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Hot damn I missed this show!
So Blair's decided on her Powerful Womanhood mark -- Indra Nooyi, Yalie PepsiCo. Bajillionaire -- and as luck would have it, Eleanor Waldorf is dressing her tonight. So Blair plays on her mom's lack of a Jenny figure in her life to get there first, pretending to intern for her while secretly scheming. Eleanor finds out, and they go into all-out war mode... Until Dan sits B down for a little talk and Blair realizes her mom is not a bad sort of Powerful Woman to model herself on.
Eleanor knows better, though, so they decide jointly that B will be the Wintour/Roitfeld, which leads into the whole W internship storyline to which we've been so looking forward. It's neat to watch a story where B does all her crazy scheming without Chuck involved; even sweeter to watch Dan and Blair's tentative/reluctant steps toward BFFhood. We'll see how long that lasts once he joins her at the magazine, I suppose.
Not to be outdone, S and Chuck come up with an even more fucked up plan involving costumes and the like. You always knew Chuck would get his sister to dress up like Lily eventually, but you might not have even dreamed of all the sex jokes he'd make about it. See, S wants to get Ben out of jail and C wants to block Lily's sale of Bass Ind., so if they can get ahold of that forged affidavit -- hence the dress-up games -- they can blackmail her for both.
Once Eric finds out that Lily's been working the back end -- using her legal connections to get S off her trail -- he swings over to Team Kids. Chuck wavers slightly when Lily protests that she's trying to save the Bass Legacy from imploding, but gets burnt again when he realizes she led him astray with some other fake breadcrumbs, too. It all comes to a head at this big party (duh), but thanks to Dan's quick thinking the whole thing doesn't explode.
Or at least, insofar as the sale does get kiboshed, but then that turns out to be a bad thing. Lily's being the good guy again (as always) in the most bizarre way possible (as always), and the kids' antics have cost them their secret buyer. This opens up the sale to very aggressive Russell Thorpe, who holds a grudge against Bart and wants to sell his company off cheap.
Ah yes, the Thorpes: Taking over Juliet's long-term guest role, Russell and Raina are a father-daughter team from Chicago who will be with us for the duration. They're pretty intense, but not as intense as all the weird connections with which they come equipped: Not only is Raina sleeping with Chuck, but Russell once slept with Lily, and they're back in bed with the Captain, who sees them as his entrée back into society. So now it's Thorpes v. Bass, and everybody's sleeping with everybody else, and it's fantastic. As usual, Nate is the only person who will get hurt by any of this, and as usual, Nate is the only person who has no idea what's actually going on.
And as for Serena? Well, after spending the whole day screwing Dan over with her inability to tell time -- costing him an internship, bringing out his gross paternalistic tendencies -- and not picking up on the subtle clues that Blair and Dan are getting close, she and Dan have a little talk. Essentially, they will not be dating until they are sure that she's not going to fuck him over, in a little town called Nowhere at the top of a snowy mountain peak in hell, and so they part amicably... And he takes his new bud Blair to another pretentious movie.
But all that behind-the-scenes work with the Judge wasn't just about keeping Serena's shit quiet: Lily was also secretly working to get Ben's parole moved up. So now Ben's free, and S is boyfriend-less, and so you know what happens there.
Impressive setup for the second half, super fun stuff with Blair, and Serena putting on disguises. How on earth did we last this long?
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Two UES weeks ago, Serena thought long and hard about what to wear to jail and eventually decided to go with "Food Court Glam," for reasons that should be easily apparent. She decided once again that her mother was destroying the universe, and then Rufus jumped on board with turning Lily's entire house against her.
Otherwise, it was just mostly more of Dan's unending martyrdom to a cause that can barely remember his name most days, until eventually he and a similarly holiday-stranded Waldorf decided to go to the French monkey movies together, as sort of a Pyrrhic act of protest against the cruelties of life.
Now it's just the New Year, which Gossip Girl designates as a time to "donate that Fall wardrobe" and "present the world with a better version of you." That's a sentiment I can get behind, GG! Everybody's got internship fever except Chuck, who is a 40-year-old sot, and of course Serena, who has like four credit hours to her name. Oh, and Nate, who has imported his hot awful dad as a sort of white-collar crime refugee. With Dan and Blair both trying to forget they ever went on their BFF date -- and finding it difficult -- it seems everyone is even more distracted from reality than usual.
Wearing a truly adorable paillette-trimmed dress, Blair is more than a little happily surprised to see S back from her two-week mission, although she's about equally stressed between having accidentally dated Lonelyboy and the ridiculous outback-looking cowboy hat that S took with her on her journey. Why the accessorizing? Well, because Judge Stephens -- forger of affidavits, crony of Lily -- likes to go riding in Virginia sometimes. So S put her dumb hat on and went to his ranch, but he was not there. Knowing S's problems with being places ever, probably this took the full two weeks.
Then, back in Litchfield County, S put on a bustier and teased her hair up real high in order to quote "pull an Erin Brockovich" to get the court records. B immediately points out the irony there, considering public records are public, but S says the real irony is that they were in fact sealed, due to her being a minor at the time nothing actually happened. Somewhere up the river, non-rape victim Jenny Humphrey is like, "Yeah, prepare yourself to never hear the end of that one."
And what was Blair up to? "FUCKING NOTHING!" she squeals, and then comports herself: "I DID NOT GO ON A DATE WITH DAN HUMPHREY AFTER TOURING THE SEASIDE IN ADORABLE OUTFITS." One more try, Babydoll. "I SUPERVISED DOROTA TAKING DOWN THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE HANUKKAH BUSH AND THEN I SAT VERY STILL WITH JUST A GLASS OF WATER AND SOME MAGAZINES." Stealthy, stealthy moves the Waldorf.
B's new Powerful Woman -- and God, I love this storyline for real -- is Indra Nooyi, Forbes' #6 Most Powerful Lady Of The World, so now she's got three days to trap and skin her and wear her skin like a power suit made of Powerful Lady's suit-skin. S, who could not care less about anything, is like, "Yeah, so where is Dan? I need to talk to him or whatever about something, not sure what, I'm sure it'll come to me." Blair's eyes bug out again. "I DON'T KNOW WHERE DAN IS, STOP PROSECUTING ME SERENA BROCKOVICH. I DON'T EVEN KNOW THIS 'DAN' YOU SPEAK OF. IS HE A POWERFUL WOMAN?"
Kinda yes, kinda no.
But in the interest of being friends and showing a caring loving roommate side and for no other reason, what exactly is the situation between Serena and her brother/lover? Serena's like, "Um, I forget? To be honest it slipped my mind. I'm finding him and Nate harder and harder to tell apart. I was planning on asking him at Family Brunch, because we are brother and sister and so that's clearly the least awkward time to ask him to remind me. Maybe our other brother Chuck will be there, and he can film us doing it."
"Well, here's my advice: Have a little faith. And if that doesn't work, a lot of mimosas." Because now B has great affection for both of them, sure, and wants to go subtly to bat for Lonelyboy, but also because if S takes him away she solves the entire problem of Dan: Stealthy, stealthy. The one time B actually wants S to take something off her plate.
Chuck and Nate phone convo: Bad puns about boobs, weird jokes about father/son incest, and lots of expo, so here's the gist. No Uncle Jack for now, but there's a new villain in town that might help Chuck defeat Lily. A surely uncorrupted magnate from Chicago, name of Russell Thorpe. (On whom Chuck has done a lot of research, but apparently not in Vanity Fair or the Post or anything that would reveal Thorpe's VP is also his daughter, which you know would be a huge part of any actual human interest story about their company.) Thorpe's in town, and as an old business buddy of Bart's, Chuck figures he can wrangle an alliance.
Meanwhile, the Captain is playing on the Empire's penthouse Wii with some young ladies possibly of the servant class, in boxers and a robe, and it turns out the Captain doesn't always look great, because not even the Captain can manage to say "Boom goes the dynamite" without looking like a tool. Well, his strut dances are still pretty adorable. But Nate is stressin' on this because Cap's probation is dependent on the usual things, like a job, but the Captain is more interested in getting booty and getting crunk and playing pretend tennis.
Serena wanders to Brooklyn, where Dan is forwarding all Vanessa's mail to her new address in Hell.
"Are we dating? Is this a date?" No, we are going to Family Brunch. "Do you have anything going on today that I can crash into like a freight train with giant boobs?" Yes, let me get you my agenda and you can just start crossing items off at your leisure. "Gosh, internships sure are important! At least for people who understand what college actually is." Are we dating? Is this is a date? "No, we are going to Family Brunch."
And guess who's at Family Brunch? The family, and yes they are still eating fucking waffles: Rufus and Eric flit across the scene like the Green Fairy and pull back the curtains to reveal Public Enemy #1 Lily van der Woodsen Bass Humphrey, sitting at the table enshrouded in beige and dark secrets, attended by dark goblins and sprites as befits the Queen of All Tears. Serena pops a button, nicking the ear of one evil elf.
B's bitches are having trouble tracking down Indra, even after a week, because it turns out PW6 is heading home to Chennai after only a couple days in the States. Blair's like, "Get me on her plane then, so I can go horrify India," but then Eleanor comes in railing at Laurel on the phone -- Kinda miss Laurel, don't you? And KC, too -- so they awkwardly hide the war room they've created in the front parlor (instead of, you know, somewhere private like Blair's entire wing of the house).
Eleanor tries to float the idea of Blair interning at Waldorf Designs, and B immediately spits on the marble floor in response. "I love fashion? Well, I also love a good pot-au-feu, but that doesn't mean that I'm gonna build a career around it." Well, maybe a traveling Food Network reality show. You could call it Stewmasters, and punch people's crockpots out of their hands while cursing like Gordon Ramsey. "More like pot-au-fuck-you, ya donkey!"
Penelope makes the stinkface of all time while they're discussing Blair's disinterest in Waldorf, but B finally makes a somewhat valid point: That the people really jockeying for work at Waldorf are jerkoffs like Jenny Humphrey and Penelope herself. Then Dorota produces Indra's itinerary from some kind of wheezing clicking steampunk device called a "fax machine" --which from what my research has turned up apparently runs on coal and a handcrank and a "landline" which I don't even have time to explain -- only it's not Indra's itinerary, it's Eleanor's... But is really both, because turns out Indra is a new client, and needs dressing and styling for tonight's big Thorpapalooza. Blair's eyes start whirling and wheezing and clicking as she receives a fax from her worst qualities.
Chuck's never seen a black person of authority on this show before, so he naturally assumes Raina Thorpe is a secretary or flagstone-polisher (or scarf-stealing, cancer-faking psychiatrist) when he goes to meet her father. (Complete with leadup to one of those distractingly embarrassing "only-on-Gossip Girl" moments where Raina makes a grammar mistake in the middle of hectoring Chuck about precision in speech. I mean, at least it's not Blair this time, but can we get this staff a Garner's, please?)
Anyway, it's sort of flirty and mostly weird and class-issues ("fetch me a coffee and the current issue of Pravda") and finally Raina's like, "He's not even in town yet, so stop bugging me. And I will tell you -- because I never lie, it's my one trait -- that Bass Ind. is totally getting sold in the 24 hours. See you at the Thorpapalooza tonight, Chuckles." Between being caught out of the loop by a mere whatever-she-is and this latest news, Chuck's face goes from doing that thing to doing that thing hardcore.
Lily admits that she ambushed Family Brunch, but she and Rufus agree that two weeks of silence is more than long enough. And I'll admit, this episode is sort of annoying, because all the parents end up right and all the kids end up wrong, and that's totally unrealistic, not to mention a fucking retrograde bummer, but I did some thinking about it and I realized that it does sort of make sense how this plays out:
Lily, having been left in the lurch by her entire family last time for her sins, is attempting to make it up to everybody with a grand gesture -- very Humphrey of her -- but because she knows the value of propaganda better than S ever is, she knows she has to unveil it at the pinnacle and not before. If Chuck and Serena are going to love her again (and if Rufus and Eric are going to come back to her side), it's gotta be fucking big. So this whole episode, she's doing secret things to save Bass Ind. and get Ben out of jail, but she won't tell them this until it's done.
Which rankled me at first, because it seems like needless complication and lazy writing, and maybe it is, but there's also the entire mandate of this show, that says we arrange our personal propaganda to greatest effect even when we don't know we're doing it. And she's right about the grand gesture: Serena and Chuck would be twice as likely to come back to her if they got blindsided by her secret kindness.
Almost exactly, in fact, the kind of game Serena used to play with Chuck and Blair: Pulling the strings behind the scenes so what is actually her narrative becomes what they think is their story, so everybody wins with the least blood shed.
Which means that Serena and Chuck are responding only to the outer narrative -- despite Lily's subtle hints that she's getting it all done behind their backs -- which makes them the Gossip Girls this week. So what seems to be a story about Obey Thy Mother & Trophy-Wife Father is actually about the dire shit that can happen when Lily acts like a Rhodes Woman instead of -- and I hate to say this -- authentically Humphrey. Being Rhodes through and through, both Eric and Serena have no choice but to second-guess her, and in the absence of info Chuck has no choice but to project his own Bart stuff onto Lily. And it all lines up perfectly on the Gossip level -- because Lily could never come out and say any of this -- which means for once Dan is right (if annoying) about being Dan, instead of dreadfully wrong like usual.
Serena's opening shot at brunch is ass-weak -- when Lily offers to put in a call to Condé Nast for Dan, she's all "Yeah, maybe you can forge a cover letter signature," like that makes any sense -- and then Lily tells her to cram it, she's fixing all the problems at once if you'll give it a second (totally true), so S huffs off, popping buttons. Things fall apart quickly, with Dan chasing sister-poon into the street and Eric leaving their parents to suck eggs, and then Rufus butlers off to get Milady her coat, leaving Lily alone. At which point she calls Judge Stephens and creepily says, "I hope you enjoyed your time in the city, but you can return to the ranch now. I'll take it from here."
Out on the street Serena informs Dan that she's the only one that can lob these pathetic word-grenades at Lily and hunt the Wild County Judge, because Ben is A) In jail and B) Would just result in getting Juliet imprisoned if he tried anything. You know, since Lily could always pull the "kidnapped and drugged my daughter" card. Dan's like, "Yeah, why again don't you seem to have a problem with that?" S, awesomely, is all, "Dan, have we met? So I got tied up. So I got roofied. For neither the first nor the last time in either case. Have we met? It will take more than that to sink this majestic vessel. Stop being so provincial."
Good point. Let's move on to whether or not we are doing it. Just as Dan's waggling his eyebrows at her and licking his own face, Chuck Bass appears out of nowhere wearing the most ridiculous-collared camel coat. (Chuck's like an angel, only instead of a bell ringing it's guys jamming their hands down their pants.) Dan tries to chase him off -- "Tryna get our sister into a brownstone vestibule here!" -- but once he spits out a rapid-fire tommygun summation of the solution (blackmail) to their problems, Serena is in.
Dan's like, "Okay, I have to go to this internship meeting at 2:30, so let's meet up before that," and Serena's like, "Sure! Now, is that AM? Or PM? Parisian Left Bank, or somewhere in Maryland? On Earth, or Mars in the 17th Century? You know what, let's just say all of the above. Ciao!"
Chuck whisks S away to a den of scheme, and explains that during Family Brunch -- since he's, you know, never invited -- he went to the Palace and cracked the Bart safe and got a key to Lily's safety deposit box at the nonexistent Dorset Bank on Madison. So the plan is: Dress up Serena like Lily and get in there, because that's at least three levels deeper than they've ever gotten as far as the neverending paranoid security measures of their family.
But also, again, on the surveillance level that is the prime thing of this show, you have Serena dressing up like Lily -- after having just been dressed-up-as to an unprecedented and chaotic degree -- while also stepping into what she thinks are her mother's shoes. Lily's becoming Bass -- treating Serena like Bart used to, treating Chuck like Jack always does -- so Serena has to step up and play the classic Rhodes role. Once again, Serena's trying to take control of the image, the simulation, and she's going to fail, because that's just assuming the same role as all the people constantly doing that to her: Not actually solving the equation.
And then you've got Chuck dressing his sister up as his mother, hands jammed down his pants, which is just too obvious (given the ongoing fashion/burlesque themes of both his sexuality and his power games) to warrant much beyond a nod to Hitchcock, a side note that this is as close as he'll get to having either of them and it's nearly enough, and much gleeful applause for the many fucked-up things he'll have to say about it.
El Capitan has never been healthier, and his son's a total pothead getting on in years, so it makes sense that he is Vanderbilt-hale on mile nine of their jog, while Nate is gasping like a gunshot victim. (Needless to say, neither of them are even slightly sweaty, but Nate does a good job of pretending to be winded for the purposes of this scene.) Nate's still nattering on about getting a job as ordered by the parole officer, and Captain's still not that interested, but then Nate mentions how he's Chuck's date to Thorpapalooza, and maybe meeting up after to celebrate the job the Captain's apparently gonna get today. The Captain's tail starts wagging the second Nate mentions Russell Thorpe, but red flags are not Nate's specialty, and anyway the Captain just ran off in the middle of this sentence to find a lady jogger to bone.
Dan shows up Chez Waldorf for the meetup with Serena that we all know will never happen, and B assumes he's there to pitch woo, but when he mentions Serena she just starts laughing in his face: "Well, she's not here to see you. Shocker. She's off scheming with Chuck. Disguises are involved, it can't end well."
Blair, come on. Serena + Disguises = 100% Magic Guaranteed. The very concept of Schemes was invented so we can watch Serena do them. But because the writers know we need maximum snarky cute banter to buy this storyline, the conversation between Dan and Blair -- like all conversations between them -- crackles with validly awesome, verbal swordplay.
"You do know that 'Powerful Woman' is not actually a career, right?" Neither is Serena van der Woodsen, but ten bucks says that you'll miss your interview waiting for her. Yet again. "Ten bucks whatever harebrained scheme you're cooking up blows up in your face, as per usual." Loitering lounge is upstairs. "Already there, sister." Git.
Way to allocate resources! I mean, if you could ever possibly believe that excellence is a finite resource, it would be best to put it right here, where you put it.
Eleanor walks in bitching at Laurel on the phone, possibly verbatim from the last scene, possibly the same footage for all I know, and Blair apologizes to her for demonstrating disrespect to Waldorf, with an eye toward starting her internship by dressing Indra Nooyi. Eleanor laughs in her face and fully hands her a gown meant for... Patti Blagojevich! (The relevance! Well. At least it wasn't that poor old Madoff beast.) "And you can style her, God knows she needs it." As a frequent punchline myself, I can tell you that this kind of thing hurts. Anyway, Eleanor's very pleased that Blair has deigned, and of course the second she's gone Blair starts moving Eleanor's schedule around so she can get Indra Nooyi naked and alone.
Serena-as-Lily-as-Kim Basinger-as-Kim Novak: "And who do we say you are? My son?"
Chuck: "Is it weird hearing you say that actually turns me on?"Jacob: "Same question, for the gentleman."
Having of course missed his internship audition, finding himself alone in his sister/lover's apartments, Lonelyboy takes off his grandfather's tie, and loops it around the closet rod, and then does one of two things.
Awesome song by Hundred In The Hands, and Chuck's immediately jealous of Serena's pile of the safety deposit stuff, because it includes "artful nudes" of Lily "in her groupie days." Before he can get super-weird, though, Chuck finds the smoking gun affidavit complete with signature, and we get the dialogic money shot you'll reliably get when Serena plays costumed French detective: "Any handwriting expert would be able to prove that this is not mine!"
Thunder Perfect Mind.
So of course Serena wants to blow her mom's spot as loud and publicly as possible -- because see above re: her inability to understand herself in relation to the simulacrum -- and Chuck's all, "I like the way you think, Mom," and it's fabulous, but not as fabulous as the fact that Serena has just enough Blair perversity in her to bite her lip kittenishly this time, instead of rolling her eyes or calling him gross.
It's maybe the sexiest face she's ever made, because usually for Serena her "sexy" face is the one where she looks brained.
"Charles. I assume you weren't upstairs playing Rufus's guitars?" I wish Chuck and Lily had more scenes together. "If you didn't want me rooting around in the family safe you should've changed the combination," he says, and they get down to business. Lily quickly admits -- now that it's serious -- that she's not trying to destroy Bass Ind., or his father's legacy, but rather to save it. Turns out while he was off dying and coming back to life as a crippled prince and marrying whores and saving his Empire, the old family biz wasn't doing so well.
Lily didn't want her favorite child to get scared about this, so she scrambled every which way to fix it, but now it's all crashing down. "If I sell now, I can control how we sell it and to whom... But if this deal gets messed up, Bass Industries will go to the highest bidder." Chuck gets it: Someone who'll fire the employees and cheapen the brand and ruin the integrity and all that. But because she doesn't want Chuck "helping" -- which is valid also, because you know it would involve coke and blowjobs -- she goes ahead and lets him connect the false dots to Thorpe.
"You don't have to say, I know it's him." Oh, my poor sweet Charlie Trout, reconstructing the hopelessly deconstructed as usual. Since Rufus hasn't replaced Bart in any way, and Uncle Jack wasn't even around to rape your brain, let's see if an old crony can clap you on the back and tell ya you did good and then you'll be a man. (That's so Blair, isn't it? Having them apart is giving great insight into them together.) Still not occurring to him that he's a man either way, for the same reasons S doesn't know what the hell she's doing, and Blair is getting more china shop-bullish than ever, and Jenny blew this popstand altogether.
Lily doesn't agree or disagree, just says in her Rhodes Woman way that obviously means total disagreement, "The important thing is that you believe me when I tell you I don't want your father's legacy to die. I'm trying to save what's left of it. In 24 hours, you'll see. And hopefully Serena will see some things too."
Which is where the whole episode starts unwinding around itself, because all you needed to hear was that line to know how all of this would play out: Once again, Lily is the Bad Fairy doing Good Things and refusing to explain it, because once a spy always a spy, and she cannot but vainly hope to live a normal life outside the Guild of Assassins where she was raised.
"Yes, Penelope. You will stand in the cold and hail me a cab. Call me when it's curbside. And show some leg if you have to, I'm already late for Indra." Blair laughs in Serena's face when she shows up looking for Dan almost a half-hour late, and S almost feels bad about fucking him over again, and suddenly it's Reality Check Time. Number one, why are you so obsessed with stupid Ben that you would hurt your best friend besides me; number two, you have no idea who Ben is now after all his time in the big house -- "They're all good men before something happens to them, S" -- and number three, essentially, you are the bad thing that happens to them usually, which number four, why are you being such a bitch to Dan.
Serena's head joggles from side to side with that one, which is stated only very obliquely, but it's nice because she responds to the implications and not the words: "I thought you hated Dan." Blair nods awesomely: "I do. So very much. But whatever it is that you see in him, he seems to see in you as well. I know you want to focus on Ben, but maybe you're avoiding your future, not fixing your past."
And so very many loving props to Blair, the immune system/security dog/bodyguard of the entire Upper East Side, for this characteristically sudden and sharp acceptance of Dan as one of the many innocents she has to shepherd and protect. You know she didn't think about it even a second -- doing so would shrivel her like the Witch of the East's Jenny-striped stockings -- but just leapt intuitively all the way to:
"Love you, Serena, but this isn't okay. I've already mentioned it once and you continue to disobey me, so I've stepped up to oblique references. alert level is Yellow, and just trust me when I say you don't want to get there. Now get with the program and accept the fact that Dan is your Future, because I really need him off the fucking market."
I don't think I've ever felt closer to Blair Waldorf, in four years. That is a little too close, if I'm being honest, for comfort. Anyway, Chuck calls to tell S about his meeting with Lily and the guitars and explicitly says, "Lily is trying to do the right thing by the company, and by your inmate, too. She said she'll prove it in 24 hours." All true. And of course S is like, "Fuck that. Fuck her 'words' and fuck her 'intentions' and fuck your 'high road' and 'confirming this story.' Like this was ever about anything other than taking her ass down, like Ben matters, or ever mattered. Idiot. But yeah, I'll give you a 'day.' I don't even know what that word means anyway, so you just let me know when it's tomorrow, and we will bring it on."
I guess because she misses her daughter, Lily has taken to wearing those retarded Tyler Ellis-looking pointy-shoulder dresses from the Age of Tripp. Rufus asks why "Russell Thorpe" sounds familiar -- and when he figures it out, that is going to be just a doozy -- and Lily ignores him of course and reminds us about how Bart and Russell came up together in real estate and now "comes into town once a year and throws a garish party so we all know he still exists."
"According to this invitation it's gonna be a wingding!" Rufus cheers pathetically -- even though his classy wife literally just told him it's going to be tacky -- and then Eric walks in wearing casual separates and pointedly sits down on the couch, clearly disinterested in attending the garish Thorpapalooza. "Look," Lily says, "I know you disapprove of me, but can't you please do so in a tuxedo?"
If my life were a country song, that would be the title.
Lily drops the important information that the Bass sale is in a very delicate stage and it's vital they all present a unified family front. I mean, we know that and it's always true, but it's cunning the way she says it, so that we keep thinking maybe Thorpe is the buyer, while simultaneously thinking B) You never have done that not once, and C) Yeah, sure hope Serena doesn't come stomping into that scenario like a pair of wrecking balls.
Anyway, Lily and Rufus glug some champers and take off, Rufus buttle-scuttling behind with Madame's jacket and huffing to himself at being ignored -- which I am not making up and which was a ranking high point in this very fine episode -- and then Eric takes a call from the concierge at the Palace, who has just found Judge John Stephens' cufflinks in his room, because see, Lily was hiding him there the whole time Serena was touring Virginia wine and horse country with Mario Batali, which even mean little Eric thought was beneath Lily.
Dumb Dorota ruins Blair's whole Indra Nooyi highjack in about three seconds of Eleanor pressure, so by the time Blair strong-arms the doorman into breaking down her hotel door, there's just a creepy note on a creepy black-matte mannequin in the creepy empty room that says, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID. MOM.
Isn't that so scary? So Dan has changed into his grandfather's tie -- which S immediately and cutely and apologetically notices, although here's hoping she doesn't figure out why -- but doesn't really want to talk about it, because he's got to do the sad-eyes thing of Why Do You Hurt Me. Serena tries to explain to him how there are infinite choices and glamorous careers in PR or government around every corner so don't stress about it, but then he says the most awful Humphrey thing of all the Humphrey Things he's ever said:
"James Franco's giving a reading of some of his short stories at Housing Works."
Although to be fair -- and possibly still riding a Blair-induced cleverness high -- he follows up with, "The Writers House agent is going to be there, so I'm going to go and try to woo him... The agent, not James Franco."
I just got the most smashing idea. Wait'll you hear it. Even Penn Badgley nearly cracks up at the cuteness of that line.
Serena offers to go as Dan's date, ruining the entire idea I just had, and Dan's impressed she managed to find her way all the way to Brooklyn to "apologize" for fucking up his life yet again, but before he can advise her on a Franco-appropriate outfit, she holds up one finger to take a call from Eric, relaying the details of Lily's Stephens Gambit. Still thinking she can somehow be simultaneously at Thorpapalooza and Wanna-Hipster Central, S tells Dan none of this, just dragging him in her wake down into perdition.
It is left to us to imagine Dan following after with her coat, snuffling barberishly to himself as he goes.
Oh, and Dan has his resume in a manila envelope and Serena also has her smoking affidavit in a manila envelope. I sure hope they don't get mixed up! So S gets rid of Lonelyboy the second they get to the Thorpe party so she can murder her mom without him getting judgy, and then she and B run into each other for a second so their storylines can glance a across each other with a chiming sound. Serena's looking for Chuck, Blair's still trying to track down Indra Nooyi, but S spots Eleanor coming down the stairs with shotgun in hand, so B scoots adorably.
Even Nate knows enough to know that S shouldn't be at a party with Lily right now, but she sidetracks him into whining about his dad yet again: Seems the Captain's gone walkies and never arrived at his job interview. (See? Dan, Blair and the Captain all had essential interviews today, but were wrestled to the ground by the tender noogies of Fate, resulting in that rare kind of gala party where the whole cast is there.)
Dan, just like S in the last paragraph with Blair, points out Nate's dad in the corner eating a "Chicago Superdog," which don't ask me, and goes zooming away. Their one skill besides being a detective/moral center is knowing your parents' location at this party.
Which may seem useless, but don't tell Serena that, because the only other class she took besides her six-week Defense Against The Dark Arts seminar with various ruined professors was Where's Waldo? 101. It was pass/fail. She found Waldo. Pass.
Wharton-grad VP Raina Thorpe approaches Chuck and tells him he looks dapper, and then she introduces him to her boss and father Russell, and Chuck is thunderstruck by all of this at once -- falling into lust with her now that he knows she's a Thorpe -- to the degree he somehow misses the criminal ugliness of this sentence: "I said I prefer the term secretary, which I do for those whom it actually refers to." (Like I said, usually only GG and Blair mangle simple language like that usually, so it really sticks out, but also: Well done, Wharton.) I mean, I fuck up grammar all the time on this beat, but usually it's to make you laugh, and I don't think this was a conscious thing or else they'd never let Blair do it, of all people.
Anyway, gist: Russell is not only not Lily's secret buyer but also hates Bart for screwing him over so bad he ended up in Chicago, and would like nothing better than to do exactly what Lily was afraid a hostile buyer would do. I hope precisely that does not happen!
Lily says pointedly that she didn't expect Dan to be there, and we continue further down this weird Thorpe trope (thrope) where their taste level is constantly being called into question. I know it's supposed to be about Chicago Money v. UES Money (and thus link them up eventually with the Vanderbilts v. Archibalds class thing we're looking at), and it's entirely possible it was blind-casted like they do on Grey's, but still. Considering they're the only black people in NYC, it comes off a little unnerving. You gotta weigh the "we have black people on our show now!" against the "...and they are gross!" and see what comes out on top.
"Are you kidding? There are actually beers behind the bar I can pronounce," Dan says. Which again: How's that? Yes, there's the funny hipster deal where sometimes your man-of-the-people Defiantly PBR Thing gets mixed up with your man-of-the-world Obscure Foodie Thing, but the way you avoid that cognitive dissonance is by not saying it out loud. Although Lily's been surfing the shores of that bullshit since she ran away to Hollywood in her spin-off episode, so I guess it's valid to say it to her.
Lily realizes that Dan's there with Serena, because her Spidey-sense of impending debacle just started thrumming way loud, and then Eric sits down with the tux after all, grinning like the meanest little minx. "Hi, Mom! So sorry I'm late, but I couldn't find my cufflinks! So I just borrowed the ones that Judge Stephens left at the Palace!"
A chill runs through Lily's entire body, and now Dan can feel the danger rising underneath their feet as well, and she doesn't even bother explaining it because she knows Dan is a good lieutenant and the only kid she's got left: "Dan. When you see Serena, please tell her to stop whatever it is she's planning on doing before she destroys our family." She runs off, leaving Dan looking terrified and Eric rolling around on the couch clutching his little tummy, giggling to beat the band. And an adorable sight it is. Even when he plays rough, it's still the cutest thing!
Eleanor grabs Blair by the throat, swinging her into a wall until her head clangs like a bell. "What were you planning to do, lobby Ms. Nooyi for a job in the changing room?" Blair maintains her composure, despite her legs windmilling beneath her: "No, I was going to wait until after. Meetings in underwear tend not to be taken seriously." But Lord Vader will not be trifled about. "You would use me, and jeopardize my business, to pursue a career you thought of five minutes ago? Based on some 'Power List'?"
True. It sounds awfully reckless when you put it like that. Or else maybe you just don't know what 100% Total Commitment looks like, as I've found myself saying to bewildered onlookers a lot this last week. Maybe you're just shocked by the sight of a bulletproof tiger in your fucking midst.
Blair sort of accidentally blurts out that all she's trying to do is find a female role model -- an imaginary Thorpe, if you will -- so she doesn't end up turning into her mother. Lord Vader is not amused one god damned bit. "Fine, dear. Now that I realize that your childish games are actually who you are and not a phase, I wouldn't want someone like you wanting to be like me. And you are fired," she whispers, leaning in with her full weight onto Blair's shoulder until she nearly crumples into a nearby chocolate fountain and puts an end to Rachel Zoë once and for all.
"Let's just say my patience is as strained as your mother's credibility," says Chuck, which: Sure, let's just say that, shall we? Serena tries to stoke the fires of his hate in a very Serena way, which is by explaining her own unrelated problems. "We should take her down! Because she forged an affidavit and kidnapped a County Judge! Two things that have nothing to do with you!" Chuck nods and ignores her and aims her at a "journalist" for the Post, but then Dan steps in to lecture her about his unrelated problems in turn (and switch their envelopes).
"No more just a minute. You fucked me today on something very important and you don't even care, because you're so stuck in Serena World you honestly think everybody gets one billion chances and free parking everywhere they go. So if you do this, that is you being an asshole. It is not about fair, it is not about your mother, it is about you doing something terrible for no reason." He invites her to leave with him -- which wouldn't you, wouldn't anybody, after a shitty lecture like that -- and of course she heads right up the stairs with her (his) envelope in hand, moving twice as fast because now also fuck Dan Humphrey.
Lily grabs Serena at the top of the stairs and Serena huffs, "That was a copy of the affidavit! So you can have Judge Stephens release Ben! And cancel the sale of Bass Industries! Or else I'll tell the 'reporter' the truth, and the Post will have a cover story!" Because the deal there is that the affidavit doesn't prove anything or really mean anything, it was just Chuck's plan to rattle Lily's cage by giving the "reporter" a taste. So the guy comes running and huffing up all full of integrity and whatever -- it's a fictional show -- and he's like, "Tell this 'Dan Humphrey' to shove his resume, I'm about to take up blogging full-time because by the way, print is dead."
Rufus gives Dan a big old shitty round of applause for once again undermining Serena in any way he can think of, and then walks the dude away to talk about how Dan's just looking for an internship, not a job. Which is sorta smooth. And but Lily finally has to say real talk to Serena for the first time in ever:
"Okay, so say you did this and then gave the interview if I called your bluff, then what? What happens then is, Mommy goes to jail, because it's not a situation where you choose to press charges, it's about falsifying legal documents. So yeah, Erin Brockovich, well played." And it's just so Lily that she doesn't even bother to spit, "PS, I totally already got your stupid boyfriend out of jail anyway, genius. Way to fuck me."
Nate's still up the Captain's ass about the job interview, and he also is being super cagey. Seems the "job interview" was for what he terms -- possibly this is literal -- a janitor's job, so he with his suit and tie joined a throng of subhuman ex-cons and he just couldn't handle it. Luckily, now he's schmoozing around the Thorpstravaganza, where the evil meet to sip and greet. "I'm going to make you proud of me," he promises, and Nate makes that hug-me-hard face. "That's what you said right before you got caught."
Blair whooshes down beside Dan, and asks how come he's still there since he went huffing off ten minutes ago, and he's like, "Yeah, also they can't find my coat either. But on the upside, you're clearly not carrying Indra Nooyi's head as a trophy, so my guess is you owe me ten bucks." (He says the word "ten" in a very cutely douchy way that I can't otherwise describe.) On the other hand, Serena screwed Dan over twice today, so Dan owes B twenty bucks. They are so great. So great!
Dan asks her what's wrong, why did you just kick the coat-check girl's knee backwards like Nina Sayers, and Blair's like, "WE ARE NOT FRIENDS. But since we're totally friends and always have been, here's the whole deal: I kind of shit on my mom's life for no good reason." Dan points out that Eleanor is A) A Powerful Woman, B) Bitchy and abusive but also kind of cool, and C) Consider your area: "You care about fashion more than most people care about, uh... Well, anything. You used to send girls home crying from Constance for wearing tights as pants. You're an evil dictator of taste, Blair. Why deny that just because it's what your mother does?"
You can actually see him preen for coining that clever description -- but not as much as the writer of this episode's about to! -- and there's a bit more, but it's more of the same and not really as sparkling on paper as it is in their performances, because they rule.
Lily points out to her beloved Charles that she never lied to him -- which echoes weirdly and I think not for any real purpose or writerly intent off the repeated (ad nauseum, almost) assertion that Raina Thorpe never, ever lies, not ever ever -- and that she only let him believe it was Russell because it seemed to chill him out: "I needed to keep things smooth for another 24 hours so that this deal would close without incident."
Serena Brockovich strikes again! Because "somehow" (Russell) the secret buyer found out that Lily was at war with her children, and figured that once Lily and Chuck got into "a standoff" it would just queer the whole acquisition. I love that. "You people are such fucking Shakespearian drama queens I don't care what happens to your stupid company. I'm not getting in bed with alla that mess. thing you know it's gonna be wolves and car crashes and secret babies and I'm getting kidnapped to Russia? No sir."
"Pray it goes to someone who doesn't chop it up," says Lily, and then it goes to someone who is going to chop it up. I won't reproduce Russell Thorpe's speech here because it's long, and "clever," and I am not really buying Russell Thorpe for a second, but yeah: He's buying Bass, he's going to grind its bones to make his bread, and also he is moving back to NYC, and also have a hotdog because Chicago Chicago Chicago, and finally and most of all I will not recap this part because then Gossip Girl says this bullshit right here:
"Looks like Page Six of this party will read The World According To Thorpe!"
Maybe GG blogs all the time because she cut out her tongue in a fit of ill-advised late-'60s feminist rage? Foreshadowing for Serena's car accident/blowjob massacre? Vanessa Abrams will forthwith be played by John Lithgow? It's a reference to how brothers and sisters are constantly fucking each other on this show? ("Looks like Lily just checked into the Hotel New Hamp-Shame!") I don't have any other explanation for why she just said that. To hack me off, I think.
"Looks like Rufus might have to start calling his wife Owin' Meany!"
Blair comes downstairs to interrupt her mother's nightly Cyrusless paper-and-tea ritual, still wearing her party gown, and she's contrite enough that Eleanor doesn't sound too bitchy when she asks if she's just there to twist the knife. Blair admits she was pretty awful today, and El tells her not to worry it overmuch. Bygones. Which is funny considering that what Eleanor said was absolutely repulsive, um way worse than what Blair even did:
"I don't care if you don't want to be like me, I welcome it. I'm glad we have nothing in common, because you are sickening. I can't believe you sprung from my loins, you monster. I wish they'd had the Morning After pill the day your gay dad stuck it in me, or I'd had the foresight and gumption to claw you from my womb myself. Eat some more carbs, ya little piggy. Why would I care how much you weigh? You're barely even my daughter, just another mercenary bitch piece of roadkill on the side of the highway I call life. My God, I wish that skinny Jenny Humphrey were my daughter."
Okay, okay. But this is what she says now, so I guess we're tacitly approving the horrible shit she said at the party because, you know, adults are always right.
"I've watched you struggling to find your path, and I guess I just hoped that you would want to follow mine. But like, any self-respecting daughter of an egocentric mother would be repelled by the thought of being anything like her."
Valid, and a great way to sum up the entire episode, but then it's sweet because B makes her mom blush and laugh by telling her she is brilliant, and resilient, and a businesswoman and an artist, and that it would be crazy not to be her. Eleanor's touched, but points out that Blair's not a designer. (Dooms and plots and elaborate insane scenarios, yes; clothes, no.) She tries to think of the perfect phrase, the mot juste, the essential gold that only a true poet laureate could produce, and B fills in the blanks: "A dictator of taste."
"Exactly! I love that, who said that?"
Which: Don't ever do that. This is why writer characters are a bad idea, because at some point somebody you wrote is going to compliment somebody else you wrote on what you wrote for them to say or write. West Wing has exactly two flaws, and that is one of them, and it skrrks the record so fucking hard it doesn't even matter: Could be brilliant, could be stupid, either way you're still laughing at your own joke.
Distracting. Which is a bummer here, because the part is a major -- and majorly sweet and touching -- thing for the show, which is when asked who said that about her, B smiles demurely and just says, "A friend of mine..."
Awww. So Eleanor hops up and -- to the Dig's "For All Your Sins," which is also brilliant -- grabs a stack of fashion magazines, plopping them down on the table, because this is Blair's Powerful Womanhood, right here: Fashion Editrix. "So we'll strategize in the morning?" Eleanor says, and heads to bed. It's so, so great and so, so satisfying that you could almost miss the way they lanterned and loopholed the fact that Blair has barely mentioned fashion since like Season One.
It's like one of those Family Circus maps of Billy's dotted-line perambulations: First you have Eleanor bring it up, then Penelope to bring the friction/Jenny references, then Dan to go on and on about it and provide the typical unquestionable fatherly input (bleh), and finally we full-circle back to Eleanor. A whole journey specifically to bring us back to this place, and more importantly make us think we were here the whole time. And that is some elegant storytelling. I really do love this episode so! Never mind the complaints.
Dan heads over to drop off Serena's useless affidavit and Serena's like, "I would say I'm sorry about today, but in my head that just sounds inadequate." So nuts to ya. Dan's magnanimous in the most fucking brutally Humphrey way -- literally he goes, "It's not your fault that I seem to drop everything just to make myself available to you" -- and so of course she pretends that it's her fault she takes him for granted, and furthermore that maybe she's testing him to see where he will give. Never. The answer is never, because boys are awfully idiotic for smelling so good.
"I never will. If you really need me, ever, I am there." But apparently there was a reason she didn't really push him to come on her world tour of Virginia, and apparently there was a reason he didn't really try to stop her from going.
And it's not because they're both vapid and spineless, or because they don't really give a shit about each other, or because they are both gay for Blair or Nate, or because they are brother and sister, or because secretly they get on each other's nerves, no. No. The reason they refuse to take an active interest in each other's lives -- ever! -- is because they love each other too much.
Therefore they are going to take a break from not dating, so they can take the courageous step of... Not dating some more. Dan and Serena breaking up is the new Dan and Serena breaking up:
"If we ever do jump in again, that'll be it. We either sink or swim. We won't get another chance. And when that time comes, we better make damn sure we're ready."
Dan kisses her cheek and she smiles with the sweetest smile, just as the song says, "And then you'll see her again," and it feels pretty classic for a second. Got a little misty.
(Okay, also but there is a part of me that cannot wait for this. And I hope it's not the finale of this season, lame, or even season, but like Season Seven or One Hundred, when shit gets all intense and the commercials are like "Death! Weddings! Valor!" and people with children of their own will be like, "Well, what? I had to tune in, Serena and Dan were finally going to take their last chance. Don't make fun of me! It's just like Dawson and Joey, or Rachel and Joey, or Niles and Daphne, or any other show where the guy finally realized he was gay* and the girl was kind of annoying.")
Nate calls the Captain to yell at him about whatever it is he's been whistling and chirping about all episode, and the Captain is like, "Mister I got my lips around a Chicago Superdog right now, trust me: Daddy's taking care of it." And the Captain and the New Guy drink to their scary new alliance where they try to convince the UES they are not trashy, by purchasing it together. (But which also means that Nate's dad is living in the Empire rent-free while helping his new BFF take out Bass and maybe even the Palace, maybe even the Empire, which also gets even more complicated in a second with Chuck and Raina. This season rules so hard.)
*(I know, chief. It's a joke.)
Warpaint's "Elephants" plays as Dan comes downstairs and says he's not going to be visiting for awhile and Blair tells him to go swallow dirty pennies from toilets of course and of course he asks her to go see another movie and of course she goes without any prompting at all, and S heads over to the jailhouse for her final mind-blowing Serena Move of the night:
Serena: "Hey, can I talk to Ben Donovan? I know this is jail and it's totally the middle of the night, but like I really need to talk to him."
Underpaid Third-Shift Turnkey: "Oh well, Miss van der Woodsen, I would love to do that for you -- and can I get you a snack? -- but it turns out Litchfield County Judge -- let me get you the name of the legal functionary whose name is right here on this file -- a Judge Stephens, it says, talked to your mom a couple of days ago and filed Ben's parole while hiding from you in the luxurious Palace Hotel, and it only just went through today, minutes after you threatened to blackmail both your mother and the judge and she refused to tell you any of this had happened. Sorry I can't be of more service. Is there anything else you need? Because I'm horribly paid and various childhood abuses led me to this line of work, so it's about time for the midnight pistol-whippings that keep me from murdering my wife or starting a riot, but you know, something about your aura just makes me want to do the utmost in terms of customer service."
Serena: "Just admire my black trenchcoat, please. I was thinking about it the entire time that Dan person was talking, talking at me in my bedroom and I decided that a black trenchcoat would be a good outfit for Nighttime Jail, because I already wore my one good Food Court outfit last time but this makes me look like a detective. It's possible I am a detective."
Turnkey: "Done and done, madam. Now, may I show you to the empty street outside this jail, where you will be summarily raped and murdered because it is the middle of the night?"
Serena: "No, I can find my way there. Probably."
MEANWHILE
Lily, on Russell Thorpe: "Oh my God. It's not just his disloyalty, or deviousness, it's his pomposity. Because if there's one thing you're allowed to hate about a black man, it's his arrogance and any other synonyms for pride."
Rufus, on Russell Thorpe: "Also, you fucked him."
Lily: "Ah, so you remembered that? Well listen, it was just so Bart could watch. Some white guys have this thing about..."
Rufus: "Honey, I get it. Trust me."
MEANWHILE
Chuck: Fancy meeting you here, daughter of my enemy.
Raina: I always tell the truth. And I hate bars, except for this one. And I want to apologize to you because I didn't tell the truth, because I always tell the truth. And because I always tell the truth, the truth is that my father sabotaged your acquisition deal at his party. Which was completely obvious, but I always tell the truth so I am telling you the truth.
Chuck: I am impressed with how you always tell the truth, even when it couldn't matter less, but in this case your truth also saddens and wilts.
Raina: Luckily, here's some more truth that might cheer you up. Let's have some sexual intercourse.
Chuck: Are you being honest?
Raina: I am always honest. I will honestly leave right now and then wait in my car for a few minutes and then if you do not come to the car I will presume that you are not interested in having sex with me, and I drive away and we will never talk about it again, resulting in total comfort for all parties.
Chuck: I am intrigued, but aren't you Russell's daughter? Wouldn't that be totally stupid?
Raina: My father built me out of parts in his basement, as a sort of smartphone. I have no loyalty to him, only gratitude for his act of creation. I see no connection between our sexual intercourse and the intercourse my father will be having with you from behind.
Chuck: Then we will have some sexual intercourse. I haven't hate-fucked anybody in like a whole episode.
Raina: Your reply pleases me. It also suits my purely literal approach perfectly, because I have autism.
MEANWHILE
Creep: "I'm gonna rape and murder you! You're in Jail City... Wait, Serena?"
Serena: "Hi, Ben. Why are you hanging around outside this jail?"
Ben: "Your family destroyed my family and made my billionaire cousin hate me, and then my sister kidnapped and murdered you. Remember any of that? I don't have lots of places to go. I'm waiting for the bus to take me to wherever that place is. That town where you tried to make me rape you and then I went to jail. I'm thinking that's the right place to make a fresh start."
Serena: "Or we could go get coffee and you could start rebuilding your life tomorrow, after you make me feel better about getting you thrown in jail for five years."
Ben: "That sounds good too. I haven't had sex -- with a lady -- since before you even came to my boarding school. Yeah, ironically I wasn't having much luck with the ladies before I even took that job, and then you got me thrown in jail for five years, so it's been a while." Serena: "Are you sure you don't have anything to do?"
Ben: "Well, hand-holding sounds nice. I do like coffee in the middle of the night. And I'm hoping you've still got that dazzling personality that caused me to take you across state lines and read the letters of dead lesbians to each other in the rain."
Serena: "I do! I'm a detective now. I was working in France, but now I go to college and solve crimes. Or sometimes I just read this one issue of a magazine."
Ben: "Attagirl. Attagirl."
Buttons: Pop!
Serena: "I just broke up with my boyfriend, but we weren't dating, so actually I haven't been properly laid since your cousin. Or the coffee thing is cool, too, lol."
More Buttons: Pop!
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