The Roaring Besides Her

S04E22

So what's going on with Georgina Sparks is that she's got herself a UES husband to take care of her baby, but it turns out that being Rufus is boring, so when she comes to the Constance Alumni Fundraiser despite never having gone there, she's immensely excited to find everybody running around and screaming and on fire. Why are they in such a tizz?

Well, nobody can find Charlie because she's off her meds and stomping around the place drinking vodka straight, and nobody can find Blair because she's being held hostage in Brooklyn by the shambles of Russell Thorpe, who plans on blowing them both to hell. Shortly thereafter, Serena has talked Charlie off a literal ledge, while Nate and Raina have stood around watching while Chuck rescues Blair. That's when things get interesting. (Raina takes off back to Chicago, but that isn't the interesting part.)

Blair and Chuck, en route to the fundraiser -- where Prince Louis is waiting, stalwart, for his Princess Bride-to-be -- stop off to have some childlike fun at a bar mitzvah, then some grownup fun in a room adjacent to the bar mitzvah. Upon returning to the party and finding Louis still there, Chuck decides that Blair would be better off actually being happy with Louis instead of crazy and scary with him, and after some tearful goodbyes she agrees. Nate buys Chuck this antique globe and makes him pick a spot on it where they can go and then spend the rest of the summer fucking their way back to the UES, and that part was awesome.

Dan and Eric decide to the do the same thing, and take off for the Hamptons so that Dan can whimper about losing Blair and Eric can cheer him up again. Little do they know that Vanessa has discovered the manuscript for Dan's secret novel -- an autobiographical tale of class fetishism proving Gossip Girl's been right about him all along -- and, as her last act of extreme nosiness, sold it to Simon & Schuster so she can play Laura Albert to his JT LeRoy.

After a stern talking to from both Queller and the Peanut Gallery Girls in which she realizes she is human tofu that has never made a decision in her entire life, Serena decides to spend the summer in Montecito with CeCe. She immediately meets Ethan Peck and David O. Russell, becomes a D-Girl, and gets into a fistfight with Lily Tomlin. Oh, and there's a pregnancy test in the Blair/Serena bathroom that could belong to either of them, but who knows how that will go. We can only hope it's Eleanor's and that Blair gets to name the baby.

And what about Cousin Charlie? Well, that part was amazing. Georgina takes a shine to her crazy ass, instantly figures out that her whole storyline has been a lie, and tells her to give her a ring when she comes back year as a series regular. But wait, who is Cousin Charlie really? Just a random low-level Florida con artist named Ivy, whom Aunt Carol installed as her fake daughter in order to get access to Charlie's trust fund and protect her real daughter from the UES/Rhodes crew.

But now Ivy's got the sneak for UES living, and an extra book of Charlie's checks in addition to her payoff, so we'll be seeing her again shortly. Hopefully getting neither raped nor abused by Chuck so those four shipper nutsacks on the internet can scream and yell about whatever the imaginary hell they're always screaming and yelling about. And, of course, the inevitable Real Charlie Rhodes/Fake Charlie Rhodes Faceoff. Or the Ivy/Juliet Faceoff. Or the Ivy/Juliet/Poppy/Georgina four-way Selina Kyle Invitational.

So that's the score for year: Blair's planning on a November wedding, Chuck and Nate are off doing it with each other, Vanessa has moved to Spain, Dan's about to be the most hated man in Manhattan, Serena's gone Hollywood, Russell got 20 years for killing Avery, the mysterious pregnant person is pregnant, and Lily's going to be getting her ankle jewelry off around the season premiere. XOXO, and I honestly hope you enjoyed this season as much as I did.

TAXICAB

Vanessa: "Finally somebody everybody can hate so much that you're nice to me!"
Serena: "Not even Cousin Charlie's ten tons of crazy could possibly affect the balance of power that makes you a worthless pariah pawn."
Vanessa: "Are you kidding me? Rufus just said she stalked her college roommate and ended up wandering through the snow in her bare feet."
Serena: "...What part of that story did you think I wouldn't identify with?"

Vanessa: "Any case, we have to save Dan. Dan Dan Dan."
Serena: "And also Charlie. Trust me when I say that with Rhodes Women, all roads eventually lead to the Crazyhouse."
Vanessa: "But Dan."
Serena: "Look, the reasons Dan hates you have nothing to do with me."
Vanessa: "Not only is that factually untrue, but everything Dan everythings ends up being about you."
Serena: "[Dismissive but satisfied smirk and sigh.]"

CONSTANCE BILLARD SCHOOL FOR LOVESICK CHUMS & AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENTS

Dan: "Good God, Nate. How I have missed you."
Nate: "Let's run away together. Raina just dumped me once again. Let's talk about your problems instead."
Dan: "So I was about to fuck Cousin Peepers on Queller's desk..."
Nate: "Nice!"
Dan: "...But then she's all call me Serena, and I wigged."
Nate: "Sometimes Chuck makes me say that."
ibid., verbatim/awesome: "Just tell her that's not necessary, and get back to doing whatever it is you two were going to do."

If only every crazy scenario in this show could be dismissed with a "that's not necessary," what a wonderful world that would be. Just like when Serena is right she's really right so too does Nate know how to solve problems. He's like the kid that noticed the Emperor was naked. Occam's Razor is a lot easier when you can't handle more than a couple of things.

Dan: "Oh look, it's Chuck. I thought he was going to rehab."
Nate: "He said no, no, no. He said, 'That's not necessary.'"

THE BAR

Chuck: "Eleanor, we've never spoken before. I'm Chuck Bass. I'm kind of a big deal."
Eleanor: "You listen to me. Blair is nowhere to be found, but I'm not worried about it. She would kill a person, literally kill them, to walk into this alumni dinner on the arm of a prince. She's kind of stuck in high school. And you're a ridiculous person, so..."
Chuck: "Nevertheless I am freaking out."
Eleanor, verbatim: "She is finally getting her fairy tale. She doesn't need the Big Bad Wolf to ruin it. Why don't you say good-bye once and for all? And let her go."
Chuck: "thanks for not calling me the Evil Queen, for once, but... Isn't that sort of paternalistic and weird?"
Eleanor: "You're the one with the imaginary systematic abuse going on, you tell me."

By Jacob Clifton

ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY

Everybody to Everybody Else: "We need to talk. Blair and Charlie are both missing."
Eric: "[Winking reference to various ridiculous things that have happened on this show.]"
Chuck: "We need to find Blair."
Vanessa & Serena: "Charlie is losing her shit."
Dan: "I have nominated myself the Conchholder. I say who speaks and to whom."
Nate: "Chuck, I need a hug."
Chuck: "Nathaniel, I need to find Blair some more times."
Nate: "Chuck, as ever, I am: Right behind you."

Serena & Vanessa: "Have you guys seen Charlie? We need to talk to her about making us look like crazy bitches. And help her find her marbles."
Nate & Chuck: "Clearly, Serena and Vanessa have this situation in hand. They're both reliable individuals. Also, we could give a shit about Cousin Charlie, so we're going to keep looking all over the place for Blair."
Nate: "Yeah, Raina was really cutting into my 'cosigning Chuck's bullshit' time."

Kati & Iz: "Eric, we're going to Almost Famous you now."
Eric: "I am the only person with a stable personality on this show, and that personality is gay."
Kati & Iz: "Yeah, us too. Chop-chop."

EMPIRE

Chuck: "I told you not to tell Raina about her dad killing her mom by accident."
Nate: "Yeah, and then I immediately did. What I don't get is why that surprises you."
Chuck: "If she yells at her dad about it, he is going to come after me and kidnap Blair. That's the first thing he's going to do."
Raina, appearing out of nowhere, from the depths of a house in which she does not live, in a ballgown: "I got some bad news for you, then."

CHARLES PLACE

Blair, speed-dialing Chuck and loudly expositing: "I don't understand why you're doing this! You tricked me into coming to Chuck's new hotel by saying that he was in jeopardy, and now you won't let me leave! What am I supposed to do, jump from the third story window? From where we are on the third floor? Of Chuck's new hotel?"

CONSTANCE

Georgina Sparks (!): "I tricked a Yale grad into marrying me so I wouldn't have to take care of Milo. Now he can grow into the Antichrist while entrenched firmly in the WASP power structure."
Mr. Sparks: "She mistreats me, but since I'm a trust fund kid that gets me off."
Georgina: "I'm so bored I'm starting to act really bizarre like a Real Housewife. Here is some Ramona Singer crazy talk for you."
Mr. Sparks: "Probably I am gay."

Dan: "Oh, Christ. It's Georgina Sparks."
Georgina, verbatim: "I haven't been this bored since I believed in Jesus!"
ibid.: "Listen, the four of you have been running around like lunatics all night. I want in. Whatever ridiculous bullshit you guys are up to, I want to help. And/or sabotage. It's all the same to me."
Dan: "If I was [sic] up to something, and I'm not saying that I am, the last thing I would want is Georgina Sparks getting involved."
Georgina: "Not unless the thing was twisted and nasty, in which case my help could prove invaluable."
Dan: Remains unconvinced, because he is a sucka.

PRADA

Lily: "Thanks for using an iPad or some crap to make us feel like we're at that party. Alumni dinners for schools neither of us actually attended are so much fun to televisually enjoy, for Rufus and myself."
Eric, verbatim: "I promise, Mom, you're not missing anything, unless you think Amy Chua trying to convince Headmistress Queller to grade her kids more harshly is exciting."
Lily: "I was really hoping to see Anne Archibald get beat up. Ever since she went bitch on me I really just want to go to parties so I can yank her weave."
Rufus: "Eric, make sure everybody knows that Cousin Peepers is off her goof..."
Lily: "Rufus. Heel. If you know anything from being on this show it's that I won't allow you to speak openly about Rhodes mental illness. Just say she's 'suffering from exhaustion' or 'in Miami.'"
Rufus: "Eric, make sure everybody knows that Cousin Peepers is so exhausted that she might hurt Dan, and she needs to take her Miami pills."

WHERE CHARLIE IS

Is dancing around with a bottle of vodka upended into her face.

Dan: "Hey Peepers, what's with your lurchy dancing? Where did you go after you scared my penis into backwardsing itself?"
Charlie: "[Crazy chatter, including an awesome jibe about how he led her on just like Serena's been doing forever, which strikes a veritable hit.]"
Dan: "I would be more suspicious about this relapse if girls didn't go nuts on me three times every season. Let's go somewhere private, and we can talk and talk and talk."
Charlie: Literally throws a cater-waiter directly into his face and bounces.

QUELLER BREAK

Queller: "Oh, Serena. I am so glad I caught you at random in this hallway. Check out who it is!"
Cecily von Ziegesar: "Like I actually wrote these books."
Serena: "Like I care about anything. I barely went to this school when I went to this school, even after my mom put some random teacher on death row to get me into this school. Move out of my way."

Queller: "Just a sec. I just wanted to say that your life is pathetic and that you will never be anybody."
Serena: "Cool, whatever."
Queller: "Columbia's for losers. Brown would have really broadened your horizons."
Cecily von Ziegesar: "The only way that statement makes any sense whatsoever is if you're both lesbians."

Peanut Gallery Girls: "Shippers ruin everything! Let's reduce complex characters and story down to our own narrative addictions and overinvested teen emotions!"
Serena: "Actually, we were just talking about career and college choices."
Shippers: "That doesn't interest us! We are sugar addicts who will never learn to taste anything else!"
Serena: "What do you even want, dude."
Shipper 1: "I like to pretend that I am Blair!"
Shipper 2: "And that I am a victim of abuse!"
Shipper 1: "And when the show doesn't acknowledge my imaginary version of the story, I stomp my feet. Like this!"
Shipper 2: "And when everybody makes fun of us for acting hysterical about made-up things, I yell like this!"
Serena: "And yet the show keeps going on, regardless."

Shipper 1: "Yeah, because it's shitty!"
Shipper 2: "And because it beats women!"
Shipper 1: "Whoever is the most offended, wins!"
Shipper 2: "Dair Forever!"
Shipper 3, suddenly appearing from 2008: "Chair Forever!"

Shippers: "Don't call us shippers! We are crusaders for women's rights!"
Serena: "Seems to me that ignoring the canonical story in order to generate a parallel narrative in which you ignore a character's choices and self-affirmation so you can be outraged on her behalf is taking the long way from your ass to your elbow."
Shippers: "Blair is a victim!"
Blair: "Isn't that up to me?"
Shippers: "No! You can't be expected to know if you're a victim or not! Trust us, you are!"

Serena: "All three of you are kind of missing the entire point. But have fun, okay?"
Shipper 3: "So you're intentionally foreshadowing a Chair revival in Season Five? They are endgame."
Serena: "No. I mean, what? I didn't say anything about any of that. I don't even know what those words mean. What I meant was, there are a million ways to enjoy a story. Hyperfocusing on one romantic aspect to the point that you're not even watching the show anymore -- picking up subtle 'clues' and then losing your shit when those imaginary 'clues' don't result in the story doing what you want -- is one way. I guess it's just as valid as any other way, no matter how little sense it makes to the rest of us. Or how offensive it is when you pull in this abuse crap to justify it."

By Jacob Clifton

Shippers: "But there was abuse!"
Serena: "Name a relationship on this show that doesn't constitute systematic abuse. This is not what stories are for. We judge stories on their merits, not on whether they match up to some personal checklist we've created. That's so second-wave and gross. You asked for a story, you got a story. This is neither a new nor a particularly complex concept."
Shippers: "You are a collaborator!"
Serena: "So it's just a coincidence that, empirically speaking, every single person screeching about this made-up scandal is a Dair shipper?"
Shipper: "The radical and willful misreading of a text used to be a fun fandom exercise! It has become in 2011 a grim duty! Stop silencing us!"

Serena: "Jesus. Nobody's silencing you. Ignoring you is not the same as silencing you. I just think it's pretty tacky to use something sacrosanct like domestic abuse to justify your weird obsessive feelings about a soap opera. It's a nuclear option that zeroes out any dissent -- c.v. Godwin's Law -- which is obnoxious and stupid itself on the level of simple discourse. But the real problem is it that it trivializes the reality of abusive situations, which makes it pretty obvious how sheltered you actually are, because anybody who has survived something like that would never think to employ it in an argument about made-up love affairs on a ridiculous TV program."

Charlie text, to Everybody: "I have lost my marbles! See you in Hell!"
Georgina: "Oh, for fuck's sake. Even Vanessa is in on this plan? And who is Charlie? No, I don't care. Let's do the Badger, the Melon Drop, the Spanish Prisoner!"
Everybody, splitting up to cover every set this TV show ever used: "Even though you always solve our problems, this time you are not invited."
Georgina: "Okay, what should I do?"
Vanessa, sucking on this moment like an organic nursemaid's teat, drinking deep: "You can just go away."
Everybody: "You still aren't part of this show, you know. But way to be sad some more."
Vanessa: "You know, even I could hear how pathetic I was being just now."

CHARLES PLACE

Blair: "So like, are you going to torture me or what?"
Russell: "No, I'm going to set us both on fire and blow us up. This is one of those renovated buildings where there's one gas line that fills the whole building with gas when you turn a big wheel. Which I have done."
Blair, verbatim, of course where Chuck can hear her: "I know you think the Basses are evil. Trust me, I get it. I loved Chuck for so long, and... He just punished me for it. He ended up treating me like something he owned, instead of something he earned, and it destroyed me. I thought I'd never get over it. But I finally found a way out of the darkness, and you can, too."

This is how Chuck saves Blair: He walks into the room. Nate and Raina are there also. Blair isn't tied up or anything. Chuck just walks in, with the boringest backup, and it's over. The sound of sirens.

Raina: "I know you didn't mean to hurt my mother. I forgive you. You're going to jail for a very long time, and I won't be coming to visit you. Ever."

SO THAT'S THAT

While Nate and Raina give their statements to the cops, Blair and Chuck talk about how she's feeling kind of wiggly about the whole scenario. The kind of wiggle where you don't want to debut your princely fiancé at your old high school -- the kind of wiggle where you just want to chill out. Get a drink with your abuser. Maybe hit a few Bar Mitzvahs around town.

Blair: "How come when I come running to your rescue, that's a misogynist move on the part of the show because I'm being weak -- but when you come running to my rescue that's also a misogynist move on the part of the show because I'm being weak?"
Chuck: "Because this game is rigged."
Blair: "I wish my opinions or ability to direct my own life or make my own choices were a matter of public record."
Chuck: "Sometimes it's so important to designate a victim that the designated victim's own thoughts or opinions stop mattering. Sometimes saving the world means overruling reality. You have to be ignored and overpowered by group consensus if you're ever going to be empowered."
Blair: "Yes, well, that certainly sounds like feminism."
Chuck: "It isn't, that's what sucks so much."

By Jacob Clifton

CHARLES PLACE

Raina: "I know you didn't mean to hurt my mother. I forgive you. You're going to jail for a very long time, and I won't be coming to visit you. Ever."

SO THAT'S THAT

Raina: "I am moving back to Chicago."
Nate: "It would help me formulate an appropriate emotional response to that news if you would remind me who you are."
Raina: "We made a good pair."

By Jacob Clifton

UPSTAIRS

Charlie: "Ooh! You scared me."
Georgina: "I get that a lot."
Charlie: "Do you know where I could find a window that opens? It's time for my big showy suicide attempt."
Georgina: "Sure, right around that corner. I happen to know that. [Actually, it makes sense that she went to Constance before the show started, because we know she was in class with the NJBC at least until sixth, when she slept with Chuck.]"

Serena: "Hey, bitch. Seen Charlie?"
Georgina: "Mmmmaybe."
Serena: "Oh my God, you wanted to be helpful."
Georgina: "Yeah, and then you guys were all assholes to me. And then the Vanessa thing, which, I can't think of a sane person who wouldn't be driven to crazy revenge by that."
Serena: "What if Milo is one day a crazy eighteen-year-old?"
Georgina: "Then I know I did something right. Fine, she took the elevator."
Serena: Immediately heads in the opposite direction.
Georgina: "I miss you! You get me!"

Charlie: Standing in the open window, looking all ratshit crazy.

JOSEPH NITZBERG'S BAR MITZVAH

Blair and Chuck sneak into this Bar Mitzvah, with some random references to Death Takes A Holiday/Meet Joe Black. Which, agreed, the latter was about the longest movie I've ever checked out of for half hours at a go and still felt like I'd seen the entire thing.

It's a nice little sequence. If you're not feeling it, or the symbolism, I guess it could come off a little queer -- or, if you're a shipper, the entire thing just comes down to an irrelevant and particularly dumb visual pun, Chair on chairs -- but I loved it. They're smiling, which I can't remember ever seeing, and in this environment that is specifically about the boundary between childhood and adulthood. Two things they've never really felt worthy of: They were both denied a childhood by their parents' personality disorders, and they've both spent most of the last two years feeling like frauds in their own skins, children impersonating adults.

"Rolling In The Deep" plays over this and the whole sequence that follows, and that's pretty neat. It's already the Song of the Summer and Summer hasn't even started yet, but it's sad and it's dramatic and it's a fairly complicated and sophisticated goodbye: They could have had it all, but they never could have had it all.

By Jacob Clifton

They both symbolize so much of a mess to each other, of their broken pasts and somewhat hopeless futures, that it's only in this between-place they can even have a moment to think about who and what they are. There's a theme running through this episode about Chuck becoming a man, and a theme running through the season about Blair becoming a woman. All the ways they try to define those things for themselves and the meaningless ways they've tried to define them: None of that matters, here in this between-place.

Then they do it.

MEANWHILE IN DUMBO

Vanessa finds a manuscript that apparently Dan's been working on since before the show started, a particularly sad little roman à clef in the Lonelyboy tradition, about how much Dan felt like an outsider for all this time and, just like Gossip Girl suggested at Graduation, has become the Ultimate Insider. If slightly unbelievable, it's not so much as a retcon but more in terms of its radical honesty. Apparently if you go back as far as Milo even, you can see this manuscript lying around à la the Glass Vivier stuff with the constant Blair shoes that I totally didn't pick up on. The book is called Inside, and the only thing more gorgeous than its existence is the fact that Vanessa has found it, is now speed-reading it with her homeschool powers, and will doubtless use it to fuck everything up for everybody, because of how she is.

CONSTANCE

Sophie, looking amazing: "Louis, I don't know if you've noticed, but Blair's kind of a flake."
Louis: "Don't be silly. I'll wait all night if I have to. Knowing these maniacs, she probably just got abducted by a real estate developer and nearly set on fire, then snuck into a Bar Mitzvah. She'll be here eventually. It's cool."

CRAZYTOWN

Lily: "Hey, Carol. No big deal, but Charlie's off her meds and we're scouring the city for her. Maybe you were right."
Carol: "As per usual, this is actually a ludicrously complex scheme to get money out of CeCe, so you just do whatever you want."

Serena: "Charlie! Get down from that window!"
Charlie: "No! I heard you tell Dan and Vanessa that I am crazy!"
Serena: "Look at yourself, look at your choices! Do you want me to go get Dan? His particularly brand of condescending self-righteousness talks the rest of us down off ledges regularly."
Charlie: "I'll never have Dan! That's why I stole your dress!"
Serena: "I don't understand what you mean."
Charlie: "I am sort of winging it!"

By Jacob Clifton

ibid., verbatim: "You're Serena van der Woodsen."
Serena, with a dismissive smirk and sigh: "That doesn't mean what you think it means."

Charlie: "Um, I think it means you have zero accountability and the universe constantly reschedules things like college courses and rape trials for you, and people get abducted to Eastern Europe for even looking at you wrong, and you steal boats and horses to get your parents' attention, and everybody's so hypnotized by your boobs and your hair that even when you're begging for a little help or some boundaries everybody just assumes you're cooler than them, and that ultimately living in a world with absolutely no consequences has made you hate yourself and obsess on people like Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf for providing the small amount of pushback that reminds you you're alive."

Serena: "Ah. Then yes. Yes, I wasn't understanding you at first, but yeah. That pretty much covers it."

DUMBO

Vanessa: "Hey! Oh right, Cousin Peepers. I sort of completely forgot we were looking for her. Listen, I found this book you wrote..."
Dan: "Put that away. Put it down and walk away or I will murder you with your own caveman hairdo."
Vanessa: "But Dan, it's so good! It's gross in exactly the way that you and I are gross. I just realized that we're even worse suckups than your sister. What a load off! In fact, I'm just about to get to the part where you talk about what really happened the night Charlie Trout took you on a date and you ended up in the clink..."
Dan: "I can't believe you went through my stuff!"
Vanessa: "...Really?

ibid., verfuckinbatim: "Dan, you know as well as I do you can't be an insider and make great art. You have to stand alone to observe it, and not care whose feelings you hurt, or what people think of you."
Dan: "Absolutely one of the worst things about us is that we feel okay about saying shit like that to each other."
Vanessa: "Get it published. Take a stand. Be a great man instead of always being a good boy."

She also mentions that "somebody" in the book will really like his interpretation of her character. More than likely in the later chapters, but honestly probably all along. Of all the things Dan disliked about Blair, her soul was never one of them.

By Jacob Clifton

Vanessa, as a giant hook reaches across the stage to pull her out forever: "DanIjustthinkyouhavebecomeaterribleperson!"
Dan: "Ah, dammit. She got the last word."
Vanessa: Is carried away to Hell.

THE DEEP

Blair: "I'm thinking I should break up with Louis now so we can be together."
Chuck: "That seems like a dumb idea, but whatever you want. I'm in love with you and I live at rock bottom so the idea of making good choices seems like some Harry Potter shit to me."
Blair: "As though pledging myself to anybody at nineteen is a good choice. Come on."
Chuck: "Oh, it won't last. I'm just saying that either way, my obsession with you has turned a corner now that my father's legacy is back to being secure and I don't have to be afraid of becoming a man finally. But you actually love him, yes?" Blair, verbatim: "Yes. But not like I love you. Louis and I... It's different. It's lighter, more simple. He makes me happy... What we have is a great love. It's complicated, intense, all-consuming. No matter what we do and how much we fight, it always pull us in. What's mere happiness in the face of all that, right?"

Blair is: A sugar addict who hasn't yet learned to taste anything else.

They arrange -- assuming that Louis must be back at the Consulate by now -- to grab their coats at the Billard do and then she'll dump Louis and then they'll do whatever they're going to do that doesn't involve Dan Humphrey at all, and is thus worthless.

UPSTAIRS

Charlie: "You're so amazing, though! You can do anything you want!"
Serena: "Here's the trick to being me, though: You also can do anything you want. People thinking they can't, and then blaming me for their own myopia, is like every day of my life. Don't be a hater, Peeps. Just go be awesome. Take some pills and get awesome."
Charlie: "Are you sure you don't want to talk more about yourself?"
Serena: "Fine. I didn't choose college, I never chose between Dan or Nate, I didn't even choose Paris last year -- Blair told me I was going with her, so I did -- and my run-in with Queller and the Shippers and Cecily von Ziegesar has made me understand that is ridiculous."
Charlie, still standing in the window: "So what are you going to do? I'm really interested in your future plans."

By Jacob Clifton

Serena: "I don't know. Presumably somebody will come along and offer me a job out of the blue, and then I'll just take it for no reason, and it will be decided for me."
Charlie: "But isn't that exactly what you were just..."
Serena: "-- Shhhhh shshshshshh. Look into my boobs. Look deep into my boobs."
Charlie: "Tell me more about your liiiiiife."

Serena: "I'll do better than that. Let's take a time out from your psychotic break so I can get Dan and Nate up here and lecture them about some irrelevant shit that even I barely care about."
Charlie: "Medically, I am able to stop going nuts at any time just by exercising my will. That should tell you something about my diagnosis, probably."

DOWNSTAIRS

Chuck: "Oh hey, Louis. That's amazing that you're still here."
Louis: "Yeah, because I am amazing."
Chuck: "Listen, I've been thinking about all this Blair stuff and how I activate the worst shit inside her and how that's more important than the fact that we love each other and she said some things about you that I found very interesting. Basically, the Blair that I'm in love with is the Blair I can't have, so as a favor to that Blair that I've never met but always been in love with. So you can have her."
Louis: "Awesome!"

Blair: "Guys? Standing right here."

UPSTAIRS

Dan: "Hey, Nate! Funny running into you right outside Queller's office."
Nate: "We gonna do this thing or what?"
Dan: "Would you really call me Serena if I told you to?"
Nate: "I'm used to getting called Blair in bed, so whatever. I'm pretty much just jaded and stoned and Bret Ellisy about stuff like that. Plus I don't know if I mentioned this but my girlfriend just left me."
Dan: "Your girlfriend? What's her name?"
Nate: "...Um. Oh, dammit. It's right on the tip of my..."

Serena: "Hush, you too. I've summoned you here to talk about the beginning of the season, when I deprived you both of a reason for living from across the Atlantic."
Dan & Nate: "We absolutely do not care about that. Not at the time, certainly not now."
Serena: "Look, just hear me out. I'm sorry I hurt you."
Dan & Nate: "You really didn't."
Serena: "Oh, you poor things. I know how hard it is for men to show their emotions."
Dan & Nate: "Um, not these particular men."
Serena: "Well, I'm sorry for hurting you guys so bad that you can barely go on living."
Dan & Nate: "Seriously, it's fine. But thanks for saying so?"
Serena: "You guys are breaking my heart right now."
Charlie: "Dan, I'm sorry I scared your penis backwards."

THREE WEEKS LATER

Russell: Going to jail for twenty years.
Lily: Remaining under house arrest until Season Five premieres.
Eric: Going to Sarah Lawrence. Of course.
The Roses: Taking a cruise on an official Monegasque yacht or something.
Charlie: Home to Crazytown.

Chuck, whistling and tapping his thigh: "Well, on that note, I think I'll head out. Nathaniel."
Nate, heeling: "Ruff!"

Chuck: "It's fun that we can just talk about stuff. You're spending the summer in Monaco?"
Blair: "Yep, and then getting married in November. You're invited."
Dan: "Can you introduce me to Charlotte Casiraghi? Just kidding, I'm not the total social climber that I obviously am. But anyway, can we still watch movies together on Skype?"
Blair: "Yes. Hal Ashby's The Landlord just came out on DVD."

Charlie: "I guess my mom was right and spending time with you slutty godless rich heathens really was too much for my fragile mind."
Lily: "Yeah, I'm about bored of you. Saying shit like that just makes goodbye easier. Do you have your shitload of money?"
Charlie: "Got it right here. See you season!"
Serena: "Whatever, dude."
Dan & Charlie: "We weren't Rolling the Deep so much as mushing in the shallow end, but still. It happened."

EMPIRE

Nate: "You're not even drinking?"
Chuck: "That's how sad I am."
Nate: "Would you like to talk about that in more detail? Perhaps while I do a little dance?"
Chuck: "Did you bring me a present?"
Nate: "Yes, it's an antique globe like an alchemist might have in his cave. I was thinking you could pick a spot on it, and we'll go there, and then spend the summer traveling back here, doing drugs and having sex and stuff."

Chuck: "First I need to talk more about the whole Blair thing."
Nate: "I am here for you, dude. Let me just get out of this tight shirt and into more of a jockstrap situation."
Chuck: "I'm not right for her. We bring out the dark side in each other. When she's with Louis, she shines. That's the Blair I love. If she needs to be with him to be it, then that's the way it should be."
Nate: "Seems like that could've been her call, though."
Chuck: "Our relationship was always about two equals trying to get control of each other, even though we were evenly matched. Take one of us out, the whole thing falls apart. It's not about telling her what to do, it's about taking down one side of the pyramid so it has no foundation."

Nate: "Wait, so there's no victim in this story?"
Chuck: "Stories about victims aren't worth telling. But either way, that's not what this is."

SHARED BATHROOM, CHEZ WALDORF

Blair, who can't wait for Monaco: "Strolling in the Jardin Exotique, catching the exhibits at Villa Paloma..."
Serena: "While I lay on the beach in Montecito, off the radar, learning to surf, strolling through the farmers' market, while CeCe with a teacup of gin in hand harasses the help... Being alone is just what I need. No boys, no bars, just a bottle of sunblock and a dozen of the best beach reads."

Serena, you see: "Needed to make a choice. And I choose me."
Serena's Choices Right Now: Include possibly her most bizarre outfit of the season.

Blair, regarding the wedding: "We're thinking November."
Serena, hilariously: "Well, that doesn't give me nearly enough time to find a dress to outshine yours. And you know I'll be wearing white, of course..."
Jill Zarin: Is awful.
Blair: "What are you talking about? I already told Louis' seamstresses to make you a Maid of Honor dress from the brightest fuchsia they could find!"

Pregnancy Test: "Somebody is pregnant! I hope it's Eleanor."
Fandom: "There are so many ways to go crazy right now I almost feel like we should just calm down and drink some tea and wait to see what happens in the fall. JUST KIDDING!"

DUMBO

Rufus: "I have my hipster job to do, so the fact that all my kids are abandoning me is really only a problem for Lily, who I will probably nag to death."
Dan: "Will CeCe be using the Hamptons house this summer? I've been craving some delicious Vitamin Water."
Rufus: "No, she's going to be with Serena, back in Montecito."
Dan: "Okay, I'm taking over the Hamptons house because I am sad about a girl."
Rufus: "Dan, she's your cousin."
Eric: "Rufus, he's talking about Blair. God."
Dan: "Eric, will you come with me to the Hamptons? We can act like Nate and Chuck together, if you know what I mean."
Eric: Produces a tiny sonic boom is how fast he gets started packing.
Rufus: "And you can write more books while you're there."
Dan: "I will never write again. Poor me."

SIMON & SCHUSTER

Karp: "Vanessa, your teen literary expertise is such that I accepted your unsolicited manuscript sight-unseen, and I'm happy to inform you that we have bought it for one trillion dollars."
Vanessa: "That's so cool how that works in real life."
Karp: "We think it's one of the best debut novels since Jonathan Safran Foer's -- fairly famous, bestselling, turned-into-a-high-profile-film -- debut in 2002..."

By Jacob Clifton

Nate: "Wait, so there's no victim in this story?"
Chuck: "Stories about victims aren't worth telling. But either way, that's not what this is."

SHARED BATHROOM, CHEZ WALDORF

Serena, you see: "Needed to make a choice. And I choose me."
Serena's Choices Right Now: Include possibly her most bizarre outfit of the season.

FLORIDA

Carol: "Hey, strange woman I hired to impersonate my daughter Charlie!"
Ivy: "Here is all the money. You guys are nuts."
Carol: "I had to make sure that CeCe would never come looking for my real daughter."
Ivy: "Cool. I'm going to keep some of it without telling you so that I can go back and be a series regular in the fall. I have a taste for the good life. And for Dan."
Carol: "I'm cool with letting you do whatever you want."
Ivy: "Turns out I'm crazy in an entirely different way than everybody thought."
Carol: "Turns out I am bad news in a similarly different way than everybody thought."
Ivy: "Good thing there are no photographs of your family for the last ten years or so, despite CeCe sending you checks every month for Charlie's entire life, on this show that is entirely about media and surveillance technology."

POSTMORTEM

Shippers: "WE'LL NEVER WATCH THIS SHOW AGAIN! WE MEAN IT THIS TIME! UNLESS BLAIR KISSES DAN AND THEN THE SHOW WILL BE GOOD AGAIN, BY OUR IMPOSSIBLY NARROW AND SOLIPSISTIC STANDARD!"

The definition of a genius is somebody that agrees with you. The definition of an asshole is somebody that doesn't. The definition of good art is art that somehow follows your precise personal instructions. The definition of bad art is anything administrated by somebody else, even somebody who knows what they're doing. The less important the issue, the louder the volume. This is what it's like to feel utterly powerless in your real life.

Nate: "So you're saying you're the hero of this story? That the show condones your behavior? That the show is a handbook on how to live your life?"
Chuck: "The show doesn't have any heroes; that's one of the greatest things about it and always has been. It's never condoned any behavior -- which should be apparent from watching even five minutes of any episode at all -- but especially not mine. And if you think this show, or any other show, is a guidebook to anything, you're more screwed up than we'd be if we were real and not fictional."
Nate: "But don't soap operas exist to tell us how to behave?"
Chuck: "No, you have an internal mechanism for that."
Nate: "Then what is the point of stories, if not to describe in a documentary style the way real people should always act?"

Chuck: "It used to be entertainment, but I'm not even sure about that anymore. Seems like in all this half-assed feminist education you've cobbled together nobody ever explained the difference to you between descriptive and prescriptive. But even if it were meant to be instructive -- you know, one of those many primetime soaps about the fabulously wealthy which is also pedagogical in nature -- Can't you rely on your own innate sense of ethics to determine what's appropriate?"
Nate: "It's not me I'm worried about, it's everybody else that's not as smart as I am."
Chuck: "I'd worry more about my own behavior if I were you, and less about hypothetical imaginary people that might think TV is real. Or getting outraged on behalf of their hypothetical imaginary victims."

By Jacob Clifton

Karp: "Wait, so who really wrote this book?"
Vanessa: "I cannot tell you. Just send the checks to me, in Barcelona."
Karp: "Sure thing! That happens all the time in reality."

MONTECITO

Serena: "I couldn't help noticing that you're Gregory Peck's grandson, and that you're reading a collector's copy of my favorite novel The Beautiful & Damned, which I've mentioned more than once."
Ethan Peck: "As it turns out, I'm helping David O. Russell adapt it into a screenplay. Would you like to put on some pants and help me do this job people with actual qualifications would kill for?"
Serena: "What a lucky chance meeting on the beach. I have memorized that entire book."

"Beautiful things only grow to a certain height, and then they fail and fade off."

David O. Russell, randomly: "Nice awkward quoting. You must be Serena van der Woodsen. How would you like to be a D-girl for the first arc of season?"
Serena: "All my mother and aunt ever did was try to get away from southern California, and it nearly killed them both. Therefore it would be my pleasure to spit in their faces by discovering myself here in Santa Barbara."
David O. Russell: "I don't even need to know your name. Just tell me where in Barcelona you'd like your paychecks sent."

Serena: "Yes, this definitely counts as a choice I'm making for myself."

FLORIDA

By Jacob Clifton

POSTMORTEM

Shippers: "WE'LL NEVER WATCH THIS SHOW AGAIN! WE MEAN IT THIS TIME! UNLESS BLAIR KISSES DAN AND THEN THE SHOW WILL BE GOOD AGAIN, BY OUR IMPOSSIBLY NARROW AND SOLIPSISTIC STANDARD!"

Nate: "No! Words have power!"
Chuck: "Um, so do you. Locate it."

Pretty sure things are going to be okay either way. XOXO.