Jenny and Eric foment a sad little Pinkberry revolution against Penelope's Plastics, but it's a short-lived bunch of sound and fury that ends when Nelly Yuki reveals she was only backing Jenny's play for her own sad Mean Girl reasons. Jenny rolls her eyes all world-wisely and freely gives up the Queen B crown like an idiot, but the good news is that this might be the thing that finally sends Penelope barking mad.
The show continues its subtle misdirection w/r/t to the rapid decompensation of Blair Waldorf, relying once again on the shiny, histrionic antics of Chuck Bass in its left hand so you don't notice her slowly being crushed to death in its right. Meet Dirty Sexy Jack, Chuck's evil, 30-year-old uncle who manages to redeem his lame-ass dead-end Dexter storyline in about three seconds of screentime, located somewhere between hauling Chuck home from Thai opium dens... and the episode-ending reveal that he boned Blair just this week, on New Year's Eve.
Yeah. And then just when you thought it couldn't get darker, Blair decides to parlay this walk on the Humbert side into a bid for membership in the Colony Club, your average Chico's Nantuckety Chanel via Anne Taylor sort of early-40s women's auxiliary where all they really want are Xanbar scrips and to have sex with a black man before they die. After a series of invocations because nothing else works, their anti-Bass der Woodsen behavior horrifies even Blair, who was trying to get away from Plastic high school BS.
Rufus and Lily had a son, whom she gave up for closed adoption and can't possibly find, until he gives a big stupid speech about how parenting is, like, his number one thing -- evidenced by his charming children and uninterrupted devotion to their welfare -- and then she suddenly has a lead. Dan and Serena are all excited about how Rufus is murderously in hate with Lily, because it means they can get together, but the dead thing wearing Chuck Bass's face tells him the secret, explaining that having a sibling in common is a dealbreaker even for Chuck Bass. Cross your fingers this is the show telling us that Dan and Serena will never, ever try to date again. Which I really hope it is, because Aaron Rose is apparently gone for good.
Bottom line: Mysterious stupid baby, Blair's going crazy, Chuck's the walking dead, Jack is evil, Jenny and Eric are becoming the kind of pug-owning couple that will soon give up dating entirely. week: More mysterious stupid baby, the reading of the will, and the crowning of the one true Bass. And hopefully Blair will take an entire schoolbus of orphans down with her, because every week her massive and inevitable blowout gets postponed is going to make it that much worse.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what vlogger Sean Crespo thinks about Gossip Girl when he has No Prior Knowledge! And check back later this week for the full recap!
GG's all in a tizz welcoming us to the New Year and scrambling for her namesake. Serena "tangoed in the New Year in the plazas of Buenos Aires," she tells us, but what we see tells us a more important fact: she did it without Aaron-Bobby, clodhopping around in classic Serena style with old guys in those shirts with the ornamental stripe-y things down the sides and some young guys in fedoras. Basically, Serena made the most of what she could with what she had, and what she had was the Buena Vista Social Club of Argentina. "Guess that means Lonelyboy was all alone when the clock tolled twelve." Just like he likes it. Well, they say you spend the year the way you spent New Years, and so far that's been the case for me: I spent the whole time whacked on Robitussin flaking on everybody I know, and ending up in private shadowy corners with various Bad Mistakes from 2008. Which is how I've spent the weeks since then.
"And what of Little J? Rumor is she's given up couture for tartan... Has she also renounced her rebellious ways?" I love Jenny's rebellious ways, and I love the way she twirls into the DUMBO living room in her school uniform, customized with a bit of pink tulle saying a peekaboo hello under her skirt. As if to say, "I'm going back to school because I'm fifteen, but the frustrated fashion designer within cannot be denied." Dan's happy to see her back in the groove, not that he has one of his own; it's a cute scene.
Walking with Eric, coffee in hand, Jenny admits that the most painful part of all this childlike renaissance is the grotesque bathetic joy it brings her awful father. "He actually called Headmistress Queller at home at night on Christmas Eve." That's just so Rufus I can't stand it. Eric's still sort of bewildered about her sudden flip to the Constance side of the equation, leaving Vanessa in her bullshitty autodidactic dust all alone, and Jenny says that Snowflake Ball was so childish and stupid that it made her realize the total lack of accountability that is the best part of childhood was something she sort of missed.
"Blair Waldorf has been spotted making inroads at the Colony Club. With high school nearing its end, has Queen B found a new social ladder to climb?" The Colony Club is real, and we watch her open an invite from them, huge hopeful grin on her face, as Department Of Eagles plays on her behalf: "And when the morning comes/ You don't need to be so honest/ And in the morning come/ You don't need to ask an alibi/ You don't need to breathe so easy..." It's nice to just be a girl. Ask Jenny. I don't know what happened to B on NYE, but I know this look: it's the look of a girl allowing herself to believe she's going to marry Lord Marcus. That she can be normal, stow all the dark and twisty and just be a woman, with the grace of a Kelly and all the lightly a girl can go. And whenever Blair lets herself breathe, you know as well as I do that's when the blood starts running down the walls and the bats turn into dogs with the faces of screaming infants and everything gets really, really bad. And speaking of Chuck Bass...
"So there's still no word from Chuck?" Eric says he's been MIA since the funeral, but Uncle Jack's traveling the world looking for him. Who? "Bart's younger brother, he does something for Bass Industries in Australia. He landed and kind of took charge. Somebody had to..." There's a Thai lady in a ridiculous opium den, setting up a pipe, tapping it in. "So the only real question remaining" to GG is: "Where in the world is Chuck Bass?" The answer is smoking opium, but it would be more awesome if he were doing it in Imogen Heap's Carmen Sandiego hat. "And is he ever coming back?" I'm guessing yes. The Department of Eagles officially agrees, and worries for them both: "No one does it like you/ No one does it like you/ I tried so hard..."
Dan slams his laptop shut on the song as Rufus enters, luggage in hand. They exposit that Vanessa is still with her parents, as though anybody cares including them, and then there's an awkward conversation that basically comes down to Rufus lying his ass off. He said he was going to find a painter somewhere out of town -- Boston -- but when he comes back he says he can't find the sculptor, and because Dan can't ever help himself when it comes to correcting you or calling bullshit, he reminds Rufus it was a painter, and Rufus is like, "Mixed media," and is of uncertain gender. Of course, the secret code that we know and Dan doesn't is that "painter" and "sculptor" are both code for "mysterious baby" and "mixed media" is code for "unholy miscegenation between the house of Humphrey and Lily's good Rhodes genes" and that he doesn't know the gender of the baby because Lily is all class, all the time, and does not feel like telling Rufus jackshit.
Rufus awkwardly segues to a manhug, which of course distracts Dan because he's ever so lonely and touch-hungry, and they discuss Jenny's return to school. Rufus actually fist-pumps and makes a huh sound, speaking of bathetic grotesquerie, and Dan's like, "Sure, it's great." Rufus, who actually has a fuckload going on in this episode if you look for it, can't bear to let his son leave the house after such an unsatisfactory search for the kid -- What will we call him? I'm calling him Inspektor Pilot -- and just wants to sort of drag Dan off to a futon and drink tea and spoon him to death until he's forty, because the only thing Rufus has ever been clear on is how much he loves his kids. But, and this is nicely subtle, Dan knows none of this, so he reacts the way any teenage boy would react to this, which is to pretty much tell his dad to stop being a wuss and following him around like Nelly Yuki.
As terrible as he is at it, the amount of love that Rufus puts into his parenting -- while it does often resemble being at Ground Zero of this, like, nuclear love attack -- is one of the most wonderful things about him. That and the choker. So if I were Dan, and knew that Rufus was seriously going nuts right now, which he is, I would allow him to follow me around all day, and maybe I would sit in his lap or at his feet while he played me James Taylor songs on the guitar. Maybe I would do that and not feel weird about it. If there were a no-turtleneck rider, I could do this. But not Dan, who finally throws Rufus a bone in the form of letting him walk him to school, since it's the first day of his last semester and Rufus has bought a townhouse on Nostalgia Lane for the duration of Projekt Inspektor. "But no hugs." Rufus is crestfallen, because he was picturing some kind of piggyback or three-legged race, but also: you're WALKING your kid to school, in MANHATTAN, from BROOKLYN? Rufus can get around the city faster than a bitch. How does he do it? Maybe it's a metaphor, but with this show it needn't be.
Blair stands at attention, hands clasped: "Of course, the Colony Club is the oldest, most prestigious ladies' club in the city. I'm honored just to be considered..." The camera comes around on Dorota, B's audience for this crap; she's appropriately breathless about what must have been a ten-minute spiel of which we saw the last sentence: "Oh, Miss Blair! They must take you as member!" Blair of course will not stand for that kind of optimistic mealy-mouthed motherfuckerism, and tells Dorota the Colony Club "must" do nothing but what their vile hearts desire most. "It's the Colony Club, the most exclusive club in New York. Which means the world." Dorota nods, somehow implying both that B is right and she's a moron, but also how on earth could she have forgotten that New York is actually the entire world. Thank Christ real New Yorkers don't ever make that mistake.
"Now, when the selection committee comes over tomorrow, things have to be perfect. It's my first step to building the kind of life I want. One without..." B nods her head in the general direction of the past, tentatively, and D's like "Mr. Chuck?" Blair goes, "Shhhhhhhh" and D, without missing a beat, shushes herself. "It's a New Year, Dorota! Time to focus on a new, unencumbered future!" Of course, that's when her phone blings and she gets the text from Uncle Jack. (His name is "Jack Bass," which is funny when you see it written down because it sounds like something Blair will ultimately turn into an insult.) Jack's got C in custody: "Headed to apartment." So of course Blair flipflops immediately, slapping her phone closed and smiling wildly. "Then again, to deny one's past is to deny oneself. We'll discuss the party on our way." B heads for the elevator, and D loses precious milliseconds in grabbing their coats, only to see the elevator doors closing in her face. And I mean, this show is great because now this incredibly bitchy bullshit makes sense, because she only does it when she's actually overextended to the point of crazy, so we should all go back to S1 when she did shit like this every five seconds and see how nuts she actually went while S was gone. You know?
Jenny's all distracted as they reach the Constance/St. Jude's steps, and Eric is just about exhausted from trying to get her to process her feelings about returning to the school, what with Penelope going slowly batshit and Hazel suddenly becoming hot and all that. It's so funny to think about how the only reason she actually left Constance in the first place was because Penelope slapped her tampons out of her hand, you know? Like why wouldn't you be all post-traumatic going back to the scene of that vicious crime? "Please, Eric. Really, in the past four months, I have faced down Eleanor Waldorf, I've hijacked a society gala, E grinning. I had my entire collection torched by a crazy model and was basically homeless, so I can handle high school."
One of my private favorite things in recaps is doing that, like: Here's what has happened to Jenny in the last month. It always makes me laugh, especially if you're watching a show with somebody who doesn't know it particularly well and you can be like, "Well, she used to be married to that guy there, even though she's in love with that guy Ethan -- even though in real life she's married to the Green Arrow who's even hotter -- but she got stabbed in the spine and paralyzed like six different times by Gwen, and then thrown down the stairs in her wheelchair, so now she's getting marital-raped on a constant basis by this old guy here, but it's okay because she's slowly poisoning his guacamole as part of a dastardly plan to become Mrs. Doubtfire and get Ethan for good. This all happened on Christmas Eve."
Eric knows better than to believe a goddamn thing that comes out of your Humphrey mouth, and cocks his adorable head at her like a dog hearing a sound. The sound is Jenny's nervousness, she admits, and it is deafening. The Temporary Thing plays: "Yesterday I was blue/ I was crying over you/ But today's not the same/ Things are going to go my way..." Nelly Yuki runs up all OMG about how great it is that Jenny's back, as though they've ever been in a scene together -- which even Jenny notes to herself -- and Penelope calls across to Nelly Yuki to get her ass in check because they're not allowed to talk to Jenny, and Hazel throws in one of those hoary old complicated-coffee jokes from like the age of Seinfeld ("double tall no foam dry cap") as shorthand for the fact that they are bitches. However, points for "...with two Splendas," not because it's so timely and carb-sensitive, but because Hazel's real name is "Dreama" and I always want to call her "Splenda," even though it's not her fault.
Jenny's like, "Wait, they treat you like shit?" And Eric explains that she's been gone awhile, which is a lot nicer than saying, "While Jenny was homeless she apparently tried crystal meth and has thus lost her memories of this entire show, in which the Plastics act like this all the time." The Plastics will be punishing her, of course, so Nelly Yuki runs off with a tossed-back "If I even dreamed of defecting, Penelope and the others would make my life hell. Or more hell." This makes Jenny sad, of course, because this episode is partly about the Jenny/Blair parallels and how once you've transcended the Plastics you can't ever really believe in them again, so both Blair and Jenny spend the episode remembering/explaining that Mean Girlism is stupid, and nobody hears them. Eric's like, "Girl, don't you go getting all Vanessa Abrams on this shit. It's only Nelly Yuki. She's barely a person anyway, and bitchy girls have been doing this since Ayla invented leave-in conditioner."
Blair and Dorota hoof it to the apartment just as the limo's driving up. Uncle Jack gets out, looking like the hot/smart version of Quinn from Dexter, but B's none too happy to see him. "Blair. You came to greet us!" He's exactly the same amount of yucky with everybody, it's so gross and awesome, like, he puts his arm around Eric at the end of the episode like he's somewhere between his little brother and his girlfriend, although to be fair that's the way everybody on this show treats him, because he combines the DNA of little brothers, girlfriends, and adorable puppies. Blair spits that no motherfucking way is she there to greet Jack, she's there of course for Chuck, and where is he. Jack found him in a Bassôtel in Bangkok ("I mean, you hear the term Den Of Iniquity, but until you really see it..." he says, which is funny and well-delivered but would be funnier if it were constructed grammatically so that it doesn't seem like he's calling Bass Industries out) and B again interrupts his smarmy self, demanding to see Chuck.
Or the remains of him. Jack, burbling unnecessary French, hauls Chuck bodily out of the limo and holds him up like a ragdoll. Blair and Dorota are horrified in a very specific way, which is that they were expecting his dissolution to be about a 9 and what they're seeing is about a 90, but Jack's all grins as he carries him inside: "Tell his teachers he'll be taking a personal day." He's just so rakish and charming! I hope they do that thing with him that they always do on Schwartz/Savage shows where the evil person is actually complicated and sort of loveable. I mean, it seems clear that he's interested in passively murdering Chuck so that he can be a bajillionaire, and there is the slightest hint of trust-fundy sexual-deviant "pee on me" stuff coming off him, and his doings with B are mysterious and fucked up for sure, but he's still probably a better person than, say, Vanessa Abrams.
Dorota clutches at Blair, completely upset, and Blair does a great double-take out of Hitchcock, like D's trying to mug her out of nowhere: "Why are you following me? Go home and get ready for my party." I absolutely love the delivery there; it's like she actually forgot Dorota or anybody else existed, which is exactly what happened for a second. Dorota runs off and B stares at nothing; meanwhile the inverse of Jack/Chuck, which is Rufus/Dan, arrives at St. Judes and Rufus begs his son for time soon, because he loves him so much and because Pilot Inspektor is a glimmer of boy or girl that represents a huge blank spot in the thing that he thought was his life, so he needs to do the Blair thing and touch all the stuff he owns for a bit until he feels real again. Dan, of course, is like "Whatever, Serena has Aaron-Bobby all over her anyway," and then Rufus's phone rings, so he steps away and Dan scampers away as quickly as he can.
On the phone is Beth from Child Services in Dorchester, calling to tell him that there is no Pilot Inspektor as far as she knows, so it was probably a private adoption, so he needs to talk to Lily. I mean, try explaining information privacy to these people. This entire show is about how that's a myth, and Rufus is all about invading his childrens' lives and acting like it's their fault, and he'll do motherfucking anything in order to have more conversations with Lily that don't go anywhere, especially when he can play the victim card, so it makes total sense that he sees things like "Lily's prerogative and right to choose the life she wants" and Pilot Inspektor's "entire life" less as factors and more like obstacles. Beth's all, "So yeah, you should call Lily, which you already knew because that would be obvious to anyone from go, because this is her thing and she calls and called the shots here no matter how much you try to make it about you." He's like, "I know, but I really thought how adorable I am would somehow change these facts in my favor." Beth's not biting.
Serena's waiting for Dan when he scampers inside, and he's like, "You're back!" She says she came straight from the airport, and instead of asking her why she would do that since it's totally obvious, he makes small talk about her tan and how it's summer below the equator and finally she just sort of barks into the unending echo chamber of his babbling, "I broke up with Aaron!" He finally shuts up and asks when, and Serena grins because she's the only person on this show with enough grace and humor about herself to understand why this is grimly funny: "About three hours after we left New York? Which was maybe not the brightest idea on a fifteen-hour flight." She's clearly exhausted, and there's much expository talk about how she got an email in Argentina about how Lily and Rufus are over forever. I wish these idiots would put half as much time into actually thinking and talking about their relationship and personal development as they do their parents', instead of just talking about how they need to talk about thinking about it, which is all they ever do, and then five seconds later they're fucking, which I hate because it is all too real. Dan's like, "More importantly, why didn't you call or write or text or all three because I should know things like how you broke up with your boyfriend four hours after I told you to."
Serena says that she stalled on that, not because she was so mojitore-up that she ended up blowing the entire Buena Vista Social Club in order of seniority, but because she wanted to give them both time to... Do whatever it is they do while pretending to really "think" about their relationship and whatever. Snore. I mean, this time it's awesome because they have double-incest issues now and you just know this is somehow going to end with Serena punching Dan in the box, so it's no skin off my ass if they are, in GG's words, spotted "kicking off the New Year like it's last year." GG says not to break out the bubbly just yet, but fuck that, because the most awful thing Aaron Rose took away with him -- less missed than the Ramen-and-Wii funk or the statutory-prone photographers, more horrifying than his ninth-grader summerstache -- was hopefully Serena's stupid sobriety. Some time later, Serena's lying in wait for B, haunting the hallways -- Does she have classes? Why am I even asking? -- and the embrace madly and squeal and it's lovely, and then they start talking in text-message form.
S: wheres C?
B: full of drugs lol
S: glad hes back
B: i fuckd up
S: ruok
B: told C ilu
S: yay!!!!!!! omg lol
B: omfg bad idea
S: ?
B: no xoxo frthcmng nd went 2 bangkok for hos
S: C so crazy but its ok lol he xoxo
B: no bcause now he is crzy scary
S: aww lol
Then Dan runs up and throws himself on Serena like she's a futon as big as the Ritz and Blair excuses herself to, and I quote, "Go vomit now." Oh, girl. So anyway, Dan spirits Serena away so they can go get her pregnant with Pilot Inspektor's granddaughter-uncle-cousin-ombudsman-flange.
Lily enters the gallery looking resplendent and then they also kind of go all texty. This episode isn't long on subtext, really.
R: where r my pilot inspektor
L: idk lol
R: where r my pilot inspektor
L: ask chuck lol
R: nt even giv me the optn of abndoning her!!!1!
L: ^him
R: ok him where r
L: l8r lol
R: no I haz 2 smother pilot inspektor
R: or abandon him
L: sorry srsly
R: then im find him neway
L: go 4 it lol
R: rly for reals
L: good luck buddy lol
L: ydid u even call me 100 times then
At Pinkberry, Hazel would like a refill of VITAMIN WATER from Nelly Yuki's bottle, where she sits with it at another table; she signals this desire by shaking her ice in Nelly Yuki's direction in its plastic cup. Jenny's horrified, Eric tells her to turn away because there was nobody to speak for Jenny already, so she's not going to burn herself by not speaking for Nelly Yuki or anybody else. This revolution will not be advised. Finally when Penelope makes Nelly Yuki rub a smudge off her bright yellow shoe, though, Jenny feels the spirit of either Che Guevara or Vanessa Abrams enter her body, and she strides across that motherfucking wartorn Pinkberry like the Mouse that Roared and... politely asks Penelope to be nicer to Nelly Yuki. And if she weren't a Humphrey I would be like, "Thus stupidly ensuring that Nelly Yuki's going to be pelted with locker room heavy flow* maxipads by the end of the day," but she's a Humphrey so we have a sliding scale. A+ for intention, but H for... Humphrey.
P: ok sure lol
J: orly that was ez
P: nelly yuki yogurt on my shoe!!!!
N: here i come
I: use yr finger bitch lol
J: civil rights! nelly yuki we out
N: xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
J: STFU nelly yuki
H: then this is war
J: I know lol high school is dumb
* (Oblig.: "But I can't help it if I have a wide-set vagina and a heavy flow!")
P: hazel clean my shoe pls
H: ru kidding lol
Chuck lights a big old hash joint right there in the shared courtyard and B comes running up, freaking out about his horrible roué behavior and general air of dunzo. "What are you even doing here? You should be passed out. Or hooked up to an IV." Chuck says his intention was to make it to "the first day [back] of school," although since we were just at Pinkberry I guess it's post-lunch? Who the eff eats lunch at Pinkberry? Bitches, apparently. B sort of half-assedly reminds him to tell her he loves her, thinking that'll drag him back like it did last week, but he pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about, so she grabs his face and stares into his eyes, and only because it's A) this show and only because B) it's Leighton Meester and only because C) it's Blair Fucking Waldorf and only because it's D) Blair/Chuck is this okay, but her face changes from annoyance/disgust into sadness/frustration into desperation and then fear and then heartbreaking terror: "Who are you?"
I mean, try to explain why that's awesome and tummy-upsetting, instead of hilarious, to somebody who's never seen the show. You cannot do it. It's totally stupid and hilarious and Dynasty/lawn furniture Marissa (which would have been fine too) except for all that stuff heretofore enumerated, so instead it's just like this bizarro reality check that we really need to pull it together and pay attention to what's going on with Chuck for real. So off her "who are you" line, Queller appears and screams, "Chuck Bass!" (Nope, not at the moment; whatever Charlie grew up to be is more like it.) "Please tell me that's not what I think it is!" B is like oh hell, but I mean, it's Chuck: don't ask that, because it's not like he is going to ever allay your fears. Even if it wasn't hash, he would lie and say it was, and if you thought it was hash, he would pretend it's something worse, because whatever you think it is, he's taken steps to ensure that it's worse.
But no wait, because it's not Chuck. The burlesque is over. He's not performing for anybody because he's got nobody to perform for. It's so hard to remember this is Chuck in Real Life: he's smoking hash because he wants some fucking hash. He's at school because he sort of misses it, and got bored. He's there late because he couldn't get it together enough to get there on time. That's the only reason. He wanted to try, he wanted to take his parts and make a boy, and he wasn't up to it. Just like her.
All the clothes that make up Charlie, make up Charles, make up Chuck: take them all off. See him disappear into it. Dan created Charlie Trout -- think about it, seriously: for the first time his lightning touched the ground: he was a real writer, he took somebody apart and put them back together better, just by loving him -- and a week later, Dan via Rufus took Charlie Trout away again. It was one week of danger, from a surprising place. When we look at Chuck Bass now we all know we're not looking at Chuck, but who are we looking at? All the Chucks and Charlies and Charleses don't matter anymore. It's just a blank spot where a boy used to be. Where he thought he could live.
R walks in on his son, making out with his girlfriend. In the real world that would be strange but not uncommon; Rufus has never lived in the real world before. He overcorrects. Because every time Dan kisses Serena it's not just the silly show-made issue crowding his vision, not that "either S or L can be happy" thing, but something way crazier. Nobody ever took Lonelyboy and S's recapitulation of history seriously until now. God forbid but I honestly feel for Rufus this week, no matter what, because he's right with Lily and he's right with Dan, and the latter starts now.
Rufus states clearly that he, like all of us, is uncomfortable with Dan and S being at the loft alone, which is really all you need to say once you've (once again) decided to be a parent, and doesn't explain further. Serena, of course, gets it immediately and clears out, but Dan doesn't know the half of it. And I do mean "the half you should already know even if you don't know about your incest grandma-sister-uncle Pilot Inspektor." As they're leaving R looks his son dead in the eye and promises him it's a mistake -- he means hooking up, he means the mistakes we all make when we're in high school, he means the past never lets go and just shakes us with a dog holding something we thought was dead -- and Dan tells his dad to eat it. They're both right, but I learned this on Gilmore Girls and the hard way both: your parents will never care about your mistakes until they see yours as their own. It's not his fault, it's just how Boomers were born: nothing but their own memories, with Van Morrison singing background, and then they understand other people that aren't part of their hallucination.
If you want someone to love you, talk their language. If you want your parents to understand you, talk to them in their language. Love them past their limitations, and your life will go better, because they're doing the same thing. Push those feelings down unless you're willing to compare your situation to theirs in a way they can understand: I feel like your imaginary activist hippie self that really was at Woodstock, like Across The Universe; I feel torn in half by the feminisms and your insane disease fear like Jenny in Forrest Gump. Every day of college feels exactly like that forest handjob in The Big Chill. They're just like us: talking to them in Movies will get you further than you think.
Queller is upset that Blair has elected herself Chuck's counsel in the hash hearing, and Blair tries to explain for the fiftieth time that she's all he's got. She mentions "Mrs. Bass" being indisposed with grief and the insensate pile of dunzo that is Chuck corrects her that, as a widow, her name reverts to "van der Woodsen," which isn't technically absolutely true, but whatevs, it's her call -- not that Rufus will ever understand that either -- and just as B is making a fairly excellent case for her place as his guardian, Uncle Jackbass walks in all, "Hey like my name is Jack and I'm so hot you won't even notice that I am slowly turning this child over a spit with an apple in his mouth" and Queller is, as anyone would be, momentarily subdued.
I have to say I doubted to the 2/5 that Quinn could rock a Bass role, being so central and the rapey/adorable ratio being so important, but man. I sure do like this Jackbass, even knowing cryptically that he will be "the most hated character ever on this show," which: to be hated more than Vanessa by me personally you have to either be a TA at Yale or Aaron Rose's ex, and he's neither AS FAR AS WE KNOW, so I'm going to say he's awesome. Even as he tries to actually murder Chuck Bass, I find it cute, like when a kitten hisses and makes its back all important, you're still like: "And yet I would eat you with a tiny little spoon." Plus what's creepier than real-life Dexter marrying his show-sister, which he just did? Certainly not this vision of J. Peterman before us.
And the most awesome part of this is that he plays it EXACTLY like if you added ten years to Chuck in Real Life as of this second, the Chuck we love and the Charles Lily loves. The way he laughs at everything, charming you and asking for a loan like some wonderful Dostoyevsky dickhead. I hope for more usually but Chuck is such a self-destructive headcase that I can honestly say he grows into this Jack, no matter what Jack turns into. He's the perfect uncle. Anyway, C would agree: he wakes up enough at the conference table to notice Uncle Jack, and flows toward him like water. This delights Jack, who asks if Chuck has lost sight of the two-day journey they just took together, from den of iniquity to rickshaw to plane to et cetera. They both brush it off because they are both awesome and transmitting from the same awesome zip code.
Chuck clarifies for Queller -- who's been established as the head for Constance and not St. Judes but again, it's this show so fuck it -- that he wasn't smoking the MJ, but hash ("I find it gives a softer high"). She's appropriately horrified but not really, and then B hushes the shit out of Jackbass and gives an awesome speech like so: "I think we can all agree that Charles has been through an ordeal. He's clearly out of his right mind and can't be held responsible for his actions. It's temporary insanity." This is (and I've giving clemency to "out of his right mind" when "not in his" same would have been much better writing) the awesomest awesomest part, if you [see list above]: "Headmistress, no court of law could find him guilty of a crime. How can we?"
Jack stares, Chuck grins. Nobody can believe that Blair just went so incredibly Blair on everybody's ass. Even Queller's like, "My mind is so blown that I have no rebuttal." Chuck immediately stands up and lights another hash joint, as GG drips delightful poison all over the place in a way where I have nothing to add: "Pop Quiz: What do you get when you cross Chuck Bass, a billion dollars, and Bart cold in the ground? Free fall."
"Like A Spoke On A Wheel" by The Little Ones plays over the scene, which isn't that interesting except for how every song this week is about wheels, revolutions, spins, returns, and Dan and S are getting together for five seconds and B is trying and failing to escape C's orbit and R is finally jumping into the Olympic-sized pool of twenty years ago. It's cool and it goes like this. (There's no emoticon for "turtleneck" so just imagine Rufus is wearing a turtleneck twice the horror of turtlenecks, and yes I do include both his ladies' rollneck cardigan and that retarded Stormwatch costume he was wearing in the Snowflake Ball episode when I say this.)
J: hey dan what up
D: fking nothing
R: fking nothing
J: ok but i rule ok
D: ok
R: ok eat ur breakfast and STFU
J: okay Lonelyboy and S tho
R: never spk of this because calculus of incest somehw
J (and I quote): "Dad, Serena's like the best thing that's ever happened to Dan. I mean, she's smart, she's funny, and she's like nine levels hotter than him LOL. [To his credit, Dan also LOL heartily at this point because he knows it and we all do.] Come on, get onboard! Dan Serena Dan Serena whoo!"
R: opfflimits
D: because dad = wtever
J: but y but y but y !!!!!!
R: u can be homelse if you wants
J: school time bye xoxo
D: ps f u dad
R: f u back ps ur gay in the bks
D: no ilu for 45 seconds dick l8r
J: but y but y but y xoxoxo!@!!
R: wish i shoot blnks god
Blair sits on a Constance bench like a throne while Jenny and Penelope rhetoricize Nelly Yuki's fate (and more importantly is implications) for her Solomon-like adjudication. (But how great would it be like, "Free-thinking Constancistes! Five members of Plastic Bitch Nation! Population 1 of Yuki Nelly Is A Person World! I will cut Nelly Yuki into thirds!") Jenny points out that Nelly has put in -- and only in the UES would this math work -- a whole year of being their bitch, so WTF is Penelope doing breaking into her locker and smashing her glasses? Which is like half of the already pussy treatment that Jenny had to weather before she threw in the towel, although it's worth it for the visual of Nelly Yuki turning toward the camera with nerd tape on her nose bridge I guess. And this is where everybody gets awesome at once.
Penelope sighs, "First, there has been a long tradition of newer members being subjected to more... attention," which is perfect Abu Ghraib double-talk, and Hazel notes that some of the shit she had to do when she was the Nelly Yuki was downright disgusting... And the whole time B is sort of distracted and she's like, "I remember, I made you do them," but more importantly how stupid is all of this really. She is moving forward and whether it's the Colony Club or it's "whatever" happened on NYE, high school Queen B crap is no longer important. Which fits, frankly, because God, which is the country Little J lives in now, although -- just like state-sanctioned marriage -- try explaining that tiny little silly world to the people still stuck there.
J asks for her verdict, and B goes all in: "Tonight I'm hosting the selection committee of the Colony Club." Iz is amazed, pointing out that they don't take high school girls and that this is obviously ridiculous, but trust Blair Waldorf to push past that, inimitably. "I know. I was surprised, too... That's not entirely true." She tells them that Nelly Yuki or no Nelly Yuki, the whole thing is stupid, and then takes off without offering a ruling. Iz goes insane about how it's end of an era and she's leaving them behind, and Penelope offers another take: "We're more than any one member," she adds, and then clarifies that "the only way Nelly is leaving is in a body bag." Suddenly Hot Hazel gets a suddenly hot personality and goes: "God, P. Tone down the crazy!" Her delivery is spotless. I'm glad she got smoking hot at exactly the same time I remembered what she reminds me of, which is Francie, the same exact character as Penelope, only on Gilmore Girls and fifty times scarier. Meanwhile in the hallway:
S: i thought our parents were all xoxo but no lol
D: it is so ysterious
S: were so selfish because y lol
D: whatev my dad hugs xoxo fgt?
B: omg omg omg
D: i m so useless its amazng
B: i know right
D: l8r i have a class 4 once
B: um ok bitch neways
B: S i am srsly worried about C
S: dont be so silly it's c lol
B: no for real
S: C will rape like 7 ppl and drink so much then be fine
B: idk bcause hash in the ctyd and qwueller nd uncle jackbass touching childrn
S: w ever @!!@ im serena vdw hello like i actually care lol
B: pls pull it 2gether not be vapid cnt
S: i can try lol
B: no lol no xoxo just dunzo crzy Chuck my love
S: always goes to crzytown and does all drugs and hos lol ok ok
B: tru but this time zombie face zombie omgface
S: wait ur 4 real
B: real like my blumia
S: ok lets fix and save lifes but 1st u have 2 wiat so i can bone in bklyn lol
B: so poor
S: duh lol
B nods and smiles through her tears and stands in the hallway as they get smaller and smaller, and she gets smaller and smaller and then finally sniffs, pulls it together, dials Dorota and tells her to get her hostess on: she'll be home after one more thing. Don't you kind of want to find every high school kid you know and tell them this is how the world actually works? They can't conceive of a life without hideous consequences for skipping out on an hour of the day, and you know that after college your whole life is about skipping class and covering your ass for it, and this is more real than they can possibly know, because if high school kids knew for one second how silly and micromanaged those twelve years looked from here, they would start doing crack immediately. (Or, if they're B -- and you're very lucky if so -- trading crack for ladies' auxiliaries? I still can't manage my free time properly, and I stopped going to classes in like sophomore year, so who really wins anyway. If I'd had a shot at the Colony Club, much less Chuck Bass, I would have blown off high school too.) But before we can get to B's amazing errand, we get to hear "Will Scarlet" by the lovely Magic Bullets back at the effing Pinkberry.
Nowadays we're barely fitting in
When I saw you it was like a dream...
You smiled like I caught you stealing
But something told me not to kid myself again
P: omg
H, bumping into her like Shemp: omg
Iz, bumping into H like Moe: omg
H: ow wtf omg little j and little e and nelly yuki at OUR TABLE!!!L@!
OK, let's lie to each other one more time
Like "Everything is fine" and "Oh, I'm doing so well on my own"
J: let me do talking like in mtgs with agnes crzy
Nelly Yuki: will vomt now
J: dont and let me do the talking
E: penelpe is going to kill all the world with bombs starting with us
There was nothing cool about that move
And I hated all the small talk
P: look cnt leave this table or else
Iz: i will count to numbers
J: i am unstoppable and dnt care bcause im the spirit of che Guevara
P: srsly this s all i have is being a bitca and i will kill u then
J: im like maude gonne of ur ass right now
Iz: counting to 2
J: everybody be cool let them eat pinkberry and you can suck it
P: ill ground ur bones to make me bread
J: grind your STFU and suck my dick ok lol
H: this is a sandstill lets go
P: DO YOU BITE YOUR THUMB AT ME SIR
J: this is revolution bitch ok lol
P: im claling my dad ok and telling him ur a bitca
J: i set yr dad on fire with my awsom
E: u need to calm down
J: u r all my bitcas im the dk phenix w/ chimney sweep eyeliner
P: ok lol my dad eat ur lunch we out
J: après moi le deluge
At Victrola, the Soho Dolls are playing. Could be small, could be big. All I know is, I fell in love with a girl at Victrola, with the Soho Dolls playing. Fell in love with a boy there too, and the film fell off the projector. She goes back there, to find him, in the last most bottom lowest place, because she knows that's where he's living. And the reason she knows that is that she's living there too, and nobody's noticed. She was a virgin, although she wishes otherwise. And the Soho Dolls were playing at Victrola, and the burlesque whirled, and she jumped into it, past the moving parts and into herself. If it were a short story by Dan Humphrey, it would be titled "11.7.07." It's worth preserving: when she took it all off, dropped that armor to the floor, and allowed herself to be exactly what she is, which is a girl. And remember when that wasn't about Chuck? He saw it, and fell in love with it, the way it twisted and glittered, but it wasn't for his benefit. And that's what he fell in love with.
Thirteen months later and she's strapped up tighter than ever, having given away the one thing she had left, having sold her last precious gift to save his soul, and what did it net her? Nothing. That's what love is like. It's not for earning, not for taking or giving or any of the things they measure: just for doing, and letting it rest there. She keeps asking for him to say it back: why? That's not how it works. Love is in what you do, and what you keep doing. And she's getting it finally, which is why she's here, in the club he sold for love and bought again, for death. For love of death. She's buttoned up past her sternum, up to her chin; the girls piled on him at Victrola aren't wearing anything at all. They're wearing less than the Victoria's Secret crap she and Serena wore that Christmas morn, long ago; they're wearing nothing at all. But only if you know and love Blair Waldorf can you possibly know how naked she is right now: wearing less than those girls could ever take off.
I'm so desperate/ Can't you see you're wasting time
It ain't ever gonna feel this good, honey
I failed to tell you... That I've been fooled/ 'Cause I'm not cool
And the scissors slide/ Away with my pride
Speeding down a dead-end track
I wanted you there's no way back
Got a destructive appetite/ Oh baby, please
Lift me off my knees
"Hello, Chuck. I thought I'd find you here." But who did she find? He tells them, languorous, to leave them a moment. B notes that he sold the place, for love of Nate, and he explains that -- as the richest boy in NYC -- he bought it back last night: "Owner took me to the cleaners, but some things are worth the price." What he means is that thing, that Charlie Trout thing where people have meaning and life has meaning and we show up at the time we're supposed to and love the people we love, that doesn't make sense anymore. She tells him to go home, and gives him those names: "Lily, Serena, Eric." These are the names of home, and they're just the ones she knows. She won't say "Nate" and she can't say "Dan" or "Charlie Trout," because she doesn't know those words yet, for home. He reminds her of his unending litany last week, that this is neither his home nor his family, so why not go to the Palace, why not go anywhere but here. Anywhere but Victrola, which is backward from growing; which is the place that for them both represents no growing or changing at all.
"Well, that would be rude since I'm throwing a party here tonight. I just posted it on Gossip Girl. Maybe you'll grace us with a dance?" Vicious, but not the worst thing he'll say in this scene. She begs him to stop: stop being stupid, fake, stop being Chuck Bass when the cat's out of the bag and they all know he's so much more. We know. He's heading toward the pilot and we're pulling at the reins in the opposite direction, with all our might. Chuck informs B that this new version of himself is not the digression but the truth; that he's Charlie Trout, through and through. Dan brought Charlie to life with words, and he lived for one week of danger, and now that Bart's dead all Charlie means is pain, and ugliness and death, and that's how he works now."I'm simply living up to my potential," he says. And the kicker: "It's time to let go of your fantasies."
And I don't know if you've met my friend Blair Waldorf, but saying that shit is akin to saying, "It's time to let go of that oxygen habit." But the less awesome thing about my friend Blair Waldorf is that it's also saying, "And you and I both know you never needed oxygen to begin with." Imagine being told gravity was just an elaborate joke played by Jamie Kennedy. They both lived the week of danger with Charlie Trout. Difference is, she didn't love him any more or less than Chuck, or Charles; she wouldn't have loved him less when he was Nate, or Dan, or anybody else he's turned himself into. We can smell our own. She swears she's not buying it, and he twists the knife so delicately, so nastily, so quietly, stretching leonine: "That's your business. Now: is that it, or were you going to tell me you love me again?" And I don't have to tell you what her face does then. Mine did the same thing.
Fall in love with a boy who would deface the moon, who would turn nature's face upon itself if he could, just to find new ways to blaspheme, and back him into a corner. He will go after what he loves most. This is the truth about saving the Bad Boy: we trade on the worst thing we can think of, and loving you means hurting you becomes the worst thing we can think of. And that's your grand prize for loving him: the privilege of being hurt on a level you can't imagine until the knife lands, just so, just right, just perfectly balanced on the steel of your life and this story: "Or were you going to tell me you love me again?" is nothing less -- and nothing more -- than a suicide note, sealed with a kiss. "Why did you even come back?" she asks, and looks into his eyes, and finds an answer so filthy and terrifying she spits it out, and leaves. And they keep dancing.
Dan sneaks S into the loft to sneak around and look through Rufus's shit, to solve the mysterious mystery, and S finds a wedding ring in his desk but D condescendingly explains it's Alison's, and not actually the key to the mystery S has constructed where R asked L to marry her six seconds after her prominent society husband died, and was rebuffed and threw a fit. No, S, it's even stupider than that. Anyway, she gets a text from B about I NEED U NOW and takes off because anybody's more interesting than Dan and nobody's more interesting than B so it seems obvious, and then he finds this like tourist map of Boston and surrounding with like Xs over every orphanage and adoption agency and still he's like, "But what does it mean" and finally calls the phone number that Rufus -- totally realistically -- scrawled in his girly handwriting because he's ever so sneaky, and he calls it, and they're like "South Boston Whatever Incredibly Difficult Decision You Make Totally On Your Own Somebody Is Going To Call You A Whore Agency" and he hangs up because WOW that's how easy it is to make this all about Dan, once again. It's really not.
Picture it: Tokyo, 1936. Former ho Sada Abe is now a maid in a hotel not unlike the Palace, who meets and falls for Chuck-like hotel owner Kichizo Ishida, and they have a whole thing that's mostly about drinking, fucking, and weird fucking. Needless to say, she goes a Sasha Fierce amount of crazy in love with him. She becomes murderous; meanwhile he can't get off unless he's getting strangled. Eventually they go all "Mein Teil" and she carves their names in blood on his chest, then severs his genitals and all that usual stuff you do in a breakup. And if you were still blowing Carol Channing raspberries at my "B is about to go buckfuckingwild" theory, the story of this union is called "In The Realm Of The Senses." And if still no, here's the song that's going to play at the end of the episode in a second, being "E.S.T." by White Lies:
If you tell me to jump then I'll die
In my dreams I'm there
I always hoped that I'd learn how to fly
In my dreams I'm there
B enters the apartment, snapping at Dorota as she goes and as the Kolony Klub Klock is kounting down; she heads upstairs and has herself a long look in the mirror. Now obviously if you're reading this you went the same place I went, which is a nowhere place that is fruitful but hard to get to and no fun to look at, and basically says, "That place you're never going to look at? Let's just go ahead and look at it."
Now, everybody thinks I enjoy these moments of total horror -- in Battlestar or Serenity or Farscape or whatever -- but the truth is: I have not gotten this far in life by paying a single gram of attention to my own personal dark shit. I firmly believe in pushing those feelings down, down, down, to a place they can never get between me and success. In this way, feelings are just like carbohydrates, and I like them that way, and I will write about them until I am blue in the face, but never mistake that for enjoyment. Feelings never got you anywhere except the Land of More Fucking Feelings, and much like crack cocaine or Dave Matthews Band or Scientology or any other cult, that's a journey of a thousand miles that starts with a single step. No thank you, sir or madam, I prefer life here on this side of the line; I don't know how your family works but we were raised right: to be an army of Rhodes bitches flailing in a morass of Humphreys begging to love us and not understanding how just by asking out loud they fucked the whole thing up.
Leave my memoirs in blood on the floor
So when I say that Miss Blair is headed upstairs to pull a serious Allie Sheedy on herself, I don't expect you to understand; she follows the steps like one of Mystery's secret precious little homosexuals, thing by thing by thing. This is how you grow up and become an adult, no matter how young you are or how much love you deserve, no matter how much the rest of the world is throwing themselves on the road to prove that you are enough, you will always be enough, exactly who you are is enough: First you look yourself in the eye, and you just command yourself not to feel. It won't work, that's just lubrication for the Waldorf magic spell you're casting. Give yourself into tears, but never let them fall. Watch yourself in the mirror, having the memory of feeling, the dry and tearless echo of a fear and a pain and a heartbreak. Good: you're shaking, your body says it's sobbing. But your eyes are dry.
Fate always loses hold
Like electric sparks in my heart
Fate always loses hold
Now be a good girl and do what you're told
Give into it -- not too much, not too little, not enough -- and when you're done rehearsing what you would feel if you could feel, you stare that wooden thing in the mirror down, and choose a face, and live there. I command myself to be stronger than I thought I could be. "Were you going to tell me you love me again?" he said; "Were you going to tell me you love me again?" he said. I command myself to be stronger than my weakness. Watch your skin go cold. All the clothes that make up Blair, make up Audrey, make up Grace: take them all off. See her disappear into it. If you can never be enough, then you don't have to try at all. Be nothing at all; beyond the burlesque is the place of the naked, and beyond that place is everything there ever was. Become a blank slate, like with Marcus: give yourself to the Colony Club, ten years too early, and let them tell you what to be . Shudder and gasp for air and become something new. Shut it down. Button up.
I hope you remember me
Eric waits for Jenny outside Queller's office, and she fills him in on Penelope's effed up counter-bullying plan, which they sort of agree is genius. Nelly's glasses are still broken; Jenny's grown up enough to realize that this is a shortcut to "deal with it yourself, asshole," which given Jenny's behavior toward Queller last semester is still kind of a sweetheart deal considering she got exactly 1.5 days into her return to Constance before the accusations started flying around again. Were I Queller, I'd stamp her with a big old BAD RISK stamp, because you know R can't afford the kind of palm-greasing that would get any Humphrey back into a real school with the shit they constantly pull. Jenny once again, like an idiot who needs to advance a plot point, demands of Nelly Yuki the truth of why and how come they won't just let her desert, and Nelly Yuki plays what we don't know yet is her actual trump card: "She's probably afraid I'll tell people she's sleeping with her dad's junior partner. I mean, the things I know..." Nelly Yuki turns, all innocence, staring. "No! Penelope would kill me! Literally!" And as awesome as that is, Jenny is still twenty times awesomer, both on paper and in execution: "Yeah, we'll see!"
OMG Dan comes and bothers Rufus at the gallery and says he knows about Boston and how it's not an artist and how it's orphans, and R is so cool that he's immediately like, "What did Chuck Bass say?" Which is delicious mostly because my God Rufus, but also because how sweet is the irony that Dan now uncovers where Chuck knows shit about their family and how violating that feels. Oh crap what if he decides to write an exposé or Truman Capote-style Xmas story about it? Wouldn't that be totally awful, especially if he held it over your head? The ways that Humphreys invent to be hypocrites is sort of magical, like a unicorn that questions all your opinions and burns incense in your guest room. Rufus explains, rightly, that Dan is traipsing through territory that belongs not to him or Chuck but almost everybody on this entire show, and needs to fucking chill, and Dan's like "I cannot chill" and Rufus is all "I know but come on" and Dan's like, "Okay but not really," and Rufus is totally, "I wouldn't trust my son with this kind of shit if he weren't my son, because Vanessa Abrams has destroyed his ability to respect boundaries to whatever small degree I instilled as a parent because I LOVE BEING A DAD."
Serena shows up Chez Waldorf, where the new and improved emotionless Blair is like A) Chuck who? And B) get out of here before the Colony Club sees your ubiquitous boobs. Serena points out that Chuck has nobody except them, specifically Blair since Nate and Vanessa are MIA this week, and they can't just let him fester, and B explains that all of her bullshitty scary activities are about building a life for herself, while all of Chuck's are about destroying all lives, so basically Colony Club Bitches are the new Marcus, and Serena's like, "Have you not been watching this show? We don't care about that," but B can't be helped; she ushers S out and welcomes the ladies, her new compatriots, the cougars of the Colony Club.
At Victrola there is such a party, all dancing ladies and drunken tweens, and Dan appears off the Rufus tip and Chuck bitches about the hoi polloi and admits he was planning on keeping the secret because he loves Lily but there was that whole thing where Dan the highschooler magically "buried" the New York story about Bart so now they're even, and explains about Pilot Inspektor, and then points at Serena who has just shown up and is looking for Chuck because B is indisposed and she loves them both. And while it's hilarious that Serena is so intent about "looking" for Chuck that at one point she looks up at the ceiling like maybe he's directly above her head, while missing Chuck and Dan standing about a yard directly in front of her, and while it is also funny that she's about four feet taller than everybody else there, the more interesting part is, as usual, the song that's playing: "May Day" by UNKLE: "I hear that/ You float It's a bit screwed/ But you can't catch my love The stars are descending/ The stars are descending I hear that/ You float It's a bit screwed/ But you can't catch my love..."
Dorota's standing by as Blair has tea with the Colony Club, trying desperately to prove her public works bona fides: " I frequently feed the ducks in Central Park..." -- Of course they are not moved -- "...And read to blind children?" They practically applaud, but immediately swing into a whole thing about how A) Serena van der Woodsen who was just leaving is a total whore and you can see her boobs on Page Six, and Blair hatefully and pathetically is all, "I don't... Can't approve of how she lives her life." They hum encouragingly and talk mad shit about Bart who is dead, and Chuck who is losing it, and finally she just snaps, calls them all essentially high school bullshitting bitches, points out that Serena and Lily are amazing and Chuck's inventing new ways of needing her help and being wonderful, and takes off with a conspiratorial "I am finally being a person" wink at Dorota, who smiles at them like butter wouldn't melt in her hot Polish mouth and wordlessly indicates they can fuck off. It's beautiful.
Chuck walks through Victrola, all alone in the crowd, looking at the women dancing, fleshy and crude and sort of dunzo. They pretend to kiss, girl on girl; they pretend to fuck, ass to ass; nothing means anything anymore. It's all a put on, we're all putting t on. His thoughts turn to death as they often do these days, and the song is not helping, even if it's by one of my favorite bands ever ever, because what it's saying is less about him and more about her:
She ricochets and you don't notice
She's in your head and you just don't notice
When I focus I never miss
It starts with a kiss
She ricochets, and you don't notice. She's still doing it, and you don't know it. Eric appears at his elbow, jouncing the limb, bringing him out of his reverie; Eric welcomes his home as ever, reminds him he has a home as always. Chuck admits he doesn't remember much about Thailand, which is the point of visiting Thailand, which is the point of Thailand. "You should come home, Chuck," Eric says, and Chuck thinks about how he's going to. "I think I'll take in the view from above," Chuck says, to the boy hospitalized for a suicide attempt. "It was nice having you as my little brother," Chuck says, giving Eric back everything he took last week, with interest, and then drawing a line underneath it. Eric was the last goodbye; this is the last goodbye now, and Eric doesn't even hear it. Chuck walks away, and the space he leaves is empty.
Jenny summons Eric by text outside, where Penelope and the Plastics are amassing for one final Upper East Side Story blowout, I guess, and then Jenny appears from the shadows and explains how, thanks to Nelly Yuki, she has just composed quite the GG post, between Penelope fucking her dad's junior partner, Hazel hooking up with her cousin (twice), and something so raunchy about Iz that nobody wants to discuss it. "Duh, you win," says Penelope, which is awesome, and Jenny reminds them they were stupid to tell Nelly Yuki that stuff if they were just going to be a-holes to her afterwards, and tells them they need to back up off both her jock and Nelly Yuki's, and they're like, FINE, and then Hazel asks Jenny about her thoughts on some random party, and everybody on our side of the revolution realizes Jenny just totally won. Nice, right? But never forget Jenny's last name: eight letters, starts with H and ends with WHHHHHY.
So instead of using this new power for good, Jenny goes all Humphrey about how her head is too precious to wear the crown, and Penelope goes, "You're telling me this was just a good deed? Oh my God, I'm so bored," and pushes past her, and that's when Nelly Yuki is like "Oh fuck, miscalculation on my part" and explains how this whole episode was a total scheme on her part to install Jenny as the new queen and take advantage of the regime change. Which is sort of awesome, and which only becomes more awesome as Jenny yells defeatedly, "You played me? You? Nelly Yuki?" Nelly apologizes for wasting everybody's time, and Eric points out that even though the revolution was neither televised nor actualized, it was a great run-through for Jenny's future personal personhood, in that she was really great at rehearsing being an empowered young lady, and then they go for hot chocolate. Because what tastes better than four years of uninterrupted fun in high school, at the simple price of playing the game which you're going to be doing for a hundred years anyway, is hanging out with one dude for all of high school and talking about how you were a famous fashion designer for five seconds. And if Humphriana hadn't worn out its welcome this week anyway, let's journey now to the House of PRADA, where Rufus is about to go another round with ambivalence.
R: Lonelyboy knows!
L: knows what lol
R: about pilot inspektor!
L: o shit
R: i know right and now u r a whore
L: not exactly but my kids r going to freek
R: good because youre a whore right
L: well no see u are a flake even today 2009 and i couldnt raise a child and u still cant
R: being a father is what i am good at
L: not really and also sorry srsly but i made the right choice
R: lets have th same conversatin about tht 4 a billion times
L: y???????? lol
R: bcause eventually u will agree tht u are a whore
L: doubtful lol but ok
R: im a rly good father and i dont hate u ilu xoxo
L: a/s/l
R: choker, shaghy hair and puppy eyeballs plus i play guitar 2 and cry look *cry*
L: ok guess im a whore 4 making the right decision 20 yrs ago
R: that means so much 2 me ilu xoxo
L: great lets go ruin another child!!1!
R: great then we will b 5 for 5 lol
At Victrola, Serena finally runs into Dan even though they've been five feet apart this whole time and she's eleven feet tall, but whatever, they're practically brother and sister now which is sort of hot, so she's like "Let's talk!" and he's like, "Even though that's what we always, always say, and never actually do, I was totally going to say that!" They're in sync like Lea Thompson and Calvin Klein, these two. So he hustles her off to be all Gossip Girl on her ass about shit that doesn't concern him, and B runs up in time to watch them run off, and Jackbass jumps in front of her and he's all, "GREAT TO SEE YA" and she hilariously goes, "Aren't you a little old to be here?" Here, where all the alcohol and strippers are, don't you feel out of place with all the tweens of this show? Look, there's Eric who doesn't drink and isn't even into boobs. Don't you feel like you belong here and we don't, only the opposite? Jack's like, "All I like is teenage girls and strippers, just like Chuck," and Eric explains how Chuck TOTALLY JUST WENT UPSTAIRS TO COMMIT SUICIDE and Jackbass is like, "That sounds quaint," and B runs to fix it and Jackbass disengages his limbs from All Over Eric long enough to go stop her from stopping Chuck from killing himself and shoves a drink in Eric's hand, and Eric's like, "As lame as Jenny is, you people are worse."
Upstairs, Chuck is redefining drama queen, sucking down whisky and singing "Spanish Ladies" because apparently suicide and piratehood are just centimeters apart, matey, and Jack tries to scare Chuck into jumping off the roof under the guise of caring, and Blair actually cares so hard, like a Care Bear Stare, than Chuck goes down off the ledge and they cry for awhile and Jack pouts like the bad guy at the end of a Scooby Doo episode because Chuck isn't dead yet, and the whole thing takes ten minutes but basically it's Chuck being super sexy and staring into space some more like he's been doing the whole episode. B gives a pretty good speech about how C can do whatever self-destructive shit he wants, but it will fuck with B's life and they both know what a bad idea that is, and so once again her basic OCD saves the day.
Outside Victrola, Dan hums and fucks around instead of telling Serena about their brother that makes them incest-gross, and then Rufus calls after two hours to explain how it's none of Dan's business so he should shut his trap and not tell Serena just long enough for her to find out on her own and once again dump him, and Dan agrees that this is sensible, and then hilariously she tries to make out with him sixteen times and he slow-motion dodges her first left then right like it's the Matrix and her face is bullets.
Blair yells at Jack while he's putting Chuck in a limo, and Jack's like, "You have no choice but to trust me here," and her face goes cold and she's all, "He can't know what happened. On New Year's." She ricochets and you don't even notice. I thought that meant they fucked, but who knows, and the song's all "Tell me to jump and I'll die" and GG is like, WTF as they drive away and leave B staring after a limo for the twelfth time this episode. Meanwhile, Lonelyboy is still dodging Serena's giant face, and Rufus and Lily are jumping in another limo to go find Pilot Inspektor, and tonight they read the will and Chuck becomes the richest boy in the world, if he lives long enough to enjoy it, and I for one cannot wait. You know I love you. XOXO.