who hadn't even noticed Nate's absence -- that Nate is away, at his grandparents' house. One can only imagine the clientele they've got him in bed with, but more importantly: school is, once again, apparently optional. Had I known that fact fifteen years ago, I would no doubt be a world-famous fashion designer as we speak. "Nate's only friends with you out of habit. The only person with fewer friends than you is Dan Humphrey, and at least his lame '90s dad likes him. And that's because he's something you'll never be: a human being."
The jury is, as they say, still "out" on that account, but the speech itself is pure Blair Waldorf excellence. "Lame '90s Dad" is a perfect encapsulation of everything Rufus stands for; the grudging admission that Dan Humphrey is something akin to a human being; most of all the casual explication of a likely truth ("Nate's only friends with you out of habit," in other words, he's merely scatter-brained, and after all, isn't it likely that all of these people are only "friends" out of habit? Which explains why we don't talk to anybody from high school by the time we turn twenty?) which exposes the hurtful underpinnings of a close personal relationship. That's one stone Blair shouldn't have thrown, but she won't know that until tomorrow night.
Why, a leprechaun! In an office! What fun! And see here, he is drinking although it is lunchtime at best -- a classic sign of leprechaun authenticity. But, as they say, "truth lies at the bottom of the first and second glasses; rage and inappropriate behavior lie at the bottom of subsequent glasses," and as the leprechaun's only on his second wee little scotch whiskey of the day, he speaks only truth: "Let me be blunt, Humphrey. These stories are no good." Daniel Humphrey, never one to accept reality or other people's opinions when his own are just as good, attempts to argue his way out of his own artistic assessment. Little Noah explains that writing five separate stories, each of which one finds "a sheltered young man with girl trouble who lives with his daddy in Brooklyn" -- who, no doubt, spews constant judgment and jumps to erroneous and hateful conclusions whenever offered the opportunity -- does not demonstrate skill or talent, which is what the "tenured asses" of the Yale English are looking for.
"You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that."
Dan continues to argue, as though somehow by sheer rhetoric he can imbue his work with qualities it does not possess, and says -- being a self-obsessed prick with a chip on his shoulder and a deep-set feeling that the world is to blame for his dissatisfaction and laziness -- that in this case, "writing what one knows" results in only one possibility: writing the same self-aggrandizing, self-serving story over and over and over. If he were capable of "knowing" compassionately outside his own narrow, ugly experience, or even vaguely curious about those universes of which he is not the center, he would not have managed to activate the demon inside Serena van der Woodsen that even now threatens to consume us all. Wee Noah instructs Dan to "get out of [his] comfort zone" and "do something dangerous" to insure that his writing is less "safe," and ends by relating a hoary and probably, embarrassingly true story about the time that Charles Bukowski put a shot glass on his head, and then blew it off. That was what sex was like in those days.
Now, the questioning reader may have already discerned the problem here, which is that it is awfully difficult to accept with a satisfied heart advice on becoming less clichéd from a walking cliché, much less to implement the concept of fresh or honest writing when it is delivered in such a stale, dishonest way. Writing is not manipulation, but communication; one can either build monuments to oneself, or friendships with one's readers, but you can't do both. You're either Rabbit Angstrom or you're Scout Finch. Which is braver?
Eleanor Waldorf loses control slightly in her atelier, complaining about a misperceived difference between the '50s hemline that implies "long, dowdy poodle skirt" and the sort of '50s hemline that denotes "flirty Marilyn," then throws the dowdy garment at Jenny Humphrey in a fit of nerves. Laurel complains to her employer that their seating chart is "weak," and contains no It Girls worth mentioning: "Kirsten Dunst? So 2007. Her rehab stint barely made the radar!" Eleanor explains Blair's feeling that the "A-list girls" won't be attending because their show is scheduled at the same time as the Marc Jacobs's show. Laurel continues to complain, until Jenny produces her copy of WWD, opened to a picture of Serena, her new friend Poppy Lifton, and the unseen but implied hordes of all the bulimics, anorexics, pill-poppers, and junior alcoholics connected to them both. (Plus Miu, in my limited experience the sole sane socialite in the whole of the city.)
When one has managed to perturb and wound one's sole friend and one-time lover to the degree Daniel Humphrey has over the last year, one would be well-advised to steer clear of said ex-partner's residence -- and, as though it needs be said, one should probably avoid simply walking into said home without invitation or notice and wandering about like a yokel with boundary issues, or, as is the parlance of the day, a "Total Fucking Vanessa Abrams." Among the great many lessons our Lonelyboy has yet to truly internalize, however, this blank spot distinguishes itself among them as the most probable pretext for Dan's head getting blown off by a paranoid Texan on vacation in the Big Apple, and so we will let him dwell in blessed ignorance just that little bit longer.
Charles Bass, wearing a tiny blue-on-blue neckerchief, has never looked quite so crazy hot as he does at this moment, descending the stairs from his apartments to find a most horrific visitor in the foyer. "It's like the plague, only instead of vermin on my doorstep I get The Human Being... My sister doesn't dig stalkers," he says, and Dan responds in kind that, for once, he's not looking for Serena. Dan, presuming once again that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness, begins by outlining what he believes Chuck's foremost issues with him personally might be: "You think I'm a boring, sheltered nobody..." Chuck sets him straight immediately: "I don't think of you." Dan, whose ears seem as deaf to his own words as Blair will eventually accuse Serena's of being, makes a most amazing pronouncement: "Of course you don't, but I've been thinking of me." Isn't that beautiful? How can such a self-conscious, insecure person be so... Unself-conscious? It boggles the mind. "I've come to the conclusion that I need to get out of my comfort zone. I need to experience new things." Had I my druthers, I would suggest Dan experience the new thing of being held underwater until he stops struggling.
Chuck narrows his eyes, somewhat fascinated by this new take on the usual Dan Humphrey stuttering. And of all the possible ways of saying these three words, of all the possible emphases and intonations and implications and subtleties, the naked interest and the intrigued humor, the attempts to emasculate and consideration of the possibility that Dan is saying something fascinating for the first time in his life, we are treated to the finest: "Are you gay?"
Dan's mouth smacks open, and he stares at Chuck's unmoving interrogation for a moment that seems to stretch itself out into infinity before shaking himself out of it. "...Now that would be out of my comfort zone, but no. Uh, I just need to get out of Brooklyn for one night. I'd like to experience the world of Chuck Bass." Alternately, an option in this circumstance would be to say, "Maybe?" And then one can see where that leads. I certainly do not intend to advise one way or another, but merely to refer the reader to the facts: It is Chuck Bass. It is an absurdly flattering neckerchief. And it is always good to remember that one has options. "You're lucky I'm bored," Chuck says, and breezes past Dan to the elevator: "Get in before I change my mind." And, in his way, I think Chuck might be thinking of taking revenge for the sister he loves so much, for that smile on his face as the elevator door closes means either the honorable pursuit of justice, or Daniel Humphrey is about to experience a new thing called anal rape.
Blair comes shooting through Chez Waldorf as though in pursuit of the hounds of hell, firing off hilarious statements and bons mots with such rapidity footnotes may well be called for. "Don't ever go to high school, Dorota! [?] The girls are spoiled, stupid and ungrateful! One snapshot with a socialite and it's all Serena! Serena! Serena! Don't they know that without me, they'd never see the inside of a fashion tent? They'd be stuck behind the barricades with PETA! In fact, I will leave them outside with PETA. Maybe that'll teach them some manners!" While it's possible that "Don't ever go to high school, Dorota" is the finest line of dialogue ever uttered in any medium, it is not for me to assign that honor, as I regard myself more as observer than judge. "Something's different," Blair hisses, looking at her rearranged seating chart. "Who put Serena and that Poppy person in the front row? And all these socialites?" (N.B. Christina Cuomo is on there like sixteen times; presumably this is because of Jenny Humphrey's widely acknowledged brain damage.) "Someone changed this chart! The chart my mother asked me to do! Who changed it?" Dorota drops the proverbial dime on Jenny Humphrey so fast that one might require treatment for whiplash, and Blair settles into a deep and inviting throne of rage and flames. "Guess she didn't learn her lesson last year. Looks like someone needs a refresher course." Gossip Girl notes that it would not be Fashion Week without its attendant fashion victims, and that Little J's newest design trend is the bulls-eye on her own back. A delirious mixture of metaphor, theme and motif, Gossip Girl. I salute your august and anonymous self.
Eleanor confirms for her currently insane daughter that Serena, Poppy and the rest have already confirmed their presence at the show, which she hopes will cause Marc Jacobs himself to engage in the admittedly dubious practice of consuming "grunge corduroys" of his own design. That would be unexpected! Eleanor continues, obliviously -- or passive-aggressively -- to wax on the many sterling and noble qualities of Jenny Humphrey, until Blair is able to discern a mistruth or misconception among the other lies: "A tenth grader with an independent study?" She barely enjoys the thought of what she must do , exposing Jenny for the fraudulent and uneducated seamstress that she seems determined to become, and tosses Jenny what amounts to a fair declaration of war as they pass in the entryway: "You never learn, do you? Great job ruining my seating chart." Jenny swears that she didn't know, but of course this has no effect on the reality of the situation, which is that Jenny is toooooast. Watching in suspense as the Eternal Footman comes nearer and nearer Jenny Humphrey is more of a delight each time the bell tolls for her, is it not? Luckily, as a Humphrey and a moron in her own right, she will never run out of ways to fuck herself over. And for this we are more than grateful.
Charles watches Daniel's every movement through heavy-lidded eyes as they seat themselves at a table in the center of a dark, plush drinking establishment. A literal silver platter arrives containing five shots of premium liquor, and Charles watches Daniel discuss its appearance with himself at great length, in the style of a camouflaged carnivore holding very still. Finally, tired of the prattle and beginning to rethink whatever devilish plan he has in store, Charles slides the small glasses across the table, "-- Shut up, Humphrey." Daniel politely takes one glass from the platter, but Charles pushes it at him again, insistently. "You're either in for the full ride or you're out," says Charles, the tension thicker than Lord Marcus's head. "What's it going to be?" Daniel agrees, fervently whispering "full ride full ride full ride" under his breath as he agrees to take as many shots as Charles commands. "The liquor's just a chaser." Charles holds out his palm, on which perch like two small blue revolutionary thoughts: the keys to a new realm of exploration. Daniel inquires into their nature, and Charles responds quietly, "Does it matter? Go down the rabbit hole or go out the door." In the time it takes to snatch unthinkingly and then gobble the pill, washing it down with a third shot, Daniel has done so.
I ask you, dear reader, because my experience -- unlike Dan Humphrey's -- cannot be expected to serve as the yardstick for typical behavior: does there exist a circumstance in which one might, in all innocence, ask for and proceed with what would seem in any light whatsoever to be a date, and proceed to take E with a single other person, without even the thought of more prurient matters? All protestations aside, what is actually occurring is that two men are drinking themselves into oblivion and taking little blue pills together. Charles's usual concupiscent gaze belies no confusion on this point, but the question remains: how on earth could Daniel Humphrey find himself in this situation and not assume, as Chuck clearly does, that sexual contact will follow? And just how long has Nate -- not to mention Chuck's inability to perform sexually with women -- been missing, for the record?
Poppy and Serena are at this moment dining with Lily, who is wearing an unbelievably lovely purple prom dress, while her daughter has donned a very cool black-on-white abstract print. Pleasantries give way to a discussion of Poppy and Serena's attendance at Eleanor's show, and what this will mean to Blair Waldorf. "Things are already tense between us. And we always watch the show backstage together," she explains, but Lily is unimpressed, calling this a childhood tradition, and bringing Serena's attention to the honor that the invitation represents. Poppy is only too happy to encourage this interpretation of events, and suggests in compromise that they invite Blair along to the Marc Jacobs afterparty; for reasons we may never understand, Serena believes that this might be acceptable. Lily excuses herself to take a call from Bex Simon, who informs her that the Mapplethorpe photograph has been sold before the auction even began; she asks somewhat angrily that Bex locate this mysteriously omnipotent buyer, and attempt a better offer.
Rufus answers the door to Blair's knock; she wears a cute green headband and neat/dorky sweater. "What could we have done to deserve a visit from you?" Rufus asks, and Blair ignores his attitude, as is her wont. "I heard Jenny wasn't feeling well, so I brought her some chicken soup!" Rufus watches Blair attempt to bluff her way through it, and finally levels with her: " You know that Jenny's working with your mom tonight. I also know that you don't have my daughter's best interests at heart." Motives aside, Blair says, it has been ten days since Jenny last attended classes at Constance, and offers her personal telephone to him in the event that he would like to call Headmistress Queller at her residence.
Hours later, Charles sits in a limousine, bored and high, listening to Daniel narrate their night's events one by one: the prostitutes they met, the "sex club behind the White Castle," the beers they've been drinking, the twins that even Charles admits seem to congregate around him unsolicited. Daniel offers a rambling thanks and exhortation to further enjoy himself in Charles's company at a later date, but Charles has realized a horrible fact: even fucked up and horny, Dan Humphrey is still a bore. Back to Plan A, even as Daniel enjoys the sensation of the skin of his bare feet flexing against the carpeted floorboards of the car, eyes rolling back: he surreptitiously takes away telephone and wallet, calls for the driver to let Dan out, and then takes away his shoes and leaves him in Chinatown. This is neither the first nor will it be the last date of Chuck's to end this way, as he is a scoundrel, but it is likely Dan's first time.
Dan's response is confused sadness, in combination with the easygoing acceptance that could have led to greater heights of pleasure than he might have imagined if he didn't suck so greatly. It's more interesting than that, though, because in all three stories tonight you have a rug-pull about the relationship: you thought it was like this, but it's like that. You thought I liked you, trusted you, loved you, you thought we were on a team together forever, you thought I enjoyed your company, you thought nothing would come between us... The most painful thing about a breakup, or a momentary shame, or the embarrassment of getting played, or finding out the game behind the game, is feeling like an asshole. You were going along like everything was fine, and they knew it wasn't fine. They lived in the real world, and you didn't.
When people scream and yell about getting played, or cheated on, it's not pride. Nothing like that. It's pain, and it's fear: the world wrenching itself around you, from one position to another, like finding out the floor is the ceiling and always has been; that sickening coyote drop in your stomach just before you go into free-fall. The world changes around you, its angles and symmetry force themselves into new and unfamiliar shapes, and it's terrifying and sickening; deception is betrayal less on the emotional level than an ontological one.
"Tonight was nothing," Charles says. "You're just a drunken idiot. My amusement for the night." Summarily dropped at the curb -- deep-voiced tranny ho offering poor lost Lonelyboy sexual favors in exchange for money as the limo drives away -- Dan can do little beyond stare dimly at his new surroundings. "Spotted: Dan Humphrey, shoeless and clueless." A thrilling pause, and then the Miranda Priestly-inflected, deeply disinterested and unimpressed final word: "That's all." She knows her audience, that GG.
Jenny is surprised to find her father Rufus calling at the atelier, but would recognize the storm brewing above his head from blocks away, as it is one of his primary modes: righteous anger at having been called upon, once again, to parent. Blair smiles on the scene from a doorway and Rufus demands that she accompany him home, and leave the atelier forever. "As of this minute, your fashion duties are over." Her protests fall on deaf ears; after all, her father points out, she's getting well-practiced in disappointing those who trust her, and there's no reason that group should not include the terrifying Eleanor and Laurel. He marches her out, under Blair's triumphant eye and GG's gloating menace: "They say in fashion, you can become a success overnight. But one minute you're in, and the you're out." Bridge too far, my blogging beloved, but I'm too overjoyed to see all three Humphreys in pain to worry about it.
Saturday morning. Jenny reads fashion magazines as her father sulks and stares her down, and finally she tries to excuse herself: "It's not as bad as it looks. A girl in my class was e-mailing me my assignments, and I was keeping up with all of my reading. I just needed to get through Fashion Week and it would have been fine." Rufus protests that "being a liar and a truant" does not constitute anything like "fine," and Jenny whines in turn that she was possessed by a compulsive desire to help Eleanor Waldorf; he sends her to Constance to visit Headmistress Queller, even over her shrieking complaint that it is Saturday, traditionally a day of rest for young women of her age.
Serena arrives Chez Waldorf in time for an opening volley of attitude from Blair, and asks why she persists in ignoring Serena's calls. Blair's voice begins to shake immediately: "What is there to say? You've only taken over the girls at school, and abandoned our oldest tradition, to go to my mother's show with a complete stranger." Serena smiles, trying to talk Blair down, unaware that her ascension to the throne has recombined with the shame of losing Lord Marcus, the rise of Pirate Jenny, and this latest Poppy-related insult to strip Blair of any identity she has heretofore been able to create for herself, and describes the Plastics of Constance with an honesty and condescension rarely seen among mortals: "These girls are like hummingbirds, they move from flower to flower. They'll be on to someone else week, and then back to you. It's not a big deal." Blair's voice continues to rise in volume as she names the sins of the House of van der Woodsen: "And I suppose it's not a big deal that you're sitting front row at my mother's show either?"
Serena begins to evince annoyance, reminding her oldest friend that the request came from Eleanor herself. "Oh, and how could you possibly disappoint my mother? Though you have no qualms about screwing over your best friend!" Serena, completely uninterested in drama and hateration of any kind, and coming to realize that Blair is not going to let this one go, tries to shut her down. "Fine. I won't go." Blair screams her assent, and Serena continues: "...And then Poppy won't go, and her friends won't go, and you can explain to your mother why she has an empty front row. Would that make you happy?" Blair is not interested in hearing the subtext, which is twofold in intent: the first being a reminder that this night is about Eleanor, not Blair or Serena or anyone else, and the second a slight warning to consider both forest and trees here: Blair's desire for popularity is motivating her into a crazed scheme that can only result in less total popularity, hinging as it does on offending as many people as possible.
Her feelings are too hurt for her to hear any of it; as happened two years ago, she needs Serena more than ever, now that everything has been taken away again, and more than that: she knows who lurks in the abyss if she doesn't succeed here, and what he's doing to maneuver her back into his bed. "At least I won't have to watch the episode of The Serena Show," she says, just like any girl of her age when backed into a corner, and Serena -- trying to diffuse the situation still -- tells Blair that she was visiting with the intention of inviting Blair to come along with them after the show. "Oh, how generous, Serena! I should feel so blessed that you would include me in your little group!" It's painfully real on paper; Leighton Meester imbues it with an imbalanced, desperate vibe that is too familiar for comfort. Serena has had enough, mountains and molehills and completely illogical complaints. "You know what, Blair? I am gonna go to that show. And I'm gonna sit front row, and I'm gonna enjoy every minute of it." She stomps off like the giant human person that she is, and Blair realizes that, once again, her weird emotional outbursts have seriously backfired. And once she's pushed everybody that far, Blair can only move thence to complete chaos and annihilation, as usual.
The leprechaun has no time for Daniel's revised life story. "Brooklyn kid sees a live hooker for the first time, loses his shoes. There's so much saccharine in this, it's giving me cancer." Elf cancer? Dan complains and argues, again, the nonexistent artistic merits of his story: "But I did what you told me! I went out with a guy I can't stand!" As though writing strongly is something that can be done to a schedule: have gay sex with Chuck Bass and become a better writer, get a shot glass blown off your head and become a better writer. These are not the locations of the things Dan needs. They are outside him, and will not earn him this place in the literary canon. It's still not touching him, it's still not opening out from him: His lightning still doesn't touch the ground.
"Yes, this Charlie Trout [Really, Dan?] character. Now that guy's interesting, complex, a young Mephistopheles. Write from his point of view. Then you'd have a story." Dan complains that he would never write from the point of view of "Charlie," because he hates "that guy." Noah tries to explain that judging the character this way is a problem, which is true, but misses the larger point, which is that Dan still doesn't seem to have a grasp on what fiction actually is. The thing about fiction is that it's fictional. You don't have to worry about making it come from you, because from you is where it comes. You just have to worry about being honest, which you can do in a jail cell or a summer cottage or Dillard's or Wienerschnitzel as well as you can whilst getting a shot glass blown off your head by a stunted adolescent in love with his own dick, because honesty is not something that requires outside input. Unless you're Dan Humphrey and the "outside input" in question is the lobotomy he so desperately seems to want. "You think Capote got national acclaim for In Cold Blood by judging the murderers?" Dan's like, "Damn, I knew I shoulda blown him."
"Dig beneath the surface. Get into Charlie Trout's head. Find the character's humanity." I can't tell if Noah actually realizes how retarded Dan is and is outright telling him to exploit Chuck, or if he's giving Dan the good advice of how you should know the characters you write about, since they are parts of you. Dan makes a hilarious, truly insane face at the idea of discovering Chuck's humanity, which is not what he's being asked to do. Or is it? "We all have a secret. A writer's best tool is the ability to draw out a subject's secret and use it." (What? What kind of creepo-biographer-journalism-hybrid-rape-lit "writing" are they talking about? I am so confused by this conversation. It would seem that on the UES, "writing" "fiction" means exclusively the representation of thinly veiled nostalgic reminiscences from one's recent past using other people's pain as its engine, without regard to craft or personal insight. I don't think I would enjoy reading fiction on the UES.) "Okay, so I go back out there, I make him trust me, and find out his secret?" Apparently: "Be ruthless and bring me back a story with teeth!" Everything Noah says could be applied to actual writing, but he and Dan seem to agree that it's something else entirely. Is there no difference between Paris Review and TMZ anymore?
Just as Jenny Humphrey receives a text that the models are ready at Fashion Week and her services are immediately required, Headmistress Queller summons her into the office without a word. Elsewhere, Lily is grilling Bex about the mysterious buyer of the bellybutton photo. "You already know the man who bought it," Bex says, intrigued by this whole messy business. "Your husband. Bart bought it anonymously. I had to call in a favor with a friend at Sotheby's to get his name." Lily is convinced that nobody knew about the Mapplethorpe photograph, even though the auction materials would have already been through production by now, and he's a famous artist and whatever; Bex is like, "How could that possibly be a coincidence, stupid?" She assures Lily optimistically that it was definitely purchased as a gift, and Lily hops to apply the lipstick to this particular pitbull of an overstep: "I hate to say that I'm surprised that he knows me so well, but that is the kind of husband I've always wanted."
Jenny presses fashion flesh and admires fashion hats, easy in the fashion environment and refreshed by Vitamin Water. Serena enters with Poppy and quickly finds her seat: separated from the other socialites in the back row. She asks an intern for help, and Blair runs up to act like a crazy bitch, but Jenny assures the poor intern that Serena should be up front. Blair's shocked that Jenny came through after sabotaging her like that, and Jenny reminds her once again that this moment isn't about Blair or Jenny, but about Eleanor. They fight over the seat and the intern nearly cries, but Eleanor appears and settles Serena's location, calls Blair a useless fuckface, and gives Jenny a giant lollipop and a piggyback ride backstage, where she presents her with a pony just so Blair will I guess kill herself.
Chuck sits alone in that same bar and calls his dad, who is totally rude and has no time for Chuck or his devilish ways. Dan watches Chuck feel deeply disenfranchised and fatherless for awhile, and then walks over with a huge boner. "So, was that really the best you had last night?" he asks conspiratorially, as nerds have been misguidedly doing to their tormentors since Bill Gates was a virgin. "Don't tell me that was the great Chuck Bass!" He shoots Chuck an admittedly sexy smile, which in combination with his literal, explicit request for yet more abuse at his hands, sends Chuck over the edge in a particularly Georgina Sparks/Dark Phoenix Serena/You Think You Know Crazy, I'll Fuckin' Show You Crazy way: "...Stick around."
Jenny hands her after-party dress over to the intern, and needless to say Blair's all over that shit, manipulating the intern into telling her that Jenny -- who is apparently the enemy right this second, thanks to Eleanor's sudden twisting of the knife -- is in charge of getting the models to the runway. Blair grins hugely, and GG shivers: "Spotted: Blair Waldorf, looking to do a good deed? There's a first time for everything..."
Dan asks Chuck what it's "really like" to be him, if he was a happy kid, when he first started drinking alone in bars ("When I realized hot, desperate women drink in bars alone"), and finally, what Bart was like when Charles was growing up. Chuck is grim and dark and broody to an amazing degree: "Me. Only older. And meaner." Dan bats eyelashes at him, but Chuck's done sharing. He stands up, rolling his spine like he's drunk or a housecat, and goes over to hit on the ugliest girl I've ever seen in my life. "I pay cash upfront. Now, let's go." She's incensed and he walks away; Dan feels awkward about it all, because part of the glamour is apparently Chuck's ability to "talk to hookers," but in order to be really smooth at that, you must first possess the skill of identifying the hookers.
The non-prostitute's boyfriend comes back from the bathroom, and in two shakes he's all over Chuck, who finally just goes, "It's not my fault your girlfriend dresses like a high-class call girl!" Dan has now fully inserted himself into the situation, and after that line it's probably a good thing: the guy gets about a millimeter of the two yards separating him from Chuck before Dan decks the guy really hard and he goes down. Looking for a reason to fight? Or trying desperately to get Chuck to like him, so that he can flip the script and rape Chuck's brain for a change? Or maybe he's decent, I'm never going to give up that idea; I do love that for all Chuck's hard-living ways it still makes sense that you would have the pussy from Brooklyn jump in and save his ass rather than us having to watch Chuck Bass "fight" a guy, which would just be super weird. Anyway, all of these things go through Chuck's brain but the spinny wheel eventually lands on Total Gay Love, like maybe rape is just one option among many options all of a sudden.
Rufus comes home to an empty house and a vague message from Headmistress Queller saying only that Jenny is totally out of control, which has been true this entire show, and it takes him a second to realize that she's totally at Fashion Week. He nods sagely to himself and the answering machine, as though to say, "That's totally what it is. Out of control." Meanwhile Jenny's totally in control and there's more fashion, including the eternally wonderful Tinsley and the formerly horrible Michael Kors, whose behavior has improved considerably this season. Laurel acts kind of weirdly excited and makes a bunch of creepy succubus faces, and then sends Jenny backstage to get the models ready; Jenny ignores the incoming calls from her dad but is shocked to find the makeup room completely empty but for Blair and one terrified hairdresser. "Where are the models?" Blair plays dumb for a second, then admits the models are gone. Which serves no purpose whatsoever except to confirm that she's a crazy bitch. I mean, I sympathize with what Blair's going through of course, but the thing about vengeance and destruction, all those wonderful things that make high school worth attending, is that they should make rational sense and lead somewhere good. Look at Chuck! Now there's a man who knows his endgame. This is just ... striking out randomly like a school shooting dork, and it's embarrassing for the same reasons. Laurel has a coke-fueled coronary, but Little J has a brainwave and saves the day: Take all those socialites out of their front-row seats and put them in the clothes.
The now-jailed Dan, finally having cribbed some alone time with Chuck after defending his honor, still can't fucking shut up and let nature take its course. "Jail. Brawling in public. You know, I hear Yale's looking to recruit more bar fighters this year. Bar fighters and, um, Pacific Islanders. They're looking to round out the freshman class." Okay, that's pretty funny. Chuck tries to gently shepherd him back to the point, all You Had My Back and I Am So Grateful and whatever, and Dan couldn't care less, because on The Dan Show there aren't even commercial breaks. He starts talking about his dad Rufus and that sad angry face he always makes instead of showing a backbone or giving his children boundaries, and Chuck distracts him with a tale of woe. And while the story isn't about Dan, and thus shouldn't interest Dan, it does lead to the nasty place Noah told him to go, which means it's still about Dan.
Dan asks how Chuck's dad will take the news that his son is incarcerated. "Oh, he'll be annoyed that he has to call his lawyer. After that..." Chuck says Bart has been like this since he was born, and Dan calls this crazy because, heh, "Even Bart Bass doesn't hate babies. It's, uh, it's in our DNA. I think Disney did a study." Chuck says that Bart is the exception to the rule, because the first Mrs. Bass died in childbirth. "Sometimes I swear he thinks I killed her... Who knows, maybe I did." I can't even tell if he's lying because it's so melodramatic. This whole episode he's been acting like something out of a telenovela and it's obviously true but it comes off as a fucked up lie. Anyway, they come get Chuck out of jail, and he promises to lawyer Dan up so he won't get in trouble with The Ruf. Then they hold hands and spend a few more moments in gay love with each other. Once he's gone, Dan immediately starts thinking about the morality of exploiting Chuck's one emotion ever, and if it's worth betraying his closest rapist if he's just going to end up a still-shitty writer.
Bart comes home to his redecorated apartment and makes out with Lily for awhile. He presents her with a not-terribly-delightful necklace, which throws Lily off because she assumed her present would be more naked lady-shaped. Bart explains that he did buy the Mapplethorpe, but because he knows pornography when he sees it, he only bought it in order to hide it from the world. Lily simply can't understand why a demimonde photograph of her naked bellybutton would be a PR issue, so he lays it out: "Lily, I'm a powerful man. And that makes me, and those around me, a target. And it is my job to protect this family from anything that can be used against us." Lily leapfrogs over that valid point to notice that nobody, including Bart, should have known about that photograph. She starts out flirty and funny and jokey at the beginning, but by the end her eyes have gone dead: "How did you even know about it? Did you hire someone to look into my past? Do you have a Lily Bass dossier? ...I want to see it. I want to see it. Everything." Bart's not exactly contrite, but it does seem likely that he'd considered this response. Since what he did was, you know, evil.
Eleanor is creeped out by the mysterious model disappearance, even though it's more transparent than Chuck's plausible deniability exactly who did it. Laurel tells her not to worry about it: "Models lost, socialites save the day! Oh! Your show will get so much press, it'll drive Marc Jacobs to drink." Eleanor makes a third reheated rehab joke, and it's still not particularly funny. I think she does one in every scene, almost. They look at the debs, who of course all fit perfectly into the designs despite not being models and there being no time to fit them, but maybe I forgot to mention that the House of Waldorf theme for Fall 08 is Sisterhood Of The Traveling Couture, so actually they could have stuffed any old fat thing in the collection and it would still look... The way it looks. Although there's a frankly adorable nod to the fact that this show makes no goddamned sense when Eleanor's like, "I love how all socialites fit the frightening endomorphic freakshow proportions of supermodels, and yet are not models!" Yeah, now it makes sense. You kooky show!
Serena is suffering, as she must ten times in each episode before stoking her fire to the explosion point, a crisis of conscience about shit she already decided about. "Blair would be crushed. If anybody's gonna walk the runway in Eleanor's designs, it's her." The girl who was a bookcase? Now who's sabotaging? Poppy lays it down for Serena about how her whole life is spent making sure that Blair doesn't fall off the edge of her own insanity. She relays an anecdote in which she had a friend with a similar propensity for undermining Poppy's happiness, and that she found herself "always having to make myself less sparkly, so that she wouldn't feel insecure. Till one day I finally realized that's crazy, because a true friend would want you to be your most beautiful, vibrant self!" Poppy Lifton, I love you. You're just sparkly enough, from where I'm sitting. Serena's like, "True, but why cause pain to the only person I will ever be capable of truly loving?" Poppy's like, "Don't hide your light! You're gorgeous! Sweet! Amazing! ...Punctual! A supertaster! The enamel on your teeth is really strong! Donna Martin graduates! Take this tiny blue pill and let's go be alone together!" Oh, and by the way, this whole conversation is in couture hairdos, which makes it ten times more insane, because imagine a beautiful girl with her hair teased into a three-foot-tall rats-nest telling you to be more sparkly. I think Poppy Lifton deserves a spin-off.
Serena, convinced by the many metaphors Poppy has supplied, goes looking for her dress, because of course she's walking the finale, and Blair runs up with a hard smile, proffering a mysterious garment bag. Serena's eyes grow wide with delight, because apparently Blair has pulled it together and stopped being insane for a second, and she's really happy, because she hates it when Blair's sad, and she hates the problems it causes for everyone on the earth. "This will be beautiful on you," Blair says with a loving smile: "It's for the finale." Serena asks if she's sure, but the whole thing just went so gauzy and sugar-sweet that she might be asking if this is actually happening or if she's stroking out. Blair ushers her toward the door, and she laughs, pleased beyond the telling of it. And all alone backstage, Blair makes that one face she sometimes makes, which is like, "What. On Earth. Did I just fucking do. I am so terrifying to myself I can't even believe it! The dark mystery of me must never be solved!"
"I was blind, unforgivingly jealous of what had happened to him. The fact that I took it as a matter of course did not alter that any. I certainly did hate him."
Serena grins and works it down at the end of the runway for about ten minutes. Which is ridiculous, except that this show is ridiculous, and we're going for a tone where Serena has It and no mean feelings in her heart, and that's all she's got, and it's pretty much enough. Backstage, Jenny's looking around for Serena, but Blair -- now totally wide-eyed and freaking out at her own apocalyptic asshole-ness -- points at the stage. "You mean Serena's on the runway of Eleanor Waldorf's show in a design not made by Eleanor Waldorf? Oh, dear." You gotta commit. Jenny thinks about committing some murder, but just then Eleanor walks up like, "The heck?" Jenny admits that it's her dress, and instead of pointing at Blair's motherfucking horns and tail, which are now visible, just feels too terrible to even ankle-dip in apology. Eleanor runs around like a lunatic, and Jenny's left alone with Blair. Yeah, Humphrey. Poke the bear. I fuckin' dare you.
Blair doesn't even look at Jenny. She can't take her eyes off the runway, and doesn't have any answers for Jenny anyway. "I waved the white flag at school, why don't... Why don't you just claim your throne and leave me alone?" And Blair -- with a flick of her eyes toward the stage -- finally breaks. "BECAUSE I CAN'T!" Jenny figures it out suddenly, and apologizes for not getting it earlier -- although to be fair, she hasn't been around for two weeks, so why would she know? Oh: Gossip Girl. But she's a career woman now and doesn't have time for that shit, maybe? She's certainly managed to get onto the Eric van der Woodsen maturity curve this season, I'll give her that. "You might be privileged, Blair, but you work for every single thing you've achieved, like me. Serena just glides through. I wanted to be your friend last year, for a reason. I wanted you to like me." Aww! No reaction, needless to say, and she leaves with a graceful ankle dip, having managed to shake just the right words at the right time out of her confused, pretty little head.
"You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch."
"Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Secrets! Surveillance! Revealed! Just as Chuck is accidentally finding Dan's story notes (Which are, get this: "GET HIS SECRETS/FIND OUT WHAT MAKES HIM TICK," literally! He wrote this down! Like in case he forgot why he was really there!), Lily is going through the Lily Bass Dossier, which contains letters she wrote to her "college boyfriend" (the professor she was boning in college, Bart corrects), and various other things. She tries to explain to him how secret secrets aren't much fun and secret secrets hurt someone, but he's like, "Suck on this secret." He hands her an envelope with something inside, and we don't know what it is beyond the fact that it's printed landscape, not portrait. (LIKE A BIRTH CERTIFICATE FOR HER LOVE CHILD WITH RUFUS IN THE 7890s!) Her face is sad, and frightened, and concerned. "Who gave this to you?"
Dan is rotting in the cell with two huge leather queens when Chuck comes back and starts yelling at Dan, who of course has the balls to be incensed that Chuck invaded his privacy, right, and Chuck is like, "I'm leaving you here to be raped by leather queens, and I totally didn't kill my mom! That was a lie! My mother died in a plane crash in the Andes when I was six! With Ethan Hawke and a soccer team! So THERE!" He stomps off and Dan stands stock still trying to quickly figure out a way to maintain the moral upper hand here.
Eleanor starts beating on Jenny immediately and talking about how Jenny might as well forget wearing clothes much less making them, so violently over is her career. Just then, Laurel runs up to say that Vogue Editor-At-Large André Leon Talley is raving about the finale dress. Which was really, really cute I thought: emerald green, bubble hem. Not entirely now, but as ALT says, it served as the "perfect culmination" to the Waldorf line. The models -- Serena and Poppy, of course, leading the charge -- come down for their bows as Jenny explains that it kind of, sort of is Eleanor's dress, in a way: "I used scraps of fabric I found around the atelier, and I adapted one of your old patterns... It's basically your design. Please take credit for it." Eleanor is not in love with the idea of claiming a dress "made by a child," but then Blair points out (while expertly avoiding her own implication in this disaster at every turn) that the show has been saved, thanks to the celebutante models, and there's no need to hold a grudge or admit that there was a problem backstage, when the option is to go out and take a bow. And she does, meaning that it's just as Blair is assisting her own ouster as daughter (after managing to engineer a new success for Serena that tops everything so far), Jenny is telling the intern who informs her that a guy claiming to be her dad is outside that there must be some mistake, as her dad is out of town. Man, if they threw Rufus and Dan in jail during this episode I could die happy.
The leprechaun who has just sprung Dan from the big house is nattering on in his senility about booty calls and stewardesses, and because Dan's boring, immediately asks after "Charlie Trout" and his secret. Dan tells him the matricidal truth, but says he's not going to use it in his fictional story. "If I have to exploit people to be a good writer, then, you know, maybe I'm not a good writer. I don't... I'd rather be safe than use people for art." AGH. WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT? Noah says that McInerney was right, and Dan is a worthless pussy and will never amount to anything, and Dan stutters out some snot-nosed bullshit like, "Oh yeah? Well I'm going to write a totally mean story about you!" Noah laughs at him and says he'll look for it in Reader's Digest, and use it to prop up his Pulitzers. Even Dan's like, "Dang, nice burn." I hate his damned suffering.
Rufus comes around the corner just as Eleanor -- by way of a long, delighted speech -- gives incontrovertible evidence that Jenny's claims of being useful and talented and desperately needed are totally true, but he doesn't care. They toast "the sensational Jenny Humphrey" and Blair seconds it; they smile at each other for real. Yes! I love that! Rufus catches Jenny's eye finally, and nods at her, having completely missed the point once again. Her whole fucking life has been learning to survive without you, Rock Star Peter Pan. How dare you hate her for it now? You are all a lost generation.
Blair approaches Serena to apologize, having rid herself of whatever demon did all this, and Serena's like, "That was awesome how you tried to humiliate me in public three different ways today for no reason whatsoever, nutsack." Blair apologizes, saying she was hurt because Serena blew off their tradition, but Serena is... Bored. Frankly, it's boring. "Just get over it, Blair. My whole life, I have been bending over backwards to protect your feelings. And you know what? It's not my fault you're so insecure." Blair's like -- again, she is every teenage girl at once in these scenes, it's amazing to watch -- "And I'm sure it's not your fault you're so conceited!" Serena admits her frustration with constantly "trying to hold myself back so I don't outshine you," at which Blair gives a very valid, "Oh my God, can you hear the words that are coming out of your mouth?" Serena shakes her head sadly. "Just the truth. From now on, I'm gonna be who I am, and if you can support that and not be threatened and competitive, then great. If not ..."
As she walks away, B is honestly confused and hurt, on a level we haven't seen a whole lot. Kinda broken, frankly. And the reason is this: not a word was untrue. They both know that. But when you say it out loud, it turns into something else. They were on a team, fighting to love each other through all of it, until Serena said it. She broke the spell. I'm all for honesty, you know. But there are truths that never need be said, because the only way they get said is out of pettiness. I'm really turned off by that whole "at least X admits she's a bitch" thing, because no, that doesn't make it better. In some ways it makes it worse. But after-the-fact justifications aside, that's all they ever are: that kind of truth doesn't get said out of purity, or love, or concern. The big ones we don't have to say. There's not a circumstance on this earth in which a truth like that could be spoken aloud with a clear conscience. It's comforting to tell ourselves after the fact, well, it was just the truth, and that's shitty but fine I guess. Still doesn't change the fact that you were being an asshole. You made a choice. You said the unspeakable thing and you can't take it back. Your intentions will always be more important than the content of what you say, truth or lie. You always have the option of silence.
Rufus is winning for about a second, but Jenny goes on the offensive. And when I say offensive, I mean... Basically, she tells him her usual thing, which is that he actually can't make her do anything (true), then adds that he also ignored school for his music when he was young and is a total hypocrite (true), and that if he'd actually achieved success with his music his entire life would retroactively contain no mistakes (true) so his fears about his kids repeating his mistakes aren't necessarily going to be justified (true) because it's entirely possible that Jenny is more talented than he is (true), and also her meeting with Queller was a final statement that she is never going back to Constance, ever. Rufus is blown away; she heads up the stairs back to her party.
Throw her ass out. Do the paperwork, get her emancipated, give her a thousand bucks, and take away her cell. If she sinks, she'll come back and go to school a changed woman. If she doesn't sink, she was right. And she'll have learned to fly.
"If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there would be no gossip without secrets," GG intones. Chuck broods and ... just put the neckerchief back on, dude. "You might be brave enough to reveal your secret, only to have it used against you..." Dan, typing furiously a story which is almost guaranteed to not exploit Chuck, but still suck: "Or someone else's secret might affect you in unexpected ways." That sounds interesting. Jenny cuddles her dress close: "There are some secrets you're only too happy to keep." Most heartbreakingly, Bart attaches the necklace around Lily's neck while she stares out, locked down, tied up: "Others surface only to be buried away deeper than they were before."
Blair stares down at Serena doing those weird lips on the red carpet, giving the paparazzi shot after shot: "But the most powerful secrets are the truths you thought you could never reveal, that once spoken change everything. But don't worry, B. The brightest stars burn out the fastest, or at least that's what I heard. Waiting for a star to fall..."
In two weeks: our kids descend on Yale like a bucket of piranhas, devouring each other, and throwing clutch purses. I for one am thrilled. XOXO.
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