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Serena's cunning taxi plan: Fuck Dr. McRapey into submission each night, to sap him of his taxi-stealing vitality. Downside: Colin is the new Fortune 500 professor for Psychology of Business. Transforming her Walk of Shame dress into a whole new look and heading back to campus, S tries to have a conversation with Colin but it makes no sense, so he invites her to a party with the misquoting hacks at the New York Observer.
Nate runs into Juliet at the jailhouse, visiting their respective family members; he tries to awkwardly bond, she lies to him about roughly twelve things and disappears. Brother Ben's so mad about her burgeoning Nate love that he grows muttonchops and asks the Captain out on a prison date that ends with a warning to Juliet about keeping mum. (Fun tip! In white-people prison they beat you with dictionaries, thesauruses and copies of Garner's Modern American Usage.)
Blair's psychic Audrey Hepburn dreams warn her of Jenny's return to the island, so she heads on over to PRADA to murder her. But Little J's only home to visit Tim Gunn at Parson's, where he doesn't work, so in a totally reasonable fashion, Jenny asks for a day pass. Blair agrees -- if she stays gone through the holidays and doesn't talk to anybody while she's in town -- and sends the Minions to stand guard.
Eric and Dan get all uproary about this revolting business but since Jenny's sorta great now, she ignores all drama: "Um, 100% vintage crazy-ass Blair?" Chuck drops by to apologize for finishing up that rape, but when Dan gets up his ass he steals her sketchbook instead. The Minions are excited about tracking her to the Empire, and of course B goes ballistic and heads over to Tim Gunn's silver fox palace herself.
Jenny and Tim have a convo about, presumably, fashion, but to be honest my heart was beating so fast I couldn't hear it. Twist: Blair has spraypainted J's self-esteem centered showpiece collection with the letters W-H-O-R-E. The Grey Lady is none too impressed, but Chuck immediately offers invites to Colin's NYO party so J can explain to Tim about the sabotage.
What Serena wears to the party, I'm not sure I can describe. It's like what Teela's dad would wear, if he were He-Man's official drag queen-at-arms; she is wearing an entire MAC store of orange on her face; and her ponytail looks like it was made by that spider they gave LSD. Lily finds out the hard way that Professor Colin is really just Serena's new boyfriend. Disappointed, Lily calls her a golddigging whore and tells her to drop out of college. Which would be amazing reverse psychology, if Serena had a psychology.
The Minions summon Blair to the party and attack, wearing awesome matching dresses and trim, but during Jenny's face-saver with Tim she realizes Chuck set up the whole thing to mess with Blair. Blair instantly figures it out, too, but Chuck promises her Jenny doesn't care about games or reputation bullshit. Surprise! Jenny sends the virginity blast herself, getting pimp hand on both their asses by being the first person on this show in a long time to actually get ahead of the news cycle.
Told you Jenny came back awesome! Not that Dan doesn't shit all over it, convincing her to leave the show again lest she become Blair. She does, with some wise parting words about how Bluck's love once made them invincible, but now she's gone until they utterly destroy each other, which will take about a minute. It's neat, but also just self-righteous enough to earn a hug from big brother. It's like without Vanessa around, Dan has to Humphrey everything up twice as hard.
Ivanka Trump, her husband, Isaac Mizrahi, many people. Colin does some seriously dreamy shit that Lily has already fucked up with her mind games, so Serena walks around dressed like the Phantom Zone and crying for awhile before agreeing to pretend they're not dating until class is over -- because that worked out so well with Tripp, for that four seconds -- but then a more horrible twist comes: Colin's working with and paying Juliet for Whatever It Is. She's guilty about the Nate part, but scared enough to keep Operation Smile going full-force. So much up that one's sleeves all the time!
Chuck offers Blair a truce, thanks to Jenny's little pep talk and the fact that he loves her, and he's so sorry and he looks super-hot and he's being all sweet and reasonable and contrite. Initially reticent, Blair eventually believes him and they shake on it, sending sparkles down her spine and presaging hatefucks to come. But while they separately cry, and you're just about thinking it's gonna be okay, here comes that song where Rihanna gets off on Eminem beating her ass. The most romantic of songs. (Dominic Monaghan, call me!)
week: New York is so relieved Jenny went back into the sewers without taking any infants with her the whole city erupts into a Shortbus-level orgy.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Now the music is wild and the whole situation is Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark, which is about a blind girl with ninety-nine problems. They get the look exactly right, as she wanders blindly around in a ridiculous bra and giant hair, through the Waldorf Apt., listening to sounds and being gently slowly murdered. She assumes her whisper-silent assailant is Chuck, of course -- as Blair's paranoia is a button anyone can push whenever they like -- but when the ninja finally assaults her blind ass, it's a tween. A little tween from the sewers, with long blonde extensions and a rebel-yell scowl and a tendency to flash her teenage boobs because she has no parents. It is totally frightening!
While Blair's private insanity is once again taking the form of an ectomorphic Belgian, Serena's is taking the form of unrealistic not-fucking. After a long night of "talking" about "Warhol" and "Lichtenstein" with Colin, former taxi-purloiner and current question mark, while wearing his shirt just like everyone on this show always does, she scoots out the door due to her long-standing firm beliefs about staying the night with a ghost. Also, since he's not there to steal the one cab in all of New York City, it's hers.
Yes, it's taking the long road around an imaginary problem, but since they "didn't" have sex because Serena "isn't" a horndog and has so much to "offer" on the subject of art appreciation, it is more and not less Byzantine a way to ensure that she will be able to find college at the appropriate time.
But first, over to the Waldorf house, where the sunshine has scattered all the shadows and Blair has regained her extraordinary eyesight: "What have we here? Bed unslept in, hair in missionary disarray, and yesterday's dress with today's shame all over it?" Serena swears that she didn't sleep with whomever it was, and B basically lets it go so they can have an expository conversation about this latest ridiculous development.
Blair makes fun of Serena for blowing Colin as her revenge on nearly getting her kicked out of college for no reason at all, and Serena explains that "even though he's a businessman, he's more interested in talking about Lichtenstein and Warhol, which he collects by the way," which is code for "He hasn't got a personality as such." And when those topics were exhausted, the conversation turned to Radiohead and Counting Crows and whatever else we like instead of actually liking things. Serena was so into that.
As for Blair's magical dreamwalking and female attacker, Serena's awesome first question is: "Like Chuck in drag? Or an actual girl?" That one gives B pause, because it's a legit question, but then she yells, "I don't know, I was blind!" Then to show how blind she was, in the dream, she talks about the attacker's hair at length, and how it looked. Serena fully goes, "Hey, can we talk about this on our way to school?" Because firstly this is a conversation worth having, and secondly because how do you be places. But B wants to let it slide, because she has some insane thing or another to do first.
Nate calls Dan, just to hear his voice, on the way to visit the Captain in prison. Dan tells him that Vanessa moved back to life with her utterly awful parents because even her utterly awful parents -- who actively hate her -- are easier to deal with than a bunch of Humphrey motherfuckness. Dan's like, "That dumbass thinks I'm still in love with Serena" and Nate's like, "This dumbass does too."
Then they talk about what it was like to finally fuck Juliet, and Nate pastes on a sunny smile, leaving out the disquieting tears and self-hating mantra of I am a fraud, I'm a fucking fraud that followed. But then, Juliet didn't seem to mind, and Dan knows damn well what a handful Nate can be, after.
Or perhaps Juliet did mind. Just like Serena, her twin star in this dance of death, she bolted in the morning rather than miss the one cab back to her garret. Nate wanted to have breakfast and explore his feelings some more, but Sharp was gone before he'd even brushed the swooping hair from his sparkling eyes. Dan offers to have breakfast with him, to supply the cuddle that Juliet could not, but Nate's in line at the jailhouse now and cannot be distracted. And who else is in line, just as he regretfully rings off with Humphrey? Why it's Juliet Sharp herself, there for a visit of her own. Is he her brother? Is he her boyfriend? On this show, that is like the pettiest question.
Serena has found college. And on that campus there are freshman and on those freshman there are butt cheeks and on those butt cheeks there are the roaming eyes of Charles Bass. Serena yells at him for finding college, assuming that it's because he wants to destroy more of Blair. But in fact no, it's to continue his seduction/destruction cycle of every Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that graces us: This new guy is Fortune 500 and I guess he is a ghost that collects Lichtenstein and so obviously Chuck is like, "I cannot pass this fascinating motherfucker up" with a pointillist lightning bolt going ZANGG! from his eyeballs to the asses of the badminton players: "From what I hear, badminton players know how to handle a shuttlecock." What Chuck is suggesting here is that he would like a handjob from a freshman or two, and then for them to dress up in matching outfits and go to a dumb pretend party for a dumb pretend newspaper.
The new Dark Arts teacher is, of course, Colin. Smoke comes out of Serena's fuck-hair as she tries to process it, and Colin realizes that last night was only a taste of the cockblocking Serena web in which he will soon be entrapped. The Hudson Hero himself calls Colin on the phone that very moment, and says not to worry about any promises of celibacy Serena might demand from him this week, because it's Serena: The little plastic castle is a surprise every time, and she'll be on it like white on a closeted Republican senator by week for sure.
Blair just goes ahead and lets herself into PRADA, heeding the call of her witchery and for no other reason, because she lost her fucking mind long ago. There, amid terrifying suspense music and a pile of scraps and rags and seaweed, stands her defiant prey: Jenny Humphrey, knee-high to a rockstar, standing perfectly still, crouched in the defensive posture she learned out in the cold ruinous streets of Bellona, ever-burning city of Dhalgren dreams and unnecessary roughness, city of unending war, city that is the destroyer of all cities. Jenny pulls a gleaming knife from her granny boot so subtly you'd think she was a statue. But no statue made by man ever smelled quite like this. Quite so much like Teen Spirit.
Jenny begs, begs in a way she was taught not to do, once in the cold world beyond her banishment, but the cold fire in Waldorf's eyes demands it, pulls it from her: "Whatever you're about to do, my dad and Lily are going to be home any minute." She brandishes the blade weakly, all her training draining away in the awful moment of her life's surrender.
She wears a thousand necklaces, one for every kill in the arena that is life outside the island kingdom. They feel to her now like vanity, like fraud, like a lie, but once they were her ticket through the slums and burning wooden artifice of fair and awful Bellona. Where is that bravery now, Princess Humphrey? Rise up! Wound the autumnal city! Explain that big weird braid coming out of the back of your head; explain the way it lies in weight beneath the hair upon your head like a yellow viper fat with blood.
"Not to worry, Little J. This is going to be a very short conversation. I let you walk away after you whored yourself out to Chuck because I assumed you were smart enough never to come back. I might've been willing to make exceptions for holidays, birthdays, health emergencies of immediate family members, but I don't believe any of those scenarios apply?"
This whole storyline got under people's skin for being unrealistic, which seems to me quite foolish indeed. "Unrealistic" is to Gossip Girl as "atonal" is to pizza toppings. Plus, Jenny's story has always been about the monarchy, her Sophia Coppola "let them eat punk" aesthetic, her Brooklyn advance, those endlessly outrageous costumes and masked balls and cotillions and farces, her new world/old world attempts to bring praxis to the Pinkberry. G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S.
You knew last year when Blair banished her that this would come up, did you not? And the three years preceding that pronouncement: Are they somehow all a blur? Come now. The outsize personal metaphors and narratives are the hallmark and the best thing about this show. Nate's fairytales, Blair's six things, Serena's Russian tragedy, Dan's Bukowski bullshit, Chuck's Jacobean tragedy. When Dan took Blair's crown, in the NYU stairwell, it took her most of the year to become Empress. It was the fight between Hamlet's father and uncle that took that away from her. And the only thing now that would ruin her more is if it came about that she didn't abdicate: That it was another girl, the same dirty little girl as ever, Lady Jane Grey to her Bloody Mary, who forced her out and then, in her shame, caused her to flee to France. It's not even very subtle, this time.
Thanks to Chuck, though unbeknownst to either queen, Jenny's been offered an interview with Tim Gunn -- gatekeeper of Parsons, seneschal to fashion's most elite artistes, and sex symbol for the ages -- a wizard in the territory of her enemy. Jenny throws herself on Blair's mercy, although as the queen points out, should she gain entrance to those hallowed halls she'd still be breaking the ban. "If people think I'm not a woman of my word, the whole system could break down."
Because she has learned the ways of dignitaries and of dignity itself, Jenny does not blow Blair's mind with the facts -- that none of this actually exists and that Blair is about three steps away from going Heavenly Creatures on everybody -- and simply says she has no reason to "destabilize" Blair's "social order." Last time she did that, she became what she feared most -- which was, as a Humphrey, basically being awesome -- and then before you know it she was carrying condoms full of coke and newer drugs that haven't even been invented yet in, well, in all sorts of places.
But surely even the wicked queen knows how much fashion means to Little J, and how important Tim Gunn and his former bailiwick mean to her. He is Prince Charming and Fairy Godfather all in one. Not even Blair could be that cruel. Which is why Chuck will always win. Blair offers to help her pack and/or set her face on fire, but Jenny last-ditches a suggestion: How about a day pass? She's in, she's out, she doesn't come back to the island for the rest of the year. "Not even Christmas," she says, with a heartbreaking shine in her eyes that says this, this is the real sacrifice.
"A Jenny-free holiday season. It's been on my wish list for quite some time. Amnesty till midnight."
Jenny, reasonable to a fault, thanks Blair for granting her imaginary amnesty from her imaginary banishment, but Blair explains the further terms: "See no one. Speak to no one. Don't step foot outside this apartment, except for your interview." The deal is struck. An owl hoots under the midday sun. Christmas shines briefly in Little J's eyes, bright and for one moment, like a star's last dying breath. Like a funeral nobody attended, far off in the lonely outer dark. One day it will reach us and we will know what we have lost, each and every one; but for Princess Humphrey, that day is today.
Nate giggles and roughs up his hair and pinches his cheeks and acts windblown and Nantuckety about meeting his lying sketch-ass girlfriend outside the jail, but instead of noting what a strange full-of-lies coincidence it is, Juliet lies more and more and more badly and more badly. At some point this is a game of cruelty, like the bear-baiting of Bellona: How much, how many lies, will he countenance? How much shame runs down his back like a hot-wet summer night, how much lodged in his forebrain for later, how much does she honestly not intend? It is a riddle; for these two fair souls it is a mystery.
Nate is insecure about two things: His whiskey dick with girls, and his dad that is in jail. Of these conversations he is loathe to speak, for although this one-time fancy trick has no shame he does bear a secret that will bear no unraveling, for these two secrets are bastard sons of a selfsame father: The young Archibald has never truly understood his father until now. Kept in a gilded minimum-security cage, in an Empire penthouse of his very own, straining to get out, his face hidden with iron, misunderstood, fated to pretend, weighed down by Vanderbilt expectation and a life of listed legacies.
Aye, like Monte Cristo himself he waits, one day, to be free. And on that day will be a reckoning, a cheer and hue and cry, as he takes to the air with one fist raised and burns his trail of desire across the sky, all the way to DUMBO; but that day never seems quite to come. When he looks into the tired eyes of his rehabilitated father, his onetime Captain, he sees a man haunted by the things he did and didn't do; he knows both grace and shame in equal amounts. But today, now, in the autumnal city, Juliet Sharp's lies are not cunning; we shan't indulge in them at all. It is enough to say this: That though Nate is ashamed of his family's bloody history, he is willing to speak. But Juliet continues to lie, and to confound, because her secrets aren't shame but a deeper darkness still, that's yet unfolding.
Though Blair tries to tell Serena of her sister's return to the island, Serena is more concerned with some bullshit having to do with Cab Guy and how he's their teacher and how simply not fucking their new professor is going to piss off Columbia's Dean of Serena's Vagina Studies Department, and her ever-watching eyes. You cannot prove a negative and most assuredly so when it's about Serena's love life. And especially, not that anyone thinks to mention this, when just last week she was offering to fuck teachers for grades. And now she is fucking her teacher. Of a class with grades.
And yet, Serena chooses not to solve the problem immediately -- choose one or the other, or neither -- continuing on her two intersecting courses toward ruin, either of which is simply and easily solved, I guess because she is retarded. I just don't know anymore. This is her stated, out-loud, verbatim reasoning: "But I really like him though." Have at it, then, my sweet.
Blair meets with Chuck, somehow, in a sunny quad, somewhere, and asks if he knows anything about the fallen queen's return. Chuck plays the fool, pointing out Jenny's return is the thrown gauntlet of royal defiance, and his hair looks fantastic. Adding to the muddled continuity of these royalty games:
"I sent her packing for both of our sakes. If it was ever made public that you had a dangerous liaison with a teenage Brooklynite -- who also technically is your stepsister -- you'd be socially guillotined!" I guess it's the Brooklyn part? Or the sister part? I can't see either of those making a dent, but in the weeks to come perhaps we'll see. Chuck runs off to somewhere mysterious, and the Minions -- that original one, Penelope, and a pretty blonde one with a crazy mouth who maybe never talked before or is just new -- appear and begin to sniff Blair's panties. Right there in the quad!
"I need you three little pigs to huff and puff over to the van der Woodsens'," Blair politely asks. "She's violating your order to exile?" (What that sentence means, I do not know.) Blair explains about the day pass, and Penelope's crazy face is all, "BUT WHY," and of course Blair won't say why. Which I mean, isn't that just as bad? "Yours is not to wonder why," the queen hisses, "Yours is to do, or die!" And into the valley of death they ride.
At PRADA everybody's so excited to see Jenny because she's the only interesting person they know and they're just waiting for her to skitz out or set something on fire or throw pills on the floor and scream about how she's a drug dealer. Eric -- who has gone from hating Jenny for no real reason to hating Chuck for no real reason -- plot-devices his way into the room with an unassuming air totally belied by his gun-blasting casual separates. I guess when we don't see him on the show he's somewhere working out and making up opinions to have.
Rufus, meanwhile, something about chili.
Dan and Eric follow Jenny around begging her to come out and play with them and go to Babbo with them and not leave them alone to deal with the Rose For Emily situation that Lily and Rufus have become. Jenny explains that she is not interested in going anywhere or doing anything, because if she gets caught having fun or breathing New York oxygen, Blair will bust a cap.
"She's the Wicked Witch of the Upper East Side, I'm sure one of her monkeys spotted me getting off the train or something, but it's fine," says Jenny, wearing a tiny dress on her tiny body with her tiny skinny legs poking out of it. Jenny plays it real cool like -- "Yeah, it is 100% vintage crazy-ass Blair, but really though" -- but her big brother Dan knows better than to ever take someone, especially a woman, at her word. She's acting like she knows Blair is ridiculous and that she's outgrown these petty games and that she's really only here for her own career and future, but Dan and Eric know better: She's a stupid bitch, like all women, and can't be trusted to make decisions on her own. She's a stupid bitch, like all people, and never says what she means.
Like when Chuck drops by to apologize for raping Jenny all those many times he did no such thing, and Eric's like, "Did you get your tickets for the gun show?" and Chuck's like, "I figured I would have slept with you by now just as a matter of course," it's Dan who gets all up in his beefy cheddar like he's actually going to do anything. Chuck goes, "I'll just grab these blueprints Lily left for me. I'll let you get back to your Hemingway Complex. You know, I almost respect this side of you, Humphrey. Tell Jenny I said hello, and I'm truly sorry." Dan thinks this is a compliment, because he is a poon, but really it's like this: When Chuck Bass calls you out for gayness, you better sit down and think about that, until your priorities realign themselves. Because ya been burnt.
Colin agrees to pretend for our benefit that he and Serena didn't sleep together. I think what happened was that he said it doesn't count if it's in the backdoor. That's what I think happened there. How are you supposed to take this storyline seriously? All hat, no cattle. Either Serena is a slut and that's awesome, or she's not a slut and being a slut is a bad thing and that's the point at which this show makes no sense at all.
So Colin's like, "Talking about Lichtenstein and Warhol was so fucking enjoyable last night and I really think we should do it again, except for how you are constantly sleeping with your teachers for the sake of your GPA." S is like, "Okay, well, when I was fucking this married Congressman, we did it like this: Pretend not to have sex for a week and then totally have sex. And then his life -- boom -- ruined. Is that something you'd be interested in?"
Colin doesn't quite have the sparkle of crazy in his eyes that made Tripp so goshdarned irresistible, I guess because he's not actually wild-ass in love with her (yet) like Tripp was. And yet he agrees to this. But then he's like, "So for example, if we're not dating, could we go on a date?" and Serena is like, "That sounds fine, why would that be a problem?" and he's like, "Or you could just drop out of this class that you started taking on a total whim and has only caused you heartache so far in this life?" Serena's like, "Yeah! These three hours and a seminar I'm taking this semester are getting me down. And it's not like Business is my major anyway." What is her major? I don't know. If this were real life? Communications. The study of communicating.
Jenny, eyeliner, Vanya from Minsk, take the dresses special delivery to the fitting at Tim Gunn's house. Chuck calls because he "accidentally" grabbed her portfolio when he was unreliably narrating his own actions to Papa earlier, and Jenny's like, "That is a fine fucking mess because Blair is going to fuck up my face if I deal with you in any way." Chuck's like, something about grumble grumble, it doesn't matter, because Jenny heads over there and the Minions catch her doing it -- they like to hide behind parked cars and sort of leer and that way they get to smell like car exhaust all day -- and then B rolls her eyes and has to be like, "Well, my afternoon just got stupid." And then she pulls out her gat and it's back to the mines.
So what happened was, Jenny left PRADA to go to Parsons, and made a stop at the Empire on the way. And while she was doing that, Dan was heading right to Parsons. Why? No reason. Creepiness is its own reward. And what he did then, before his sister showed up, was scope Veronica, Tim Gunn's assistant and the person who set up this meeting. So -- of course -- he introduced himself to this strange woman that he has no business talking to, and they sat around waiting for Jenny, and then when Jenny showed up, for the meeting with the people she was meeting, irrelevant fucking Dan introduces his sister to the people she is there to meet. He is carrying the Vanessa ball this week so fucking hard.
Sometimes Ben needs to use the payphone and call collect. Other times he'll just go ahead and sent his sister text messages. It all depends on what kind of jail he's in that day: Regular jail, or imaginary. Juliet tries to explain that Nate is an impossibly great guy with a bottomless well of compassion in his giant beating heart, but without Dan Humphrey there to take care of everything, she has no hope of getting her point across. So then Ben decides to assault the Captain so Juliet will be afraid of him again and keep her eye on the ball and stop having feelings for perfect Nate.
Serena drops by PRADA to mention what a bitch Jenny is and borrow jewelry from Lily for this event tonight -- not that she'll be wearing any at the event -- and then Lily notices that she's reading a book. Lily cannot believe for one second that Serena is going to read a book, so she picks it up and turns it over and flips through it and knocks on it to make sure that it's not like a fake book that's really a safe or something. Which, with an uncreative stupid title like WINNER!, she's got every right. Lily says how proud she is of S for taking Biz Psych, because that means she's not boy crazy anymore. Because it's either school or boys. Never both. A woman can have sex or she can have a brain, but never ever both.
Tim Gunn tries to talk to Jenny about her career and, you know, fashion, but Jenny's more interested in rehashing every possible drama thing that has ever happened, like, going out of her way to talk about her negative experiences and the many people whom she has crossed and fucked over in her race to the middle and then some excuses on top of that.
It makes her look like a real fucking dick, to be honest. Talk about the clothes, you little ninny. Tim Gunn doesn't give a shit about that time Agnes set your dresses on fire. That story illustrates merely that you have poor taste in friends, it has nothing to do with your talent. Whatever, her dresses "really express [her] take on young women today, our sense of self-confidence and self-worth," she says, whatever the flying wallenda that means, and but then the models turn to face them, five girls in five boring dresses on which Blair has cunningly spray-painted the letters W-H-O-R-E. Tim Gunn, because it's not like he taught at Parsons and is used to every single freshman in the world doing shit like this every single year, gets the vapors and Veronica marches Jenny out of there at gunpoint. Jenny's thinking, "I can't wait to tell another prospective sponsor or employer about this latest proud moment." Outside, B presents her with a train ticket up out of there, and Dan throws a hissy, because he still has nothing to do with any of this but really thinks he does.
Having just gotten a massage, Chuck's velvety pervness is even more smarmy than usual as he calls Dan to whisper sweet nothings -- they're still standing there just completely shocked by Blair's latest outrage -- and offer the van der Humphs in toto a VIP invite to that same party. The kind of party that's at the Boom Boom Room and honors both Colin and Tim Gunn, naturally, thrown by the Observer. That way, Jenny can talk to Tim Gunn and embarrass herself even further by continuing to dig, and Chuck can do whatever vile thing he's actually doing. So of course, now everybody's going to the party. Even Tim Gunn and Ivanka Trump are going to the party. Serena is going to the party, dressed like a serious asshole.
Wearing no jewelry, Serena. Her hair is some kind of nasty motor oil ponytail that looks like it came out of a shower drain. Her dress is a cutout from the old days, just that one open panel that's like a window into the world of boobs, and the shoulder pads and whatever, it's awful, she looks absolutely terrible. And yet instead of focusing on this, she's focusing on how dating Colin somehow excludes her ability to understand things. So, worried about what Lily will think, S refuses to do the red carpet with him. A random lady steps right in, beaming like her brain is about to explode, and Colin smiles, relieved he won't have to explain Serena's idiot costume tomorrow in the press. Because yes, that's how important Serena is. This is her rationale for ducking in a side door: "I talked to my mom today, and she's so proud of me for taking your class. I don't want her to read that I'm dropping it in the New York Times."
SECOND-YEAR FRESHMAN DROPS MADE-UP FRESHMAN LECTURE CLASS, CONSIDERS FIELD HOCKEY
Jenny balks, but Eric and Dan steer her over to Tim Gunn and manipulate her body like a marionette and tell her what to eat and what to wear and how to pronounce words and what political opinions to have and what her favorite color is. And she is so grateful because now she's not accountable for anything: They've done it all. Lily talks about how cute Colin is and then about how proud she is of Serena for reading like one book.
Colin runs up, all flagrant and devil-may-care: "Tell your mother that I am crazy about you, that I might be your future, and I don't care who knows!" Lily's like, "That's me! You're talking to my whore daughter!" Then they shake hands. Because how on earth would Colin recognize Serena van der Woodsen's mother, right? I mean, probably they were married at some point and just forgot.
The Minions, in matching silver-tone dresses with lots of jewelry, call to report on Jenny's presence at the party -- "This isn't just belligerency. It's insurgency!" -- and then Blair yells at them or something and acts inhumane some more, because they can't get into the private party due to it being a private party.
Jenny interrupts Tim Gunn talking to somebody so that they can talk about how embarrassing her entire life is, and he invites her to show him her dresses again, whoreless this time. It's so gestural and stupid, literally she goes, "I didn't mean the dresses to say WHORE" and he's like, "Oh, you didn't? I didn't register the one million times you told me that an hour ago. Bygones." This is the part in the script where Jenny faces her fear and talks to Tim Gunn and gets a second chance. They might as well have just said that, instead of this farce. Little stick-figure Tim Gunn, little stick-figure Taylor Momsen, a little kid's voice saying, "Everything's going to be all wight," and then a unicorn. "You know, when Veronica told me that Chuck Bass wanted us to meet..." Jenny gets shocked because now the whole episode is about Chuck using her as a pawn in a whole new way, which is kind of insulting.
Because Nate is so trusting and hates it when people make up their minds behind your back without all the information and when people snoop around, he calls the jail to see if Juliet's brother is really in the jail, even though she said he wasn't. Nate's sketchy narrative in this episode is about the parallels between himself and Juliet, that he is somewhat ashamed of his history and projects that onto her but thinks if they're both the same amount of trashy it'll be okay. But since she's running a long con, and it's not in their story that Ben is her jail brother, all that projection and hope and shame come redounding back onto Nate, which breaks his heart, but which is on him. Three coincidental things happen: 1) Nate gets off the phone with jail, just as 2) Juliet walks in and when he admits to once again snooping behind her back she gets all teary-eyed and almost confesses the whole gig but just then 3) the phone rings because the Captain has been beaten, with a dictionary, because Juliet needs to get herself together.
We pretend that Isaac Mizrahi matters, headband-less and looking quite well actually, and that Rufus is happy to see him, probably because he's the only designer Rufus actually recognizes, and then over on this side of the room the bitches all attack Jenny at once and threaten to ruin her dress and her face and her life and she tells them to just back off because she's so totally over it. I love how even though the entire rest of the cast went off to college this season, Jenny who is still in high school is the one person who actually acts like she's off at college now. You know? This is why I don't date townies.
"We don't make the rules, J. We just enjoy enforcing them. But there is one thing we don't understand: What a pathetic nobody like you could've done to Blair Waldorf to get her so riled up we had to play Follow The Loser all day." Jenny figures out basically the entire thing at this point, which is that if the Minions don't know why B hates her, but they're never going to stop coming at her, and if Chuck was the one that set up the Tim Gunn thing, which is now sort of tainted: Then this is a Blair and Chuck game, and she's just the radioactive thing. So fuck it. Right?
Dan whines at Jenny as she goes off to text GG about her virginity, because of course his hands are clean and he never does anything wrong and certainly isn't, you know, the least ethical person on the entire show, but she's off! Crazy! She's been pushed too far! Blair finally arrives to -- hey, how did the Minions get in? -- fuck up Jenny and yell at Chuck and act all crazy, so she does those things. But the second she walks in the door, her psychic powers kick in and she figures out the entire thing that Jenny just figured out: That the Parsons interview, the only reason Jenny came back at all, was Chuck's doing. Which means she is the radioactive thing. But B can't figure out why he would do that to both of them, and he's like, "I was counting on her Humphrey Superiority to keep her from actually exposing either of our reputations," that essentially he just wanted B to freak out and thought throwing Jenny out into the mix was a good way to do that.
Except, alas, Humphrey Superiority doesn't actually exist. Everybody's shit is blowing up and they all run to check the latest blast and, to be fair, it does sound pretty insane: "Turns out Little J didn't lose her V card to Damien Dalgaard. She waited, and Chucked it away with her stepbrother. Guess that explains the Humphrey in Hudson: Hell hath no fury like a Waldorf scorned!" Blair goes a tad bit Valmont in the middle of the party about how GG is a lying liar and all that, and Jenny tells her to shut up, and it's pretty great. Although obviously you know Dan's going to shit all over it somehow.
Dan runs out to see Jenny and start judging before he can even ask her what happened, and so she points out that, while it was a tiny bit embarrassing to tell the "entire" world that she lost it to Chuck Bass -- consensually, no less -- it was way worth it because of how bad it fucked up Chuck and Blair's imaginary powers and mojo. Which: Yes, that is worth it. They totally dicked with you on purpose and moved you around like a pawn on a chessboard for no real reason whatsoever. Versus all you did was tell your own truth about your own life. How could you possibly find fault with that?
"Jen, I was proud of you for moving on, but if this is what you've become after just a day back, maybe Blair was right after all, and maybe you should go back to Hudson." Dan actually says this, to his own sister. And the paternalistic creepy shitty thing about this season rears its head again. Not to mention the fact that he's pretty much re-banning her, which makes no more sense when it's coming from Dan than with Blair. Less, maybe. It's just bullshit sexist patronizing. Again. There is no grey, there are no opposing viewpoints: Dan is telling Jenny, and through Jenny us, that the best response is no response. And why should you, when big brother's always there to involve himself. Speaking of: Serena is wigging out explaining about dropping Biz Psych, but Lily goes real dark real fast:
"Serena, please, you don't need to apologize. I get it. I understand the lure of a powerful man like Colin. I married Bart Bass, remember? It's fine. And to be honest, they can make your life so much easier. We both know you would have moved on to classes more your speed eventually. A pretty girl like you could get the attention of a Colin Forrester even without an education. So why even bother?"
Sooooo Serena kicks Lily in the box and heads on over to the bar, shedding shoulder pads as she goes. "Whiskey neat, make it a double," she says, wiping the sweat from her brow, loosing her weird dirty pony from its elastic cage. "Mama grew up today." Just kidding. Serena stares shoots and leaves some more and then Rufus is like, "Lily, I am freakin' all about treating our kids horribly. But I am even more about judging your every move. You've got me in quite a pickle this time."
Lily explains that she has just learned about the arcane concept of "reverse psychology" from Colin's book, and decided to use it on Serena. It's sad because the chapter is titled ...But Wait, Just As Long As You Don't Call Your Daughter A Whore Because That Could Have Greater Ramifications, and she hasn't gotten that far yet. Also, she is wearing huge ice-chip earrings and a bubbling necklace of prisms and only her natural Rutherforditude and gorgeous plaid-braided chignon save it from looking like a girl playing dress-up at her very craziest aunt's house.
Nate strolls on into the infirmary, where the Captain has been brutalized and cannot take anything stronger than a Tylenol because he's in recovery or has no liver or something, I forget, and he's like, "Did you tell your mother?" And Nate's like, "Have you met my mother? I called her to tell her you got beat and she was like, 'I think I'll plant calla lilies in the spring.' Let's assume she cares to the degree she is on this planet, yeah?" The Captain's like, "Our marriage was always one of convenience. Her Vanderbilt money, my drug connections and embezzling skills. I never knew how hard it is, to be the wife of a powerful man. Trust me, I sympathize now."
Good old Colin gives up to give some speech for whatever his award is, Best Guy, it's a crystal apple for some reason, and -- reverse psychology bounding off the echoing walls of her forward-facing psychology -- Serena vows she will not have a fulfilling relationship with this man at any cost. And to further that agenda, she locks eyes with him as he's describing his feelings for her, and slowly stomps out of the room, at the last moment before he says how much he loves her, without dropping eye contact and he feels sad, or something, I don't know. Look at him. Does it matter?
Chuck and Blair mix some metaphors about what assholes they both are, and then Jenny comes out of the gala to gloat and tell them other ways they are assholes, and how much better she is than them, and how sorry she feels for them, and how it must suck to be so weak-minded and vicious and disgusting and how honestly there but for the grace of God, you know, but she just can't sully herself by being in the same city as them, blah blah blah. The very worst of all the Humphreys in one unending fucking flood.
They point out that she's just scared they're going to come after her and she goes, "You two used to be in love, and together you were invincible. But now that you've turned against each other, it's just a matter of time before your mutual destruction. And when that happens, maybe I'll think about coming home." Dan gives her a proud-of-you hug and GG delights in it -- "We hear Little J gave Chuck and Blair a goodbye kiss... OF DEATH!" -- but actually it's pretty awesome.
Colin and Serena, I've watched this scene like a million times and I still don't understand it so here are some facts: Serena goes to Colin's office at Columbia, in the middle of the night, still wearing ten inches of orange pancake makeup and the ugliest effing outfit into which she's ever found her way. "If my class is so important to you, maybe I should try a little harder to make it worth your while: Fewer models and martinis, more footnotes and flowcharts." It is a fact that somebody wrote that sentence on a piece of paper and later on another person filmed a third person saying it. The rest, I'm not sure. I think it's just Tripp all over again. But Colin's got a good point, which is that the class is barely a class, it was for Martha Lady and she was only going to be there for like two months, so wait: Why are they even having a problem here? They AREN'T. But somehow, they are. This dude better be on the make. There better be something else going on here, because this is stupid as shit. If she mentions the taxicab thing one more fucking time I am going to monkify.
Dan and Jenny, something about Brooklyn DNA guiding you to righteousness. A masked gunman fills them both full of lead and they lie in the gutter choking on blood and everybody steps over them and keeps going, thanks to that selfsame Brooklyn DNA. Across town Eric awakes from a deep sleep and feels like himself for the first time in weeks. The spell, the Humphrey spell, it has finally broken. Serena locates her self-respect; it unfolds in her like a steel orchid. All the babies in all the boroughs will sleep wonderfully tonight.
Chuck shows up at Blair's house, and they both look amazing. She's in man jammies and he's al dishabille with his hair still looking great, and they have a little talk about how Jenny was right, if annoying, because it's entirely within the scope of both their separate crazy to actually eventually escalate to murder. I would love this show so much if it took it that far. But Chuck's like, "And I do not want to die. So we must truce." Blair tells him to eat a dick, and then he says the following:
"Look, we can keep blaming each other for what happened that night, or we can admit a harder truth: It was no one's fault. It was fate. Tragedy." I'm sorry, a "harder" truth? Normally I love a no-fault resolution like this -- "we're holding onto the pain because it's all we have left" -- but in this case, no. No, it was your fault. You are both jackasses. Chuck waited five seconds before boning Jenny. Blair got rid of Eva for reasons she still won't disclose.
The conversation keeps going for awhile and it's fun to experience but not really to think about, because it's retarded. They shake on it and it sends ripples of desire and yearning up her arm and down her spine and it's sort of amazing, and he leaves. And outside in the hallway he's mysterious, and in the bedroom on the other side of the door she looks like she's about to puke, and it's pretty awesome. And gruesome. And that Rihanna/Eminem song where Dominic Monaghan is like, "I dare you to still want to make out with me."
Nate calls Juliet and she immediately starts crying. He's really rude for some reason, she's like, "Hello?" and he's like, "My dad's gonna be okay. Thanks for asking!" Which is when I would hang up on the person. But anyway, she wants to tell him the whole truth again -- or maybe just break up with him so that Ben will stop attacking his family members -- but Nate's cocksucker side that he's never had before comes out to play and he's like, "YOU'RE BREAKING UP WITH ME BECAUSE MY DAD IS IN JAIL!" Which is of whole cloth invented by his crazy ass. I think this episode was just written by a bad person, like a mean person or a crybaby, and they honestly think this is what people are normally like.
Which, thanks for breaking up with yourself on my behalf, because it saves me the trouble. Juliet pours herself a drink and before you remember that she is homeless, the person who lives there comes home and just guess who it is. Why, it's Colin Forrester. Of course. He lives in Eleanor's building, he coordinates his one-night stands around Serena van der Woodsen's class schedule, he's a Fortune 500 magnate and the city's most eligible bachelor, so of course he's also in on Operation Smile. Of course he is. He writes Juliet her check for this week's misdeeds, they talk real cagey-like about whatever, and life makes a little less sense than it did before.
Maybe Jenny's better off. In the back of the cab she finds a book, abandoned, smell of charcoal and resin, smoke from a rosewood fire, that begins: to wound the autumnal city. Chuck slept with Jenny, died and was resurrected, returned to New York, and declared war; Juliet was all about deep cover and ugly clothes; the circle of Serena's persecutors grew to include both time and space; and Blair discovered that her psychic dream powers came from a secret Massachusetts ancestry of witches and deliverymen.
Nervously she flips now, past the antics of her brother and their family's knowledge their pride is all they have, past the true identity of Pete Fairman's murderer and Poppy Lifton's final fate, past the violent return of Pilot Inspektor and his unholy alliance with Aaron Rose, past the first time Nate ever saw Chuck's balls, past the everything that mattered once and never will again, she flips, she flips all the way to the back:
"If you want peace, always be prepared for war," she says, "XOXO" she says, but I still hear them walking in the trees: not speaking. Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls of vapor and light, beyond holland into the hills, I have come to
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