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Two mismatched pairs of gumshoes beg Blair for her sneaky, snatchy help in solving the mystery of Will van der Woodsen. In one corner you got Charles and Jennifer, who just want to save their stepmommy from a fate worse than Illness by figuring out the mysterious medicine... At least until their private agendas -- to ruin Blair's date with cute Cameron and escape back to DUMBO with her Daddy forever -- threaten to bring it all down. On the other hand, Dan and Nate are worried that Serena's gone completely round the bend, given her idiotic belief that Rufus owns one quarter of the balls necessary to cheat on Lily in her own building. Meanwhile Eric just keeps asking whether or not his mother actually has cancer every six minutes like somebody put a nickel in him, and Rufus whines like he has never whined before.
And so it goes. Everybody ends up at a benefit for the NY Library, including Holland Kemble, who -- let me see if I've got this straight -- for some reason has been writing prescriptions for Lily that say they're Oxy when really they're antibiotics, even though she is a psychiatrist, and additionally lied about cheating with Rufus, because she owes Will a favor for some reason, and all of this is because Will did actually cure Lily of her Illness back in Santorini, which is when he fell back in love with her and 1) Sent Serena that letter that Maureen intercepted, 2) Made Holland seduce Rufus into the Cult of the Rooftop Garden Co-op, and 3) Made Holland write fake prescriptions under the guise of writing other fake prescriptions with the specific aim of giving Lily cancer-like symptoms so that Will could go on curing her indefinitely.
That may all be bullshit, but I think that's essentially what happened. This episode was a glorious hot mess that never stopped moving. Like, there is not a single scene that doesn't include somebody going "Are you gonna tell her, or should I?" But in practice -- when the characters aren't sitting around explaining what happened with this mess of a plot, which they do about 80% of the episode -- what goes down is that everybody hides from S the entire episode so she won't find them doing all these snoopings and schemings, and the whole time Jenny is secretly undermining everything, and there's a part where Chuck and Blair get to play a little postmodern roulette themselves -- demanding couples therapy from Holland while pretending to be stalling Holland by demanding couples therapy from Holland -- and then everybody ends up back at PRADA where it usually happens, whatever it is.
What happens this time is that Will offers to go get "papers" that prove the case built by the NJBC is completely false, and actually 23-skidoos out from under S's nose. She follows him to the helipad and eventually gives him leave to leave before the cops arrive, so I guess she's at least the manager of her Daddy Issues now. The Postmistress General, if you will. Then she soft-dumps Nate for siccing the cops on Will before they left, and gratefully leans on stepbrother Dan the whole time in a way that better fucking mean nothing.
Eric, appalled at Jenny's senseless and unending attempts to destroy their entire family, politely asks her to leave PRADA for hell, but she stops halfway, deciding to go live with brother-rapist Chuck -- but he's with Blair, hatching some retarded Affair To Remember plan that ends with the immortally embarrassing, "Or I'll close my heart to you forever." Who's there instead, when Jenny arrives at the Empire? One Nate Archibald, drunk and crazy and looking just about ready for that v-card which, like Chekov's Gun, has been staring us in the face all season. Well, either way, letting Jenny anywhere near Chuck or Nate without S or B to regulate will probably mean multiple deaths in the finale week. And that's before seeing good old Georgina in the previews. Hallelujah!
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Seems like this happened in Season One, with the strike: A variable number of episodes meant a sort of summing-up right before the finale, because the numbers kept getting rejiggered. You had a normal story, told in normal ways, that got stretched and tinyfied all over the place, with the big Come to Jesus so the finale would still be awesome. And I can't even remember right now if that happened this year (25 to 22? Am I making this up?), but I can say that's exactly what it feels like.
In which case you have a lot of options, because all this episode has to do, like any episode of any show, is get from A to B. In this case, the A-to-B is about explaining the entire season, vanderwise: Where Lily was and why Serena is crazy this year. And one option -- the one they went with -- is to have everybody sit around awkwardly explaining the entire season to each other in various locales.
Now, on the one hand that's embarrassing, because there are literally infinite ways to do this without making everybody Nate talking to Nate. But on the other hand, at least they gave it to the best director the show's got, who can shine some shinola real pretty, in the desperate attempt to make it an actual story instead of essentially Gossip Girl & The Deathly Hallows: A friend's account of the Cliff's Notes version of the story we could actually just be watching. Not a silk purse, not the tailor's fault.
I almost wanted to write this whole recap as a conversation about what the recap might be about, could be about, should be about, will be about, but I thought no, that would be really fucking annoying. The difference is that I love you, and I would actually think about things like that. And if I did it, I would at least know that I was doing it, instead of turning it in last minute like a term paper for a gimme class, which is what this script is. But instead, we're going to get this over with as quickly as possible, because there's not a whole lot to talk about here.
On paper, bare bones, this idea is amazing: Two teams, Chuck/Jenny (which let's talk about years of tension, sexual and otherwise) and Dan/Nate (which let's talk about mostly sexual tension) both maneuver their way around the entire UES and Lily's useless ass in order to solve a mystery, and of course in both cases the only thing they need is Blair. That is genius, and right on the money. Especially because the other major player, Miss Serena, is so wacked out on Will -- and so dangerous generally, should she so choose -- that they can't even let her find out Thing One about what they're trying to do.
I mean, doesn't that sound like a fucking great episode? If I told you that was what happened, you'd think it was soooo good. But instead it's just retarded and endless and gets a lot of stuff done so quickly that nothing actually happens, other than the entire cast constantly discussing how interesting it might be if something happened, and how that would go down. And this sprinkled with a bunch of nods toward the idea of jokes that are not actually jokes, or even coherent statements, but just enough to make us laugh like we're watching America's Funniest Home Socialites, the equivalent of a bat to the groin, every minute or so -- without any reason to actually laugh or think or care.
Essentially, everybody is Nate in this episode, which means everybody is Dorota in this episode: Gestures toward something that is supposedly funny, without ever actually being funny or clever in any way. It's vicious and painful, but it gets us there, and far away from the trumped-up drama of Serena that distracted us from the retardedly protracted drama that was Blair/Chuck, and no matter how ham-fisted or ugly or plain offensive it was, for just that I am totally grateful. At least we're going somewhere new, as soon as this dreadful mess is over with.
Blair and Serena, in a weirdly literal cloud of princess sparkles, try on some clothes for B's date with Cute Columbia Cameron. Blair throws out a reference to Wuthering Heights that means nothing, and Serena spends the whole conversation mugging and being impressed with her nonexistent cleverness. Blair's never been on a date, so she's stressing: He's not Nate, whom she's been bossing around since they were all five, and he's not Chuck, who has been raping people since they were all five. "...A real date. With someone I didn't know already, or who wasn't a British lord masquerading as a college student."
Serena suddenly has to go, because I guess she just remembered that Rufus cheated on Lily with Holland. She literally is like, "I just have to get home. I think Rufus cheated on her." Blair sympathizes -- "I didn't know they even had groupies that old" -- and that signature Serena van der Woodsen cleverness clarifies: "They met at the Rooftop Garden Committee." Serena and her dad Will discussed this information and decided not to tell Lily, because of Illness. B offers Dorota's Polish Mob connections, which is so funny because just the word "Dorota" is enough for a laugh I guess, and S tells Blair not to bring handcuffs on the date, which is so funny because just the word "handcuffs" is enough for a laugh, I guess. Every fucking scene is like this: Writing around the idea, gesturing toward the idea, never actually having the idea.
Jenny and Chuck discuss Lily's fake Oxy and how the girl that she sold it to that ended up with a yeast infection... You know what? Who gives a shit.
Chuck and Jenny have realized that Lily's Illness drugs are hinky, and even though Jenny is grounded in DUMBO they are going to find out, by using Bing and soft whispering voices. Nate asks if Chuck is dealing, and Chuck says he is only giving away "hours and hours of enjoyment," and Nate says, "Thank you for that visual," but there was no visual, it's just a sloppy non-joke from a shitty writer who would like the illusion of wit or movement without actually having either. Do you know how many times and with how many varied people I have watched this episode in the last week? And do you know how invariably at least one person said, out loud, "Is this supposed to be like a parody of this show? Or is the show actually like this?"
Maybe Chuck knows about Blair's date with Cameron, maybe he doesn't. That's all we get out of this scene: He makes adorable faces and offers to fuck the information out of Nate, and Nate tells him not to bother Blair on her date. Later, Rufus decides to parent and takes away Jenny's phone, which is not a hindrance in any way to the plot and would almost provide a pretext for one of Jenny's betrayals in Act IV, except that apparently Jenny Humphrey has memorized the telephone number for the Orthopedics department at Mt. Sinai, so it doesn't matter. Dan comes home -- "Well, it's nice to know I can spend my last night with Vanessa and come home to my family, fighting like they still live here," which thanks for the visual -- and everybody's horrible and a Humphrey and in Brooklyn forever, and then all of a sudden they decide to stomp back to the UES to retrieve Jenny's school books; literally, that's why Dan and Rufus go back to PRADA, to get Jenny's books for her because she is grounded. Well, there's this little exchange, but at this point I don't know if it's intentionally funny or just how dumb this episode is:
Rufus: "Don't know if you've heard, but your sister's a drug dealer."
Jenny: "Was! Past tense. And you already grounded me for it!"
Lily sure is drinking a lot of apple juice, just like she did when she was pregnant with Serena, so I sure hope she's not pregnant on top of her Illness, because what's worse: Lymphoma or having a Humphrey growing inside you and sapping all your nutrients? When she was pregnant she liked apple juice, regular and also a special kind that was green, that Will used to go get for her in the Village because he loved her so much, and because juice and juicing fruits was all the Jack LaLanne rage back in the 1990s, or whenever this all happened. Lily decides, now that they're remembering romantic juices past, that it's time to talk about the speech at Columbia where he offered to bone her right in front of her husband and he's like "Sorry that was so weird" and sort of vaguely lies about it.
And because Lily will accept any lie, no matter how unlikely, rather than face anything whatsoever, she's like "I thought that's what it was, just like this weird vague thing that happened. Whew!" Will decides to test this theory -- that Lily will buy any old crap -- in a big way: "And I'm just so thrilled to get to know the kids. You've just done such an amazing job, Lily. Really." He also gives Rufus credit for how great their suicidal son and alcoholic homicidal daughter turned out. Lily, this show is ridiculous on many levels, Lily goes, "Those homeopathic remedies are clogging up my humidifier. Want to check it out?" And then they go upstairs and like unclog her homeopathic humidifier, if you know what I'm saying.
Okay, the medication that Chuck was investigating -- Also, why does he have the number of the house line in DUMBO anyway? Why introduce the complication if you're going to solve it in ways that are more distracting than the original thing? -- is, and this is pretty rad, an antibiotic for the treatment of African River Blindness. That's amazing. I feel like the show must be winking at us, a tiny bit, but it's hard to buy that because some of the writing is just dumb and bad, and then other times there's like this glimmer. So anyway, Chuck would like to use this opportunity, not that he doesn't love Lily because he does, but he would like to involve Blair, "someone highly trained in the art of extorting information." He is very seriously insane, acting-wise, in this episode, and turns every scene into, like, Hamlet eating a hoagie.
Rufus shows up for Jenny's books, and Serena runs into the living room with her usual Vena Cava, plus zero amount of pants, barking at him to leave and baring her teeth and shaking her hair. Rufus asks if he can go to this Friends of the Library benefit with them, and Serena says she'll see him in hell, and he's like, "Why are you still mad that I blocked your dad's sublet?" and S is like, "I'm mad at you for other reasons," and he's like, "What reasons?" and she says that Holland told her secrets and Rufus is like, "Let's get Holland up here to explain what's going on, even though none of this has anything to do with Lily throwing me out last night." Maybe he's just trying to distract everybody long enough to figure out why she did that in the first place, because it was kind of random.
Holland comes upstairs and hems and haws and finally explains that she and Rufus fucked that night that there was a scarf. Rufus is like, "AS THOUGH I HAVE THE BALLS TO DO THAT. THIS IS ABSURD." Lily, Serena and Eric flee the scene, Will pretends not to know Holland, Dan stands around awkwardly and Holland finally leaves, having lied convincingly that anyone would ever have sex with Rufus, ever, and then Nate (?) wanders into their home and asks Dan what just happened, and Dan makes a wonderful, wonderful eye-rolling dramarama face, into a perfect cut to the scene.
Rufus follows Lily upstairs and goes, "I'm sorry! I had no idea she was an insane person!" Lily isn't interested in talking about the issue, because Holland and logic both say maybe she has a shot at getting out of being married to Rufus. She goes, "It'd be a lot easier to believe if you hadn't left your scarf in her apartment," which for some reason I find delightful. Delightful! Then Rufus essentially bases his entire argument on how even though Lily is a whore who would cheat on him in Santorini or any old place, he's a much better person than she is: "When you're ready to hear that and talk about it, give me a call," he says, and minces away. Who, honestly, who thinks like this?
Nate wanders into Serena's room, where she is taking the inevitable thousand scarves out of one receptacle and putting them into another, because that's honestly just what she does now: Packs and unpacks in different outfits. Nate points out that Rufus is A) Technically a nice guy and B) Nobody would fuck him, but Serena is not having it because she has to get herself all worked up and stay all worked up, because if she wishes hard enough she can make Rufus vanish and her father marry her mother magically in his place. So that's what she's doing this week. Nate points out that, additionally, A) Rufus let him move into the DUMBO loft, back when he was the East Side Squatter and B) Rufus was totally sweet and chill with Serena when she dropped out of the idea of college for no reason at all. Serena's like, she has had it with Nate's slow-moving inexorable logic, so she purses her lips and bounces. Those scarves can wait.
Jenny, awesomely: "I still don't see why we need Blair for this. I mean, don't you read Gossip Girl? Extortion's what I do all day!" Chuck says you need Blair for extorting grownups, and Blair appears on her banister and yells at them to fuck off, they're not ruining her big date that she's been getting ready for this whole time. Chuck explains that something's up with Lily's pills and her "mind game mastery" is essential, and she's like, "Who are you, House?" and he says it's a shrink that gave her these pills, not Dr. van der Woodsen, doctor of Illness, and Jenny goes, "It's weird, right? Lily so does not seem like she's in therapy." Which, word, but that's kind of like the eyeshadow calling the mascara anorexic, and Blair says the word fatwa, and I'm not recapping any more scenes where she says that word, because it was already retarded before this week. Blair's not helping, bottom line, no matter how much Charlie loves Lily, because she has her Cameron date today and also because don't fucking bring Jenny Humphrey into her house and then ask for a fucking favor.
Lily and Eric go for a gay son-and-mother walk 'round the block at this time. Lily -- this is part of the reason I think this episode is sort of on purpose -- goes, "You know, after five marriages, the last thing I want to do is put you and Serena through another divorce." Eric says they've all started to blend together anyway, and that she shouldn't stay with a Holland-fucking Rufus for them anyway, no matter how much he loves poor Rufus: She should stay with Rufus, if she stays with him, because of whatever incomprehensible thing makes her love him in the first place. And also: She should not die of Illness. Eric is very into bearing that particular torch this week. Which is good, because nobody else really gives a shit about Lily's health. Serena and Jenny both are, like, not actively into killing Lily, but not hugely interested in saving her, either. Because of daddy stuff.
Nate and Dan go to see Blair , after some flirtation and some of Dan explaining that the only thing that makes Serena go crazy is when people do exactly what they are all doing to her in this episode, and Nate's like, "That's so true, but let's go do it anyway." Can't say you didn't warn him. Blair's date is off to a rollicking motherfucker of a start: Looking at Columbia class schedules on the computer in the parlor -- "Philosophy of War? I'm finally home!" -- and when Nate and Dan appear in the room she tries not to be too much of a bitch, due to Cameron's adorable presence, while telling them to go suck each other off in hell, because she's assuming that Chuck sent them. Dan explains it's not about the River Blindness Medication part of the scheme, but the Holland-extortion part that they're worried about, i.e., the cheating thing.
"Wait a minute. An artist or a hippie activist, maybe, but Rooftop Garden Committee? I knew that something wasn't right when Serena told me." There's a really stupid joke here that basically Blair is now talking in Yiddish because Cyrus Rose is Jewish. What would be actually edgy or funny is if Cameron just left the house when she told him that, just took his rugby gear and his billion-watt smile and said "Gotcha" and just left. That would have cracked me up. Instead he just nods and looks bored, because how bored would you be? They fire up the computer and start tracking down blackmailables on old Holland. "Exposing scandal on the Upper East Side? Show me your world, Blair Waldorf," says Cameron, so I guess once again she's dating a homosexual, or possibly Gossip Girl. Darnedest luck.
"Trust me," says Jenny. "I live with the van der Woodsens, I've learned how to lie." (Awesome line. And would make an awesome t-shirt, or needlepoint.) She and Chuck head into Dr. (Holland) Kemble's office and Jenny spins some lie about how maybe she told a Troubled Teen on the Troubled Teen Hotline "wrong things" about "drugs and depression," and retroactively wants Dr. Kemble's advice. That is the best lie I ever heard. Turns out (Holland) Kemble will be gone all week, but Chuck with his laser eyeballs notes that she's going to the big event at the end of the episode, just like every single week.
Why don't they just assume at this point? If you lost your wallet on this show you should just be like, "Right, but the Annual Lacrosse Banquet is tonight so probably it'll turn up." Actually, that's essentially what happened last week with Blair getting into Columbia, so never mind. The two groups come together and realize that Holland of PRADA and Kemble of the River Blindness are the same people, and fucking GG goes, "You better hope this doctor gets healed, before someone else gets hurt!" EXPLAIN THIS SENTENCE.
They send Jenny into PRADA so she can go through all of Lily's drawers and steal her pills, like back in the day when she was a drug pusher. It's so dumb because she's like, "What exactly am I looking for?" And they're like, "A bottle of pills, you halfwit. It looks like a bottle with pills in it. You are the worst motherfucking drug pusher." So while that goes down, I would like to perform a monologue. "She's totally failing me on purpose, because I didn't join those stupid Mathletes! She was so queer, she was like, I'm a pusher, Cady. I'm a pusher. What does that even mean? Like a drug pusher? Probably. She said she works three jobs, I bet she sells drugs on the side... To pay for her pathetic divorce." Blair is on fire with the total mach five drama of how Holland is "obviously" poisoning Lily, so she can have Rufus all to herself. "So Shakespearean!"
This is where the dumb writing really shows up, because Nate is just handed these ideas of jokes that are not actual jokes, like, "Wouldn't it be funny if Nate said something like this," but they never actually filled in the blanks. Or maybe it's the acting. Either way, I hate this shit. He compares it to Fatal Attraction and shivers about the idea of dead bunnies. And they think about telling Lily about all this, but Chuck radically is not having that: "Jenny tried to sell your mislabeled meds, which somehow came from the woman who said she slept with your husband?" It's a mouthful.
So they discuss what is going to happen for awhile, which is that they will blackmail Holland at this benefit, and everybody leaves to go get dressed for the thing. And once again, Nate gestures toward an idea of something funny without actually having anything funny to say, by way of explaining how often they do these massive sting operations: "Last year Georgina pretended to be this rich Canadian to get Poppy, but things got all messed up when she turned her back on Jesus!" Which would have been so funny, if they'd actually written the joke instead of just pointing at the general location of what's funny and asking us to do the work ourselves. You could just throw a random Dorota in there and some fucking waffles and fatwas and really go to town.
Okay, Serena doesn't understand why Will just bought Lily a juicer, and instead of explaining it to her he just acts like it's super-romantic, and she gets all gawky and sweet about it and then goes, "Sometimes I wish she would have let you take us away from here when you wanted to. Tibet sounds pretty good right now." Does it, Serena? Does TIBET sound really FUN right now? Instead of slapping her privileged face, he goes, "Only if you don't get typhoid!" Plus, things are shitty all around when you're a creepy old skeezix like him. Which she sort of is. Serena says, though, on the other hand, maybe this is just the magical-thinking way things had to go in order to get her daddy back: "Well, as awful as it's been, maybe mom needed this to see that she wasn't with the right man... And this whole thing with Rufus could have happened so that you could finally stop hiding how you really feel!"
I love how Serena has made friends with her mother's cancer.
Anyway, Will is like not even interested in hanging out with Lily, because there's a creepiness. So he gives her the juicer and takes off, promising to take her to the Library thing, and also begrudgingly her mother. She goes upstairs and catches Jenny pawing through Lily's pills, and yells at her and is totally mean, and it's great. She's got all the cleverness she was missing in Act I, and it's mean girl fun. Finally though she pushes Jenny to the point of no return, and there's a moment where you can see in Jenny's eyes that she is suddenly okay with Lily dying. Like, "Oh yeah, bitch? Let's see if you're so hot once I don't stop your father from poisoning your mother. Who's the bitch now, bitch?" It's awesome. I love Jenny so much. She is just out of control.
So Little J whines about the usual and how she wants to live in Brooklyn and catch rats for her dinner like in the old days, and storms off with the evidence necessary to save Lily's life that she is not going to use for that. Lily comes downstairs -- that's all she does in this episode, go up and down the stairs in a fog of drugs and act vaguely surprised by everything that happens -- and she's like, "Don't fight with your stepsister! About your stepfather! Fucking that lady!"
S says it wasn't about that, which is awesome, because they weren't really fighting about anything, she just hates Jenny and felt like being mean, which is great. Not only in theory, but also in this case because it meant Jenny deciding that Lily's life wasn't worth it. Then Lily has like a fit or something, and S is like, are you okay, and she goes, "No, I'm fine. I'm fine physically." She totally has a hideous little Humphrey in her, I know it. God damn it. Then she spots the juicer and feels warm all over and decides to go to the Library benefit tonight after all. Who knew it was a juicer and not a waffle iron that would prove the key to Lily's heart.
Cameron has vanished for dinner with his rugby team, which Chuck -- of all people -- finds "homoerotic." B says obviously that's what she's into, vide every guy she's ever dated, and they both look fantastic, in their party clothes. Chuck Bass will wear the shit out of a tux. So Jenny shows up and lies and says she didn't get the proof and hides it deeper in her purse and hopes that Lily drops dead, because that'll show 'em. "Watch out, Lonelyboy. Seems your little sister has her own ideas about your family's planning..." GOSSIP GIRL WHAT DO YOU MEAN.
Okay, party time. But instead of actually doing anything, let's talk about it for a long time and explain this whole stupid goddamn plan. The best part of this is that they are all terrified of Serena, who is there like this blonde specter haunting them with her presence. And the reason is that you don't do this shit to Serena. It's the only thing that bugs her in this entire world is when you do this stuff to her. So Nate and Dan are bringing a Dr. Tabb over from Mt. Sinai, because he's on the AMA board and can threaten Holland with delicensing if she doesn't explain herself to the satisfaction of these children.
They give Jenny this doctor's ticket and Blair's phone, and she immediately dials up Ortho at Mt. Sinai -- a number she just knows -- to say that Dr. Tabb doesn't need to come to the benefit after all, because it would suit her better if Lily died. Serena spots Jenny and her breasts, and makes a mean face and calls Rufus to tattle on her, because she is grounded. Serena is just out to get old Jenny this week. Meanwhile, Chuck and Blair bother Holland with their relationship, and somewhere in there of course it turns into a bit of a real therapy session, which leads directly to the gaywaddest thing in this whole episode, which we will get to in a bit.
Rufus appears and says needless words about why he is there: "Serena called me, but I was already on my way! I figured if my grounded daughter goes missing, I just have to wait till the big party to know where to find her!" Jenny promises that she's trying to help him this time and it's not what it looks like. It never is, dear, but also: She's not trying to help him! She's trying to help his wife die!
So Rufus notes that Holland is there, and he wants to bug her some more about wah-wah why did you lie and say I fucked you, whine whine, and nobody wants that. At some point during all of this, Serena does an amazing move where she comes almost all the way down the stairs just so she can catch Nate's eye and then go whooshing back up the stairs. It's so effing dramatic, and so funny: Clomp-clomp-clomp, eye-roll, hair toss, back up the stairs again.
Okay, overall, she's mad because they're doing a scheme on her, but Nate particularly is in trouble because A) Jenny and Dan are not responsible here because they have Humphrey loyalties, which she understands, and B) Chuck and Blair are lunatics, so they can't be held responsible for their actions. But Nate, he's in trouble because he went behind her back even though as her boyfriend he is supposed to be always on her side. So even though they had a conversation about this, and she wandered away in the middle of it, her viewpoint is still the valid one. Which is sort of true? Because you don't have to date Serena, she's still going to be your friend. On the other hand, Will is like her crack right now, so she can't be trusted to actually make decisions. But you can't act like that's true, because it makes her nuts when you do that. So really, even though she's totally wrong on every level, the outcome is the same as though she's right.
More of the idea of Chuck and Blair menacing Holland while secretly getting free therapy for their fucked-up lives, but not actually that interesting in execution. Maybe they're as tired as we are. Chuck mentions the making out with the guy part, and Blair's like, "He kisses dudes anyway." Which I would say, "She fucked Uncle Jack anyway, also, so what's the problem." But it's good that I wasn't there, because that would just piss her off more. Anyway, they're boring. Finally Holland extricates herself, and that's when Chuck motions to Dan to engage a waiter in conversation, so that he can pretend it's a man from the AMA who like, I guess, is carrying a tray of champagne flutes as a gag or something.
They explain to Holland that she is getting sting'd, and she needs to tell them why she is doing all this insane stuff like poisoning Lily and the business with the scarf. "Are you in love with Rufus? They say psychiatrists are the craziest ones!" Blair says, and Rufus storms up right then and demands, demands, demands to know what the hell is going on, and you have to drink every time somebody in this episode goes. "Would you like to tell him, or should I?" So even without stupid Jenny's murderous non-help, they finally get Holland to admit that she owed Will some favors... And if you are thinking it's going to get more explained, you are wrong. That is the only explanation you get:
Holland Kemble is possibly crazy, but definitely would write prescriptions for fake medications (Which how you do even do that, get a pharmacy to fill a mislabeled prescription? How does that come down to the prescribing physician anyway? Isn't there a third person, a pharmacist, in this scenario? Fuck it) and definitely also would come upstairs to Lily Bass's apartment and lie to her face about having slept with the wussiest wuss of all wuss. What are her reasons? Craziness, possibly, and her own marriage going up in smoke, but also... she owes Will a favor. AND THAT'S THE ENTIRE ANSWER TO SEASON THREE.
"Where was Lily all summer? What Happened in Santorini? Is CeCe okay, or is her cancer real this time? Why was Will so weird before, in the Europe? I can't stop having sex with Carter Baizen! My mom gets headaches! I quit Brown and moved out! What's the deal with that letter that Maureen found? I can't stop having sex with married Congressmen! Why does Lily lie about everything, even when she doesn't need to do so? Why did Serena steal a horse one time?"
Well, I'll tell you, the answer to all of these questions and more is that Dr. Holland Kemble... owes Dr. William van der Woodsen a favor.
Jenny has busted a move over to Will to get him out of there before that whole house of cards comes falling down, because there's still a chance she can get Lily poisoned to death. Will assumes she's being accusatory and acts all cagey, but she peels back a little bit of her human face to reveal her secret dragon face and she's like, "No, I totally get it! I support your plan of poisoning your ex-wife! I just want to move back to Brooklyn and deal drugs and dress like the bride of Satan. Maybe start a band. Get a little shivery dog. Drink Natty Lite and give handjobs to freshmen. Art parties in Bushwick. Live life, like I used to. Sew some clothes. See what scabies are all about."
Will's like, "Thanks for the warning, kid. Twenty-three skidoo!" and grabs Serena and Lily, and they peace out that joint. Dan stares and watches them leave, because that's his entire level of participation in this scheme. The others run up like, "Where's Lily?" And Dan goes, "Oh, she just wandered away with her poisoner, into the night. Was I supposed to do something at some point?" GG laughably goes, "In this Family Feud, that's van der Woodsen 1, Humphrey 0!" Really? The vdDubs are up by a single point?
Eric's reading the internet when Will, Lily and S get home. First order of business: Everybody change into completely different outfits. Second order of business: Get in the car because we are taking a helicopter to Teterboro. Why? Because... Cell phones do not function once you hit Teterboro and thus nobody will ever find out that Lily is being poisoned by the person who did not fuck her husband. If Will can just get their entire family to Palm Beach before... anybody relates the facts to them... It's so stupid. I don't get this plan at all. Serena is like, "This is going to be the best thing that ever happened." Serena is having the most retarded day she's ever had. I still love her, but I finally understand why people want to smack the marbles out of her mouth all the time.
Oh my God, I forgot to tell you about the hair. Okay, Chuck's got super-duper Good Boy hair tonight, due to the sexy tuxedo. The other boys have their regular hair; Rufus and Nate's hair is maybe a little better than it has been lately. Eric's hair is gigantic on his tiny little head, like in a few weeks he will kind of look like Charles Dodgson. Jenny, though, something has happened there. She's got payess but like, it's like her weave has a weave, yo dawg I heard you like plastic hair-style. It's right up there with Vanessa's caveman hair, but like worse. These tendrils and curls that are vomiting each other all up. And then there's Serena's hair, which you know how it's kind of blowsy and NYLON magazine sexy-messy all of the time? There's an edge and she is walking it, this week. Cutting it real damn close.
Nate calls, but Serena does not answer the call because Nate is in big trubs. Dan calls immediately after, and S picks up on the second ring. Dan explains to her the entire fucked up story of this season, poison and fake-adultery and all of it, and Serena just hangs up in the middle, because she's having an adventure and she doesn't need all this exposition. Honey, the exposition hasn't even fuckin' started yet. You're going to wish it was just Dan being a good friend-brother-lover once the bullshit starts. S, though, a seed has been planted, and she asks Will if they can't just stay one more night because "people are saying [he's] behind this Holland thing," which is so vague that, even though he totally is behind all of the "Holland Things," you could still be like, "Serena, what are you talking about?"
S leaves the scene abruptly for some reason, but then Rufus barges into the house for the 18th time, having now assembled the entire puzzle of Holland Things. Serena tells him to get the fuck out of her house, and Rufus comes back with the undefeatable "You want to tell her, or should I?" Because of course any time Will or Serena tells Rufus that Lily doesn't want to see him, she immediately comes wafting down the stairs in a drugged-up haze, drinking apple juice with his seed inside her, to deliver a vague hello.
Then... I'm not doing this scene. It's so fucking insulting. The rest of the cast is riding in a limo over to PRADA and explaining the shit to each other in minute detail. Lily had cancer, Will cured it but fell in love with her, sent the letter to freak Rufus out, it didn't work, sent Holland to freak Rufus out -- "Holland's husband was leaving her, and she was desperate for a friend" -- but it didn't work, so then Plan C was: Give Lily fake cancer by treating her for African River Blindness.
They all act like this makes total sense and explain it to each other and generally do their very best to act as though this isn't the most retarded thing they've ever had to do, sit in a limo and talk about the show we're watching at length, although there's one neat moment where Nate says, "No wonder you admire him. It's almost like something you would do," and he's talking to Chuck, but Blair's not looking and assumes he's talking to her, and says thank you. I liked that little moment. So then Dan and Jenny ruin everything by going, "The only question now is... Will Lily believe [Rufus]?" Like you're Rod Serling or Alfred Hitchcock or something. Like you're fucking Shelley Duvall over here.
Rufus and Will yell at each other, oh what a Talking Like This contest, and finally Will's like, "I will go downstairs where my luggage is and find the files that suggest I am not treating your mother for African River Blindness!" S says he doesn't really need to prove himself, but both Lily and Eric are slightly more interested in her health status than in making sure Will doesn't leave Serena's line of sight for more than a few seconds, so he beats it downstairs and you can practically hear the screech of tires as he gets the fuck out of there.
Serena gives a half-hearted nod to how fucking insane she's acting -- "I'm sorry, Mom. I don't want you to be sick, but Dad is not lying to us," which, parse that insanity why don't you -- and then the whole rest of the cast show up and tell S that Will has totally left, once again. She does some cartwheels and downs some shots and sticks her fingers in her ears and goes la-la-la. Then she beats it downstairs to the lobby to see if they are lying to her for no reason. It's pathetic, but not really for character reasons: More like, again, we're gesturing toward the idea of denial and instead of making it work in the story, we're just making Serena carry a huge glittery sign that says DENIAL and she says, like, "I reject your reality! I deny the truth! The facts are not my facts!" Which is not how people actually act.
Nate calls his friend on the force, Captain Lewis, which I thought Nate already knew that time that Serena got arrested, but he says they met at the Vanderbilt's this last summer, so who knows. I don't know what Nate tells them besides, "There's a guy somewhere who did something," but maybe they know the location of his helipad already. Everybody else stares around at each other and wonders who tipped Will off to get out of town and take the family with him, and they get paranoid for about five seconds before Jenny -- once again with that throw-the-pills motherfuckers face -- totally and proudly announces that, once again, she has done something truly insane for no good reason.
Dan goes downstairs and watches Serena be sad and lonely for a good long time, but then suddenly she's got a huge, huge scarf and a tiny, tiny hat on, and she's at the helipad. She's dressed like Carmen Sandiego, to find Carmen Sandiego. That's smart thinking. She asks Will to explain what happened, so he does once more, and he sort of apologizes for poisoning her mother like so: "I'm sorry, Serena. I just thought unless your mother needed me... You weren't gonna give me a chance." She doesn't forgive him, explicitly does not forgive him, but warns him to leave before the cops get there. "I'll make sure they don't come after you," she says, because she's Pepper Potts and gets to boss the cops around. They hug and he leaves and they love each other and I guess from now on maybe she's gonna cover them puppies up.
Who are we kidding. Okay, meanwhile Rufus and Lily are making out in the middle of the living room while Jenny and Eric watch, aghast. Rufus says "The only thing that matters is I'm not losing you. To cancer, to Will, or anything else." Which is... There is something very Rufus, and very gross, about that sentence but I can't figure out what it is. Jenny throws down and points out that their relationship is totally fucked up at all times, and she was about to run off to Palm Beach and they trust each other zero. Rufus says most of that is Jenny's fault, which it is, and none of it is Jenny's business, which it is not. Another awesome line: "When we lived in Brooklyn I might have had to take the subway to school and make my own clothes, but at least our family was happy."
Rufus and Lily are just sort of bored by what a constant little shit she is, and they go upstairs to fuck, and meanwhile Eric's like, "If you don't want to be a part of this family, no one is forcing you to stay." Which I get what he is saying, which is that they all -- Lily, Serena, Eric, Rufus, Dan, Chuck -- have decided to be a family, PRADA family, and her idea of being the DUMBO family -- Rufus, Jenny, Dan, Vanessa -- is outmoded and doesn't even exist. She's running away toward something that can't ever exist, and doesn't mind stepping on toes or murdering her stepmother to do it. Which yeah, why don't you run away for like the 50th time this year? In fact, what's the most fucked-up place you could go? Not Brooklyn, where you have a home to go to and you were just whinging about that. No, acting normal wouldn't cut it. I think a better option would be your brother that always tries to rape you, you could try his house.
Chuck makes fun of Blair for still going on her Cameron date, and then I don't want to talk about it because it's so fucking stupid, but basically she said they were only hanging out, just like every episode, because of the scheme or party for that episode, but now they can go back to not being around each other because, as Holland explained, they don't feel "safe" with each other. Yeah, whoring each other out, literally, can have that effect. And then -- this is so egregious -- Chuck says these words:
"I did the most dangerous thing I could when I said I love you, and it was worth it. If I got through my fear for you, you can get through yours for me. You have until tomorrow to decide. We're never going to be safe. So are you brave enough, or aren't you? I'll be waiting at the top of the Empire State Building. If you're not there tomorrow, at 7:01 I'm closing my heart to you forever."
"Closing my heart" is the new waffles. I cannot... This is like fan fiction of this show and not actually the show. Why do we always go back to the eight letters thing? He is not ROBOCOP. It is not AMAZING that he has emotions. You can't play that card. You can't play that Grinch card, especially as a trump over PROSTITUTION. "Sorry I turned your ass out, but look at this single tear because of my mommy. Now we are even." You also cannot always be talking about closing and opening his heart. That is gayer even than he is. And you can't have both at once, which is what we're trying to do. And you certainly can't make this bullshit Blair's responsibility, which is the worst part: "You know how you said you dump me? Well, if you don't jump through these hoops, I am going to dump you!"
She takes off with Cameron and asks him to bore her about rugby, and stares longingly at the Empire State Building in a concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
S finally answers Nate's call, but only to tell him A) She got Will away from the cops somehow, B) Thanks for calling the cops on my Dad, C) This is why I keep secrets from you, and D) To eat a dick. She hops in the towncar, and guess who's there but her old friend Humphrey, to whom she apologizes about how emotionally this was probably complicated for him. "When are things not complicated with Serena van der Woodsen?"
ALWAYS. Things are ALWAYS not complicated with Serena van der Woodsen, until you bastards start pulling shit like this, because her needs are simple: Do not question her, do not invade her territory, let her figure things out in her own time, supply her with vodka and sex, strawberries when they're in season, and don't keep her up too late, because she needs her rest. And if everybody would just do what she says and not be constantly fucking with her from behind the scenes, nobody would have any problems. Her Guide to Teen Popularity would honestly work for everybody on earth. Don't you think even Vanessa would be great if she just took a page from S, and chilled out?
Jenny shows up at Chuck's for like no reason. Nate is there, drinking and sort of wobbling around in his personal darkness, and Jenny is honestly surprised to see him there because of all the Serena drama, and just as Serena is settling into Dan's shoulder for the ride back to PRADA, Nate is grabbing Jenny's luggage and doing a funny Pullman porter move with one hand, walking her down the hall, following her into the bedroom. Fucking finally! If she doesn't close the deal this time, I'm done. Here's to the Humphreys, who don't even wait until the body's cold.
Wouldn't you love it if Dan's first Sartre/Beauvoir letter was like, "Listen, I know you just left town yesterday and probably haven't even landed in Haiti, but guess what. You're gonna laugh... You know how you're like totally jealous of Serena, because I was in love with her for so long? And remember how I threatened you that leaving for three months would be the death of our relationship? And you were like, oh, I don't want to leave town because I love you and I was like, oh, just do whatever makes you feel free and then I forced you to say that you weren't staying for me, and then told you to go anyways? But in the back of your head you were thinking, he did flat-out warn me that there would be repercussions if I went to Haiti, because he likes having a girlfriend more than his girlfriend herself? Do I have a story to tell you! So Holland Kemble owed Will van der Woodsen a favor..."
Finale: In just a few hours! Major drama! Jenny maybe getting murdered! Georgina Sparks in disguise! Somebody punches possibly Blair in the face! Serena unhinges her jaw and eats the top half of Jenny Humphrey, while to Blair Waldorf go the legs and giblets! It is a witches' rave-up! A cannibal disco! A brunch feast for demons! A tribute to An Affair To Remember! All this and more! XOXO!
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