So here's what's been going on: Serena and Blair are in Paris, still. Serena has been sleeping her way through most of the labor class, while Blair has become intellectually pretentious and apparently kicked the shit out of her bulimia. Blair and Lily are both wearing some Ramona Flowers-height shoulder pads that make them look like they're in a Weird Old Lady Army, while Serena's hair and confusion about what constitutes clothes have grown to unimaginable magnitude during her time overseas.
Blair stares at that one Manet painting everybody likes, and eventually meets a cute boy who turns out to be Monaco royalty, of course, pulling some kind of Thoroughly Modern Millie/Roman Holiday scheme, of course. B doesn't figure that out Serena has secretly collegiately cockblocked B for like the fifth time, changing her application to Brown. For these and so many other reasons, Blair pushes her in a great big fountain, like getting soaking wet is going to make Serena less hot.
Meanwhile on the UES -- in which time moves strangely, as ever, sometimes matching Paris time and sometimes six hours behind -- Vanessa returns with more clever patter than a Daria soundboard and a freakout re: Dan, who is shacked up in DUMBO with Georgina and their son Milo, who is obviously not their son. Nobody knows where Chuck is, which worries Lily but is fine with Rufus, who is now wearing the too-tight polo shirts that trophy husbands have been wearing since marriage began.
Nate's worked his way down to the T's in the Chuck Bass Book of Whores when he meets Katie Cassidy, who is absolute perfection as usual. This Juliet gives Nate the full Barbara Stanwyck and then runs over to Eleanor's basecamp at PRADA, because apparently she "volunteers" at pretend charity events from inside Anna Wintour's mind, such as Fashion's Night Out. After some judging and patter and meet-cute and fake-problems, they totally fall in love or something.
Dan has lost weight while his hair has gone mad, and Nate has gained weight while his hair has relatively calmed down, and they both look fabulous. So Georgina crashes the pre-event event carrying Milo's birth certificate, probably in an attempt to sell the Empire Hotel to Russian gangsters or something. Lily kicks everybody out, irritating Eleanor, and gets her heartstrings yanked by Georgina, who produces paternity results and gets Dan's signature. While Vanessa prepares to go to war to save Dan's girlish figure from destruction, Georgina and Juliet do mysterious shit and act all weird.
In the end, we're left with two unlikely teases -- Is Juliet Gossip Girl? Is Chuck really dead? -- before a quick look back at the many rapes and near-death experiences of Mr. Bass. Turns out he was saved from death by the tender ministrations of that Veela girl from Harry Potter... And then (in a fairly lovely sequence, from a cinematic episode full of them) decided to give himself amnesia! Meet Henry and Eva. Meet Season Four, and approve. So happy to be back! XOXO.
Blair dumped Chuck after he literally turned her ass out, so he gave her an inappropriate ultimatum which she failed, so he finally decided to finish raping Jenny and then proposed marriage to Blair about ten minutes later. It was a hot mess. Then they both ran off to Europe, and Chuck was shot dead by street toughs.
Serena was supposed to decide between Nate and Dan, but nobody actually cared, including and especially the three of them, and the second she went to Paris they all got distracted anyway.
Nate chose whores.
Vanessa and Dan decided to "throw down," but then Georgina showed up mysterious and pregnant. Then Vanessa took her shit to Haiti, ran for President and started beef with Pras. Or Nas. Whichever. She started beef with Haiti, all of it. And the goblin-looking Moldy Peaches, because she thought they were the Dirty Projectors, because even her best effort still only counts as barely even trying.
So there's two episodes about Paris and this is the first one. Serena and Blair have been living it up on the Left and Right Banks. Serena is, of course, taking up portraiture as her latest imaginary talent, and mostly what she likes to draw is naked French fellas from the service industry, and when she's not doing that she is fucking them, because Serena is awesome. Blair is not doing anything worth mentioning, because she is still very sad about Chuck and also just sort of sad, like a sad person, these days.
Serena isn't buying Blair's Fat Best Friend routine, because that never works and nobody ever buys it, because it's only a plea for attention from the bottom of your insecurity, which are two things that are repellent. In fact, all kinds of guys have been hitting on B. She'd simply rather wait around for somebody that doesn't exist to come along and be doing her same pretentious French activities like reading Colette and gazing at clichéd paintings and endlessly shopping.
I'm so glad they could travel six time zones away to do the exact same shit as usual with even less accountability. Maybe in France Blair can actually accomplish her life goal of somehow making a relationship with a gay man work. But probably she's looking at Gossip Girl, in contravention of the agreement with Serena that happened last spring. She guiltily reads only the least anti-B sentiment to Serena, who pretends like she doesn't totally want to hear about herself on GG: "Oh la la! Paris is burning, and Serena and Blair lit the match!" And as for Chuck? MIA since he was murdered to death in Prague, surrounded by prostitutes and rough trade just like he always dreamed. Only his Nathaniel could have made the scene complete.
Serena points out that Blair's plan for amour -- sitting in places doing touristy things and not even trying, in the hopes that someone will do the same thing but also take an active interest in his own affairs -- is romantic but ineffective. Romantic is always ineffective, because it puts the onus on the other person, who doesn't even exist, and then punishes whoever does show up for not being the fantasy. Blair admits she's still got Chuck on the brain, but -- lie -- she would have settled for just a nice date in Paris, not necessarily a great love. Serena's like, "That's interesting, but Mama needs more wine and dick." They bounce.
Jenny, apparently, has spent her time at the Alison Humphrey School For Wayward Young Drug Pushers wiping her raccoon makeup off and growing, like, as a person. Eric and Elliott, being children, have of course taken Tuscany by storm and are even now hosting gay little fêtes on the Arno. Cyrus Rose is learning to make the best of the few minutes he gets with Dorota's child every day, and Eleanor is throwing a Fashion's Night Out planning luncheon in the AM, using Lily's "lovely abode." God, that word.
Rufus and Lily laugh about how Eleanor stole a baby from her immigrant house servant, and what a hassle that probably is for her. I guess this is foreshadowing for when they presumably steal Georgina Sparks's baby. They have so many kids to keep track of -- including Jenny who got banished, Chuck who is dead and Scott who never ever mattered even a little bit -- that they forgot not to get more. That is so Rufus and Lily.
Oh also, the Bass business manager has called Rufus and Lily while they were away in Hudson, and he would like to talk about something. Considering Lily runs that company and Chuck is not involved in that company, I'm guessing it has to do with the company and not Chuck, but Rufus assumes that it does have to do with Chuck, toward whom Rufus feels less than fatherly because of Jenny's v-card that he doesn't even know got swiped. So he doesn't care what's going on with Chuck, which as it turns out actually is what this call is about. Oh, Bruce Kaplan is the Bass family business manager, I bet. Got it.
Rufus then remembers to miss Dan, who has been incommunicado in DUMBO all summer, and finally calls Vanessa to find him, because stalking Dan is just something she is good at, and yelling at him about matters which concern her not at all is something she enjoys. So yes, by all means call in Vanessa Abrams to do your parenting for you.
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"I wanna hear all about your day. The food, the shopping, and the boys on Vespas... But first, I wanted to know if you or Blair have heard from Charles." Serena says that Lily has just given herself the update because her daughter is reliably rigorous in her schedule of drinking and doing it, and that there's nothing on the Chuck front either, which concludes their business. "Any normal summer, he's drunk on some island where polygamy's legal. Given everything that happened, it makes sense he's gone rogue." That's her explanation. She changes the subject to Columbia, and how Blair is going to shit a brique.
Vanessa babbles at Dan and tries to find out his secret while also bitching about how he left her for imaginary Serena but then didn't go to France with her and yet made the healthy lifestyle choice of avoiding Vanessa all summer anyway. She looks inside the house and there's laundry everywhere due to harried parenting, and hilariously guesses that Dan's secret is that he has become a hoarder. He mumbles and stutters and does all of the Penn Badgley things he can get his hands on, and finally Vanessa realizes there is a lady present and excuses herself.
But that's no lady, it's Georgina Sparks! Georgina Sparks has been keeping Dan hostage in this house, because she is a demon! To eat of his flesh! To force his sideburns into ever-stranger shapes! There is no end or limit to her evil! Dan swears they are not lovers and Vanessa goes, "Then what other possible reason could there be, in the God I Don't Believe In's universe, for Georgina Sparks to be leaving lingerie around your house?" Georgina reaches between the couch cushions and produces the baby Milo like he's the evil Simba, and all the evil awful hateful creatures of Brooklyn come to pay tribute. Witches and kronks and bridge trolls and things. It takes a while, because: Brooklyn. Kenley Collins shows up uninvited and says that Milo will prick his finger on a spinning wheel at some point in the future, probably at Glasslands.
Nate's whore won't get off the phone at Norma's so he just sort of feels awkward and sits down across the shared banquette from Katie Cassidy, playing a character named Juliet who is right this second reading House Of Mirth, which is about a lady who pretends to be rich but isn't really rich and eventually ends up dead. Basically Jenny's story, only the lady's named Lily Bart, which was always funny. Juliet talks smack about Nate's latest and gets him to admit in about three moves that she is a hooker, which would get you bonus points if it wasn't Nate Archibald. Sensitive about his choice of dining location he goes, "That Perkins hostess slept with Tiger Woods for over a year, and all he got her was a chicken wrap!"
He says a bunch more vague clichés and things that I don't really understand but seem to be totally on Juliet's wavelength, and she pronounces him either highly enlightened or deeply chauvinistic. The answer is stoned. It is always stoned. He flirts Juliet almost over to his table, but she has to go to Eleanor's FNO luncheon (we don't know this yet) and just so you fall in love with her, if the Katie Cassidy part didn't do it, when Nate asks for her number she goes, "What, it's not in your friend's little black book?" Them's some good meet-cute right there. I hope she is a paid assassin.
I waited for you outside/ Meanwhile you forgot me
At your door, I can see myself/ Flowers in hand
Pretty clever, but about par for this show. This is the song that is playing, translated shittily by yours truly, while Blair stares at that one Manet painting. Yes, you do know the one. Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863: The two guys, one in a funny hat, and the big naked lady staring out at you while another lady does something in the stream behind them. It's very famous and has a lot of history, maybe you should look it up. Look at it for awhile. I like how her clothes are just in a pile.
What is interesting here is that the lady on the left had the body of his wife and the head of his muse, while what matters is that the lady in the water is, in terms of perspective, too large and so she floats above them in a weird way, once you notice it. The other thing critics usually go after is how fake the whole thing looks, because of the quality of light and the way the shadows work, like it's somehow the same time in Paris and Manhattan. It's about the woman looking out at you.
This guy Louis walks up to Blair, who has framed herself this way every day in front of this painting, today wearing a beautiful orange number, and they flirt for a bit. He's very excited to find an American who loves Manet, because that is just so fucking rare. Blair bitches at him about assuming she's American and he points out that she still stupidly has her watch set to EST. Probably it just broke when Chuck fucked Jenny, like Miss Havisham. He asks her to dinner, which is technically what she said she wanted, and then his driver comes running up to call him a Grimaldi and take him to the embassy, which turns her around from just wanting like a nice date with -- to be fair, one of the hottest guys they've had on this show -- to wanting to be the Princess Grace.
Serena's eighth boyfriend of the day is so not interested in letting her chat with B about her "real live prince" she just met, and all of her Monaco dreams that she is now filling up with bizarre yeasty craze. After some relatively adept GG wordplay ("Spotted: B&S, chic and cheerful up on Boulevard Haussmann. They dallied at department stores and stayed a while at Tally Weijl. Down on Rue Saint-Honor? They courted couture at Palais Royal and found the perfect outfits to ba&sh the competition..."), Blair sets to Googling her Grimaldi prince.
Serena is horrified, because for once one of Blair's weird nonstop fantasies actually came true -- a mystery hottie actually approached her, in the sad little tracks she was wearing into the rue from one tourist destination to the -- and she's trying actively to ruin it through thinking. This is not the Serena Way. Blair finally agrees, and so Serena tries to change the subject to the course catalog that somehow founds its way, Hogwarts-esque, to their hotel.
Blair gets a text, interrupting: "I want to hear all about how Brown offers a major in raw foods, but..." Turns out it's a double-date, they're going to Baccarat, and his buddy Jean Michel is coming along. Serena -- note -- tries once again to recuse and defuse herself and the situation, pointing out that this is Blair's "princess moment" with the obvious unspoken corollary that Serena cannot help but outshine and ruin those, but B's not having it. She's got crown jewels in her mind. S puts off ruining both Blair's date and Blair's life for a little bit later in the evening, because she is a true friend.
Georgina yells on the phone in Russian until she finally wakes up Milo, of whom it's safe to say she's fairly fond, and then when the phone rings again she yells in more Russian, but it's Rufus instead. She puts on that crazy smile she has and is like, "It's so great to hear from you!" But the lack of Dan's signature on Milo's birth certificate concerns her, and so we see the scheme unfurl. Well, to the point that we knew there was a scheme and that it had to do with the baby and now that's been confirmed by Georgina staring holes in a birth certificate.
Meanwhile, Vanessa has taken Dan for a little walk slash intervention. He says the word "episiotomy," which is quite enough, but at least Vanessa gets to make a joke about avoiding the topic of her "Georgyna," and then he begs her not to tell Rufus and Lily about his baby. She points out that he's making no sense, and he agrees.
"Maybe because I'm totally freaking out? Do you know how difficult it is to keep a baby alive? You can't drop it! You can't leave it alone! It has to eat! Like every three hours!" And thus, if Dan's mind is blown you can bet Rufus's will be. Vanessa asks the sensible question of how, since Georgina Sparks is crazy and a liar and a doomsday scenario at all times -- and constantly does things like film murderous coke-fueled threesomes and send them to people's moms -- has he made sure that the baby is actually his? Dan's like, "Sort of, not really." He tries to explain this but it continues to not make sense. "It was actually my idea for her to move in. I've been waiting for the crazy shoe to drop... But it never did." Vanessa points out that even Georgina's hair lies, and that you can't trust the things that come out of her mouth, much less her pudenda, but the takeaway is apparently that Dan's been tricked into thinking paternity tests are an urban myth or something.
Louis is driving, Jean Michel is in back, when they arrive for the date. Because, you see, Louis is the driver and Jean Michel is the Grimaldi. Which, you can forgive Blair for forgetting that all of this already happened, because the only thing that happens more often than royalty dating Blair and pretending to be non-royalty is the concept of Serena getting to date the prince while Blair has to sweep up all the ashes every night and get poked in the eye by little goblins when she's trying to sleep on a cold, cold hearth with only dry leaves for a bed.
Blair kind of throws a shit-fit right in Louis's face about being a chauffeur, but he's super gracious like French people always are, and Serena tries to get her to class her shit up: "He's charming, handsome, and loves Manet. We make our own fairy tales. Let's go." Blair sits in the front seat with the driver, acts like a dick about it, and they head off into the night for what I'm sure is going to be a hell entirely of Blair's devising.
Eleanor accessorizes Lily with a nameplate reading "Lily Bass Humphrey," so people will know she once mattered. Rufus doesn't even have the balls anymore to be pissed about this, and says that, as a former rockstar, he wants to stick around for all the champagne and models. I'm not sure what's sadder there, the "rock star" or the "used to be" that preceded it.
The subject somehow changes to how Rufus hopes that dead Chuck is dead, while Lily just finds the whole disappearance is mysterious and intriguing. "Apparently he went to Prague in May, checked into his usual suite at the Mandarin, and never checked out. His credit card charges are very un-Charles-like: Second-class train tickets, prepaid cell phones." She points out that he is a part of the family and Rufus makes some point that exists only in his mind that he doesn't accept Chuck as part of his family.
Eleanor runs up and blowsy as usual starts in on how she doesn't even know why Chuck and Blair broke up, which leads to legitimate eye-woggling between the Bass-Humphries, and then Lily tells Eleanor about how Serena's going to Columbia, which Eleanor just loves, because she likes to be the one to tell Blair the really awful shit that undermines her basic operations. Then she introduces Juliet to Willy Wong, because Juliet is here volunteering, as she does every year, or at least that's her story.
While that same French band from earlier sings about what a bitch Blair is, she tries and fails not to ruin everything. The boys are telling a very bro story about how Jean Michel got thrown out of a casino this one time, for wearing jeans, and Blair has this sort of shrill, grand mal classi freakout that's sort of amazing to behold.
"Sure, but enforcing strict standards of dress is essential for maintaining the decorum of an event! Besides, it's tradition! Men's formalwear hasn't changed hardly in over a hundred years! And it's not just a symbol of class! Owning a tuxedo shows the world that a man has enough means to marry and provide a FUTURE FOR HIS FAMILY!"
By the end everybody's staring at her, and luckily Eleanor calls right then, so to be fair they are at a luncheon and it's dinnertime in Paris. Why is Eleanor calling? Just to be the first to tell her about Columbia. That's the entire conversation: "So what if Serena always gets the prince and I get the pauper? Being jealous of her is totally Constance, and I've moved on," says Blair, and immediately Eleanor screams, "SHE GOT INTO COLUMBIA!" and hangs up and runs off into the night with a crossbow and a smirk.
Juliet is just pleased as punch to be working the old FNO planning luncheon, talking to various fashion people I don't care about and won't matter in a year anyway, and Nate shows up to look over Chuck's paperwork -- because of his gift for forensic accounting -- so they get to be super cute together some more.
In Paris, Serena has made friends with Lou Doillon, a fashion person I care very much about, but that just adds to Blair's total rage boner.
Awesomely, Georgina shows up at the luncheon at this moment, just strides right on up in their business and produces the heir in front of everybody. I wish she could somehow also interrupt the Parisian dinner, which, it would stretch her powers of evil but I think she could do it. Nate tries to get her away from the fashion people and she doesn't care, just laughs him off, and he confuses everybody more when he asks if Dan knows she's there. Dan calls right then and he's like, "I thought you went on a walk!" and she's like, "Yeah motherfucker, we walked to Manhattan!" and he finally hears the crazy shoe drop.
She hands the phone to Rufus so that Dan can apologize and stutter-babble while she takes the demon baby out of the stroller and once again holds it high in the air, and Dan rushing as fast as he can across the bridge, and Rufus staring, and Eleanor loving it, and Lily wanting the baby in her arms right away, and all of the fashion people just totally scandalized because they've never seen a baby before. Lily throws everybody out of the house and Eleanor spits quietly, "What's going on why does Georgina Sparks have a baby?" and takes all the fashion lunchers to her house, where this shit should have happened in the first place.
Georgina stares crazily at Dan as he hustles Rufus back into a PRADA bedroom to discuss the fatherhooding, and people keep being like, "How could this happen?" Have you met Georgina Sparks? "This must be a ridiculous Georgina Sparks scheme!" Which, joking about the show during the show is a button you can push and it feels really good but it's like the rat pressing the button to get more coke: At some point, you're going to have a dead rat and then no amount of Georgina Sparks jokes are going to be fun. You know what's shitty to contemplate? "Georgina Sparks" being the new "waffles."
Nate chases Juliet around trying to apologize for the drama and tells her his life is drama-free and is well on the way to falling in love with her or something when we learn that his suite at the Empire is having some kind of whore meltdown emergency and the girls are, as they say, going wild.
Serena chases Blair out into the France and Blair yells at her about dividing up the entire city of Paris: "You can have the Left Bank, okay, but I want the Right. Every cleavage-baring blouson and cute bartender is yours. But I want a dress from Dior, and I want a date with a royal, and I want to go to school, and take classes, and have friends, without living in your shadow for the three years!"
Serena finally figures out that Blair must have found out about Columbia, due to her yelling specifically about Columbia, but instead of tapping herself in the head and being like, "Every time you withhold information about somebody's main issue, you end up getting shoved around later, so time you should sack up and tell the information," that is not how her thought process goes, so instead she's just like, "What a situation in which we two have once again found ourselves. Alas, it was unavoidable as far as I can see. Hug?"
While Georgina brandishes the baby at everybody like a strange voodoo fetish that nobody wants to touch, Lily points out that this is major crummy drama. Georgina admits her "flair for the dramatic," and complains that Dan was wussing out and she was getting bored but at least now everybody's talking, which is the Georgina thing. Her reason for existing. Lily mutters that she's enjoying it, and Georgina's pretty great: "I know you think I'm crazy, that I'm a schemer and a liar and pathologically selfish, and that's true."
Or it was, she lies, until Milo was born. Then I guess it went away, only to come back for the five seconds it takes to get from DUMBO to PRADA, and now has gone away again? I love that. "I'm totally crazy! Except right this second." Georgina then proves how bonkers she is by saying this, to Mrs. Lily van der Woodsen Bass Humphrey: "I understand if you hate me. Please don't hate my son. He deserves to have a good family. And no one has more love than you or Rufus."
Yeah, you're really giving the kid a gift that'll keep on giving. How great it will be for him when Grandma Lily and Grandpa Rufus get a fifth divorce week. How marvelous when Lily drives Milo to suicide the first time. How much love it will take to get him on the pole, stealing horses, or fucking married Congressmen. "Nobody has more love than you and Rufus, unless your teenager wants to be a fashion designer, in which case love means tossing her ass out on the street." "Nobody has more love than you and Rufus, unless your child has been shot to death in Prague."
Georgina then produces a mysterious Secret Paternity Test that Dan didn't know about, which clearly states that Dan is the father of the child. Since he was willing to believe it just because he's an idiot, this only firms his belief, but Rufus isn't so sure. I love how Big Strong Rufus can't even look a grownup in the eye, but with kids he's like constantly throwing down the gauntlet.
"Jenny, I will punch you in the neck for having dreams. Charles, I hope you die of syphilis in Prague, and thanks for saving my wife from getting raped that time at the opera when all I could do was gasp and stare. Georgina, I would prefer your child die an orphan than give you the time of day."
Although it's not as awesome as Lily's nonchalance about the whole Chuck situation and Rufus's endless whining. "Frankly, she was a lot better behaved at that point than when she was a drug-dealer. Her manners were really unacceptable when she was running drugs. What do you want me to say? Look, I tried. So my kid had sex with her? Somebody was going to. She was on a mission. Eric barely escaped. It's over now. I'm just glad she's in Hudson, and I no longer have to deal with her constantly moving that goddamn sewing machine in and out of various rooms."
Serena tries to explain to Blair that Columbia isn't hers as a concept, which is very true actually. She only just thought of going to Columbia like in the finale. Plus, apparently it was all Dr. vdDubs that talked her into it, because after all that's where he went to med school (apparently), and whatever, she wants to stay in the City and not go to Providence. Mostly because she wants to be with Blair.
Secondarily because she wants to overshadow and continually ruin Blair's life, is what B hears, but it's making less and less sense. What does make sense is Blair's actual issue, which she's not verbalizing very well but basically comes down to the entire season last year, where she fucked up at NYU and then spend the rest of the season in bed with Chuck pretending to be his wife and succumbing to depression: "I need a chance to succeed on my own. I want to be myself, where I belong." Instead of validating this, Serena decides to compare notes: Fell for married Tripp, major car accident, often homeless, the whole vdDubs thing. When you say it like that, it almost sounds like last season wasn't totally boring. Then Serena van der Woodsen of all people goes, "Blair, I want to make you happy. I really do. But college is too big of a deal." She really has gone through a sea change, has she not? College: A big of a deal.
"But right now, there are two very handsome Frenchmen waiting to take us to the front of the line at Le Baron. Louis really likes you." Blair says that, in fact, she will recapitulate Déjeuner sur l'Herbe by dining alone with him and Jean Michel, she'll be the girl that looks right out at you from the canvas, drinking casually with two men, and dumb old Serena can just fall in the fountain like in the painting. Serena points out that she moves way too slow and gracefully to fall in the fountain, so Blair pushes her in.
(Yes, Easy A is really good. Dan is good in it. Emma Stone is GREAT in it. It's not quite Mean Girls, but well above 10 Things or Jawbreaker, both of which are quite good but only as good as they're trying to be. Right around Saved level, I think, which is a very good place to be. And while we're talking about this stuff, Ashley Tisdale more than makes up for Aly Michalka in Hellcats but I don't know how long that can last.)
So they call some doctor who confirms the results and whatever, Rufus still isn't buying it. Dan says that the dates line up, as if that means anything, and reminds Rufus of how he acted that time Serena bought the pregnancy test for Blair, and Rufus tries to give him some lame fatherhood speech that barely even applies to the situation. "As a father, I like to butter my toast so that the butter is on the upwards side of the bread. You might not understand that now, but somebody you will." Dan signs the birth certificate, and the Humphrey Men do a Humphrey Man-Hug, and Georgina makes some inscrutable face.
The girls are playing Rock Band in their underwear when Nate and Juliet get there, and I guess it's one of those Hayes Code-esque deals where we're supposed to imagine worse things going on than there are. Do these girls all know each other? How did this come about? Why did they buy a video game with Nate's credit card? Why is Juliet so offended? I'm missing something. Well, they're wearing lingerie and one of them is wearing the purple suit, so there are indications that it's off the chain, but something about the scope of the depravity isn't coming across, and so when Juliet is like, "What would Chuck Bass do in a situation like this? He wouldn't be in this situation? Neither should you be," and takes off, leaving Nate his card and a sinking sense of self, the only thing that I can think of is that it's relatively early in the day to be having a slumber party at a strange Archibald's hotel suite.
Dan and Lily play with the baby and he asks after Serena, and Lily says she knows damn well something happened, but she doesn't even have the capacity to imagine how low-key that was. They drank wine, they kissed, he thought for five seconds about following her to France, he blew it off. No big. Plus, Dan points out, now you've got the idea of Serena as a stepmother, which is hilarious and terrifying on many levels. Dan asks Lily not to tell her daughter about his baby, and Lily's like, "You know Serena, she's always having fun." She's not really paying attention because she wants that baby.
Blair's telling the boys how clumsy Serena is -- "must be all those long limbs" -- when Serena comes back into Baccarat, looking stunning despite having nearly drowned, because this is the world of Serena. They ask her what happened and she's like, "Blair happened." It would be tiny bit funnier if she looked like the girl from The Ring, but since you literally cannot make Blake Lively look bad it's just mostly funny. She asks Jean Michel to walk her home, and Blair whines about being left with the chauffeur, and Louis reveals that they knew all along that Blair ain't playing with no broke-broke and now he wants to take his leave, probably to go stare at that painting some more, because she failed the test. The SAME TEST.
Georgina watches Dan napping with Milo when Vanessa calls to apologize to Dan, so she promises to give him the message that Vanessa will always be his friend (trans. "Crazy in love with him"). "That's sweet," says Georgina, "He's gonna need a friend." Why? Because she is walking out that door and never coming back! But doesn't want to tell him that she's leaving him with a baby! Phase II Complete! So Vanessa's like, "Yeah, if you don't give him the message, I already left it on the voicemail" and Georgina grins: "You know me too well, friend. Goodbye, Vanessa." I really hope this scheme makes sense and is complicated and surprising. Anyway, she bounces like Paltrow.
Blair comes back all "Is it any consolation that I totally imploded and ruined my date?" and Serena's like, "Fuck you. I'm going to read this copy of Be on the plane because that's how long it will take, one magazine," and Blair says she doesn't care about dating princes, or any boys, that she only cares about Serena and being with Serena and smelling her hair.
"I've been acting like I'm okay, but I'm not. They say it's a broken heart, but... I hurt in my whole body. I mean, what if I stay like this forever? What if I never get over Chuck?" Serena says she will but there's no supporting evidence and the person won't believe you anyway. "I'm scared if you come to Columbia that I'll do something to destroy us," Blair says, which is a valid concern, and Serena points out her own ability to overlook almost anything, because she is shallow. To Blair's fear that Columbia might be a disaster, and they'll lose each other for good, Serena offers the idea that Columbia might be amazing, and they'll become closer than they've ever been. Let's just sit with that idea for awhile.
Blair texts GG about the news, and tells S to let Dan and Nate know, because she's like obsessed with the idea that Dan and Nate care about them. "This just in, from Miss B herself: Serena van der Woodsen is heading to Columbia. S and B, together again? We think we've died and gone to heaven. Or at least the Upper West Side..."
Over the poignant "I Can't Hear You," by the Dead Weather, things occur. Somebody's hands find dead Chuck's wallet, while Nate calls Juliet, who is in turn reattaching tags to today's clothes in a very Lily Bart/Jenny Humphrey fashion. He admits to being quite hurt, as a man and lover, and invites Juliet to coffee even though it's "late," now that S is heading back to town. In fact, Nate's whole business with the naughty girls was intended to impress Serena in some fashion. So Juliet takes the tags off again, checks out her intensely spooky corkboard full of pictures of Serena and yarn connecting all the kids to each other and GG open on her desk, and heads out to be crazy, while "France" calls Lily to tell her that they found Chuck's dead body in Paris.
But instead what really happened in Prague was that girl treated his wounds herself because she didn't know about doctors, and while she was doing that he was roiling around remembering that one scarf he used to own and his intense rape history and all the times Dan punched him and how Blair dumped him and how he kind of deserved it, and when he finally woke up, he got rid of his signet ring and told the girl his name was Henry Prince, as in the former Prince Hal, because of her copy of Henry V.
Eva was that kind of liberal red-light district girl who doesn't know of medicine, but keeps bound copies of Shakespeare around that just happen to mirror the story of every dissolute yappy that gets shot on her doorstep, providing ready aliases and something to read on those long, medically DIY nights. They always told her she'd prick her finger on a spinning wheel, or fighting grindylows for the Aurors, so she's headed to Paris.
Where she's talking in a very low voice about how he keeps having terrible dreams even though he has never looked hotter and his hair is so great, and her French uncle has given them an apartment and a job -- which no doubt will involve tossing fish or hauling baguettes in a striped boatneck, if I know this show -- so they can start over with his fake amnesia. I guess the mugger (got mugged by somebody who then) went to Paris, and was himself mugged and killed? Perhaps the ring is cursed and only endless muggings will result until Blair has it on her finger. Or maybe this all happened months ago and he's still dead, just ironically from getting shot in France three months after getting shot in Prague and not from the original getting shot. But I doubt it. We make our own fairytales. Bisou bisou.
Look back at the juiciest moments from the third season of Gossip Girl.
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