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Blair's big story this week, besides her bushy orange eyebrows, is a minion-off to determine her bridesmaids, although nothing much really happens there. Mostly it's a way to bring up the fact that Blair is or was once a schemer, while Louis is not... So that he can then ironically turn heel. But since it's Louis, he does it in a half-assed way that ends up mostly screwing over Louis and Louis alone.
Having found the paternity test, Louis tries to get that therapist lady to turn Chuck back into a monster so that Blair won't go back to him. But Chuck's dedication to his own personal development is such that she ends up reneging on her deal with Louis -- and sinking her own practice in the doing. In the end, Chuck visits Blair to apologize for every single thing he's ever done wrong -- it's pretty neat, actually -- while Louis has made himself look pretty awful, so I guess both dudes are back in play. Which sucks, because Blair's still pregnant and running out of options, stuck between the two guys who most hate for her to have options.
Much more interesting is, get this, the Serena/Dan plot. Serena runs interference between her boss and Dan, eventually getting him to step down as the screenwriter for Jane's adaptation. When she learns that Jane plans on hiring Sorkin to make the story a Zuckerbergian attack on Dan himself, Serena selects the nuclear option, using Jane's history with Diana Payne to get the film cancelled altogether. Dan drops off the bestseller list after a single week, and Serena agrees to blog for Diana herself, as a sort of antidote to Gossip Girl and the general surveillance and celebrity that have always hounded her. We'll see how well that goes, I guess. Meanwhile, nice scrunchie.
So right on track, Nate's feeling that feeling he feels after six or seven episodes with every cougar, and suddenly starts wanting to be recognized for being her secret boyfriend. Payne negotiates around him fairly well, but when Ivy suddenly finds herself in the running for Blair's bridesmaid, Nate finds out just how well Payne's been keeping him in the dark, and goes nuts. By the end, she's gone public with their relationship as an alpha move against Ivy, whom has apparently developed sudden feelings for him.
All in all, a very "moving the pieces around" kind of episode, setting up Chuck's ongoing redemption and continuing the Chuck/Louis shell game that will no doubt lead directly to Dan when you least expect it; giving Serena power over her own image for the first time in the show's history; turning Nate into the Serena and giving Blair something to do besides flout royal convention and ping-pong back and forth with Louis every episode.
week: Sleep No More gives us this season's masked-ball episode -- always a favorite -- and Blair maybe loses a little bit more of her mind, while Serena gets her blog on and Dan decides what to do with the wreckage that was his five-minute literary career while Rufus wets the carpet in sheer pleasure at his failure.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!This morning: Waldorf is holding bridesmaids tryouts among her minions, Payne's adding herself to Nate's "to-do list" if you know what she means, Chuck is in therapy and Dan has debuted at No. 9 on the NYT bestseller list.
Dan: "What did, uh, Lincoln Hawk's first single debut at?"
Rufus: "Eight. Ah, but don't pay too much attention to that stuff. That was the '90s!"
Dan: "It's all I can think about."
Rufus: "It is also all I can think about."
SPECTATOR
Nate & Payne: "[Innuendos about doing it.]"
Nate: "Can I be your date to the big party at the end of the episode?"
Diana: "What?"
Nate: "You know how on this show there's always a..."
Diana: "No, I mean what? You're a teenager. I would be a laughingstock. I know you think cougars are hot so you don't understand the pressure we're under, but there's a reason Elizabeth Hurley is so rich and it's not because makeup companies like making women feel great about their looks. Me dating you is like Eric van der Woodsen dating a Republican congressman."
Nate: "Look, I just follow the script. And for me, that means that in the sixth episode of a relationship, I start whining about being more than a pretty face. Then you surprise me that you're fucking your stepson, or you sell me to a..."
Diana: "Nate, I don't have time for it. You talk too slow."
Nate: "Can I at least tell my friends?"
Diana: "First, take a bunch of iPads around as invitation gifts. I have funny ideas about running a business. Under no circumstances should you and Ivy switch lists about who delivers which iPads."
Nate & Ivy: "That sounds like a ridiculous plot device that exists only to cause drama in the fourth act."
Diana: "That is actually my middle name. Diana Human Plot Device Payne. I am part iPad, part ocelot."
Ivy: "I knew I shouldn't have worn heels today. To my job."
BARNES
Chuck: "The dream starts the same every time."
Barnes: "They have a habit of doing that."
(What?)
Problem No. 1 with writing therapy scenes: They are goddamn boring.
Problem No. 2: If you don't have like a passing acquaintance with psychology or analytic techniques, people say random meaningless shit like that. Do they, bitch? Do dreams "have a habit" of starting the same every time? No, they don't. And if they did, it wouldn't work like this. And if it did, it wouldn't end like this. Stop relying on tropes that were never true, and start thinking about your actual head and how it works, what it is like to be alive. You would think that a writer, being a person, could convincingly write about people. Not always the case. Not always. When you do this, you are taking bad writing and multiplying it by itself. You are Once Upon A Time-ing yourself when you do this.
Chuck: "I'm taking an early morning stroll in my new Berluti wingtips. I look up, and a block away is the most magnificent skyscraper I've ever seen. I have to get inside it, but every time I round the corner, it's still a block away."
It Is: Dan. It is Dan's penis. The skyscraper is his penis.
Problem No. 3: You might think you're just making up some random dream, but really you are saying something, and it's not about Chuck. Don't write about dreams and this won't happen. Any psych story, from The Cell to The Sopranos, requires a very precise and steady hand for this reason. You are unavoidably going to universalize your own shit, so you better have a good reason and a compass to sail by.
Barnes: "So what do you do?"
Chuck: "I start to run, but as soon as I reach it..."
Barnes: "-- You wake up."
Problem No. 4: "What do you think the dream is about? My father's tragic death? My mother's secret life? Or perhaps my chronic oral fixation? Is my sense of humor just a defense mechanism against intensive therapy?" Ugh.
Barnes: "I feel there's a piece of the puzzle still missing. It's not your mother or your father. There's someone you're not telling me about."
I guess that last one's okay because she's doing sneaky work for Louis when she says that, like using Blair to drive Chuck back to being crazy, but after that five-second cardboard analysis of him she did last week, that Tarot spread of a bullshit palm reading she did of the most lame possible readings you could have on his character, I don't know that it even matters trying to figure it out. Maybe if you go to therapy you could write better therapy scenes. Or just write better.
WALDORF
Blair comes to Louis and begs for a "special dispensation" so she can do some scheming and manipulating: Can he turn a blind eye for like 24 hours? Because she's a woman, that's how women work, the controlling scheming manipulative bitch just builds up and up inside until you can't take it any longer, so you better get permission now. Permission to act of your own volition, I mean. From your teenage fiancé. Who is currently scheming, which is the entire point of the scene: He's an angel and she's trash and he would never scheme but part of their love is him condescending to allow her to exist, so he does. How ironic when it turns out he is scheming too! How ironic and interesting that will be! I hope it gets swept under the carpet by the beginning of the episode. That will really make it awesome.
BETTINGER
Jane Bettinger is an old friend of Diana Payne's. Now that Lily has limped up the stairs at PRADA and only comes down for champagne at odd hours, we only have two women of any substance on this entire show, so it's good that they know each other, that could provide some interesting... Oh, you say it's only for this episode and scarcely matters or makes sense? I guess that's fine too.
Jane, verbatim: "Serena's my latest find. A month ago, her job was getting my director three shots over ice. Now I've got her optioning best sellers for me. I'm going to go get a tart cherry juice and call David O. Russell."
Serena points out how ridiculous this show is now: "It's such a small world! My good friend Nate Archibald actually works for you. And my cousin, Charlie Rhodes."
Diana says they've both been "instrumental" in helping her "rebrand" the Spectator, but we're just never going to find out how that is possible, given that they are both unemployable and seem mainly to spend their time in the office staring at things with gigantic eyeballs. She invites Serena to the Spectator launch party, and Serena says she can't attend for some reason, even though obviously it is the big party at the end of the episode.
Diana's Idea of a Segue: "Oh, but you should come to this party! Or else have a blog."
Serena: "I could never blog for a website about my details, because Gossip Girl already does that and it makes me feel weird about ... the Internet. Or something."
Diana: "See but if you were on the Internet talking about yourself, people would find that interesting -- I'm guessing -- because they already take passionate interest in somebody else talking about the details of your banal life."
Serena: "I don't get it still."
Diana: "Are you fuckin'... What's confusing you about this? Blogging. For a website. Do you not know what one or both of those words means?"
Serena: "Sorry, I could never take part in something like that."
Diana: "...Wait, what? Something like what?"
Serena: "Reading. Writing. I could never take part in something like that."
Diana: "Well, at least come to this party I already invited you to three times."
WALDORF
Minions returning: Kati and Penelope from Constance; Jessica, the overachieving blonde one from Columbia; oh, and that's it. Jessica kisses her some ass -- "Do yourself a favor and stop talking right now; even Pippa knew when to pipe down," Blair hisses -- and we revisit Nelly Yuki. Nelly Yuki, who apparently the whole punchline is her name because one time that was true. Nelly Yuki, who was never a minion and thus shouldn't be part of this conversation. Nelly Yuki, who got into Yale when Blair didn't, and obviously wouldn't be on this list. But hey, here's Cousin Peepers wandering into the house, cousin of the maid of honor and obviously a perfect replacement for Nelly Yuki in this contest.
Dear Diana, sorry but I can't do my job to day because I have to hang out being ritually abused by Blair Waldorf for zero reasons. Hopefully somebody will die during the Minion Wars. Hopefully it will be Penelope. Will send pix. XOXO, Cousin Peepers.
BARNES
Barnes: "Louis Grimaldi, His Serene Highness the Prince of Monaco! Why are you handing me an envelope of money in plain sight outside my place of business?"
Louis: "Dr. Barnes, who is a Manhattan therapist that barely blinked at tossing away Chuck's hundred grand, I am giving you this money to pay off your father's debts."
Barnes: "Thanks! I couldn't pay for those because I don't have any money. Besides all this money I totally have. Now, what can I do for you?"
Louis: "[Sometimes when he talks it is so gross. He's real cute and I feel bad saying it, but sometimes just words coming out of his mouth makes me want to fucking vomit. Maybe in French it sounds better, but his English sounds like somebody choking on oysters sometimes. Just a gullet full of oysters, slippin' and slidin' around.]"
Barnes: "Sure, I will turn Chuck back into a monster for you so I can have all this money that I already have. Hand it to me in public."
EMPIRE
Chuck: "Dr. Barnes, what are you doing here?"
Barnes: "A house call is a little out of the ordinary in my line..."
I'll stop you right there, because this whole thing is so stupid I don't even want to talk about it.
Sample dialogue: "I applaud your persistence, Dr. Barnes, but I've searched the far corners of my mind, and I'm not hiding anything, from you or myself. I'm an open book."
She tries to get him to talk about Blair, he's not interested, she says the "nightmares" are about him being in denial about this (half true!), blah blah, finally he cracks open some secret compartment or something and shows her the Harry Winston rock that got his ass murdered, and that's his big catharsis: He hasn't returned it to the store yet.
So could Barnes just take it, and donate it to charity or something? Or keep it and sell it and pay off her father's debts and get the fuck out of this offensively stupid storyline? That's what I would do. Sell that mother. But no, she's so blown away by him handing her this symbolic jewelry that suddenly she's like, "My father's debts be damned, I don't need Monaco's money, not at the price of this young man's soul. I told him Dan Humphrey's penis was Blair, but it's not. It's just the regular penis of a poor person."
Dear Prince of Monaco, I couldn't possibly misuse my therapeutic training to fuck up Chuck Bass's mind. Doctors don't work that way, psychology doesn't work that way, minds don't work that way. This is retarded, and thanks for playing. But on the other hand I wouldn't worry too much about it because I don't really think he's a romantic rival for you. Just give it a couple years, this shit will work itself out. The skyscraper is Dan Humphrey's penis. Love, Dr. Barnes.
BETTINGER
Serena's attempt at jocularity: "So Mr. Screenwriter, are you ready for your first ever development meeting?"
Dan's attempt at humor, maybe: "I think so, as long as you guys don't want to change the ending. Or the beginning. Or all the stuff in the middle."
Jane shows up with Natalie from WB and they talk about how they love, love everything about the novel and just want to change, change just a couple things, things, and turn it into hell. The ideas include "Open up the world of the Upper East Side a little bit more! Rich people are so hard to like. Maybe add someone more relatable?"
Serena and Dan are confused because they thought that Dan was the likeable and relatable person. Bless.
Serena: "He'll appeal to everyone! He starts off as an innocent from Brooklyn..."
Ladies: "--Who quotes Hawthorne and screens Fellini films? I don't think so."
ibid.: "A tragic backstory would give him more to overcome. Maybe he's an orphan?"
ibid.: "Wait, now another thought that occurred to me was to Glee this up."
For some reason this is the part that sends Dan around the bend. Not the part where he's a pretentious, privileged douchebag and they just said that to his face like eight times, no. So Dan.
WALDORF
Ugh. They have to fix these dresses on these mannequins while she yells at them, and Dorota is there doing her Dorota shit, and it's so fucking dumb.
n-1
Nate runs into a twitchy, sassy little twink that works for Keith Gessen, and in short order learns that Gessen's going to be Diana's date to Diana's party, and they've been dating for two months.
Sample dialogue, as he shows him Vulture: "Hello! I thought you worked in media?"
DUMBO
Serena shows up and tells Dan to waive his right to write the script, and because this is about actual development business, not writing, she explains the only thing this show has ever said that's even half right about it: If Dan writes it, it'll go draft, notes, recrimination, draft, notes, buzz dying the whole time, "And you'll never give them what they want, because you're too close to it, and that's not even the point: You should be focusing on your best seller." Then, the funniest thing in the entire episode: