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SO GOOD. So this poor guy has to decide who'll give the freshman toast at NYU Parents' Weekend, and he's got it narrowed down to two girls: the eight-fer genetic fondue pot that is Vanessa Abrams, and... Blair Waldorf, for some reason. Unbeknownst to anybody, Dan invites the Duffster along, so she accepts the alumnus's original invitation to give the speech in order to surprise him and his family with how down-to-earth she really is.
Also, everybody on the show is wearing the same asymmetrical purple dress and it's super weird. I thought this was another NYU thing but it's not, because Serena is wearing one, and she's now fully made the switch to the Nate Show. After Blair wages serious mental warfare on Vanessa, she gets Dan to uninvite Olivia, then accidentally tells Olivia that he did it because he's embarrassed by her superstar status. This all comes down the pike because Vanessa's mom -- perfect Gina Torres, from Alias and Firefly -- is twice as Vermontalicious as her daughter, hates NYU for a million reasons including H.R. Dufnstuf, and I guess will only give Vanessa the respeito she desperately needs by seeing her give this speech.
Blair basically wants it because she is: Batshit crazy. Having gotten Duffington Post out of the way via the gaping need Vanessa embodies, she sends Chuck in to secure the lips of the alumni liaison -- not to mention a "Previouslies" quote for future seasons when Chuck finally goes gay ("Did you think I'd never kissed a guy before?") -- but then it turns out it's not actual whoring, because the guy just wanted the kiss for a gay scavenger hunt, which is redundant. However, Chuck's upset because he only likes kissing B.
Duffy the Humphrey Slayer eventually drags Dan to the banquet anyway, just so she can embarrass him in front of Lily and Rufus by acting like a Hollywood dick. Then V tricks Blair into talking shit over the microphone, embarrassing herself plus everybody else, but especially B for not seeing a total cliché heading straight for her head. Her overheard confession, however, includes the part about lying/whoring out Chuck, which hurts his feelings -- especially poignant once Lily points out that Chuck would full-on bone a dude if Blair asked him to, because he is just that devoted to her, so she shouldn't have lied in the first place.
(Meanwhile, on a different show entirely, everything is crazy: Nate promises to help Serena win Carter back from the Buckleys through poker, and eventually raises the stakes to include a picture of Future Congressman Tripp van der Bilt with a van der bong, but they lose. The reason he's willing to risk so much for a guy who once bet his ass in a poker game would be more confusing if it weren't Nate. But twist! Come to find out the photo is fake, and the whole thing was a Nate/Grandfather plan to discredit the Buckleys -- meaning S totally got played by Nate! She eventually settles Carter's debts by warning the Buckleys, but too late: Carter throws a fit because he wanted to prove he was a man by settling his own debt, and ends up peacing anyway, dropping a surfeit of smolders on his way out.)
Dan and Shia LaDuff figure out that Vanessa has once again stuck her psycho Navajo jewelry in their relationship, confront her, and before she can cry and lie about it like always, the hits keep on coming: Gina Torres overhears Vanessa talking about what shitty parents she has, and bounces back home on a cloud of self-righteousness and authentic maple syrup. The episode ends with Chuck's trust seriously betrayed, S in tears, Olivia eating Humphrey waffles and Vanessa lonelier than ever, sharing a table at the Bleecker with Blair and watching her not eat a croissant. XOXO.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!"To be a good actor or actress or anything else in the theatre means wanting to be that more than anything else in the world... It means concentration of desire or ambition, and sacrifice such as no other profession demands. And I'll agree that the man or woman who accepts those terms can't be ordinary, can't be just someone. To give so much for almost always so little."
"...So little, did you say? Why, if there's nothing else, there's applause."
After the opener, there's not the usual city opening or Gossip Girl voiceover. Instead, we open up like a flower on a sepia dream sequence: The beginning of All About Eve, which is where this episode gets a lot of subtext and a surprisingly small amount of the actual text. In the movie, we're flashing forward to the presentation of the Sarah Siddons memorial award for tragic actresses: She was known particularly for her Lady Macbeth.
Josh Ellis, whom we'll meet in a moment, holds the award aloft in a tux, before an old-timey audience: "...But what truly defines tonight's honored guest is not something that can be easily categorized..." The audio fades for a postmodern wink: a man's voice, telling us snarkily, The distinguished-looking gentleman at the podium is an alumnus of the university. He will go on speaking for a long time. It is not important that you hear what he says...
The theory goes that, counter to our own senses, you're never dreaming about anybody else: It's all parts of us. (That's also, incidentally, why you're doomed to failure trying to apply Oz rules to Where The Wild Things Are: Dreams happen a lot closer to home.) Blair looks amazing, of course, with Bette Davis Eyes; she's sitting to Chuck, who looks amazing as well. In the olden days everybody looked great. She's getting nervous: "...In closing, those of us at the university who have had the pleasure of getting to know tonight's recipient know that she is a kind and gentle soul..."
That's not her; she knows that's not her. She dropped that one a long time ago. She had to. Chuck asks her if she's okay; she always swears she is. She has to. "...Her humility, her devotion, her love for us..." Blair prepares her sweetest smile, just in time for Ellis to introduce the winner: "...Miss Vanessa Abrams." Vanessa looks amazing. It's a nightmare. She spares Blair a tight little smile before giving everybody a little curtsey, brandishing the award for excellence as Blair begins to scream.
Blair wakes sweating; Chuck appears behind the bed, hilariously, in his housecoat, holding a paper. "Don't tell me it was Charade again. I know how terrifying you find Walter Matthau." Nope, she shudders: "I was in All About Eve." He cocks his head, surprised. She only dreams in Hepburn. Beautiful with her hair down, Blair shivers again, waking up: "I've never been Bette Davis before." Amazing. You should stop reading this recap and go write a novel starting with that sentence.
"I'm Audrey Hepburn," she whines, falling into his lap, confused and scared yet again: "Not some plain Baby Jane!" He kisses her head, and asks who played Eve. She's embarrassed to admit it, so she lies and says she couldn't see the face. Chuck tells her this is just about her ongoing NYU anxiety, and kindly tells her that though it may take time, one day she'll "hold that school in the palm of [her] dainty hand." Which he then kisses, wonderfully. She breathes it in; the strength they give each other is as powerful as it is terrifying. She launches herself across the room, to his delight: "I'm Audrey," she orders herself. "I'm Audrey."
Serena enters the HQ for Tripp's campaign wearing a truly mental purple dress: It's got one long sleeve, and an entire bolt of cloth banded diagonally across her breasts, like she's the queen of some terrifying Moon race. Nate's on the phone discussing Tripp with a councilmember when she comes in. There's some exposition about how the election wouldn't usually be open this year, but a Congressman died, opening up a House seat in Manhattan. "You know Grandfather," Nate says, pouring himself some coffee: "He figured, why wait?"
Nate's an odd duck. He's the one to watch this week, because his behavior is astounding, but also because you have to fill in some blanks to get there. But then he's always been slippery when it comes to his constant stonewalling of his relatives. There's always an outside reason, whether it's college or a girl, and he's always as devoted to his convictions on one side of things or the other. This time, he's a devoted van der Bilt because, like crazy conservatives have been doing for the last year, the Buckleys have forced his hand as a moderate back over to the van der Bilt side. "Tripp's a good guy, and with the Buckleys buying up all these attack ads against his campaign, I'm taking it kind of personally." Because that's how Nate takes everything.
Serena, the biggest shipper of all time, dutifully asks if Nate's talked to Bree, and in turn he asks if she's seen Carter. They're the only people who care about other people's relationships but that's only because they're the only people who actually/serially have relationships in this show, rather than insane obsessions. I'm sure they broke off mid-fuck to discuss his future with Blair the night she killed that guy. Needless to say, S hasn't spoken to Carter since she ate his lunch at the wedding. "I don't know if he's mad at me, or..." Um, dead? You actually know he's probably dead. Think it through, vdDubs.
Nate folds his arms and starts his mad web of deceit talking about how the Buckleys are flying Carter out to their oil rigs off the Galveston shore to work off his debt. S grins because she knows that this is insane, because roughnecks -- "roughnecks," note, not "rednecks"; I'm not sure if the distinction means anything outside of The T.X. -- don't earn bank. (This is untrue, but I'm just proud of them both knowing where oil comes from.) Nate -- Chace Crawford is from The D.F.W., which makes this storyline hilarious to me for some reason -- explains that it's less about earning dollars and more about getting the shit kicked out of him before they dunk him in the Gulf. (Which, I don't know if you've been to the Gulf, but that's like drinking the Toxic Avenger's pee.) But don't worry -- and if there's a sentence more terrifying than this one, coming out of Nate's mouth -- Nate's got an idea. And that's so great, because "have an idea" was totally on his bucket list.
"Achin' To Be," by the Replacements, tells us that we're going to be dealing with Lily/Rufus nonsense. (Their best song is called "Androgynous," you should listen to it. It's like if the early '90s tasted like Guinness.) The operative lyrics here -- for Vanessa and Serena particularly, but more generally in terms of the operating thesis to come -- "She's kind of like a movie everyone rushes to see/ And no one understands it, sitting in their seats.../ She opens her mouth to speak and what comes out's a mystery/ Thought about -- not understood -- she's aching to be..."
What's going on is that Rufus is finally packing up his sad bacheloriffic trash to take to PRADA for Lily to deal with. If it were possible to emasculate Rufus Humphrey, I would at this point present you with the comedic image of Lily stopping Rufus at the elevator every time and making him turn out his pockets -- frogs, a dead bee, "neat" rocks, sand from the playground, Pogz -- but it's not, so I won't. He is, of course, going through his records, which is the exact sort of hyperdetailed, useless task men do when they don't actually want to help with the heavy lifting.
Rufus finally, after much ruminating, decides that Lily will appreciate his Jefferson Airplane vinyl, and Vanessa sort of shrieks, "So Rufus, how is married life?" Which normally would be a cue to start talking about Rufus and Vanessa fucking, but his answer -- "Well, at the risk of sounding like a man deeply in love, each day gets better than the one before" -- made me barf too hard. Dan brings up those stupid goddamn Welcome Back, Kotter mugs, and plants the seeds for what will actually be Rufus's plot this episode: "They'll look great to Lily's china." Rufus demurs, nodding, and says they can keep them back, because the message is clear: He needs to lose the Sweathogs. But the thing is, he totally does and only kept them because he couldn't have Lily. It's not a class thing, it's a grownup thing.
Jenny enters reading from the ridiculous cover story in the NYU newspaper, which of course she reads: "...In just a few short months, freshman leader Vanessa Abrams has tackled numerous social and environmental issues..." Vanessa is sweetly geeky about it, and Dan is sweetly enthused, and Rufus is characteristically in need of exposition. "Oh, it's just a wildly flattering cover story on Vanessa in the NYU paper. It doesn't mean anything." Um, it means that out of about 50 million people at that school, one freshman is so effing special she gets the front page, is what it means. Which makes her pretty effing special. Dan calls her a "shoo-in" to give a toast at the Freshman Dinner on Parents' Weekend," and then Jenny asks Dan to borrow his astounding muscles so that he can, in a moment, walk ten steps carrying a dressform with like two fingers.
Vanessa explains to the ever-so-fascinated Rufus that she has received a call from the alumnus who decides on the toaster, Josh Ellis. "Supposedly it's between me and some other girl," she says, and bershons that she probably won't get it. Rufus tells her she has to invite her parents, and she reminds us that the Abramses are totally against private college: "Knowledge shouldn't be for sale," she reminds him. Well, after three years we were bound to agree on something. College is in fact a racket, intended to keep poor people poor and rich white people on top. "Sure, Arlo and Gabriela are progressive," Rufus says like it's something filthy, "But if they knew how much good you were doing at the school, I'm sure they'd come around." Because all you have to do is look at him cross-eyed and he'll flip, and he thinks that's parenting, you can't fault him for not understanding that people sometimes have convictions.
Vanessa's still rocking her stupid caveman hair, agreeing with Rufus that it would be "kind of amazing" if her parents came: "And, you know, actually approved of something I was doing. But whatever." That's right whatever. I can't believe her parents hate her as much as everybody else does. I mean, I can certainly believe it, because she's awful, but it's still pretty wonderful to hear. Rufus immediately tells her he and Dan will be there, but then Dan appears, to opt right out. Just tells Vanessa straight up he doesn't care about her big moment, because Olivia just got back from Japan. Rufus tells him to invite her, and Dan wonders if that is date etiquette because of the parents being there, but both Vanessa and Jenny urge him on because Olivia is so cool and laidback and special and into him. Jenny's hilarious: "Play the parent card. People like you more when they meet our family."
Oh, the howling across America when she said that shit, it was like Pongo and Perdie lost their kids again. But also, it's totally true. They do put him in context. "This is my Dad, he's from 1994, and this is my sister. She lives down a drain. I'm the normal one." Plus now that he's got the perfect van ders on his side (not to mention Chuck Bass, practically) he's pretty much in the coolest family on Earth. Hell, I'd date him if it meant hanging out with Serena and Eric. It's true. I'd gay-marry Dan Humphrey just to call Lily "Mom." And, as we'll see, I'm not alone. Anyway, Dan makes a cute face and agrees to invite Olivia, and Rufus says "awesome" one or more times, and says it's going to be a "great night for the Humphreys" what with... Them having dinner? You go, Rufus. "And who knows, maybe the Abramses!" At this pathetic add-on, Vanessa dares to hope... And the gods begin to laugh, deep from their bellies. Heartily.
She closes her mouth to speak
And closes her eyes to see
So Bree's cousin PJ Buckley hosts a poker game, Nate explains to Serena -- who is still wearing the insane purple dress -- and he's like, "Picture a young JR Ewing, in Earnest Sewn jeans." (I'm picturing, and turns out I'm spot on, a sexy/douchebag Grade A t-bone with a popped collar.) Would he really bet a person? "I've seen his friends bet thoroughbreds, an island in the Seychelles, the Knicks..." S points out that Nate is not a card shark, as Carter or anybody else could tell you, and Nate loses a second to his stoner imagination -- would that be a card made out of sharks, or a shark made out of cards? -- before explaining with way too much extraneous detail that one night at the Maidenstone Bree told him all PJ's tells.
So let me get this motherfucking straight. You were sitting around the Hamptons with your girlfriend, even though neither of you were allowed out the house except on the rare occasions when you wandered around the city talking about how you're not allowed out the house, and she was like, "Remember my cousin PJ? Man, when he plays poker it's not even funny. His tells, let me tell them to you." Which would be dumb even if we weren't already privy to the kind of conversations they actually were having, which were mainly competitions about who could get gayer, but of course, this is a lie, being told by Nate Archibald, to Serena van der Woodsen. He could be like, "I'm not a card shark -- whatever that is -- but I do have a magic hat you can wear that makes you great at poker." Their already formidable Bad Plan Powers are just exponential when they're together, like the Supertwins. She can assume the form of a card shark and he can be the bucket she swims around in.
Oh yeah, because BTW this plan just got dumber: Serena is the one playing, thanks to the information about PJ's tells. Serena stops in the middle of the sidewalk to call a halt to this BS -- even though Serena once spent a summer with Lily and her boyfriend, Ecuadorian Pokermaster Carlos Mortensen, in Monte Carlo (Wordplay!) -- but Nate points out that A) PJ hates all van der Bilts, especially Nate, and B) PJ likes Blondes, which is what this episode is actually about: How much of yourself you're willing to trade, or risk, or sell, when you know you're doing it. How to be the object, and derive power from that. How to, in lovely mad Courtney's terms, fake it so real you are beyond fake. How to -- in the terms of Fitzgerald, Benson and James -- play the Daisy card. PJ likes Blondes? How to, in lovely mad Joyce Carol Oates's terms, be the Blonde and nothing but. How to get it done. How to be an actress.
Speaking of our seagull -- and if you haven't heard Leighton's version of "Bette Davis Eyes," you're missing out; she really is a classic do-everything true star -- Blair comes down the dorm hall with some horrible, terrible, hideous darts in her dress that make her look like she has venomous attack nipples. I can't blame anybody in particular, they had the same fiasco on Project Runway last week. Amalia's reading from that cover story for some reason, but only up until the point where it mentions her giving the toast, and then Blair wigs. "Oh my God, enough! I am in no mood to hear you fawn over some girl with tacky accessories who lives to recycle!" The other one, whose name is Sophie and who, like Amalia, can't hold a candle to my beloved Katya, Isabel, Penelope, Hazel or The Other One, stupidly asks if Blair didn't already ask about giving it, and Blair shouts, "I put out feelers! That's totally different!"
And yes, Blair's "feelers" would be another person's "guerilla napalm attack," but I get her distinction. This year only makes sense if you are willing to put yourself in Blair's position and see how scary this all really is. There seems to be a lot of disappointment in the hell being heaped upon Blair this season, but honestly I can't think of a single time in the entire series where Blair actually got what she wanted (besides Chuck, of course, but only barely and still and always in question). The first season was one long embarrassing tantrum. Second season too. It didn't make me love her less then, why would I dislike her or her story this year, when there's actually something at stake? This story seems more respectful of the character, not less. When she fucks up now, it's as an adult. The same shit is not going to fly. She is actually looking at the grownup world and negotiating with it, rather than staying where she's safe. Of course it burns. That's what growing up feels like.
"...A temperament which consists mostly of swooping about on a broomstick and screaming at the top of my voice. Infants behave the way I do, you know. They carry on and misbehave. They'd get drunk if they knew how, when they can't have what they want. When they feel unwanted or insecure or unloved."
Just then, Vanessa comes around the corner, thanking Josh Ellis for the opportunity to give the speech. "You," Blair dramatically shudders, and Vanessa shrugs. "Yeah, Blair. Me." Blair informs her that, FYI, one "insipid article" doesn't make a difference in the long run: "The fever will pass, like swine flu." ("It may take time," Chuck said.) Vanessa, mostly excited for herself but rising to the bait, smiles frankly at Blair's nasty Mean Girl grin: "Huh, then I wonder why Josh Ellis -- He's this kind-of-important alumni liaison? -- told me to start working on my toast for the freshman dinner?" Blair storms off, and the minions stare at V, at a loss, before Blair screams at them to follow. Vanessa runs off, giggling to herself.
Olivia gives Dan a "compliment watch" from Japan -- "It's 11:45. Your hair is so pleasing!" -- and of course he thinks it's the best thing ever invented: He never let Serena play that role, just Vanessa. Talk turns to this weekend, and he mumblecores about how he was going to invite her to Parents' Weekend, since she has none apparently, but immediately steps back as only a Humphrey can: "I know you're probably exhausted..." Olivia immediately agrees, and he's confused -- the parents will be there, at Parents' Weekend -- but she explains in a sympathetic way: "Dan. The last three guys I dated? I met their agent, their manager, their publicist, a personal trainer who also read tarot cards... And I never met a single one of their parents. I would love to meet yours." She has just no idea.
But she's so sweet! I'm kind of feeling Olivia at this point. I mean, she's got a lot on her plate, and she's only realizing the bag of bullshit that he represents, but she's so above-board that it's really refreshing, especially for this show. Plus you have the whole star power/character game going on that this show's always done so well, creating IRL drama for the young actors on the show that creates interest in the show -- all shows have this, the idea that "Blake Lively" or "Chace Crawford" or whoever are as fascinating to watch as Blair and Chuck on the show -- which is about treating these characters are celebrities for no reason, and she's like the ultimate version of that, a star playing a star trying not to be one, set against the socialite kids who can't help what they are, in the context of a show created for an entertainment and gossip-hungry audience that's doing everything it can to elide the difference.
Not for nothing does this episode contain a hundred callbacks to "Age Of Dissonance", which I've already said is the best episode this side of "The Freshman." So Dan kisses Olivia for agreeing to come to the dinner, and "Home" by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros starts. It's that sort of She & Him, Moldy Peaches bullshitty fake-cornpone fake-folk I usually hate, but the horns are pretty intense and they leave out the really irritating part of the song, plus it comes back in the last act which you know I always love, so it's good. And the sentiment -- "Home, let me come home/ Home is wherever I'm with you" -- provides such a good antidote to the Daisy/Poker theme that I can't help but love it. "It's 11:46," the watch screams: "Your teeth shine like diamonds!" They kiss more; they agree it's true.
The song continues as Vanessa leaves a voicemail for Arlo and Gabriela Abrams -- "Pay it forward," Gabriela irritatingly says -- asking them to ignore their hatred of NYU and come to the toast she's giving. "It's kind of a big honor. And it would mean so, so much to me if you came, so... I hope you can." Gossip Girl cautions V against sending those invites just yet, but Vanessa's on fire. Out of all of them, besides maybe Nate, she's spent the most time trying to create a home. This would put a lot of pieces in place.
Her conversation fades into Blair, as GG chuckles that another girl has her eyes on the prize: "Montesquieu, Churchill, Hobbes," Blair buzzes, dropping heavy tomes into Amalia and Sophie's laps: "I'm thinking my toast should touch on... Tradition, virtue. The divine right of the monarchy..." Amalia reminds her that Vanessa's giving the toast, and Blair drops more books: "Not when I'm done. Mao, Sun Tzu of course... Napoleon's always good for a few zingers..."
"Outside of a beehive, Margo, your behavior would hardly be considered either queenly or motherly."
"You're in a beehive, pal. Didn't you know? We're all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night. Aren't we, honey?"
Josh Ellis and his massive case of gayface are overjoyed to hear that Olivia's boyfriend has convinced her to come to the dinner -- that way, she can give the toast after all. "Yes, there was another girl, but we hadn't fully committed to her. We definitely want you." Olivia thanks him and hangs up, just as Dan's bringing her a triple ristretto, from a cart, and she tells him she's just planning a surprise.
Well, okay. Josh Ellis's coloration is pleasing. His skin, eyes and lips are on par with Carter Baizen. But that's all I will give him. He reminds Miss Waldorf that she's not giving the toast, and she offers to help him instead. "Simply put, Vanessa Abrams is a tired cliché from the 718. The preachy 'I Hate The Man' toast she no doubt has in mind won't inspire the kind of deep-pocket donations this school needs. You need a speaker more like... Well, me." Well done. Ellis assures her that she was never one of the two candidates, and that if Olivia hadn't agreed, he'd just go back to Vanessa.
"I will not be tolerated, and I will not be plotted against."
"Olivia wasn't planning on attending, but then luckily for everyone, her new boyfriend convinced her otherwise." Blair is grossed out, but overcomes her trepidation: "Yes, she is very famous... But she's a two-quadrant speaker! Is it smart to lose everyone over 25 on Parents' Weekend? Besides, actresses are notoriously unreliable..." Ellis interrupts her and tells her to get out of there.
Outside Ellis's office, Vanessa's elated to learn that her mother's coming after all; she jumps to her feet when Blair exits and attempts to get sassy. "Oh no, mm-mm, you are not trying to steal my toast." Blair gives a fake moue and explains about Olivia. "Poor Vanessa. Always the understudy, never the star." Vanessa's gobstopped, and Blair gives her a snotty little something the closed-caps accurately call a "singsongy grunt." Vanessa revels in the irony of having convinced Dan to bring Olivia, and Blair delights. "Did I overhear your long-absent mother is coming to hear you speak? Tragic." (You have no idea.)
Vanessa scrambles, assuring herself that if she tells Olivia how much it means to her, she'll acquiesce. Which, of course she will, so Blair must raise the bet: "Yeah, probably. Though, then again, she might not..." Vanessa shrugs it off, but she's not done: "I'm just saying, we all know Olivia loves the spotlight. She is an actress!" Blair smiles sweetly, and Vanessa decides to ask Dan not to bring her. "Another idea with some merit! See, that's where you and I are different. I would never put my fate in someone else's hands. And that's why I always win, and you lose. So good luck with your honesty! Maybe you and mom could take in a show instead." She Mean Girls away, smiling delightedly to herself, and Vanessa starts to freak.
The best song of the episode, "I'm In Love With Your Rock And Roll" by Kish Mauve, starts to play as we see a warehouse door open on Serena -- still in that damn dress -- and Nate standing there, looking well-dressed and disaffected, like their lives are in slow motion. What a perfect moment. They look at each other like hardcore rounders and head inside. Serena, needless to say, catwalks like a motherfucker all the way to the table. It's so super awesome.
PJ's sitting at a poker table on the far wall, with the expected collar-popped polo; the guy behind the bar has a long-sleeved Jersey assassin shirt in the obvious maroon, one guy is kicking serious argyle, and the fourth has a color-blocked golf shirt. All in all they are exquisitely sleazy, but what I love is how separately the get the job done. Plus, the song is so fucking good.
In addition to her Crazy-Person Prom Dress, Serena is also wearing about 30 feet of turquoise beads wrapped around her wrist. It's probably looped around her wrist 16 not-kidding times and makes her look easily twice as crazy. I love that this outfit is happening in the middle of the daytime! It makes me wonder what other basic shit Lily has been doing for her all these years, before she went rogue. "No, that purple dress is only for when you're the Joker's henchwoman, we've talked about this." PJ Buckley serves up some Beefy Douche Guild-required dialogue: "Well well well, Nate Archibald. You looking for a game? I'm afraid we don't have a seat for you."
But oh, because it's not Nate that's playing: It's the Blonde Girl. What? Oh yeah. That's what's going on tonight. "That is," Serena says, looking at everybody but him, "Unless you're afraid to play a girl?" Because what this is about is not his masculinity, but the other three guys' perception of his masculinity. Now, I could tell you about the games boys have to play, but I won't -- because we're all stuck in some white straight boy's sexual awakening 90% of the time we turn on the TV and we're all graduates of the Performative Masculinity School of basic shit -- because Serena's game is, if not more interesting, a lot closer to my heart, and something we never ever talk about.
Here's me: I have more in common with Serena van der Woodsen than Blair, or Dan, or Nate, or Chuck, or even Eric van der Woodsen. He's just halfway through to where I'm at right now. I stick up for pretty girls on this site on the reg, and I always take ten pounds of hell for it, but it took Jennifer's Body -- the best movie of 2009, and I'm not fucking around when I say that -- to really crystallize why: For different reasons -- with ultimately the same root -- Serena's story is closest to my own.
A pretty girl is given the world when she is born, and the price is just a few very simple, very basic, very easy-to-follow rules: Don't upset the boys. Don't upset the girls. Don't upset the men, don't upset the women. Don't scare the husbands -- or the wives. Don't disturb the very tenuous, very-much-living negotiation between men and women that forms the basis of society. Don't ever give a hint of the other advantages that you might be burdened with: It's enough that you're pretty. If anybody ever gets the idea that you have more going on, you will be crucified for fucking with the economy. Be Daisy Miller ("True happiness," James wrote, "Consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out -- you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand"), or Daisy Buchanan ("I'm glad it's a girl," Fitzgerald wrote, "And I hope she'll be a fool... That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool") -- or (the extremely fantastic and undervalued) E.F. Benson's Daisy and Dodo. Be that Daisy: Turn yourself into a child, and you can have whatever you want. Be the Blonde. Be the object, and set the world on fire.
And when you're a gay kid, for reasons that aren't immediately the same but ultimately derive from the same places, you're given a similar choice: A pretty gay boy can have the world, at the bargain price of just a few very simple, very basic, very easy-to-follow rules: Don't upset the boys. Don't upset the girls. Don't upset the men, don't upset the women. Don't disturb the very tenuous, very-much-living negotiation between men and women that forms the basis of society. Don't scare the wives, don't disturb the husbands. It's enough that you're funny, or pretty, or whatever niche you can scramble to find. If anybody ever gets the idea that you have more going on, you will be crucified for fucking with the economy. Turn yourself into a child, and you can have whatever you want. Be the Blonde.
Set your average club kid or circuit queen up against Paris Hilton and count the differences. It's not about feminizing the gay kid, it's about infantilizing them both. And if you learn to play this game, you get the world. Because the one thing nobody wants to think about is homosexuals fucking each other, and the one thing adults cannot handle is kids fucking each other, so the only shape a gay kid can assume in the larger culture is one that has zero sex at all. Every mannerism, every desire is up for discussion, which means the best possible choice is to close those parts of yourself off altogether, and cut off what you need to, to become the Blonde. To float on champagne giggles and naughty comments, just like Bad Serena.
When you see that Bad Serena look in her eyes, when you see Megan Fox's barely contained rage in Jennifer's Body, or in her interviews, that's what you're looking at: "Okay, motherfucker. You want to play, we'll play. I'll be the object. You put all your shit on me, no problem. I barely exist. Today I'll be the Blonde. Today I'll be the faggot. And tomorrow I'll have your job, and probably your boyfriend, and definitely the last laugh. But today, I'll be the Blonde."
I got a lot of flack last time I talked about this, as though there's just one way to be queer. As though there's just one way to be anything, or anybody. You do what works, and you respect yourself first and foremost. In Ole Golly's terms: "You are going to have to do two things, and you don't like either of them: 1) You have to apologize; 2) You have to lie... But, to yourself, you must always tell the truth. No more nonsense." It's a game you can play, and it's the game you can win: Serena's not the enemy, she's the role model. Male, female, gay or straight, it's the path of least resistance, and leads to the greatest success.
"There's one career all females have in common, whether we like it or not: Being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted."
Imagine you're Eric, looking in Jenny's sweet eyes, and saying, "I like you, and I like shopping, but I'm not Going Shopping With You." When all she's trying to do is connect with you? Impossible. She's your friend, she needs a gay BFF, you have to be The Gay BFF. You can't hate her for it, no matter how angry it makes you. But to be queer is first and foremost to fuck with the agreed-upon man/woman dynamic, just by existing. Even more harshly than the Serenas of the world, it's your job to play along and find your place in the game: Queer is a subset of Feminist, which means we all have more choices and more responsibility than we ever knew.
"The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster -- you forget you'll need them again, when you get back to being a woman."
Any system has rules, whether it's gender roles or heterosexuality or rich-dad/poor-dad class structure, and your option is to learn those rules and perform them properly, in order to be rewarded by that system -- get good grades and get into a good school and finish at the top of your class, and you'll be rewarded with money, for example -- but any system, social or otherwise, still operates in terms of game theory. You're making a deal, when you agree to the rules of the game, and that's what shame was invented to contain and administrate: to keep everybody playing the game. The reward and the price of being in free-fall, as Serena can tell you, is that the whores of the world get to make their own rules, because they're playing a different game altogether. Doesn't mean you can't pick and choose.
When Serena flips her pretty hair, she's no different from Chuck sidling up to Josh Ellis at the bar, or Eric walking stolidly to school with Little J hanging off him like a jungle gym. She's no different than Nate, willing to come off weak in order to play PJ into the trap of his masculinity. She's no different from PJ himself, whose balls were on the block the second Serena walked in. She's no different from Blair leveraging Chuck against her needs, or Vanessa playing all the cards she'll play tonight, or Olivia trying desperately to reconcile the two powerful women she needs to be. We're all strangers/We're all embers from the same fire. Just please never forget that we hate it as much as you do.
"That slipped out. I hadn't quite made up my mind to admit it. Now I suddenly feel as if I've taken all my clothes off."
PJ laughs and sips his cognac or whatever, his lap-dance lap open wide: "Buy-in's $25,000." Nate drops it, and S gets nervous: it's a lot of money. "So don't lose," he says, and she smiles. She still doesn't know -- who could? -- how far down this goes. How much of an object she's called upon to be. "Pull up a seat," PJ says, as she smiles playfully at him; he calls her "Darlin'." She sits, and he takes her in, tasting ever inch. She is still for it: She's been training for this moment her whole life. All of our lives.
At the Bleecker, Dan can't believe that Vanessa's now telling him to disinvite Olivia. "Remember the whole 'People like you better when they meet your family' thing?" She nods, and folds it into her plot: "You don't want to be outshone by your family. And not to mention she's been in Japan for ten days, she's probably having reverse culture shock." Dan notes that this is not a thing, and that Vanessa is nuts, so she recalibrates. "Why don't you do something more casual, but also romantic? Dinner, just the two of you. You can make your special chicken..." Dan laughs. He has no special chicken.
Vanessa won't tell Dan what's really up, so he goes to get a refill, and she finally "levels" with him about how she's being the worst roommate ever, but in fact Olivia is terrified to meet his family for some reason. Which he knows is bunk, but after all it's Vanessa, so he just kind of gets bummed instead of calling bullshit, even though she pulled this same shit last week. "She just feels that it's way, way too soon," Vanessa explains, and when Dan says he knew this would happen, she's shocked, but she recovers well: "I mean, yeah, of course." She offers to give him a recipe for the "Special Chicken" and leaves, but at least she spares a moment in the entry to feel shitty about how shitty she's being. Say what you will, but Vanessa Abrams will always spare a moment of guilt, even while barreling ahead with whatever vicious shit she's pulling, and that's something.
"Cardboard Robot" by The Meeting Places greets us when we return to the poker game, which as usual is more interesting than it seems, because Serena is always more interesting than she seems: "...Keep you on the other side, in my mind perfect/ Even though we're being told -- in these times, trading lines -- we're all the same.../ Will things work or will it hurt, it's a game/ I'll be the one on the sidelines shouting your name, waiting for thoughts to form/ Try to describe a dream that we can all dissect." That's Serena as cheerleader on the sidelines of her own scary life; that's Nate sitting right behind her.
"Trip queens. It just... It doesn't feel right, you know, taking a beautiful woman's money." What PJ means is, It feels exactly right to take a beautiful woman's money, because poker, and money -- and winning -- are for men. Serena wigs, but Nate pronounces PJ "on tilt" (which is apparently just behind "on steam" in terms of the ways guys act like jackasses while playing poker) and tells her to hook him. Hook. Him. Be the Blonde. You know what would be amazing? If Tripp were gay. That would be amazing. "Just get him to bet Carter and remember the tells," Nate says, and drops another stack before Serena speaks up, opens that mouth, talks back: "But we're upping the stakes." PJ grins lasciviously and asks what they're playing for now, and she gives him a bit of that Jennifer's Body, Bad Serena hardness: "Yeah, not likely." Not too much, not too little; just enough to keep him hard. That's the game. "How about Carter Baizen?"
"Ohhh," PJ chuckles. "I get it. You're Carter's girl." Yeah, bro. That's exactly what's fucking going on here. Just a girl. "Well, bad news, sweetheart! Carter's debt is a lot more than you're showing." With a look from Serena, Nate nods and asks the other three douches for some privacy: "I tell you what. You bet Carter, and I'll bet... A photo of Tripp van der Bilt." Serena's surprised as he puts it down: "...From the night of his bachelor party." Pj picks up the camera -- it's a picture of Tripp with a giant bong -- and Nate tells Serena again not to lose; he seems really reckless, to us as well as Serena, before we know the photo's a fake. But PJ grins, and it's game on. The Blonde sits down again.
Vanessa comes home to Olivia apologizing to Josh Ellis about cancelling the speech again, and at her look Olivia explains about the dinner plan. "He probably just wants more one-on-one time. I'll bet he has something special planned, like chicken -- or something," Vanessa says, once again signaling her badness at lying. Olivia laughs and produces a Gloomy Bear puppet-claw, calling it "an anime goblin claw" and explaining that they're "huge in Japan." Which is weird, because the actual thing -- which is a complicatedly Japanese anti-kawaii statement about cute things being totally destructive -- is more in line with this episode than her explanation, but whatever. V's phone rings, since Josh just got off the phone with O -- and Vanessa skittles out the door.
Holding the huge pink bloody claw in the hallway, Vanessa once again accepts the toast; luckily, Sophie is right there in front of her with Blair's coffee. "Tell Machiavelli I hope she enjoys my toast," V gloats, and Sophie runs inside. "Vanessa's giving the toast again. And she's got some big pink claw thing?" Blair's response is perfect, and would be perfect even if she knew what Sophie was talking about: "Well, I don't know about that. However, phase one is complete." There's some exposition and abuse centered on Amalia before Blair acts shitty to her and throws yet another book in her lap, heading to the window to call Chuck. "My love, I was thinking... Remember our game from the summer? Well, I have the perfect target already picked out..."
"That cynicism you refer to, I acquired the day I discovered I was different from little boys."
"So what's a sweet girl like you doing with a guy like Carter Baizen?" PJ deals. "You heard what happened to my sister, right? Dealing: Heartbroken, 30 pounds fatter..." This last seemingly the worst part; Serena's not distracted: "Bet." PJ bets 20k, and she looks back at Nate, who nods. "All in," she says, shoving her pile of chips forward; Nate drops the phone on top. "You sure you want to play this hand for Carter?" She stares him down Blondly -- Yeah, motherfucker, we'll play -- and he calls. She flips her hand, coming up with two kings; there's a beat before he produces his two aces. "See Through You" by The Meeting Places plays, and Nate acts nervous as PJ coops up his winnings, and sends the photo to himself. There's a beautiful slow-motion phase of Serena staring horrified at Nate as they leave the warehouse, PJ happy and self-satisfied, and GG grinning to herself: "Uh-oh, looks like Carter's going down to Texas... And Tripp's career is going up in smoke!"
Vanessa arrives at PRADA with her mother -- the absolutely wonderful Gina Torres, from Alias and my favorite character on Firefly -- in tow. She immediately pulls six bullshit moves, of course. She tells Rufus to lay off the caffeine because it's giving him wrinkles, and then explains Arlo("ARLO!")'s absence -- "He had to finish installing the solar panels on the chicken coop at the co-op. We have been so busy organizing the Local 72. The, uh, the union for the Burlington Cheesemakers?" -- and finally interrupting her introduction to Lily by casting a judgmental eye around the place: " Oh, Rufus... We're not in Brooklyn anymore!" Rufus is just so fucking impressed by all of this bullshit that he immediately retracts his very existence -- "I'm still moving in, it's Lily's place" -- in a way that makes Lily the villain for his bourgeois tendencies. Nice! Very Serena/Dan S1.
Lily, of course, has no time for any of this crap, and tish-toshes both Gabriela's bitchy clucking and Rufus's craven whining: "Oh, it is both of our place!" There's silence, because fuck you and fuck your whole pack of stupid friends, and Vanessa prods her rude mother to produce the homemade strawberry rhubarb jam she made. Lily makes oohs and ahhs and tries to turn the subject back to Gabriela's supremely unimportant daughter, which is the only thing they will ever have in common: "You and your husband must be so proud of Vanessa!" Gabriela begrudgingly admits that Vanessa's "always been a very thoughtful and driven young woman," and Lily obligatories that NYU is "the perfect fit for her." She means it partly in the same demeaning way Serena always does when talking to Dan, but Gabriela won't be outdone in the Superiority Sweepstakes: "Well..." Even Vanessa is like, "And away we go."
"To be completely honest, my husband and I don't believe in private universities." Rufus nods dumbly; Lily is poised as usual. "Knowledge should not be for sale." Lily can't even believe this bitch, so they all stare at each other having a class-off until poor Rufus yanks the jam out and screams, "WHO'S HUNGRY!?" Everybody mumbles assent, but the best is Lily's WASPy, hateful, And-That-Is-That sigh: "Lovely!" I mean, like I said, Gabriela's not wrong about colleges, but she is talking to a couple with a child they've worked overtime and countless bleeding wounds to put into that school, and she knows it. One thing Austin has taught me is how to be aggressively better than you without making an issue of it. So the recycling bin is right there in the corner where you can see it, and you chose not to use it? No big deal. I'll just pull your trash out later with my bare hands and put it where it obviously belongs. Don't give it a second thought. It's not like I was really dying to have your plastic garbage biodegrading in my home for the 200 years that would require.
"Somehow, acting and make-believe began to fill up my life more and more. It got so I couldn't tell the real from the unreal. Except that the unreal seemed more real to me."
Chuck admits he was missing their little game -- which, note, Serena condemned weirdly for the specific possibility that Chuck would somehow kiss somebody that wasn't Blair -- and B points to her quarry. "She's a guy," Chuck notes, and B explains that this is the gayfaced guy that stole "her" speech and gave it to Vanessa. Not one bit of which is true. "He double-crossed me, and I..." Demand satisfaction, Chuck Chucks. Blair asks if he's down, of course he's down; he gives her a wonderful smile and she says she'll vanish for ten minutes. He asks her for only five, because of the whole no-kissing rule, but that's not her aim. He slides up to Josh Ellis, who finally looks over and asks if he can help him, and Chuck most excellently purrs, "Oh, definitely."
Back at HQ, Serena's horrified by the wrongness of Bree's tells, and Nate is like, "I have to tell Grandfather how bad I fucked up," and Serena honestly goes, "Nate, let me talk to him. Please. He needs to know that you were trying to help me!" Like William van der Bilt is going to say, "You sunk our family's entire political future to get your friend's sketchy boyfriend out of... Oh, it was Serena? That's cool, bro." Well, on this show he might. The phone rings, and Serena scatters, only to be approached by a man with fascinating lips who tells her PJ's calling, so she opens the door only to hear Nate having the following Very Vanessa conversation: "PJ thinks he won the picture. Yeah, I have the real one... I mean, I feel bad about lying to Serena, but it worked."
The Tripp pic's doctored, and in reality he's just holding a beer stein and not a huge bong, meaning that Serena played the Blonde, and lost, because she didn't even know Nate was a bitch. She leaves without speaking, because fuck everybody, and... I guess she skulks around the HQ for the rest of the episode desperately waiting for Nate so she can jump out and scare him. I hope her phone is all charged up so she can at least do some texting while she's lurking for the hours and hours of timespace pandemonium that this show demands.
"Gabriela, this strawberry rhubarb jam to die for," Lily says. What she means is, "I wish you were dead so you would stop talking. "Thank you," Gabriela says, "It's the agave, I refuse to use sugar." What she means is, "My ethical carbon-trading bougie bullshit says that non-local agave is better than the hundred local Vermont sweeteners, because sugar is evil this week." Lily says, "Mmmm!" What she means is, "You are so disgusting and you don't even know it!" Gabriela asks if "Daniel" is coming to dinner, and Rufus sadly says no, because he has a date. With what I imagine is a surreal devilish glee but is probably just Lily being retarded, she squeals, "With Vanessa's roommate. Olivia Burke! Didn't she tell you?" Vanessa jerks uncontrollably, begging Lily to shut up, but shut up she will not: "She is a very famous actress!" Although I guess Lily wouldn't burn Vanessa like that, so I guess she's just being dumb/exactly what Rufus secretly and Gabriela not-so-hatefully hates about her.
Gabriela gives a holier-than-thou whinny: "I'm afraid I don't worship at the altar of shallow Hollywood celebrities." Lily laughs again, ever more hatefully. "But apparently your school does..." Vanessa begs her mom not to start with that shit, but you try stopping an Abrams when she's being superior. "Honey, these institutions are businesses first." (True. I hate that I actually agree with everything she says!) "I mean, was this girl even qualified to enter?" Lily's grossed out. "Or was it purely a publicity stunt?" Vanessa's phone rings, and thank God, because consider this: You just said that shit to Lily Humphrey. Lily, the mother of Serena van der Woodsen, who literally could have gotten into every college on the East Coast based entirely on that single criterion. Call Olivia Burke a brainless Page Six girl, you're stabbing Lily in the heart. And you must pay.
"Well, that's my shallow Hollywood roommate -- also one of the nicest, smartest people I've met at college -- Excuse me." Gabriela rolls her eyes, essentially, as Vanessa leaves to take the call -- wearing, by the way, a very gorgeous rusty-red dress -- in a nearby alcove. On the other end, the hideous crazy purple dress has moved to Olivia, and she's chosen to wear it with a billion stupid tiger-eyes on a necklace. "Dan's making Indian chicken," she says, and Vanessa corrects her -- "Moroccan, actually" -- because she can't fucking help herself. Olivia asks why Dan changed his mind about the Parents' dinner, and Vanessa flips out and fills in the blank spots of her lie with autobiography: "Look, Dan's parents are just really judgmental, and they're always going on about celebrities and the dumbing down of culture." She immediately realizes what an asshole she's being and tries to retract, but Olivia jumps on it -- after all, it's her worst nightmare coming true, and the thing she let down her guard about to be with Dan -- and starts yelling: "So he's worried his parents will think I'm some shallow Hollywood pinhead? Like Dan's embarrassed to introduce me to them? You don't need to make excuses for him, okay? I get it. I gotta go." Once again, Vanessa has made a mess.
Josh plays with Chuck's hair, asking where he gets his hair cut, and Chuck gamely puts him off for awhile, trying to play out their time, but Blair's watching and waiting until the very second Josh actually lands one on him before she runs up and starts screaming. Josh blushes and peaces, and she goes following after. Chuck feels gross about the kiss. B plays out the stage scene from "Age Of Dissonance" again, where she yells in one role by quietly talking through another, smacking him with her purse all the while: "Hey! Have you no sense of decency? Well, you got your kiss." Josh laughs: Apparently a kiss from Chuck Bass is #27 on the TriBeCa Scavenger Hunt. "Check." She keeps going. "I expect more from a representative of a college! And the toast?" All hers. She sighs happily, and offers to tell Vanessa herself: "We're rivals, but friends at heart. Until tonight. Out, you cable-knit queen!"
Chuck arrives and Blair apologizes for being late -- "I got caught in a text flurry with Dorota" -- and he's off to some business meeting. Blair says she might pop in on the Parents' Dinner, just for laughs, and asks if he's okay: "Are you upset because you kissed a guy?" He grins sweetly and tells her no, it's because he kissed somebody that wasn't her. "You really think I've never kissed a guy before?"
"You're an improbable person... And so am I. We have that in common. Also a contempt for humanity, an inability to love and be loved, insatiable ambition -- and talent. We deserve each other... And you realize and you agree how completely you belong to me?"
Blair's honest befuddlement at that one is hilarious and delightful. She smacks at the air like a codfish for awhile and finally just goes, "Love me?" Always, he says, and kisses her pursed, weirded-out lips before leaving. She's so freaking funny. When he's gone, she dials Vanessa, who deliberates for just a moment before ignoring the call -- how could Blair possibly make this even worse? -- and B shrugs. "Oh well. I tried!"
Meanwhile, Gabriela approaches Vanessa in PRADA and quite nearly apologizes for being so monstrous. They laugh about what a dick she was being, and she promises to keep an open mind about the school, and "everything." Vanessa, instead of explaining herself and refusing to apologize for her life, just says that her speech will explain why NYU is the school for her, and they hug -- still laughing about what a beast Gabriela is. This is how Drano bombs happen, people.
Dan has burnt the chicken, especially for Olivia Burke. Which is fine by her, because now she wants to go to the Dinner, with a weird fake laugh and some threats about her "best behavior," and then taking off in the ugly asymmetrical purple dress -- whom will it claim ? -- before he can think about it. But this is dumb, because if he just thought she didn't want to go, and now she does want to go, then why make that face? Because it's Dan. Probably he assumes that she is a drug dealer or wants to run a Ponzi scheme on Lily and Rufus again, because he hates women.
"The atmosphere is very Macbeth-ish... What has, or is about to, happen?"
A remix of "Gentle Rain," by the always swanky/always creepy Astrud Gilberto is the perfect way to make you feel super endangered, even in the National Arts Club. Vanessa looks hellish, and scoots past the mean face of Blair, who leaves some hot girly boy standing there and follows Vanessa to hiss at her about the National Arts Club and how it's so Age Of Innocence, and then draws out the reveal about how Josh gave her the toast. Which has now belonged to everybody. It's the Nate of toasts, just like Nate is the toast of breakfast foods. And of course, Blair looks vintage fantastic -- And if she's spared, where's the hateful purple dress? -- like an Aubrey Beardsley print, all the better for when Vanessa crumbles into a little ball and starts begging and making that damned face... There she goes.
"Please. Don't do this." Blair's delighted: "Oh my God, are you begging?" And I know it seems cruel, but A) It's Vanessa and B) It's not just anybody, it's Vanessa. Blair has a lot to hate her for. She's not the hands-clean innocent she always claims to be. "My mom is here, and you have no idea what this speech means for me," Vanessa whines, as though that will save her. Then Blair gives her the once over, very Bette Davis, and says the following:
"Please. You're embarrassing yourself. Even more than usual... When will you learn? Some people are simply better than others." Oh Goddammit, Blair. That's like the one thing you've not supposed to say, ever. It's like saying how much you made last year or what you got on the SAT or who fucked who. It's a secret.
Dan escorts Olivia -- wearing that one stupid, orange, yellow-piped Herve Leger milkmaid dress that was fucking everywhere and is now on TV everywhere -- over to the rents, rolling his eyes when Olivia asks if they're going to want her autograph. To his credit, Dan is totally cool about this developing situation; he never throws his hands to heaven and says he knew it all along, nor does he dork out and make it worse for everybody, or try some bizarre maneuver to make Rufus and Lily feel sorry for him for having such a shitty girlfriend. All of which he has done, but doesn't do tonight.
So Dan just kind of shrugs and doesn't get the joke, and then presents her to them, and Lily -- who is batting .000 tonight, socially, and not by her own fault but rather because she has married a man who consorts with monsters regularly -- compliments the stupid Leger dress that was everywhere and Olivia's like, "It's kind of impossible for you to have seen this dress," and then explains that Max Azria's, like, one of her best friends and does her "crazy favors."
(Um, Olivia? Could you get him to do me a "crazy favor" and, uh, stop sucking? TIGHTS ARE NOT PANTS.)
Lily is of course horrified, and Dan is cool as a cucumber asking her if she's okay -- "Totes!" -- before stepping back so she can stage-whisper conspiratorially, "So, anyone famous here?" Lily's face makes a perfect o. "I mean, besides me..." They all stare at her insane chiclet teeth and question the judgment of everybody except Gabriela Abrams.
"...They're all theatre. You don't understand them, you don't like them all. Why should you? The theatre's for everybody -- you included, but not exclusively -- so don't approve or disapprove. It may not be your theatre, but it's theatre for somebody, somewhere.
It's just that there's so much bourgeois in this ivory greenroom they call the theatre. Sometimes it gets up around my chin."
Chuck grabs Amalia with a period-appropriate "You there! You're one of Blair's new minions, aren't you?" I love how Chuck is so naturally madcap and unbelievable that he can say shit like this and nobody even really registers it. Watching this show involves accepting Chuck at face value, because that is a shitload of face to deal with. "My dinner canceled -- the Emir had to fly home, something about a revolution," he explains, and then jokes with Amalia for thinking B's still giving the toast, and calls her "Bambi." Then things get kind of tummy-rumbly because Amalia blurts out some half-sentences and her gaze darts to the corner, and between the gaze and the half-sentences Chuck puts together the whole story, which is: Blair whored him out in a gay way.
Hours later, or was it mere moments, Nate leaves the HQ and is leapt upon, Jagular-like, by Serena van der Woodsen, whose hand -- or is it? -- quickly retrieves the real Tripp photo from the lapel of his jacket -- or is it? Somebody's splotchy stubbly chest, somebody's giant man-hand, a weirdly looped line of dialogue. It could be from No Way Out starring Kevin Costner, we have no way of knowing. Somebody needs to give Chace Crawford some Shea butter or something, because his skin is not dealing well with the crisp New York autumn. The things we missed before HD. So he explains the whole idea -- give the Buckleys a fake photo so they'll look bad when their reveal is revealed to be fake -- but the interesting part is how it's worded: "People are finally going to see them as the villains they really are." That's so verbatim Blair I swear if I had more time I would look it up, but on this show when she says that -- fake it so real you're beyond fake, it doesn't matter if you frame people that deserve it -- it means she's about to become a villain herself. So stay tuned for that.
Serena points out that Nate just totally used Carter -- which he didn't, he used Serena -- but Nate takes the time to point out that Carter's sort of gross and sketchy and deserves to be murdered by roughnecks for breaking the heart of a fat girl, and if anything he's just sorry for lying to Serena herself. "No you're not," she says -- smacking the photo into a field of raised bumps and redness that were once a proud thatch of chest hair -- "But you will be." NICE! She stomps away and, thanks to her being Serena, this actually works: Beep "Manhattan! PJ Buckley!"
Dan stares while Olivia acts like a total dickhead. It's sort of amazing. Rufus and Lily stare at her in every possible way -- owlish, horrified, violently irritated -- while she yaks into her phone about how Leo is playing her boyfriend in the Mother Teresa movie, holds up one finger at them, talks about meeting at somebody's "pad" in "The Bu," and explains to Rufus and Lily that "The Bu" means "Malibu" before Dan can usher her away. "I love you too, bitch!" she yells, and rings off. He's like, "WHO ARE YOU." Olivia explains that she is now being the shallow Hollywood celebrity that he's so ashamed of, and doesn't want the rents to meet, and then he counters that Vanessa was also stirring the shit counter-clockwise, and they realize that Vanessa has once again tried to break them up, and stare across at her. Which is funny, because she's being totally weird and hunched-over some more, actually now stealing the microphone itself from the podium, while looking all around like Gollum and muttering to herself.
Sophie's holding a mirror in front of Blair while she prepares: "The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue. The lips, the teeth, the tip... Of the tongue." Vanessa arrives and Blair heaps some insults on her, but Vanessa is now bulletproof in her own fog of horrible and can no longer be wounded by simple truth. "You really think you're that much better than me?" B totally scoffs, because -- again -- we don't talk about that. That is just anarchy once you start doing that. (Plus, Abrams, when you say it that way, from the lesser to the better -- "you think you're better than me" -- what you're actually saying is, "I am confirming that you are better than me.")
"...Who's to stop her? Who's to give her that boot in the rear she needs and deserves?"
Amalia runs in to tell Blair about how she just totally blew it with Chuck, but B is not interested in dealing with her, so she shits all over her, too, and promotes Sophie to Minion #1, and Vanessa's like, "HELLO EVIL PLOT HERE, EYES ON ME." Blair looks at her like a bug on a shoe and she re-prompts, while manhandling her giant ugly purse and the obvious A/V equipment inside it as awkwardly as possible: "So tell me once and for all, what makes you better than me?" And Blair opens her mouth, and then... Many, many words come out.
"Everything. Generations of breeding and wealth had to come together to produce me. I have more in common with Marie Antoinette than with you. And granted, you may be popular at some step-Ivy safety school, but the fact is the rabble is still rabble, and they need a Queen... I was willing to do what was necessary. Including lying to Chuck, the one person who trusts me more than anyone. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to give my toast."
I submit to you that this speech is retarded, and that the only reason it works at all -- even as it embarrassingly, and I mean Bring It On XI: Don't Leave Me Hangin' levels of embarrassingly, recapitulates not one but two overused tropes, the Old Hidden Microphone Bamboozle followed by the Liaisons Dangereuses Crowd Shame Hoodwink -- is, as we find is often true, Leighton Meester, who manages to spit out that ridiculous shit without even a little eye-twitch to let us know she's still in there.
Whoomp! Vanessa produces the microphone and Blair goes running out into the National Arts Club and sees a sea of stinkface, including those twins we never saw again, and Josh being all grossed out, and Chuck shooting her a quick smolder before he peaces, and then meanwhile Dan and Olivia arrive to kill Vanessa, and GG is like, "Both you bitches are dead meat."
Dan and Vanessa and Olivia hold just an unending Truth And Reconciliation Committee meeting about the whole episode and how Blair kept being the evil angel on her shoulder and telling her not to trust Olivia, but it only really picks up steam once she explains that when she was lying about Dan's shitty family it was actually her own shitty family she was talking about, and in fact she wishes Rufus and Lily were her parents instead... Right when Gabriela finds them, and she overhears. Yes. Dan and Olivia make hilarious matching fear faces, and Gabriela sucks that moment down to the marrow, just grinding her heel into Vanessa's soul, looking wounded and angry and saintly and just fucking... It's just masterful. CeCe could learn a thing or two from Gabriela. I started feeling guilty after a few seconds of that shit, and I didn't even do anything wrong. Sort of awesomely, it's so vicious that it makes Dan and Olivia feel sorry for Vanessa and I think forgive her, but she can't lick their faces like usual because she's got to tear off after her hardcore mommy and try to unbreak her heart.
Blair's been running all over the place looking for Chuck, and then the purple dress in the corner starts to move... It's Lily! Lily is the new host! She tells Blair that Chuck is gone, and then sweetly reminds Blair that Chuck would never refuse her anything. "He'd never say no," she nods. "To anything. I messed up, didn't I?" Lily smiles a bit, but agrees that B screwed this one up pretty bad. "Lily," Blair spits, nearly doing that dog-clap thing at her: "You're supposed to say everything is going to be fine. Where did you learn how to give a pep talk, Guantanamo?" (Sweetie, no. Have you met Lily? Lily didn't go to People School. You can't expect her to know this shit. Go get a hug from stupid Rufus.) Lily's voice gets just that touch harder necessary for Blair to really hear her: "Blair. I understand a thing or two about ambitious women. But without trust, you're lost." Blair thinks about that, and Lily's beauty softens again. "Let Chuck lick his wounds. You can talk to him tomorrow, hmm?" Very Rhodes Women, that whole moment. Eleanor's got a lot of shit to answer for, but I can't imagine what would have happened to Blair in Lily's house. She couldn't have survived there, could she? She would have died.
Carter surprises Serena back at Blair's, where she is carefully lighting one million candles for no damn reason. She kisses him and climbs all over him and apologizes for her mean behavior at the wedding, and he's like, "I gotta leave town." She explains that she settled the debt, shrugging the details beyond "I helped PJ avoid a very public fiasco," and unnecessarily notes that Nate probably hates her now. I can't imagine a less interesting animosity than Nate vs. Serena. Neither of them can stay mad for more than five minutes, because neither of them can hold onto a single thought for more than five minutes. "I thought of the meanest thing to say to you on the way over here. I can't remember it right now, but daaaamn. Rest assured it was brutal. Now: Do you have any snacks, and can we build a fort."
Serena informs Carter, hilariously, where she draws the line -- "Work on an oil rig? Carter, I wasn't going to allow that to happen" -- and says he has nothing to prove to the stupid Buckleys, but of course this was about proving something to her, and to himself, because PS she's still the Dan this season and he's still the Serena. And then for some reason he leaves anyway, because he would rather have her hate him than feel sorry for him, but I don't know where he's getting the latter, because Serena never feels sorry for anybody, because A) that's not awesome and B) they barely exist anyway. She goes octopus all over him and he peels her limbs away one by one, then bounces. Serena cries. Actually, S cries probably harder than she's ever cried on the show. If he's the Serena, then she has to save him, to prove that Serenas can be saved.
Home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you
In another sort of heartrending scene, Vanessa finally catches up to Gabriela on the stairs, and is the most effective crier on this entire show. Damn. So she apologizes very desperately and very scaredly, and maybe you have to come from a certain kind of family for this to be really hard to watch, but it's rough. Like if she doesn't fix this, her mother will disappear forever, and she will die. They don't even like her. They sent her to the city, a child, to live with her sister and run in the streets, because they don't even like her. Or they don't like her enough to want her. She's worse than an orphan. She glommed onto the fucking Humphreys, for Christ's sake. A normal person wouldn't do that.
"Vanessa, we are so hard on you because we want you to challenge yourself to be your own person." V nods, even though when parents say this they mean you'' end up just like them, because they're so unique. "Are we really wrong, to question your decision to attend college here? I think it's time for you to consider who this place is turning you into." She touches V's face with another of those icy love/fear/pain looks -- so effective! -- but it's like, if Vanessa is in the episode at all, somebody's going to say that phrase to somebody, and so I guess it was mom's turn. Gabriela leaves, and Vanessa feels horrible, and it's not even that fun to watch.
Vanessa Abrams is very fucking lonely, all the time.
Home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you
Dan drags Olivia back to the rents -- "Your parents hate me! I hate me!" she whispers, proving her adjustment to being Dan's girlfriend is well underway -- and when they approach, Rufus is like, "Maybe she's different when they're alone? Maybe she's totally different?" And finally he turns his head at Lily's throat-clearing, and there's much pretense at this not being awkward, and before Dan can explain how the three ladies got themselves all in a tizz and drove each other insane, Rufus says the cutest thing, he goes, "Dan, was that Blair on the PA? She really should have run that speech past someone!"
He kills me. So they are about to launch into their apologies and explanations for Olivia's fucked-up behavior, but of course right then Josh Ellis calls her up to the podium, since neither Vanessa nor Blair deserve to be rewarded tonight, and these little girls rush her for her autograph, and she gets rushed away. And Blair stands to Vanessa and asks her why they did all this, and Vanessa doesn't know either, and Olivia begins her toast.
"So many people know me. I wish I did. I wish someone would tell me about me."
morning, Dan and Olivia try again. Jenny introduces herself at the breakfast bar, and asks if she really knows Leo, as a joke to lighten the mood, then explains that this was a joke to lighten the mood, which is the most Humphrey thing she has done in a long time. Must be the severe lack of Eric in this episode causing her to backslide. ) Olivia starts to apologize, but Rufus informs her that Dan has already spoken on her behalf and therefore she can just shut her flapping trap and chow down on some, guess what, waffles, and meanwhile anorexia Jenny is like, "How about coffee?" and Lily pulls those motherfucker Welcome Back, Kotter mugs out of nowhere to make some tacked-on point about how this is Rufus's home too... Except that this week the point wasn't that Lily was embarrassed by Rufus, but that Rufus was embarrassed by Lily, so there's actually no point to them at all this week, and Lily gives Olivia the Vinnie Barbarino, and she tells some story about Travolta, and it's stupid, and somebody on the writing staff of this show just seems to think there's something inherently funny about the words Welcome Back, Kotter and Freddie Boom-Boom Washington, because that's all the joke ever is: "They did this on The O.C.! I said words that are not relevant! I'm hip to the kids!"
Chuck asks Blair what she wants, standing at his door, and she looks honestly bereft, asking for his forgiveness. "I'm so sorry, Chuck. I made a mistake. I know there's no excuse, but... It was just a kiss..." He shakes his head. "The people you manipulate. I know how little respect you have for them."
"This is my cue to take you in my arms and reassure you. But I'm not going to... Darling, there are certain characteristics for which you are famous onstage and off. I love you for some of them, in spite of others. I haven't let those become too important. They're part of your equipment for getting along in what is laughingly called our environment. You have to keep your teeth sharp, all right. But I will not have you sharpen them on me."
"But not you! I don't feel that way about you. And I won't ever do it again, I promise." He still can't even look at her. She stares at him, with tears in her eyes, apologizing desperately. Maybe you have to be a certain kind of asshole for this to be so hard to watch, but it's rough. Like if she doesn't fix this ugly thing she made, Chuck will disappear forever. "It was a mistake..." Chuck, barely audible now, tells her he's in a meeting. He nods when she offers to call later, and shuts the door on her. The "Home" song starts again, there on the threshold. He stares into his empty apartment -- no meeting -- and she stands on the mat, looking lost outside his door.
Home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you
Meanwhile, Vanessa's at the Bleecker with two coffees and two croissants, ready to beg; she calls Gabriela, but Gabriela's already on the road. Her shoulders bend lower and lower, and she starts sobbing before she can hang up. "Yeah, it's such a long drive, and I wanted to get an early start... And I can't leave your dad alone too long!" She tells her daughter she loves her, and gets off the phone, and Vanessa cries to herself.
Home, let me come home
Rufus and Olivia chat, while Lily tells Jenny something hilarious. Serena comes running in from Blair's, dressed like a hooker or something, and throws her arms around her mother, desperately sad about Carter. Chuck stands in his house, alone, while Carter gets into a towncar, headed away.
Home, let me come home
Blair enters the Bleecker looking fucked up, and stares at Vanessa for a moment before Vanessa points at Gabriela's croissant. "You want it?" Not the carbs, but the chair; the table. To share. She sits, with a grateful smile, and they both stare into space, miserable together. Orphans, together.
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