In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Uncle Jack shows up... And seems like not the obvious bad guy he is for about five seconds, when he scares Elizabeth Fisher into hiding. See, Jack was the only person who actually knew Evelyn, so -- absent the metric tons of microfiche that would clear this up in a second on any other show -- if he's in the same room as Evelyn/Elizabeth, the ruse will suddenly present. Chuck does a DNA test, and she's really his mother, and because of hilarious teabagger nonsense*, hands over the reins of the company... Just long enough for Elizabeth and Jack, being in cahoots of course anyhow, to pull some kind of Rooster and Lily St. James nonsense at which we still haven't quite arrived. My favorite that dog song, "Annie," from their third album, becomes more and more essential each week.
Dan and Vanessa continue to be surprisingly steamy and adorable as she plays all kinds of sexy games with his stupid, stupid head. Meanwhile, Rufus and Lily finally re-bond to deal with what a psycho Jenny is becoming, while she makes out with Damien nonstop. I guess her plan is to be just that fucked up, so much that even Lily and Rufus would be forced to think about manning up to save her from her innate Jennyness. And it's working. Because she is naturally that fucked up. Like, we'll be seeing Agnes week.
Jenny eventually realizes that Damien does not deserve that particular honor -- in a characteristically compassionate, well-written scene -- and bounces, but since she's already hooked her parents back up and made Serena care about her again by teasing everybody about the sex issue, she doesn't care about the wreckage when she implies they not only had the sex, but went on to do it weird. What else? Blair was fucking fantastic, but not really in the front seat where she belongs: Just wearing a fucking insane array of gorgeous outfits and trying to run interference with horrible old Jack, who is now wearing Evil Goatee to complement his sexy face. Which is working out for him, to be honest.
OTOH, not working: Serena hatches a fantastic plan -- if you're as big an EF Benson fan as I am, and trust me you don't exist -- to seduce Damien before he can take Jenny's virtue, but poor old Nate calls Rufus to fuck it up for reasons having to do with that time Serena took his virginity and then ran off and KILLED A MAN and enrolled herself in boarding school. Even still, Nate comes out looking like a total jerk, which is what always happens when anybody dares to call Serena a whore. Which don't do that, because she's not, and that just means you hate women...
*Oh, now I remember. You know how Chuck used to run around raping everybody all the time? Apparently enough ladies noticed themselves getting constantly raped that they've put together a class-action sexual harassment suit, which means Chuck needs to be removed from the Empire board post-haste to protect their financial interests from his once-constant raping. He can't hand it over to Lily/Bass Industries, because that would throw off this other thing having to do with Bart's memory. (Can't hand it over to Daily Intel, whom nobody -- including us -- can stop referencing and fucking talking about all the time every week despite the fact that Lawson is finally back, assuming his rightful Aragorn kinghood over us all.) He can't hand it over to Blair -- don't think she didn't offer, and don't think that made us jump up and clap hands -- because she is a wild thing and not yet twenty. Who's left? Mommy. In bed with Uncle Claudius. Shitting collectively over Chuck's entire two-season storyline, and no I'm not letting this go, so let's move on...
Um, Lily's "headaches" aren't actually funny. I think she's dying. So yeah.
week: Serena, who is all full of plans lately, takes on Uncle Jack; Jenny does whatever dipshit thing she's going to do that's worse than dealing drugs; Agnes rips of her wig and then blows everybody up in a huge fireball that envelops the apartment building including the wife of the fashion designer that once attacked Michael's wife Jane, who now is faking blindness and will soon be set to sea -- in a wheelchair -- by her vastly better sister, the red-headed Simpson-spawning Sydney.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!So science fiction people are like, if I say that Caprica is just a slightly awesomer version of this show, they would not see that as a compliment. But do check it out, because imagine if: Serena joined a terrorist cult, and Blair became a two-ton killer robot, and Little J lived in the Matrix and was becoming God. Oh, and if Lily were the pagan wife of Bill Gates and getting tempted into Christianity by a bisexual schoolmarm with a huge opium problem. I mean, that's not even spoilers, it's just the mission statement of the show.
I don't know about you, but that's precisely the show I have longed for since I was born. And it's funny, because I was going to say that this week anyway, but then this episode happened, all about fathers and daughters, a couple days after shit got real in that same father/daughter arena over on Caprica.
Anyway, Rufus and Little J are in their same tense détante, with him monitoring her before and after school and forcing her to eat the ubiquitous waffles. (Awesomely: "Waffles. Shocker.") GG's like, "Dads worry about their daughters getting hurt, about their daughters hating them, and about their daughters one day growing up." Scandalously, Jenny takes about three steps out the door before calling Lily's car service to get her the fuck out of DUMBO and over to Damien's hotel room, and then snapping her head all around to create a convincing illusion of having become a Rihanna song in living color, hair gone all Serena-wild in slow-motion. It's adorable and cheesy, like Jenny rolls.
In a cute black satin robe, Blair nibbles at strawberries and chats with Elizabeth about how well things are going between them. They have played squash and visited haberdasheries, and there's "something" he wants to ask his mother later. Chuck comes in, and his face is making that face it makes, and he and his very important lawyer Doug Jarrett inform her that he's being accused of sexual harassment by several Empire employees. He's straightforwardly hilarious about yes, he did used to go around raping people every day, but that was in the Palace, and he has since curtailed the constant raping as a sign of respect for Blair. She is grateful.
"So we'll fight it! We have innocence, good breeding and Doug Jarrett -- one of the best lawyers in New York -- on our side. It's a slam dunk!" Charles wants to settle because of PR, but you know Blair's not going out like that: "Settlements are for the guilty! Celebrities who run people over! The Catholic Church! It's not fair!" Be that as it may -- and whoa! -- but there's a thing for Bart at the Historical Society tonight, and he doesn't want the news cycle about this fucking it up for him. Blair immediately and correctly acknowledges that really he's scared of having this stuff come out in front of Elizabeth, and even though he swears he's not doing it for that reason, it seems likely that -- squash games and haberdasheries aside -- you would want to wait a few weeks before telling your estranged, back-from-the-dead mom about your history of constant raping.
"You like her," Blair presses. "You want the first time she meets Lily and the rest of your family to be perfect." (Aww!) And besides, what's the point of having a mom if you can't share things like that? "Not everyone's willing to wait eighteen years for an 'I Love You'," Blair says, which is a bit of a leap for them both -- and well romantic -- but the central idea, that Chuck Can't Let People In, continues to be a vibrant theme. Mostly because of how whenever he does, and tonight's no exception, everybody gets fucking wicked burned.
The constant fussing of Rufus knows no bounds, as we see him greet his wife at the door of his secret Brooklyn hideout with a charming, "Lily, what are you doing here?" Well, dipshit, she's there to check on her family, specifically Jenny, with her coat buttoned up further than it was when she was married to Bart. He explains about the defcon lockdown he's got her on, and Lily's like, "So she's pretty much furious, presumably." In fact, by comparison to the Incredible Hulk, Jenny is a word proportionally larger than furious. Way to sell your wife on your continuing evolution into a grown-ass man, Rufus. Nothing sexier in a trophy husband than Marvel Comics references. (...I mean, obviously, if you're Lily. Nobody else should have no problem with that.)
Rufus reiterates that rule number one is no dating boys with GIANT BAGS OF PILLS, and then summarily receives a two-second phone call from the ever-available Queller, who lets him know Jenny's been cutting classes all week but she only thought to tell him this morning. Just in time to disrupt Lily asking Rufus to come with her to the Bart thing which, as bad an idea as that clearly is, is even more an awkward demonstration by Lily of her inability to ever apologize out loud.
Serena and Nate pause in fucking each other just long enough to get and read the latest in a series of hysterical texts from Rufus, and S explains that dating Damien is a bad idea because -- she forgot to mention -- he is a sexual aggressor who tried to feel her up in the coatcheck at the French Ambassador's moments before she and Nate fucked in the coatcheck at the French Ambassador's. Nate cutely goes, "Um, whaaaa?" which, I would imagine the things they forget to tell each other results in that sound on a nearly constant basis. "You know what's most attractive about a bad boy?" she asks -- Nate clams up so fast it's like she showed him a picture of Chuck's junk in front of him and started demanding explanations -- and explains that Rufus's rules and regs are driving Jenny "right into Damien's creepy arms." And then the words I love to hear the most coming out of Serena's firmly set mouth: "I'm not gonna let that happen."
Because you know what that means? SERENA PLAN! Dooood. When Serena has a plan, my whole world turns to sunshine and roses and the most wonderful sense of adventure. Maybe this time she'll wear a cat burglar outfit! Or nose-and-glasses! Or turn on a whole new bad accent and wander around with a martini glass like Mata Hari! Or she can get a trenchcoat and carry Nate on her giant shoulders and they can pretend to be a very tall policeman or health inspector! You just never know!
Also getting mid-sex texts from Rufus are, of course, Dan and Vanessa, who continue to be the best couple on the show somehow, and Dan doesn't want to take the call because he wants to keep Vanessa his dirty secret. Vanessa -- in her wildly awesome zebra bra -- is of course insulted by this, and makes him take the call, and everybody mobilizes I guess to look for Jenny and her gross boyfriend.
Damien's heading for the fingerbang when Jenny jumps across the room because she needs to study Latin. This storyline is really well done. So he's like, "Latin is a dead language! We are much alive! Look how much makeup I can wear!" He floats the idea that she's the obvious virgin that she is, and she gets all Humphrey about this obviously true fact, and he says they can take it slow and caresses her face and shows off his chest and looks not as bad as usual with mussed-up first-base hair, and she adorably tells him she likes the "first time" with each and every one of the many men she's had and cast aside to be special. He pretends this is not an obvious ruse, and invites her to sneak back out tonight when Rufus is asleep so they can "take it slow," and she cutely goes, "Um, it's on, Dalgaard!" GG's like, "Little J! Losing the Big V! Also something that would kill Rufus!"
Elizabeth is just tickled over the obsequiousness of New York w/r/t her baby boy, and he points out that for e.g. Turnbull & Asser, it's prompted by his teen love of the place: "Prince William and I practically put the manager's daughter through college." (Internet jackholes who can't wait to make incredible and pointless statements meant to show their knowledge of All Things New York and Luxury... Go!) Blair brings up the dinner, shoving Chuck into position to invite Elizabeth to come to the event -- a gallery dedication -- and meet Lily into the bargain. Both of which, he acknowledges, might be dealbreakers. It's so sweet and scary how halting and fluttery he's now getting about watching the moms click into place. Elizabeth makes his day/scares him to death when she squeals that she's delighted to come. Well, "squeals" in the same non-applicable way as you could ever imagine weirdo Elizabeth playing squash.
The terror in his eyes nearly finds voice before a junket of paparazzi appear from nowhere, hounding Chuck about the harassment suit. He gets Elizabeth out of there, but guess who calls at just that moment? The leaker of the scandal, Evil Uncle Jack, now complete with paste-on Evil Goatee!
Lily tries reason with Rufus, as though she's never met him: "She's a teenage girl. Cutting school to be with her boyfriend isn't exactly criminal behavior?" Rufus hears nothing, with his fingers in his ears and his "still my little girl in there" mantra. She's sweet, and things quiet down enough for him to process how grateful he is for her presence and support. Thank God for Jenny freaking the fuck out all the time, or these two would never work things out. They agree to chat about blank-slating their immense amount of bullshit at a later time, but first could Rufus come to the gallery thing for Bart? Being her husband, and all. And I guess Chuck's stepfather, too. (WEIRD!)
But Rufus goes all cold again, and says that while they're working toward reconciliation -- which is bullshit, he's not "working" at all, while she's just working his visible and easy-to-reach buttons and levers, like you have to do with his ass -- he's not in the mood to "celebrate any of [her] former husbands right now." (Good line. Best line of the night, actually. Well done, Boy Version of Lisa Loeb, and a first time I think ever that B didn't get that honor.) And anyway, he has to go irritate the shit out Serena for the fiftieth time, so could Lily please fuck off until he's willing once again to be petted and cosseted and fed ice cream in tiny spoonfuls. Lily rolls her eyes and leaves his Scarf of Toddler Limit-Testing on the kitchen island so he'll know he's lost the absolute moral high ground. HA! Lily, you're so generous to think he could ever realize that. It's his birthright as a Humphrey!
S and Jenny pretend to eat ice cream and chat about how parents just don't understand, and how Jenny should be dating whoever she wants and how Rufus is controlling and judgmental and this forces her to sneak around. Basically, everything that S really does believe, and acted out violently with Bart only last year -- which, it occurs to me, is fascinating now that we know she never knew vdDubs. I thought she was just reacting to his balls-out assault on her civil liberties, but turns out it was also the first time she'd ever had a father. I don't think I fully comprehended that but it's brilliant.
S moves on in the step of her daring ice cream plan, where she asks how things are going with Damien. Of course, they are going swimmingly, as Jenny heartbreakingly relates: "Um, he listens to me, and he treats me like an adult. And really likes me. I've never felt this way before." Love that. Like if Rufus's big throwdown were like, "You can't wear short skirts!" Then she would be like, "Damien loves when I wear short skirts! We're so grown up!" She takes about one more second before laying the V card down in front of Serena, who would maybe choke on her ice cream if, you know, either of them were actually eating it.
"Tonight? Uh, I'd say that is serious then. Your first time, that's monumental. It is your first time, right? Are you nervous?" She informs Jenny that nervousness is to be expected, and also that losing your virginity is a big deal because it's a one-time thing. She even edges out onto a sort of questionable ledge about how she wishes she'd waited for somebody who would... Um, treat her like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. That's her go-to.
Wait, no, that totally applies, because Baby's weirdness about her V card was the most relatable part of the movie, and is what's going on here. I've always felt sympathy for straight people because they really do take that stuff soooo seriously, like, what's okay and what's going too far, at exactly what point am I a whore, when did I go wrong and become tainted, am I on an adventure or am I ruining myself, and you can get your head all snarled around the gears and end up waiting too long, and it's like even when you get sick of your virginity you're still in a position of it having become more, not less, important, so the stress remains and it's harder to lose than ever. That's the nightmare scenario, I would think, past a certain age. It's happened to friends of mine and when they finally grit their teeth and did it, it brought up way weirder shit than if they'd just gotten drunk and done it back in the day like the rest of us.
And I get that, I do. I just think that drawing the lines between this thing or that activity or this whole other thing is kind of silly. It's all sex. It all does what sex is meant to do, which is: Be awesome. The only way you know you did it wrong is if it wasn't totally awesome, and if that happens you should try some other ways and keep practicing. The only reason Full-On Doing It is such a huge Rubicon, no-way-back, now-you're-a-human-adult deal is because pregnancy is a huge deal -- everything else, especially in this day and age, is just social cosmetics.
Meanwhile dumb Jenny is like, "I've never heard of Dirty Dancing!" and dumb Serena is like, "You should download it!" And the fifty-year-old jowly grandfather who wrote that exchange sat back in his leather rolly-chair and thought, "Yes, that is a totally realistic conversation. Kids these days!"
Which doesn't distract from the awesomeness of this scene, which is wonderfully acted. You can really see S pretending to be the caring big sister, which because of the secret of Serena, means she actually is this caring big sister. Her fears and love for Jenny spill out over the edges of the pretense in really subtle, gorgeous ways. They both do a great job.
So Jenny explains to S in very small words that Damien is the right guy, and S can do no more than lie and say she supports Jenny's decision. Then she goes, "Obviously you're not going to school today, and you should commemorate today, so how about our boyfriend Nate takes you to lunch?" Nate's like, Um, whaaaa but goes with it. Being that she has to get ready for Chuck's thing, so why not make it totally awkward and have the love of Jenny's life take her to a lunch in celebration of Jenny's Blossoming Womanhood. SERENA PLAN!
Jenny's like, "In a totally different and less creepy way, that sounds great! Because I am in love with Nate!" And Nate's like, "At this lunch: Should we eat food? What foods do you eat? Will you tie my shoes for me?"
Uncle Goatee sliiiides on up to Chuck at the bar, giggling about the protestors' signs and how many sex puns you can make from the letters "Chuck Bass." He gives some glad-handing It's gonna be okay nonsense, and Chuck points out how, obviously, this is Jack's game. Jack protests that no, he's there to protect Chuck from Fake Mommy, who Jack himself saw in her casket when she died. "I get why you'd fall for all this, what with your mommy issues, all those abnormal attachments to your babysitters... Didn't help that I was nailing 'em, huh?" (WHOA!) He offers to swing by the dedication tonight and take a look at this supposed Evelyn, with whom he never got along anyway. "I've never seen a ghost before!" he chortles, and slimes away again.
In the room, he slithers into B, who calls him a "bloodsucking reptile," which is not a thing, and a "lying ooze," which is awesome, and he says he can't take the credit for this little scheme, but that reservations are down twenty percent already. He kisses her hand, freezing her in midair -- "I've already had everything of Chuck's worth having," he smarms, and she shivers -- and takes off again. Chuck and Blair lock eyes in the lobby and it's really uncomfortable and sad. Her whole body is like an electrified puppet.
S lights candles somewhere and tells Nate not to worry, her incredibly stupid plan is going to rule: She has invited Damien for lunch, with her giant breasts as the entrée, and then by some inexplicable split-second timing, Nate and Jenny will walk in on his advances. SERENA PLAN! The dialogue is second only to that line of Rufus's a minute ago:
Nate: "This sounds absurd."
Serena: "Blair and Chuck do it all the time!"
God bless. So Nate thinks they should call Rufus, and S knows that won't work because getting grounded is the key to becoming a ho in reaction to being grounded, and she tells him 45 minutes on the dot just as Damien enters.
Meanwhile that other braintrust, the Humphrey Men, are discussing the sociology of how probably Jenny is just into forbidden vampires like Damien, and Rufus gets the third best line: "If he were a vampire, I could slip garlic in her waffles! Not that she'd eat them!" Dan laughs at his funny, cute dad, and Rufus tries to find out who Daniel's boning. He lies by truthing about how he's been sleeping over at Vanessa's all the time, and Rufus is like, "Tell the truth!" But Dan's too Dan-like, and then Vanessa walks in and Rufus jumps on her like a humping golden retriever about how much he needs his family with him while he faces the Jabberwocky of Jenny's sexuality, and Vanessa is totally family, like a sister to them, and Dan gets déjà vu about that, and Vanessa is of course blind to the awkwardness because if for one second she could see awkwardness she would be undone utterly.
Rufus runs off into another area of the one-room loft so that Vanessa can mack on Dan and be brutally rebuffed. Reason? Dan needs "guidelines." Jesus God, Daniel Humphrey. How bad is this going to get? Well, he's been drawing up a mental map of Zones where they can be Friends or Friends-Plus, all throughout the city. Like, in DUMBO, where Rufus "treats you like his own daughter, and we've prepared Thanksgiving dinner while watching The Sound Of Music," that's a no-mashing zone.
It's so weird because now that he's becoming the most Dan version of Dan, like, ever, it's turning adorable. Who knew the solution was to push Dan and Vanessa into their respective corners so hard they became glowing diamond-like versions of themselves. Vanessa does, at least, understand the DUMBO part of it, even though she's offended by the rest and especially Dan calling her "less family" and more of a "classmate."
I agree, the DUMBO Zone is the only part that does make sense, not least because she and Rufus have always been three centimeters from doing it anyway. But then similarly, Lily's house and the entire UES are Friends Only zones for some reason. But downtown, and at NYU, they can make out. "I'll draw you a map, that's what I'll do. It'll be much easier." Boot to the head. Boot to the head, come on! And she does, once he offers to discuss with her which zone the subway is, and she tells him he is now in a No Vanessa Zone. This last is especially retarded because in the meantime, Rufus has taken a call from Turncoat Nate, and thus needs to go back to the UES, which means this little meeting that took three seconds and only caused strife never needed to happen. But to his credit, Dan takes it on the chin and refuses to get scared at how pissy V just got.
Meanwhile, to Serena's consternation, Damien is not acting like a total creep. No matter how much she vamps and boobs around in front of him, he refuses to stop doing things like apologizing for mauling her at that event before. She's like, "It's your lucky day because I broke up with Nate and I am primed for some manhandling!" SERENA PLAN! But to no avail, because even launching herself face-first at his total nastiness does nothing. He retreats, promising that he's into Jenny and thus can't hook this up. Which is cool, because they didn't start dating until the ambassador's thing anyway. Damien takes off and S is bummed by the fucking up of her plan.
Meanwhile, Nate's ignoring the call from S to tell him the plan's off, because the plan was never on: He's waiting on Rufus, who shows up. But wait -- that means that he was never going to show up and save her from Damien if her plan went through? "Hopefully I won't get too bruised when Damien attacks me like he did before, but don't worry about me, I've got krav maga on my side." Dumb, dumb, dumb. So Jenny lies about how they've been sitting around this whole time and pretending to eat "two entire desserts" -- in celebration of her burgeoning womanhood, don't forget -- and finally Rufus shows up and Nate's like, "Well, here we go." GG just wants Rufus to slap her across the face, I think.
Okay, so the new rules are that Rufus will walk Jenny's ass to and from school, and she'll have a peer babysitter between classes -- sick! -- and will be eating lunch with the always ready-to-help Headmistress Queller. Jenny points out that all she did was ditch, which is not at all true. The GIANT BAG OF PILLS, it's awesome because I don't think Jenny will ever understand why that was a problem. They're just like this amazing accessory, like Agnes: You can wear 'em on your outfit, count them cutely with your boyfriend, just simply toss 'em on the floor and people instantly start paying attention to you... I kinda want a GIANT BAG OF PILLS for my very own. But just because Jenny's way more wrong doesn't Rufus is not at all wrong, so it's a long fight with a short ending: "You just jumped to conclusions, like you always do. You know, it's no wonder that you're marriage is going down the toilet." NICE. She stomps off somewhere and he, speak of the devil, finds the Symbolic Scarf. I must admit, I'm dying to see how he can turn this into a reason to yell at Lily. It'll be like his crowning achievement of Humphreyhood.
Chuck still smiles his Charlie smile when he sees his mother -- she gives him a purple tie for the party tonight, which Blair helped her out with. Elizabeth says purple was Bart's favorite color, and Chuck says actually he only wears it because Bart loathed it, and she recovers and says maybe this was just another mental game his dad played on him. (Nope, that makes no fucking sense at all, but nice try.) Chuck's sad, but tells him about Uncle Jack's arrival, and she says she is not at all interested in running into Jack -- wouldn't you know it, more sex attacks, which even for this show are coming fast and furious tonight -- and Charlie's sudden disappointment is a little too much for me to bear. But not Elizabeth, who is like, "That is not happening. No matter how many of the faces your face makes get made." Charlie's bummed, but invites her to stay and have a drink, since they can't spend the evening together.
Blair pulls her tights on and worries about Chuck, while Serena bumps herself up a notch or two by referencing Daily Intel. Blair's sure he'll work it out, and then answers Serena's phone long enough to tell Nate to fuck off for ruining Serena's insane plan -- which she thinks made total sense, giving Nate a great layup: "Yeah, because it's a Blair Waldorf Nut-Job Plan!" Nice. Nice! She tells him to apologize and puts him on speakerphone, but he thinks she means apologize in the future, so he continues to yell at her about how he did the right thing. "Serena may not get it, but losing her virginity is a huge deal for a girl like Jenny." Oh, DAMN. Serena picks up the phone and is like, "Because I was a huge slut at that age?" His only defense is the he didn't know he was on speakerphone. (!) More than Serena's plans, I love it when people say that shit to her, because she's totally in the right and can just lay waste.
"I've Had The Time Of My Life" is playing when Rufus walks in, and he remembers and loves Dirty Dancing as much as we all do, but she pretends that's so gay and she just thinks it's "okay," especially since Baby's dad is "an even bigger jerk" than Rufus. Which is dumb of her, but understandable, because honestly her parents are the best parts of -- and people in -- that movie, but I can see why you wouldn't really think that. For a long time, maybe ever. I always respected their viewpoints, because I usually liked the parents better in everything (My So-Called Life was just an ongoing attempt to ignore the whining teens long enough to see what Graham and Patty were up to), because I was born hugely judgmental and expected everybody to play by the rules all the time, so generally only the parents were saying the things I was thinking, because that's TV parents for you: A drag. Of course, on this show twenty years later, the parents are my favorites because they are the most retarded. So I guess I've grown, is what I'm saying.
Rufus drags Jenny to the Historical Society so he can blame Lily for some things -- Which, isn't so much of parenting just learning to multitask? -- and what's going on there is a bunch of crazy Christians with signs picketing, yelling the funniest most unlikely chant of all time: "Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!" Like some unit director was like, "You're supposed to be yelling something, I dunno," and the extras were like, "Well, my sign says BOYCOTT?" And he was like, "Knock yourselves out."
Inside, Blair gives one of her speeches where it has the spirit but not the form of Things Blair Says: "Pathetic! Suburban moralists in mom jeans. I'd pity them, if I wasn't scared they'd spill orange soda on my Christian Louboutins." Which is fine, except for how that makes no sense and it really sticks out when her lines don't make sense or contain things like "sexual innuendo" that make no sense in context. To write a genius you must be a genius, even if only for a few minutes.
But then she notices that Chuck is busily and carefully bagging a stemless glass used by Elizabeth, and immediately figures out that he's doing a DNA test on his mother. "I should have thought of it weeks ago," he says, which he should have, which is an example of the writing pointing out where it falters instead of just playing through. "A friend of mine at the NYPD says he can have it done in a few hours," he says, which is an example of the writing being bad for no reason at all, because no you don't and no he didn't and no you can't. To this hash of a scene, Blair adds, "You know who she really is. You can see it in her eyes... In your eyes!"
Which, we've talked about this before: Chuck has a flavor, Gothic, which is all whores walking around with candles in abandoned manses and ladies showing up graveside. And yes, it's harder to write that than is Serena's Austen issues or Blair's French farces or Lily's Russian tragedies or Jenny's freakout moderne, or whatever Kyra Sedgwick dyslexic heart movie is always going on with Dan and Vanessa and Rufus. Hard.
But it's not that hard. And if you're not selling it -- which happened there with Elle and the Mystery of the Wide-Shut Eyes, and keeps happening here with Rooster and Lily St. James -- then the people who aren't attuned to the many colors of Western Lit 101 are going to see it for what it is, which is: Preposterous. Bad, silly, stupid dialogue in service of a story that can never, ever afford to seem cheap, because it's already so bizarre. Heightened reality and suspension of disbelief are the hallmarks of this show, and when done well they are magical, but when you've taken it out of the real world completely and made smart people act this stupid and speak this dumbly -- which happens a lot with Blair, honestly -- then you've sorta failed, no?
You can fudge the storyline/dialogue foliage and push the plot forward that way with almost anybody but Blair and Chuck. Lily's got so many secrets she has no secrets. Vanessa and Dan and Jenny are so blasé with their nuttiness/obnoxiousness that they can turn on a dime. Nate, he's a sexy bleeping box that sounds come out of so his decisions always make sense. Serena, Lord! I've seen her take what should be a five-scene, three-episode setup and crush it into one single marble-mouthed line of dialogue, "It was X but I'm Serena so now it's Y." And nobody ever blinks, including me who loves S more than anything, because that's believable.
But Blair and Chuck are machines, made of logic and viciousness, and unfortunately, so are the majority of insane fans of the show, and they're the ones watching Blair and Chuck most carefully. Making it the hardest thing to pull off and the most instrumental to the show, and so when you gloss this weirdness with a random "it's Gothic drama, who cares," you're missing the point entirely.
Like, Blair points out that Jack's gotten into Chuck's head again, and he responds by literally bullet-pointing the entire plot. "He has a point. She turns up out of the blue, doesn't know things about my father. And when she hears that Jack -- the only person who actually met my mother -- will be at the party tonight? She bails. Blair, she's supposed to be dead!" All true. But then the clop-clopping of Elizabeth's heels from the foyer -- which on this show is usually in hearing range of nothing, because they're up on each other all the time -- signals that she overheard it all.
So Blair jumps in and starts apologizing for the DNA test, and Elizabeth throws the whole "I shoulda known you'd never let me in, you're Bart's son," and bounces. And what's Chuck supposed to do? He's already ashamed in front of his mother, Charlie's got nothing to say. He tells Blair fuck it, they'll drop the sample off on the way, and she bounces and says she'll just meet him there. And GG is like, "everybody thinks Bass is an Ass," but like... This is only a problem because he thought of it this week? It's the first thing he should have done. If he didn't do it the second she showed up, you never should have brought it up, because now he looks dumb and everybody else looks like they're overreacting. And honestly, DNA results don't take five minutes, so you could have had this scene back when Elizabeth was jumping through the hundred other hoops and still have him get the results and play Jack's game in this episode. It's just such an uneasy mix of Now and this ineffable Then, which usually is the dynamite recipe of this show.
Lily tries, at the Historical Society, to get Serena to act human: Fail. Serena manages to call her a ho and say the amazing line, "Save your lies for your current husband" before running off to be mean to somebody else's mom. But luckily, Charlie appears! With that huge beautiful smile on his face once again! He throws his arms around his real-real mom, Lily, and thanks her for showing up and bringing UES society to the gala or whatever. She says none of them in this world believe the slander, and he's honestly moved and touched and delighted and wonderful. And I know part of it is the fishiness of Elizabeth partially making him treat her like a human being, but it's so, so gorgeous to actually see, because Lily and Charles have always had one of the healthiest relationships on this show and when they don't interact it makes me feel lonely. She pushes gently about Blair -- and the "someone else" she was hoping to meet -- but when he says he's flying solo tonight she nods, and breathes: So is she.
Nate approaches S and apologizes for "the way it sounded," which Serena clarifies: "That I was the concubine of the Upper East Side?" Yes, but no, and -- taking it as a given that he's a bigger whore than she could ever be -- he lists a million people he wouldn't have mentioned in front of Blair, from random guy to random guy to "the art teacher from Prague," and Serena bitches that she didn't sleep with all of those guys -- awesome! -- and that in fact some, if few or many, of them were locker-room boasters. Way to hedge, baby! Proud as proud, I am.
Nate points out that in the history of his virginity, he gave it to a person on a bar at the Campbell Apartment (and, needless to add, said person then engaged in an abortive webcam threesome and murder) who vanished immediately. She says that, as far as fucking on the bar in public, that reflects just as poorly on him as her, and gets her feminist ire up about this "twisted guy logic," but while her point is true this particular moment is problematic, as he stomps away: "Serena, I woke up the morning after I lost my virginity to find that the person I lost it to -- the person I loved -- had left town. Never to be heard from again for a year."
Never to be heard from, he says, for a year. So like, is that Nate being retarded? Or just more truly terrible writing?
Uncle Jack, with his goatee and his charming smile and complete lack of soul, strides right up to poor shocked Lily and shouts, "You look glorious! As always!" She looks like she's gonna hurl, so Rufus runs up and throws down. "Rufus, don't blow a gasket. I just came to offer my apology. Lily, I wasn't myself that night at the Opera Gala. I'd had a lot to drink, took some of those OTC pills they started keeping behind the counter recently. And some meth. Really, I was just in a bad place, but now I'm a changed man." The only thing more awesome than that speech is the cardboard-smile crazy with which he says it. The man is a charmer. Rufus is all, "You expect us to buy that?" and Jack is like,"Um, no? Stupid?" Rufus's manful response to the man who fully tried to rape his wife in an Opera House bathroom is to tell him to stay fifty feet away from them or else.
Lily and Rufus speed away from the scene of the Jack, and she's like, "Did you find the Symbolic Scarf yet?" And instead of apologizing and acting like a man for one single second, he does his usual "Let's go somewhere private."
Some elsewhere private, another Humphrey man has cornered Jenny, and she's like, "Shut up already." Dan calls her stupid and tells her she's sixteen and a girl and a dummy, and she goes, "Yeah, and when you were sixteen, you were in love with Serena, and everyone thought it was adorable." HA! Then Vanessa walks in, looking exactly the same as she always looks, which is beautiful, but the music goes crazy and the camera stutters all over itself and apparently that means she's "hot" right now, so Dan's boner goes over to say hello, and Vanessa is like, "This is a Friends Only Zone, and secondarily, I'm not wearing any underwear." Which is a dumb joke anyway, but one that turns gross and horrifying when it's Vanessa, with her crystal deodorant ways. Dan stares, they're still awesome no matter how much the show has lost its momentum with keeping them awesome.
Meanwhile, Jenny has been sitting unaccompanied for five seconds, so Nate with his sexy slicked hair instantly appears. "Go away traitor," Little J grunts, and he apologizes for calling Rufus and entrapmenting her and being the only person who could manage to fuck up a Serena Plan even worse than Serena, but Jenny's a "really special girl" who deserves a good guy. Jenny points out the glaring obviousness here, which is that the only person who will ever be taking her virginity is Nate and he's currently, for the moment, with Serena, so why even bother, and he explains about the mauling of S at the state dinner, which Jenny blows off so completely, but only on her way to Humphreying the accidental truth that Damien is a massive drug dealer.
I mean, possibly this is her way of begging Nate to save her from losing her virginity, because she tries that shit in this episode fifteen billion ways, but still comes off as a non sequitur. So Nate's like, "Um whaaa" and Jenny calls him a hypocrite because he's always doing drugs, and then -- as Damien appears, sealing the deal -- says the thing that I guarantee you will get you anything you want, at any time, with any boy: "Stop pretending that you care."
(I cannot stress this enough: That is the Key to fucking with boys, because it calls their entire universe into question. It almost feels unfair to say so, is how powerful that shit is. Every boy-- every boy in the whole school -- will fucking lose it if you say them. They are the Goblin King Striped-Cap Spell of Boys. That Groucho Crow drops from the sky with the Phrase That Pays hanging around its neck if you ever endeavor to say those words. Use them judiciously and be prepared for the consequences when they try to prove you wrong. Even if they were pretending to care before, or didn't even think about caring before, this will send them into a violent romantic fit of (500) Days Of Summer bullshit that can only be compared to the Viking Berserker Rage of yore.)
Damien arrives and Nate's makeup tells his makeup no way no how is he leaving with Jenny, and Damien's like, "But I am!" and then punching, and surprise, Nate goes down faster than he did at Chuck's last Lost Weekend, and Jenny runs off to get herself good and fucked. Daniel Humphrey shoves his secret girlfriend Vanessa out of the way, rushing to Nate's aid, and kisses every booboo, and Nate starts screaming about how Damien's a drug dealer, and Dan sort of cares, but mostly wants to make sure nothing happened to Nate's beautiful face.
Then everybody including Serena -- because I don't know if you noticed, but apparently the UES has regular meetings about Jenny's Womanhood and nobody finds it weird how they're all super-perseverating on her virginity to a fucked-up really weird degree -- goes running around trying to circle the virginity wagons and drive those wagons to Damien's hotel so they can... Act really weird and make Jenny feel even more burdened by and terrified for the totally natural thing she's been trying to get accomplished this whole time.
Shocker but the whole Rufus-fucking-Holland thing was just waffles all the way. "I guess a part of me wanted to even the score," Rufus says, savoring the only interesting part of the story, but then he -- duh -- couldn't go through with it. Why? Because he is a pussy. But really why? Because feelings, feelings, feelings. Lily doesn't even care about the unending poetic sentiments flowing out of his bangs, she just wants him to shut up and be her husband again. So once he tells her he loves her for the fiftieth time and inhales to tell her a hundred times more, she jumps in and says she loves him and kisses him to shut him up. Because surprise, they love each other and always have. Dan runs up to save us from this and tells him that Damien is a drug dealer, and Rufus shits and remembers how he used to care about that five seconds ago.
This Doug person runs up giving Chuck "that lawyer face" and acting all nuts about how even if people turned up tonight and even if the scandal is totally Chuck's clientele's catnip, they still have to hand it over. "We're getting attacked by Christian Conservatives," Doug whines, and Chuck goes, "We have those in Manhattan?" Nice. But no, the "Family Travel Council" is organizing a boycott, whatever, that's hilarious, and Doug finally levels that no matter what, Chuck has to appear to have taken leave. He suggests a family member take over operations of the board, and Jack materializes and offers his services, of course, and Chuck tells him to fuck himself, and Jack acts all creepy some more and talks about how Chuck stole Bass Ind. from him and thus Jack will find a way to steal Chuck Stuff from Chuck. "At least you know it's staying in the family," he says, which is de rigeur in one way, and sorta references Blair in another, but is mostly one of the fifteen red neon arrows pointing toward what's obviously going to happen and has been obvious since the second Chuck went to Bart's grave.
Nate tries to get them to let him into Damien Dalgaard's room at the Smythe, and they're not going to, but then he subtly lets the lady in on how Damien's got a sixteen-year-old girl up there. Specifically, the one Nate's destined to fuck, but this lady doesn't need to know that. Meanwhile, in what we think is that room but quickly understand is actually a room just upstairs, in the Empire Hotel -- a genius move to vanish Jenny and her virginity from beneath the eyes of everyone on the show -- Damien and Jenny get down to business. Nate gains entrance into Damien's old room and finds it as vacant as his own mind.
Blair approaches Chuck, post-Doug meeting -- and in the best dress of the evening, a beautiful hip-hugging red number and dripping tiered necklace -- and immediately knows something's wrong. Apparently the boycott is so real that he has to sign the hotel over to somebody immediately, according to Doug the lawyer. I don't know if we've mentioned him enough. So of course Blair is grossed out by Jack's offer to take over, and says she's willing to take it on -- marry her! -- but Chuck notes that "signing the hotel over to [his] nineteen-year-old girlfriend" wouldn't exactly calm people down. Blair suggests the obvious choice, Lily, but Chuck shakes his head: "She's Bass Industries. The last thing I want is my father's company bailing me out." Okay, valid. But then what? He's not sure, but of course right that second, the NYPD (Is it really? Whom can you trust? Money changes everything!) texts Chuck that Elizabeth is really his mother, and it's Charlie who says there's another choice.
Jenny lets Damien know, finally, after all his pushing and already knowing this obvious fact, that she's a virgin. He says it's "really not a big deal," and she pulls back -- sometimes being a Humphrey is a good thing -- and tries to reiterate that actually, um, it is a big deal. "I chose you," she says. I love how their entire relationship is her acting insane and badgering him into being her boyfriend and fitting into this fantasy she's built around him, and only then being like, "Earn it!" That's so Humphrey.
Damien asks her politely to shut the fuck up and let him fuck her, and she suggests again that this is a big thing, and he offers the compromise that they can talk about it "after," and the whole time he's making moves and rubbing his makeup all over the pillowcases, and finally she's grossed out and decides she doesn't want to do it, and he picks up his skirts and hightails it out of the immediately, tossing back how she's "just a kid." Which... He's been a prince this whole time, and fully tried to talk to her about the V card issue about seven times in this episode, he was above-board the whole time, so this whole about-face is kind of silly, but also totally real. Jenny cries and feels just terrible in every possible way, alone in the hotel room.
Everybody -- including Serena and Nate, I mean everybody -- has taken their finery to DUMBO for no reason at all, instantly, and they're sitting around the one room of the loft doing a reading of The Vagina Monologues all about Jenny's Flower, and it's totally weird, and the police are involved. Jenny comes in looking pissed as shit just as Rufus is getting Zen about her virginity, and she's like, "Guess what, we're not talking about it, and also Damien and I broke up." Rufus is like, "That's sad, but what about the state of your hymen?" Jenny tells then collectively and individually to shut the fuck up about her hymen and leave her alone, and they can just slip the waffles under the door. Everybody stares around and wonders what to talk about.
Serena goes to check on Jennifer and confirm for the eleventh time the state of her hymen, and Jenny pulls a total Jenny and goes, "We totally boned. And honestly I don't see what the problem was or why you were so worried about it. I'm hard and cold and my virginity means nothing." But after she's frozen S out, she puts in her earbuds and listens to "I've Had The Time Of My Life" like a million times and thinks about all the ways it could have gone, where he wasn't a total jerk and she totally did lose her virginity after all. Good for her. There is not a single damned person in that apartment who deserves to know what really happened, after the fucking focus group they put her body through today. Get a fucking hobby, you guys.
So Elizabeth is genetically Chuck's mother -- Or is she? Trust nobody! -- and he apologizes for how hard it constantly, always is for him to let people in, and E points out that he was abandoned as a child, so maybe this makes sense. He's like, "It's important for my emotional health to let people in, but mostly I need you to take over my hotel." She hems and haws and finally accepts, and signs the papers, and it's done. Fucking horror, obviously, in five, four, three...
CeCe calls Lily and tells her in no uncertain terms that it's been too long since she checked in with "the good Dr. van der Woodsen," and Lily begs her to quit with that, but CeCe begs harder, because vdDubs is the only person who can help with whatever it is. And given the oxy last week and the "headaches" she's getting, I can only assume that her ex-husband is the global authority on UES brain cancer, and that's why CeCe has been so complicit in forcing Lily to talk to him this whole time. Still doesn't explain the kissing part, but I'm sure we'll get there; I just think it's hilarious that Lily and Serena's dad would more likely be discussing a serious illness than their daughter, who meanwhile is gallivanting on horseback with her tits out begging either or both of them to pick up the phone and acknowledge her existence. Rufus appears and Lily lies about having to go see her mom at a spa or something, and Rufus says it's a good idea, and when she comes back they can clear the books and start fresh. And I'm as happy as she is to agree, but the look -- abject terror, pain, fear and shame -- that crosses her face when they're hugging and Rufus can't see it? Oh, that's bad. Not my Lily.
Worse than Headache Cancer is the dorking out of Dan and Vanessa, who stretch a tiny scene into an epic of awkwardness that basically amounts to a lot of meta hyper-talk about the Zones and the hiding and the how much they love each other. Even for my new favorite couple, this shit is abominable. Endpoint is, he agrees to tell people about them, and they fuck some more, and I just want to see Vanessa's zebra bra again.
Everything happens so fast but takes so long to talk about. The thing is, Nate shows up and apologizes to S. Not for calling her a whore, but for calling Rufus and letting her be possibly attacked. S totally goes, "No, it's okay. My plan was dumb anyway." Which is kind of ruining the joke, but whatever. She apologizes for running off that time they fucked before, and promises to never do that and disappear and run off and have a videotaped threesome and kill a man. Ever again. He promises the same, and they say they love each other in a meaningful way. (HA! Just kidding.)
But you know, somewhere Jenny's V-card is blinking a bright red light like, "Nope, Nate's the one, obviously, after three years we know that, so enjoy yourselves while it lasts. Tick tock." Which honestly: The amount of times people break up and get back together on this show, plus the amount of times Serena and Nate honestly forget what the fuck is going on at any given moment, he could cash that check Jenny wrote three years ago and be back to have "breakfast" with Serena before Little J went to school. Maybe before, if you add the way this show operates in the fourth dimension. Maybe he already cashed it and nobody knows yet.
Chuck comes home to Blair, who has put out champagne to celebrate: Chuck, opening his heart to Elizabeth, and Blair, for encouraging him to do it. Which is sweet, and central to their ongoing thing of being honest and open and loving like it's a party trick that hurts them every time they do it... But also means that when the massive shit comes down, Blair's going to be ever-more-implicated in whatever happens.
...Which is, obviously, the fact that Elizabeth and Jack and Doug the Lawyer are all in cahoots. And have themselves a hotel.
week: Agnes is back with roofies in hand, Georgina style, while I think Serena declares war on Uncle Jack. Everything was going so well until that last montage, too... I mean, besides for Jenny.
Check out the Gossip Girl pun index.