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Girl, so much gossip! The title of this show is really quite apropos.
It starts out with Blair and Serena promising each other that they will stop picking their scabs and devote themselves to shopping instead. For S, this means leaving Dan and Nate alone, not stalking them on Gossip Girl, and not ruining their relationships by being Serena. For B, this means not trying to maim Eva or otherwise ruin her.
Five minutes later, Serena's got Dan cozied up to her on the couch, investigating Eva while Blair stalks her, and then telling Nate evil facts so he'll tell Chuck. Of course, she was a prostitute in Prague -- albeit with a year of nursing school under her belt, which I guess explains her bullet extraction skills -- but Chuck doesn't care. She sold a fabulously expensive watch that Chuck got her... to pay for his valet's mother's mortgage. She likes puppies, kitties, Operation Smile. She's perfect. So perfect, in fact, that Chuck decides to give her five mil to start her own charity so she can change the world the same way she changed him, blah blah blah.
It is at this point that Blair Waldorf loses her goddamn mind.
B ganks Chuck's passport from Ivan and hides it in Eva's stuff, proving that she knew who Chuck was when she saved him, which is a dealbreaker because of all the times we've seen this storyline. He tosses her out, then learns from Lily that Blair got his passport from the valet and staged the whole thing. Eva still leaves him -- we gather more from context clues than the dialogue -- so he trots on over to Blair's and explains, in his Bass way, that she has awakened the monster inside him and now it is war, and he will destroy Blair utterly. Which destroys Blair, almost utterly.
Dan's suffering so mightily from the loss of his pseudo-child that he's given up bathing, and his hair has come out of the closet. Seeking refuge from the nonstop smothering "support" that only Vanessa Abrams can provide, he runs to S so she can teach him the art of not giving a shit about anything in this world. S and Dan come close to getting back together, but then Juliet talks V into confronting them, and by the end of things Vanessa and Dan are back together. A highlight: Rufus giving Dan the real talk facts about how not to cheat on your wife or ever leave your scarf anywhere.
Juliet wraps up another day of Serena Ruining by confessing to Nate that Prison Ben is her brother, and then taking him up to a fake apartment that belongs to some out-of-towners. Lonely again, Serena's just lying around on her bed dressed like I Dream Of Jeannie for when Blair comes running wordlessly and plops facedown in her crotch to cry her guts out and wonder when Chuck's bullet will finally hit.
While Chuck Bass Batman-voice speeches are always rough to watch -- and a distracting lot of the episode is people standing around declaiming things, as if it's some kind of primetime soap opera about rich people who have no problems -- the sheer velocity of everybody's terminological inexactitudes rocketing around the place is more than enough to steer us straight. Also: An absurd amount of hilarious faces, Vanessa looking like the full-on cracked-out harridan she's always been inside, that ridiculous Serena dress, and Dan's absolutely mesmerizing haircut. Plus extra credit for drunk Lily van der Woodsen, which is always a treat.
week: Chuck and Juliet probably just up and kill everybody at once to save time and then Georgina comes and kills both of them because Milo is actually a Soviet weapon from the Cold War and then Poppy rises up from a swamp somewhere and feasts on all of their brains and all that's left is Rufus crying in the wreckage and Vanessa going, "I know you feel bad about this, but probably I feel a little worse."
Want more? The full recap starts right below!The changes in Chuck's character, of which we shall hear much but have seen and will see little, have nonetheless been so amazing and bizarre that it's driven our GG around the bend. This is the kind of shit she's saying now: "Has a French fairy touched Chuck with her magic wand? Or does simply being with an angel make you want to grow wings too?" ("Does a French fairy angel need a Daddy Warbucks but angel Warbucks Daddy don't grow on fairy trees at least not on a magic tree that grows in Brooklyn?") Maybe the problem is keeping up with the technical demands of GG 2.0, what with its live streaming video of every location that exists. And these "threads" all the kids are talking about these days, just like in real life.
Dorota is stealing the papers before they reach Blair and blaming it on Susan Lucci, who lives in 8-H, which I'm guessing is a studio apartment. Which is a futile gesture, which makes it a stupid gag and then the stupid gag gets stupider because Blair actually explains: "There's no point. It's all over the internet." This is why I fucking hate Dorota, because there's no way to construct a scene with her without doing obnoxious shit like that: "Joke setup, joke punchline that explains why the joke setup was unrealistic and stupid. Zero sum. Eastern European stereotype that believes itself post-racist but is in fact merely racist. Joke setup, pregnancy reference. Confusion of verb form! Maid's uniform, patronizing popularity, vicious attack followed by begrudging tenderness radicalizes and then neatly contains within its own erasure the acknowledged mindset of the racist upper class. And scene."
Anyway, Serena gasps into life and comes vaulting into the room. "The internet? What's that?" Well, it's a series of tubes that brings us the news of Chuck's purchases. In particular, a limited edition Baignoire Cartier watch, the cost of which the selfsame internet is now on fire trying to figure out. Dorota says something dumb and leaves. Blair, of course, cannot go to Chuck Bass's charity gala at the end of the episode, because she and a diamond-encrusted timepiece cannot exist in the same location at the same time. Also, he never bought her anything that expensive, which B has to believe is the real problem so that she can pretend it's not about general Chuck angst but also that it's not a problem because if it were the real problem, that would make her pretty gross. The amount of grossness B exhibits in this episode is pretty spectacular notwithstanding, and anyway Blair has already decided that this is more proof that Ivva is working her French fairy magic in order to get Chuck's money, which of course is usually the case.
Serena points out that none of this is Blair's business at all, and Blair points out that S is being just as creepy, maybe twice as creepy, because she's spying on Nate and Juliet, and also and even worse, "Humphrey and Dumpty." (Nice one.) Serena remembers the whole thing about how life was better in Paris because none of these idiots existed when they were gone, and B calls her a whore from her free-love stint over there, and talks some sense: "Maybe Dan and Nate will see the error of their ways and break up with those girls. Or they'll marry them, and you'll die hitting refresh."
This, Serena knows, is a very good point, so she backs off. The girls agree to stay away from their various boy issues, and just be cool for once. "No plotting, no meddling, no Blair Waldorfing," S makes Blair promise, and they decide to stay home from the gala tonight so they can just head into the full-on Grey Gardens territory that was always going to be their endgame. They've got pretty good game pretending these things, but even when they're promising they know they are both lying and today will end in bloodshed. Still, even having the thought that their behavior could stand to be adjusted counts as growth, in a certain sad way.
Also sad in a certain kind of way: Humphrey and Dumpty playing house with no baby in the house. Well, unless you count Dan, who has fallen into post-parting depression now that Milo is gone. He's not showering or changing his clothes, which is the Williamsburg version of Blair's turn last year as chatelaine of the Empire: Find the cliché that's closest to whatever you're already doing, and then just do it twice as hard. Vanessa, same strategy: She makes Dan some vegan pancakes and calls him "sleepyhead" and basically tries to act like the little momma in a bohemian hell-rhapsody. These people would be a lot more likeable if they were actually what they're constantly pretending to be, but the show would be a lot more boring if that happened. Honestly, if everybody were as mature and insightful as they're acting this morning, life would just be waiting around for Rufus to do something fucked up. As it is, Dan wants Vanessa to just shut up and stop badgering him to cry about the baby, and then he wants her to die because guess who just showed up? Rufus and Lily, looking worried and smothering.
Chuck makes conversation with his valet Ivan about this and that, sports, things he doesn't care about, flowers, things he does care about. Nate crawls out from something looking delightful, and then Juliet appears out of nowhere with an obvious lie about how she dunked her phone in a latte or something. Chuck tells everybody that he's starting a $5M charity at the ball, but he doesn't actually know for what cause: "Petroleum apocalypse, the education crisis, poverty, disease, not to mention the recession. It seems outside my Bassian bubble, the world is a pretty screwed up place." Then, their worldviews increased by the power of Bono and Coldplay, the two spoiled rich kids and their secret hooker girlfriends drink some champagne with diamonds in it and light their cigars with hundred-dollar bills and chat about their inner lives.
It takes very little time. While Chuck and Nate are in the other room "getting the champagne" if you know what I mean, Juliet congratulates Ivva on how Chuck has stopped raping people for the nonce. Ivva says something to the effect of how Chuck Bass is a spectrum of possibilities and rape is only one of these, but she grades on a curve or something. In the other room, Nate pulls back from their sloppy hungry kiss just long enough to ask why Chuck's doing philanthropy things now, because if he's going gay Nate's gonna have to get his loving from Dan Humphrey from now on.
The thing -- I love Nate, he's always having these thoughts out of nowhere, that just bubble up from inside his brain at the weirdest times -- Nate's like, "You know what? Juliet has never invited me over to her apartment." Chuck rolls his eyes and Nate starts listing all the other ways that Juliet is a mysterious person clearly out to destroy Serena van der Woodsen. Chuck's like, "Probably she's fucking lots of other people and that's why she's always busy. Is that a problem?" Nate admits it's not really a problem, forgets whatever they were talking about, and then says goodbye because Juliet suddenly has to leave because her dead phone just rang and an imaginary emergency has presented itself. "Wasn't her phone dead at the beginning of this scene?" he asks Chuck, who just stares at him cross-eyed trying to replay their conversation and figure out what Nate's on about from context.
"So what is this, a talk-about-your-feelings intervention?" Dan, you're looking at Vanessa and Rufus. Isn't everything a talk-about-your-feelings intervention with those two sandal-wearing ladies? Lily is classy enough not to punch a hole in the wall at the thought, but stays mum. They try to talk about how depressed Dan is about the baby leaving, but Dan is resolute about the concept that he is not actually depressed about that and just turning into a hipster. He points out his new, extremely adorable/distractingly homosexual hairdo as just one example, but they're not buying it. He calls Milo a "waste of a summer" and runs off to Nate's strong comforting arms. Or so he says, and they all buy it, because nine out of ten that real
ly is what he would be doing.
S turns on Gossip Girl to break their pact as soon as Blair's gone, but the first thing she sees is Blair breaking their pact at Cartier, checking the cost of that watch. S points out that Blair's own Cartier watch was working fine yesterday, so Blair -- hilarious, psychotic -- smashes it against a glass case and smiles creepily to herself. But then guess what, Ivva is also at Cartier, selling back the diamond watch for cold hard cash right out there in the open. Of course we know that shit will fly at Harry Winston Paris, but we do things a little bit differently here in the States. Blair snaps some pictures, but S has to get off the phone because Dan wandered into her house to ask her out for the day, while Vanessa entertains their parents with her particular brand of bullshit back in DUMBO.
Blair is on fire with crazy when she shows up at the Empire with a room service trolley, offering to have tea with Chuck and Ivva. Chuck tells B to go away and stop torturing Ivva, who has just arrived and tries once again to show some backbone in the face of Blair's unending onslaught. Blair apologizes to her for being horrible, and of course immediately starts reminiscing about the time he turned her ass out for the hotel. Chuck's proud to say he already told Ivva this, so B gets to the point: "Forgive me for being vulgar, but I've always wanted a Baignoire timepiece. Might I see it?" In that crazy society voice she pulls out when it's time to do evil. "Might I see it?" Love that. Ivva says she's having it resized, and Blair produces her phone, with video she took of Ivva selling the watch.
Ivva says something about how she needed the money for a friend, I think, and Blair goes, "That weak excuse might've worked in the former Vichy Republic, but Chuck and I are savvy New Yorkers!" Former Vichy Republic? Nice. I like my mean girls with a twist of erudition, and that's one of the coldest sideswipes I've ever seen B pull. But then it all goes to shit because in fact Ivan the valet is the friend, and he needed the money because his mother was about to lose the house he grew up in, so Ivva talked him into letting her sell the watch she got this morning so that she could give him the money, also this morning. Chuck is flummoxed that you would give money to poor people, and she says something about feeling decadent wearing a shiny watch, and Chuck turns his smarm meter up to eleven for Blair's benefit: "How could I ever be angry at you? Just do me one favor. Pick the charity for me to give my money to! Your heart will find the right one." Blair has no idea what to do with all this bullshit, but she does feel burned in some unknowable way.
Serena tries to pretend that she cares about the Milo debacle, and Dan's like, "Actually, I came to you because I know you're the one person on earth incapable of actually caring about anything so I knew you wouldn't bug me about it." Serena nods, having often wondered why people spend so much energy on things like feelings, and babies. She settles into the idea of wandering around the city all day with Dan until he's finally exhausted and vulnerable enough to submit to her will, but B calls at that exact moment.
"I saw Eva selling her watch back to Cartier for cash then I went to Chuck's and witnessed her give the world's most credible altruistic excuse!" All in a breath. Serena points out that they promised each other no boys, but then B overhears Dan prattling on about a pretzel, and so S has to explain that he came looking for her. "First: Nonsense!" is Blair's awesome response. Then she says that both Serena and Dan have just been conscripted into Operation Smile, and finally says the truest part and the one that convinces S: "Do you remember when Chuck gave his heart to his mother? That was the beginning of the end. Of everything." And Blair was a collaborator, pushing him into that relationship with both hands because she thought that's what the wife should do, and it wrecked her entire existence. So yeah, S is down to help because this could be B's like one shot at redemption.
Blair is going about her redemption in a characteristically effed-up way: Escorting Ivva around town to sample charities and see which one is best. Needy puppies, perhaps? "So much cuter than those children with the cleft palates that you were going to pick," she says, horribly. "We need to think in terms of the Bass annual report cover when making decisions like this." For some reason this most vile statement goes shooting past Ivva and she's like, "I can't believe how nice you're being!" Ivva, you're dumb. You deserve what's coming to you. Like, miss a red flag like this one, that's on you: "Tell me everything! I want to hear your whole life story."
Nathaniel's stalking Juliet on GG when Chuck heads off to do something or other, and it's not going well. Chuck says that normally he would advise Nate to play the same game and make her jealous, but New Chuck tells him to be honest about his feelings and how much he likes her. Nate hates New Chuck, and then relates to him that Old Chuck should probably be notified that Blair has taken Ivva to the Park, probably to murder her. "Eva's strong. She can handle Blair," Chuck underestimates, and then heads off to his whatever mysterious errand.
Blair texts Serena madly with the details she's getting out of Ivva, so that Serena can relate them to Dan and Dan can use his googling skills to come up with dirt on her. She grew up in a Loire valley cheesemaker farm, for example. Serena sort of flails madly as the idea goes by that Dan used to always bitch and moan and judge her about the filthy world she lives in and how it makes her filthy, and so how funny that after three seasons he's actually proud of his social espionage skills. "Adapt or die," Dan says, which is like calling her a whore all over again essentially, but nicer than usual. "As I expected, there are no regional cheese scandals of note." How can you hate a world that lets you say things like that with such relish, because they actually do, in context, matter?
Ivva was in her first year of nursing school when Grandfather died (which makes sense because it's your first year of nursing school where they tell you to pour vodka on the wounded and then haul them wheezing into the nearest prostitute's infected garret for their recovery). Turned out the farm was upside down because mortgage crises are universal, so she left school to pay the bills and somehow ended up "waiting tables" in Prague. Blair's amazed to learn that Ivva was the one who found him, because it means she saved his life, which is something previously only Blair has done. So now her paranoia increases just that much more. She wonders why the ambulance never came, and Ivva admits that it was probably the neighborhood: "Chuck isn't exactly the first person to get shot in Perlovka."
Serena is astounded by Dan's mastery of the internet, and he totally says out loud, "Not only am I manly and rugged, but I also have mad browsing skills. Don't laugh, most women would be ripping their clothes off in the presence of this kind of web savvy." Dude, if a boy ever said something that dorky to me, it wouldn't be anybody's clothes getting ripped off. There is mad heat for a second and S is like, "Does Vanessa know you're here?" Dan admits that he lied to her, which S doesn't hate hearing, and tries to explain about how V is bugging him. Like this is a complicated concept.
"You know how Vanessa Abrams is always up everybody's ass all the time but especially my ass? And I moved her into my loft which only has one room and is in another borough entirely so I have no backup? So now it goes DUMBO, and then in DUMBO is the loft, and there's me in the loft in DUMBO, and there's my colon inside me inside the loft in DUMBO, and then right up in there is Vanessa Abrams."
While Dan and Serena figure out that Perlovka is the red light district of Prague, and Ivva therefore be trickin', Juliet sneaks up on Nate who is creepin' her on the internet. She's like, "Oh, are we exclusive? Because I'm cool with that if you are. And secondly, I'm not seeing anybody. I was visiting somebody. A secret somebody who is looking to destroy Serena van der Woodsen." That last part seems a little suspicious to old Nate, but before he can investigate further, Vanessa shows up clearly hoping to catch her boyfriend with Nate's dick in his mouth. Any other day, Abrams. Sorry.
"The woman is a saint! She didn't recoil from those creepy cat rescuers, or turn away from the pictures of those starving children. She didn't even cringe when that homeless man licked her arm!" Dan and Serena take a scary kind of Renfield fly-eating joy in telling Blair about how Ivva is a hooker. In fact, it's rather disrespectful considering how much they both love Nate, who by the age of 18 was already a bigger ho than anybody on this show ever could surpass. Blair thanks Dan for his help and tosses him out the house with a warning not to tell anybody because he'll unavoidably do it wrong, like, there will be survivors.
Serena begs Blair not to embarrass Chuck in front of his entire gala, and Blair is like, "Have we fuckin' met?" She pretends that's not what she's going to do, but they have to get dressed anyway because they're going, and then B condenses a fact from the vapor of nuance: Serena has decided to steal Dan from Vanessa Abrams. Which is bitter and sweet in equal amounts: "As much as nature would applaud you for heading off any possible future Humphrey/Abrams offspring, you have to ask yourself: Are you ready to do what it takes to make him yours?" Love -- love -- how the possibility that anyone could ever love Vanessa Abrams, and therefore the idea she could have a relationship with anybody, are so laughable they don't even consider it.
When Dan gets home from his date with fake Nate and real Serena, Rufus is putting things in boxes so that Dan and Vanessa can have even more room for their fake marriage. Dan immediately admits that he lied to everybody and went to the park with Serena, and of course Rufus jumps to the conclusion that Dan is gearing up to cheat. Which he is, and it's one of the things I like about this episode, the way everybody's secret creepiness is even closer to the surface than normal. Because it's not really even about Serena, it's about getting away from Vanessa, who has a key to unlocking something that Dan can't face and won't leave it alone. Dan promises it's not about Milo -- "I don't need to be an adult anymore" -- but Rufus points out that he's not just having fun and blowing off steam, he's lying to the woman he lives with, which proves it's more important than that:
As Rufus well knows, the step is leaving scarves around the apartments of insane psychiatrists who are prescribing fake medications to give your wife pretend cancer.
Dan worries that maybe he only invited Vanessa into the loft because of the Milo situation, and that he has wrecked everybody's life considering right before Georgina showed up he was going to follow Serena to Paris and confess his love for her, but then the phone rings and it's Nate and he gets that funny feeling in his tummy and runs around in little circles. But Nate's not calling just to talk the language of the bros, no, he's calling to say that Vanessa just showed up and he lied for Dan because clearly he's cheating on her, because you have to. "I'm not cheating," Dan promises, "But I was with Serena."
Nate's feelings are hurt, because they both agreed to stay with their respective girlfriends and not bother with S anymore. Dan says it's a special circumstance, and Nate sweetly goes, "Okay, forget me. If you wanna be with Serena, you gotta say something to Vanessa." Like, how nice of you to recuse yourself from this situation, because you know Dan cares way more about that than any of these ridiculous girls. But then Nate's assumptions about Dan's love take another blow: "Serena and I were helping Blair, we investigated Chuck's new girlfriend... That's really all I can say. Blair made me promise."
Nate is super bothered by the idea that Dan keeps promises to Blair and not to him, and realizing how egregious and unnatural that is, Dan crosses his eyes crazily and yells, "Nate, she's a prostitute!" It's amazing, I kept rewinding again and again. "I mean she's like got a web page and a price list! But you can't tell Chuck." Nate's like, "Okay bro, I have to go and tell Chuck. XOXO."
Juliet fake lies that she doesn't know where Dan was, and then uses the Socratic method to get Vanessa to the conclusion that Dan is cheating on her with Serena. Wheels within wheels with this one. But Vanessa, she knows what's up like always: "He's looking for an excuse to get away and not deal with everything. Nate would probably see that he's upset and try to make him talk about it. So he went to the one person he knew would be happy to help him avoid." Which sounds like the depraved justifications of that lady who thought she was married to Dave Letterman -- and it is -- but she's also right. So now even Caveman's Daughter has to go to the big gala where all the characters always go.
Charles has been flirting with Nathaniel more than he has in awhile, this week, but nothing tops this: "Nate Archibald has his I hate to tell you this face on," he giggles, and pulls Nate around the banquette so that he's settled comfortably in the crook of Chuck's arm. Nate being a bit taller than Chuck, it's a compromise they agreed upon long ago, but truth be told Chuck's favorite part is the smell of Nate's hair. It's the stuff they both use, yes, but somehow it just smells different when it's Nate. Chuck pretends he knows all about how Ivva is a whore and that he's totally cool with it -- which he would be, because duh that's like all he knows, vide this entire conversation -- but when Nate leaves, having come here expressly to do the one thing Dan told him not to do, Chuck's brave facade fails, because obviously Blair's going to hold out until the most excruciating second and besides, every time there's a New Chuck Bass it's built on something incredibly faulty and he just figured out where this one is going to crack. And it's a little sad, because he liked this Chuck best.
Vanessa having lied that she's going out with her buds and not the gala, Dan's planning on hanging out at home, reading books as if any of these people go to college. So of course the second Rufus leaves -- reminding Dan that he needs to start truthin' -- S calls and invites Dan to the gala. Meanwhile, Serena has procured and ventured to wear upon her body a dress so ridiculous and stupid-looking that I can't even really deal with it enough to tell you about it. It's a great color of red, but has the silhouette of harem pants, and then top of it is like a superhero costume with cutouts at the bottom of the ribs on either side, sharp angles at the top of the bodice, and creepy red spaghetti straps. Serena's long leash on fashion generally gets my thumbs up, but... I don't even know. The way it's revealed, and later discussed, we're meant to think it's her man-trappin' dress that she got just for Dan, but I just think she looks like I Dream Of Jeannie, only less sexy. Meanwhile, Chuck comes in and stares at Ivva and she's like, "Oh shit, boo," and then locks the door and shows her his pimp hand.
Juliet and Vanessa come in trying to be mean girls -- "I'm sure she's around here somewhere, let's take a lap" -- but come off as exactly what they are, which is poor people thinking they could fool anybody. Nate is embarrassed by them, and happily volunteers to check their coats while they go make more trouble for everybody. Juliet's coat beeps: It's a text message from a "Ben" that says he needs to see her. Nate immediately jumps to the logical conclusion that Ben is (somebody other than Juliet's brother who is in white collar jail and has designed this entire Matrix around the NJBC so that he can have some sort of revenge on Serena) an undeclared sexual partner.
Blair -- wearing a less disastrous but not too memorable blue gown -- wants to track down Chuck and ruin his night immediately, but Serena is more interested in getting crunk first. Lily shows up and air-kisses the whole world and then exposits that she just happens to be carrying around all the stuff that was found on Chuck by the Paris police that time he was murdered: "Money clip, passport." (Or what should have been a money clip but for some reason was a snakeskin ladies' pocketbook, if you remember: The one Inspector Serena Parisienne licked the blood off of to identify its owner.) Apparently Lily has just been wandering around with this manila envelope for weeks or days or hours or whatever since the Paris police sent over her dead kid's stuff that time. Serena directs Lily to Ivan the valet, who is standing around being helpful, and then Chuck and Ivva come in.
The paps are all over them, so Blair strides right over -- "That'll be enough of that for one evening, thank you" -- but Chuck's ready for her, and incandescently so. "Blair. So how's the humiliation gonna go down? Did your scheme team find Eva's pimp? Is he gonna roll up to the press with platforms on? Maybe you'll project a sex tape of Eva and one of her johns, as I make my way up the dais?" Real talk. Blair winces back from the total truth of what he's saying, compares it to her image of herself and finds it lacking, and immediately changes her tune. Actually, this is the perfect way to defuse Blair, they should all do this: "If I say what you're about to do, it sounds insane. Yes?"
Blair swears that she's not trying to humiliate anybody, and that she was just trying to protect him -- which is also true -- but of course it doesn't matter, since he already knows. "How can you not care? This is your mother all over again. You're giving your heart to a money-grubbing harlot who only cares about herself!" So many fingers pointing in so many directions there, it's pretty amazing. I don't think this episode would be nearly as strong if you weren't paying attention last year, because it's really cool how this is falling out. Blair is doing the exact same shit she always does, but for vastly different reasons. "You just can't stand to see someone finally change me, and it wasn't you," he says, but that's so off-base this time it doesn't even matter that it's true.
Blair was to blame for Elizabeth's betrayal and practically her existence, which caused Chuck to betray her in turn, which caused her to freeze him out, which caused him to fuck Jenny Humphrey, which caused her to lose her goddamn mind and caused him to turn into the crippled Henry and nearly vanish altogether. But because she doesn't have proof that these two things are actually connected, and doesn't really care about anything but -- as usual -- rewriting the narrative the way she thinks it's supposed to go and somehow erasing her past mistakes with the latest iteration, it's all adding up to a crazy conspiracy that isn't being run by anybody. She's always been the immune system of the UES; the one time she didn't hold up her end, it nearly killed them both. When you've got that much scaffolding and that many layers of justification built into your story, the fact of simple jealousy is less implicit than it is irrelevant. Sure, she's jealous. But that's on a list of fifty things and at best it's #35, so who cares?
Dan gets cheesy horny guy again with Serena, this time relating to the ridiculous dress, and Serena for the third time tosses the heavily coded "let's talk about things" thing around, and Dan's like, "Oh I got some things to 'tell' you, too," and it's fairly adorable but suddenly Vanessa's standing there, looking as usual like she's been sucking on free-market lemons, and pointing out in her angriest whiskey voice just how fucking adorable it all is.
Nate yells at Juliet for awhile about Ben and how he, Nate, has never been to her apartment, and that Juliet is hard to make plans with, and it all comes out in a garbled rush that basically comes down to Nate feeling once again like the other woman. Juliet swears Ben's not her boyfriend, but before she can explain that obviously he is her jailbird brother, Nate's off in a huff. "You hate Serena so much because you're exactly like her!" he yells, which is the kind of insult Nate always throws around but is also the kind of insult only Nate really understands. Given that Serena's only romantic flaw is giving each of her relationships exactly the respect and attention they deserve and no more, isn't he really just giving Juliet the upper hand again
Dan's only defense about lying to V is that he had fun for the first time since they moved in with each other. Which isn't an explanation so much as a total burn. But Vanessa does that thing where her naked vulnerability proves the point more than making you want to barf, and is in fact one of the smartest and most complex thoughts any of these people have ever had, all in one breath, starting from first principles and then extrapolating backwards until you can really see what a nightmare coming true this actually is, for her:
"Good for you, Dan! I'm glad that Serena's so fun, and I'm sorry that I'm not, that I'm just trying to make you deal with your feelings! With your life. I'm trying to help you, because that's what adults do in an adult relationship. If you wanna run around and be with Miss Fun-All-The-Time, that's your choice. But you better make sure she's choosing you, too. Did she tell you why she didn't call you all summer? Or explain to you why she texted you and Nate the same day she was coming back? I've always only wanted you, Dan. But even I have my limits."
Rhetorically, it's all over the place. I mean, "I've been willing to settle for you way longer than that vastly more desirable and unattainable girl has been willing to settle for you" works on no man, and even trying it is to acknowledge your defeat. Boys are dumb but they're not stupid. But in terms of plot and character, it's pretty winsome. Because implied in there also is how poorly it reflects on Dan that the only times he really cares about Serena are the times he's feeling bad about himself and doesn't want anybody to know him. So it's a challenge also to his hipster romanticism that says he would take a sure thing over ephemeral bliss, brains over breasts, a simple kind of love for a simple kind of man; basically a challenge saying that Serena makes you look flaky, while Vanessa makes you look authentic. And have you met a boy in your life? Gravity always wins. For one reason it's closer to stoicism -- one of the few remnants of masculinity left that we can all identify -- but also/mostly because it requires far less effort.
B checks in with Serena and she's like, "Um, Vanessa showed up so they're talking now. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I 'feel' 'terrible.'" The amount of not horrible she is feeling right now: All-time high. It's pretty amazing. I mean, in theory I would say this is bad poker and the rules of feminism and things of that nature, but A) It's Serena and B) It's Vanessa Abrams. They gulp champagne and Blair admits that she really did just want to protect Chuck, and save him. And every time she says it, it sounds more and more possible that it's true.
There is zero coincidence to the fact that this particular party is happening on a rooftop. If she can't find a dragon to slay, she'll make one. And she'll fake it so real she'll almost start to believe it, because in the end if this idea isn't technically true right now, something of equal or greater value will eventually happen, because it's not possible for Chuck to be happy without her. So saving him from the dragon is not just an imaginary duty but something she'll need to do eventually anyway. Serena goes to get her some more champagne, because Blair needs to let her guard down just a little more, I guess, and B sneaks around to listen in on Chuck's convo with Ivva, which is of note in no real way.
Chuck folds the Prague situation into his speech -- she's turned her life around, and helped him do the same -- and creates the Eva Coupeau Foundation: Ivva will just be deciding how that $5 million gets spent, and that's the charity. But really -- and it's a bit of a gloss to get there admittedly -- but essentially he's derailing the narrative that Blair's working on -- pulling up the tracks before the train can get there -- by playing it Serena style: "Oh, you're afraid she's going to steal my money? How about if I just give it to her? Then you're a bad person and I'm not, and you're alone while we're twice as strong for this latest opportunity to show faith in each other, so thanks."
Anybody else, it would work. Marriages have been founded on lesser versions of this same idea. But you are dealing with Blair, specifically with her attempts to recreate her vivid imaginary life out here in the real world, and basically going right for her heart. Every spin she tries to put on it, he neutralizes, and not for romance or even secretly romantic reasons: So that he can say, and mean it, "I still know who you are down at the bottom, but you have no idea who I've risen to become." Which essentially makes her the scapegoat for his negative impulses, which is exactly 180 degrees from where they started. Not to mention the completely alien -- to Blair -- concept of defining yourself any other way than by the worst thought you've ever had.
I confess, I had no idea what Blair was going to pull and it was so awful that I really took my time putting it together, but this is where it starts: She gets the envelope of Chuck's effects back from Ivan, and then during Ivva's "speech," during which most people just looked awkwardly at the floor and nodded whenever it seemed likely, she's messing about with it in his suite. Afterwards, she asks to borrow Chuck for a sec and Eva awesomely goes, "Why not, Blair? What more can you possibly do to me?" Or rather, it would be an awesome line if you were saying it to anybody but Blair, but with Blair that's just a dare slapped across her face.
"What do you want now, to tell me Nate's running a secret drug ring?" All the improbabilities in that sentence, name them. "If he was, you'd probably make him the CEO of Bass Industries," B yells, and Chuck's like, "You're being gross, talk faster and get away from me." Blair says some pretty tacky things, dumb puns, just nasty shit, and he's counting down, and finally at the last second she blurts out that she's found proof Eva knew who Chuck Bass was long before he turned into Henry Prince, and thus has been playing him the whole time.
Also, wasn't there a whole thing about him dropping the ring, it seemed purposefully, when he first woke up from his fever dream and changed his name to Henry? Was that a different ring? What was the point of that? Anyway. "Deny all you want, then. I'd avoid the inside pocket of her suitcase," in which Blair admits she was snooping, "looking for dirt," and found his passport. Which was presumed taken by the muggers, but Blair convinces him that he was mugged twice: First for his wallet, but then for his heart!
Serena tries to comfort Nate -- who hates her -- after his possible, vague breakup with Juliet. Dan and Nate each get all twitterpated about Serena's friendship with the other, and it's silly and there are all kinds of faces made. This episode is all about amazing faces. Inside the suite, Eva finds Blair and Chuck finding his passport in the inside pocket of her suitcase, where it has appeared, and Chuck calls her a total liar of everything, and -- like Blair all episode -- relates this all back to the last time somebody pretended to love Chuck and ended up screwing him over and using his self-loathing as a key part of their strategy. Finally she's like, "You know what? I'll just pack up and go." Because honestly, fuck this. How many times before it just gets offensive? She's the kind of French whore that takes her dignity quite seriously.
Downstairs Blair asks if he's okay and Chuck poses behind a curtain and stares into the middle distance and goes, "I'm stupid. How could I ever believe someone good would actually love me?" Then he wanders off onto the blasted heaths and Blair's left standing there like, "Wait, why did I do all of this?" Because gravity always wins and if you can't have what you want then nobody else should either.
Dan yells at Serena because in fact she was just dicking him and Nate both around, because have you met Serena, but suddenly this is a problem. I guess he figures out his own shit while he's yelling at her though, because it only takes a while to chill out. But he has deduced that Serena hadn't chosen when she landed back in the UES, and has just been playing along with their pretend relationships for awhile until something comes along. I miss Tripp sometimes so much that it hurts. Serena's like, "You are coming to me for a definitive answer here? That's just crude." Dan agrees, and realizes that all he wants is the monochrome certainty that comes from giving up all hope: "Serena, there are some people who don't need to choose." Some people have grossness thrust upon them.
Lily, just crunk ass at this point in night, shimmies over to Chuck in the location he's chosen, just the right amount of gloomy, and randomly exposits once again about the baggie of things from his murder. Chuck realizes that Blair has pulled the ultimate Hudson Hero by actually tossing the guy in the river and then saving him, and bolts upstairs. It's sad and scary and of course Eva is having none of it. She thanks him for admitting that he totally dissed her, but continues to pack her stuff to leave, and says the awesomest thing: "Of course Blair lied to you. She's a liar." But also they're still in love or something, so fuck it. Gravity.
Chuck's all about running away together once again, and she's like, "New York will always be the fifth bitch at your table, and I'm not going anywhere with you anyway." She kisses him goodbye, reminds him that Chuck Bass is a term of infinite connotations, and hopes aloud that he'll remember the Henry Prince flavor of Chuck Bass and stay awesome. It's a pretty great exit, all told. Matched only by the plaintive and touching "Everybody leaves" that he throws out at the end. Everybody leaves, he thinks, and there's not a single flavor of Chuck Bass that doesn't deserve exactly that.
Juliet admits that she's been lying, but only because her brother, Ben, is "troubled." "He takes a lot of time, and energy, and has caused a lot of problems in every relationship that I've ever had. Look, I want to tell you everything. I'm just not ready yet. But I promise you, I won't let him come between us again." Nate notes that, as horrific families go, the Archibalds still come out on top, so it would be unfair to judge her just for this one huge pack of lies. She offers to finally show him her apartment, and he gratefully accepts, because that means doing it.
Vanessa, sad-sackin' it as usual, got as far as packing up all her stuff before realizing that she totally gave up her dorm room at NYU and now literally has nowhere to go. Luckily for Dan, he was counting on that. So then there's a speech about how she was right about everything, and he really is pretty much broken by the loss of Milo. It's sad: "Losing Milo broke my heart," he says. But then the upside, in his head, is that while he will always want Serena, in a dream-girl kind of way, that doesn't mean he's not willing to settle for Vanessa, who actually exists. Spitefully, yes, but concretely. They kiss and make up and he promises not to make any trouble for at least a week.
Serena comes home Danless and Blair's like, "And in that dress? I'm shocked." She means it, but I'd like to think she's secretly being bitchy about the horrible dress. S has been doing some thinking: If she went with Dan, she'd still partly love Nate, and if she went with Nate, she'd still partly love Dan. So the best option is not to take anything half-assed and find somebody who has the qualities of both, or at least comes in a package that doesn't constantly remind her of what she's giving up. And in the meantime, Grey Gardens. Blair's about to confess to her horrible deeds of tonight, but Chuck shows up so she has to go pay the price even before she can tell S the story. You could die, just hitting Refresh.
"I know what you did, Blair. It's despicable, even for you. Do you hate me so much you can't stand to see me happy?" When you put it that way, she thinks. "So why did you drive the person I care most about out of town?" Blair's actually horrified, because for all this talk about B's plans, the numbers tell a very different story. But Chuck assumes that she wanted Eva gone, which she sort of did but not like he means it, and Chuck's like, "Okay, so are you in love with me or what?" The answer is yes, but that can't be the answer for even more reasons than last year, or the year before, or the year before that, so she just kinda stares at him. "How could I still love you after what you did?"
He thinks it's a rhetorical question: It's not. She's asking his advice. How do you take the narrative to this new place? If he answered the question, he could have her. The door is open, in such a way that she doesn't have to acknowledge it. But his opinion is so low, about both of them, that he doesn't even see the door. "So you did it just to hurt me," he says. Everybody leaves. Before B can stop him, he's off on a tear about how Eva made him into a prince and that, by taking her away, Blair has reawakened his "worst self." He declares war, officially and out loud: "Me versus you. No limits."
The doorman at Juliet's building pulls her away for a second to give her a package that he never actually gives her -- not that Nate notices, dear boy -- and tells her this is her last night in her pretend apartment because the real owners are coming back, before handing her the key. This girl's life is just so charmingly improbable. The elevator closes on them, kissing, and opens on Chuck, packing it in for the night: Ivan expresses his sadness at Eva leaving, and New New Chuck shows his monstrousness by firing Ivan, before closing the door behind him. Back home, on Serena's room as seen from Blair's room, Blair runs back upstairs, to Serena's sad napping self, and curls up in her lap, and starts to sob, and that door closes too.
Not that she had a real clear plan about all this, or even a coherent reason for any of it, but even Blair is shocked by the outcome. She's dangling over a story that makes no sense, where the girl slays the dragon and then it turns out the dragon was the whole point. Or an endangered species, and all the townspeople that were going to raise your name to the skies, they just stand there saying the worst things about you. The precious thing you killed.
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