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Okay, so Elizabeth Fisher was in on the Jack plot not because he had anything on her, but because she was in love with him: Lame. After Chuck whines at her for awhile, she rethinks and gives Jack an ultimatum, thinking he'll just hand the Empire back to Chuck: Lame. Nate and Serena do another dumb plan that's not even worth talking about. She decides in the end to recapitulate history by leaving Jack even though he's into her (I think this is what happened, it went quite quickly) and once again saying she's not Chuck's mother... Even though she totally is!
Exhilarating to sit through, but mostly a relief this part of the story's over. I was getting whiplash from all the "is she/isn't she." And it still doesn't explain Bart's behavior for Chuck's entire life, or why the bitch was crying on that grave or what her point even is, but whatever: With Jack in possession of the Empire and Chuck and Blair coming like a speeding truck headed directly for his face, we should have some fun with the bit. Or at least not the constant recycling of old storylines with different characters that we've been doing since the hiatus.
Serena accidentally undermines Dan and Vanessa's relationship in a wicked yucky conversation over waffles about how to keep the romance alive by not falling into a rut. Immediately Mr. and Mrs. Rut are like, "We'd better act totally weird and do whatever Serena says," which I guess involves dressing up like Rear Window and making Vanessa's hair look presentable for once. Vanessa sucks out loud some more -- it's good to be home -- and they decide that suckiness is easier, so they crawl into her dorm bed and eat cabbage like the pointless fuckheads they are.
Rufus, brilliantly, gets Jenny a job working on Eleanor's fashion show, since she no longer responds to waffles or food of any kind. She brightens right up and starts dressing like a sea creature again, just in time for Agnes to show up and roofie her, then take her to some rape club where the rapists hang out. Nate uses spy technology to locate her, takes her home with no ill effects, she gets her old job back with Eleanor (because hey, she's 16 now and clearly won't flake out) and decides that she wants Nate again.
Speaking of whores, Blair doesn't have any friends so she hires Brandeis and 30 hooker friends to go to Eleanor's fashion show: Dumb (but an awesome callback to the Yigal Azrouël thing, which I only even know about because he's my favorite designer and it tangentially involved Kelly Cutrone). Eleanor is thinking of starting a diversion line with a Utah Mormon version of Walmart: Dumb. The conservative, family man head of the company -- are you seeing where I'm headed? -- freaks out, not because of the 30 working girls, but because, awesome, his usual NYC rent boy is there.
So Blair blackmails him into signing back on, but Eleanor ultimately gives up the idea once he starts talking about the hemlines and changing the label to reflect and inspire a poorer, more ignorant America. This bout of thineownselfitude inspires Blair to admit how unpopular she is at NYU, which Eleanor doesn't even care about; some tragic Columbia girls attack her at the show and she realizes she belongs at Columbia, where the awesomest people end up.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Everybody's doing fashion things.... At Eleanor's house? For real? With like Vampire Weekend playing. Doesn't she have her own atelier? Isn't that, in fact, how I learned the word "atelier"? Well anyway, Jenny looks nuts and probably that is because she is with Rufus Humphrey, who is talking about waffles and refusing to make brunch. This is to prove that he still has the sack despite slinking back to the UES after running away from home for all of two seconds. One instance of which, remember, he only ran away from the Penthouse. Didn't even leave the building.
Anyway, he just keeps saying "waffles waffles waffles" and Jenny's like, "I'm grounded! That means I can't go places with you!" and Rufus is all, "I still have no idea what 'grounded' really means so this week you're 'grounded' by going back to work at that place you worked at that time where you got convinced that you should get your GED in Fashion and we had that fight and I punished you by making you be homeless? And Daddy Warbuckses didn't grow on trees at least not trees that grew in Brooklyn?" Because waffles, just like all food, do not make Jenny happy. The only things that make Jenny happy are drug dealers, Nate, and fashion. So now we're going to Eleanor's, which even destructoid Jenny knows is a terrible idea.
Plus, Rufus goes, "I was talking to Serena, and she said that Eleanor is having something called a 'pop-up fashion show' for her new junior line." Rufus Humphrey saying that sentence is a host of problems. Inside, there are sketches and models and those same shots from a second ago, and Rufus smarming, and Jenny's like, "Oh right! FASHION!" And her heart grows three sizes so in order to maintain her found-in-the-forest-by-the-interstate look of lifelessness, she has to quickly put on three more coats of Maybelline's Laura Palmer Collection. I love how in Jenny's head Fashion = Looking Dead.
Blair is looking adorable and ancient in a frilly layered mess of an outfit, and talking stupid. "There's something about waking up on the day of a fashion show," she says breezily. "The smell of fresh pleats wafting through the city..." What the fuck do "fresh pleats" smell like? That steam fragrance? I hate it when Blair's talking goes like this. Anyway, she wants Chuck to come with her and smell pleats and have breakfast with Eleanor, but he can't, because he's having breakfast with his new mother. He smiles some more, and it's cute some more, and the great thing about his plan is how it doesn't involve eating breakfast with the person who gave you a raging eating disorder.
Blair's proud of Chuck for "opening up" to Elizabeth, and he loves how they trust each other, and how great she's doing "at the helm of the mighty Empire," as Blair says, and they talk about how they're going to have a perfect day, so of course right then eleven security guards show up like the Matrix. Blair loves them because she thinks of them as a private army, but once she's gone they get all flying monkey on Chuck about how he needs to vacate because Elizabeth is having him thrown out. Oh, there's that other shoe! If either Chuck or Blair were actually allowed to be happy for the length of an entire scene, the whole universe would shift out of whack and Serena would get a blemish and Nate would suddenly learn to read. Nobody wants that.
Over at Haus of Waldorf, which is actually her house, which still is pointless, Eleanor reminds us that she's a bitch. "My, look who's risen from the dead!" she cackles at Jenny, who's still dumb enough not to know what a total rank that was on her. She gives Eleanor some earnest goddamn Humphrey speech about how she promises not to run off with a model and get emancipated and set things on fire and have fashion shows on tables or whatever the fuck... Hey, didn't Eleanor like totally screw her last time and pretend those were her garments or something? Well, I'm okay with blaming Jenny if Eleanor's okay with blaming Jenny.
"Well, despite our troubled past, as I told your father, I am a firm believer in second chances. So I even rehired your friend!" Oh yeah, that would be Agnes. She shows up looking luxe and crazy as usual, and Jenny's all awkward and dead-looking, and Agnes lies and says she's got ninety days in AA, and Jenny opens and closes her mouth several times until finally Eleanor has to yell her name to snap her out of it. But like, Agnes got her revenge by setting fire to some dresses. And like, her Mom even got involved, right? How kickass is she really? How much of a supervillain could she possibly be? But the answer to that is, You have no idea. I think in this episode Agnes does the worst single thing anybody ever did on this show. Worse than when Carter Baizen took Nate to that poker game. Worse, even, than when Blair invited Rachel Carr to the opera. Certainly way worse than the infamous time Chuck Bass raped zero people.
Dan and Vanessa are back to being vomitous. I didn't think it would take this long to hate them again so in a way it's like coming home. Where they are doing it is in a hallway. What they are doing is getting queer about how they're going to finally blow everybody's minds with their affair and how they've turned Friends into Lovers and melded all the Zones into one sticky free-for-all. What is actually going to happen is that nobody is going to care -- except for maybe Rufus, for one gross reason or another -- and that Serena and Nate are going to laugh their asses off about it in private and talk about how Dan and Vanessa are the JV of them in all ways. Why this non-reaction will happen is that Dan and Vanessa are only interesting to Dan and Vanessa, but even for them -- as we shall see -- it's sort of a chore to care. But guess what? Serena can "read" Nate's "mind" so she already knows that Friends have become Lovers, and she thinks it's... Stupid, but also great, but also sort of inevitably tragic. Rufus goes, "Speaking for everyone else, I think it's great." I hate his ass so much. And then they go eat a bunch of fucking waffles.
Where Eric van der Woodsen is: Japan. What he is doing there: Japanese dudes. What part of that I made up: Zero. It is actually the truth, I could never think something like that up because Japan gives me the fuckin' creeps.
Okay, so the Sam Walton analogue of a Walmart analogue based in SLC is named Mr. Conwell. He sounds like somebody who would tie you to the traintracks if you can't pay the rent, but really he is just your usual closeted rich white man who legislates against his own interests because he has bought into the System and lives a hollow lie and has a wide stance. As you know, these men are like truffles to Blair's giant truffle-scenting pig. She takes down at least three a season, because she loves her dad and it's this whole thing. So why we're talking about him is that he is coming to see the show, because Eleanor is thinking about going low-market with her juniors selections. Blair pretends she doesn't even recognize the name of Conwell's, although Dorota is all over it; Blair was already ready to be grossed out just by Bloomingdale's but this is a whole new thing. Eleanor throws epigrams like Auntie Mame: "My dear, high-end has fallen on hard times!"
Blair's finally like, this is awesome, "Where Bristol Palin shops?" I know, right? There's only one store Bristol shopped at that I want to shop at, and that's... I failed to land this joke. I think I started off weird. I can't think of any sexy words having to do with shopping that I... Basically you can sketch in whatever details but the idea was to have a hilarious joke in here about having sex with Levi Johnston all over the place. And instead, meh. Eleanor's not got that problem, though: "Feed the masses, eat with the classes!" Eleanor is just straight up nuts now. She talks about her "usual crowd of uptown socialites and boho fashionistas" -- which who the fuck says that, in any context at all, or ever would -- and then she says she wants to have wholesome American girls, like the kind Walmart likes to pretend shop at Walmart. Like, apparently, Blair's friends from NYU. Thirty of them, in fact, so they can camouflage Eleanor's usual crowd of uptown socialites and boho fashionistas.
After two and a half years can I finally admit to you that I find Dorota annoying? Anyway, she's pregnant, she speaks in broken English, she makes a Metallica reference. It's all quite droll. But what's this? Blair has no friends! To whom will she turn? Is it possible that putting out word that a huge fashion show is happening and the girls from the dorm are totally welcome to attend would help? Is it possible that by martialling Serena's popularity and PR contacts, or Vanessa's endless vegetarian and homosexual hangers-on, she could scrounge up thirty people? No. No, clearly she needs to make sub rosa contact with the secret underground network of prostitutes that live in the NYU dorms and spend 300*30 = between nine and thirty grand on them, and then have thirty hookers infiltrate a Walmart sales pitch to save her mother's company. That's the ONLY POSSIBLE THING SHE CAN DO.
Elizabeth shows up and gets a bunch of yelling from Chuck, and then Jack jumps like out of her shadow or something and starts being all goatee in his face about how he's been played -- "From the very beginning!" -- and it's totally cheesy and dumb. Jack is moving into Chuck's suite. I can only assume he is going to retain possession of Nate Archibald as well. Actually, since the entire show now lives in this one apartment, it's not just Chuck getting evicted. But hey, since nobody who actually lives at Lily's lives at Lily's, maybe they can all crash there. I hear they got waffles.
Serena fake-smiles her way through a grindingly horrible conversation with Vanessa, "accidentally" pointing out how soul-crushingly boring it must be to date another version of your own horrible self. She's like, "With me and Nate it's so great because all we have to do is wait ten seconds and then the little plastic castle is once again a surprise!" She's like, "We wore ourselves out chasing balls around Central Park last week. I throw, he fetches, and then we really mix it up." She's like, "Sometimes we spin around until we fall down. Once I held my breath until I passed out! I saw stars!" She's like, "Have you tried having sex with all the food in the refrigerator yet? We're so jaded sexually, having just gotten out of high school ten minutes ago." By the end of this whole ordeal, Vanessa is convinced that she and Dan are the ruttiest rutters who ever backed down from a fight. Hello, she can't even play the threesome card because Serena's threesome included a MURDER.
Vanessa's like, "We try new things all the time!" But she can't think of any, because they don't except whatever's playing at the fuckin' Angelika and that's not up to them. Serena invites them to the pop-up fashion show and Dan's buzzkill boner pops up and his cute little face pops up and he nixes that idea for no reason, and then Vanessa's like, "No, it's exotic and fucked up!" And Dan's like, "No, it's lame. Lame like us." And Vanessa feels a feeling she hasn't felt since Serena beat her at Guitar Hero back when our hearts were still unbroken. And she realizes she needs to get freaky-deaky, or else... I'm not sure what. She's scared of something but I don't know what. Last week they were like, "It's like we're married! I have settled!" And this week Vanessa's like, "We have to bring the romance back!" I'm not sure what she thinks will happen if they don't. She'll notice that she's dating Dan Humphrey? That's a waking nightmare, true. And if she doesn't distract him with her kooky plans he might notice her hair.
Agnes is a bitch to Jenny for about five seconds so Jenny pulls yet another bullshitty Humphrey speech of sincerity and apology and victimhood out of her ass and Agnes pretends to be contrite and the only way you can tell is that she goes, "I missed you, bitch!" Which is writer code for "this girl is evil." Jenny ignores a call from Damien and Agnes is like, "Hey bitch, what's your bitchy situation?" Jenny explains that she accidentally dated a forty-year-old drug dealer, and Agnes retardedly goes, "The Sid to your Nancy, that's awesome." The what to your who now? Sid and Nancy, those well-known drug dealers, from the writing staff that brought you: "Never to be heard from again. For a year."
Jenny's like, "I wouldn't fuck him, but I'm not giving him back his pills." Okay, that's pretty awesome. I can respect that.
Agnes goes, "Hey bitch, give me your bitchy phone!" And then calls Damien and says, "Come to the pop-up fashion show for some pills!" What's she doing? Agnes explains that what will happen is, Damien Dalgaard will come to the pop-up fashion show and Jenny will wave the bag in front of his face and then flush it down the toilet. What this accomplishes is: Nothing. Unless you count enraging a drug dealer at your place of business. What Jenny thinks of this plan: "I'll admit that's actually kind of brilliant." In what way? What, again, does it solve? Beyond wasting pills and bringing Damien back into your life in a violent scary way, what does that do? Nothing. Jenny, go eat some more lipstick. Agnes, what do you have to say about all this? "We're total bitches!" That's right, bitch. This is a plan so dumb even Serena and Nate would think twice about it, you're real hardcore.
Vanessa approaches Serena for spiciness advice and Serena immediately proves that she was being a jerk before by going, "Vanessa, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't make you feel..." Like, just to make sure we're on the same page: You know I'm the alpha dog, right? Right. Vanessa all of a sudden is too good for noodles and movies, and wants to do something special. Dan Humphrey does not deserve this much effort. I mean, the amount of effort it took to head Serena off at the waffles and ask her mushmouth to explain sex to you, not even that much effort. Nate bounds up all, "Two words! Roleplay!" (One word: ROLEPLAY. One word.) Which would be more of that dorky thing this show does about sex, except it's Nate, so you know what he means: Serena straps on that purple necktie and just goes to town.
Speaking of gay, here's Serena's helpful idea: "Why don't you do a date night inspired by one of his favorite films?" First of all, No you didn't. Nobody has ever said those words out loud. Second of all, Don't tell Vanessa Abrams shit like this, because she's going to get more involved in the lighting concept and the whatever than she is the very simple truth that having sex with teenage boys is not this difficult. It's literally what they were built for. Third of all, Dan's favorite "films" are guaranteed to be idiotic. So you've got pretentious Vanessa unlocking the mental secrets of pretentious Dan so that she can please him sexually which earns her... What, exactly? The same five minutes of wheezing -- followed up abrupt, mysterious tears -- as if she just snaked her hand down his trousers over takeout like she was going to do before she started listening to Serena. This, even in this stupid episode, this is dumb. I mean, it's not like Serena needs a bunch of bells and whistles either.
Nate gets a text from Chuck as they're all wrapping up this stupid sex scheme about how his mother has betrayed and evicted him, so Nate and Serena run off to "help." Meanwhile, Jenny has... Not been working on Eleanor's pop-up fashion show, I guess, and has instead created a new garment out of thin air that is of such quality that Eleanor will be closing her show with it and offering Jenny a job again. This is so fucking stupid I can't stand it! Some random evil fashion girl named KALI, okay, brings the drugs from Little J's house, but now Jenny doesn't want to do the stupid pointless plan with Damien, and Agnes is like, "That's okay, bitch."
"It would appear we've all been players in a Jack Bass plot," Chuck explains, talking like people talk in real life. "The reappearance of my mother, the lawsuit... It's all been part of an elaborate ruse to get me to sign over my hotel to Elizabeth. You have to admire his handiwork." Everybody furrows their brows but nobody does it quite like Chuck. They sit silently furrowing for awhile, and then I guess Chuck figures that the plan is to bankrupt the Empire and then sell its deflated self to some vultures. So the good guy plan has to be to work Elizabeth and make her sign the hotel back over to him, because obviously Jack is blackmailing her or something.
Chuck runs off to scheme, and Nate and Serena have a whole conversation recapping the last few episodes of this ridiculous storyline, and even though they are informing each other of facts that they already know, it still seems like they are learning and growing as they share the facts with each other. Blair tells them to shut up and stop thinking and sharing facts and bothering Chuck, because that's her whole personality now, and then she runs off about how she has thirty friends coming.
Serena laughs at Nate's confusion because obviously Blair doesn't have any friends, but where Nate seems honestly interested in finding out what she means, Serena could care less because obviously it's going to be nuts and hilarious. Meanwhile, Dorota is annoying some more and negotiates thirty whores with Brandeis while standing in the middle of the hallway at NYU. Brandeis is like, "No prob!"
Even though they're inside somebody's house, Agnes offers to "watch" Jenny's "stuff" while she does fashion tasks, and Jenny doesn't find that questionable at all, so when the other evil fashion girl hides behind a rack of fashion and wocka-wockas her shoulders at Agnes and they do a whole heist caper routine with their eyebrows and then Agnes does the shifty eyes and yanks the pills out of Jenny's purse and even goes, "Like taking candy from a baby!" you can't even feel sorry for Jenny, because Agnes is nuts and can only drink Vitamin Water and destroy things. That's her whole personality. She will burn your creative garments and get you drunk with sketchy photographers and make you do lesbian bra dances. That's what she's got to offer. "Watch my purse" is not on that list.
Blair reiterates for the Blondie Twins that they need to leave Chuck alone and just look pretty, and then they spot Brandeis. So first Serena goes, "How's Congressman Wade?" Which is dumb, because hello, you were just whoring it up with a senator like last week. So not a burn. What Brandeis says is gross -- "He's polling very well these days" -- but what I would have said is, "Well, he hasn't smashed my face in during any car crashes or left me to the literal wolves lately, so that's going all right. How is dating your married boyfriend's gay younger cousin?" Brandeis gets in one more attempt at repartee ("Got it, Blair. We're closed for businessmen") and runs off to be with her hos. Serena points out how stupid this whole thing is, and Blair huffs off all, "Prostitutes are people, too. And they have a lot of disposable income!" Well, now that you mention it, this storyline isn't completely retarded. You've got me there.
Vanessa looks really pretty dressed as Rear Window. Dan apparently went home to the loft and fell asleep with a band of light precisely across his eyes, like Anjelica Huston in The Addams Family and just took a little nap right there, as though he knew shit was about to get noir. (Why, for real, would you put this much effort in? I mean, he's already at that stage you want your boyfriend: Broken in. Broken period. Like, romantically unambitious. Willing to leave you alone so you can do your stuff. Not making you listen to dumb bands or read some comic book or watch him play a video game or go outside in nature with his stoner friends. Perfectly devoid of romantic aspirations. Ready to be a team, not an event.) She calls him "Daniel" and she's wearing gloves and huge fake eyelashes and Florence + The Machine is playing and she whispers all kittenish and... I don't know, this just looks like a different kind of rut. A super sad one. Kathy Bates in a dress made of Saran Wrap.
Surprise! Agnes is not actually in recovery, she's handing out Little J's pills to everybody and being totally breezy about it. Jenny gives her some bullshit about it, and Agnes goes, "What are you gonna do? Waltz up to Eleanor and tell her that your drug dealer dumped your virgin ass, and now the rest of her models are high on his stash?" You don't know Jenny, bitch. She will totally do that and somehow it will work out. She will take that clutch full of pills and throw it on the floor and be like, "These are my drugs, everybody! Mine!" And somehow she will get a gift certificate out of that situation.
Jenny says that ever since she was reminded of fashion in the absence of waffles a few hours ago, she wanted to change her life. And giving drugs to a teen model was part of that change. But now that the teen model is giving those drugs to other models, things are spiraling out of control. So she tries to tell Eleanor, who doesn't fucking have time for more Humphrey shit right now, and ignores Jenny's pleading puling sincerity, and over in the corner Agnes is so grossed out/personally insecurified by the "I want to change my life" speech that she's like, "See that girl over there? Let's overdose her on drugs and get her raped." And the stylist is like, "That's hilarious. We're total bitches!"
Some of the drivers at the Empire are still loyal to Chuck, including the driver that has delivered Elizabeth to a secret Chuck meeting. He offers her money first, but she doesn't want money, and so it must be blackmail, but it's not that either: She's just so very much in love with Jack, which is so retarded you might think this is another layer of lies that we'll uncover later, not that this story makes any sense at all, but this part is true. How come is that he understands her and doesn't judge her. Maybe she's referring to the weird way she talks. She says that underneath the sexual violence and criminal impulses, under even that nasty wispy goatee, lies a kind and loving man. This is so... Stupid.
And meanwhile gorgeous beautiful Chuck is acting his ass off about how Jack is incapable of love, and that he's using Elizabeth, and that a "kind and loving" person wouldn't do this to a child relative, and she goes, "When we started the game, I told myself that you were just a stranger. But I didn't know how much I'd come to care for you." Whatever, this is dumb and we're not wasting time on it. He tells her like ten times to stop being stupid and give back the hotel, and even though she's already signed it over to Jack like a total dumbass she doesn't tell Chuck this, just sniffles and has a scarf some more and talks in her fucked up accent all about how she and Jack love each other and whatever.
Chuck calls Nate at the pop-up fashion show to fill him in on the latest ridiculous twist in his storyline, and Nate's so thrown by it that he can barely laugh about Blair hiring hookers for the fashion show. Which is of course not very self-aware of him, considering he's a bigger whore than all thirty of those people put together. Then he has an idea and tells Chuck to get Jack to come to the pop-up fashion show. This has Classic Nate and Serena Plan written all over it.
Dan and Vanessa have a fight about literally nothing and Vanessa cooks up some major attitude out of literally no ingredients, and then Rufus walks in and goes, "You're on a date! I better stand here awkwardly until you invite me on your date!" So Vanessa does. Why? Because Dan's an asshole. Even Dan is confused at this point. I mean, you know what I mean. Like he was in the scene and still doesn't know what happened in the scene. Because that's how awful Vanessa Abrams really is.
Blair, charming Mr. Walmart: "Don't you just love the line? Everybody looks good in it. Even the people who shop in your store!" Heh. He tries to ignore that one, but then informs the young daughter of his business associate that he's not going to be signing anything because of how there are hookers at the fashion show. Thereby proving that he is a user of prostitutes and invalidating his whole point, but whatever. Conservative hypocrisy, it's real! You've nailed the side of the barn, elitist intellectuals!
Backstage, they slip Jenny a champagne glass with lots of pills in it and she gets woozy. The camera does stupid shit while Agnes gets up in her face and makes hilarious faces whilst wearing a droog hat and giving a whole scary/crazy speech about how Jenny killed her dreams that time last season when Agnes kept acting like a crackhead in every business meeting and refusing to help in any way. So now her payback for that will be one thousand torments.
The Blondie Twins aim Uncle Jack, who has arrived at the pop-up fashion show, at some prostitutes. That's literally their plan: Shove him in the direction of whores and see what happens.
Rufus Humphrey, you bastard: "Vanessa, this is fantastic. I didn't realize you made flan!" How do these people get through one fucking day without just committing suicide?
Then he asks if Vanessa did something to her hair, I guess because it doesn't look like she barfed in it and then slept on it for once, and she responds by running out of the loft altogether, because she is a lunatic. Rufus totally goes, "Son, I have to tell you, this date is a disaster!" Then he clears things up like so: "She's Vanessa, you're Dan. You guys are best friends!" Thanks for parenting once again, Rufus. You can go back to your roll-necked naptime now. Thanks also for not saying the word waffles even one time in this scene.
"You whore and a half!" Blair says to Brandeis, which I don't even know what that means, and then yells at her for not keeping it in her pants. Brandeis goes, "I didn't cruise Mr. Conwell," and explains that actually it's rentboy Julian that is Mr. Walmart's standing reservation. Brandeis apologizes for how nobody thought there would be clients at this soiree -- Because who on earth in the fashion industry would be shallow enough and have enough disposable income to buy Congress-level tail? Besides like everyone in the fashion industry? -- but now that Blair knows that Mr. Walmart is in her Gay Daddy's Gay Daddy Club, she apologizes for her rudeness to the whore and a half and runs off to blackmail him to death.
In a similar plot, Nate and Serena are standing around outside Uncle Jack's limo, where he is chilling with some hookers, and they're about to photograph them so they can show the pictures to Elizabeth and then she'll sign the hotel over to Chuck again, but they have to be smart and quick about it because they only have one shot. And before you ask, no, I'm not psychic. The reason I know all of this is the laborious fucking conversation Serena and Nate just had about all this information, as yet again they explain the plot to each other in the smallest words possible. I could get used to this. But oh, Nate and Serena Plan, once again you are wrong! Uncle Jack isn't having sex with the hookers, he's discussing sustainable energy with them! Wily!
I can't believe this episode is still happening. So once again their plans have been smashed by plot contrivances even stupider than their stupid plans, but Nate stares into space just long enough that Agnes, the deeply woozy Little J, and a whole passel of fashion bitches wander into his field of vision. Agnes tosses Little J into a taxi like a ragdoll so they can go get her raped, and the entire gaggle of girls gets into the car with them, and it takes juuuuust long enough that the synapses fire in his brain just as they're driving away and he realizes he recognizes Jenny Humphrey from all those times she's made him be in her storylines out of sheer willpower.
Meanwhile Gossip Girl, who in an episode this dumb we knew was automatically going to be saying stupid shit, goes, "Uh-oh! Looks like somebody better call the fashion police!" if that tells you anything about the tenor of her rhetoric this week.
"Is this where the bachelor party is?" Agnes asks the usual crowd of uptown socialites and boho fashionistas, and the bachelors hoot and holler and squeeze each other's delts and bump fists and chests and go aooooga and stick out their tongues and make v's with their fingers and then lick the cleft between their fingers and then mime masturbation on themselves and each other and finally Agnes just throws Little J into the general mass of them and tells them to rape her to death and then... Totally peaces. I can't believe that was her plan! What a mean plan!
So Mr. Walmart has been successfully blackmailed. Except he wants to move the hemlines down and the necklines up and to flatter the countenance and to change the name of the line because wearing "Eleanor Waldorf" sounds like you know how to fucking read, and that's uppity and not "real." He actually does say the word "uppity." And instead of suggesting that his entire inbred hick company either learn to read or kill themselves for the good of the world, Eleanor just says she's not interested in doing business with his white trash company after all. "Manhattan is an island in more ways than one. What works for you and yours doesn't necessarily translate to me and mine." Uh huh. Time was, I used to feel guilty about that. Now I'm just proud of it.
So things get really dumb and Blair is like, "You were so brave to tell Mr. Walmart to go back to being trash and get the hell off your island that I want to be brave too and tell you that I don't have any friends, because I'm harsh and off-putting and don't really have a personality this season." Eleanor could give a fuck, obviously, and feels sorry as usual for the spazzing of her daughter, and for some reason even laughs off the whole part about the prostitutes like it's just some kind of funny sitcom situation, which it basically is, and she says that Waldorf Women are special because they don't fit in everywhere, and Blair says she doesn't fit in anywhere, and Eleanor says not to worry about it, because the thing with Eleanor has always been that she's really cool about this stuff while being really uncool about things that usually go along with this stuff, but I'm not going to think about it overmuch because this episode bloooows.
Turns out none of the bachelors are man enough to rape the sixteen-year-old girl barfing on the couch of the night club, except for this one guy. And the other guys are like, "Don't you do it! Don't you rape that child!" and he's like, "Okay I won't, but just kidding!" And they're like, "You scamp! But seriously don't! But we're going to leave you alone with her even though you've just threatened to attack her like five times!" And he's like, "Don't worry about it!" While this is going on, Nate is using foursquare to find Jenny, because apparently they are both serious dorks.
Dan and Vanessa: They were Friends, then Friends With Benefits, then there were Zones, and now they are Lovers. Remember how we already knew that? Now they know too. So Dan's going to take Vanessa on a super romantic date that will: A) Acknowledge and allay her fears about their relationship? B) Prove the level of his commitment and excitement about their future, thereby eliminating the need for her insecurity? Or C) Be the same thing he's been saying all episode, which is that nothing needs to change because he says so, and Dan is always right because girls are just stupid, and then she'll offer to give him a blowjob and the problem will be solved?
The answer is C.
So Elizabeth drops by to see Chuck for no real reason, but she does feel like telling him that she already signed over the hotel, because she is an idiot, but then it gets murky because she gave Jack an ultimatum -- her or the hotel -- and he turned her down (lie) and also, she's not actually Chuck's mother (lie) so she's leaving town forever (hope to God). Poor Chuck's whole face unzips and his brain comes spilling out like the end of Manchurian Candidate as he realizes this whole storyline was absolutely pointless and he just did all those acting calisthenics for no reason. It's very sad.
Andy is the funny rapist at the rape club that Agnes knows about. So Nate shows up having located Jenny, punches some randos out, punches Andy out, tosses Jenny over his shoulder, and carries her all the way to PRADA. Upstairs, her main issue is hoping that Rufus doesn't notice how she's totally OD'd on pills and barely standing. As though she has not met her dad. Of course Rufus is like, "Young lady you're ten minutes late" or whatever, as she's rocking back and forth on her pins and looking like she's about to barf and fall asleep and die all at the same time, but she maintains and gets through it and tells him she loves him and they thank Nate and Nate tries to leave, but then forgets to.
S is so proud of B for finally telling Eleanor about the situation where she doesn't have a bunch of friends at NYU. Remember? That huge problem that only exists in this stupid episode? Right then, a bunch of cute girls from Columbia run up and slobber all over her, because they are old fans from the Gossip Girl days before whatever happened that time Serena declared war on GG, and Blair loves it! Attention! Adoration! She fixes somebody's headband, because headbands are the waffles of Blair, and again with the Louboutins, and now I guess she's going to transfer to Columbia. Which is such a good idea because school has always been such an important part of this show and I really like to know where everybody's matriculating and what their schedule is like for when we... Completely ignore all of those things.
Nate brings Jenny her purse and the most effective scene in the entire episode happens. She's staring at the floor on the edge of her bed looking like the ghost of a tragedy and you can't even see her face and she goes, "What's wrong with me?" Like, everything. Nate goes full-on sweet big brother (not like related, more like in the Greek system) and tells her she's going to be fine because look at him: Once he was a hooker and now he's dating Serena van der Woodsen. Jenny starts to slide into depression but then she gets a text from Eleanor offering her a job despite the fact that she is sixteen years of age and was drunk and high and gave all the models pills at the pop-up fashion show. And Nate's like, of course he understands how all the angst and drama just melts away in the face of ADD. They hug, and Jenny remembers how she wants to bone him, and somewhere Serena shivers and doesn't know why. Girl, you need to increase your life insurance coverage or run away with Carter again or something, because Jenny will burn down the Palace Hotel with you in it.
Literally: Dan and Vanessa sit on her gross dorm bed and eat cabbage pierogies. Just the usual crowd of uptown socialites and boho fashionistas. Dan explains to Vanessa that they're doing the same things they always do, but plus fucking, and she reiterates that Friends With Benefits is the name of that, not Lovers, and he says that no, it counts because he gets to call her his Girlfriend, which for boys like him is the only reason girls actually exist. (Also in this conversation, Vanessa interrupts to repulsively nitpick him on what is obviously intended hyperbole. Dreadful girl.) "Humphrey, you just earned yourself some extra benefits," she says for no reason at all, after he's said the same thing he's been saying the entire time, and then they kiss with pierogi-mouth but it's okay because you know those dirty bitches only have one toothbrush anyway. And it's probably Olivia's that she left behind.
GG: "A few lucky ladies [Serena] can do no wrong: Their look's perfection, and they've got accessories to match... But most girls [Jenny] get tired of the same old look, and they'll do just about anything to get the hot new piece [Nate, obvs] on their arm... And then there are those [Jack] with no vision of their own. Thieves of fashion who'll steal the shirt off your back!"
Thieves of fashion, ladies and gents. So Jack is in the Empire looking down on the people -- they "really do look like ants," he muses -- and asking Elizabeth to reconsider leaving him, but she says she... Wait, so she gave him the ultimatum and he really chose her, but then... Wait, but then why... So he chose the hotel but she... Almost had it. Okay, he chose her... No. He chose both, I guess, but neither of them could remember how ultimatums work, so then they had a redo and he chose the hotel, but she -- okay, got it -- that was the ultimatum: He chose the hotel and still wants her. Is willing to buy her off, even. But she wants to start over and "try to be the person [she] forgot."
Which I am all for, if that person A) talks like a human being, B) acts like a rational goddamn person who could exist in this world by even a slim margin, C) had one consistent story and stuck to it, D) didn't expect me to believe for a second that Jack Bass, the rapiest person of all time, could possibly fool her into thinking he was okay, E) didn't undo and unravel Chuck's entire storyline throughout the entire series, to the point where Jack being Chuck's father is suddenly the least stupid thing, and the only thing that could actually make sense of this hash. But I'm thinking that's the person we all forget. "I'll warn you," Jack intones, "You're taking off just when it's about to get fun!"
Gee, because whenever the show tells us how much fun we're having, it's always not never wrong. So Chuck goes home to Blair, and they get into a scheming and evil makeout sesh about taking down Jack, and curl around each other like snakes, and it's totally hot. XOXO.
Tonight: Games of Assassin, Jenny goes after Nate, and I think maybe the unthinkable happens. Again.
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