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Shocker #1: Dan and Vanessa cancel each other out! They are awesome throughout the entire episode as they farce around about their fake dates -- Gay Paul Hoffman was secretly dumped a while back, apparently -- and have secret mojito-fueled makeouts, eventually do it without a third party, and finally decide to date. Of course the real fun will be watching them fuck it up, but in the meantime they are the Golden Couple of the Week. Believable, funny, sexy and sweet.
Shocker #2: Of all the ways for Rufus and Lily to find out about Little J's drug-muling, you might not have expected her to tell them herself. To tell the truth, I've watched the episode three times and I still can't figure out why she did it, or what she's up to right now. Essentially, Lily thinks Jenny and Damien slept together, giving Rufus an "excuse" to pack up his remaining child and hightail it back to DUMBO, with some nasty bitching about Lily, her family and her entire life thrown in for Humphrey measure. So but Jenny throws the pills on the floor! And yells! But then Damien tells this story about his dad's drug use which does nothing and might even be true, and then they're dating or whatever, and then I guess Jenny runs away or something. This whole part of the episode is really confusing. I think we need some Eric STAT. Or maybe Agnes.
Meanwhile Lily's bummed about her loser husband making his disappearance official until Vanya shows up with Rufus's scarf, which was left in the apartment of that lady he might sleep with, so now I guess they're even since they both didn't do anything. It doesn't really matter because Rufus is sucking even more than usual, and Lily is totally boring now that she is only secrets and we don't even get to know what they are.
Best Shocker is #3, though: Chuck, Serena, Blair and Nate are all old friends. You might not know that because they don't ever talk to each other, but this is one of those rare beautiful episodes where the Non-Judgmental Breakfast Club comes together to protect one of their own.
In this case, of course, Chuck. Serena (and a reluctant, bumbling Nate) manages to stick her big old face up in Bass business, forcing him to communicate with the weird lady who might be his mother. Of course, this plan is convoluted and strange and takes up the entire episode, but with magical results. Confronted with this abrupt about-face in Serena's general lack of caring about anybody else's shit causes Blair to flip into the Serena role, supporting Chuck wholeheartedly without even a hint of scheming or lying or secret beartraps or nagging or mentioning her bizarre fantasy life.
But she's not done! Batting an emotional thousand, B gets Serena to recognize almost instantly that she's only into Chuck's mommy issues because of What Happened In Santorini -- her extensive issues with her mum and Dr. van der Woodsen -- and Nate subsequently talks Serena into dumping her whole daddy thing, while Chuck finally lets the weird lady into his life, and we learn that she may or may not have decided Chuck should hate her/think she was dead rather than be married to Bart. I'm sure there's more to it -- in fact, I'm sure none of this is true, or at least not in the way she presented it -- but I can see her point. He was a tough hang. And anyway it's just beautiful, the whole thing -- even with the disconcerting lack of Final Party, for I think the first episode ever. week they'll probably have ten brunches and a Winter Formal just to make up for it.
This season is just piling on the reasons why high school shows shouldn't graduate.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Damien shows up in Jenny's bedroom making cutie-pie faces and acting like they're dating, or whatever. Turns out Lily's been sleeping until noon and thus won't notice a little early-morning neck-nuzzling. Jenny's been on fire about their "date" and thinks any number of inappropriately grown-up Italian places might work, but Damien has another idea: The Endless Knights Trilogy, starring Olivia's boobs. Um, are you going on a date with Nate?
Nope, turns out this too is age-inappropriate, as instead of containing the adventures of Vampire Guinevere and her Vampire Round Table or whatever the hell, the DVD case contains a huge array of brightly colored, delicious-looking pills! (Um, are you going on a date with Nate's Mom?) Jenny's like, "Right, we're not dating, I'm your drug mule." Damien acts like this is adorable, and nuzzles away, but then his dad calls and he's actually attractive for like five seconds before sighing and answering, telling his dad he's just "with a friend." Jenny, who is a Humphrey, which means "sometimes is cool and sometimes is just clueless in a way that ruins fucking everything," pulls all manner of faces at Damien's brutal not-telling his dad about his not-girlfriend and their non-relationship. Instead of indulging this Humphrey bullshit, Damien's like, "So can I stash these pills at your underage house until tonight?" And of course Jenny is like, "That's kind of like being a grownup in a relationship, based on what my idiotic forebears have modeled for me, so yes."
They eat more motherfucking waffles on this show... I think before the Humphreys started getting their stuff all over everybody, the UES was free of waffles, as of all carbohydrates, but now it's waffletown. This time it's Nate, while Serena prowls around Nate/Chuck's house in a gigantic man shirt. Now, she's bigger than every other guy on this show, and Nate is smaller than every other girl on this show, so I ask you: Whence this shirt, which hangs off her like a real boyfriend's would? And color-coordinated, no less, with her leg warmers? How does she get by in these costumes? I'll tell you: She looks fabulous in them, is how. So she grabs at Nate's waffles -- literal -- and he tells her to use a plate, so she responds by grabbing his waffles -- figurative -- and then they fuck on every possible surface, including the entire contents of the refrigerator -- including the huge mixing bowl of freshly whipped cream just hanging out in there to the strawberries -- and finally collapse on the floor, where it will now be known by its new name, Breast Central.
And you might say all of this is unrealistic but I prefer to think that the magic of Magical Serena Land and Magical Nate Land combines into magical land of such varied magic and powerful magic that a huge mixing bowl of freshly whipped cream in the refrigerator is the least surprising thing that could come out of there. Like, the Declaration of Independence might be in there, with a map on the back, pointing the way toward condoms.
I can barely see or hear him over Serena's breasts, but I think Nate is back there somewhere, wishing for more food. Specifically, Rufus's Saturday brunch. (Nate! You just had waffles! Not to spoil the surprise, but: Waffles.) They grin and are cute, and then explosive fake orgasms and shudders of pleasure come echoing out of the bedroom, courtesy of Blair. They laugh about her and are totally adorable, but then Nate's phone rings: It's Chuck. Nate, even for him, takes a while to figure out that whatever's going on in the bedroom doesn't involve Mr. Bass. But he is chilled by Chuck's request, which is to go snag his phone from the bedroom before Blair gets curious about its contents. Chuck does a smooth bribe of the Algonquin staff for Elizabeth Fisher's room key, and there's a remote control or something that changes hands, which part confused me.
Serena heads in there and watches Blair scream for awhile before Blair -- stretched out alone on the bed, looking fabulous and boredly flipping through Vogue while she screams the screams of passion -- notices her and segues into a dismissive greeting with the minimum of lost composure. Blair rules this entire episode so hard. Serena's adorable, wondering as usual what B's on about, and Blair says it was a pointed ruse meant to show how inappropriate their breakfast sex was for everybody else. Something about her painfully clipped iciness -- not to mention the bizarre behavior -- alerts S to an upset in B's equilibrium and she parks herself on the bed behind her, caressing B's hair and making her tell the problem. The problem is that Chuck is being closed off in a way that surpasses regular Bass behavior, because of all the Elizabeth mess, and that not even sexytime has been able to get him out of it. "I've tried all my tricks, he's not interested. I just want to make him feel better," she says, cute and sad. S agrees, because that's her theme song.
Dan's headed to poor Vanessa's dorm room to stalk her some more, and some girl named Melissa slinks by in a bikini, inviting him to the big South Beach-themed dorm party. He politely declines, and shoves his way into Vanessa's room so he can yell about how he loves her but not in that way. She's terribly aware that this isn't true, and looking very beautiful to boot in her crazy-lady clothes. And I must admit I'd missed her, a little bit, but not so much that the amount of love I feel for her -- for them both -- in this whole episode makes any more sense. Or is any less a betrayal of my most treasured convictions.
They talk about how they can or cannot go back to how things were, and then both of them at the same second start lying about how they're dating other people. Vanessa says she can't awkwardly hang out because she's going to attend the beach party with Paul. "I love parties! I love Paul!" Dan lies, and then lies thrice by saying he himself is going to the party with his girlfriend Melissa. Anybody else, they would notice the 100% lying of this entire conversation, but Dan and Vanessa have all that integrity, you know, so they gamely entertain one another's lies, and then Dan rushes off to find and procure Melissa, while Vanessa calls her big gay ex-boyfriend so their life of lies can continue.
While Chuck paws through all of Elizabeth's belongings -- eventually coming up with a bit of hanky in which is wrapped something important -- Nate cautiously enters Chuck's bedroom, hoping Blair's still not having orgasms in there. He blinks adorably at the serene scene of Serena playing with Blair's hair, and then grabs the phone. He tries in vain to construct a lie -- or even a sentence -- regarding the phone he needs to steal, and Serena does not help him in this venture because she's clueless too, and together they are a team that should have us all worried.
Finally Blair goes, "Oh God, I miss that. Dating someone who's a horrible liar. So much easier!" Serena makes yet another adorable face at Nate, who (after barked commands from B and more confused question-noises from S) hands over the phone. Ruse complete. Blair is sad to see multiple calls from the same number, because that means Chuck sketchiness, but much sadder to see that there's a message, because that means her ethics are in question and she already knows what terrible thing she's about to end up doing.
Jenny and Damien hang out on the bed counting pills, but then Lily pops up offering coffee, so Jenny acts totally sketch and jerky and weird, stepping on one dropped candy-colored narcotic and stuttering just enough to make sure Lily thinks they were doing it. She gets all "Not this time, Seren... I mean Jenny," and tells them to get their act together and come sit on the sofa while she attempts to parent. As an afterthought, she reminds Jenny to put on some clothes, having remembered that what her daughter thinks of as clothes the rest of us still consider private attire.
Blair paces: "I shouldn't. I turned over a new leaf! A new, non-meddling leaf from the trust tree! If he wants to keep secrets, then... But he shouldn't! Something is bothering him, and he's not telling me about it. What am I supposed to do? Right?" Awesome. I love how she approaches innate normal behavior like it's a math problem: That's the B I know, and have missed immeasurably. The Blair that acts like every moral dilemma she has is something nobody has ever had to deal with, because they were all born with a conscience while she's just doing the best with what she has.
Serena sighs and awesomely tells her what to do: "Blair. Put the phone down, and talk to him when he gets home." B hands the phone over, and stupid Nate once again ruins everything by visibly jerking and then admitting he's been seeing this number all day: It's where Chuck called from a second ago. Maybe phone numbers are his savant thing. So Blair freaks out, and no matter how much S shakes her gorgeous hair around, Blair's gonna play that message. It's Elizabeth Fisher, calling once again to try and explain herself, and saying she's checking out of the Algonquin today. Serena asks who Elizabeth Fisher is, and Chuck comes home with a thundercloud over his head, explaining immediately that she's the ex-Evelyn, and his mother. Staring commences.
Chuck says that the whole story about her dying -- you know, the one that took two seasons to tell, was beautifully constructed, and explained not only Bart's coolness toward his son but Chuck's entire pathology, not to mention Bart's relationship with Dan and the whole Charlie Trout thing, all of which are called into bullshit question if this story is true -- was a big lie. After all, Bart "also told [Chuck] kids wear suits to kindergarten and that blue chip stocks are great for birthday gifts." Heh. I mean, I'm really unsettled by this twist and unwilling to believe it's even true, still, but that's funny.
Chuck yanks on that necktie while Blair explains the other parts of the Chuckly Gothic tale -- the midnight gravesite, the broken locket, the other half we've not got -- and while Nate's all manner of concerned for his boyfriend, Serena has rocketed back into her own shit like only a Rhodes Woman can. Watching this episode back I was touched by a lot of it, a lot of the Chuck/Blair action, and loved the Dan/Vanessa stuff even more than the first time. But the thing that just fucking kills me about this episode is Serena, which is not only brilliantly acted and has a powerful arc across the whole episode, but one of the most desperate things I think we've ever seen on this show. It's so rare to see her wrong-footed that watching her this whole time, clawing at the walls of the rabbit hole as she goes falling down... Chilling. And subtle, and relatable, and believable. But mostly depressing and scary, in the best possible way.
So the whole time Chuck is like, "Fuck this lady for showing up and making me feel crazy," Serena is all the way up his ass about her dad. Nothing that comes out of her mouth from this point forward is more than tangentially about Chuck at all, and it's just brutal. "You don't seem excited. After all this time of thinking your [father] is gone, now you have a second chance! [H]e's here now, who cares why? You have no idea what happened twenty years ago, why [he] stayed away. You have to at least let [him] explain!"
Blair, now torn between the real and present pain that Chuck's going through and the very clear mental place Serena is charging into, just stares. Chuck heads down to the bar for a drink, telling them they're welcome to the hotel safe combo if they want to violate him a little bit more. When he leaves, Nate's like, "...He'll be fine," and Serena's like, "[I'm] acting CRAZY!" Blair mans the eff up, just incandescent throughout the episode, and tells them in no uncertain terms that they will leave him the hell alone. "You didn't see his face when he confronted this woman and she sent him away. He's had enough pain in his life. If he doesn't want to hear her story, then I'm going to respect that. And so will you."
(Remember Blair?)
And I mean, there's a whole motif here, the "hear your story" thing, that comes up in every storyline -- even Jenny has Damien's daddy issues to contend with -- and it's a fairly sensible way to collect the threads. Because Chuck is so -level that he's making this sort of existential choice to just block Elizabeth altogether: His mom or not his mom, it's the story he can't handle. And Serena's generating a story a minute, and has been doing so since Santorini, each one sadder and more pathetic than the last.
But you also have the two couples substituting sex at various points for the Story -- Serena avoiding telling Nate her basic thing, Blair and Chuck fucking instead of talking later on -- and Dan/Vanessa afraid of each other entirely because of the untouchable Story of Them, Rufus and Lily telling and avoiding telling stories... For a show about surveillance, this jump to the primacy of personal narrative is really exciting. Chuck doesn't want Elizabeth's story touching his own, and Blair's bravely telling a whole new story: The one where she turns off her innate suspicion and natural curiosity, her puzzle-solving MO, in order to say that if Chuck says so, the past stays the past. He's allowed control over his narrative in this case, because of how dark she knows he might go.
All of which is something that, until now, she would have been unable to comprehend, because her single life strategy is inventing new stories to solve the problems of the old stories -- putting herself in movies to escape her own violent mommy issues, for e.g. -- and maybe more than anybody on this show (witness Bad Serena constantly reappearing, even though the basis of this entire show was her New Serena story) has actually managed to find grace a few times by doing so. But if Chuck says, "I don't want a Cyrus Rose-type replacement, or a Lily Bass, I'd rather have no mother at all," she has to respect that, because she's all-in. And it's one of the strongest things she's ever done, and I love her for it: At least we'll burn trying.
Lily paces around waiting for Rufus to walk from DUMBO in the Henley she bought him, and Damien is like, "This is stupid, I'm leaving," and Jenny's like, "I don't even like you so shut up," or whatever teenage dirtbag bullshit she's into this week, and giving him these amazing hateful eyes. Lily is disappointed and weird, and then Rufus comes in flashing crazy emo at everybody and yelling at Lily about why is she bothering her husband in the middle of the day and couldn't she just call him since he's so busy shitting himself in Brooklyn and acting like the biggest baby in the universe for literally no reason whatsoever. Lily goes, "Okay, well, Jenny had a sleepover with this fella. Interested yet?" They make eyes at one another; Rufus's say, "I just got served," and Lily's say, "We have not even begun."
The awful South Beach party includes one of those wooden face-cutout things you see at the pier, where the bodybuilder guy is holding a bikini girl and they don't have faces. Hate those things. There is much awkward conversation between the foursome of fake daters, and Paul is bitchy and wearing a kerchief around his neck, and Melissa is gross but not worth mentioning, and Dan is wiggly and wriggly and muscled, and Vanessa is now faking even fake-dating her homosexual boyfriend. Who is actually fairly cute and fun to watch in this whole setup -- never mind the fact that he is thirty-five years of age, because they all are -- because of all four of them he's the only one that knows for a fact that this whole thing is a lie: Vanessa called up him and said, "Pretend to be my boyfriend again. And before you ask, there will be mojitos." And he was like, "Girl, I'm there."
Blair joins Chuck at the bar with a simple apology. He waits a second for the shoe to drop, and then marvels at the lack of caveat. "Sounds serious," he jokes. These two, they're such good actors sometimes it's hard to even like notice how good they're being. Blair says she's prepared to talk, or not, but there are no forthcoming caveats. She's being so kid-glove about it that he actually leans forward and speaks, finally: "Even if she is my mother... She isn't. It doesn't change anything. The past belongs to the past." Blair's sad to hear that, but accepts it, and puts the locket on the bar, surprised even to hear herself: "I think we should go to Bart's grave one last time, drop that off, and never look back." She hates it, but she's being good. "Come here," he says, and kisses her, and it's so wonderful.
Rufus starts yelling at Lily straightaway, heading right into "Jenny is not Serena!" territory, which is so shocking Lily can't muster more than a "fuck you did?" look, and Rufus lectures everybody on how parenthood works, and Jenny tries to tell him to chill, but Damien Eddie Haskells himself on in there with all kinds of "we just fell asleep, I know how it looks" bullshit, and not even Rufus is buying. Suddenly, he's thundering in a whole other direction about how Jenny needs to pack her bags because he has to get her away from Lily's UES influence and all this insulting jazz, and there's teen screaming, and the whole time Lily is vaguely trying to calm him down, but he's not having it. He takes off to get his own shit while Jenny's packing up, and once again Lily can't believe what a baby he's being, but can't really defend against it either, so she settles for a mean look at Damien and maybe some wine.
And one of the greatest things about this amazing episode is how Themselves everybody is being. This is the gold standard: Lily in the wreckage of her life, trying to hold onto the pieces without knowing how; Rufus whining and using every weapon he's got the second he can and justifying everything so he can be both a boy and what he thinks a man is; Dan and Vanessa being so realistic dorky and human that it is painful and also great; Serena trying to fix everything so she can fix herself; Nate being pretty; Blair inventing new ways to be fiercely loyal; Chuck trying to figure himself out underneath the tremendous weight of other people's burdens... I mean, it's brilliant. It's so smooth you don't even notice how smooth it is, like that pair of worn-in jeans that feels like butter but still makes your ass look good.
Dan, looking like about one million sex, runs into Vanessa -- Paul's off being gay, Melissa is off salsa dancing, so, same deal -- who's carrying drinks and still acknowledging the total weirdness of this. He drags her off to the plywood photo op ("What could be friendlier than taking a mock photo?") and in the tight space behind they find themselves abruptly kissing, and it's totally awesome. (How does this happen? I love them so much right now!) and then they get weird some more and stick their faces out of the holes and he's the girl and she's the bodybuilder and they are both so, so miserable. It is epic.
S and Nate join Blair and Chuck at the bar, having made reservations at a Greek restaurant, and he's softened enough that he agrees to go with them. Blair is proud of them for being soft on him, like her, and Blair smiles sweetly to herself, thinking she's solved this problem, like it's her reward for acting against her natural impulse to fuss and meddle, and they go ahead. But Nate and Serena have clearly hatched something that makes even GG nervous: "It's his mother," Serena whispers. "You know Chuck, he just needs a little push." When S makes the plan, that's when shit gets insane. And now with extra Nate power? They're going to end up in a gunfight or something, I just know it.
Blair stares at S and Nate for about three seconds at the restaurant before reading their minds and knowing for sure that they have schemed a scheme, and then Elizabeth walks in and S eyebrows in her direction. Chuck sees her, makes to pounce on Blair -- who is aghast, because of course this is the one time she didn't -- and Serena tells him he's making a huge mistake and needs to talk to the lady. Blair is, once again, wonderful: "That's it. Let's go."
Serena begs B to chill, reiterating that Chuck will always wonder, and eventually this will end with stealing a boat in Santorini or stealing a horse and blowing Carter Baizen in a wooded area, so he better go over there. "Whatever she has to say, it's better than not knowing," she says, and Nate nods sagely. If anybody would know about pulling off the parental band-aid, it's Nate. Serena begs her brother with her eyes, and finally he stands up. Blair's mad because she wasn't the fixer after all, and Serena is a little bit terrified of her, but most of all Blair is so worried for him it makes her blurry.
Back at the awful party, Paul and Melissa have figured out what tremendous beards they are and therefore what tremendous douches Vanessa and Daniel actually are, which is fun. Paul and Melissa vanish to go drink mojitos and salsa dance and have a loveless marriage, and Paul -- such drama, such exit lines -- goes, "We get it, even if you don't. And whatever's going on between you two... Either do something about it or don't do something about it, but please, don't bring normal people into whatever this is." My crush on Big Gay Paul Hoffman was as short as it was unexpected. Vanessa says, in the understatement of the semester, "This was a mistake." I can only assume she means, "Having a threesome with a movie star and then acting it out onstage in front of the entire drama department and then dating a gay man to fool my best friend into being less in love with me... Was a mistake."
While Chuck snarls at Elizabeth about how he was tricked and how Serena will be murdered soon, Blair's all worried and Serena's all hopeful, and Blair tells her to shut up and eat her spanakopita. (Oh, you know what I need? Some spanakopita. Be right back.) That's about the time that Chuck whips out the checkbook, horrifying Serena and Blair both, but as Serena prepares to rush in and fix the story, Blair is again awesome: "Serena. Sit your ass down." I love this side of her so much. Elizabeth is grossed out/wowed by the check, while Chuck explains that what he's buying is the privilege of not hearing her story: She will vanish. She's touched/relieved by this, considers for a long time, and then decides to let him hate her forever/take the money and run.
"This is what you want?" Elizabeth's not familiar with Chuck's intensity -- which at baseline could shake a continent -- so when he fixes her with his steely gaze she has no idea how confused and ambiguous he feels about this moment. He just looks hateful, because of how his face works. She leaves, Serena comes running up, and he's like, "That sucked." Everybody feels sorry for him. Except for Serena, who feels sorta sorry for him but mostly for herself, because she knows her daddy wouldn't take that check and run: He would sweep her up into his arms and never ever leave again. So clearly, something has gone wrong in the story.
Packing her monochromatic wardrobe, which is of course 90% scarves as usual on this show, Jenny is surprised to see Damien appear at her door, looking ghoulish as always. He says he's there to say goodbye -- and get his drugs, of course -- and she acts like a petulant child and brings up how he called her his "friend" and totally blindsides him with this abrupt switch into being a pain in the ass. "I'm getting exiled to Brooklyn because of our relationship, and I don't even know if we have one." Damien is as amazed by this bullshit as he is naturally condescending, and so he then makes three classic mistakes.
"Jenny? You're in high school. [BOOM] Your father's not completely out of line. [DOUBLE BOOM]." Her angry smile follows him out into the hallway and down toward the elevator, and her tiny insane frame follows. "I'm not gonna go write your name in a heart on my binder, okay? But you cannot expect me to start WWIII with my dad without even giving me something to fight for!" He's still bemused by all this, and says her dad won't let her see him anyway [BINGO BOOM], and she's like, "Here we go." Like you can actually see her decide to go completely nuts and burn down the entire barn at this point. "I fight with my dad all the time. Last year I ran away! I'm not afraid to stand up to him!"
Because what says "maturity" like those statements? Oh, but she's not done. Motherfucking Jenny Humphrey has not even started. As Rufus comes running up to yell at her some more, she takes the scarf full of pills and throws them on the floor, and then gives him the mad-eye like "What." Rufus is all, "Whose pills are those," sounding insane, but his daughter sounds even crazier: "THEY'RE MINE!" Even Gossip Girl is like, "WHOA!"
I mean, I know I said she was going zero-to-crazy in sixty seconds last week, but this is so balls-out bizarre that it's sort of admirable. There is literally no reason for her to do this, except to hurt everybody in the entire house and act out her ambivalence about this relationship. Because the heart part of her likes this Damien, for about a million obvious reasons, and the brain part of her is screaming, "Jenny Humphrey! I am appalled!" So the only way to solve this, one way or the other, is to stop the running back and forth and just be like, "Save me or don't, but this is how crazy I'm feeling right now." (c.v., everything Blair has ever done in her entire life, right down to the "I can't believe I'm acting this crazy" second-thought faces she always makes.)
Which actually is exactly how she always deals with Rufus, so maybe it's not that wildly incomprehensible, but the hateful crazy eyes she's shooting all over the place, combined with the zero-win situation she has now created, made it really hard to understand. (I'll see your scarf full of pills and raise you a "Daddy Warbuckses don't grow on trees, at least not a tree that grows in Brooklyn," wherein Jenny found homelessness preferable to admitting that a high school diploma might come in handy down the road.)
"No, Rufus, I did not know about a giant bag of pills," Lily spits at her husband, and makes a beeline for all the wine in the world. Damien's just as confused by all this as the rest of us, and Jenny's response is sort of amazing: "I may be a bitch, but I'm not a little bitch. I told you I wasn't afraid!" Damien's unimpressed -- because she is still making no sense at all -- and there's a moment where she feels dumb, because she's being dumb, but then she goes all steely again and decides to ride this wave right into the beach.
Jenny is just all kinds of sassy while Rufus does his dipshit parenting routine, to the point where he gets so angry he has to flip it around and be like, "I look at you and I don't see my daughter anymore," which is the first of the hundred things he says that she doesn't openly laugh in his face -- it's as amazing as it sounds, watching her bitch out on him so major, but knowing he totally deserves it -- and then suddenly Damien's like, "The pills are mine! Actually my Dad's!"
Which is surprising, but mostly grosses Jenny out, because really what's going on is that she's pissed at her dad and using Damien against him, just exactly like Rufus is using Jenny against Lily: For blackmail. Do what I say, or I'll do this awful thing instead, which will hurt you because you love me, so either way you love me, so do what I say. So if Damien saves the day, she doesn't get to force Rufus and Lily to A) get their shit together, much less B) make them pay attention to her, or C) notice that she is herself personally floundering wildly. Because breaking up Eric and his boyfriend and becoming a drug mule just didn't do the trick, and they're all drifting further and further apart.
Serena chases Chuck down the street, begging him to stop, and he tells her to leave him out of her fairy-tale bullshit, and vanishes, so she starts apologizing to Blair, and Blair is once again fantastic: "Please. You and I both know why you did this, and it has nothing to do with Chuck." Serena sighs, looks at Nate for a second, decides to ignore him, acknowledges that Blair is totally right and she's been acting insane and pulling other people's drama into her own drama, and checks out. Nate tries to come with -- because he has no idea, because she would never talk to him about her dad, vis-à-vis Dan's point last week about her not ever wanting to talk about anything real -- and she jumps in a cab without him, but Blair's still pissed enough that she won't explain Serena's stuff to him at all and additionally peaces. Left all alone, Nate wanders the world with perfectly tousled hair and manages to accidentally have sex for money like eight times on the way home.
Dan grabs Vanessa after they've both had some more mojitos, and she explains her somewhat harebrained scheme to fake-date Paul in order to calm Dan down about being in love with her. He starts to bitch and she literally goes, "No, don't get all Dan Humphrey on me. Melissa? Really?" An eloquent rejoinder. He agrees, and apologizes as well for lying about how he loved her as a friend and how he didn't want to make her feel weird. "Mission accomplished," Vanessa essentially spits, and says in a heartbreakingly sincere tone that she most wishes he'd never told her. The story, again. It's sad. He runs off for more mojitos and to think about whatever he thinks about.
Lily's sitting encouragingly close to Jenny on one couch, Rufus opposite, while Damien explains how his father -- a respected ambassador, remember -- regularly goes on drug benders so intense that he vanishes for days and comes back with like broken arms and shit. I don't know much about diplomacy or any of that, and God knows rich people are crazy, but doesn't that sound super weird? Like at some point wouldn't the king of whatever country lean across his split-pea soup and go, like, "You're acting sorta Jennifer Jason Leigh of late. Perhaps a restful sojourn to the coast?" That's how I think diplomats talk. But no, dad's keeping it together, and mom's apparently twice the basket case.
Eventually Lily is revolted enough by the story that she coughs out an "oh my GOD" with a worried look at Jenny, and so he wraps up the story with how dad was almost okay but then he found this GIANT BAG OF PILLS and freaked out this morning and came over here to... Um, show them to Jenny or something. Even Rufus gets hung up on that part. So Damien explains that he was out of sorts and crazed and Jenny's such a good friend that he knew she could help him, emotionally, which is why he was there when Lily woke up, and that she's such a good friend she was willing to let all this shit with Rufus and Lily and the Secret Life Of The American Teenager drama go down, so as to be a good friend.
What I wanted Lily to say was, "We've all been there! Why, my own daughter killed a man during a coke-fueled threesome" and then bust out the ubiquitous waffles. Instead, everybody nods at everybody like, "This is so intense." But Damien is now so many different people at once that when he apologizes for appearing to have slept there -- and then most especially to Jenny for both the lie part of the story and it seems the actual truth of what happened -- all she can do is blink. Because maybe, just maybe, she has figured out after the first ten red flags that Damien Dalgaard is a fucking sociopath. Maybe. (Spoiler: She has not.)
While Blair and Chuck have sadness sex instead of talking, because there's not really anything left to talk about -- which is sad but not as sad as if there really were something to talk about -- Jenny's like, "Insane story! Man, if that were your life for real you would be the trashiest person on earth!" Damien clarifies that yes, and yes. She immediately apologizes and feels sad for him, but also gets a huge boner because that makes him the most fucked-up person she's ever met. That's like Agnes plus Chuck. So Rufus has finally flushed the pills and told his wife to fuck off forever, and he's ready to go, and also Jenny will not be dating Damien, dad drama or no dad drama. Jenny hisses and spits at her dad about how they were totally in love, and Rufus sighs and says the coolest/truest thing he's ever said: "You're young, you'll get over it, get your suitcase." He needs somebody around to tell him that when his feelings get hurt, ten times a day every day.
S tracks Elizabeth down as she's checking out of the Algonquin -- most likely to find a new secret hiding place five feet to the left -- and vindicates awesome Blair so hard. "My dad left when I was a little girl. I don't know when, or if, I'll ever know why. But I want to know why you left. I know it must not be easy, but I don't think you would have come back if you didn't want to tell your story." Serena is great when she's transparent with herself, which she often is but not as often as that word implies. But this is where it gets real fucking sad, because every word Elizabeth says is a dagger to Serena's heart, and just watching the toll of this story on her is devastating.
"I was nineteen when [Lily] got pregnant. Nowhere near ready to be a [father]. We agreed I'd give the baby up for adoption." But then whence the picture of young Evelyn holding baby Chuck in that locket, that Serena's been holding onto since this morning like a lifeline? You just couldn't walk away from your [daughter]? "No. It was [Lily] who couldn't go through with it. Once [she] saw [her daughter], that was it. [Sh]e even asked me to marry [her]." Serena's intrigued by that: The Basstard is a literal bastard?
"Oh, no. And I wasn't about to be. I didn't love [her]. I told [her] that." So what, [Lily] blackmailed [him] and said [he'd] never see [S] again? Nope. Elizabeth was the one who told Bart to say she was dead. "It was the only way I knew that [you'd] never come looking for me. And that way I could go on with my life as if [you] never happened." Serena begs her to change the story, to have unbearable regrets; begs her father to think of her every second. Begs. But no. "[Lily/CeCe] sent me money every year to keep me away. But the truth is, [they] didn't have to. I didn't doubt my decision." Elizabeth gets worried by how low she's taking S, and finally apologizes. "I know this wasn't what you were hoping to hear," she says, and Serena's sad to know that it shows. "Now you know why it's better if I just leave. My son wants to hate me. I don't blame him."
Serena's eyes have gone dead, but she pulls it together at this one, because it's not true of Chuck any more than it is for her, or for any of us. "I've known Chuck my whole life, and he's better than anyone I know at pushing people away. I don't care what he says or does, but there's no child that doesn't want to know their parent." She gets up, she leaves, she's right. And because it's Serena, who is magical, even this total freaky acting-out on some random lady is going to bring them back around again. She's going to save the day.
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled...
Florence + The Machine (find and hear their "Halo" cover, it's so impressive even the Live Lounge presenter starts crying) play as Vanessa finally pulls it together, breaks off a piece of Humphrey and leads him into a corner for a beautifully overlapping conversation. It feels completely improvised, which is exciting particularly because it's mostly acting but also the strength of Vanessa's words, which are funny and beautifully in character -- as are Dan's short interjections -- but have a wonderful rhythm on the page that Jessica Szohr translates perfectly into the scene:
"Look, you're right. I lied to you about Paul and then kissed you. Because I have feelings for you. I'm scared, because I don't want to ruin our friendship. We're in this No Man's Land: We aren't hooking up right now because we want to stay friends, but we aren't friends right now because we want to hook up. It's like we're being so cautious that we're ruining everything. I think we should just throw down and see what happens. If we go up in flames..." ("At least we know we burned trying," he supplies, getting into her metric.) "I'm scared," she says, and they kiss. And it is a Very Good Kiss, with the beautiful song playing, and I'm still just aghast at how this happened, how one episode can make you into the biggest fan of them.
Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
They cancel each other out! They can handle the bullshit of each other! They already had the bad-idea sex! Nobody else likes them! Florence + The Machine also! But mostly they are funny and geeky and stutter and they don't kill people or have dead mom fake-outs or deal drugs! They're just normal, slightly repulsive human beings!
Jenny, showing once again how wack (but believable) her perspective is, is less concerned about the breakdown of their entire family and moving back to DUMBO than she is about being grounded from her ancient drug-dealing boyfriend. Rufus has the valid point that no matter how sad-puppy Dalgaard is (or is not), she lied to her parents right in their stupid faces to protect him and his GIANT BAG OF PILLS. Therefore, she is showing signs of Capuletism and needs to get grrrrounded before something real bad happens. And he's right, and it hurts as much to say that as it does for Jenny to hear it.
Jenny appeals to Lily, but she's on Rufus's side -- and not only because she's scrambling to keep her marriage together -- which sends Jenny in a whole other, awesome direction: "Okay, you're just taking dad's side because you guys are in a fight!" Rufus protests, but she continues, and is absolutely correct: "Really? Because Lily's sleeping till noon every day, and you're spending your time hiding at the loft. So just because you finally found something that you guys can agree on, it doesn't mean that you're right." (LOVE THAT. As much as I always love fights where all the people are right, because almost every real fight is like that. Outside of the stupid internet, actual contrarians are few and far between.)
The Humphreys bounce as Humphreys always do, in a cloud of self-righteousness and slight confusion, and Lily's left begging Rufus to reconsider acting like a fucking adult for once in his life, but Rufus has completely committed to the idea that the UES -- and by obvious synecdoche ex-kisser Lily herself -- are a taint that ruins brains and lives and souls, and thus it's less about him pussing out and using his daughter's obvious problems as a convenient excuse, and more like a zombie movie where he's the hero. Which honestly, I love that, because you had to know there would be massive bumps on the road of Rufus and Lily, and as silly as the drug-mule thing is anyway, it seems really organic as a tangential way of getting there. He was always going to leave in a huff, but doing it in this grotesque way that manages to insult not only Lily and their life together but her actual other children in the process... That's just excellently Rufus.
In bed, Chuck finally apologizes for being so cagey about Elizabeth -- I guess not knowing that Blair stuck her tiny pinkie in there toward the beginning of things and tossed the ultimatum at Elizabeth's feet in the first place -- and explains that he wasn't so much shutting her out as plugging his ears and trying to fix the situation without once ever having to hear Elizabeth say, "I didn't want you." And additionally -- I guess Blair's sudden emotional clarity about everyone and everything is catching -- he realizes that writing the check was a test, but not the test he thought it was. At the last second, he says, he realized he didn't want her to take it. Blair's touched, and of course at just that second Serena's meddling bears fruit: The phone rings, saying Miss Fisher is downstairs and wants to come up. They are well amazed.
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive
Rufus comes harrumph-harrumphrying down the stairs with his pissy little suitcase, but guess what? Jenny done vanished again. Probably to go shoot drugs in the park and send Rufus phonecam videos of it. WHERE THE FUCK IS ERIC VAN DER WOODSEN? The writer in me is happy they haven't yet had him come swooping in like the beautiful angel of peace he always is -- And isn't he going dark? Or did we already run that course? -- but the Lily-lover in me is like, "She has no family left AT ALL. Even her junky bullshitty Humphreys are trickling out the door. Serena hates her for the vdDub Thing, Rufus hates her for the vdDub Thing -- and we still barely even know what the vdDub Thing entails -- CeCe's doing her Schrödinger's Cat thing somewhere upstate, Daniel and Charles barely ever acknowledge her, Eric has vanished into the adorable gay dimension where he lives most days..." What's left? Chardonnay.
Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head
Struck from a great height
By someone who should know better than that
When S gets to Chez Waldorf, Nate's on that couch he was on before. Maybe it's becoming his Lily Couch and he will just live on that couch with a glass of wine and a copy of Backdraft. The good thing about the Lily Couch is that everybody knows where to find her (although I'm perturbed that we still don't know where that fireplace room actually lies, in terms of the PRADA superstructure itself). Serena's immediately like "Hell," and leans against a pillar for the rest of this scene looking like she's about to barf. Where was she? Stalking Elizabeth some more. How come? Because she is going nuts about What Happened In Santorini. Which is what? Too much for Nate's brain to even process, but she explains anyway. After a long, beautifully tortured argument with herself.
(This may be Blake's best episode of the season, looking at the whole hour. I certainly have climbed aboard this entire storyline; for the first time, it seemed incredibly sad to me this week. Girlfriend's like a Whack-A-Mole with the issues, but it feels like they've played out this season with her so well that vdDubs finally makes sense as an underlying factor, and not just a hateful "Daddy Issues" stereotype about women. And a lot of that comes about through this week's mannered, compassionate performance from old Blake.)
"Because of my dad. I've been trying to find him. I just want to talk to him, to understand why he left. I've come close to finding him... I tracked him down last summer. But, um, he didn't want to see me, and he wrote me a letter explaining. He was with my mother." Nate gets why that's a problem, and thus why she dumped her mother halfway through Hudson Hero. "And I felt like, somehow... His letter meant something. You know? But the truth is, he knows who I am now, and he hasn't come to find me. I think talking to Elizabeth made me finally realize that he just... Doesn't want to be found." (Which I think is precisely as true as Elizabeth's entire story, which is to say: Entirely true, but also a total lie.)
Nate asks why she kept this from him, and she leans if possible even further into the pillar, and uses small words to explain that dating is fun, and Nate is fun, and fucking is awesome, and why mess that up? Last time she tried to be a grownup woman -- with the grownup version of Nate, note -- that turned out to really suck. So if she's rebounding with the guy destiny picked out for her, why rock the boat with her grownup problems? Nate says that dating is good, and Serena is good, and fucking until you break hotel furniture is awesome, but also that he's not quite the cretin that everybody thinks he is, and is actually a phenomenal boyfriend (which we know to be true and Jenny takes as an article of faith), so how about she treat him like a person? Serena's totally not sold on that, but smiles sweetly and says she wants them to be that person for each other. An option she had not considered. At least we burn trying.
So while Nate offers the opinion that maybe vdDubs just sort of sucks if he doesn't even want to know his awesome daughter -- verbatim what Carter Baizen told her approximately thirty-seven years ago in a wooded area, by the way, but we cut both Nate and Serena a lot of slack around here because they're doing as well as they can with what they have to work with, brainwise -- and they hug and are sweet, Elizabeth wraps up the story of how she was so uninterested in marrying Bart Bass that she cooked up a byzantine fake-death strategy which caused Chuck a lifetime of abuse so severe that he became a seer of ghosts and occasional rapist.
"And I thought my father was the heartless one," he says when she's done, and Blair's a little bit appalled. He tries to bust out the checkbook some more, but she hands the check over and says she doesn't care about any of that, and in fact no matter how much he tries to bum her out, the incredible issues of Serena have so blown her mind that she finds herself immobilized in NYC for the foreseeable future. Blair smiles a tiny smile, since she's gotten the outcome she forced herself not to work for, and when Elizabeth stands up, Charlie looks younger and smaller than he's looked in a long time. He comes up against the old wall, how it's hard to be soft, and looks into this woman's eyes, and offers to at least buy her a drink.
Back in bed with Dan Vanessa giggles, because she is a giant lesbian, that she thought it would be less good without Olivia up in the mix. (WHO SAYS THAT?) and they laugh and say they did even better without her movie star moves, and are adorable for awhile before the conversation turns chilling. "The reason I was freaked out when you told me how you felt was because with us, it feels like it's all or nothing." (The overlapping dialogue is once again gorgeous here.) Dan, far from being scared off by this obvious gambit, jumps in with both feet: "I know! If we hooked up, then it puts everything in fast-forward!" Less than one second later, they are discussing marriage with these fake shivers about how much more grownup they would be than everybody else if they became a couple forever and ever, and fake-agree to take it slow and not become the mutually obsessed boring stay-at-home one-creature-in-two-bodies couple they are obviously going to become in five seconds. It's so cute!
The OneRepublic single "Secrets" plays us into the scene, a neat song about how secrets are so tiresome and drama is so enlivening that I'm just going to tell you every secret I have, like I will never shut up, and eventually you will know me completely and we will be family and share a toothbrush and pee in front of each other. I mean, it's nice in a song but if anybody tried that "my secrets, let me show you them" shit with me I would stab them a little bit and run to a safe place. In real life that's invariably like seeing Diana eat a whole hamster and then pull her woman skin off her face to reveal a horrifying reptile face.
Like now you got Jenny running up to Damien on a street corner with a pocket full of Lily's oxy -- she sometimes gets "headaches," apparently -- and Damien is shocked to find out Lily's a pill-popper. Despite her behavior throughout this episode. He thanks her for the replacement stash, but says instead -- as the chorus kicks in -- they should go make out or whatever. So did she run away again? Or is this like a one-night Jenny freakout and then she'll go back and they'll be like, "At least you cooled it with the eyeshadow, because we really thought you were gonna come home looking nuts again."
When the elevator dings, Lily's wine-addled mind (why is she standing immobilized near the kitchen island?) assumes it's Rufus, back to piss and moan some more, but it's not: It's Vanya. Bearing Rufus's scarf, which was in the lost and found. Which, why is he showing up with it in the middle of the night? Dorota said he had to, because sisters support each other, and the "lost" in this case was "at Mrs. Holland's house," and Dorota knows that this means Rufus is thinking about hooking up with her, so Vanya better go tell on him immediately so he can be grrrrounded before something real bad happens. Lily thanks him and turns cold as ice and buttons up all the way and sucks on her wine.
I love how even with a massive East European baby on the way these indentured servants are sitting around worrying about fucking Rufus Humphrey.
Nate sits right to her -- maybe holding her hand -- when Serena calls the number she's got. "Hey. It's me. Serena. I still don't know if this is your number, but I wanted you to know that... I'm not looking for you anymore. I thought maybe you wanted to know me, but now it's me that doesn't want to know you." She breathes, and says this in that one tone of voice she has where she means it: "I'm done." And she hangs up, and breathes.
After Blair kisses Chuck goodbye, but before he sits down with his mother and starts to tell her everything, he promises to call Blair in the morning. And in his voice there is a break, a momentary song that shines through, like the sun. For one second he could giggle, or cry, or burst open. In that moment before he turns to her and Blair smiles into the camera, he is sweet, and young, and perfect. At least we burn trying: It's all there in his voice, and the tremble in his lip. Charlie's first smile.
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