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Damien wastes no time getting Eric onboard for Operation Ben Dover, confessing twitchily about his run-in with the ex-con and eventually getting Dan in on things as well. Turns out Serena and Rufus didn't really clear the whole DUMBO loft-sharing plan with him first, so he's pissed from several angles and prepared to believe almost anything about old Ben. (Of course, considering that Ben actually did come at him last week, drooling and all, is a shoe that will drop another day -- and how come Taylor Momsen was in the credits? Does that always happen?)
Eric eventually punches Damien to get Ben arrested on a parole violation, but when Damien immediately -- and viciously -- dumps him, he realizes their entire relationship was about getting Ben away from Serena, so he comes clean. Dan, mortified that once again he chose bitching over Serena, does what he can to make things right -- including moving Ben back to DUMBO, and visiting Damien's dad with Nate in order to destroy his life. Ben finally kisses S, and the little hamster behind Rufus's eyes starts going nuts at the idea of parenting the shit out of lonely little Eric.
Meanwhile, Chuck's got 24 hours (again) to keep Raina from cosigning the sale of Bass Ind. (again) so -- on a tip from Blair -- gives her a night of romance and soul-baring. Of course, she eventually finds out this was all a ruse and dumps him. Blair gives her a call and explains how Chuck works, and before you know it Raina's not only dating him for real, but demanding he be installed in the newly merged company.
But that's only half of the awesomeness that is Chuck and Blair these days: He swoops in to give her not only 1) The Palace for a W party with Florence + The Machine, but 2) Nate's ass, for the delectation of Epperly, who needs to get laid if she's ever going to relax enough to let Blair lay eggs in her brain. And while they don't actually hook up in the end, the guy she does go home with manages to spirit her away to do yoga in Bali, leaving W's keys to Blair in the process.
Yeah, that's at least three unrealistic happy endings -- "Sure, you can carry a full load at Columbia while being the exec asst for the head of W" is maybe the most ridiculous thing that's ever happened on this show, up to and including Lord Marcus -- but as TV apparently learned this week, all happy endings are valid, just so long as the Naked & Famous are playing. It just makes you feel so good.
week: Valentine's Day means some stress on Chuck and Blair's wonderful non-romance, Dan and Blair go sneaking around together, which is always amazing, and Lily comes after Chuck about some damn thing or another. I guess Damien's gone for good, which is kinda sad because he was getting really interesting -- but I guess as long as Eric's okay it doesn't really matter. XOXO.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!"A wise woman," a lady named Burt Bacharach I think it was, "Once said that every morning when you wake up, you say a little prayer. After all, you never know what your day may hold!" So it's gonna be like that this week, eh, Gossip Girl? Got it. Go to your corner.
What everybody is doing: Chuck and Raina are having muscular sex that looks like a fight sometimes. Blair is not living up to Epperly's insatiable editorial needs. Serena is staring into space chewing on nothing. Rufus is showing up at Dan's house with Ben and a PO in tow, because guess what: You live with Ben now.
While Raina must call the aggressive sex off -- Russell calls -- Blair's boss Epperly's flipping because she needs a performance space for Florence + The Machine stat, due to the Ace having suddenly become unavailable. (This is all for a "kickoff" party of some stripe but I don't think we ever find out what is being kicked.) Blair's all about it -- yelling at caterers and florists and giftbaggeries is something she's been doing since she were wee -- but Epperly doesn't trust her, due to her being a child and already having been fired once in the day* since she started working here.
Oh, and tomorrow is her first performance review: How, over the last thirty-six hours, have you grown into your role in this internship? Blair monologues about all this absolute nonsense until one of the other girls is like, "Epperly is under actual pressure, you are under the pressure of being a crazy person. Hers wins."
*(I'm basing this on the fact that Damien is still wheezing from his Ben attack when he gets to his date with Eric in a second.)
No, no, says Blair: She's been doing Fashion Week since she were wee. And none rougher than when Eleanor was hard up -- in those long sad years between her gay husband and her wizened one, that period that went from a year before S1 and ended like middle of S2, those long sad years -- and all the sex she got from those two husbands that she didn't get between those two husbands.
Huzzah! It must be sex! (Such a Virgo.) "It's hard for a Powerful Woman to find the time!" So now how can Blair get somebody to fuck Epperly into submission without coming off creepy? "Maybe all I have to do, to get Epperly off my back, is to get her on hers!" (Still creepy.) The other assistant or intern is like, "Last time I checked the intern packet I don't think Pimp Daddy was included in the description of duties."
Hush, Momma's schemin': "Just so happens that Epperly's perfect partner also owns the perfect hotel to host tonight's kickoff party. Two birds, one Bass!" Right. Like this is the one time getting Chuck to screw somebody else isn't going to knock her off her rocker. I mean, I am so into this Era of Chuck & Blair, I think it might be my favorite thing this show's ever done with this relationship, but it's asking a lot of herself.
"Bedrooms in the back, kitchen's in the front, '90s rock relics everywhere!" The tour was short, you see, because this is a loft. In which two mild children and their wuss of a father couldn't manage to carry on and keep calm for more than five minutes despite their collective lack of backbone. Clearly large enough for both Ben's checkered history and Dan's ten-ton crate of bullshit.
Ben ducks his head and acts like Vanya and thanks everybody a million times, and Dan's just like, "Don't look me in the eye. I have to yell at my dad now." So Ben scatters and Dan's like, "Serena's stalker?" Which it took me like the entire episode to decode Dan's problem here, but it actually makes sense: He was not around for Juliet, like at all, so the whole thing of Juliet is for him metonymic of Ben. He doesn't watch this show, he lives inside and provides a moral compass for this show, if you see what I'm saying: It wasn't Jules that kidnapped and ethered and suicide his sister-lover, it was Ben via Juliet.
Which, maybe this is the usual unconsidered, unexamined Life Of Dan, or maybe Dan's just letting jealousy drive the old jalopy of his heart, but this does make way more sense than it did live, when I was just like, "Wow, Dan's even more full of shit than usual." Which took me by surprise, because I'm kind of in love with him this year, but don't get too clever: He goes Full Humphrey this week, for the first time in a while, and it is gross. Anyway, Rufus tells him this was Serena's idea, and Dan of course shuts his trap so fast his hair wiggles.
Poor lonely Eric's sittin' over there on a big old rock thing looking like Romeo's monologue when Damien comes running up -- huffin' and puffin' like Ben chased him the whole way from last week -- and says he has to break their date. (You know Eric's getting it in the teeth this week when his first line of dialogue is a sweet and shiny "I already got the tickets and the ginger-sesame-caramel popcorn!") Damien, who is being kind of sincere but also kind of scarily socio, is like, "We can't see Country Strong, I gotta 23-skidoo! Ben Donovan threatened to... No, I can't tell you."
Eric leans in, obligingly, and begs to hear the story of how Ben Donovan slammed his head through wood paneling last week and caused Damien to look absolutely nuts and immediately call Eric for a date before his pupils had even gone back to being the same size. But what's weird is, no matter how sketchy DD's being all through this stuff, all of what he's saying is true: Ben did jump him, it was scary, it does kind of prove that Ben's not 100% healthy right now, and he did threaten to tattle to the Belgian Ambassador about his son's extracurricular activities.
Plus, we do know from past stories that Damien's dad is, or has been described as, super scary. All of which is a lot of work to go through, storytelling-wise, if it's going to end up being this shaggy dog scenario where Damien uses Eric's feelings for him to pull some Serena-related shit and then gets cut out of his trust fund, the end. You know what I mean? Maybe we're not done with Damien yet after all. (But then it's this show, which moves faster than you can even like think.)
Eric jumps right onto that train: "Okay, that's crazy! I mean, if anyone should have to leave the City it's Ben, not you! That guy is dangerous! I do not want him around my family! Or my friends! Don't go yet, I'm gonna figure something out." Oh, when Eric puts on the Rhodes hat it always gets scary, doesn't it? This is why you have Chuck on speed dial, for situations exactly like this. Unless Eric still hates Chuck, which I wouldn't doubt. There is kind of a double-jeopardy thing, Jennywise, where you can hate Damien or Chuck, but never both.
Chuck complains to Nate -- who's chalking his stick, like he's doing in 90% of the conversations they have this year; guess he misses Carter Baizen as much as we do -- that Raina's not falling for him fast enough: "We're stuck in this... Meaningless mindblowing sex loop." Nate deadpans his sympathies, and Chuck exposits at length about why he wants Raina to fall for him, and why he's in a hurry.
As if Nate has ever been aware of how any of that stuff works: He's usually just standing there, or walking along, and then a crazy girl falls on him from a tree.
"One of my corporate weasels," Chuck says -- to differentiate from his tax weasels and his concierge weasels and his PI weasels and his garden weasels -- has notified him that the Thorpe board (Thoard) is going to vote on their bid for Bass Ind. this very night. I'm assuming it is this selfsame weasel that will shortly be informing Thorpe of this information he just informed Chuck with, which let me inform you of the moral of that story, it's: Don't refer to people as "weasels," it's rude.
Blair shows up, Epperly in tow, so that she can get the keys to the Empire for the night, and also make Chuck fuck her. First request: Denied, although the Palace is available. Blair's nervous but considers it, and they settle on that. Second request: First, let me just tell Nate to take Epperly up to the roof so we can discuss her sexuality in private.
This actually works, because Nate wouldn't think to question anything that is going on, ever -- "Up to the roof? You betcha!" -- and because no matter who you are, you would let Nate Archibald take you to anyplace. And then once you got there, you would go, "Brr, I'm a little cold!" And then who knows what could happen.
Left alone, Blair and Chuck turn to one another and, with a single voice, both whisper: "I need your help!" Which is so perfect and respectable and neat, right, but then here comes fucking Gossip Girl -- who never makes, like, tons of sense -- saying incomprehensible bullshit like, Looks like our favorite Upper East Sinners just found the answer to their prayers! Lucky for us, their road to Heaven leads straight through Hell...
Would you even notice if she didn't talk? I don't mind it at the beginning and the end of the episode -- who doesn't love a strangled metaphor playing out over a montage of people in misery/fucking/both? -- but when it's crazy talk like that as a kicker, you better bring the full-on Daddy Warbucks. Nothing else will do.
Over at PRADA, Dan does this new thing where he pretends he's not starting shit, and then totally starts shit. "Dorota told me you were here," Dan says to Serena, who is sitting at the PRADA counter eating berries out of a glass candy dish, like ya do, and she doesn't even worry about how he just went to two places in the UES to yell at her. Just keeps eating her berries and wishing Ben Donovan would kiss her on the mouth so she could move onto her victim. Somebody from this decade.
"Wanna berry?" It's like she's trying to push his buttons. She says some crap about how she was there to check on Eric -- one of her goals, presumably, is taking an hour off from obsessing about Ben each day to do this, after her little bro basically admitted to his looming depression last week -- and he's like, "I already had breakfast... WITH BEN! MY HOT NEW ROOMMATE!" Serena actually rolls her eyes, like it's so fucking typical that Dan Humphrey would find some reason to be annoyed that she relocated an ex-con to his house without asking first.
But Ben deserves a second chance. "Oh? To what, to drug you and leave you for dead in a motel room again?" No, to reconsider not fucking me, duh. Apparently Juliet's off -- get this -- "doing independent study somewhere," so she's out of the picture and Ben doesn't even talk to her anymore anyway.
Question: With what money? Lily money? No, because Lily doesn't have to give her any money anymore due to the "you kidnapped and roofied and suicided my daughter" clause. With Professor Cousin's money? Doubtful. With her own money? If she had that, she wouldn't have needed Professor Cousin in the first place.
(Professor Cousin was so dreamy. I miss Professor Cousin. You know who I really miss? Tripp. And Carter Baizen. And Lady Catherine! What. A. Hoot. And do you think that since Jenny's gone the way of Isaiah Washington we'll ever see Agnes again? What do you think Vanessa's doing right now? Do you think she misses us as much as we miss her? Probably a little more, I bet. I wish Juliet never left. This show is a series of unending goodbyes to guest stars, but they live on. Right here in my heart. My heart, sometimes other places. But most especially Tripp and Carter Baizen.)
...Sorry, Follow-Up Question: Do you mean like how Georgina went off for "independent study" and came back pregnant with a Russian mob baby? I mean, it's scary enough when Blair has people removed from the western hemisphere: Think about where Lily would send your ass.
"Between a Marlins jersey and the fires of Mordor lies the better part of decorum," she'd say, and you're over here tryna get demon teeth outta your arm.
"I understand that you feel badly about what happened and what Lily did, but you can't forget that this guy spent the past six months out to get you!" True. And people will keep saying that, so many times in this episode that I must forego my usual policy of just agreeing with whatever Serena has to say, and actually use my brain to think: Maybe the twitchy, bulging eyes of Ben the Shanker hide more than just love stories and chastity of heart.
Within five seconds of Serena refusing to talk about it, mumbling about how one day he will see "what she sees" and this kind of thing, Dan's got it: She's in love with him. Dan's a real sleuth when it comes to these things: Is it Monday, Daniel? Because Serena's in love with somebody, and it's probably a bad idea. Yeah, you got this.
Then, hilariously -- the world so often conspires to prove Dan's point, it's maddening -- Ben calls her up on the phone to ask why there are two delivery men delivering a bookcase to the loft. Um, because you don't have one? Because Rufus is illiterate and Jenny was a feral mess and Dan's a poseur?
When Eric finally shows up -- you know, the person Serena was there to check on -- she doesn't even say hello to him, just slaps him on the ass on the way out. Dan and Eric have a little meeting about how Ben is evil, and Dan's like, "I'm intrigued, tell me more."
Which, we have that whole stiff-upper-Rhodes thing to thank for the fact that at no point during all this "my friend said X" and "Ben beat up my friend" does Dan think to go: "Your 'friend' wouldn't happen to be the evil drug dealer who nearly killed our sister? And was fucking you last week? And forced our other sister to make clothes out of drugs? And somehow engineered a way for her to feel grosser about not losing her virginity to him than she eventually did when she gave it to our brother? Our brother the rapist? And who's actually actively to blame for Ben going to jail? You're just being naturally cagey because of your creepster family, right? Let's go see this 'friend,' buddy."
Chuck's first question for B: "What can I do for you?" A: "Epperly, my boss." Fashion Week just started, but this performance review is tomorrow, and even though B just saved the day, she knows that won't save her from the tyranny of Epperly's nervous tension. "I believe that only one thing can relax Epperly, and it's something that I can't give to her." And that's why you'll never make it in this business, sweetheart.
Chuck says he's not sure his powers are at their peak, considering he hasn't yet boned Raina into loving him, and Blair just laughs. "That's how you win a guy's heart, not a girl's!" See, people have these things called "feelings," apparently, and sometimes if you want people to feel these "feelings" towards you, you have to do something about that. Chuck literally goes, "These feelings: Where are they located? Use any of the pornographic photographs all over the walls of this suite as visual aids, if necessary."
"You and I bonded over a mutual love of scheming. And burlesque. Find something that you and Raina both share. Let your guard down. Show her a side of you that no one else sees. I... Hear girls love that. Open up, and she'll be forced to follow suit."
Things having gotten in the vicinity of real, Blair sharpens up fast. "...And once you hook her, reel her in, gut her emotionally and throw the carcass overboard!" So that's her part of the deal: How I fell in love with you, in two easy steps. But Chuck points out that if he's busy doing what they just discussed, he won't have time for Epperly. "That is not fair!" she shouts, and compares Epperly's twanging to an amuse-bouche before the main course that is Raina's soul... But just then, Epperly and Nate come back from their made-up errand, being all goofy and cute, and Valmont and the Marquise once again whirl to smile delightedly at one another.
Dan and Eric, in the absence of any evidence beyond the fact that Eric watched the entirety of Oz -- furtively and furiously, one would imagine (but don't, until week) -- have decided that three years in the clink, especially for something you didn't do, more than likely changes a man. All horsed up -- Oz, Eric getting older all the time, Ben achingly just on the other side of the garage door dreaming his beastly dangerous dreams, that shoeless night pent up with the white-hot heat of Charlie Trout, James Franco never far from fancy -- Dan's understandably a little bit dazed by the time a flock of night-black ravens coalesces into the form of Damien Dalgaard, right in front of his eyes.
"Damien is your friend? Eric, the guy's a drug dealer!" Eric points out that Damien swung into action the second Dan and Blair notified him that Serena was jeopardy, leading them all over Connecticut and solving the case -- good point, although it was GG sent them to Damien in the first place, for reasons only she will ever understand -- and so whatever, Ben is dangerous and evil and firm, like a leather couch. He must be contained! Jail is like right underneath Brooklyn on the scale of Things!
But even so, Dan will absolutely not conspire nor will he collude with the likes of Damien Dalgaard. Non-taker of virginities, non-sodomizer of brothers (don't say that!), haver of diplomatic immunity, tiny boat aficionado. A Humphrey Man's gotta have standards, or else what is he? Just another strawberry on the jitney to perdition, that's what.
Thorpes saying business words, teasing each other, a veritable Rothbart and Odile, and to whom shall they come? Only Charles Bass, cutting short their discussion: They must needs have a unanimous vote among the Thoard this very night, lest the Bass board (Sboard?) sense their Chicago weakness of knee. And so Chuck offers them a truce for the paps, a personal tour, the Thorpes and Bass together shaking hands and showing solidarity, and before you know it, Russell has begged off, leaving only his lieutenant to be shepherded by the enemy. What began as formality becomes... A date!
"Don't apologize," says Mr. Donovan, flailing toward the beautiful bookcase. "Just return it." Serena's already called the delivery guys -- nailing down at least a few hours she can stay here in DUMBO making moon-eyes at him, note -- but, since you said it so very sternly, must I also return this gift? This token? This first edition (always with the first editions, our Serena; probably from the same shoppe every time) of The Count Of Monte Cristo?*
*(See, because the Count of Monte Cristo was falsely imprisoned and came out of there looking for revenge but was eventually vindicated. As opposed to Cape Fear -- based on The Executioners -- where the guy Max Cady was falsely imprisoned and likewise came out of there looking for a stalking kind of revenge, which is what Dan's talking about later, but things didn't work out so great for him. Neither Oldboy, which has enough incest in it I'm surprised they didn't mention it on this show, but the circumstances are a little different and the whole thing is just super weird and awesome.)
Serena is actually pretty charming in this episode, sort of self-deprecating and admitting to being a total stalker of Bens, in a way that I think is just fantastic. Like Ben's all, "I can't believe you remembered!" And she goes, "I remember everything you've read to me? Also: In case you haven't noticed, I don't really let go of things so easily." She does just enough of this kind of thing (never underestimate the power of transparency with your stalkee, it puts him at ease) that he offers to get some lunch with her -- "I don't want to raid the Humphrey fridge, also it's mostly just gross boy food and some rancid organic crap from the Vanessa Era" -- and she's like, "I already locked down being here for the rest of the day, so let's order in. I know where the menu book is!" This last with a girlish shout and a coltish thump-thump over to it.
Who has lived in this loft: Rufus, Alison, Jenny and Dan. Nate. Georgina. Milo the Baby Liar. Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa. It is haunted with the ghosts of many a poor decision.
Epperly went to Oxford, worked at the Met Costume Institute, and also taught Power Pilates in college. "Still counts," Blair hubba-hubbas: "Core strength lasts a lifetime!" Epperly takes a call, and Blair fully body-blocks Nate into a nearby fence so she can beat him into fucking her boss. It's pretty pimp. "Andya better not be selfish, Archibald! You know what I mean? A woman remembers," she hisses, and it's so amazing.
Nate pretends he's out of practice, as far as being a prostitute, and Blair's like, "Just think of her as younger, more flexible Lady Catherine!" (Actually, Nate hasn't been prostituted in a while, that's funny. All that Captain stuff was not only repetitive, but also took Nate away from what he does best.) Then, awesome: "Florence is stuck at JFK, because the Machine's flight is delayed."
Sigh. Baseball season is still so far away. I wonder what Brian Wilson is doing right now. Something amazing, no doubt. Building a wondrous engine out of cats, or making up new hairstyles for his minipin Dubz. Making his gimp the Machine fight other gimps, in a gimp Fight Club. I wonder if he's thinking of me.
We are often paralyzed, are we not, by hope.
Blair tries to send Epperly off with Nate to get this deal done, but Epp's gotta deal with this Machine situation stat, so Blair just leaves Nate on the street corner, yelling "Was I really that selfish?" and wondering how he is going to find his way home.
Chuck greets everybody in the entire Empire restaurant by name and asks how their kids are doing -- their asthma, their leg-braces, their undiagnosed disorders -- until finally Raina's like, "Dude. I get it. They all have names and families and stories. Doesn't mean I'm not going to fire their asses. Give me some credit."
So Chuck starts doing the thing that Blair told him to do, which if you haven't been watching the show might be confusing, but once she invoked the burlesque you should have known what would happen, which is what always happens with Charles, which is that if you can fool him into being honest for even one second he turns into a real boy. So it's manipulation, with reality behind it, which is the key to all Valmonts but especially Chuck. Finding common ground, falling in love, works both ways. That's just physics.
And so you have Blair, who by the end will actually explain all of this to Raina and save the day, because she has just enough intimacy to know him better than anyone and just enough goodwill toward him to see it through. Not the needing, but the having. They have burnt each other, for the time being, into a state of uncertain grace. And that is beautiful. And, for a show in this demo, pretty fucking brave. Real -- and realistic -- relationships are a four-course meal, prepared for you by God. Everybody loves The Matrix, nobody loves the other two movies: Shippers are just sugar addicts that haven't learned to taste anything else yet.
So Raina also grew up in a hotel -- Mom left, Dad couldn't sleep at home -- and they have that in common, the concierges and busboys for her family, and they bond sincerely. "Nothing like being a guest in your own home," he says; that's how she's about to make him feel. He asks to take her out tonight, knowing the vote is coming, and she swears she can't stay. Struck out! Time for a little extra.
Ben is feeding Serena sushi, of course, by this time in DUMBO. Finally he admits all the mixed-messaging and murder attempts are just the result of him thinking the last three years that she vindictively put him in prison like a mean little girl, and it's hard to adjust. "I know, and here you are somewhere else that I put you. Is that a problem?"
Ben's off into some kind of "I'm right where I belong" jibberjab when Dan comes in and growls at everybody, so Serena takes off because who needs that? She reminds Dan that she doesn't need his permission to hang out with his roommate, and he begs of course to differ, and once she's gone Ben's like, "You're being a good brother, but seriously if you could just calm down." Then Juliet calls Ben's phone and he doesn't hear it, but instead of alerting him to this call, Dan just make the most Abrams face of all time.
Chuck and Blair have this amazing fake conversation on the phone where he lets Raina overhear him discussing how remarkable she is, he's never felt this way before, she gets him and whatever, it was hard to show off the Palace knowing he's about to lose his home -- all the true things he's pretending are lies -- and meanwhile she's on the other end, pretending she's talking to Epperly about how she's totally into Nate and they should totally go to this party together and how Epperly is just gasping with desire. It's awesome.
Nate's hooked, and Serena immediately shows up to pointedly ask what scheme Blair's running this week, so Blair calls her out for skipping "school" to hang out in Brooklyn with Ben, and there's some great acting here. Blair delivers a great speech: "Bad boys have never really been your thing, but damaged outsiders are a definite weakness: He's from a different social class, your mother hates him, he hates your mother, he's living in a loft in DUMBO, even Dan already agreed to this weeks ago..."
Serena makes a funny frump-face and goes, "I knew Ben way before Dan!" And Blair make a hilarious face back at her and goes, "Not my point." Is it Ben? Or the idea of Ben? Everybody wants to somehow go back and do their babysitter, right? Or the college kid that mowed your lawn? And given the chance you might just act insane: But at what point have you stepped out of reality and into your fantasy? How much of this is even Ben at all? Because if anybody would know the difference, it's Waldorf.
Dan rattles dishes around horribly, passive-aggressively, bitchily, and yells at Ben about where the dishes go and where they have always gone and blah-blah, and Ben's like, "DUDE. How OLD are you? I'm sorry my sister kidnapped your sister! I told her to fuck off, even!" Then how come she called you earlier and I saw it? "Because it is my freaking mom's birthday, weirdo!" But you are trying to make S choose between you and her family! "No, I'm not! That's what you always did!" It's heady.
...And then Serena calls, right on time, proving Dan's point once again. She asks him to this kickoff party for whatever is getting kicked, and Ben goes, "You know, if you'd asked me an hour ago, I would've said that's not such a good idea, since it's not, but as it turns out your brother is a flaming tampon. I am totally in!"
Nate's locked down, time to tell Epperly the great news... But no, because now she can't go, because logistics are tough. So Blair says that in this case Cinderella has a Blackberry and an insane assistant intern ready to get her boned, so let's just forward all the phones in the entire world to my phone with different ringtones and you can see just how close to the brink I'm capable of being pushed. Fashion Week, for me, is like when a mom lifts a car off her baby. I got marbles to spare, little mama!
And then in a quiet whisper: Giant gypsy moth eyebrows ... man-bangs ... bounce a quarter off literally any area ... delts like cantaloupes ... he's a cute muscled bicycle, you just get on and ride ... he's a two-fisted pile of issues, ready to get as weird and filthy as any Oxford fashion grad would want ... refractory period like a goldfish's memory ... Archibald ... Arrrrrchiballllllld...
At the party Epps is almost distracted by the embattled giftbags, but one flash of that face of his -- "Look alive," Blair barks -- and she's realigned and ready to go. Blair slaps his ass as he's walking Epperly to the bar, because she's awesome.
And over there, you got Ben actually saying, "So you go to things like this every week?" and Serena laughs about how that's just a conceit of the show, it's been going on for four years and yes you're very clever but do stop thinking about it so much: It's almost as annoying as bitching about how many characters get cast on True Blood, as though anybody's dumb enough to get confused, considering every show has that many guest roles and recurring characters and the only reason it's somehow news is because the internet is starving and knows that talking about every casting side like they're the new central character is a good way to get pageviews.
And then over here we've got Chuck, who has reserved his old suite so they can do it, just him and Raina whom he know would miss her meeting after that delectable phone call: "On the condition that you show me something first: Your hiding place. From when you were a little boy."
Lady, you don't wanna see that. Nate's barely seen it. Dan saw it, he doesn't even know what he saw and it still kind of screwed him up.
Damien comes flying in out of the shadows and busts up on Ben's face all, "Whoa man watch where you're going man" and Ben is weirded out, but Damien just stays right in his face, trying to get him to buck or throw a punch. But Ben just reminds him that he's under no circumstances to fuck Eric -- who is standing right there -- and disappears for some breathing exercises.
"That's not what we planned," Dan Dans. "You said he had a short fuse!" Eric's like, "Yeah, how come he didn't attack?" Well, he's gonna. Now Dan, you just go call the parole officer you met for three seconds this morning and we'll get this show on the road. As if it needs explaining, Dan huffs, "To be clear, I'm doing this for Serena, and blah blah blah never set foot in this town again." Whatever, man. So he leaves Eric there, and Damien pours the ice out of a drink into a napkin: "For your hand, in about three minutes. You're gonna punch me in the face as hard as you can."
It is at this point that maybe you would realize that Damien is being super creepy and you still have no reason to believe Ben is anything other than what Serena keeps saying he is, but that's why it was smart to set up Eric being so incredibly dependent on Damien: Of course he's going to go along with it. He loves the guy, he has no Chuck in his life, he's had this whole storyline happening we only just found out about, and no other friends of any kind. The only men in his life are Humphreys! It changes you!
So we need Epperly because the giftbags never made it to the new location, and turns out Epperly is missing -- although with Nate or a dark horse candidate, who is to say? -- so Blair starts getting the crazy eyes.
And where was Chuck's hiding place? Same as Raina's -- of course, that's the whole point of this exercise is to actually give them romantic cred instead of the constant fucking, through the mechanism of the burlesque of lies that are true -- in the kitchen corner, under a shelf, where they could see everybody but nobody could see you.
(Chuck's like, "That was fun. Now show me your favorite place for raping people. Spoiler alert: You're standing on mine! My hiding place is my raping place! I am broken inside!")
"I know how much The Palace means to you. It's your home. I think I can keep you from losing it," says Raina, which moment of triumph allows Chuck to briefly consider and take stock and notice that he actually is sort of falling for her. But before he can come clean, her dad appears (Whence? How come?) in the kitchen and goes, "You missed the big vote!" Which is fine, because she doesn't even want the Palace anymore, except also: "My corporate weasel just told me that Chuck knew about the vote and has been dicking you about!" Ouch.
Ben needs out of here before he takes Damien down, but first Serena needs to introduce him to all these famous folks and then ask him not to leave, and just as she's getting real annoying her brothers show up, a black-eyed Damien in tow. "He threatened me earlier, and then he followed me to the bathroom, and then he jumped me! In that order!"
Serena's like, "This is just like when there were three of me doing awful things and nobody believed that it wasn't me, but with Ben instead of me. This is bullshit. Explain your sorcery." But everybody just stares instead, including Ben, because of what a town without pity can do, and even after the break -- as Florence starts singing a harp-heavy, drums-light "Cosmic Love," the finest song of all time -- she's still like, "What, and also his PO just happened to be here? I was born on a Sunday but it wasn't yesterday, jerks. Stop talking! This is... Criminy, this is pernicious! Logic, help a sister out!"
Chuck chases Raina up some stairs somewhere and admits that he was fucking his way to her heart so that he could keep his Empire and his Palace but that it became something more. End result: Raina does not believe him, he cannot be trusted, Thorpes exeunt (threunt).
Which is all awesome, because it's the exact opposite of a classic Valmont speech where the guy lies and says he has no feelings, when he does, because the Marquise is making him do it to prove something about herself. Whereas in this case, it was the Marquise that started up all the feelings in the first place, because she loves him without wanting him. Which is why I keep bringing them up at all: It's a very classic twist on a story these two have already played out, only now instead of just switching roles around, they've flipped the entire script upside down and backwards like some kind of Hofstadter crab canon: The seducer's heart is in jeopardy and nobody believes him, innocent Nate the sex victim is off somewhere thinking about musical theatre, the seductress is in no danger of being shamed, and her prey is making a reconnection to a long-ago lover. Kindly Intentions. Safety-First Liaisons.
While Serena is begging Ben to tell the PO he's not done anything, and Ben too easily is falling into the guilt-trap of one more night in jail he doesn't deserve, Blair's wrangling Nate to help her get the giftbags together now that Epperly's disappeared. "She left with this guy she knew from Oxford," he says, and then adorably fawns, "You should've heard this guy's accent!"
Meanwhile Blair is this close to crazy, tossing off awkward Britishisms and shivering inside herself: "How could you let some toff just punt off with her? Epperly was right, you can't take your eye off the ball. I need to fix this. Let's go." And if he doesn't, she'll tell about his favorite movie. Not Endless Knights, but the all-time favorite, Sound Of Music. "It's got nuns and Nazis! Julie Andrews was hot!" Once you just agree to treat Nate like an adorable pet and keep him in your purse, the most amazing things start happening.
Eric runs up to Damien, ready to go after all this excitement, and Damien... Is awful to him. Not just because it's Eric, not even because it's Damien, but regulation, just-slept-with-Buffy awful: "Listen, man, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I think we're pretty much done here? You're my client. Former client, actually. Now Ben's gone, and so am I. Seeya." Tiny, tiny little Eric in the cold, cold light, getting further and further away. You know what? I don't care anymore. Let's kill Damien Dalgaard.
Dan asks Rufus -- Why are you here, Rufus? -- if he's going to be mad just because Dan went to a great deal of trouble to undo all the things Rufus has been doing for Ben over the last week, and he's like, "You put Max Cady in my living room!" Rufus admits he didn't entirely anticipate the degree to which Dan was going to bitch out about all of this, so: Sorry. And for his part, Dan knows that it's tough being Rufus right now because of the War Against Lily. And Rufus -- We're stuck in a meaningless, mindblowing Humphrey Loop! -- apologizes in turn for plopping Ben down in DUMBO without discussing it first...
And just as Dan is trying to think of something to apologize for so they can really just go to town on each other, Eric shows up with red knuckles explaining that A) Damien just dumped him in the most brutal fucking way and B) He was himself the puncher of Damien, so C) Dan better solve this problem, because turns out he just screwed over not only his sister-lover -- who was right for the first time in her life, if not for long -- but also his hot new roomie. Dan goes tearin' out of there, but I'm guessing he's going to be too late. All the better to make it up to Ben later, one supposes, but points for the wild-eyed hustle of it all.
day, Dan's got quite a list of tasks. He needs to track down Eric, who apparently wandered off from the party and probably went back to Damien to beg him to stay and never leave him and continue doing ... whatever it is they do together, I don't judge ... and for this he needs Nate, apparently, as backup. And then also he's got to find Serena -- always tricky -- so he can apologize for (just this once) not believing her or in her ability to make choices for herself, then get her over to DUMBO so they can welcome Ben home.
When Ben comes home, Dan's got his Humphrey arms spread wide like, "Do you know a word for sorry that is more emphatic than that word?" And Ben's like, "No, that works. I'm easy. Not easy like, you know, but just that my expectations are super low due to the brutality I've witnessed and to which I've been party over the last few years. Thanks to your family. Also, I'm easy in the general sense. It's been a while." Dan's like, "Glad to hear it, because you my friend are more than welcome to put the cups and dishes wherever you like. I am now as beholden to you as Serena; I finally get it, and will fight to the death for you just like her, because just like her, this one time I sent you to jail on accident." Then Serena jumps out like a surprise party starring boobs.
(And... Jeggings? Pajama Jeans? Serena what have you done.)
Eric comes home to PRADA; turns out he wasn't actually at Damien's because he has self-respect, but not so much that he didn't fetch coffee for Rufus too, being that they're the only people in the house that are not Lily. Like yours truly, Eric drinks a double macchiato. This pleases me. Eric tries to get the fuck on up out of there -- because Rufus with that parenting glint in his eye is not only objectively scary but something Eric has never seen in his literal life -- but Rufus is like, "Not so fast, little man. We are going to have ourselves a long, horrible talk about feelings and shit. You are the only kid I've got left, and I've got so much parenting energy stored up in my pancreas it's comin' out my eyeballs."
"Talk to me. Make me understand why you want to spend so much time with a guy like him, when you have all your other friends." Update: Eric has no friends. He has one nerdy guy friend who inevitably breaks his heart, one scuzzy older friend ditto, and the meanest girl in the universe. That's it. "I can't believe I'm going to say this out loud, it sounds so stupid, but: I thought Damien got me. We could just hang out together and do nothing. He was there for me." Guh, Eric. C'mere. Good Lord.
And so then Rufus says one of the sagest things I can think of him ever saying: "That kind of a guy always is." Which made me love Rufus a little, because he's not one for saying the harsh truth usually -- but I guess if anybody knows how helpful and codependence-inducing drug people can be, ask a rock star.
And when Eric slumps away -- "Yeah, well lesson learned" -- it's not because he's not grateful and it's not because he doesn't like Rufus, he's always liked Rufus, but because he doesn't have the energy, because his heart is broken. Rufus knows the door is open, and that's enough for both of them, for now.
(week is Eric's eighteenth birthday. Think about it, but not too hard.)
Hey Raina, what's up?
Well, an intense little trilobite name of Blair called me up amidst the ruffling of 650 giftbags last night to explain how you are incredibly broken inside, and that whenever you tell the truth you are lying, and whenever you lie you are telling the truth, and that even though you were saying those nice things about me as a ruse, it was also not a ruse, because your brain can't think of lies about certain things because they go too deep, because of Charlie Trout.
So stop lying, or truthing, or whatever you think you're doing, and we can stop pretending that we're only fucking, and this time when we say "business is business" we will mean it, because there will be something else that's more important.
But only if I get to see Charlie from time to time, because he is worth loving. And at this point in my life I think maybe I can help him understand that. Because my Bart never died. Because my mother broke my heart.
Because I have hiding places, too. It's been lonely.
Epperly's been in with Stefano for over an hour, but she can't really be in that much trouble, because B and N totally fixed the giftbag situation. "This is all my fault! I wanted Epperly to get laid, not laid off!" She comes wafting in, at that, smiling and laughing at all Blair's silly little stresses. Not fired, no! The party was a success. "Are you ... having a psychotic break?" Heh.
No. No, Epperly has quit. Never felt finer. Turns out the mystery fellow was her old boyfriend, from Oxford -- "Shoulda heard this guy's accent!" -- and he's going to a Yoga retreat in Bali, and she's going. She has reached the part in every movie where Anne Hathaway tosses her phone in the fountain and goes on a white girl vacation. "You're leaving the magazine for Eat Pray Love?"
Epperly says then -- and this gives me pause -- that you can't have it all. Which in some ways, maybe not. But as a way of once again shooting down Blair's feminist ideals in some future episode where she's crying about this, all "They told me I couldn't have it all but I have hubris about my capabilities as a Powerful Woman!" I'm troubled, because that whole lesbian debacle with the first Powerful Woman never sat right anyway. (Also troubling in this way: I don't think Serena actually was right about Ben. Which is going to give Dan twice the fucking ammo.)
Blair tries to talk her out of it, but things take a turn for the surreal: "As a token of my appreciation for helping me see what was missing in my life, I suggested that you be promoted to replace me. Congratulations. Stefano's giving you a trial run, starting now."
Yep, becoming the executive assistant to the editor-in-chief of a top-three fashion magazine really is that easy. Maybe you can have it all! Or as Epperly says, while Blair's flipping her wig about how she's also got a full load at Columbia: "If James Franco can do it, so can you. Blair, you wanted it all, and you just got it." Dangerous, terrifying words to live by, but words to live by just the same. I think I'll start saying that in the mirror every morning. "If James Franco can do it, so can you."
The Thoard has rescheduled their unreschedulable meeting so that Raina -- the daughter/veep who graduated a second ago from, admittedly, Wharton -- can be there. Her one condition on the purchase of Bass Ind.? "Give Chuck a chance to be part of the new company." And if you don't know that Chuck will be an asset yet, you will.
Across town, Dan and Nate have just had a very interesting meeting with the Belgian Ambassador about his son's activities. Damien just about loses his shit entirely, reduced to just pasta on the sidewalk, because he's going to get cut off. Thank God you've got a highly lucrative job there, buddy. Think you'll be okay. Hope you make it back in time for whatever crazy BS Ben Donovan eventually pulls.
And over in DUMBO, do I even have to say it? Serena gets her kiss.
And the wolves begin to howl. XOXO.
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