In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Um, what the eff was that? I can't even formulate, like, a strategy to... This is what it was like.
1. The Good: Jenny falls in with a Belgian drug dealer cartel and is rescued by big brother Chuck, who literally goes, "Remember how I tried to rape you? This is the kind of shit I was talking about."
2. The Pretty Great: Lady Gaga slumming it "Bad Romance" style in one of the dumbest episodes of the season. Also, Blair's erratic psychic powers correctly give her a pre-judge grudge: she's actually mad at Serena in the present, for stupid shit she's only brazenly and openly planning on doing to Tripp in the near future. Oh, and every weird sex thing we ever thought Nate was into? He has a graduate degree in it. All of them. Dirty secrets drop like jewels from his lips the entire episode.
3. So Very Relatable: Jenny Humphrey will now become a part of NYC's thriving international drug smuggling scene, even though A) Dude looks an inbred gargoyle carved from inbred stone and B) Jenny Humphrey is in high school.
4. Executive Realness: So Nate takes S on a pub crawl to keep her mind off Tripp, almost remembers somewhere in his brain that he's in love with her, then loses her again to Tripp after his dumb mom tells Tripp about Maureen's duplicity. Finally without a babysitter for the first time in weeks, Serena immediately grabs Tripp by his married congressman face and they do it like they should have done it weeks ago, but even harder and with even more reckless abandon.
5. Unholy: Blair wants to impress the Tisch kids, so Cyrus Rose gets Gaga to give a secret show of like one song. One of the gay Tischer boys is now into Vanessa, which is too bad, because Olivia has decided that Dan is secretly into Vanessa because of his body language while they were all fucking each other last week. She convinces Dan that this is the case, and then exits our show. So now Dan likes Vanessa, who is not into it, which is a thrilling reversal, but not as thrilling as if she'd run them both down with a car, or as surprising as if she'd sucked on their blood because surprise! Vampires are real. That would have been something.
6. Shameful For All Of Us: Also, Dan writes this godawful play and the three of them (and Blair and her bitches) perform it for the Tisch kids and it's the most retarded thing ever (except for one fight where Olivia and Vanessa keep yelling about how "you boxed me out" and "no, you're always boxing me out," and it's all the word "box" like a hundred times and it's amazing, and then Blair figures out they had a threesome and blackmails everybody -- this was all very awesome). But the "play"... we don't need to discuss it further except to say that dwarf basketball players have no place on the UES, dancing or otherwise. This isn't fucking Scrubs.
In Two Weeks: Maureen van der Bilt Must Pie.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see why high school shows shouldn't graduate.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Dan Humphrey is a nozzle away, walking down the street like a stud in a four-way splitscreen, including flirting with a blonde/brunette pair because he's decided that's what everything is about. Gossip Girl is and will continue trying to make fetch happen in this episode by making endless weird (Is It 2003 Already?) references to JT LeRoy or Glenn Frey of the Eagles or The Education Of Little Tree or whatever the fuck, it doesn't work, it's stupid, and it has nothing to do with the story. You could plop this bizzle down in any episode and it would make just as much sense. So Gossip Girl, you out this week. Also, if you can't even pronounce James Frey's name correctly, stop acting like you know him. You don't know him. He is essentially unknowable.
But where literary hoaxsters are veiled in a veil of veilness, Dan Humphrey is the exact opposite, of course. Which is why he is a shitty writer, but is being kind of awesome today. He goes, "Top of the mornin'!" to a lady. The reason for all this, this smearing his Humphrey all over a sunny bright morning like a child with its first birthday cake, is that he spent last night (we think at this point, but this episode has one of the bendier timelines even for this show, so who really knows, he could have been acting like this for a solid week no problem) with not one but two ladies. And lo, simultaneity was achieved. His horny fake memories even have a soundtrack, provided by thecockandbullkid.
As long as there are boys there will always be girls
And as long as there are girls there will always be trouble
So Vanessa looked totally glamorous, and she was on top of him, and then right to her was Olivia, looking rather dignified, and then they unbuttoned his imaginary shirt together and then kissed for his benefit and then boxed each other out hardcore. His horny face is very compelling, in the dream fantasy memory montage of unrealness. Then in real life he does a little dance and high-fives a man who will hate anonymous Dan for the rest of his bitter life because one man's high-five is another man's why did you just hit me.
Meanwhile, Blair is not answering Serena's calls nor is she listening to the panicked voicemails Serena has been leaving her. You will recall, Reader, how it was that Blair came to find herself face-down in a cake with political ties and aspirations, but eventually allowed herself to get stuck on an elevator with her boozy bestie and reconcile, only to have S shoo her out of the room the first second she could like a big baby girl just because a married congressman was fondling her Hamptons Potato Sack Race Memorabilia. This is S's thirtieth message, and like the twenty-nine before it focuses on the idea that Tripp did not ever get any further than her thickly muscled wrist... And shan't.
As long as there are girls there will always be boys
And as long as there are boys there will always be trouble
Blair, walking with Chuck, boxes Serena out in a major way, claiming she doesn't "converse with liars or Lewinskys," and as usual Chuck tries to keep Blair from going nuts. Perhaps he has noticed Blair's insane outfit, and is once again terrified of the Million Little Pieces of Blair that are destined to stick and run down the wall sooner rather than later. Because if you are looking for something to diagnose, the patient is presenting with a black unitard, which is technically TIGHTS AS PANTS, along with a black choker bearing on it the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, both of which look like Chuck because his face is crazy, and a black beret. And a cape. And the thing is that, yes, that's crazy, but again it's chillingly ultra-double crazy because it's another Audrey outfit, this time from the absolute weirdest part of Funny Face (not involving racist accents or saffixing sthe sletter S swhere it sdoesn't sbelong or... Man, that movie is weird).
Blair recalls that she has psychic magic powers of feral radar, which we know to be true, and that this manifestation of her powers was first reported anecdotally in the second grade, when her gym teacher gave Laverne Glazer's mom "the glad eye." And her sexual tension radar has only grown in strength and power since then. Chuck changes the conversation to Blair's intensely bizarre outfit, asking if "beatnik" is "back," and Blair says no: It's for some wacky flimflam she's perpetrating this week: "Ew! No, I'm adding new recruits to my student army. Apparently at NYU, no one cares if your forefathers made pumpkin pie at Plymouth. They only care if they made profits at Paramount." Chuck understands her coded words to regard the Tisch kids, which B helpfully explains are the "spawn of moguls and movie stars." Their leader, Paul Hoffman, is automatically going to be a douche, so she is reaching out to him in a multilevel scheme in order to gain him as an ally. Blair invites Chuck to the meeting and her face falls when Chuck says he has to squire around town the son of a high-ranking diplomat. "I need to build up my continental clientele," he explains, and then Blair says she's going to fuck him later, and kisses him sweetly, and he stares after her and loves her muchly and is wonderful.
Nate is wearing a neat grey wool coat and trying to explain that "Two girls, four boobs and one Dan Humphrey" is the dumbest story problem of all time, because Dan is an idiot, because "Buddy, okay, I know things. I've been to Europe. Chuck Bass is my best friend." Which is, he explains to the accompaniment of Dan's naïve scoffery, the reason that he knows the third person is always supposed to be a stranger. So I'm not sure what you said, exactly, but what I'm hearing is, "I have sexual threesome activities with Chuck Bass in Europe wherein we invite strange women to our bed and then have sex with them, and also with each other in a vigorously gay way."
Dan, sweetly, hearkens back to the wingmanship: "No, the fact that it was Vanessa is what made it so fun!" That's just the nicest thing he's ever said. Like they were backpacking through the rainforests or fixed-gear bicycling through Brooklyn, and not boxing a major movie star out double-time. "The problem is during a threesome, there's always a twosome and a onesome going on," Nate explains further; in the vernacular we call this the Abrams Boxout. Dan explains that watching Olivia and Vanessa box each other out, while taking the onesome role, was "not so bad." Nate laughs and grossly brings to the table the fact that Abrams is "vocal" in bed, which is knowledge that Nate and Dan now share, and unfortunately so do we. But his point is, so does Olivia, so now O has a loop of movie in her head where Vanessa Abrams is having one constant screaming fake-weave plastered to the forehead tufted organic crystal-deodorant orgasm, and I just threw up everything I ever ate, and Dan assures him that everybody is okay and then Nate explains that Dan is retarded, which if Nate Archibald has to tell you that you're being dumb, sit your ass down wherever you are and don't get up until you have reprioritized, buddy.
Also, Nate looks beautiful this week. Perhaps his scabies have cleared up, or maybe somebody killed Bree Buckley, who is the patient zero of the scabies and thus their leader. Or maybe that horse-healthy ruddiness due to the chill is just his skin finally making sense again. Just like his mouth-words: "Because you're lucky to have both of them in your life, all right? Not only do I not have a girlfriend, ever since Serena and I stopped speaking I don't even have a girl friend, either. You had both, and you blew it."
Dan spots Vanessa because at NYU there are two places to get coffee, a cart or that place that's so popular with nerds, and Nate literally starts shushing him like a horse: "Okay, okay, okay, good boy, uh oh, good Dan, okay." But he's off! He climbs all over Vanessa wagging his tail and fairly screaming at Nate about he didn't lose her, she's right there, she's still his friend, everything is fine, stop killing the buzz, the buzz is endangered. Plus, then he bribes Vanessa to go to the Bowery because, he "thinks," Morrissey is playing. Like just maybe. "So you want to go, just the two of us, for old times' sake?"
OLD TIMES? I mean, is it any wonder that Lily Bass is seven different ages at the same time when they do this shit? Because those are not Vanessa and Dan's old times, they are Rufus and Lily's old times. And I mean, if anybody would be douchy enough to get a retro crush on the Mozz it would be them, so that's fine, except didn't he like stop touring for their entire lives and just recently start up again? Did I make that up? Perhaps. It's this paranoia doing this. So anyway, they're going to gay on over to the Bowery tonight and see Morrissey, which Nate nearly cries from how much he loves how awful this is, and then there is hella-awkward hugging, which is the perfect way to start a day of Morrissey after all, and Nate gives Vanessa not one but two awkward nods because he finally remembered who she is and what her orgasms are like, and Dan is hazy with denial, just caked in it like a coal miner, and Nate's like, "Well, call me when this all blows up in her face so I can make fun of you and smoke pot and give you unhelpful advice while I swan around somebody's [Whose? His? Bass's? The erstwhile van der Bilt HQ?] loft in the Empire Hotel all day and all night."
B comes into the Bleecker as the truly odious Paul Hoffman is whining that even though Gaga's a Tisch alumna, she is ignoring his repulsive ass. My favorite thing about him, besides how wretched he is, is the fact that he is forty-two years of age. And not in a Scott Wolf way, like in a Proudly Forty-Two Years Old way. He likes to kick, and punch, and stretch! So B gets awkward and asks if they're discussing Lady Gaga, and Horrible Hoffman goes, "No, Blair. I'm talking about Gaga Ahmadinejad, First Lady of Iran." Kick him in the box. Kick his box out of his body. Do it now. Do it now, there's nobody stopping you. Just simpering Tisch kids, who in this version of reality look like Marketing majors and not the unbalanced homeless.
But because it's Blair and her will takes her places where her rudeness should not, manages to make even these dorks look socially savvy: "That's funny. You know who likes sarcasm? My stepfather, Cyrus Rose. Big-time entertainment lawyer?" Her face is totally indomitable and you can actually see wavy lines of force coming out of her forehead and just past his receding hairline and into his brain. So his father is somebody famous, some famous Hoffman I guess. Felicity, or Arianna. Neither of them are old enough, though. I don't actually care. I really don't care for Hideous Hoffman's Creepy Conspirator "Willa Weinstein," who is so gross I can't even talk about it.
Everybody laughs at Blair because their parents are actually in the industry and haven't been able to help, so whatever to her stepfather, and also could she stop being annoying and awful for like five seconds and just like be one with the fact that these people suck worse than all the other sucky people she's dealt with? Willa goes, "Fairytale theme is hard. Don't want to be trite..." for their Cabaret performances, because the thing that Blair suddenly needs more than life is to be invited to and involved in this Cabaret which Balding Paul is curating and shepherding and acting like a cuss about. Blair, of course, is all about fairytales, and Queens and princesses, and whatever, and of course the Cabaret, but no way. Hoffman makes sure the depth and breadth to which Blair is not invited to this thing are well delineated. College is kind of the worst sometimes.
"It's by invitation only. All the spots are filled by... Serious theater students," he hisses and weaves, and then they take off like The Secret History, all in a pretentious bunch, barely touching the ground and wearing no kidding business suits with ladylike hems and shit. Whereas in real life, there would be way more than two genders up in that club and all of their heads would be shaved into ironic brand names or whatever kids these days are up to. God, remember OK Cola? College is so fucking stupid!
Okay, now that Endless Knights IV: Liege Perilous ("This time it's perilous!") isn't happening, KC is trying to get Olivia to do this movie called The Bitches Of Eastwick, which stupid Olivia doesn't think is a good idea because she's totally dumb: "It's like Heathers, but with witches!" How is that not awesome? Why you gotta go boxing out my Bitches like that? Dan is mostly just hoping that she doesn't go anywhere or do anything or exploit the amazing opportunities she's constantly being given, because it's Dan and so her existence is contingent on him and when he closes his eyes she -- poof -- vanishes from existence but it's okay, it doesn't even hurt, and besides she always pops right back the second he opens them. She says how she really enjoys the classes and the Dan part of college -- "And Vanessa!" he shoehorns in a sad sort of way -- and then also if she gets the acting bug she can always do it through the school, which has the best theater department in the whole country.
Dan is bored of talking about his girlfriend's hopes and dreams and her calling in life and the thing that gives her existence meaning and purpose, so he uses the Tisch mention to change the subject to him in the blink: "Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, speaking of Tisch, um, tell me if I'm crazy, but I was thinking of applying to the, uh, playwriting program for year." And so could Olivia help him write a play today, because it's due before Xmas Break -- which probably on this show is in May anyway, or in fifteen minutes, or both -- and also can it simultaneously not be today that she does him this favor, because he's gotta box Olivia out so he can take Vanessa to the Morrissey concert -- "It's a tradition we've had since seventh grade. You know, we wear tight shirts, we walk through gladiolas on stage," he says, abominably -- and could Olivia please have zero problem with that. Yes. Of course. And in her head Vanessa Abrams, just a-meowing like a cat.
Jenny's on the couch reading the NYLON with her big sister Serena on the cover. Not the one that came in my mail on Monday and has Serena on the cover, but the one that had Serena on the cover, a.k.a. last month's NYLON. Jenny keeps it folded so you never see Serena on the cover, and I reallllly wanted to get a shot of it because I think then that the whole world would go test-pattern like pointing TV cameras at each other or a hall of mirrors and it would turn out that this is all happening in the head of Veronica Mars or an autistic child and then she would look out of the TV screen and greet you by name and it would turn out that we are all Serena van der Woodsen -- every single one of us. This supposition I surmise based on science.
Lily is wearing a crazy shirt that is so shitty looking it must be really expensive, and she goes, "What about Brad Alexander? His mother said he's single." (I think that he is a secret agent because Brandy Alexander is what spies are called and that's too close to be a coincidence.) Jenny says, to many gasps: "Uh, yeah: Because he gave six girls from Nightingale gonorrhea of the throat last year." Rufus chokes on his tiny coffee and looks like a homunculus in an alchemist's laboratory and asks why they are briefing on boys, and it would seem that Jenny needs a date for the Horticultural Society Gala. Jenny tells Rufus that she's over UES guys anyway and wants to "expand [her] horizons." This statement is for Chuck Bass a Batsignal of sorts.
Lily does a backflip of poodle-yipping joy to see their best son, and offers him coffee, but he's going to the Planetarium, which Rufus can't believe that "Chuck Bass" would go to the Planetarium unless they were doing a special exhibition on Planet Fuck, and it turns out that actually it's because he's taking care of this diplomat's son. Lily slides through the room like a water moccasin and instantly she has hooked up Jenny and the guy. The guy has one of those mouths and looks about twenty-nine and also very much like this guy I went to school with named Gabe. Kind of a tool. But we have to pretend he's hot so it makes sense. So Jenny rolls her eyes and pretends to be doing Chuck a favor, and Chuck totally thinks she is the coolest person, which is to win at life, and then when they're gone, Rufus honestly needs to be told what gonorrhea of the throat is. As though he doesn't watch Degrassi like the rest of us.
Blair coalesces out of the shadows in the dorm hallway and drops silently to the floor in a catlike kneel before slowly unrolling herself into a standing position, and Olivia's hair moves in the wind of her stealth, and she goes, "Dorota need to use my outlet for your towel warmer again?" Nice. I would do that to Olivia and then just let the towels get room-temp again. "Actually, I have a question. How do I win over shallow, superficial actors?" (Duffmeister's delivery on the line of dialogue, which falls where it logically should, is impeccable. She's really growing into her... Aaaaand this is her last episode.) So Blair wants Olivia to plus-one her to Hoffman's Cabaret, and Olivia says she can, and notes that "being a movie star has a certain cache." B, both winsome and hilarious, bats her eyes like this: "I may have read that at the dentist." Then O drops the hammer, which is that Dan will be writing the play, because he wants to write plays now, and Blair shivers in fear because the hunter has become the hunted and now her fate is linked to Humphrey's, which is a recipe for I Statements and eventual pants-wrecking disastertoons.
Serena is wearing gross tights, like if you infected Arlecchino with a zombie virus, and a chainmail necklace, and the fact that her arms and breasts are covered doesn't excuse the shoulder pads, which are Cromwell amounts of round, like a melon or a varsity player's delts. She is leaning over Tripp's desk and you can see hints and snatches, and he comes in and she's like, "Once again I am leaving you a note about this note I left you" or whatever, business as per, and his crazy eyes are heated with a sexiness, and they stare and stare alike.
Ponytail swinging, Serena somehow manages to find herself squeezing past him and his congressional erection and they talk about how she's avoiding him because nothing happened after B left them stroking their Hamptons memories, but it "feels" like something happened. Lord. So they're sort of sexy and the strange shirt has a keyhole back and she's got a cool mole back there which maybe she doesn't even know about, and then Tripp tells her that he's moving to DC... Tomorrow, or some shit. Not in January like they thought, specifically because Maureen (boo!) wants to defame the Holidays by using all the parties to network and become the young congress wife she's always wanted to be. So whatever, he makes a sweet face and is sorta swine.
Then Maureen (boo!) shows up and orders Tripp and Serena to go to their house and box up the home office, because she doesn't want anybody else doing it, because only Serena can be trusted, and she tells them where the condoms are and hands her husband a bottle of KY and some handcuffs and a pornographic cinema film and sends them on their way. And then she drags him to brunch and he makes more googly crazy eyes at Serena and the whole universe is like, "Enough! Just fuck him and get him killed or deported or in jail or whatever you're going to end up doing to him, so you can go back to being a teenage girl."
So Anne Archibald, last seen gardening the Hamptons and medicated right up to her Connecticut Lockjaw, calls up Nate to bitch him out for not being buddies with Grandfather anymore, and he tells her that the Hudson Hero Hoax was William's doing, and she doesn't believe him, and then Serena has the unmitigated balls to come up in his house and ask him for a favor, so he hangs up on his mom and makes ten mean faces at Serena before asking what she wants. And I don't actually know what she wants except maybe to fool Nate into telling her that fucking Tripp is a good idea. But anyway she just needs somebody to talk to about the married man she's about to fuck and then ruin in complex and long-lasting ways, and Nate has to ask, why Nate? She tells him, and his resulting sigh is eloquent.
Vanessa is sitting at her desk doing homework and working some of that horrible hair that's so fashionable with her these days. She's really into it, of course, because she's never had homework before. Or a desk. Or anything to do. Olivia enters and they think about boxing each other out and the screaming orgasms and their little tummies get to rumbling but then the claws come out just a tiny little bit and in pretending to be besties again with O, V shows her a Morrissey shirt in this sort of toolish, possessive way, and O simpers fakely at her and says that Dan's not going to the Bowery after all because one month ago (lie) she signed them up together for this Bleecker Inn Cabaret, which wins because of the whole thing where Dan wants to apply to Tisch where everybody is fussy and boring like him. O condescendingly condoles and peaces, and properly alone again in her dormitory room, Vanessa Abrams begins to go slowly insane.
Nate can't believe the Tripp thing, generally in many ways but specifically for example was S not just totally into Carter and couldn't shut up about that and allowed herself to be used in a complicated political poker photoshop scheme, and now it's his cousin, who is married. (And is, while sweet and tall and boyishly charming, absolutely not Carter Baizen.) "Tripp has sacrificed so much to get where he is. I mean, we all have. He can't just throw it away for you!" S and her shoulder pads, perhaps they contain a little angel and a little devil. Or speakers.
"Yeah, and he's fighting it! And so am I. I can literally feel my heart thump when I see him!" Nate nearly barfs. "I haven't felt this way since I was thirteen, with Jude Law in Alfie!" Nate has had enough thank you. "Yeah? Well, you're not thirteen anymore, Serena." WORD to the THIRD. Ya dirty bird.
S reaches into her infinite bag of cast-iron balls and fully stands up and whines about how she thought that "whatever happened" between them, she could still "count on" Nate. (COUNT ON NATE TO WHAT? Serena, it is hard to be your number one cheerleader when you're being this much of an asshole. You just went to the kid who took the fall for the guy in order to get him to not only validate for you but give you additional reasons for fucking the guy and ruining everyone's lives. And when he pointed out that you were acting like an irrational whore -- in a fairly loving way -- you get mad about that too?
...I mean, this is the most premeditated spontaneous sex. I like that because it always is, you always think about it a bunch before you "suddenly and without warning" make the mistake you've been planning on making, which is just one weird symptom of not being truthful with your stuff, but Serena is doing it so... Deliberately. And slowly, and with a serious Blair-esque glint of crazy joy in her eyes. "I am going to fuck up everything so fucking totally! Check it!") Awesomely, though, it's Nate, so you can totally do that shit to him. He's like, Sorry, you're right, you can always count on me. TO WHAT? He doesn't know. She doesn't know either. She just wants to talk about looooove and act like nothing is her fault. He just wants to play with string and have threesomes with Chuck Bass. You can count on them both for that shit, bona fide.
Jenny is wearing a tiny dress and a jacket, which is sort of irritating but looks totally awesome. This is her idea of talking. "So. Belgium, huh? I bet they have really good waffles. My family's really into waffles." Love. That. So Demian, that's his name by the way, Demian, is smarmy and dumb and hates his dad, who moves around a lot and doesn't care about Demian and whaa-whaa and worked on the Oslo Accord ("That sounds major," Jenny blands) and more whining and then some Chapin Mean Girls are also fooled into thinking that Demian is hot and they stare and Jenny realizes that boys are power so she's all about to let him off the leash and flirt with them and make them die of jealousy of her boy property but after being flirty with the CMGs he goes instead to a radio sailboat kiosk and gets a big sailboat and gets his shoes wet putting it in the water. "It might be cool in Belgium, but in Manhattan only little kids do that," Jenny says, freaking out as the Mean Girls laugh and her boy property turns out to be subprime. And it's dorky and second-childhood and his shoes are going to smell weird all day now and just like that, Jenny finds out about trusties. Wait til they're in bed and he starts asking her to choke him and all that shit. Expand those horizons right into celibacy, they will.
Check out "Not Just A Long Face" by the Magic Bullets, which sounds even more like Morrissey than you were thinking, and thus fulfils the obligation of any song played in the Bleecker to be sort of annoying, sort of catchy, sort of forgettable, but also to ping the whole Morrissey thing and the deep dark pit of suck that lies in the souls of Humphrey and Abrams:
Still can't help the way I feel
It's natural to me and real
My heart goes out to those who can't
Share this sentiment
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"Come on, come on!"
...They can't understand
It's just how I am
Not just a long face
I mean, how great is that? So all the Cabareteers are gathered around a table while Paul Hoffman acts disgusting some more and there's like one hot one, who looks crammed full of ennui and even though you can't see a scarf you know it's there in spirit, just wrapped around his bored little neck in a Loose Loop. So this play thing is like an activity, where they write and rehearse their reimagined fairytales all within eight hours. That's so edgy and so not conducive to excellence, but they do that shit all the time. So among the guests at the Cabaret will be Tisch faculty and alums and Paul's quote "legit agent." I want to remove his melon with a Sur La Table melon-baller, one small melon-ball of melon at a time.
Dan is getting into the spirit of being a fly by the seat of one's pantser when Blair drops from the ceiling holding a knife between her teeth and says they have to do Snow White for their fairytale. No reason. Also, she is in charge of the whole thing, and Olivia knows this, and also it must incorporate Gaga. Dan's terrified balls shrivel like the Witch of the East and he starts screaming about how O tricked him into boxing Vanessa out so that he could write a Snow White/Lady Gaga musical to be produced by and directed by and starring the mentally unstable Blair Waldorf, who acts totally freaky and awesome throughout this scene. Olivia scrambles madly to placate him, even admitting that Blair's ideas are "kind of out of the box," because she's got box -- what's in them and what is without -- on the brain! But whatever, she boxes Vanessa out right to Dan's box and says V doesn't give a box about Steven Patrick Morrissey and she's totally chill with getting boxed out so hardcore. Dan bites his lip and feels this tremendous and building pressure from all sides like, one might say, a mime in a box.
Chuck's ultraprofessional voicemail greeting: "Leave a message, and I might listen to it." Jenny screams into the phone that Chuck has saddled her with a cretin and that she has been fooled once again by Chuck's mesmerism. "This Belgian bore has been playing in the Park for the past half-hour with his dinghy! I have a reputation." Yeah, for kindness and taking angels to the zoo. "What now? Balloon animals? By the way, you took the wrong boat," she says, wondering if she needs to tie his weird-smelling shoes for him as well, and he's like, "Duh that was totally a drug deal and I am a drug smuggler and you didn't even know it but I just sold a shitload of E right in front of you, but by all means let's go impress high school girls." Meaning, of course, that there is a level of Over It that Jenny didn't know about until just now, and the discovery of new levels of Over It are to Little J a Batsignal of sorts.
Dan calls and whines at Nate about how Olivia and Vanessa are constantly boxing each other out and Nate says this is inevitable: "Post-Threesome Stage One, wherein one if not both girls try to prove to the other who you belong to." There's something sneering and lady-hatey about this but I can't put my finger on it, because after all bitches do love to fight with each other, but the original bitches that do this are Chuck and Nate, so maybe it's nothing. Maybe my brain just doesn't have the ability to accept the idea that anybody would want to own Dan Humphrey on any level. To own a boy is to be owned by that boy, and I theoretically would rather die than enter into that infernal negotiation with the Humphries of the world. (And yet.)
"You gotta prove to Olivia that you and Vanessa are still just friends, despite the fact that you've seen each other's business." (And they've boxed each other out, though, too. Maybe the feminist shivers have to do with the fact that this is so Dan-centric and ignores the fact that Olivia just had sex with somebody that is not Dan and is a lady, and same with Abrams, and yet there is no weirdness, even if they'd admittedly did it to get him off, which wasn't the case. All of the energy and thought that is involved in this story revolves around Dan's penis, because that's where the fantasy is and the power, and that's all that matters. The reason girls lez out in college is because they get to, because the subjectivity of female sexuality is a nonentity in the world where Dan's penis matters, which apparently is the world of the show. If the third party were a guy, then Dan's sexuality would be up for a heated discussion, but nobody cares what girls do.) Including Dan and Nate, who act goofy and gay on the phone with each other, and don't ever discuss these two women in terms that imply they are anything other than black boxes with a couple buttons you push and some kind of obscure mechanics nobody understands inside.
"Oh Dan," Nate chuckles lovingly to himself, and returns to Serena's life. "Girl problems. You don't even want to know." S laughs that he's counseling everybody today: "Affairs with married people, love triangles... Just so happens everyone's problems are well within my area of expertise," he laughs. Because he's dirty and he knows things. He hands her the phone and she calls Congressman Creepster and he's all, "What do you like on your pizza?" and but by pizza he means vagina, and she is cool for like five seconds but then he short-circuits her by inviting her to lunch, and by lunch he means penis, and she's like "Word!" but Nate is there and you know how his eyebrows are.
Nate continues to be all stalwart and by stalwart I mean scrubly and totally about to take advantage and be a McSleazy of his very own, while in Tripp's house some British lady in a maid costume Britishes at Tripp that Anne Archibald is done wandering the Hamptons gardening at random in a drugged haze and has come to ruin his marriage and he asks the British lady if she can make Anne Archibald go away and she supernannies him right in the dick and makes him talk to horrible Anne Archibald.
Vanessa and Dan have a convo where it turns out that Olivia is a liar and was boxing Vanessa out w/r/t the Tisch thing, so Vanessa gets "hardcore" which for Vanessa is tragically doomed to failure of course, and Dan is completely oblivious. Then they write a motherfucker of a script and take it to the Bleecker and I don't want to talk about it except to say that the day Gossip Girl steals from Saved By The Bell is not a day I'll be living, so bleeeeeeeep.
"Actually," Dan explains to Blair, who has gotten ten times of OCD all over this shitty, stupid, embarrassing piece of stupid embarrassing shit, "I've found a more experienced director more suited to the project." And Blair's like JULIE TAYMOR? Which is awesome, because J. Tay is awesome and I literally have a Google Alert to notify me of any news about her Tempest remake because I loved Titus so much, and I have compartmentalized the sleazy -- and not entirely unlike Dan's play, come to think of it -- bullshit that is Across The Universe. Which actually Jacob now that you mention it is shitty in precisely the same way as Dan's assface play. "The song's called 'Strawberry Fields' so I guess we should probably have somebody eating strawberries in a field and overacting, and then when they sing 'I Am The Walrus' we should have an actual walrus and a man of eggs, overacting. Oh, you know what would be completely rectal is if Bono were involved, let's do that." You can tell the difference between creativity and bullshit by how they are opposites.
But alas, J. Tay is not the director that Dan is thinking of, because he only knows like three people, and one of them is a documentarian, and Olivia stands up and they box each other out a whole lot and act like dicks. And all through this episode starting now, Blair is the best part of every scene even though she doesn't talk, because you can see her psychic sense apparatus stiffening and beginning to glow as per her earlier mention of her psionic sex radar, so she's in the background of every scene making these amazing sex apparatus faces as slowly the hideous truth comes to light, and she has no filter so she keeps saying to Dan, "What is the secret sex thing to which my antennae are alerting me?" and he keeps saying, "Nothing . But I totally saw boobs!"
Damien's disgusting face is making fun of Jenny for being a UES Queen because it's ultimately meaningless and that's why Blair is bugshit now, and Jenny's like, "Being Constance Queen is gay, but you're totally a druggler." And he explains literally out loud in words that "a little bit of danger is what makes life worth living," and if Jenny had eaten this year probably she would barf now. But instead she's like, "I do tend to hurl myself face-first into deadly shit for no good reason, much like my sister Serena and my brother/rapist Chuck Bass, so I totally know what you mean. Being a Humphrey has been a sixteen-year motherfucker."
At that very same location with the sailboats, Serena and Nate wander and eat yogurt or something, and Serena goes, "High school was so much easier! I wasn't attracted to married men!" And Nate says, "Yeah, but I was." And the whole UES is like, "Score, dude." But then he pretends that this was a slip less Freudian than pronoun-ambiguous, and that he dated married ladies that were fucking their children and not married men. And he laughs nervously because of how he is a gigantic homosexual with gayface, and Serena laughs nervously, because she is a good friend.
Then there is yogurt on her face and there's an awkward fake scene of that hacky hoary cliché where you wipe something off the person's face and fall totally in love with them because you never really noticed their face until you were wiping them down like an invalid, and then you make a gape-mouthed idiot face and stare at their formerly ice-creamed face and they stare back at you and it's oh so quiet and oh so still. Which is dangerous when it's Nate and Serena, because staring is like their hobby, and they need outside cues to cut it out or else they would be found on the shores of the sailboat place years from now, cobwebbed and still staring stupidly. "Serena, just give me the phone," he says when a call from T-Pain interrupts their retard staring contest, "Now, you can't talk about him or think about him or see him." Neither of them are clued enough to remember that this was the point, so she's like, "Wait, what? Are you going to tie me to a chair until his plane leaves?" Sweetie you just had this conversation. Come on. So Nate says no, they are just going to go get super drunk until his plane leaves, because binge drinking is a land where nothing bad happens and there are no consequences, and she hugs him excitedly because she is an alcoholic, and he feels more ice-creamy feelings of whatever.
At this point THINGS START SUCKING and the show begins to BOX ITSELF OUT. So Blair acts crazy in the rehearsal just like she's going to act crazy during the performance, about which I refuse to speak, and He-Tim is there looking hot as hell as usual, and he plays a version of "LoveGame" that's actually done by the Transcenders, the people who did the XOXO thing at the beginning of every episode that signals quiet time in this house. So then Olivia and Vanessa get into some stupid made-up fight and box each other out in several ways and finally they both quit the play and Blair is like, "What's going on, did you bozos have a threesome or something?" And Daniel Humphrey has the most adorable, perfectly acted moment in the history of outboxing, and turns around, and B acts as usual like she's this Sex Wikipedia and goes, "The third person is always supposed to be a stranger!" Then she takes over the world some more and boxes Dan out of his own life. Which usually would be a bad, but since it's Dan this will probably be better for everybody.
We flip back and forth in Blair's room with one naked lightbulb as she blackmails both Olivia and the other one in order to box them both in again. Her point with Olivia is that Dan is disgusting, Vanessa is even more disgusting, and TMZ would love to hear about Olivia and how she's a whore. Her point with Vanessa is that she wants to cut her face off and play x-treme Frisbee discs golfing with it, essentially, but that the true Achilles' Heel of Vanessa is that being called a starfucker -- which Blair does call her -- is so anti V's whole deal of being authentically herself or whatever that bullshit is that's going on under her viciously gross hair all the time. Such a pretty girl to be party to such calamity. I hate it and it's all the way over there inside my TV, I can't imagine having it on my head, so close to my stuff.
"Over & Out" by Estate is the most Nate and Serena song ever made. It's just gorgeous, this like MGMT optimism but with more delightfully obtuse Eurotrash slickness, like a boy or a girl who would fuck you tenderly in public and then run through the streets with no pants on to have a threesome on video and then kill a man and forget to tell anybody about that. "Write to Make" is really good too. So anyway it's playing at Brandy Library, where children often gather to take shots and bone members of Congress, and both Serena and Nate are in that place where you start hinting around about how "Wouldn't it be funny if we had sex really hard right now? Just kidding! I don't know, I'm in such a weird mood! Just kidding, I want to fuck you. Just kidding! It's like Mary Poppins, but instead of chimney sweeps it's oral sex being performed by you and me, on each other. Just kidding! That would so weird, wouldn't it? But also awesome, because just kidding let's fuck." My favorite kind of drinking hardcore is the kind where feelings aren't your go-to.
Nate's phone rings right before they fuck in public and Serena literally goes, "Saved by the bell!" and Nate sort of shivers about how much sex they're about to have, because the whole point of them both is to be gorgeous and to be having the sex, and with nobody else around it's just like this physics truism that they will bone. But then there's T-Boz on the phone drinking giant glasses of scotch with a side of Crazy Eyes, that shine so brightly Nate can see them over the phone, twinkling and sparkling as they do. And the reason for both the drinking and the Crazy Eyes is how Anne Archibald wandered into his house to tell him that Maureen set up the Hudson Hero Hoax, so he has to cry and whine and drink a lot. But the real reality is that just hearing this news gave him a massive boner because now he can fuck Serena and feel not that bad about it. This boner is also so twinkly that Nate can see it over the phone, and thus he has to shut T-Square down and tell him to keep drinking alone because Nate is too busy doing party shots at Brandy Library with an unnamed friend, and then he hangs up and lies to Serena and says it's his boyfriend Dan calling for the twelfth time. Because God forbid anybody at any time allow Serena to make an informed decision about her life. Now let's drink more, just kidding, let's fuck.
"Dance In The Dark" is just one of the fifty Lady Gaga songs in the background of this episode, but this one is very appropriate because it's about a girl who is so interested in becoming a total hot mess and ruining everything that she's sort of fantastic. Just like Little J. Some cute famous NYC person brings Jenny and Damien to their table at some cute famous NYC place and Damien rubs the man's cute famous NYC head in lieu of acting normal. Then Jenny is nervous, but sort of turned on, but sort of having good judgment, just kidding she's totally into it, because Damien's supplier is coming to the cute little NYC place and they are going to do a cute little NYC drug deal and Jenny is going to watch it happen and feel more like a grownup and less like whatever she was feeling like before.
Tim is the only good thing about the Bleecker Inn Cabaret, where the Tisch kids are all laughing uproariously at the stupid shit happening onstage. First Willa Weinstein is involved in some kind of Red Riding Hood thing that is so shitty it has to be a reference to something I'm not getting, just kidding this whole thing is shot through with shit and... This Cabaret is the Donna Martin of this show, like everybody laughs and everybody applauds and everybody talks about how great Dan's play is, but it's a fucking lie.
So instead I'm going to say that Tim takes off his shirt and does a little dance for everybody. And you know he leaves those glasses on. So then Olivia comes up to Dan, who is wearing a hipster scarf and chest hair and fedora and looks pretty much like lunch, if you ate it in secret, and she explains to him that the boxer-out of her was not Vanessa, but Dan. Specifically that he boxed her out of his heart because he is in love with Vanessa because what is not to love and thus Olivia needs to take her boring ass right up out this piece and go be in Bitches Of Eastwick where she belongs and her magic power can be Giant Teeth.
While in the show Blair is still being embarrassing in this shambolic piece of shit that manages to bring down the letter grades of every episode that precedes this one -- I mean it makes those retarded Rachel Carr episodes look genius, I have no idea what the problem was here but it gave me fucking hives and I keep making fists with my hands -- we're going to say instead that Tim gets onstage and, still shirtless, cradles an infant against his chest while reciting the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke so quietly that the child barely stirs in its sleep. Then he plays "Guitar Hero" on the very hardest setting, and desperately needs our approval, which we gladly give. Then, while we watch a bootlegged copy of The Twilight Saga: New Moon which he got for us and which was his idea for tonight, because he doesn't want to share us with a single other person, tragedy strikes in the form of Tim burning his special chicken, and he cries manfully to himself in the kitchen because he wanted everything to be so perfect, and we tell him that we loved it anyway, and he blushes, and then it turns out that he has hired a sleigh and six white reindeer to take us to Taco Bell, and they are right outside, stamping and breathing steam in the fresh, sparkling white snow. And also he is an astronaut.
Meanwhile Olivia duffs it right up and acts all bitchy and doesn't even try to take part in the bullshit, which is the right call but does make things awkward for everybody. Also, even though I remember her often singing, in her Olivia persona she couldn't carry a tune in an Hermès Birkin specially designed for the purpose. Or, in her case, something with a bunch of fringe bullshit jacked up all over it.
At the cute little NYC drug deal, "Telephone" by Lady Gaga ft Beyoncé is playing, which is notable because it's a totally great song and also whups ass on the corresponding Beyoncé ft Lady Gaga song, which sucks wang. So Jenny tries to stay cool while they drug deal around all over the place, and for some reason the entire transaction has to take place in Jenny's teenage crotch, so they keep boxing her out under the table and then Damien is like, "You know what would be funny? If you took this E and went to the bathroom and swallowed it, and then in about twenty minutes I could rape you." And stupid ass Jenny is like, "I'm going to need a second to discern the problem with that" but luckily Chuck shows up out of nowhere and says that Damien is sleaze central and that he can't stay in the Hotel Empire anymore, because while ambassadors are above the law even Europeans know the meaning of Chuck Bass. Jenny reluctantly leaves with him, and if you think Damien is at all chastened by this show of Bassness, you don't know Damien.
Ugh, it's still going on. So in my imaginary play at this point, we've got Tim boxed into an impossible Clark Kent situation where he'll never live up to our fantasies of the unattainable, and it's making him like suicide crazy, right, and he's growing weird mustaches and working at a pizza place because that's his version of Fight Club and playing sad harmonica out on the fire escape and dreaming of Moon River sometimes alone with his thoughts and no matter how many infants he cuddles while crying manfully it's never enough and our life has basically devolved down into that Dramarama song "Anything Anything (I'll Give You)" which we told him once was our favorite song and which sometimes he plays for us on the uke. His voice is clear as a glass bell, but surprisingly rough around the edges. It's like he's bleeding every word, he means them so passionately, but not in some pussy (500) Days Of Summer way, because it's also and simultaneously like every moment he is a bulletproof tiger on fire. But then just as we begin fear that tiger is going to sleep forever, it turns out this whole depressing life is all a complicated birthday surprise, because actually he rips open his business shirt and tosses his necktie back over his shoulder to reveal a Superman insignia and then Dido songs play in the sky while we fuck heroically.
In the real world, whose wonder is paltry as shit right now, Dan does some amazing things I can't describe without going into detail about the vile perpetrations. Suffice to say it's the sexiest and douchiest he has ever been, at once, which is like crossing the streams of Dan's two things he can do, or how all parallel lines converge in infinity.
Serena's at that sweet/bleary place where she spends her best times, and they're still playing the whole "Remember when we fucked? That was so weird! Just kidding, fuck me" game, and Nate tells her about how he told Jenny that he was in love with Serena at the Masquerade Ball in Season One because Jenny was wearing her mask. Man, I feel like that was so long ago. I feel like we lived on a prairie when that happened, it was so long ago. And the locusts were threatening the harvest. So Serena's like, "You love(d) me?" and initiates her thing where she crawls all over you like an ill-trained golden retriever, because her buttons are not plentiful but they are not that hard to locate either. He leans in for the kiss, and of course right then T-Zone appears at the Brandy Library with crazed eyes and unearned pissiness. Nate's eyebrows are like, "Good Lord."
Tim has written for us a piano concerto of such purity and passion that, when he performs it wearing a tuxedo on the national stage, people faint and shit. He takes over on things that suck -- like buying houses or talking to mechanics -- not because we can't do it but because it's more beautiful for us not to. He says, "It was kind of complicated and it took some doing, but you're always talking about that little girl Kylie from the 'I'm A PC' ads, so I convinced her parents that you would probably do a better job with her, and she's in the driveway with a big red bow on her. And a puppy that keeps falling over its own disproportionately large feet in the most adorable way." And when you go, "You really can have it all!" Tim just smiles, and says he already does.
After Willa Weinstein acts fucking repulsive for a minute, Dan kisses Vanessa in the Snow White bullshit, and flashes back to when he kissed her and she looked so amazing and Olivia was helplessly and forever boxed out, and it's fairly sweet but also a steal from Zack & Miri, and she's all, "What are you doing?" And his cheekbones say nothing but his eyes say "Falling in love for the first time" and then everybody laughs and cries and claps and jerks Dan Humphrey off despite the fact that everyone in that building is now dirty in a way you can't wash off. Then Blair acts insane as usual and drags everybody off into the night, because somehow the fake greatness of the real shitness was so amazing that some of it got on her. I hope she's throwing them to the Christians again! That was her best plan of all time.
Serena and T-Bag are like, "That is so crazy about Maureen but even crazier how we're going to rawdog in about six seconds like we've been openly and deliberately collaborating to do and discussing it with our friends and staff for weeks now and pretending that we don't know what everybody's talking about when they call us out on what whores we are." Meanwhile, blue-balling Nate Archibald looks like Charlie Brown. It is so tragic and he looks so beautiful. Serena and Tripp discuss nothing for what they seem to agree is the requisite amount of faking it, and then bounce. Nate tells her she's crossing a line -- and would mention how he just totally said he was in love with her, but luckily neither of them remember that moment from ten minutes ago -- and she tells him right back that the lines are blurrier now because... That man that jumped in the river.
Blair leads everyone into a beautiful hallway with amazing neon decorations and candles and chandeliers and whatnot, and you know it's about to get Gaga Ghetto up in there and my heart started to beat crazy fast. And then it's time for Gaga, who's got four guys carrying her train and she's climbing ladders and making do with a shoestring budget because that's her whole thing, art out of the everyday. The similarities between Gaga and Martha Stewart vastly outweigh the differences. They both have an appreciation for moments and for doing your best regardless of the circumstances. Paul Hoffman is just about to have a gay epilepsy about it, which means Blair Waldorf FINALLY WON ONE.
Dan approaches Olivia so they can have the same fucking conversation they've already had three times about how he's in love with Vanessa but can't handle the truthfulness of that truth, and Olivia boxes herself right out of this show, and just when you're thinking maybe Dan and Vanessa will finally get together and Vanessa can stop sucking every dick of every relative Dan has, Vanessa bounces up and starts talking some madness insanity about how Paul Hoffman has the sneak for her, and also sorry for boxing Olivia out but she has no feelings for Dan so it doesn't even count. Then she runs off to be her usual pathetic fag-hag self with disgusting Paul Hoffman while Dan makes the Charlie Brown face, and Olivia feels sort of assy for putting those thoughts into his head, but not really, and then her ass is out of there. God.
Chuck takes Jenny home to PRADA and explains that they are kindred spirits because they both like to dance topless with teen models, they both pretend that having sex with men is just this unavoidable symptom of truly living life, and they both know what Nate Archibald's scrotum tastes like. (Answer: Apricots.) "I may be Queen, but I'm more lonely and bored than I was when I lived in Brooklyn," Jenny says, and still can't offer a valid rationale for her entire storyline. Then Chuck breaks it down for her and explains that his original attempt at raping her was because of their similarities and love of danger and walking through the fire and whatever, and time she gets raped it's not likely to be somebody who's as nice as him. She gets totally fussy-face and is like, "Good! I hope the drug dealer that rapes me is a TOTAL JERK! Your face is stupid!" She runs to the kitchen to find a druggler and he stares after her and continues to think she's pretty much marvelous, which she pretty much is.
Right when the best part of "Bad Romance" happens, the thrilling "I don't want to be friends" part, Serena gets sex ADD and stops even pretending that she's helping Captain Tripps with his packing, so she grabs his face and for some reason goes, "Are you okay?" and then they... Whatever they're doing, it's not because they wanna be friends. Doesn't it seem like they've been doing this dance of death for like sixty years? I know my fake rule-abiding persona would say that this is immoral, and my secret real personality thinks that marriage is gay and stupid anyway, but when I try to feel feelings about Serena fucking a married congressman it's like, "Finally. They've been sniffing around each other since the Eisenhower administration." All it would take is one glint of Tripp's hot crazy-eyed lust and I'd kick the door shut behind me like a startled mule and get to it. I don't need your rules, man. Shit is not that complicated.
Meanwhile Jenny texts Damien, "I love drug deals! Come box me out any time!" and his forty-year-old ass makes some kind of Gollum stomach-turning pervert face, and Nate is still at Brandy Library trying to reconstruct what brought him there, and feeling a far-off sadness for a reason he's working on remembering, and Dan watches Vanessa chatting with her TOTALLY GAY BOYFRIEND, and Lady Gaga acts like a monster of course and then lies down in a makeshift casket/birthing chamber made of ladder and gay dudes, and is totally amazing and the opposite of whatever the unholy hell we had to deal with at the Bleecker Inn, and somewhere out there Tim is thinking of you and loving you tonight, and drawing quick charcoal sketches of you in different outfits, some he remembers and some he made up, and around his neck there is a dogtag chain, and hanging from that chain there is a ring, inside his shirt, to his heart, just for you, and on the inside of that ring, glowing softly in the firelight, is written some kind of Elvish shit.