That was Season One good! Everybody acting crazy! Everybody gossiping, girl! Serena and Colin -- what else? -- catch a cab together, which both Dan and Blair notice, but while B is seeing S, S is seeing B coming out of the bushes with Chuck, because they have been doing it all day, everywhere, in the name of hate. Even though Serena totally loves this, she still yells at Blair to control herself. But while Chuck thinks the solution to ending their hate sex is a 24-hour fuckfest like in Hotel New Hampshire (minus the incest, for once), Blair retires to the bath and eats macarons while Dorota defends against Bass attacks.
Dan tells Serena -- Blair agrees -- that she is so amazing and wonderful in every way that if Colin really wants her, he should quit his teaching job and go back to being a billionaire. S offers him this option, basically so they don't have to wait a whole month to do it, and while she thinks he's turned her down, in fact he quits that same day. Meanwhile, Chuck keeps popping up in random places with a boner and random nightwear that makes him look very tiny and shiny and purple, causing Blair to scream and be more adorable than she's been in a long while.
Nate finds out that Juliet isn't living in that one apartment, and suddenly he and Vanessa -- who is back and just on a tear -- are arranging this invasion/sting/coffee date so V can (of course) break into Juliet's house and find the pics of Serena kissing her professor. But between the coffee date and a Come To Jesus with Colin, Juliet has decided to shut Operation Smile down, so Vanessa -- getting twigs and self-righteousness everywhere -- decides to take over Operation Smile on her own! Despite not knowing anything about it, or what Juliet's agenda is, or who Juliet is! She's just sick of being "Vanessa" and she wants fuckin' Serena blood all over her!
Thinking that she's going to have to find her own date to the ballet, S calls up bitchy old Dan and invites him. By the time he arrives, Blair has already shown up with Colin and the happy news of his decision. Dan throws a fit, even after S once again explains how nothing is ever her fault, and Nate shows up with Juliet, having bonded over their homelessness. The only net result of all this date-jumping is that Dan's not there for the big takedown, which is a strictly NJBC affair.
Juliet tries to stop Vanessa from giving the info to the Dean, but after Vanessa explains how the UES works -- how everybody always chooses S for some reason* -- Juliet turns evil and her face gets all weird, so now they are both evil! And crazed! At the ballet! Serena's dress is beautiful, everybody's beautiful, but Vanessa might look the best for once. Which is fitting, because Vanessa is drunk on champagne and maybe packing heat and she just runs around biting faces and it is fucked-up and amazing.
Drunk Vanessa and wild-eyed Juliet attack the Dean together, and she yells at them for being spiteful and dramatic. Juliet says the professor involved was Colin -- burning her bridges with her cousin for no real reason -- which piques the Dean's interest, but before they can view the pics B destroys them and claims to have been dating Colin herself. Chuck corroborates, and the Dean calls them all tattletales and whores before taking off for the ballet.
*(The reason is, I believe, that she is not a crazy asshole like the rest of these people and never** does anything shitty to anybody, while the rest of these crazy assholes are constantly doing shitty things to everybody.)
**(Pursuant to that, we now know that Ben was a teacher, and is currently 26 years of age, so everybody who thought Serena somehow got him jailed back in boarding school, move your tokens one step forward because it's seeming more and more likely.)
After the ballet, or maybe just after everybody took turns stabbing Juliet in her eye and nobody actually attended the ballet after all, Serena and Colin confabulate a story about why Juliet suddenly went rabid on him that is completely wrong. Then S calls Dan to take some more bites out of his heart, but Nate shows up first, so then they're both there, so she just feels weird some more with her mouth hanging open.
Upstairs, Blair and Chuck are finally friends, and they hug goodbye, and he smells her hair, and it's a yearning kind of feeling, but then suddenly they kiss and it's so amazing, and then they go upstairs and make sweet, unhateful, friendly love. I liked that part.
And then over in DUMBO -- or in Juliet's sad studio apartment full of Serena pictures -- Juliet Skypes a mysterious personage to talk about how she needs help to destroy Serena van der Woodsen once and for all. To whom is she speaking? Jenny Humphrey. And who is sitting there while they have this conversation? VANESSA, TOO! BITCH CITY! IT IS A THRILL HAPPENING!
week: Vanessa, Jenny and Juliet team up to destroy Serena at another masquerade ball, where I'm sure Nate or Dan or somebody will kiss Jenny or Juliet or somebody, thinking she's Serena or somebody, and lives will be ruined. And it will be so crazy because none of them actually have sustainable beef: Vanessa hates Serena because she... won Rock Band four years ago, essentially. Jenny hates Serena because she... wanted her bedroom back, basically. Juliet hates Serena for Some Reason... that has nothing to do with this latest thing? But it's going to happen and it's going to be epic. So epic.
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Blair's getting off when Serena comes busting in, all hooves and hair, to discuss Colin. You know, the guy she wants to talk about every single day and Blair always tells her to shut up about? Stealer of taxicabs and hearts and schoolgirls' virtue? Unwitting underwriter of Operation Smile? That guy. Colin Forrester. Now, you would be not outwith the boundaries of good sense to assume that Blair is masturbating, because how great is that we have this cute girl on TV who is constantly masturbating, but in fact no: That's wee willie winkie under the sheets. Whilst his sister sits atop a duvet, blathering on. There's a moment where Blair actually has either a full-on orgasm or a pre-show and it's so, so creepy and so, so awesome and Serena is so, so not getting it.
Why? What has our little Swan Queen in such a bindle today? Could it be pretending to care about school has finally caught up with her? Is it the ongoing mystery of the taxicab and the being of places? What is the Fortune 500 four one one? I'll tell you: Serena is all atwitter because quote "All I can think about is how much I wanna be on his arm at the ballet!" This is where I opt out of the conversation, and I don't even have Chuck currently going down on me (as far as I know). Blair finally shoves her pet giantess out of the bed and out of the door and then up comes bitsy Chuck looking zing and still focused entirely, as any good Hobbit would be, on second breakfast.
Dan and Vanessa discuss stealing soap from Lily's house, because they are classy, and then about how cute Colin Forrester is, because they are gay. The reason they are discussing Professor Cutiepie is twofold: One is because Dan is toting his stupid book everywhere he goes, and Two is because Colin Forrester will soon be dead. The wolves will be at him before you know it. Of course, Vanessa's takeaway is that Serena is involved and thusly she should shut down and go into Asshole Mode, which is always just a click away, and thus our first parallel to Persuasion, which is about this "awesome" girl who is actually kind of a dud but we feel sorry for her because nobody recognizes or notices because of these wicked step-Serenas hogging all the attention. The favorite of Vanessas everywhere, but most especially in Brooklyn.
Vanessa digs her chipped zombie nails into Dan's arm so he'll stand still for some Why I'm A Bitchposition: "Sorry, but ever since the Hamilton House debacle, I'm dead to anyone in Serena's life, except for you. Nate doesn't even return my calls!" Dan's like, "You think you got problems? He's not talking to me either because I stole that treaty!" They don't even hear each other when they talk. They just keep going. "Well unlike you, I didn't do anything! Juliet framed me! She's crazy!" Dan's like, "Maybe/maybe not, but the important thing is that I don't care and you got throwed from the commune for aggravated suck and now you are homeless unless you do what I say, so I say shut up and let me be in love with Serena all the time." Just like Lily taught him.
Juliet runs over to Colin's house to (get her spycam back) tell her cousin that she did not enjoy Persuasion, but in classy literary circles we do not talk about that, because Jane Austen wrote it when she was dying and so she didn't have time to make it awesome. Colin's like "No Jane Austen talk! It's unlikely. Also, I want to talk about your brother Ben and how you're not to see him or else you are homeless because you have to do what I say." Lily's power is limitless. For every person that says that shit, she stands an inch taller and Rufus loses a clump of hair. He thinks the waffles will refuel him but they shan't! Waffles aren't food for the soul, they are carbs.
Expository action on the Ben situation: "Prison shouldn't be easy, especially when you deserve to be there. You're the only person that thinks [he didn't do "it"]. Why else would his lawyer have him plead guilty? Look, I understand he's your brother and you love him, but you are playing with fire." Juliet responds that at least her fire-playing won't earn her some diseases, unlike his dalliance with Serena van der Woodsen. The wolves approach! Juliet can hear them! Colin underscores the fact that Juliet better stop visiting Ben in jail or else he will box her ears, and that's without even knowing about Operation Smile.
Dan's starry-eyed babbling about Colin Forrester is getting old for Rufus, who has full-blown vampire victim today and just stares mutely into space and eats infinity of waffles trying to get his groove back. But Rufus has no groove and the waffles just keep hitting the rock bottom of his awfulness with a slightly fluffy sound. He pets a cat that is imaginary. He is wearing multiple sweaters. His hair is mussed and he smells like diner fries and all he wants is for his son to shut up, shut up, shut up. So he tells Dan to stop being in love with Colin Forrester and go back to being in love with Serena, and start right now, elsewhere. Dan's like, "Right! I can't wait to get Serena back so I can grind that into Vanessa's face some more." Rufus is like, "I wish Eric and Lily were here so I didn't have to talk to you, but they are visiting Wesleyan. Apparently it's possible for Eric to get more gay."
Dan leaves, Rufus shoots himself, Nate grabs Chuck at random on the street and says out loud, "Yo!" They discuss how Chuck has been AWOL for days because of always with the dirty Blair sex, and Chuck lies that he fucked the entire New York marathon, and that closure can be attained through "massive amounts of hate sex," so Nate should try that with Juliet instead of doing what he's doing, which is taking her a sad box of sad things that she left at their house when they were having their sad relationship. Which is sad: Vanessa sad. Toss that shit out, you are rich.
Juliet runs over to Colin's house to (get her spycam back) tell her cousin that she did not enjoy Persuasion, but in classy literary circles we do not talk about that, because Jane Austen wrote it when she was dying and so she didn't have time to make it awesome. Colin's like "No Jane Austen talk! It's unlikely. Also, I want to talk about your brother Ben and how you're not to see him or else you are homeless because you have to do what I say." Lily's power is limitless. For every person that says that shit, she stands an inch taller and Rufus loses a clump of hair. He thinks the waffles will refuel him but they shan't! Waffles aren't food for the soul, they are carbs.
Expository action on the Ben situation: "Prison shouldn't be easy, especially when you deserve to be there. You're the only person that thinks [he didn't do "it"]. Why else would his lawyer have him plead guilty? Look, I understand he's your brother and you love him, but you are playing with fire." Juliet responds that at least her fire-playing won't earn her some diseases, unlike his dalliance with Serena van der Woodsen. The wolves approach! Juliet can hear them! Colin underscores the fact that Juliet better stop visiting Ben in jail or else he will box her ears, and that's without even knowing about Operation Smile.
Dan's starry-eyed babbling about Colin Forrester is getting old for Rufus, who has full-blown vampire victim today and just stares mutely into space and eats infinity of waffles trying to get his groove back. But Rufus has no groove and the waffles just keep hitting the rock bottom of his awfulness with a slightly fluffy sound. He pets a cat that is imaginary. He is wearing multiple sweaters. His hair is mussed and he smells like diner fries and all he wants is for his son to shut up, shut up, shut up. So he tells Dan to stop being in love with Colin Forrester and go back to being in love with Serena, and start right now, elsewhere. Dan's like, "Right! I can't wait to get Serena back so I can grind that into Vanessa's face some more." Rufus is like, "I wish Eric and Lily were here so I didn't have to talk to you, but they are visiting Wesleyan. Apparently it's possible for Eric to get more gay."
Dan leaves, Rufus shoots himself, Nate grabs Chuck at random on the street and says out loud, "Yo!" They discuss how Chuck has been AWOL for days because of always with the dirty Blair sex, and Chuck lies that he fucked the entire New York marathon, and that closure can be attained through "massive amounts of hate sex," so Nate should try that with Juliet instead of doing what he's doing, which is taking her a sad box of sad things that she left at their house when they were having their sad relationship. Which is sad: Vanessa sad. Toss that shit out, you are rich.
The most important part of this very important scene is Chuck's suit jacket, which is so exquisitely tailored that you can actually see heaven. Meanwhile this is what is in the box: Shampoo, and a copy of The Help. Chuck's like, "I can't talk to you right now, I have to get my Blackberry so I can send some messages to some people." Even Nate -- even Nate -- is not that dumb. "You're holding it!" Chuck's response is just like, poof! Smoke! And he disappears. Nate's bangs blow back and then he thinks about his insignificance because everybody on this entire show is somehow standing at this intersection which has become the party for this episode:
Blair's over there about to get jig with Chuck in a "brownstone vestibule" (?) on this corner. Serena's about to drive up in a purloined taxicab with her fake boyfriend, explaining to him that all she wants is to quote "be on his arm" at the ballet. Colin is explaining that for kissing they have to go to Harbour Island, where the wolves shall devour us all. Dan is there begging for money and dignity and sees Serena who sees Blair who sees Vanessa, who is licking the sidewalk. Poppy Lifton is kicking a child in the face. Juliet is wearing a trenchcoat and bright orange wig and checking Gossip Girl a hundred times to find Serena. Jenny is there feeling great about herself and blaming her parents, as usual. Lily is there getting married to rich dudes. Inspektor Pilot is there dressed as Lady Gaga, begging for attention. Lord Marcus is fucking his relatives. Bart Bass is there going ooooOOOOoooo. It's all happening.
While Serena totally loves the fact that Blair and Chuck are now doing it in the street like commoners, she is going to make a problem. At this very moment Juliet is watching the video of Serena kissing Colin, and it's still not that exciting, but she calls the Columbia Dean of Vag to inform her about Serena's activities, while Nate is right this second talking to some kind of Dobby at her building about how she never lived there and never existed because she is a lie inside a lie inside a lie wrapped around a silverware drawer. Nate is only a lie inside a lie wrapped around cotton candy and American Apparel underwear, so he's confused by this extra layer of lies. But he knows how to hate ladies, so that's what he's going to do.
Serena and Blair discuss how Chuck is fucking her all over the place, and S pretends to both A) care and B) think it's a bad thing, because how early do you have to get up in the morning to get upper hand on Blair? So early. And how the fuck do you know when or where to be when that happens? You can't. It's providence that everybody was on that corner, and S needs to play this one through.
"It's just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill ex sex, fueled by the most common of aphrodisiacs. Mutual loathing and disdain." Serena is like, "That is at least four words I don't know yet." Blair says something mean about Levi Johnston that I refuse to repeat, and then compares Serena to Elizabeth Taylor because of how she's always... I don't know, I don't get the reference. I'm not old. S explains that they're meeting the wolves in the Bahamas, and Blair is like, "Nice knowin' ya, Clara Bow! Don't take any wooden nickels, Tallulah Bankhead!"
Vanessa answers the door at DUMBO chock full of bitch: "This how you return phone calls now?" Nate goes, "Nope. This is how." And then he kneecaps her. Boom.
Wrong, he ignores her classlessness as usual and launches into the story of Crazy Juliet Who Was Never There just like that girl the Fonz met on Halloween. Nate is scared of ghosts and he knows that Vanessa, for all her faults, is a rational person. Or so he thinks. So now they are going to team up like the Monster Squad and eradicate Juliet's ghostly evil once and for all. Vanessa is like, "Whatever you say, dummy! I just like hearing that I was right!" Then she decides to put off writing her Hannah Arendt paper so that she can go do some horrible things to Juliet. Because it's better than being alone with herself.
Serena grins at crazy bitchy Dan like so: "All right, why do you have Mad Face?" Which is awesome, because that's exactly what he has right now. And why? Because Serena is dating Colin Forrester on the corner where everybody can see them. His main point: Serena is better than this dating the guest lecturer. We have seen some pathetic transparency from Dan Humphrey in our lives together, Reader, but get this bullshit: Dan claims to be angry because Serena deserves better than having to wait a month to bone Colin and that it would be more romantic if Colin quit his job. That's his ratfink rationalization for why he's getting judgey. And because S is kind of a moron, she decides that he's totally right and giving her good brotherly advice. This is the kicker, which is so fucking Humphrey it's delicious: "You're worth more than a guest lecturer fee. Everyone knows that. I just wish you did."
"Sex in the limo. We've literally come full circle." Flexible of them, but they are young after all and it's still early in the day. Chuck and Blair come to a conclusion about their sex -- thanks to Serena not knowing what the hell she's talking about -- but they're so used to being in scary sync that they totally think they have the same plan but really it's opposite plans: Blair wants to go cold turkey and Chuck wants to do a Hotel New Hampshire and just fuck each other to the point of injury so they won't want to do it anymore. That's... Actually kind of great. Later it'll get worrisomely explicit but for now it's like a subtle nod to the way those two do everything. Anyway, Blair runs to Dorota and tells her to defend the castle against Chuck and calls this a Bassectomy, while Chuck tells his driver to go buy some cronk and condoms and some other information he sorely does not need to know.
S is like, "Hey I was just on my way to your office to tell you I can't come to your office!" Colin is like, "I hate it when you think with your brain and not your yodeling privates." Like, he says that. S is all, "Too late! I cannot make our wolf date in the Bahamas, for a prophecy has been revealed to me that we can only fuck if you quit your job a month early." This, remember with him being the replacement for the original teacher, for a class that was only ever supposed to be two months long. Math is no match for Dan Humphrey and his lies.
"We say we want a real relationship, but the truth is neither one of us is willing to make a sacrifice," Serena says, which is like so stupid I can't even deal with it. They were making a sacrifice. The sacrifice was no fucking. (And what sacrifice could Serena possibly... I mean, I guess she doesn't want to quit the class. But if Colin quits his job, no more class. So...?) Anyway then they break up. I mean, I wish I could tell you more facts about this, but somehow the actual point of that scene goes unspoken and in the middle of the conversation they have both broken up and acknowledged this fact, despite it not really coming up at all.
Juliet is like, "Having gotten dumped by you eleven times, I must admit I was surprised that you want to take me on a coffee date. But then I remembered you are Nate Archibald, and it's entirely possible that you forgot you dumped me, so I figured what the heck." Nate thinks that Juliet broke up with him, which was another conversation where the conversation never happened: She called to apologize for using him in Operation Smile and I guess break up with him, but before she could say either of those things he started screaming about what a whore she was. Which was awesome, don't get me wrong, but Nate's life is so naturally confusing that I get nervous when shit happens like this.
The long and the short is that Juliet comes clean about her embarrassing horrible life, like so: "I didn't want you to see where I really live! My actual apartment is a studio on 126th Street! My cousin pays for things and I shop at the mall and do my own hair and choose my own blah outfits! It's the saddest story ever told! It's like Rent. Except my billionaire cousin pays that."
Nate's response is, of course, "I can't believe I never told you about the year I spent as a homeless rent boy! Man, egg on my face. You think Morningside Heights is bad? Try a loft in DUMBO. So we're squatters, that's cool. Hey, do you want to be my girlfriend and go to the ballet with me?" Of course Juliet wants to go to the ballet with Nate. She's like, "Thanks for undumping me. Wait, I dumped you this time? Well, good on me."
Ah, but the whole thing is that this coffee date was a trap! A very Abraharchibald kind of plan whereby Nate takes Juliet to coffee so that Vanessa can break into her apartment -- having found it by triangulating Juliet's foursquare account, which is just mindblowing in many ways, some of them good -- using her old cat-burglar skills. So while Nate is forgetting this entire plan and accidentally becoming Juliet's boyfriend again, Vanessa is going through her belongings and pissing in the couch. Ignoring Nate's urgent message to stop the B&E in progress and act like a goddamn human being for once, she goes full jerkoff and finds the pictures of Serena and Colin chastely XOXO in a tree. Her eyes get wide like any of this matters, and she's like, "Finally! A storyline in which I am not a patsy but an actual active participant!" And God's all, "Not so fast, Abrams."
Blair is binge eating and getting crunk in the bathtub instead of screwing Chuck, so Serena comes in and offers her some of those sweet, sweet van der Woodsen macarons, if you know what I mean. Blair chows the fuck down on them, desperate for human touch, and Serena climbs into the bathtub with her and before you know it, this show got perfect.
Just kidding, first Blair worries that since it's "harder to chuck Chuck" than she thought -- and apparently to come up with new Chuck puns, or chuns -- and that she might need sex rehab. Serena explains that Blair Willpower Waldorf's middle name is Willpower, and that to prove it, somehow, she broke up with Colin for no reason. Blair's in such a state that she forgets to automatically disagree with anything Dan ever says, and actually agrees to the whole "quitting is romance" concept, and that S is so wonderful that men should fully kill themselves just for the chance to hold her coat. (Awesome: Serena responds, "I've been thinking about that all day," in the most gloriously serious tone of voice. Like she actually has been thinking about how wonderful she is all day, and what to do about it.) Serena takes off again -- after reminding Blair to be strong -- so she can think up something even stupider to do than what she was already doing. And then it's just Blair and those macarons, once again.
Half done and still no Darren Criss in a schoolboy outfit. Seems that television has not yet seen my internet petition. It is not yet Better.
Juliet drops by to say that, much like Nate, she has done a complete 180 and now wants to side with the angels, dating Nate and letting Colin pay for everything and letting Ben rot in pedo prison. Because here are more facts: "Remember what he was like before? He was so optimistic, idealistic. I mean, the day he became a teacher was the happiest day of his life." More: "He's not that person anymore. He's a 26-year-old convict who still hasn't taken responsibility for his actions. He's not gonna be able to move on until he accepts what happened."
What happened: Wolves. Underage ones, at Serena's boarding school. I feel it in my bowtie.
After calling 38 times, Chuck pops up in Blair's purple velvet robe (S has worn this before too) and she screams and they realize their miscommunication about fucking v. not fucking, aka detox v. excess. Dorota attacks and the three of them are adorable for awhile, but then for some reason Colin is downstairs and is Blair's date to the ballet. I feel like we left that part out but whatever. Blair can text faster than eyeballs, which is half the reason she's the Q. So Chuck's like "Wha?" and B's like, "He's my date!" and Dorota's like, "Eastern European life is sad life!" and Chuck's all, "I'm not taking off this robe. I look like a She-Ra action figure in it but I don't care, it feels luxurious." He seriously, he looks like a catamite from a period flick in that thing, it's amazing.
So the stupid-ass thing that Serena is doing is calling Dan to go to the ballet with her, now that she accidentally broke up with her boyfriend per Dan's explicit instructions. I hate it when things work out in Dan's favor but it never stings for very long because he only wins for about ten seconds at a time before Serena finds a way to fuck him over. So she's like, "What's going on?" And he's all, "Hipster activities." And she goes, "Come to the ballet?" And he's like," You gonna screw me over somehow or is this a proposal of marriage? Because that will actually kill Vanessa Abrams." And she hangs up because duh, nobody's that lucky. Clearly Option A. Every time is the fucking first time with this kid.
Okay, so Colin is actually there to see Serena and the whole thing was a lie, I so didn't understand that. Okay, he's there to see S and Blair says that in fact she is taking him to the ballet. Also everybody is eating macarons this whole time, it's like this bizarre Ionesco touch. So Colin has quit his job for no reason, and this impresses B for no reason -- "Just when I had written you off... Well, not just, I kind of wrote you off weeks ago" -- so she says they're going to the ballet together just like Serena has always wanted ever since this morning. And Chuck's thunderous hard-on, rampaging, shouting her name like the Minotaur of Crete, coming closer through the house, knocking over vases of hydrangeas and rare artworks and objets, coming closer and closer. Tiny little man, very loud penis. Such is the way of things.
Juliet is appalled by Vanessa. Specifically her presence in the Shame Garret but also, you know, generally. Vanessa explains her devious deviancy and then, awesomely: "I was looking for something to prove to everyone that you're the crazy liar that I know you are!" Juliet sees another chance to explain Operation Smile go whizzing past her head, once again makes the choice to be cagey about it, and then -- wonderfully -- Vanessa goes spitshine crazy.
"Juliet, I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you said Serena sent the e-mail. You were right, she was trading sex for grades all along!"
We spend a lot of time shit-talking Vanessa Abrams here on the UES but my God, I love how her brain works. She's the only person who remembers what happened in episodes so it gives her more ammo to recombine cats in crazy horrible ways, but still this takes the macaron. I gotta say, I'm kind of proud of her. "Your secret is safe with me. I'm far more interested in exposing Serena van der Woodsen than some petty class pretender." Juliet's all, "A pleasure, as always, but Operation Smile is defunct. No more lying, no more cheating, no more aliases, no more crazy lies. From here on out it's just Nate's abs and Colin's money. A quiet life, but a perfect one."
But Vanessa! Will not be gentled! She ducks her head and leaves and the second she gets out of that awful studio apartment she takes the memory card out of her man-purse and kisses it gently. "My preciousss," she hisses, all darting tongue and snakes in hair. And it gooooorgeous.
Because really Persuasion was all about Jane Austen's own discomfort with the concept of persuasion and guilt and the morality of her lifestyle, and she had told her niece to run game on this guy, which made her feel like suck, but she didn't stop herself and she realized -- and this is why it's the perfect Austen for this show -- that just even by staying out of the conversation she was being a part of the conversation. That all of our acts of communication are acts of persuasion, and the job is not to speak or not speak but to do so with just reasoning. Which is an unreachable goal but a fine one. It's kind of crazy to think about how good that book could have been if she'd had the good judgment not to die while she was writing it. It is also crazy to think about how great it would be if just once that book weren't adapted starring the ugliest British people.
Lily knows the blonde guy from Center Stage and Rufus knows Sandy Cohen because of being like his imperfectly damaged clone-baby, and they all eat ballet waffles together and then barf them up again. Everybody pretends to love ballet and it's awesome, and then everybody's wearing sexy tuxes except for Dan, who is wearing toe shoes and a gym sock in his dance belt and the tiniest of tutus and a look of ruinous ruination due to Serena showing up and instead of coming over to him, running to Colin who has quit his job and thusly been delivered by Blair. The music is beautiful and everybody's clothes are beautiful and Serena looks like a vision of legs and breasts and vaginas -- like how in the Bible cherubim are a thousand wings and eyeballs is what it's like -- and it's the best she's looked all year. Nate's amazing mouth says "Sucks to you for even hoping at this point," but his eyes say, "Nice gym sock."
Swan Lake is about a pedophile boarding school teacher/evil wizard whose only power is turning into an owl and turning girls into birds. For some reason, he has turned Odette (Serena) into a swan maiden, which is a woman sometimes and a swan some other times. All the other swans (NJBC) have made her their Swan Queen, and all they do is bring her stuff and dance around for her entertainment. She meets a Fortune 500 prince while he's out hunting for taxicabs and gets all excited because the only thing that will break the curse is if he loves her true. There's a ball at the end of the episode, and the evil wizard shows up with his daughter Odile/sister Juliet, who turns into a Serena lookalike and fools Colin/Siegebert into proposing love to her, thus killing Serena and making hash of everything. Luckily, the wolves come so Colin kills himself, and they both ascend to heaven, and usually at this point Ben dies because of magic. Tchaikovsky is the very greatest.
The Dance of the Swans, which sounds pretty sneaky and works perfectly here, starts playing when Chuck approaches Blair so they can fuck at the ballet. She lies some more about how Colin is her date, and he sees through it, and then tuxedos away. Meanwhile, Vanessa slithers up to yell at Nate for being at the ballet, and explains openly that she is there to fuck with Serena. Because she has gone rogue! She is a one-woman army of crazy, slurping champagne. Operation Smile: Whence? For whom? Abrams don't give a motherfuck anymore. She is there to cause some damned trouble for some damned Yankees.
Nate can't believe it, because he's always getting fooled about her suckiness, but she's like, "Believe it." Nate can't believe that Juliet was spycamming on S and Colin, and once again breaks up with her without telling her. Vanessa slugs back another champers and her eyes glitter like vicious diamonds and Nate is powerless before her power. She goes off to bring it all down and Nate is scared but then he thinks, "Who is worse than Vanessa?" And there she is, Blair Waldorf, looking horny and avoiding Chuck for the three seconds.
Serena finds Dan to apologize for dicking him around -- just absolutely dicking him around this time, for once -- and he bitches and moans about how he's always second on her list. Or worse. She can't exactly say it's not true, but her only excuse is that Colin showed up unexpectedly and that he did exactly what Dan wanted him to do, which is quit to be with her. For Serena, this is sound logic and she can't understand why Dan is not appeased, because the idea that Dan was lying the whole time is just too complicated to deal with. So Serena's all, "What is the problem?" And Dan goes running off tossing banana peels and stinkbombs and poorness over his shoulder. Little does he know that right now Vanessa is the one to watch.
George Balanchine was awesome, which for his benefit this is happening which is why Swan Lake, and after this speech Vanessa runs up to the Dean -- whom she does not actually know or have an academic connection to -- and Juliet heads her off at the pass, because she doesn't yet know that Vanessa has sunk her relationship, once again, with a wave of her turquoise-bejeweled hand, so Juliet still thinks she's not herself evil.
Vanessa explains without further ado that she stole the memory card from Juliet's camera and now has the only copies of Serena's downfall due to Juliet's attack of the nicies. Vanessa cocks her crazy gun one more time and straight tells Juliet that the whole coffee date was a lie so they could break into her house and fuck with her life, and thus by implication Nate is playing Juliet -- which she knows is not true -- except for now now Nate has run to Blair with the information that Juliet is a stinkerbell and was spying on the Swan Queen, so it turns true retroactively. Then, Odile to Odile, the Persuasion begins in earnest: "Face it. At the end of the day, you're an outsider just like me. And if it's ever between one of us and Serena van der Woodsen, they will always choose Serena."
I mean, the only real reason that would upset you to the point of your third heel-turn of the day is if you're Vanessa. But on the other hand, Juliet was only giving up her life of evil because she liked Nate better once she found out he was a homeless hooker just like her. So if he betrayed her then it really is Swan Lake and she has a duty to get Odette expelled because Colin is not a Plan B or C, it was always a choice between Nate and Ben.
Dean Rotunda is not about to be having any of this mess, because Juliet and Vanessa are constant drama and if she hears one more time this name Serena van der Woodsen she is going to wolf out. "Ms. Sharp, I am here with friends. This is the one night of the year where I get to try and put everything else out of my mind and just enjoy myself." Just then Blair runs up to complicate matters, and the Dean is all, "LUNCH IS OFF."
Colin and Serena run up at this point, and the Dean has motherfucking had it, and then they all yell at each other until the Dean finally understands what's up, which is that no one of this should matter to her except for how already one party got messed up by Serena fucking professors for grades, and now here's another one she's fucking for grades. Even though Colin already quit and the lonely wolves of the Bahamas are going hungry, it's still sort of damning. Slightly on the side of Guilty, the Dean's about to watch the kissing video in earnest, but then B drops the memory card in her champagne and pretends that it was she -- non-grade fucker, trigger-happy jack -- who was dating Colin, who is now quit. So it's all resolved.
Dean checks out to have a life that doesn't involve the sex life of one single child in the entire student body of Columbia, and shit gets for real: "Juliet, I don't like tattletales much more than I like young women who use their sexuality to further their academic careers." Every time they refer to Serena's "academic career" with a straight face: Cup your left breast, which should already be hanging out if you've been playing along, and take a drink.
Colin yells at Juliet for spycamming him and she yells at him for dating the girl that took their relative down and put him in jail. Colin says this is really just about her burning him and cuts her off so now he has no cousins. Gone, with those burning tire tracks of a DeLorean. But the problems of Juliet are just getting started. The NJBC flows around her like mean water and the camera circles, circles, they are sharks and swans, trading lines like we're in Spoon River. And awesomely, neither Vanessa nor Dan are here, because this is the real shit. They speak in one voice, one terrible thrumming voice, power grown quadruplicate, fire in their eyes, wind whipping their hair around, little dust devils playing at their skirts, ghost of George Balanchine joined by demons as they dervish:
"Now it's our turn. Your obsession with Serena has grown tiresome. Just because you have no money, and delusions of grandeur, does not make it okay for you to be a single white trash female. Why would I ever believe anything you say again? You can believe the part where she does her own hair. You tried to destroy my friendship with Blair, my reputation, my academic career. You failed every time, and now it's time for you to go. He's talking about Columbia. You don't belong there anyway. If we catch you hanging around again, there will be consequences. And we're really good at payback."
Blair reaches out one witching finger and touches Juliet's forehead, leaving a silvery mark that fades with the shadows as the sun returns. It marks her, for purposes better left unknown. Nate spits on the ground before Juliet's feet, and so she will ever leave a trail of slugs and offal where she goes. Serena reaches out and runs a hand down her perfect cheek, leaving a scar, and when she walks it is now with a limp, grown lame by the power of the NJBC. Chuck whispers softly in her ear. I don't know what he said, but the sky went black and her hair turned white. Let us hope we never hear that voice, or the awful truth it speaks. And then she is gone, whisked away to Harlem to retrieve her things -- her shampoo, her summer beach read -- and be gone forevermore.
Or will she rise again, draped in cerements and rage? Magic used in anger redounds on us threefold, little ones. Sure as game recognizes game.
Colin and Serena, speeding away in a taxicab, confabulate a strange myth about what has happened, covering over Operation Smile as though it had never occasioned to reveal itself. It is about jealousy, they say, because with Serena it always is: She was jealous of Serena's past with Nate, which began the whole thing. Then jealous of her relationship with Colin, turning her mad. Mad! Colin's like, "Well actually this makes tons of sense. Our family is fuuuucked. But more, I cannot say." Instead of leaning on him, Serena just giggles and then... They break up again without breaking up. It's the damndest thing.
Serena decides to kill two swans with one stone, and both apologizes and further ruins Dan by calling him from outside PRADA and saying she'll refuse to go inside until he comes for her. Dan lays a patch getting there from DUMBO, but before he arrives Nate has randomly shown up! (After she's ignored his call, which I thought for sure he would see her do, but this is better.) And they have fallen back in love! And Dan is left standing there holding the bag for the second time this week and the millionth time of life! Serena van der Woodsen, be my valentine!
This great Big Star cover starts playing as Blair and Chuck gloat fireside: "Us, a million. The world: Zero!" They talk about how good it was to get their NJBC on and do a takedown and magic spells on a lady, and it's really sweet. Finally, they admit that they are friends and family both, and that hate sex is not as awesome as being buddies and evil cohorts together, just like Jenny told them a while back. It's so sweet to see them smile like old people and talk about how much they love to be friends. They say goodnight, finally, and Chuck stands to leave, and but then they hug and then they smell each other and then they kiss and then he takes her upstairs in his sturdy tiny arms and then they make healthy normal-people love and I dunno. It feels earned to me. I like it very much.
Juliet stirs her cauldron and says magic words until an image appears. Who is it? We don't know. Perhaps a secret member of Operation Smile, perhaps an upcoming guest star? Whoever it is, their power is legion. Juliet tells the wicked mystic on the other end that she's got a van der problem and that they are her only hope. Is it Obi-Wan? You're getting warmer. Okay, is it Georgina Sparks? Closer, but think: Who is the only person that has ever pulled off a scheme, on this entire show? Who is the one person so ass-crazy and nihilistic that even her society events, her dances, her gowns, the crown upon her very head are warped into strange Gaga-esque monuments to the sharp and jagged?
"If you are crazy," says the haunting face upon the water, all eyeshadow and dark wisdom, "I'm sure they made you that way. Believe me, I know from firsthand experience."
A snake no thicker than your thumb twists up Jennifer's arm, tasting the electric air. She is nearly manifest; her rage hangs over the apartment like a poison cloud. She leans closer, closer to her crystal ball, hungry for the hurly-burly. The banished, the strong, the terrible. The darkness, waiting. Hungry.
But where takes place this devil's bargain? For Juliet is homeless, without even a cauldron or iPad to call her own. Is there a third weird sister to take the place of our Georgina? We've our young Clotho, our spurned Lachesis, but where to find barren Atropos? Whom shall cut the threads of Serena's life once and for all? What is the spark that lights the flame this time, to raise Dark Serena from the ashes once again? And in what dank cave do those mustachioed and bearded women make their covenant? In DUMBO, of course. And there she is now, our wild Crone: Why, see! Vanessa Abrams. Hair matted and maculate jaw, lip curled and homespun rags. Arcane movements in the smoke. Eldritch curses under her breath. Scissors at the ready.
week: Masquerade redux, Shakespeariana, and a little snip-snip.