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What an absolutely outstanding episode! Literary, wise and funny, playing with time and margins in a way that blends fantasy and fact to reveal greater truths. Great stuff, with several truly touching moments of meditation on both the show and by the characters within it. One of the smartest, most finely tuned and compassionate episodes in a long while, and one of the first in the last couple years with a truly long view of the season and its place in the wider series. Plus, you get Lily dressed like an insane person, and recapper-fave Sloane Crosley's adorable little face.
Nate: In the book he's been conflated with Eric and named Derek. This bothers him not because he's gay -- he's fine with that, as long as he's got game -- but because Dan doesn't love him enough to make him a stand-alone character. In real life, he enlists Ivy's help in finding "Ivy," putting her in Diana's clutches at the Spectator and eventually getting her pressed into playing Diana's UES mole.
Serena: In the book she's a flighty slutty mess -- so there's that -- but after a (fantastic!) new coworker sabotages a big career move, Jane presses her to forgive Dan and get the film rights to the book. (If you were wondering why Michael Michele was cast before now, now we know.) In addition to the adorably sneaky little coworker, she also nearly meet-cutes some dude I'm sure we'll be seeing again, but this week all that matters is her no-nonsense attempt to pout herself into Dark Phoenix completely under her own steam, and the startling intensity of her showdown with Dan.
Blair: Couldn't care less about Dan's book, until Louis' trust in her is chipped away first by a stray GG post putting her back with Chuck and then with Clair's role in the book as Dan's true love. It takes Louis longer than usual to calm down -- long enough for B to admit her pregnancy to Serena -- but he comes around in the end. Her relationship with Dan, though, is left in a pretty ugly place. Which is funny, considering how much she secretly enjoyed the book...
Chuck: That was a sad one. In the book he's not gay (and kinda miffed about it in real life), and he leads a pretty tragic Charlie Trout existence until his eventual suicide. In the end of the episode, Lily asks Chuck if he's really that tragic and lonely right now, and of course he pretty much is -- but that doesn't keep him from a couple of really sweet scenes with Blair and Louis and some really great stuff with Dan, or from being the most charming person in the whole episode.
Dan also comes off really well, continually admitting to his faults -- and those of "Dylan Hunter" -- both inside and outside the book. He's being crushed in the machine of fame, sure, but even at 68 pounds he can still rock the shit out of an Armani suit. In the end, it's his literary indictments of Rufus -- "has-been turned trophy husband," etc. -- that are the most heartbreaking, and all the worse for being true. It was an unexpectedly sad, and unexpected period, moment. Hopefully we'll see more fallout from all of this, because it was a real nasty little trip.
week: Yom Kippur, which means another meeting of the Waldorf-Roses and the Grimaldis, which is always fun. Serena attempts to scheme, Chuck continues to be fabulous, Nate more than likely forgets he's pissed at Dan, the Envelope returns much sooner than you might have thought, and Ivy becomes interesting.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Serena got a new job and a new pet cousin; Nate got a new job and a new pet mystery that was the same person; Blair was pregnant and had to hear Louis talk so much about so much stuff; Chuck is molting; a bestselling novelist did some kind of John Fowles mind game to punk Dan into becoming famous.
INSIDE
Dan walks through all these weird people at yet one more publishing party while a Carpenters-sounding song about his paranoia and low self-esteem plays.
All These Weird People: "It's brilliant! Really exceptional! Loved the book!"
Dan: "Do I know you? Any of you? Do I know anyone here at all?"
Weird People: "No! We are a metaphor!"
Also, though, they are like time-travel artifacts of the time-travelling mind. Dan is the Donald Sutherland and everything that happens in this imaginary sepia world will eventually come true and then: A dwarf with a knife that you did not anticipate. Dan is the Billy Pilgrim and everything is about Viet Nam. Dan is the Neely O'Hara and we know where this is going. Dan is the Eric Bana and we are just his Rachel McAdamses.
DUMBO
Alessandra: "I just love chilling in your pad in Brooklyn and talking about your book with you all the time. We should make pizzas!"
Dan: "I love talking about my book too because that's really code for talking about myself, but shouldn't you go back to civilization and agent me? And other clients of yours that you have, presumably?"
Alessandra: "Like I love how at the ending of the book, you are all alone and you don't have any friends left, and you have to go to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square."
Alessandra is: Also a time-travelling psychic, apparently.
Dan: "That wasn't me! That was Dylan Hunter. That was designated hitter Dave Hostetler! The book is fiction! Scathing satire, yes. Thinly veiled roman à clef, yes. Sheer reportage, no."
Alessandra: "Well, that is a motherfucker because this whole book's entire platform is about how it's about these celebutantes we just apparently can't ever stop talking about. Do you think any publisher would take a risk on you based purely on the quality of your prose? God, you're disgusting. The book is #38 on the Amazon pre-order list and 25,000 have shipped so far. Does that sound motherfucking literary to you? Look, mate: If publishing were this show, you'd be the Serena. Now flash me some tits and let's get on with it, all right?"
Dan: "First I must flit from house to house, book in hand, telling my tale and selling my wares. The woe of the artist's way! The flimflam foppery of the unjustly fêted! Each of the individuals I have wronged, by making a conscious choice to do so, must forgive me, face to face. Or else I shan't survive!"
Alessandra: "Don't be a fool, Daniel. Claw not so at shadows and bollocksy self-sabotage. We love it when our friends become successful, isn't that the saying? Isn't it just?"
Dan: "And so it is. I am Anonymous. Anonymous, am I. Carville and Matalin, gird my loins. Grab my V for this Vendetta, and may Assange hack the planet."
Alessandra: "Don't bother shaving. You already look like a woman."
CHEZ WALDORF
Blair: "My breasts have gotten out of control. Pregnancy makes me feel biological in nature. I hate that."
Louis: "[French stuff.]."
Blair: "I can't wait to tell your royal mother that you knocked me up out of wedlock! Or your absolutely heinous sister! Or my judgmental mother!"
Louis: "[More.]"
Blair, verbatim: "I don't want them to think of me as the star of some trashy MTV show like Unmarried & Pregnant Princesses or, I don't know, Royally Screwed."
Louis: Is an unreliable narrator of his own existence if he thinks anything else will possibly happen.
Blair, creepily: "An heir to a kingdom lives within me."
Blair bounces to tell Serena, or maybe just to introduce their giant boobs to each other, but either way she doesn't explicitly say "Serena" at this time, which is as big a red flag on this show as any indefinite article or genderless pronoun. You might as well say, "I am a sex addict with the uterus of a Siamese cat so it's possible I will be having four children, one with each of you and a fourth one that is of mixed race," and probably Louis would be like, "This will never do for Lichtenstein" or whatever, for half the episode, and then the second half he'll jump out from behind Blair like always and be like, "But I defy you, stars and etiquette! Not even this Octavia Butler uterus of bastards will stop me from marrying the woman I love, for it is my only personality trait."
BETTINGER
Sur la table at Jane Bettinger's office are: The new Krakauer, a spec script Sony won in a bidding war, and some piece of shit they're calling "American Psycho in prep school," which in addition to being redundant is also redundant, because here's the skinny on Alloy: It's a book packager, they farm everything out. Come up with a TV show idea, find somebody to write the books, turn the whole thing into a tragedy, step four profit. It's not art. It's a great way for art to happen, vide the show we're talking about, but it's also intellectual outsourcing and you end up with I Am Number Four and similar insulting factory rollouts.
So when you add to this the horrific fucking trend of the Sense & Sensibility & Wombats mash-up -- which is essentially somebody Ctrl-V'ing their way through a book that has already been written, like some kind of fertilizer truck that stops to drop some acrid shit at ten-yard intervals -- you end up with the awful Gossip Girl books having had serial killings Ctrl-V'd into them at random points, which is two wrongs making a total wrong but so much money, and it's so fucking stupid, and it's the opposite of art, and it makes me want to fucking barf, but at least they mentioned it on the show. At least you know to watch out for it. But also this:
Evil White Person #1: "Man, aspirational stories about rich kids aren't selling so well now that we're hitting the double-dip."
Evil White Person #2: "Let's get Emily Van Camp on the phone, and Cecily von Ziegesar, and we'll just make the same amount of money dehumanizing and murdering them that we used to make on selling their lifestyle. That sounds healthy for America."
Evil White Person #1: "Grim, ghoulish, profitable."
Evil White Person #2: "Hey, whatever keeps the money flowing toward us and away from them. What do we care if it's pathetic aspiration or even-more-pathetic resentment? Without capitalizing on that razor's edge there wouldn't even be a Republican party at this point."
Evil White Person #1: "At least our victims are literate."
Evil White Person #2: "That is a technicality at best."
SAM!
At the offices of Jane Bettinger, we have Serena who is on top of it, Sam who is fucking adorable, and Jane who is on a juice fast. Serena orders Jane "an extra cashew drink," which I already don't know what that means and then Serena says the words in an extra fucked-up way that makes me think I'll never know what that means, maybe it's code, code for heroin, which would probably ease the discomfort of a juice fast, now that you mention it.
Serena: "Also, I know that it's a long shot, but I sent Daniel Day-Lewis The Blue Rose, along with a note and a rosebush that only grows in Ireland. I don't know, I thought it might be a special touch." Bettinger, verbatim: "Daniel never agrees to do anything. The man took three years to make a pair of shoes."
You'll have heard of this, of course? About ol' My Left Foot becoming an Italian cobbler? When I go artist nuts it won't be "cobbling" and it won't be "associating with the likes of Helena Bonham Carter," no, it is going to be full-on, no fucking pause or quarter, Most Dangerous Game time. I'm talking gladiator fights between Leelee Sobieski and Ron Perlman, I'm talking hunting Ted Nugent armed with merely a bow and arrow, I'm talking about making Channing Tatum solve advanced sudoku puzzles before time runs out and the paintcans come a-swingin'. How much money would it take to get Brian Wilson to just carry you everywhere? That's what we're going to find out.
Jane: "Sam?"
Sam: "I am here! Desperate for approval and absolutely adorable!"
Jane: "Could you get me and Serena two green teas? I am totally playing you guys off each other, but not even on purpose."
Sam: "I will poison them, okay?"
Jane: "Serena, you can answer your phone. I'm sure whoever's calling you is important."
Serena: "No, it's just my best friend who is constantly on the edge of a mental breakdown, I'm sure it's nothing major like a royal bastard. She can wait. Let's drink green tea and talk about rose bushes that only grow in Ireland."
SPECTATOR
Nate: "See, these pictures are SCANDALOUS and SIZZLING because the people in them are having HOT and TWISTED extramarital affairs with each other in DAZZLING, SWEATY locations like the Poconos. Isn't that so SEXY and OUTRAGEOUS?"
Payne: "I've fucked you so hard you turned into Harvey Levin again, haven't I?"
Nate: "Let's DISH. Remember that WILD Jenny Packham show? EDGY fashions and tons of GLITTERATI. And all those LUBED-UP phones we stole."
Ivy: "Please pick up my phone, strangers! I've been calling for days and running down the battery, so I hope you have it plugged in because I am going to keep calling and calling. I hope it was not stolen by a mogul."
Nate: "I remember one of the DIRTY, NAUGHTY phone numbers on this mysteriously EAR-LICKING phone. That is a totally reasonable -- and SEXY -- thing for me to do."
Payne: "Cool, maybe we can somehow use that information or something. My preoccupations make about as much sense as my business plan."
PRADA
Serena: "Still haven't found your phone?"
Ivy: "No, and I've been calling it nonstop."
Serena: "Is it going straight to voicemail yet, because you've killed it? Maybe you should just get a new phone. Just take some of this money we throw around and buy a new phone with it."
Ivy: "My whole world's in that phone!"
Serena: "I'm sorry, is that the 'whole world' you manage to traverse with this single duffel bag full of Forever 21 fast-fashion waitress trash and a bunch of unfilled prescriptions? If you had any friends or meaningful connections, would you honestly even be here?"
Rufus: [Something about that band he's always nattering on about. I wish that this were a Rhodes Woman thing and "Panic!" were actually just some scheme of Lily's, like she went to the Varvatos on Bowery and was like, "You with the hair, you with the abs, and you, with the testicles I can clearly see in your tiny jeans. Ever thought about music?"]
Ivy: "Sure, I'm game to voice a little exposition for later in the episode, no matter how odd or awkward or nonsensical it seems at this time. Hey Rufus, do you ever regret not getting back into music earlier?"
Rufus, verbatim, my emph.: "No, I wouldn't give up raising my kids for anything. I mean, I love music, but Dan and Jenny, they're my life."
Everybody is a time-travelling mental time-traveler today! I love it, first of all, but second of all, when the fuck did Rufus's career have anything to do with any of this? He literally kicked Jenny out of the house for succeeding where he failed, he's never not talked endlessly about music... Well, he did own that art gallery slash catshit coffee purveyor. He did do that for a while. But how nice that he thought to mention Jenny at all, I guess. "Dan and his opinion of me, they're my life!"
OUTSIDE
Blair and Chuck meet cute on their way to Dan's big meeting at PRADA MARFA, and she jokes about how he's a Drama Queen -- true -- but she's now Drama Princess -- officially -- and they are super sweet. When Chuck asks her how she is, she's touched that he even asked. What I'm saying is that this totally normal, human gesture that people do a hundred times a day, Chuck has so lowered the bar on his own behavior that it's a touching surprise that he can even think to ask. How is your pregnant cat uterus? Chock full of bastards, thanks for asking.
PRADA
Everybody: "Why is everybody here?"
Everybody: "Um, because Nate texted us."
Rufus: "If he has another Russian baby so help me God..."
Chuck: "Don't worry, you're not going to be a grandfather. Unless Blair is pregnant with my child. But now, to take a turn for the squick, I will describe Dan's scathing satire being published as a sort of giving birth. Like Pallas Athene, it has sprung from his forehead fully formed -- and full of beans!"
Serena: "Okay, I'm pretty sure this is how every murder mystery begins. Also, most episodes of this show."
Everybody: "Serena, how is your job? Have you figured out the way in which it is pretend, yet?"
Serena: "Nooope! And there's the nicest, cutest boy there named Sam, who supports me in my career and in my choices. My job seems to consist of stalking celebrities and drinking endless potions."
Nate: "That is totally my job too! We are so real right now."
Blair: "I really wish Serena's job didn't keep her from helping me process my 99 problems that I am constantly having at all times."
Serena: "I wish that you didn't sleep so much so that we could talk endlessly about me. That street where I ignore you goes both ways, sister."
(More Charlie-Ivy stuff happens, don't worry about it.)
Dan, arriving: "Thank you all for coming. I am going to stall for awhile now. Not for my usual reason of being a self-important prig, but because I am so nervous that you'll finally discover just how self-important of a prig I am. There existing actual on-paper proof of it, now. Which I consented to publish."
Ivy: "THIS IS ABOUT ME, I KNOW IT. PLAYTIME IS OVER."
Everybody: "No, girl. You are still not that relevant. Calm down."
Ivy: "I just really feel like I need to justify my seed, considering I'm not even crazy and it's not even about the Rhodes family at all. Am I just a replacement for Jenny, scheming to stay in a world that doesn't want me? Am I foil for Dan, the Ultimate Insider? Am I here to justify having Max show up? I will soon be inducted into Nate's storyline, it seems. That should go well."
Trip, Juliet, Countess Catherine aka "Diana Payne 1.0," That Godawful Bree Buckley, Sperglord Raina Thorpe: "Yeah, historically it's been a fucking blast."
Dan: "You know that scathing satire everybody's talking about and how the person that wrote it is the voice of a generation and could well be the Bret Ellis only gayer?"
Blair: "Um, I know some fucking loser wrote a book about us instead of having a life."
Dan, donning a Guy Fawkes mask and throwing smoke bombs around the place: "It is I! I am that loser! For I am Anonymous!"
Everybody, quite calmly: "Well. That's fairly characteristic of you."
Gossip Girl: "Looks like it's going to be a hot time in this old town tonight! Let's just hope Lonelyboy and his book don't go up in flames! Get it? Temperature!"
Lily: Lols, continues to read the scathing satire.
INSIDE
"Nate," said Hot Dude, "I'm tired of waiting." Brothaniel Snarchibald shook his forelock and licked his pillowy lips. "Hot Dude, I will totally tell everybody we are gay on each other's knobs all the time. First let me fix your tie." He yanked on it like he wanted to break it off. "I am emotionally needy! Put us on blast, Brothaniel Snarchibald!" Brothaniel thought about it, kind of. He remembered that time Jenny outed Hot Dude at that scary children's tea party, while Finger Eleven were playing. He remembered that time Persephone scathingly threw yogurt at Hot Dude's vintage mobster costume. He remembered that time that Hot Dude accepted him back, even after he'd totally become Damien Dalgaard's catamite for the reason of drugs. They had been through so much together, Brothaniel Snarchibald and Hot Dude. If they could live through a big gay threesome with Charlie Trout, surely they could weather the storm of being put on blast. Brothaniel nodded scathingly. "But first, I will do you real good. Gay style."
PRADA
Nate: "Lily, what's so funny? You know I'm not good at picture-talk. Letters and sums."
Chuck: "You should ask Dan."
Nate: "Dan, what's so funny?"
Dan: "You are gay in the book."
Nate: "And?"
Dan: "And Lily thinks that's funny."
Nate: "Do I at least have game?"
Dan: "Um, you are so hot in the book I could barely think while writing your gay sex scenes with everybody. Easily 65% of the book is you having graphically described sex with dudes. So you tell me, Nate. You tell me."
Blair & Serena: "We are cool with that. And secretly, we are more than cool with that."
Rufus: "Daniel, this is the best book I have ever read. It is also the first. I have also not yet read it. I am going to make it some waffles. You, and this book, are my world now."
Dan: "Dad, read the book first. I'm fairly certain it is a scathing satire of what a useless pussy you are."
Rufus: "Dude, my life is a scathing satire about that. No worries."
Blair: "God, I'm so in love with Dan Humphrey that it just queefs out in bitchiness sometimes. Serena, can we go drink coffee together and talk about my many problems? I'll have decaf. That is a clue."
Serena: "I have to go back to work and work some more because I work all the time, sending odd gifts to strangers and drinking nut beverages and trusting my delicious coworker Sam not to burn me, despite every other experience I've ever had in my lifetime."
Serena, sealing her own fate: "If this is about the book, don't worry. Everyone loves a villain!"
Serena, literally doing the watusi on top of her pedestal: "Every girl needs to be knocked off her pedestal a little!"
Dan: "Okay, remember that ludicrous plotline where an excerpt from the book that was being published without my consent was going to be published without my consent, so I got Prince Louis to kill the story for some nonsensical reason, and that nearly ended your relationship for other nonsensical reasons?"
Blair: "Dan, I don't care about any of this. I'm not reading the book. I like that we're friends, I don't need to read some bloviating Game Of Thrones mess about what an asshole I am."
Dan: "...That is not at all the reason, but it will suffice. Sins of omission are my stock in trade, because I am gormless and barely a man."
Blair: "Also, I am not coming to the big party at the end of the episode because we're telling our parents how I have been embarrassed with pregnancy, but having said that, I will totally be at the big party at the end of the episode, because have you ever seen this show."
Dan: "I simultaneously look forward and do not look forward to your simultaneous regrets and attendance."
Blair, awesome: "Your novel seems to be, uh, very well-punctuated, and I liked the font."
Ivy: "A whole book written about y'all! Gosh, Ah was just excited to see a envelope with mah name on it, 'steada just THE HOLLER."
Nate: "Please don't sit so close to me. You are kind of the worst. Plus, you role-played your own cousin while having sex on a desk. I am the only person who gets to do that."
Ivy: "So tell me more about this Ivy. You stole her phone, I presume?"
Nate: "Yeah, at the Jenny Packham show where there was fashion."
Ivy: "Because I met a girl named Ivy near that same fashion."
Nate: "What was she like?"
Ivy: "A desperate fraud, who never felt comfortable in her own skin. An aspiring actress, willing to take a chance. A lover, a wisher and a dreamer of dreams, who saw her chance to retell the story of her life, and took it. Though it meant giving up the love of a good man, and her own identity, in the end she was seduced. Everything sparkles here, Nate. Everything."
INSIDE
She could barely see her feet over her enormous boobs, but she knew what they were wearing: Only the best. She was high on a bunch of drugs that night, like usual. It was a real rum-tum-tigger, as they say: Fuck your best friend's boyfriend in public at a wedding, run off into the night without pants, meet for a quick videotaped threesome, slip a hotshot to a drug addict, cry black tears until you look like the Burger King. Same old same old, for the whore we know as Sabrina. Somebody needed to teach her a lesson. Somebody needed to get her under control. She wouldn't be anyone until she'd learned shame, and Dylan Hunter was an expert in shame and self-loathing of all kinds. And then they could be together. And it would be so awesome, because they would be in love. And she would be redeemed. And Dylan Hunter would have friends besides his dad.
BETTINGER
Sam: "I am loving this book about this blonde whore that steals a boat in Santorini."
Serena: "That is so funny, guess why."
Sam: "Oh, I hadn't connected the easily connected dots that are the selling point of this novel, sorry. Gotcha, awesome. Girl, you are such a slut in this book! I love it!"
Serena: "Yeah, probably at the beginning. I was kinda slutty, or at least that's what Dan always tried to make me think. But later on I evened out, kinda."
Sam: "Don't lie to me, you whore! I love it!"
Serena: "Um, just keep reading. Dan's like my best friend, after Blair. I'm sure he fixes it at some point."
Sam: "Yeah, if by 'fixes it' you mean 'gets some backdoor action with the whore that is you!'"
My Left Shoemaker: Totally into this Blue Rose thing, of course, which makes Sam resent and meangirl Serena even more than before.
Sam: "Just like Dylan Hunter says! The world is your oyster and your boobs are the oyster knife."
Serena: "He really said that?"
Sam: "It's less purple prose, and more ultraviolet? I'm getting a tan reading it. Just like you that time you stole a horse and fucked Charter Blazin' in the woods in front of a vicar."
Serena: "Okay, that's fairly recent, timewise. How close to the end are you?"
Sam: "Charlie's about to choke out tugging his trout. It's super moody."
INSIDE
And was it worth it, after all? All the drugs, the girls, Brothaniel on his knees and a monkey named Doggie, could he say goodbye to all of that just because his dad was an emotional torturer and his mother was several different con artists at once? Ever since he got molested by that nanny, he was constantly raping people, including nannies. But sexual assault didn't bring the thrill anymore to Charlie Trout that it once had. After broken-leg amnesia sex with a French prostitute under an assumed name, nothing could reach that high again. Not since Uncle Mack pretty much molested him throughout his adolescence had he felt so powerless. It was the kind of emptiness not even bartering sexual favors for real estate could fill. He needed the ultimate high. He needed Dylan Hunter, but mostly he needed the ultimate high. Maybe then he would feel something.
Maybe what he would feel is oxygen deprivation increasing the intensity of his orgasm.
WALDORF
Blair: "Just to prove how French my baby is, I'm going to name it Pierre."
Louis: "Why not call it Charles? After Charles de Gaulle, who invented flight?"
Blair: "The fuck?"
Louis: "I saw you in ze Gossip Girls. You were at Central Park with a dog named Monkey... And your lover, Charles! J'accuse!"
Blair: "Um, we were going to a family meeting? I already told him I was pregnant, that's not what it was about. I needed to tell Serena. But then Dan got all Dan on everybody."
Louis: "He writes zis book! Ze story must not see print!"
Blair: "Mmkay, here's the thing about Dan. He isn't a writer so much as a diarist with an inflamed sense of self. He is incapable of writing fiction. Even the gay stuff. So yeah, it's going to be brutal. It's going to be me being scathing at the Met steps. Me scathing him to Serena. Me scathing the shit out of his sister. Two-way scathing at W. I will not be unscathed, but whatever. It's all true. I'm kind of a miserable person."
Louis: "Yes. Very comfortings."
SPECTATOR
Nate: "Ivy, look at these FLASHY new photos of people at the NUTRITIONAL Jenny Packham story and see if you can find any BARELY LEGAL people named Ivy."
Payne: "Who is this fucking child and why is she in our business office that still contains no staff of any kind? If you are not out of here before I count five, I will tear your face off and use it as an undergarment."
Ivy: "I was trying to help you, but I guess I'll leave now."
Nate: "Diana, this is Serena's MINDBLOWING cousin, Charlie Rhodes. She has THROBBING facial recognition skills."
Ivy: "It was really nice to meet and then be horribly mistreated by you, Diana Payne. I can see why you're such a successful whatever-the-fuck-you-are."
INSIDE
"Charlie, I just want to make you feel something. I've never felt closer to another man than I do right now, and I want to share that with you. I want to make you feel good. Like I feel, right now. But you." Charlie offered Dylan some scotch and checked the clock. Brothaniel would be home soon, and there was no way they could distract him with the dog twice.
"Dylan, it is really scathing to be here, getting the emotional handjob of the century from you, but I'm afraid I'm more of a physical personality. Less of this intellectual mumbo-jumbo, or you'll never get what you want." Dylan nodded, trembling. He knew he mustn't seem to eager, but he'd played out this scene a million times in his head before. He knew what came .
"The way to some men's hearts is through music and movies and literature," Charlie continued, drawing his finger along the leather of his club chair. The scent of scotch and cigars was heavy in the air. "That's you, Hunter. Hipster associations and self-labeling. But for some of us it's a little more visceral. A little less..."
He paused, running his hand down the lapel of the tux he'd put on when they started drinking, around 2 PM. "A little less conversation, you might say. Stop whining." Dylan put his drink down with a quiet clink, and stood. Charlie nodded, with a smile. But he didn't move. Not quite yet.
"Don't leave me hanging, man," Dylan almost whispered.
"I'm rather enjoying it," Charlie said, with a grin. "Watching you squirm..."
EMPIRE
Dan: "Thanks for letting me hang here, man."
Chuck: "I'm rather enjoying watching you squirm."
Chuck: "Scotch?"
Dan: "It's like 2 PM!"
Chuck: "Valium?"
Dan: "I'm guessing my dad is probably halfway through, and Nate's probably still on page 20. I wonder if they're gonna be upset with me. I'm harshest on myself, I hope they can see that..."
Chuck: "Come here, buddy. Stop whining."
Dan: "And I'm also sorry I made you masturbate yourself to death in the closet. It was important to eliminate all of Blair's suitors so that I could still fuck it up completely on my own merits. That's the Scott Pilgrim thing to do."
Chuck: "As a metaphor it's sound. I liked the parts where we do it all over the place too, but I didn't mind the autoerotic asphyxiation. Everything sparkles when you're bitin' the lemon, Humphrey."
Chuck: "...Besides, it's probably the truest-to-character metaphor of anyone in the book. Although I wouldn't have used the belt, I'd use a Shahtoosh scarf... Like this one here. See how soft? Around your neck like this, see? Cashmere. Luxury isn't just about price, it's about what you're paying for. Quality. And now you're feeling it, across your skin. There's so much left to teach you."
Dan: "We are a couple of trainwrecks right now."
WALDORF
Louis: "While you were taking a nap I read this whole book, despite barely being able to speak English."
Blair: "Uh oh. And how did you find it?"
Louis: "C'est un dizzying tour de force of white-hot homoeroticism."
Blair: "Saw that one coming. How are your relatives?"
Louis: "They have died in a hurricane and are no longer coming to dinner. So why don't you go to Dan's book party since you are in love with him?"
Blair: "Louis, when the fuck are you going to cut this out?"
Louis: "If every other episode is any kind of guide, in the fifth act. I'll be lurking around while you discuss your problems with somebody, and then jump out like a monster and forgive you for not doing anything wrong, like usual."
Blair: "It's a date."
Blair: "Dorota! Louis just lied to me that his mother and sister died in a hurricane! He's mad and I don't know why this time."
Dorota: "Maybe it because of book he read, like he just tell you it is."
Blair: "Then that's on him. I told him not to read that shit."
(She opens it up to where the binding naturally cracks open, because Louis can't get enough of this book, but it's just more Nate doing dudes. A few pages later, and she sees the horrible scene that has sent Louis off the deep end this time.)
Blair: "OMG, I am going to kill Dan Humphrey! This nuanced love letter to a time we never could have had together makes me feel worse than that time I traded my body for a hotel and wasn't accountable for my own choices."
Dorota: "Well sure. That just feminism. Woman never make her own decisions. This is future progress."
ARMANI
Alessandra, for real: "The literary world is saying yes to you!"
Dan: "They are saying yes to Anonymous. To me, they are irritated as usual."
Alessandra: "I can't wait to figure out which characters are which, even though I already know that."
Dan: "Just one reason I invited all the characters to this party, so that everybody can do that. I'm happiest in a freak show. At least Blair isn't coming."
Alessandra: "Oh, but she is. Blair Waldorf. No +1, which is odd, but she did draw in a picture of herself stabbing you over and over."
BETTINGER
Sam: "My ex in Scott Rudin's office called. The Gay Mafia is alive and well on both coasts. Everyone is talking about your character in the book, just like real life, so I told him for sure it was you. Is that okay?"
Serena: "I'm just happy to play a part in disposable literary history. And of course to support Dan. And of course to support people talking about me all the time."
Sam: "Dylan Hunter is right! You are the worst!"
Serena: "That seems really important that you said that just now."
Jane: "I am so hungry because of this liquid diet I am on! Untrained Intern Serena, get over here on this conference call with My Left Foot and his people."
DDL People: "My Left Foot can't be in your movie, because an unrelated project that hasn't even been acquired yet may somehow one day exist, and your intern's life -- which we all know the details of already because that's the point of this entire show -- has put him off his porridge."
Sam, verbatim: "DDL is notoriously anti-anything scene-y..."
Jane: "What are you talking about?"
Sam: "Serena is in the book, as this totally shallow, self-obsessed party girl."
Jane: "No, I mean what's with the lingo? 'DDL'? Are you like his friend, calling him that? And what the fuck is 'scene-y'?"
Sam: "Even after twenty-five years as a gay man, I still have no idea what 'the scene' means. I don't think anybody does, I just know we don't want it in our future boyfriends."
Serena, verbatim: "Aren't you being a little reductive?"
Jane & Sam: Stare, gapemouthed.
Serena: "Yes, I know that word. And yes, I am using it in the proper context."
DDL People: "Anyway, for no reason we are interested in telling you, DDL is out. Sorry, Sabrina."
Sam: "Did he just say 'Sabrina'? Implying that this really is about the book?"
EMPIRE
Chuck: "Did you spend extra time doing your hair tonight, Nathaniel?"
Nate, giggling: "I don't mind that Dan made me gay. That is nothing new, my friend."
Chuck: "Girl, I know. Actually, I was a little offended he didn't make me gay. In the original books I was the only guy he slept with. Personally, I thought you'd be more mad that he conflated you with Eric van der Woodsen."
Skirrrrch.
Nate: "He did what? What do you mean conflated?"
Chuck: "Brothaniel is two years younger than the rest of us, and BFF with Jennither. Really, you're only him to the extent of lacrosse and Anderson Cooper."
Nate: "No, I mean what does the word conflated mean?"
Chuck: "You and Eric are one person now."
Nate: "Aye, me. 'Brothaniel.' Truly it was right before my eyes, all along."
INSIDE
Clair backed up against the piano, spitting, "I've never hated anyone more! Every nerve ending in my body is electrified! By hatred!"
Dylan had seen worse. "There's a fiery pit of hate burning inside me. Ready to explode."
And so they did, electric nerves and exploding pits. A Crazytown sex-romp boogaloo, with her up on the piano and then he was hanging from a chandelier with a rose between his teeth and then she was strangling him with a Shatoosh scarf and then he ran an ice cube all over her ass cheeks while they watched Italian cinema and she slapped him with a wet noodle and then they ate the noodle and then they held hands and spun in a circle faster and faster until they almost fell down due to the throbbing centripetal pressure, the explody heat and nervy electricity of it all, and then Clair rode Dylan around like a pony, like a tiny pony, and she rolled into a big ball and he was a small ball and they rolled around pretending to be a sexy naked pennyfarthing and then he put on a top hat and a fake mustache and they did it all the same way again, but reverse, and all the bowties were tied and Madeleine Albright was scandalized and they were exhausted, spent, under the piano having to rehydrate, with Bolly and Pellegrino.
"Your body is a wonderland, Hunter," she gasped.
"Putting it to you like a jackhammer was very romantic emotionally," Dylan said. "Also I have ejaculated everywhere, because of my virility."
WALDORF
Blair: "This is a very, very good book."
ANONYMOUS
Alessandra: "Why are you at this party so early?"
Dan: "It's a party for me, right? I haven't felt this much like the center of attention since Vanessa Abrams left."
Alessandra: "Well, the whole point is unmasking Anonymous, so if you're standing around in the middle of this party of classy people who are better than you, they will figure it out. Go hide in the pantry."
INSIDE
Sabrina was so distracted by thoughts of herself that even if she could've seen the young man over her enormous boobs, she wouldn't have cared. She was that kind of dame: A steamroller of sex and addiction and sandalwood and patchouli that she mixed herself. She could tell from the jacket lining of her latest victim that he wasn't worth a second look, so she just kicked him once in the kidney and kept right on walking. She had best friends to annihilate, and innocent Brooklynite souls to wager... Until he offered to buy her a drink. Then she was his for the night.
BETTINGER
Serena is so distracted by thoughts of herself that even if she could see the young man over her enormous boobs, she wouldn't care. She's that kind of dame: A steamroller of sex and addiction and sandalwood and patchouli that she mixes herself. She can tell from the jacket lining of her latest victim that he ain't worth a second look, so she kicks him once in the kidney and keeps right on walking. She has best friends to annihilate, and innocent Brooklynite souls to wager. The gorgeous guest star never had a chance. Not tonight.
ANONYMOUS
Lily: "I am so sorry Nate couldn't come!"
Chuck: "Not as sorry as Dan's going to be. He hates it when we don't perform."
Rufus: "Where is that asshole son of mine? I can't wait to cringingly support him and then pull the rug out later."
Lily: "I'm just glad that little swot knows what side his bread's buttered on. No way he's going to risk all this just to paint me as some kind of frigid, manipulative, selfish mother like everybody else always does."
Alessandra: "Hi, I'm Alessandra, Dan's agent! I hope you don't think I'm going to be one of those agents that works all the time! I'm not like a regular agent, I'm a cool agent. I can't wait to talk to each of you at length about your personal problems, one by one."
Sloane Crosley: "I am literally just here to be adorable for a second."
Alessandra: "She wrote the excellent I Was Told There'd Be Cake, but the followup didn't do quite as well, even though it's great. There's a story about Alaska in there that equals or betters the stuff in the first book alone."
Sloane Crosley: "Yeah, I'm not really worried about any of that? I just want some cake."
(She peaces, to find cake. It is odd and cute. Later on somebody drops a deuce on the bathroom floor and Sloane Crosley admits that everywhere she goes now, people do that, because hipsters think they're so goddamn funny.)
Alessandra: "And you must be Mr. Charlie Trout. Can I crawl up your entire asshole about your personal problems?"
Chuck: "Sure. I'm unguarded and affable, as a rule."
Alessandra: "What I liked about you was that your whole story was super sad, not just the part where you died of strangulation and nobody cared."
Chuck: "I have plenty of staff, they would have found me immediately. 'Tis only a fiction, my dear."
Alessandra: "Staff? Not friends or family? Makes it even worse."
Chuck: Suddenly feels dreadfully alone because of this random person saying that and his whole life changes immediately.
Ivy: "Who could be calling me? I hope it's not a tricksy mogul."
Payne: "Hey, is Ivy Dickens there?"
Ivy: "That's me. 'Sharp' was already taken, so that's a fine surname for me."
Payne: "Gotcha!"
Ivy: "Oh uh, I mean, No! This is Charlie Rhodes, and I am having a mental illness. Please notify my caregivers."
Payne: "Nope, now I own you forever."
Ivy: "The think about identity theft is that it is always motherfucking something."
Blair & Serena: "Can you believe what Dan wrote about me? No, because I only read the parts about myself. Well, let me fill you in. First I will fill you in. No, I don't really care. Let's find Dan and crucify him in the literary sense."
Dan: "Nate, please pick up the phone. I'm sorry I conflated you."
Nate: "You conflated me!"
Dan: "I know, and I'm sorry. But PS, I killed Chuck and fucked Blair also. So get some perspective."
Nate: "Oh, I bet Brothaniel has perspective. I bet Brothaniel just loves acting totally normal about inconsequential shit like this. Well, why don't you just marry Brothaniel?"
Dan: "Come on. You're barely on this show. Is there one bit of evidence that you could carry a storyline by yourself?"
Nate: "Hey! That is really mean. Why don't you just conflate yourself and fuck while you're at it?"
Blair & Serena: "What you did to Nate was pretty bad, but if it's possible what you did to us was worse! I could lose my job or my fiancé! Because you called me flighty or fucked me!"
Dan: "I didn't fuck Blair. I'm sorry, I'm the worst..."
Louis, appearing from the shadows like the total creeper he always is: "You slept with Lonelyboy! I knew it from that book where I read it, and also this story that was excerpted! And so I cannot love you!"
Rufus & Lily: "Everybody crowd into this picture and pretend we love each other!"
Everybody: "Cheese!"
Blair: "You had better hope I can stop your fantasy life from destroying my real one."
Dan: "Blair, I never wanted us to come between you two..."
Serena: "Um, 'us'?"
Blair: "God! When are you gonna get it through your head? There's no us, there never was! There's nothing here but friendship -- and even that's gone now."
She bounces, leaving him with Serena, who has that Serena Look on her face that says he better come up with something shiny or else Santigold will start playing, and then everybody burns.
SPECTATOR
Ivy: "Hellloooo? Stalker mogul blackmailer?"
Payne: "No big deal, I was just watching celebrity news for the most scandalous developments in the lives of the Upper East Side elite. That's most of my job, watching TV and acting weird about everything."
Ivy: "So like why did you call me?"
Payne: "I utilized Bing to find out where you are from and who you are. And now I am going to threaten you for no clear purpose."
Ivy: "Okay, here's the story in a nutshell. Serena's aunt, Carol Rhodes, paid me to impersonate her daughter Charlie so she could access her trust fund. It worked, and I took the money and went back to my real life, only Serena found me and dragged me back here. With Max as the only remnant of the half-life I half-left behind."
Payne: "Like you ... Can't just leave? Are you sure that's how that went down?"
Ivy: "It doesn't really make that much sense. But now, I am trapped. Everything sparkles here, Diana. I don't know how else to explain it."
Payne: "Okay, well, you are a ticking time bomb which means when I finally fuck all of this up, you can take the fall. Let's be friends, okay?"
Ivy: "Once again, I am going to make the dumbest possible decision. You're on!"
OUTSIDE
Chuck: "Oh, Christ. What is it this time, Louis? Did you see her on Gossip Girl talking to the mailman? Did she eat two macarons but say she'd had three? What, did she tell you Dorota was prone to gas? Guess what, that's not Dorota."
Louis: [However you say "This scene is so all about Chuck that my lack of a personality barely registers."]
Chuck: "If you read Dan's book, you know how I turn out. You have a chance at having love in your life, not ending up alone, hanging in a closet. Don't give up on your own fact over someone else's fiction."
Louis: "[Tiny rapist leprechaun homosexuel, sometimes you talk like La Gossip Girl.]"
Chuck: "Nevertheless."
ANONYMOUS
Serena: "So if you just think I'm this dumb whore anyway, why were you so controlling and judgmental throughout the entirety of high school?"
Dan: "It's not like you're really a person, Serena. Don't be mad just because I use you as a repository of my own faults and wishes and then condemn you for not living up to my fantasy."
Serena: "That is the story of my life, but reading it in words really hurt. I thought that doing what you said would make me a better person, and it has. But what is that worth when you won't continue to validate it for me?"
Dan: "Because it's not about you, Serena. It never was. As usual, it is about me."
Serena: "Explain further."
Dan: "Dylan Hunter is a judgmental dick who can't even look at himself in the mirror. My character comes off the worst of all of them. He puts off his writing, he misses job interviews, he ignores his grades. And why? Because he cares more for a pretty blonde than he does his own future, and in the end, none of his friends are happy for his success. They all turn their backs on him, and he deserves it."
Serena: "Wow, you really don't think much of women at all, do you?"
Dan: "There has never been a point at which I wasn't making that abundantly clear. I'm just the cutest guy on the show, so you overlooked it because you identify with Blair and you want me to marry her-slash-you and kiss her-slash-you forever and ever, and have that be the entire show. Which, speaking of..."
Serena: "No, Dan. I'm really upset."
Dan: "I don't care. See how that works?"
Dan: "Plus, Blair's in trouble, and since she has no accountability whatsoever, I have to save her from her own decisions again. Just one of the many paternalistic favors I don't have to do for you anymore."
Serena: "You have ruined both of our lives, potentially, but I guess I see where you're headed with this."
Dan: "If you don't understand that my feelings and Blair's fake marriage are more important than your self-image and career, maybe you're just the drunk whore I said you were, over and over."
Serena: "That sounds exactly like something Dylan Hunter would say."
Dan: "Um, yeah. You know why that is, right? Do I have to explain the whole thing again?"
Then, that scene with all the people from the beginning of the episode, only it is real.
WALDORF
Serena: "Okay, Blair. I have time to hear about your constant problems now."
Blair: "They haven't changed. I mean, they have, but it took you so long to get back to me that they've come back around to the configuration. Also, I am knocked up."
Serena: "Whose baby is it!?"
Blair: "You... Obviously it is Louis's."
Serena, whispering: "Why did you wink when you said that?"
Blair: "He is everywhere."
Louis, jumping out randomly: "Blair! I forgives you! We are back in love some more!"
PRADA
Chuck: "Lily, I got me a case of the Horribles. The things that underemployed literary agent said to me -- where she related the facts of the book that I'd already read -- really made me stop and think."
Lily: "Chuck, I'm just glad to see you. You're still the only person on this show that I actually like. Now let's turn that frown upside-down, or at least as close as that bizarre mug of yours can go."
Chuck: "I'm all alone and I don't like it. To be more specific, I don't want to be the unrepentant bad boy who no one cares lives or dies."
Lily: "It's just a book, Charles."
Chuck: "No, it isn't, though."
Lily: "People love you very deeply, if you will let them."
Chuck: "Blair is lost to me."
Lily: "I know. I'm sorry. But I was actually talking about me. And my son Daniel, who is obsessed with you in every possible way. And Nate, who is kind of like your Rufus in that you actually pay him to live with you and be your boy-wife. Honestly, it's a pretty sweet setup you've got going."
Chuck: "Is that everybody?"
Lily: "Well, we're the only people you haven't raped on this entire show."
SPECTATOR
Payne: "Hey! How was the party?"
Nate: "I cannot read, but I heard he conflated me with his adorable little gay brother, and I got skeeved."
Payne: "I will continue to isolate you from friends and family while drawing you and Ivy ever deeper into my web. Meet our new Other Person That Works Here."
Nate: "Charlie? But what kind of work can you do?"
Ivy: "I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, Snarchibald. I can do whatever it takes. Watch TV, act weird about, yell words like SCANDALOUS and CUCKOLD. Whatever it takes to prove myself to Mistress Payne."
Nate: "I feel like this is getting weird."
Payne: "It is going to get so weird, dude."
DUMBO
Dan: "Hey, Dad! Listen while I read these preposterous reviews for my book that apparently got released. Your son is the potential voice of his generation, who wrote a searing portrayal of Manhattan's elite with just the right portion of pathos. And so on."
Rufus: "You know what has a surfeit of pathos? Me. The surprise dwarf with a knife that you never saw coming."
Dan: "Howsoever do you mean? I thought I didn't have to apologize to you. I checked you off my list of self-justifications."
Rufus: "You're a beautiful writer, but you have broken my heart."
Dan: "That's good stuff. Would you go on the record? Beautiful writer, but..."
Rufus: "I gave up my career to raise you, and I never regretted it. Not once. Not even when Jenny crapped the bed and started wearing broken glass on her head and ruining gallery openings and setting her shit on fire and dosing people and hanging out with drug dealers and having sex with your brother Chuck and pissing off Tim Gunn and eventually getting shipped to Pretend England so we didn't have to deal with her anymore. Not even then did I regret, one single time, the fact that your wizened harpy of a bitch mother shit the two of you out to keep me away from Lily and all that high-class poon. But today, I am ashamed. Ashamed of you, and of myself. You, for writing the truth about me. And me, for that being the truth about us both."
BETTINGER
Jane: "Serena, make friends with Dan Humphrey and get me the movie rights to this book. Scathing satire and white-hot homoeroticism are what it's all about these days, and Momma wants a piece. I don't care what you have to do to get it."
Serena: "It's not like I have a reputation to think about. You're on."
Sam: "I'll be sexily sabotaging you every step of the way!"
Jane: "I'm just glad it finally makes sense why they cast Michael Michelle in this role."
OUTSIDE
"What many casual readers find difficult to understand on first reading is the way in which each of the characters does double-duty, representing at times different facets of Dylan Hunter himself. As the suspenseful final chapters play out, and each of them is destroyed in different ways through the act of being observed itself, we are left with the diamond-clear vision of Anonymous himself, stripped of all connection and all the approximate meaning of those he held dear throughout the narrative..."
Blair's arms around Louis, with a sleepy smile on her face, can't feel the look on his. The way he stares at the wall. (Nate slept just this peacefully, once, and never knew Blair was already leaving him.)
"What was once a symphony of compassion and intimacy, a cacophony of meaning and synthesis, at the last resolves itself to a single low bassoon note. Charlie Trout's death prefigures Hunter's own inability to rewrite his narrative in time to preserve those connections, and on the last day, we find that the "Ultimate Insider" has, through the attempt to preserve his self-image above all reproach -- even interrogating himself, in a Rothian move that proves ultimately ungenerative and masturbatory, a disingenuous swipe at self-effacing humility that serves only to mythologize Hunter's persona more -- become a "Lonely Boy" in truth, on both sides of the screen."
Chuck is grateful for Lily, and grateful for the time alone -- Nate's at the Spectator, barely noticing the strange looks Ivy and Diana keep giving each other -- to think about his loneliness and how best to resolve it, before it's too late.
"...This young man so intent upon capturing and searching behind the images of those that surround him is, in the end, so entranced by his own image that he cannot move. A modern-day Narcissus, he can no more notice how alone he has become than he has the means to stop it, to return, to find them again and come home. The irony, when juxtaposed with peripatetic Sabrina, seems both explicit and harsh -- the girl who is always coming home, the girl whose homecoming provides pretext for the journey of Hunter's own transformation; whose own transformation, and more to the point the purposeful rewriting, one could easily say, of her own scattered narrative -- provides at least for this reviewer a hopeful inkling of ways, beyond the page, Hunter's humbling and redemption might eventually be accomplished."
But for now, when Alessandra calls, and tells him the Union Square Barnes & Noble reading is filling up, Dan doesn't need to put any names on the door. He'll be inside, alone. He's outside, alone. On either side of the page he's all that's left, ultimately.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, Pretty Little Liars and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, most recently A Friday Night Lights Companion and Fringe Science.