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Well, Blair and Chuck are still on the outs, but that doesn't stop him from coming to the Waldorfs' -- where I guess everybody in the entire Upper East Side now lives -- to throw Dorota and Vanya a big shotgun wedding. Which is sweet, but devolves out of Dorota being annoying in like ten new ways, and then everybody being annoying and patronizing as usual toward her, but at least Cyrus Rose is back. He tells Eleanor to stop treating Dorota like a favored pet and start treating her like family, which has the desired effect but also makes Eleanor realize on some level that she broke Blair as a child.
Blair's not convinced, although a discussion with Dan Humphrey about how horrific and soulless she is does the trick. If you ever need to feel terrible about yourself, Dan's your man. Even though Blair has decided it's partially her fault, Nate is so appalled by the whoring that he breaks up with Chuck. If anybody's going to sympathize with an accidental prostitute, it is Nate Archibald. This breaks Chuck's heart, but then luckily B decides to get back together with him, because they are the only people on Earth horrible enough to love each other. Then at the last second B freaks out and decides that she is only his Corpse Bride and that in fact it's possible for her to become a better person without him.
If ever there were an episode to discover this truth, though, it's this one: Every single person around them is also disgusting. Lily's not with CeCe, obviously, but Rufus finally figures that out. And Serena's having secret meetings again with Carter Baizen, who has located her Dad in Palm Beach, but instead of being straight with Nate she runs around behind his back looking for vdDubs even though they had their cathartic moment of deciding Dad didn't matter awhile back, because she doesn't want him to think she doesn't respect his critical thinking skills.
S has some fight with Carter and ends up flying to Palm Beach alone, where once again she finds her mom chilling in vdDubs's hotel room. Back in the UES, Jenny -- when not being condescending about Eric's new bisexual boyfriend Cute Elliot -- takes all the liberties she can to make S look as bad as possible, but really the mistake most people are making here is in assuming that Nate even remembers when things happen.
week: Chuck decides to break Serena and Nate up so that he can have Nate back; Jenny is on board with that plan; maybe we meet Dr. van der Woodsen?
Check out the Gossip Girl pun index for this episode.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Black and white Blair's asleep in a noir universe with '50s music playing, under Chuck's painting. She's wearing that Matthew Williamson dress this show is so damned fond of. Three Matrix guys, hotel employees, come into the bedroom, and she screams and they they're acting on "boss's orders," and then manhandle her out of the room while she screams Chuck's name. A second later, Chuck comes running into the room and finds the dress in a pile, and screams "NOOOO!" It's all very dramatic, and of course it's Chuck's noir dream, because he is also a crazy person like Blair and now we have proof. He wakes up screaming, only to remember that the nightmare is all too real. Meanwhile Blair is in bed at Chez Waldorf, all alone and sad.
Chuckles comes out looking for booze, but the Blondes have apparently hidden all the liquor and will now cure him very seriously with this thing they've discovered called coffee. Chuck, looking at your chest hair is like a whiff of Tom Ford's taint. Shut it down. He's wearing black pajamas because everything is so sad, and the Twinsies are all about how he needs to stop moping and make up with Blair, and he's so bored of them and they're so boring and it's so clear they don't really care about any of this that he just goes downstairs to get some booze from the hotel he owns that they're all running around in their pajamas all the time, because these people are all alcoholics with too much downtime and their parents are even more poorly behaved than they are.
Denied, the Twinsies stare at each other for a while and try to remember what is happening, and then S sends Nate off to bother Blair while she has "breakfast with the Humphreys," which is code for "something stupid that Nate could care less about, but matters only because Serena lies constantly for no actual reason."
Meanwhile, Chez Waldorf, Dorota's yelling something in her racist language that's really getting on Eleanor's nerves. (Understandable. Especially since the screaming and hanging up makes no sense with what follows.) Cyrus's equanimity, though, is unbothered, because apparently he's had a stroke or did a huge rail that causes him to scream everything he says with a giant grin and act like everything that happens is the most exciting goddamn thing that's ever happened. What's going on is that annoying Dorota's annoying mysterious parents are coming to New York, and she hasn't married Vanya, even though from here you can see that she is clearly eleven months pregnant.
Instead of asking Dorota what she's been doing all this time instead of marrying the guy -- and wouldn't her mysterious rich parents be just as annoyed that she got secretly married as secretly knocked up? -- Cyrus screams at such a volume something having to do with vodka and her Polish parents. She says that it is more likely that they will kidnap her than accept things, which is I guess what happens in the Eastern Bloc, and he doesn't even care about the answer because he's so high that he screams NATE! when Nate walks in, even though they've never met. I think Cyrus is on E, that's what they're like. Or maybe this new drug "Twelve."
Nate is nervous around strangers, especially gregarious older men with lisps, because of his sordid history of accidental prostitution, so he tries to jet upstairs immediately. But first Eleanor has to do some shit that I cannot countenance. First, she compares her daughter to Howard Hughes, which is like a Golden Girls punchline, and then she goes, "I hope you can make some headway with her. I am not allowed to cross the transom!"
Now, I don't know if you noticed, but I sort of fucking hate this show these days, and this kind of thing is exactly why. It has been going on too long. It used to be that Blair spoke eloquently, and knew what words meant, and had her usage ducks in a row. But at some point -- she was the first to fall -- she started misusing idioms and fucking up phrases almost as bad as Gossip Girl herself, who has always sounded retarded. And Nate has tossed us some doozies over the years, but the more he talks the more he fucks up. came Serena, whose mushmouth may have previously been hiding some egregious shit, but I don't think it was: I think this show just got dumb. Like real dumb, on a line-by-line level.
Soap operas are trashy for a lot of reasons, but I would say the number one reason is class: Not how people of a given class actually are, but the way people of a much lower class think they are. Shoulder pads and pool fights might be fun for some people, but I didn't have time for that shit when I was a kid and I really don't have time for it now. And at some point, this show went from being about one thing to being about the other, in the exact same way that "Tiffany" as a name, for example, started on Park Ave., did some shows at a mall, and now fifty years later is a stripper's name. This show is well on her way.
And these obvious word choice issues, which have gotten more intense every episode this season, are a big red flag. The transom is the window at the top of the door, not the threshold. The threshold is called "the threshold." You fucking idiots. And a real writer would know that, because where we get the whole point of "over the transom" comes from unsolicited scripts being tossed through the window at the top of the door. It's a word only a writer would use, and one only an unnervingly stupid writer would misuse.
I'm not saying this particular word is like a huge deal with me, because it is in fact common fucking knowledge, but this exact type of trashy misuse of language and continual dropping of the editorial bar seems indicative of the general newfound shittiness of the show. Even Rachel Carr spoke fucking English above a high school level. And it makes me nervous and very angry, because The O.C. and Ugly Betty both had eerily similar arcs: The first season was amazing, the second season was lovable, the third season somehow ended up written by a committee of trailer park romance enthusiasts with half a dictionary between them, and then both shows came back for a roaringly excellent fourth season, which nobody watched. This is becoming a trashy show, FUBU trashy people, and that is not something I need in my life. Why not just cut to the excellence, and leave out the endangerment/clutch play part altogether? Why not go straight to the Chester Ches and Taylor Townsends and Mini Coopers without first having to deal with fucking Johnny Harper and his stupid surfer buddies?
Anyway. Nate goes upstairs trying to get the image of Eleanor climbing a doorframe out of his head long enough to remember why he's there, and finally asks why Blair -- whose middle name is, he reminds her, "Punishment" -- is punishing Chuck. She can't talk about it, but they're the Non-Judging Breakfast Club, so then she can talk about it, but he can't tell Serena if she does. Which he will immediately do, even though she's second on the list of biggest whores right after him, and would find it really gross to judge anybody else for anything anyway. But it's Blair, I get it. So she explains that Chuck sold her ass to Jack, in such a way that it sounds an awful lot like she went through with it even though we know she didn't, and of course Nate's quantum mechanics go all squirrelly inside his brain because of how personally he takes prostitution, and immediately you can see the robot readout in his eyeballs turning Chuck's heading from SECRET GAY BOYFRIEND to WE NEED TO TALK.
Downstairs things are going better. Just kidding! Downstairs, Cyrus literally goes, "My Slavic language skills are a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure she just said, 'Over my dead goat.' Or body -- the words are very similar." Is that not something Sophia Petrillo would say? This show needs a laugh track. And I would say, like, a sassy maid, but they already have one. You start thinking we've come so far and no longer have race as an issue, and then all they have to do is turn Dorota white and it's Game On with jokes that are ten times grosser than Archie Bunker would ever even think of.
I'm not going to actually do the accent, but for the rest of this recap I want you to pretend that every time they say "Polish" or "Russian" (or even "Belarusian," which is what Vanya actually is), they're really saying "Mexican." Just do that for me.
Well, Eleanor does have a good line here: "Cyrus, come away from there! Eavesdropping on the help is undignified. Plus it confuses them." I like that. Chuck appears out of nowhere and Cyrus, who's still talking like Adderall plus drunk, screams at him quickly about the whole dumb situation where the knocked-up lady just realized she's not married. But then why is this so stupid? Oh, there's more: She has to be married in a real situation, not just city hall, because her first marriage -- to a COUNT -- took place at, and I quote, "Polish City Hall."
Polish City Hall. Did it say that on the fucking building?
So she's superstitious, in addition to her fifty other horrible attributes, and doesn't want to get married at the city hall again, and also has been infected by the lifestyles of those around her to the point where Blair has her convinced she needs like a My Super Sweet Sixteen wedding, just gory with all kinds of music and crap. Of course, Chuck only needed to hear "Blair" and he's in, giving Dorota the best wedding of all time, which would be dumb except for how this entire ridiculous plotline is about manhandling Chuck into the position of giving Dorota a wedding to get back to Blair, but that's still only halfway to the actual stupid part of the story.
Nate and Blair come downstairs talking about S can't know about their shared whoredom, and Dorota screams at Miss Blair about how she's getting married, and B shoots her this amazingly hateful, condescending look about how we already knew that, but Dorota's too excited to slap her fucking face, and just explains that somehow -- even though we've been standing here this entire fucking time with them -- Chuck has managed to have a sidebar convo with Dorota right before our eyes where he explained that it will be a "traditional Polish/Russian wedding," which isn't even a fucking thing, and also that he and Blair are back together. Further to this, then, we get the shockingly coincidental revelation that in a "traditional Polish/Russian wedding," you have to have a "happy couple" walk you down the aisle, or else more superstitious retarded shit will happen. In other words, the usual crowd of fuckin' uptown socialites and boho fashionistas.
Surprise! Serena isn't having brunch at PRADA with the Horrible Humphreys, she's chillin' with delicious Carter Baizen. GG thinks that is just too much, but you know what? Get him to buy you a TV show to be on, since he stopped being broke with no warning and can clearly afford it suddenly. What can Nate buy you? Because that's what matters. That, and being kind to your broken-English help even if they don't really deserve it.
Okay so first of all, stop Binging things. It's like watching your aunt hit on your swim coach. And secondly, how great is it that the wedding, even though Chuck is throwing it, still has to take place in Queens? Probably because they don't know what sort of people Dorota and Vanya will be inviting, and don't want to get the Empire grubby, especially so soon after the highly publicized situation where Chuck raped all those people. The poor place can only take so much. Meanwhile, because we have completely fucking forgotten ourselves, Blair goes, "All this disingenuous generosity is making me want to vomit!" I feel you, girl. Especially since neither of us has ever had an eating disorder and thus we're totally on the same level.
Chuck says he's not being disingenuous, because that's not the term for what they're being, because the term for what they're being is criminally patronizing. Blair can't believe that anybody would ever do anything for Dorota, ever, and that obviously this is about how much she loves weddings. Which is probably true, but I ask you: Is that not just about the grossest statement, either way, about yourself?
Chuck changes the subject: "Blair... You and I are magnetic. You can feel it. Our pull is as undeniable as ever." First of all, when does Chuck find the time to read my recaps. And second of all, fuckin' magnets. How do they work? Glad you asked: "I love you. Saying it was hard, but I did. And I've never looked back. So now I'm asking you, please do this for me. Please forgive me." Miracles! Marvels of the modern world! You have a totally realistic grievance where I knowingly tricked you into prostituting yourself, and all I have to do is say "please"! And while we've seen Dan pull that trick, most recently on Vanessa, no way would Blair ever be stupid enough to... Oh, she's going to end up blaming herself for this? Awesome. Cool. Moving along.
Nate shows up and his robot readout says WE NEED TO TALK and the gunsights in his ocular headsup display turn from green to a persimmon color that doesn't quite mean "enemy" but in robot means something like, "I thought I was your only whore." But first he has to deal with Serena, who immediately drops her cover -- the lie that is completely unnecessary and yet provides more of a cohesive plotline than anything else in this mess -- by snarfing down a huge croissant, even though she doesn't eat carbs, because she didn't have waffles at the Humphreys', because she was with Carter. So these particular two people are so stupid that this constitutes a clue. To a mystery. About breakfast.
Because just hearing about Humphrey brunch wasn't bad enough, let's look at the leavings: "So my Tisch application is in the mail, Vanessa's out of town, and I just ate about five pounds of Bisquick... Who's with me on the couch? I'm thinking Kieslowski's Double Life Of Véronique." A more hateful combination of sentences I beg you to tell me about. Rufus explains that they don't even have to watch that movie about the Polish/Russian conflict that everybody who was in college between 1990-1995 and no other humans have ever seen, because "we have front-row seats to a live version of a [Mexican] production!" They've asked Rufus to throw them "traditional Eastern European game night," which not even Rufus knows what that means, because it's not a thing, because none of this is a thing.
Eric follows Seamstress Jenny to Blair's so he can stalk crush Elliott, and of course Rufus is right up in his face about "who's the new guy" and "is he dreamy" and "do you think you'll go all the way" and "here I have some condoms" and whatever horrors, and Jenny makes fun of Eric for not asking Elliott out until he figures out whether Elliott is gay. Shocker, Jenny Humphrey doesn't understand why an alienating full-court press sounds like a bad idea.
Daniel instructs Rufus to instruct Lily to leave her mother at Canyon Ranch early so she doesn't miss the wedding or the party. You can tell he's more upset about Game Night, because it's Rufus and he honestly thinks that will be fun. He also thinks, though, that Lily cares about him and is committed to pretending their relationship is real and believes that he is a real person. Three more things that are agonizingly untrue. But also: A person you barely know has an employee who is marrying your doorman. Who wouldn't drop everything?
Sensing that broken-hearted look their downlow has weathered many times before, Chuck tries to get Nate to go back to being his secret boyfriend using the lost language of flowers: "Heading to the florist? Are you going with the calla lilies or the Casablancas?" Calla lilies aren't just for funerals anymore! Well, they're incredibly toxic, just like every single person at that wedding, so there you go. Nate, having promised that he wouldn't tell anybody about Operation Jack Squat, immediately tells Chuck that he knows. Chuck responds by... Telling him the exact same story, but also leaving out the fact that nothing happened. Which apparently Chuck doesn't know, which I'm not sure was clear last week since all he said about it was how he expected her to be home later, implying that going up there was reason enough for him to get high-handed about it. So now Nate's totally confused because Chuck was like, "Well did she tell you this?" And Nate's like, "Um, yeah?"
Chuck's point is that she went up there without knowing she was being manipulated, but... She was still being manipulated. He keeps acting like that's the loophole but I don't see how that could be true. If I handed you a gun and said, "That person killed your mom and you're ," and you shot the person, but then it turned out to be your mom and I was lying, I can't be like, "Look, you're the one that shot your mom." I would at least have to admit that I'd played a mean prank on you. Not to mention your poor mom.
Nate goes, "No, you deserve to be alone!" sort of out of nowhere, and Chuck changes the subject to how retarded Nate is. Which ordinarily would be awesome, except the whole point of this show is that it's fun to be the peanut gallery. When the show starts looking directly at you and making jokes so we can laugh at them and feel superior -- when everything is a broad, trashy wink -- then the show's not being written at all. It's just a xerox parody of something that used to be good and is now desperate for attention.
While Chuck makes hay of the fact that once again Serena has lied for no fucking reason about something minor and thus Nate has nowhere to stand regarding his prostituting of their shared ex-girlfriend, Serena is upstairs moaning at B in something that almost approaches language. You could swear she's more over this show than I am. They say hateful underminding things at each other: "But that's what makes you guys so good together. You love games. It's who you are!" Serena says, and Blair explains that no, it's Nate and Serena that belong together, because -- like Dorota and Vanya -- they are too stupid to live: "No games, no lies, no secrets. Just pure honesty. That's how it's supposed to be. I know that now. How do you do it?" S feels bad because on some level she knows that was a burn, but also: She did lie about a croissant once.
Nate wanders downstairs to hit the florist and Carter appears out of thin air to laugh in his face and act like something major is happening and that he's fucking Serena. He gives him something in a hotel-room-shaped envelope to give to S, and they sort of smolder and it's kind of a nonstarter, and then Eric and Jenny also randomly appear out of nowhere so that Nate can ask them if they had breakfast with S. Guess which one automatically lies and says yes and which one says no. I'll give you a hint: It's Jenny that has no tact and cannot be trusted. "Why? Did she say she was?" No, Jenny, he's just narrowing down a list of all possible fucking places on Earth that Serena might have had breakfast. up: Did Serena have breakfast in Dubai? On a house, with a mouse? Perhaps somewhere in Midtown? Why, did she say she was?
Cyrus with I swear to God actual coke crust visible up inside one hairy nostril runs up to shriek at Eleanor about how he found the perfect gift for Dorota and Vanya. Only if it's new owners could it possibly be that exciting. Eleanor is desperate to get away from his zany ass, and bonds with Jenny over Monique Lhuillier's love of silk netting before she turns to Serena and hands off the hotel-key-shaped envelope from Carter to Nate to jenny to Serena, in the nastiest way she possibly can. S, of course, is just totally weirded out by life today and doesn't even notice the vicious purpose in Jenny's eyes or what could possibly be in the envelope. Which she doesn't actually need. For any possible reason.
"Now it is time to play traditional Eastern European wedding games. Some of these games date all the way back to 14th century, but back then they used virgins. And today... Not so much. First game we play is balloon game. Everybody must find partner. You take balloon and put in between. Now when music changes, you and partner get closer. Now whoever does not pop balloon wins game, and winner gets rare matryoshka doll!"
I don't actually need to say anything about this, do I? We understand why this is embarrassing? Eric is in a foul mood as they dance with balloons, and apparently spent the three hours between the last scene and this one lurking about in the Waldorf lobby instead of doing anything uncreepy, like, calling the dude up and saying he's in the building, come down and hang out for the five seconds it would take to crack this case. Of course, Jenny takes about two moves to mention her obvious goal of breaking up Nate and Serena, and once again Eric acts like she's not twirling her mustache and revealing her plans outright and just says her name really curtly, like she's being just a little inappropriate, so that she can do that eerie grin she always gets when she's lying right to your face. The day the ankle-dip turned evil, man, we just never came back from that, did we?
Some Russian ho from Brighton Beach comes onto Chuck, and he immediately runs to Blair so they can dance with balloons and maybe work up some of that staticky energy that may or may not be how magnets work. Meanwhile, Serena is apologizing to Nate for lying to him for no reason, and then lies about it for no reason: "I bumped into him on the street the other day, and I told him we could have coffee, and that's it." No, you're back on Daddy duty and acting idiotic, but way to make it worse.
Nate points out that Carter acted more like they were doing it, and she's like, "He convinced his fourth grade class at Dalton that Barneys was named after the dinosaur!" She tries to explain to Nate the one true part, which is just that Carter is fucking with him. Like he does every time he shows up, and every time Nate falls for it. Even S is shocked by how dumb Nate is. "This is me you're talking to. You have to trust me!" Even Nate is shocked by how disingenuous that was. "...You don't trust me?" S is shocking with how dumb she is. "The only reason we're having this conversation right now is because you got caught." Nate is shocked by how dumb Serena is. And so on.
While the fuckin' Black-Eyed Peas are covered on the accordion, which is like how this show used to be clever and is now more like the Black-Eyed Peas, Eleanor asks where Vanessa is, because this is already a shitty party and it can't take a dose of Abrams if anybody is going to survive, and Dan goes, "She's in Vermont." Literally, that's all he says. We don't even care that much, that we need a location, but it's funny that they supplied one. Eleanor's like, "If you're not going to dance, at least make yourself useful. These Russians drink more than Larry Hagman on his first liver." Sophia Petrillo, ladies and gents! "Bartender needs more ice."
I feel like there's something to this that I'm not getting, because that was fucked up but the actress was adorable and loving when she did it, so that means at least three people signed off that behavior for some reason that I cannot fathom. Dan scurries off to get more ice even though that is shockingly uncool and tacky -- not to mention super weird, given what's about to happen -- and then Cyrus appears at the end of a handspring step out roundoff back handspring step out roundoff back handspring full-twisting layout, "papers" in hand.
Papers for what? Oh, the entire apartment in Queens that he just bought for Vanya and Dorota. People he doesn't know. Employees of his household. Eleanor tries to explain how grotesquely over the line that is, and he screams w/r/t a Vera Wang cake knife: "Not enough!" Which I agree that a more important gift is called for, but not an entire apartment. It's just creepy. Eleanor points out that Dorota lives in a UES penthouse, which is better than an apartment in Queens, and Cyrus screams so high and so loud that I don't even know what his comeback is for that. Something to do with the baby -- or many babies, from the looks of things -- inside her body. "She's just a maid, for goodness sake," Eleanor laughs, and then fuckin' Cyrus goes, "She practically raised Blair!"
Which first, I would divorce you so fucking quick you'd bruise your gnome ass. And second of all, if that were true Blair would not be so fucked up, and third of all, Dorota is at most fifteen years Blair's senior. So somehow this episode is so clueless and condescending that we've taken the long way around and the only person talking any sense at all, Eleanor, is going to have to learn a lesson about family values and how our employees are family? Barf. Demonstrably not true. You pay her to perform a service. She's a person, with a job -- and with a life and friends you don't even know about. "Just like family" is an epithet we use to talk about insincere racists, not a fucking moral to a story: Dorota HAS a family.
Maybe it's the "transom" thing again, maybe we read Flannery O'Connor and never really understood Flannery O'Connor. But the idea that Blair keeps Dorota in her dorm room was funny because it was ludicrous, and what this little story does is actually legitimize that, as a non-ludicrous thing: Eleanor now needs to realize that Dorota is their pet Polish person, and therefore her responsibility. Which contextualizes the entire concept of service -- and this is the part that grosses me out -- as really demeaning, because it means we need to apologize to our employees for their jobs.
"Sorry you're not a WASP or educated, sorry the system works, and kept you from doing anything but this demeaning job that I really, really wish you didn't have to do because you're just like family. And time could you make sure the monograms on the towels are facing the right way? Sorry, but you know how I am. Thanks!"
If you honestly feel that weird and guilty about it -- that you constantly have to inform the people how weird and guilty you feel, and therefore exactly how unlucky and lower-class they should feel by comparison -- then just clean up your own shit. It's really not that complicated.
Jenny assembles herself from tatters of darkness and looms behind Nate, who reminds himself that he gets to talk to "all his exes," so S should have coffee with Carter. And then lie about it for no reason. Jenny reaches right over and yanks the hotel-key-shaped envelope out of Serena's purse, because she is a mockery, and then they are both mentally dazzled by what the envelope contains.
Blair's actually a little charmed by a blowjob joke Chuck makes after Dorota balloon-dances by, being obnoxious in new ways all the time, and returns the serve with a lame, poorly spoken, bizarre joke that barely makes sense at all, and they discuss how he can never make up for what he did, but he says it's okay because she's the whore that went up there, and you know that conversation? It's that conversation. Again. She pops the balloon with her claw and I guess Dorota and Vanya win the game, and then Dan... Goes to check on Blair.
And by "check on" I mean, "Talk to her until she relinquishes what little self-respect she has, because that's what Dan does best, and then sends her right back into Chuck's arms. For what reason? That she is disgusting and essentially unlovable. Basic Dan Humphrey stuff, we don't really need to go there. Except to note that by the end of the scene Dan and Blair's 'ice' is melting, there's a chilling moment in a while where he is acknowledged as part of the Waldorf-Rose family for no reason, and that can only mean they are going to hook up, and when that happens I shall be forced to go on a killing spree."
While Rufus tries desperately to find Lily, who is of course not at Canyon Ranch and has just completely stopped trying to cover her tracks, Blair runs to Chuck with the news: Dan has just informed her that she is too disgusting to be with anybody else. Fucking magnets: That's how they work. "We've both hit rock bottom, Chuck, but we've hit it together. At least we won't be lonely in hell." Chuck is not reassured by this nihilistic, essentially suicidal pronouncement, because it's not romantic to be told that you are the punishment and that being with you is the new bulimia, but she just peaces because -- on the other hand -- she is correct about this situation.
If you're wondering what went down with Eric and Elliott, Dan's on it. And the answer is nothing, because Elliott never showed up. There's a super long shot of them getting in a car, and then Rufus leaving pissy messages on Lily's voicemail, and then Cyrus --- while scrubbing the entire UES clean and crying about something that happened in middle school -- readies to ask Vanya some questions about Dorota, because it's another custom crudely sandwiched into being a parallel for the various lies and secrets and tests and whatever that are happening all over the place.
Nate orders Serena not to hang out with Carter anymore, because he makes her lie all the time for no reason, and she says that he has no right to do that, and he takes off because actually, yes he does. He doesn't get to dictate Serena's behavior, but he does get to choose whether or not he has to be in a relationship with a huge liar who goes around to randos' hotel rooms. Even Nate is like, "Why would your dad possibly be in Carter's hotel room at the St. Regis?" Whatever, you two. The whole UES is on notice this week, I don't have time for your shenanigans. Go eat something. In fact, I'm going to grab a beer and let this part happen naturally:
"Oh, this is tough question! There so many things I love about [Dorota]. But I think what I love most is way I feel with her. With Dorota I am best possible version of myself. I have peace in my heart, knowing I will be good husband, good father. I will die proud Russian man, very much in love."
Chuck watches this idiotic speech, by a man who is not Russian, have the effect on Blair of her brain melting out through eyes and down her face, because she just gave in to being the worst possible version of herself in order to be back with him, because of magnets, and then the "Happy Couple" thing is supposed to happen, but instead of pulling her shit together and going through with it, Blair Waldorf interrupts the entire wedding so she can shit on it, in tears, and run away with the bride so they can talk about her boy problems while the rest of the wedding stands around and feels sorry for Blair. Who is a little asshole.
"I should have realized that something was still wrong with you and Mr. Chuck," Dorota apologizes, "But it was my fucking wedding, you shitty little girl!" Just kidding, she goes: "But you always tell me everything!" Apologizing, now, for her inability to read the mind of a person who is clearly mentally ill. While her wedding stands around feeling like jackasses. "I couldn't admit it to anyone," B admits tearfully. "I could barely admit it to myself." Well, isn't that a pointless overdramatization of a crisis you created yourselves, I can see why you'd stop my wedding to tell me about your problems admitting whatever it was that you couldn't admit to yourself, even though you only decided to get back together with Chuck just before the last commercial break, and thus had no time to suppress this information, from yourself or other people. Blair asks if Vanya hates her for ruining the fucking wedding for no reason whatsoever, and Dorota seriously goes:
"No. Miss Blair, I came to America to start new life. To make new traditions. And lucky for me, I find great people to do this with. I find my family."
So... Your new tradition is to get your wedding fucked up by a spoiled brat with mental problems? Because before you were worrying about Polish City Hall. Oh, and Blair is "family," but the kind that pay you and your boyfriend to murder Bible Camp grafters.
"When I saw how happy you and Vanya are, I realized how unhappy I am." And I decided to destroy it. Mission accomplished! "I wish you to be like me one day. To find right love, good love. I don't need you to be happy couple, Miss Blair. I just need you to be happy." I just need you to both shut up. You've managed to create an Eastern European domestic that makes that old bitch from Sex & The City seem like a progressive, fresh character. So, somehow watching from the doorway as Dorota selflessly talks Blair through meltdown #14,456, Eleanor is overcome with emotion and realizes that Dorota is family. Or whatever.
Serena takes a giant step backwards to the beginning of the season, invalidating everything that has happened all season, literally, and turning back into the girl from the first episode, all, "I'm gonna make him see me!" She and Carter take off for Palm Springs to repeat Whatever Happened in Santorini, like anybody cares at this point, and Jenny of course sees them bounce, and goes upstairs to immediately rat on S as soon as the wedding is over, but first she gets to leer and blush at the appearance of Elliott, who is at the wedding -- get this -- because he and Dorota are best friends. Yeah, they met on the elevator on Friday and both really love The Vampire Diaries. For real, that's how we get him on the scene. So Jenny's eyes light up like, "BUT DO YOU LIKE BOYS?"
But before she can ruin things for Eric, Elliott's girlfriend pops up out of nowhere. Not a dealbreaker, but watch your ass. Eleanor apologizes to Cyrus for attempting to explain to him how things work in the real world, and says she's finally come around to his insane way of thinking. He says she's a good mother, and she thinks wistfully of how Blair used to have an eating disorder before Cyrus showed up and started force-feeding Blair all the time. Because that's how you fix that.
Chuck's confused, because Blair gave him that insane speech about hell and then gave the other insane speech about how she hates Chuck, so what's going on right now? Well, she finally lets slip that she never fucked Jack, which makes Chuck cry from laughing so hard, because what a farce. But Blair says that now, she has a better reason to not be with Chuck, because a proud Russian man from Minsk said some barely comprehensible things, and now she wants, even more condescendingly than everything that's already happened:
"...What Dorota and Vanya have. Real love, pure and simple love." The kind of love where you have to petition the state to live together without a caregiver. A Robbie Benson/George Burns love. A real Riding The Bus With My Sister kind of love.
While Chuck says, correctly, that she'd be bored by this hypothetical Pumpkin within five minutes, she says that she'd rather that than be ashamed of herself. "I would do anything for you, Chuck. But what if that's wrong? I never thought it was possible to love someone too much, but maybe it is. I don't like who I've become with you." Got it. He asks her not to "bail" on him, and she tells him it's the end of the line. And I mean, I get it, and this is where she's been headed all season, and they earned it with the Jack thing. They really did. But show, don't tell. And this show is just tell now.
Little J is only lies now: "I didn't want to have to be the one to tell you this, [Nate,] but uh, Serena left with Carter."
On the way to the airport, S figures out that Carter's been stringing her along for a few days with this latest information, because he thought he might get a piece. Astounded that anybody would ever think they could just hook up with her by mentioning her father -- despite the fact that she's been doing it all season, most memorably with Carter himself after rustling a horse -- leaves Carter's ass in Queens on the side of the road, and tells him he's not allowed to help her find her father anymore. Then, because GG is creepy, she goes, "With Carter out of the picture, it looks like Serena's making room for daddy..." You know, no matter how many times you do that, it's still fucked up. It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't do anything, it doesn't really mean anything, it's just gross. Stop.
Dorota and Vanya act super ethnic about their apartment. Eleanor gives her a WASP outpouring of emotion: "Thank you, Dorota, for... Everything." Dorota says she thinks of Eleanor as her mother, which is visibly painful for Eleanor, and then the happy couple go back to doing kick-squats and star-jumps with giant jugs of vodka on their heads.
CeCe calls Rufus back to tell him she's not telling him shit, but thought she should let him know she got his messages. Amazing. She tells him to talk to his wife and stop bothering her, and goes back to bathing in gin.
Humphrey hands Blair a champagne glass and toasts her and she makes fun of him for dating Vanessa Abrams and then gives him a noogie and they hold hands and dance around together and Chuck tries to make her jealous with the Russian girl from before, which Nate finds time to be upset by for reasons that are not addressed.
Speaking of homosexuals, though, Elliott's girlfriend left the party because he was so obsessed with a certain somebody that he couldn't stop talking about him and dragged her all the way to a horrible racist wedding in stupid Queens. Ladies, I know sometimes boys act confusing and we sometimes do things for effect? And we like to pretend we're always upfront, but we're really just as sneaky as you? We know that bothers and confuses you. But honey, if your boy acts like he has a crush on another boy? He does. We are not that complicated. You let him go to Queens on his own, and find yourself another one.
Elliott explains all of this to Eric in a very forthright manner, but Eric has that dazzled look you get the first time the bisexuals come calling -- somewhere between "I see a beautiful unicorn" and "I see a charging rhino" -- and asks him to go over it one more time, because the question still hasn't been answered. Elliott explains that he likes boys, particularly Eric, and then they go off to dance and start setting up mines and grenades all over the place for the incoming horrific drama explosion that will, and does, inevitably result.
Jenny, looking for something beautiful to destroy, is making little cuts on her leg and watching the boys dance together, but then Nate's phone rings. Perfect. She answers the phone, teeth gritting so hard they're turning into diamonds, and promises to make sure Nate knows S called, that he needs to call her back, and she loves him, and no more secrets. Jenny's like, "I will be telling him zero of those things, and by the way I already told him you left town with Carter Baizen, and you're a bitch." Serena's like, "Thanks! You're the best sister ever."
There's a thumping montage of Nate slow-dancing with Jenny, with his hair looking worse than it has all episode. Elliott dances like nothing I've ever seen, although "simple" and "pure" might cover it. Eric is right there with him. Dorota and Vanya slow dance, and the Waldorf-Roses clink vodka shots with Dan and Blair, because I guess he's family too, since he was once a cater-waiter and since his horrible girlfriend is in Vermont so he's now decided to be best friends with their wedding-ruiner daughter out of literally nowhere.
And meanwhile, Serena is already in Palm Springs, and guess who's standing behind Dr. vdDub's hotel room door? Lily, of course. Why would she be anywhere but hiding in her ex-husband's hotel room like usual?
week: Pray it gets better. I really won't be doing much more of this. XOXO.
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