It's A Fire

S05E09

Although it takes a while to heat up, I can honestly say this was the best episode of the season. A lot of the dragging, the annoying Blair Bear-bating, and the general Ivy/Louisness of it all goes into overdrive as Max takes a firm stance about Charlie's trust fund and the Rhodes Women circle the wagons in a fairly brilliant display of the passive-aggressive manipulation they do best. Meanwhile, Nate finds a classy way to deal with a sudden Tripp scandal, and Blair attempts to find the secret of Chuck's newfound awesomeness.

...Which wobbles the most, but ends up rocking the mic once she finds out that Chuck started getting healthy the night he dropped the ring off at Harry Winston. She assumes that this means she was always the darkness of him and not vice versa, but he's become so groovy that he explains she's wrong about that too. It's fairly devastating to watch play out -- the moment of the ring reveal leaves her looking like a wounded bird -- but mostly exciting for what it may engender down the road.

Nate's storyline is pretty simple: His editorial edict that the Spectator will be classy from now on is immediately threatened by a breaking story about Tripp's grody wife Maureen having an affair. Based on nothing much beyond his journalistic intuition -- which he now has in scads, of course -- Nate figures out she's just doing another Hudson Hero, this time throwing her own good name into the river to earn Tripp sympathy votes. Tempted to go first one way and then another, Nate eventually addresses the story by editorializing about a nameless person who tried to use the media in that way, and how his paper is better than that. William loves it, Nate gets love from everybody, and best of all we saw Tripp for a hot second.

Similarly, Dan's story is pretty self-contained: A wounded but not dead Gossip Girl herself continues to apologize for having become irrelevant last week, offering up one thin dime of a hot tip: Somebody online hates Dan. Which is ironic, because Dan's been online pretending to be somebody who loves Dan. In the end, the hater turns out to be his agent, Alessandra, herself -- doing some kind of viral endrun to get him relevant again. They flirt over endlessly tweeting love and hate about him -- his ideal date -- and end up getting him back to being famous, with even Katy Perry's seal of approval.

Most of it, though, is about those rascally, regal, redonkulous Rhodes Women. CeCe comes into town for some kind of disco-themed outing that never leaves PRADA, which is the good news, but the bad news is that she's brought her cancer with her: Once again, it is out of remission. The only person who figures that out is Ivy, which helps her pull off the grandest scheme of all: Using Max's suspicions and Serena's ire to make herself nearly unsinkably a Rhodes forevermore.

It's a twisty tale involving baking, cockblocking, Serena dumping Max, Max trying to out her to the whole clan at once, and a stolen high school playbill, but what really matters is the bizarre way that Aunt Carol and Ivy have the Charlie story down so pat that they're able to extemp entire fights about it at at the drop of a hat, bitch in character behind each other's backs, and get CeCe to crack the trust permanently... While also "exposing" Max as some kind of sex-tape blackmailer who is out of his damn mind. In the end, he calls her up with yet more threats, having turned completely evil, but she just tells him she's a real live Rhodes now, and he can suck it. And you kind of love her, finally.

There's just something about a good scam going down, especially when -- on this show at least -- it involves exposing the Big Secret in such a way that it spins out to a dozen more awesome possibilities. Well, that, and the fact that Ivy straight up says Carol can have the whole thing to herself, she just really wants a family. And then Carol responds that if we ever found out what really went down with Cousin Charlie, she'd be totally busted too, so this way they both get to stay Rhodeses. It's super sweet and a really fun, inventive, exciting ending to this chapter.

Seriously, I thought it was amazing. And! There's a whole extra episode before the hiatus, which you might not have thought based on how awesome this one was. There will be Blair crying in Dan's arms, there will be Blair kissing Chuck, and there will be a car accident. We can only hope the wolves will return as well, of course...

Previously: Liz Hurley skipped town, maybe, leaving Nate in charge of some sort of tabloid concern. Bleggers and Prince Louis broke up for the bajillionth time after he was hypnotized into performing unspeakable acts on Serena's computer. Dan may be spiraling out of control or maybe it was just like "Dan does this for eight episodes and then gets a girlfriend," but either way he has certainly assumed the Monkey position, w/r/t Chuck Bass. Serena I don't even remember, but she's jobless and dating Max, whom Ivy has turned evil through her constant whining whines.

Over shots of the fountain where Serena and Blair fell back in love during the original season, GG explains that she is defunct due to the clusterfuck for whom Serena, Nate, Eric, Jonathan, Diana and Louis are all partially to blame, but especially Louis.

PRADA

Ivy: "Wow, Grandma CeCe sure wore a lot of lamé at one point when she was a scary but not a functional alcoholic like now. No wonder Serena can't distinguish day and night apparel. Apparently being Serena was a good idea in the '70s."
Lily: "She used to ride elephants a lot to Studio 54 (?) so we are throwing her a party (?). She will be sharing it with Bianca Jagger, because all of the adults on this show are the same age, and also the children on this show somehow. Don't tell CeCe though, she exists in this Michael Moorcock space where nobody lived in her stupid timezone."

CeCe: "...Hey guys! Bianca Jagger is a butthole. Cousin Peepers that I've never met, you look great."
(Air kiss.)
CeCe: "I dated Ryan O'Neal! And also Abraham Lincoln. I am a time traveler. Are you an elephant or are you drugs? Don't lie to me. What time is it? Oh shit it's still crazy early."

WALDORF/VDW

Serena: "I love how you're so poor and trashy! I love walking around places talking in this mincing voice and not having sex apparently."
Max: "Baby, let's just say restaurants for a good long while."
(They do.)
Max: "Can I slash we please make a cake for CeCe's Studio 54 party?"
Serena: "As long as we lick spoons and have food fights and other 'cute' things."
Max: "God, we are already the worst."
Serena: "After Dan I thought maybe it would take forever, and then I thought never. I will never find somebody I loved as much as the awful boy I loved when I was fifteen. And then I met a person who was another person, and I thought maybe I could love. And that happened fifteen times in a row, and here we are. Boyfriend."

By Jacob Clifton

DUMBO

Rufus: "As Tina Fey once noted, if you talk back to the haters on the internet that means you are a crazy person."
Dan: "I am already a crazy person. I have created an online avatar for the world wide web. Nobody will never know it is me, shooting down every bad review on Amazon."
Rufus: "Worked for Jill Zarin, right?"
Dan: "Good one, Dad. Good burn."
Rufus: "I just watch TV all day in a Snuggie and drink wine while Lily plans parties for other people that she doesn't even attend, so I know who that is. You and me, we're like if Teen Mom and Quantum Kitchen had an even sadder baby."
Dan: "Surprisingly, my agent is no longer talking to me. After I dicked her and disappeared, both any number of times."
Rufus: "Less surprisingly, she no longer calls me -- the father of an adult person. But if she did, I would say for you to leave the house and do something radical like go to an old woman's elephant party."
GG: "I have nothing else to talk about, so I guess Dan Humphrey. He has an obsessed hater on the internet. His name is most likely Jacob Clifton."
Rufus: "I just want to hear fuckin' Drake tell me his entire life story like five more times and then I'll be good to go. Apparently Toronto figures heavily in this Westeros amount of fucking epic storytelling. You sit tight. With your hair like it is, you're not going anywhere."

WALDORF

Prince Louis, get this, the reason he's out of town for this episode is that he's doing charity work with that evil sexy priest his sister is boffing. I don't believe a word you say about Louis anymore, I was going to say, but this is just ridiculous enough to be awesome. I'm glad Father Whatever is back in play.

Blair: "I still love Louis! Verbatim I just want to marry the sweet prince who returned my Vivier slipper and made me believe in fairytales, not one of the Brothers Grimm."
Dorota: "[Metaphor. Same basic concept, but even more awful because it's Dorota. Just know that this episode gets Savage amounts of Better.]"

Blair and Dorota decide that Chuck and Louis have Freaky Friday problems, and Blair decides to put this fanciful information into play somehow. Hope it gets weird! Just kidding, I won't be addressing it again because it is stupid. Trust that Dorota keeps up this theme about that thing, and it doesn't pan out, because that's even dumber than this show, which is how we roll. Just a little less stupider than the broken shards of the almost-story that drops from the lips of the worst thing on the show starring everybody else.

By Jacob Clifton

SPECTATOR

A Very Dapper Nate: "You know how Diana always used to say that we wouldn't do muckraking stories about people, and then inevitably all she wanted to do was rake muck? Ctrl-V that speech into my mouth right now."
Intern: "What about a famous Congressman's wife who is cheating?"
Nate: "Yeah, that doesn't sound trashy at all."

Actually, what he says is, "We've heard that story a million times," as though we've heard that story a million times. You know, where the wife of the politician is the cheater. Womans, get thee to one of several various party-affiliated nunneries.

Nate: "Do you have a new, fresh angle on this boring old story that' happens all the time'?"
Intern: "Well, one interesting part is how it's Tripp's wife. Maybe I should have led with that."

A LITERAL DINER CALLED LITERALLY "DINER"

Max: "You got my money yet?"
Ivy: "It's not that easy! Turns out."
Max: "Okay, I'm dating Serena by the way. So chop-chop. I could tell her any amount of things and she might remember them."
Ivy: "Please don't show her that very incriminating high school playbill you keep in your pocket."
(I know that sounds like something I would make up, but it isn't. He flashes it at her like a gun.)
Max: "The more we date, the stupider she becomes. I will tell her that you are a white trash wannabe."
Ivy: "So are you, and she's still dating you. Also, Lily is going to expose us both."
Max: "Yeah, I'm avoiding the Rhodes Women. Because they are accursed, but also because not even Lily is that drunk this early in the day."
Lily: "...Sounds like a challenge, Mothafucka!"

Aunt Carol: "We have a problem."
Ivy: "I know! We have to pay Max off right away before the jig is up!"
Carol: "No, my problems. Specifically, I can't withdraw huge amounts of money from the bank anymore because CeCe is onto me or something."
Ivy: "I can't help you with that. We don't even know each other. I think she has dementia to even pretend that we've met before."
Carol, with a bizarre vehemence and even weirder cadence: "You keep working on Max, I will work on my mother."

(Old-school Pete Fairman joke, what! I killed a person!)

PRADA

Carol arrives while CeCe talks about how she wishes feathered hair were still in fashion. But I mean, when you're a Rhodes Woman that's two times dumb because A) Serena and B) Time travel.

Carol and Lily talk at each other in a very Gossip Girl way, which it in itself odd because her line -- off something CeCe says about preferring a certain type of flower -- comes after she gets off the elevator, meaning she overheard their conversation from inside the elevator, on a show where you can literally carry on conversations with people perched on your shoulder and they won't hear you:

Dialogue She Can't Hear: "[Mumble hoo-hoo muted trombone.]"
Carol, bearing flowers: "...How about Lilies of the Valley!? I totally heard you."
(It was like that. But the serve is returned...)
Lily: "...More like Valley Of The Dolls, now that you're here."

See? Totally Gossip Girl. Not a lick of sense. None of this scene makes sense. But it goes to a place that is like Heaven by the end.

Dumb Carol, verbatim: "I am here to reconstruct, not self-destruct. I promise!"
CeCe: "You are not invited to my party. What do you want?"
Carol: "Crack money. Also, me and my fake daughter are back together and we love each other and she invited me to the party."
Lily, secretly: "I am going to slap that girl. Her whole point is we hate you."
CeCe: "If you two bitches don't get along at this party, I will Blair the shit out of you. Don't pull focus. Otherwise, fine."
Carol: "Suck it, Lily."

WALDORF (VDW)

Ivy: "Tell me all about your amazing date with a guy I certainly haven't met!"
Serena: "We spent the entire night together, but -- as with the many times this show has told this exact same lie -- we were just talking and exploring New York's fecund and varied blessings at all hours. Just walking around in our bras and being totally chaste. It's important because I'm about twenty-five, except in this one situation. Where I am a virgin. Juliet's brother and cousin never both tagged this, nohow. Just this constant walking."

Ivy: "Hey, is this the same Max you managed to somehow make stand you up at that play?"
Serena: "Yeah, I've forgiven him. For that thing I myself did."
Ivy: "For such a bad dude, we sure do put him into dick positions a lot."
Serena: "We're making a cake together! It's going to be so dorky! I am so dorky!"
Ivy: "Hey slut, take it easy. Boys don't make passes at girls who bake cakes with them after wandering the city like hobos after sitting on their asses refusing to contact them at a crowded venue for their first date."

Serena: "I thought you wanted me dating!"
Ivy: "That was for your blog about your real life. This is your real life you blog about. Totally different. And baking is no fuckaround, sister. I'm afraid you are going to become a whore somehow, like in the old days."
Serena: "He hikes! He knows where Portland is. I'm all good."
Ivy: "Yeah, he came to find his ex-girlfriend. All the way across the country. He's probably still in love with her or something."
Serena: "I guess a walking date and a baking date in the same 36 hours is a little desperate and scary, you may be right."
Ivy: "Okay, having sunk you using merely words, I will now go help CeCe shop for makeup."
Serena: "God, I hate shopping for makeup! Our lives are endless toil."
Ivy: "As long as you're actually listening instead of being a retard, stop listening to TI, okay? Hey, back on track, do you think this old bitch is as crazy as she seems?"
Serena: "I just can't believe we're into Act II and nobody's made a gin joke yet."
CeCe: "Bitch, they don't even remember that one thing."

EMPIRE

Blair enters to find Chuck in a necktie, meditating. Because it's never too late to be tiresome, she assumes that he is doing sex yoga with some kind of sex ho. But no, it's a tiny little Dalai Lama guy who comes scurrying out into the room like it's a racist Florence + The Machine video.

Blair: "Oh, I guess you really are Good. I keep saying that and then forgetting I've said it. Over and over again."
Chuck: "Let's talk about that for a million years."
Blair: "It is a very interesting conversation."
Chuck: "I was being sarcastic. You can't tell, because every word I utter sounds like Alec Baldwin coughing up Christian Bale in a k-hole, because I am totally over this show."
Blair: "Okay, I'm actually here because I want to find out how you became awesome so that I can force Louis to become awesome in his turn. Or at least stop talking like that."

Chuck is embarrassed for her. I'm with ya, girl. But I'd do anything for Louis to stop talking like that, so kind of it's not about how much Blair sucks this season at all. Just like this emotional or spiritual clipboard we are signing that is like, "He sounds awful when he talks, and everything is already so awful."

SPECTATOR

Granderbilt: "Nice magazine or whatever. I am so proud of you and our family."
Nate: "Yeah, hang on with that. Maureen is cheating on Tripp."
Granderbilt: "I see absolutely no reason not to trust Maureen. She only did about fifteen shitty creepy things last time she was on the show, while talking shit directly into my face and scaring off anybody else you dated with the horrors of what it is like to be married to a Vanderbilt. Also directly in my face."
Nate: "Who could have known that her constant dissatisfaction at being a political wife would someday cause her to act up? It's a story we've heard a bajillion times..."
Granderbilt: "Is it? Is it, though?"
Nate: "...And anyway, I am totally going to spread this story all over the place. I don't want to be another Murdoch, or whatever that guy's name is that I can't remember right now."
(He makes a pleasantly solid case for breaking the story; William finally agrees.)

PRADA

Carol and Ivy have a long, creepy fake "conversation between mother and daughter," in front of Lily and CeCe, about how Ivy can move out into a better apartment. This is already one of the best scenes this season.

CeCe, finally: "Carol, you jackass. Stop angling for a New York apartment."
Carol, at pinnacle of hilarious shit-fit: "If you'll excuse me, I'm going for a walk! On the streets! Where I'm welcome!"
Ivy, also hilariously: "Mom! Please!"

CeCe tries to make a Lily face about how horrible Carol always is, but then abruptly succumbs to the Vapors. Ivy rushes to her rescue and helps her open a bottle of pills that Dr. Internet tells me is for cancer relapses. (Billy Baldwin, I'm looking at you! But also, if they killed CeCe this season wouldn't that just be so characteristic of this season?)

Ivy: "Should I call you an ambulance? For your cancer?"
CeCe: "No, girl. Go get grammy some gin. Wash this cocktail down with a cocktail."

Serena: "Hey Max, this is a voicemail about how Ivy talked me into standing you up."
Max: "Hey Ivy, this is a text message about fuck you for cockblocking me. You have 24 hours now before the hammer comes down."
Ivy: "Hey, this is just my face doing my best impression of a Whitney Port blow-up doll."

I guess he just knows her that well. To the extent that you can ever really know the mystery that is Ivy Dickens, I mean.

WALDORF

Max arrives, holding a tiny little Studio 54 cake that he made in his tiny poor-person apartment that is even cuter than the DUMBO loft. You know, who I miss is Ryan Dunn.

Serena: "Sorry, I just didn't want to move too fast. And also this Ivy Dickens."
Max: "As I have said several times, I am over that girl. She is nuts and keeps making me blackmail her."
Serena: "Come to the Rhodes Women party with me?"
Max: "Is that your version of taking things slow? Meeting your entire insane family? Red flag, girlfriend! I knew from GG that you were impossibly needy and wildly bored most of the time, but you are sincerely starting to make me feel stalked."

Serena: (Winsome wiggles, flirtsome giggles, hella jiggles.)

Max: "I will do as you command. Pick you up before the party."

PRADA

Ivy: "Are you sure you don't want a doctor?"
CeCe: "No, I just have a migraine and jetlag and low blood-sugar and whatever is vague and has nothing to do with reality."
Ivy: "I know exactly what those pills are for, and I know that they make you dizzy, so here's some ginger tea."

By Jacob Clifton

Ivy: "Should I call you an ambulance? For your cancer?"
CeCe: "No, girl. Go get grammy some gin. Wash this cocktail down with a cocktail."

I guess he just knows her that well. To the extent that you can ever really know the mystery that is Ivy Dickens, I mean.

WALDORF

Max arrives, holding a tiny little Studio 54 cake that he made in his tiny poor-person apartment that is even cuter than the DUMBO loft. You know, who I miss is Ryan Dunn.

Serena: (Winsome wiggles, flirtsome giggles, hella jiggles.)

Max: "I will do as you command. Pick you up before the party."

PRADA

But honestly, all it takes is details like this -- even in service of future plot, which this obviously is -- to make a person a person. Ivy knew somebody that took this medication. That's literally all it took to make her, like, 35% more of a person. If Louis just said, "I had a friend who reminds me a lot of Dan, and who later became an alcoholic," or "I just got back from a handball game with Nate Archibald and I think he smokes pot. Also, I got a look at his bod in the locker room and I totally get your whole deal there now." Boom. Anything besides "Blair, this week I am obnoxious for the following reason. Please act like an insane person in response, so that I can lurk and apologize in a minute."

By Jacob Clifton

CeCe: "As with everyone else who has discovered my secret cancer, I am going to have you shipped to dreary old England. I must not show weakness in society. Now, how about you subtract the -ger tea and try again? And what the shit is your awful mother up to?"
Ivy: "The apartment thing was my idea, she was just pretending to make it seem less like a teenager's dumb idea. I just didn't want to trample your generosity."
CeCe: "Cool. Anything to fuck with your mother. Consider the funds unstuck."

They hug. I'm still reeling over how into Ivy's storyline I just got. Which means, and I do mean this, I'm more into Max and Serena's thing now too. If only we get to see Tripp this episode -- or Blair acts like Blair for like one second -- we'll have practically the whole...

TRIPP! TRIPP! TRIPP!

Look, it's Tripp! Oh my God, I missed him so much. He's like the Pokémon evolution of Nate. All the awesome of Nate's qualities and virtues, but bigger and cooler and more exciting and grown-up. I can finally take that picture of Tveit kissing James Franco off my desktop, placed there in memoriam the day the wolves carried him off into the forest! I thought we were turning Nate into him to remove him from the equation! I thought we'd never see him again! You know that Portia Pig ballet move where you jump in the air and your feet go flip-floppity-flip?

Oh, Missy, try to maintain. thing you know you'll be talking about Georgina and Carter Baizen like this show can handle that much horsepower. Remember: It might just look like Tripp. Ya been fooled before, Bro. Watch and wait in silence, then decide. The wolves could still be just off-screen. Get a firm grip on Portia and carry on.

Nate: "Sorry about punching you that time Chuck got the post-traumatics from Serena's horrifying car accident where her forehead got scratched. And you were killed by wolves. And sorry that your pointy mean wife is banging the yachting instructor."
Tripp: "Me too. Essentially. I thought she'd finally forgiven me for statutory raping Serena that time she was my intern."
Nate: "Bygones."
Tripp: "Yeah, I guess we're even. From that time."

By Jacob Clifton

Nate, somehow: "Granderbilt, some banal thing Tripp just said about travel arrangements makes me think that Maureen is lying about having an affair. I will find out more."

Suggestions: She is like one of those people who marries a bridge, only it is yachts. (I was going to say "Yachtjectum sexual," but as it turns out yachtjectum is somehow the grossest word ever typed on the internet, so I will abstain.) Alternately, she is having an affair with Vanessa's lesbian sister, who has a morbid fear of yachts. Or maybe she is having an affair with Nate and he forgot.

THE STREETS, WHERE CAROL IS WELCOME

Dan finds his anonymous hater on GG, because now everybody on earth is somehow GPSd by Gossip Girl which is why you should not get your kids immunized.

Dan: "This is getting dangerously close to that time Aaron Sorkin lost his shit on the internet. One would hope that, knowing history, all involved would refuse to repeat it."
Floppy-Haired Cute Stranger: "Stop talking to me. I have to go get a haircut right this instant. Your terrifying visage has changed things inside of my mind."
Dan: "I am stalking the stalker. I will keep talking until..."
(The door opens, revealing @IHATEDANIELHUMPHREY or whatever it is.)

Agent Alessandra: "I am the stalker! Twist! I don't wish to make money!"

THERAPY

Blair has dragged Chuck to his new therapist, who is an old white dude, to monitor her getting his psychological information out of the man. She calls their time in the office "monkey business," and Chuck makes another snide therapy joke about how Monkey's business is that he is depressed -- or, even more depressing, we're meant to believe (on top of this situation which already would never happen) that Chuck indeed gets dog therapy information from his personal People Therapist on the reg. It is all quite droll either way.

Therapist: "Why? Why are you here?"
Blair: "I'll ask the questions, thanks. I won't having you shrink me, and -- between my bulimia and Harold's gayness -- I know all the tricks. Just tell me why Chuck is great now."
Chuck: "There's not, like, one thing. I can't believe even you are this crazy."
Therapist, succinctly: "It sounds like you want Louis to be more like Chuck."
Blair: "No, I just want Louis to be like he used to be before he turned into Chuck, which looks a lot like how Chuck is now."
Chuck & Therapist: "Oh, so you are fuckin' crazy."
Blair: (One unending ceaseless shriek, like always.)
Chuck: "Okay, fine. I left your diamond ring on the step at Harry Winston. Boom, fixed."

SERENA PLAN! She calls old Max up and tells him to meet her at PRADA instead of the discotheque. She's already in a ridiculous costume, so I guess we should have seen this one coming. Oh my God, a Serena Plan and Tripp. I haven't been this excited since the Inside episode.

H8R

Alessandra: "My vile tweets are a sales strategy."
Dan: "Okay, sure. Conversation over. Tiny little plotline over."
Alessandra: "Buck up, though. You also have a dude on your jock so hard, have you seen this homo?"
Dan: "I have. I have, and he is me. It is I who am that homo. That homo, c'est moi."

SPECTATOR

Nate & Granderbilt figure out, based on no information, that Maureen is faking the affair to earn Tripp sympathy votes, same as when she pitched that father of five into the Hudson for the Hudson Hero Gambit. This Maureen, she will do whatever it takes. Just to lend this idea some credence, they do the nastiest trick TV writers ever do -- "Makes sense, don't it?" -- and then follow up with the second-nastiest -- "It's a brilliant scheme!" Like how everybody would cry during a speech on West Wing and you'd be like, But the writer himself wrote that speech, and then wrote everybody crying about how great it was. Same guy.

Nate: "So on the upside, I'm not going to run the fake affair story."
Granderbilt: "I thought we just said it was a good..."
Nate: "I will run this story! I never get tired of fucking things up for Tripp and this family. I am indefatigable in that regard, sir."
(They stare at each other for one million years.)
Nate: "I'll do the right thing, don't worry."
(Lie.)

WALDORF

Ugh. Cake-tasting, more Dorota bullshit, whatever. Chuck arrives.

Chuck: "Why did you walk out on therapy? My therapist thought you were upset about that thing you were obviously upset about. But I only returned the ring because you told me to let you go. The one active stance you have taken on any issue this entire season."
Blair: "All this time I've blamed you for pulling me into the dark. But I was wrong. It was me who brought out your dark side, and now I'm doing the same thing to Louis."

She whispers how sorry she is and waddles away, but I'm sorry. No. I'm all for having them on equal footing -- both assholes, neither victims -- but saying it's Blair's fault he's a violent, creepster rapist? Really? That far, huh?

By Jacob Clifton

H8R

SPECTATOR

WALDORF

Ugh. Cake-tasting, more Dorota bullshit, whatever. Chuck arrives.

By Jacob Clifton

STUDIO 54 PRE-PARTY @ PRADA

Weird and totally awesome:

CeCe: "I didn't know you could drink champagne without snorting a bunch of coke!"
Lily: "Charlie, go sit somewhere she can't get her crazy on you."
Rufus: "We framed this picture of you partying back when cameras were just invented, CeCe! Please love me. Please, God, anybody. I just want to be touched."
CeCe: "I don't even remember this night! I was all fucked up on jimmies and elephant tranquilizers and bath salts and formaldehyde and those little red dots on paper, I forget what you call him. Cuban Missile Crisis? No... Bart Simpson. The good shit."

Carol: "I hate how my mom likes my sister more than me, and still don't understand after forty-some years why that would be."
Ivy: "Oh we friends now, bitch? Be nice to her, she's signing tomorrow."
Carol: "You got more out of her in three minutes than I have in forty-five years."
Ivy, awesome: "I was just kind to her. Maybe you should try it?"
Carol: "Fuck that. My jealousy is now a dirty bomb frag grenade that shoots everywhere. Stop trying to Dickie Greenleaf my family from underneath me. I hate them, but I have very little territory in this world."
Ivy: "Whatever, Clownpants McCrazytoot."
Max: (Arrives, looking splendid. Good version or Bad version?)
Ivy: "Aw, shit."

Serena: "Hey Max! Hey Charlie! I mean Ivy! I am taking every single one of you motherfuckers down."
Lily: "[Supplies the big Ivy lie to smooth things over as the other ladies run up.]"

Serena yells random things and names at everybody so loud, and stomps so hard, that CeCe drops dead.

GG, keepin' it classy: "Just when things are about to hit the fan, they hit the ground instead... With a thud!"

Although in all fairness, it was quite a thud.

STILL PRADA

Everybody jungle-gyms all over CeCe because she is so rich and they all want to be the one to save her. This takes a lot of time and a lot of simpering from everybody.

Ivy: "Just tell them, Grandma."
CeCe: "I will fuck you up so..."
Ivy: "She's been dieting!"
CeCe: "Oh, girl. You get all the money."

This shit is so good you guys!

Max: "She's not even your daughter! She's from the trailer park! Her dad OD'd on heroin in front of her when she was eight!"
Ivy: "That was my intense cover story, yep."

Max tries to produce the high school Playbill, but you know she snagged that shit already. CeCe gives a sweet speech about how much she loves Charlie, and Serena tells him to get his narrow, beautiful self out of there.

Max: "Just remember. I warned all of you."

He leaves and they are just a coven of people for a moment, being quiet. It's like simultaneously the same as the thing outside Swan Lake last year, where they all ganged up on him and made him feel crazy, but then also the opposite of that thing, because they were all circling wagons around Ivy. So good. So good! She will be on this show forever! Or at least until Real Charlie shows up, I guess.

I'm so pleased with this episode! Gossip Girl!

AFTERMATH

Rufus disco dancing. Bleep-bloop. Actually, once S and Ivy start chatting, it's really cute: Lily, Rufus and the formerly at-death's-door CeCe rocking out in the background like disco-dancing extras. I feel like at one point you might actually see Kelly Rutherford tweeting about how much fun she's having on-set, you know what I mean?

S: "I hope one day I will have a boyfriend that is not trying to get to me through you."
Ivy: "In the meantime, have some cake. You old maid."
S: "It goes right to my boobs."

Carol: "Sorry about changing Charlie's name. That lie some more."
Lily: "I just wanna be Rhodesses for as long as we have left. I just love Charlie like she's my own daughter."
Carol: "I can't even do the math on that one right now, but fine."

Jenny, Eric, Pilot Inspektor: "FFFFFUUUUUUH"

CeCe: "Thanks for not telling about my cancer that everybody already knows about."
Ivy: "Maybe you should tell everybody about your cancer some more."
CeCe: "Welcome to the deception and manipulation that is your main domestic export as a Rhodes Woman."
Ivy: "That will do just fine, grandmother dear."

...Means it. That's what makes this whole thing worthwhile.

DUMBO

Alessandra and Dan tweet hate and love about Dan himself back and forth. It is Dan's greatest sexual experience.

By Jacob Clifton

Serena's insane Donna Summer styling makes her disgusted "I'm breaking up with you" faces even harder to handle, for Max but for us too.

Ivy: "And he was going to sex tape you too, Serena! That was why I cockblocked you!"
Max: "Oh my God, this whole thing is a lie! She's just from Florida!"
Carol: "You are totally lying about my daughter."

This shit is so good you guys!

Max: "She's not even your daughter! She's from the trailer park! Her dad OD'd on heroin in front of her when she was eight!"
Ivy: "That was my intense cover story, yep."

Max: "Just remember. I warned all of you."

I'm so pleased with this episode! Gossip Girl!

AFTERMATH

S: "I hope one day I will have a boyfriend that is not trying to get to me through you."
Ivy: "In the meantime, have some cake. You old maid."
S: "It goes right to my boobs."

Jenny, Eric, Pilot Inspektor: "FFFFFUUUUUUH"

By Jacob Clifton

...Means it. That's what makes this whole thing worthwhile.

DUMBO

Alessandra and Dan tweet hate and love about Dan himself back and forth. It is Dan's greatest sexual experience.

Actual Dialogue: "Katy Perry just retweeted us!"

Fucking barf. If I thought Katy Perry even knew who I was I would change my name to Ivy Dickens and go be a waitress somewhere shitty like Florida. That is where you cross my line. Thanks for giving my Twitter Hep C of the brains. But I guess this means Dan is going to be famous, round two. Only with... I think that if Katy Perry retweets you, part of the deal is that Russell Brand gets you in the butt for about forty-five minutes. So have fun, Daniel. Grossest possible thing of life, you get to share with Katy Perry, the grossest person of life. Hope that works out for ya, Famous Guy.

EMPIRE

Nate: "Fill me in on your whole episode."
Chuck: "... I told her the truth. You know, the thing I keep telling her. I guess this episode it actually counts, despite it being not very different from the other things I keep saying."
Nate, verbatim: "The whole truth? You should work for the Spectator!"

I love how Nate believes he invented telling things.

Said I love how Nate believes he invented telling things.

Chuck: "Blah blah blah, I have lost her and will never have her again, and such."
Nate: "Thanks for that one, buzzkilla."
Boys: "Could not care less."

WALDORF

Dorota: "Tell Prince you happy not sad be him prince you."
Blair: "No, I am sick inside. From wedding cake, not from the uncertainty that plagues me or whatever."

PRADA

Carol: "We're good. You can do whatever you want now."
Ivy: "Can I just stay here and have a family? You can have all the money, I don't care."
Carol: "Are you off your meds? Wait, you're Ivy, sorry. I didn't know things were so fucked up about your childhood. I get it. We're buds now. Also, I was the one that stole this."

Also: "If they ever found the truth about the real Charlotte Rhodes, they would never forgive me. This way we both get to keep our family."

By Jacob Clifton

Fascination Street! That is awesome. And also sweet. I am so into this show now. Oh my God and now Max is calling. He sounds drunk and scary!

"I want my life back! I moved to LA, the job I gave up here, the two years I spent believing you and loving you, when all you did was lie and cheat so you could have some fancy life that isn't yours. Watch your back, because I am not leaving town until you are done and I have what I want."

Ivy: "Good luck with that, bitch. I'm a Rhodes now."

WOW

I can't believe there's another fall episode after that. That was wonderful. I don't know what to say beyond the fact that I haven't loved the show this much in quite a while. All the pieces were there, doing nothing, being gross, and now they've reassembled into quite the beautiful package. If I'd known it would take that long I would have started bitching earlier, but I like it better this way: Losing grip right before things got excellent again. I mean it, I'm really impressed.

week: Literally! The wolves! Another car wreck! More Rhodes probs! Blair begging Dan for help figuring her shit out, and they do hugging, and she kisses Chuck, and Louis wigs out a little, and everything is amazing.

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.