I think this is the first dream of Serena's we've ever seen? Anyway, she's Marilyn, surrounded by dancing fellas -- Louis actually has a skill! -- before Audrey/Blair arrives to abscond with the only one she ever really wanted. Serena wears like five layers when she sleeps. Anyway, it's the morning of Blair's wedding and Serena couldn't be more supportive. Especially after a dream like that.
Meanwhile, many things are happening: Dan is somehow the Best Man all of a sudden. Georgina Sparks dresses up like the leader of Ozma's Army and brings her pet husband along to ruin the wedding. And at the Empire, Chuck reveals his plan was always to double-cross Father Cavalli with Montezuma's Revenge so he can't interrupt Blair's perfect day.
Oh, and Nate has become entranced with Lola Rhodes completely by coincidence, which makes total sense because she's Serena's trashier but nearly identical cousin and so probably I figure he was always going to be in love with her, and just got confused by Serena into thinking it was Serena he was after. You know, like how Taylor Lautner wants to fuck that baby.
Once everybody gets to the church, somehow everybody decides that it's a horrible decision to go through with the wedding, independently of each other, and Eleanor fetches Chuck to stop it. Georgina secretly tapes Blair's admission of her love for him and somehow it is posted to Gossip Girl just as they're about to say their vows, so everybody takes five to regroup and Serena explains to Chuck about Blair's insane pact with God. (Serena's having one of her lucid days, and even explains to Dan that she's in love with him and acknowledges that he, in turn, is in love with Blair.) But not even Chuck joining the chorus of explaining to Blair why she is crazy can help, so they end up going through with the wedding -- complete with bride sweetly escorted by both Cyrus and Harold, and the horrified mothers standing by in agony.
But how can this be? Not even Louis could overlook something like a Gossip Girl blast in the middle of his wedding, right, of Blair on video in her wedding dress pledging eternal love to Chuck. Well, and you'd be right. If you've ever seen Gigi, you knew this would end up in prostitution, and that's what happens: He explains to her, during their first couples' dance, that he suddenly hates her now and will be using her as a prop and brood mare and nothing more until such time as he tires of her. (Or dies of tuberculosis, one.) Oh, and one more thing: That Dan was the one who wrote those beautiful vows.
Highlights: Well, watching Lily chase Georgina around the church for most of the episode and yet never actually stop her from causing mayhem. That was good. And there's the ending of course: The very second Blair can get away from her scary, evil prince, Blair runs out in her dress, calling for a knight to come save her. And it's not Chuck she calls, and it's not Chuck that chauffeurs her away into the night. And that's what you call the long game. And it is excellent.
But so, you're asking, if none of the NJBC uploaded that video to GG -- and leaving aside the fact that apparently even the Crown Heads of Europe receive GG blasts in the middle of weddings -- then who was it? Why, none other than Georgina herself, or as we've come to know her: GOSSIP GIRL.
week, presumably: We find out that Georgina is not actually Gossip Girl but does have three more episodes of anarchic bullshit in her, Dan returns Blair to wherever he found her, Nate unwittingly stumbles over yet more obvious evidence that Lola is The Real Charlie, and Serena goes into complete champagne denial about everything that happened in this episode.
Check out this Gossip Girl relationship supercut, courtesy of Hulu's The Morning After Show:
PREVIOUSLY
Serena enjoyed playing pretend so much more than real life that she suckered Dan into dating her for the long term. Blair's mind has been permanently misplaced and she's decided to marry Prince Grimaldi despite his lack of a personality/chronic aphasia. The real Charlie Rhodes is all of a sudden running into motherfuckers all over town. An evil Grand Vizier got some Botox and lured Chuck into a trap that would wreck tonight's wedding for good. Oh, and Gossip Girl vanished from our lives, which...
GG: "Wakey-wakey, Upper East Siders! Gossip Girl here, your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite. It seems like today is a big day for everyone, but none so much as me!"
...So I guess she turned out okay, or something. But if nobody is sending her tips, and nobody is going to her website, and Serena is still mucking about with whatever it is that she and Nate do all day, what does she mean? Perhaps she will explain how this came to be. Or perhaps, just maybe, everything she says will make zero drunken sense, as usual.
(Spoiler: It is both.)
INSIDE
Serena is Marilyn Monroe in a performance of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend," which all the men in the cast take quite seriously. Particularly Prince Louis, who -- as the best dancer -- may actually have a skill or talent at something. So S is lip-synching to the thing, and it's "Material Girl" if you don't know what the deal is, down the stairs and all the tux dudes wobbling back and forth, and then whom should come out onto the landing but Blair -- because that's 98% of what she does these days, come out onto the landing and stare down at you like a psycho and then be like, "I love you but I can never be with you because I had a psychotic break!" And then run off into the night -- dressed as, of course, Audrey Hepburn, and what is she wearing but the iconic Tiffany's outfit, and why she is wearing it is because Marilyn was originally going to be in that movie, and what she is doing is luring Daniel Humphrey up the stairs and away from S.
Suddenly S wants Dan very bad, and pulls him back to her, but then the second she has him she gets distracted by diamonds and her boobs -- a girl's best friends, especially somebody built like the brick house that Serena is -- and then Dan breaks away for good. Which, I mean, surprise: Serena dreams in very literal terms about what is actually going on. Girlfriend has no time for metaphors.
OUTSIDE
Dorota: "I have no use!"
Serena: "I had a scary dream! It was just like real life."
Dorota: "Mr. Lonely Boy have him breakfast for breakfast! You good dress clothes!"
Serena: "The fact that I am one who sleeps wearing a nightgown, dressing gown, breastplate, sixty-seven necklaces, Mickey Mouse gloves and a fur-lined parka means that's going to take a while."
GG, verbatim because who knows: "Once upon a time, Princess B was a Virgin Queen, and her king was named Archibald. Who would've thought in just five short years, she could turn that headband into a tiara for real? I myself have come a long way, too. But if you think I've spent all my recent downtime reflecting on who I am and what I've done in those same five years, let me assure you, that couldn't be further from the truth. I was just planning my comeback. So if I were you, I'd watch this space, because the new Gossip Girl is coming."
Elsewhere, preparations are being made. Not too hardcore ones, because this is a pretend wedding for the New York circle, but still. And for the record, I think Blair's hair looked wonderful. Not bouncy or perfectly braided and arranged like most wedding hairs, but her hair is her power and this beachy look plays off the dress in a very capital-R Romantic way, like, think one/any of John Millais's more doomed subjects. I think it's a brave choice and I do honestly love it. Her hair is her power.
DUMBO
Rufus: "My label doesn't believe in me or my protégés anymore, so I have to do all the marketing myself. Licking envelopes in Brooklyn, just like this part of my life were the same as any other part of my life. I also have no use."
Dan: "When I remember to be ass-crazy in love with Blair, I do that for a sec."
Rufus: "Here are some cufflinks, for luck."
Dan: "But you see, I am not getting married."
Rufus: "Hey, why are you a groomsman in this wedding even though the groom himself has caught you having an affair with his bride more times than anybody else, save one?"
Dan: "Because I am a toxic person that wrote his wedding vows, so now we are friends."
Rufus: "Silently listening to you exposit about your love life is my only purpose in this world. Proceed."
Dan: "I am just pretending to date Serena."
Rufus: "And you are going to ruin this wedding, of course."
Dan: "No, it's to be presumed that's going to be the work of..."
EMPIRE
Chuck: "Father Cavallia, we are not gay together. Even though you look like a gay porn star, or somebody from The Bold & The Beautiful ca. 1992, which is basically the same thing."
Cavallia: "Put on this altarboy's outfit."
Chuck: "What did I just say? Have some ice water and explain your ridiculous evil scheme to me like a Bond villain."
Cavallia: "We poison the priest that Dan and Blair have decided to visit to encourage Blair's mental illness. Then Sophie will ask me to perform the ceremony instead..."
Chuck: "-- Have some more of this refreshing ice-cold water with lemon slices floating in it to remove the taste of bacteria."
Cavallia: "...Don't mind if I do. It sure is refreshing! Anyway, instead of acting like a priest, I will tell everybody that Blair is in love with you. This will shock the shit out of everybody."
Chuck: "No doubt! Go on."
Cavallia: "And then you will have your insane lunatic bride, and I will continue to be the poor man's Jeremy Irons."
Chuck: "Your throat must be parched after all our evil scheming. Please have yet more of this delicious water that tastes just like regular old water."
Cavallia: "For such a sneaky person, that can do accents of different priests, I sure don't see what you are up to."
BREAKFAST
Serena comes out of the upstairs suites and stops on the landing like she's B. Louis stares up at her like he's done enough meth to see God, and opens that nasty smacking mouth of his to say some gross words in his gross way. It's unbelievable, because nobody would ever say this, ever, but at least it wasn't just one slithy blur this time.
Louis: "Oh, Serena. I am so nervous. Can you believe it? She's marrying me. I'm the luckiest man in the world!"
Serena/Everybody On Earth: "Ugh."
Dorota: "No worry for Miss Serena no sir! One day you love you somebody too just like that too."
Serena: "I don't ever want anybody to love me like that. People should not love each other like that. It is gross. And PS, what the fuck is wrong with this kid that after successfully finding Blair cheating on him for twelve episodes running, not to mention since his ass showed up last year, he has the unmitigated balls to pretend that he's happy about any of this. Is he retarded? Is this an inbreeding thing? What sort of self-respecting man -- no! -- what sort of self-respecting human could overlook the obvious signs that Dan is just not that into me? Uh, I mean, him. That Blair's not that into him. Ahem."
OEDIPUS WRECK
Sophie: "Thank God Blair miscarried another man's baby. That shit is PR you can't buy."
Louis: "I am tweaking so bad I can barely register the sick-ass thing you just said, Mommy. Let us do the Lambada. The forbidden dance."
Sophie, verbatim: "All relationships are business. Sometimes you are lucky, you have love as a bonus. Let us hope that you stay lucky!"
THE PLOT OF GIGI
Gross Old People: "Hey, do you like being a little kid?"
Little Kid: "Yep! Sure do. Probably my favorite part is that I don't have to shoulder adult concerns."
Gross Old People: "Well too bad! We are going to sell you to an old man and he's going to fuck you!"
Little Kid: "I'm not sure that's..."
Gross Old People: "Did we mention you get a pony and some ice cream out of this deal?"
Gross Little Kid: "Oh, in that case."
All Women: Are whores.
The Makers of Gigi: Are real gross.
PREP
Eleanor: "I feel like I've forgotten something. Weddings always make me feel like I'm about to form a life partnership with gnomes or gays, though."
Cyrus: "Stop calling me the father of the bride. The father of the bride is over there, being gay without his partner. I do love Blair, but let's be cool."
Harold: "In the meantime, let's dance!"
Eleanor: "I like dancing with you because of how all gay guys are the same."
Some Lady: "Serena, we need a new Best Man for this wedding. You get to pick for some reason."
Serena: "Well, that should be..."
Dan: "It will be me! Don't even bother opening your mouth."
Serena: "Dan Humphrey, my hero! You know, the Dan I knew five years ago could barely box step. Now you're volunteering to dance?"
Dan: "Once I put my dress shoes on, I'm sure I'll still step all over you. Like always."
Cyrus: "Hey, she's here! The Princess Bride!"
Subtlety, Restraint: "Are you kidding? Of course. What's really surprising is that we didn't make that joke eleven times ago."
CNN: "Do you privately wish to be called 'Princess,' or 'Mrs. Grimaldi'?"
Blair: "This wedding is a terrible idea. I need to talk to Serena."
Dan, cutest part of the whole sordid episode: "Go right ahead, Mrs. Grimaldi!"
It's more the way he says it, not so much the fact itself.
INSIDE
Blair: "This shitty trap I laid for myself for no reason is really getting weird, huh?"
Serena: "This is going to be the best day of your life!"
Blair: "Really?"
Serena: "Absolutely not! Do you have amnesia of this show?"
GEORGINA
Walking her whupped husband and baby Milo, who is the same age he was when he was born even though that was about eight years ago, and bitching about the attention Blair's getting from the media. She does this dressed like a majorette, because Georgina is now and has been since Milo an attempt at camp and easy laughs, rather than a human being of any kind.
She runs alliteratively through all the shit B has done to her -- "remanded to rehab, banished from Bible camp, and abandoned in Belarus!" -- and then her soggy husband is like, "Not even you could ruin the wedding of the century!" And she's like, "That's hilarious you would call it that. Also, let's go find Chuck. He seems like a wedding crasher kind of person."
EMPIRE
Cavallia: "I am about to shit everything that has ever gone into my body."
Chuck: "Yeah, that's because I keep Mexican tap water around for priests."
Cavallia: "But we were going to ruin the wedding! And can I please use your WC?"
Chuck: "No. You are not allowed to use my bathroom. Go into Manhattan."
Cavallia: "Like your housekeeping department doesn't already hate you."
Georgina somehow just walks the fuck on into Chuck's apartment and overhears:
Chuck: "I can't allow you to destroy Blair's wedding! You think because I love her, I want her all to myself, but I'm not that man anymore. I just want her to be happy! And if marrying Louis will do that for her, then that's what's going to happen!"
Cavallia penguins toward the elevator, where he is priestnapped by Georgina, one supposes out of his desperation and also the fact that she is dressed like somebody from Dune might be throwing him off. Ah, Georgina, the Special Guest Star Heather Locklear of the Upper East Side, reduced to running around town with a shitting priest while dressed like Auntie Mame and saying shit like, "Bless us, Father. I have a feeling we're about to sin!" Sigh. It's somebody's sense of humor, no doubt, but it certainly isn't mine. I think we've established that. Nor this:
PRÊT-À-POTTY
Which is what the portajohns in Manhattan are called. I think this is generational, this disconnect. I just don't get why that's funny. Always with the Bruce Vilanch on this show. Anyway, she gives him some kind of black-market nausea pills that explain a lot about Milo -- "Just don't take them with vodka, learned the hard way" -- and finally Cavallia asks her who the hell she is. Being Georgina, she doesn't feel like just answering the question, so they take the long way around a conversation about how they both just want to ruin this wedding: He, because he's part of a royal dynastic power hierarchy threatened by Blair's mental illness, and she because... She's a bitch, I guess?
Georgie: "Clearly you need an expert. You were trying to go after Blair. She's not the weak link. It's always the man."
(True enough.)
Georgie: "Now give me Chuck's altarboy uniform and we'll get this shit done."
Cavallia: "How can you be so sure you can pull this off?"
Georgie: "Jesus owes me one."
(True, again, enough.)
BREAKFAST AFTERMATH
Lola: "I am everywhere at once suddenly! Despite nobody running into me the entire time a person was right here in the city impersonating me and hanging out with my famous family members who are constantly in the paper!"
Nate: "Yeah, I don't recognize you."
Lola: "You're Nate Archibald. I'm surprised you found your way to this brunch."
Nate: "Anyway, we're going to hook up."
Lola: "Yeah. Probably."
Nate: "Dan! I'm so happy to see you! I guess I got over my weird, misplaced, come-and-go aggression of late."
Dan: "Yeah, I..."
Nate: "-- I have fallen in love with a caterer."
Dan: "Or we could talk about that."
Nate: "Maybe that's my issue, paying too much attention to the wrong girls and not enough to the right ones!"
Dan, and truer words: "Well, if we're listing your issues, I'm not sure I'd start with that one."
Nate: "I know, right? How weird that Blair is getting married, because we used to be getting married."
Dan: "It's like it happened on an entirely different television show, unrelated to this one in any way beyond the title and actors involved."
Nate: "...And now I don't have a date to said wedding. Relationships!"
Dan: "And yet you're constantly walking into relationships that you know are doomed, with old women who are paying you for sexual favors. I don't think you're allowed to bitch about this."
Nate: "I will forget what I am saying in five minutes anyway."
Dan: "I too will do that."
Nate: "Maybe I should just admit that there's no such thing as an honest relationship, and stop looking."
Dan: "What is this, the movie Gigi?"
Nate: "No, just the cynical viewpoint of this show."
Nate: "Hey, you know the world is really a mess when the most honest person we know is Chuck Bass!"
Dan: "Sometimes when a thing is not demonstrably true -- or within the realm of possibility -- but still dictated by the storyline, it helps to have a random character just blatantly say it out loud. That way, the audience knows to adjust their understanding of basic shit. It's especially good when it's tremendously notable for being an incredibly awkward segue."
Nate: "You're right. We should go make sure that Chuck doesn't do anything untrustworthy, because of how one second ago I said he was the most trustworthy person, and you agreed with me."
INSIDE
Blair: "Serena, I can't believe I'm going to be a princess!"
Serena: "You were always royalty, in certain ways. To be completely literal, though, now you'll have an entire country to rule! Because you're gonna be a real life princess!"
Blair: "And meanwhile, you're in love with Dan. Also to be completely expository."
Serena: "No, that was a grotesque display of craziness worthy of somebody like you."
Blair: "Oh, I thought you guys were actually back dating. I guess it was your moon-eyed creepiness toward Dan that made me think that. How about you just tell him you're in love with him, even though he's clearly disinterested? Don't turn this into last season when you kept pretending you had to choose between him and Nate. Or the year before that, when you pretended being siblings meant you guys were off-limits. Or the year before that, when you pretended Aaron Rose wasn't utterly repulsive. Or the year..."
Serena: "Basta. You've made your point."
Blair: "I don't think I have. My main point is that there's only room for one ridiculous woman on this show to create fake plotlines in order to justify a twenty-plus episode order."
Eleanor: "Blair, seeing you all pretty reminds me of what a good mother I've always been."
Blair: "Mother, seeing you reminds me to have a panic attack."
Eleanor: "Take these pills. They're how I got through my wedding to your gay father. Also, most days."
Cyrus: "Are you saying this wedding is a stupid idea?"
Eleanor: "I generally find it hard to justify my daughter's choices, because she is a lunatic, but usually I prefer to sit back and silently judge. This time I'm going to actively sabotage her."
Cyrus: "You are a truly a wonderful parent."
Georgina: "Where is my stunted-growth baby Milo?"
Husband: "Who really cares?"
Georgina: "True enough. Now help me with my wicked scheme to run around all over the place in this church and act a mess."
Husband: "Yes, dear."
EMPIRE
Chuck: "Nathaniel, stop worrying about me fucking up this wedding."
Nate: "You're right. I forgot that you are the most trustworthy person on this show."
(Three seconds pass.)
Eleanor: "Chuck, I need you to fuck up this wedding."
Chuck: "Sounds good."
RUFUS & LILY
Lily: "This tiny wedding reminds me of our tiny wedding."
Rufus: "And how we have a child that we don't ever talk about?"
Lily: "I am too drunk to think about that."
(Georgina puts on a porcelain half-mask and runs around the place in a cape and garters, playing scary music on the organ and lighting small fires.)
Rufus: "Wait, was that Georgina?"
Lily: "I am also too drunk to think about that."
INSIDE
Husband: "Georgina, I feel like you're doing something super crazy."
Georgina: "Just because I'm in my underwear attempting to seduce the Prince of Monaco at his own wedding for absolutely no reason?"
DOWNSTAIRS
Louis: "Dan, I think it's so great that you are in love with Serena."
Dan: "Have we even met?"
Louis: "Yes. We are best friends."
Dan: "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Louis: "In my language 'friend' means somebody you constantly find your fiancée running around with in questionable circumstances that cause you to go reliably butt-crazy insane every week."
Dan: "Oh, then yes."
Louis: "Now if you'll excuse me, they're saying my sister is upstairs in her underwear."
GROOM'S
Georgina: "Louis, let's do this."
Louis: "I really have no idea what is going on, most of the time."
Lily: "Me neither! Georgina, get the hell on up out of this piece."
Georgina: "How about you spend the rest of this episode chasing me around and show up at the end of every scene talking about how you are there to stop me from doing whatever I'm doing?"
Lily: "Put on your clothes and start running. I'll just stand here until you get away."
BRIDE'S
Eleanor: "Sweetie, I've brought your abusive boyfriend here to sabotage your wedding."
Blair: "I totally get where you're coming from on that one. Chuck, how can I help you?"
Chuck: "You know how we always have the same conversation every time about how we're in love with each other or something, but can't ever be together for some ridiculous reason or another?"
Blair: "But not always where Georgina can film it and upload it to Gossip Girl."
(They are totally in gross love some more.)
Serena: "Chuck, what are you doing here?"
Chuck: "Just having that one same conversation, what's it to you?"
Georgina: "Nobody can tell that I am recording this conversation even though I'm standing right here taping it! Even for this show where people constantly listen to each other's conversations from feet away, I am pushing it."
Lily: "Georgina! I have almost caught you! Better keep running from room to room!"
Georgina: "Chuck, here is that video of you and Blair together. Do what comes naturally."
Chuck: "There is not a person on Earth who could possibly guess my motives at this point."
Serena: "Blair, I feel like we need to talk about how this wedding that is about to happen in five minutes is a bad idea. I was going to talk to you about this earlier, but it would have interfered with thinking solely about myself and my own made-up problems."
Blair: "I have powers over life and death, Serena."
Serena: "Of all the ways in which you are crazy, that belief is not even in the Top Three."
DOWNSTAIRS
Serena: "Chuck, wait! I have to say something very vague about how Blair thinks she's protecting you from being assassinated by Jesus."
Harold: "Cyrus, Blair is in trouble!"
Cyrus: "My little turtledove! I shall fly to her rescue like the birds that are my only interest!"
Blair: "It isn't an emergency so much as I want you to also walk me down the aisle. You're kind of like my father. Also kind of like my pet Travelocity gnome."
It is sweet.
Serena: "Dan, I have done at least one very bad thing. Either it was telling Chuck about Jesus, or sending that video to Gossip Girl. Maybe both. I am a mystery even to myself in these moments."
Dan's Priorities: "Serena, how come everybody thinks I'm in love with you? You are really salting my game with Blair, our friend that is about to be married."
SUDDENLY
Blair is getting married.
Father Smythe: "Before these sleeping pills kick in or Georgina burns this shit down with all of us inside it, does anybody have anything to add?"
Chuck: Lurk lurk lurk.
Blair, silently: "Don't you dare."
Gossip Girl: "Hey everybody that gets blasts from a teen gossip website on their cellphones! Yes, including royal heads of state and the NY aristocracy and people's parents!"
Those People: "I can't believe I forgot to turn off my phone before the ceremony! Well, since it already bleeped, I might as well wait for this video to buffer and then play. It could be important."
Father Smythe: "Sure, this religious ceremony can wait."
They do this, and it takes a really long time. I don't know what Georgina is up to at this point now that Lily has drunkenly seated herself in a pew, but I like to imagine she is shinnying down a drainpipe or something. Everyone is scandalized.
SCANDALIZED!
Blair: "Chuck, that was some bullshit. But since everybody's just standing around with their jaws dropped thinking about how somehow I am in total and complete world-changing love with three different people, let's have a long talk about Jesus."
Chuck: "Even for you, this is crazy. We don't even believe in God, what are you thinking?"
Blair: "The accident may have knocked something loose in my head. Or maybe the loss of control I felt when I miscarried out of the blue and you were lying in a hospital bed reactivated my control-freak streak that used to express itself in bulimia, and I made a radical crazy-person jump to thinking that I could control the whims of fate."
Chuck: "When you say it like that, the Deal With God storyline doesn't sound completely retarded."
Blair: "Well then how about this? I'm still going to marry Louis!"
INSIDE
Everybody: "Georgina, you suck! Everything you do is in service of outlandish plotlines and makes zero sense for an actual human being!"
Georgina: "[A bunch of self-congratulatory meta-commentary on the series as a whole.]"
Everybody: "But if you didn't upload that video to Gossip Girl, who did?"
Georgina: "Maybe it was each and every one of you. Maybe Gossip Girl is every one of us."
Everybody: "Sure, that makes... Wait, what?"
Georgina: "Nate would do it because he loves Chuck. Serena would do it because she loves Blair. Dan would do it because he is in love with Blair. And that is all of you!"
With that, she throws some smoke bombs to the floor and disappears using a cunningly disguised, if unnecessary, ripline to the ceiling of the cathedral. Everybody stares at each other for ten minutes.
Lily: "...I'm here to stop Georgina!"
SUDDENLY
Blair and Louis get married! They tie the knot! It even penetrates Nate's marijuana fog somehow that he is missing out on marrying Blair, as though that hoary relationship has been relevant in the last like four years. Eleanor pops a bunch of pills because it's so stupid, Lily keeps an eye out for Georgina, and everybody else just considers the fact that Blair reliably chooses the worst possible things to do at every juncture.
What the characters clearly do not consider, however, is that in the pursuit of aging up this show to demonstrate the passage of time and turn it into a mid-twenties soap rather than a teen soap is that they've married off a girl who's like two years into college, until recently pregnant, which is not how things work in real life, unless you are from a tornado-ridden trailer park, and even then you don't make this kind of rich pageantry out of your horrible pathetic decisions. One expects this kind of nonsense from One Tree Hill, insofar as I understand that television program to operate, but at least they had the decency to give us a five-year jump instead of just expecting us to climb aboard the double-wide. And that show is not good, from all reports.
RECEPTION
Various: "Man, we sure do blame Chuck for uploading that video."
Serena: "Except me! If he did it, which who knows or cares who did it, but if he did it then we should think of it as a grand gesture."
Dan: "What are you on about now?"
Serena climbs onto a hot dog stand that is right there in the church.
Serena: "Daniel Humphrey! This grand gesture is for you!"
Dan: "Please don't do this. I understand that this show is, and has been for some time, pretty much just about humiliating you and turning Blair into a mentally damaged shrew, but this is too much even for me. Your greatest enemy."
Serena: "To quote Blair Waldorf in wildly different circumstances, I LOVE YOU, DAN HUMPHREY! ALWAYS HAVE, ALWAYS WILL!"
Dan: "This is just getting gross."
Serena: "Hush, my prince! I must away! Consider your reply carefully, for you will only have seventy-four more chances to return my feelings!"
Dan: "No, girl. I don't..."
Serena: "-- I must away!"
Galumph!
CHOLA
Nate: "Lola! I have investigated you and discovered everything about your entire life, except for the fact that you are Serena's cousin."
Lola: "Really? Because my name is Charlotte Rhodes. You'd think that name would ring a fuckin' bell."
The couple of the hour takes to the dancefloor.
Princess Blair Cornelia Waldorf Grimaldi: "Listen, thanks for marrying me after the weeks and weeks of intense bullshit I put you through. It's tough being in love with sixteen people simultaneously."
Prince Louis Frederic Grimaldi: "Ain't no thang."
Blair: "No, I mean it. A lot of guys would have balked once I got myself knocked up by another man, and then ran off with him at our wedding shower, or kept disappearing into the night with another another man, or..."
Louis: "No, I mean it literally ain't. Remember how I have no stable personality traits and frequently twist on a dime in ways that make no sense?"
Blair: "I have a bad feeling about this..."
Louis: "Well, for my trick, I become your whoremaster! That's right, we're married until I say so, and you're my trophy wife, and I don't love you at all. Turns out my mom was right and this really is just a business transaction. Think of yourself as chattel."
Blair: "I have the unmitigated fucking balls to be insulted by this."
Louis: "Oh for real? Because it's basically exactly what you signed on for."
Blair: "And yet."
IN THE MATTER OF CREEP V. CREEP
Blair goes running off into the night, calling somebody to whine about this latest development in her self-perpetrated nightmare of a life. But who is it? Chuck comes speeding back to the reception for like the fifth time. Meanwhile, Serena can't find Dan anywhere, probably because she just pulled a total Humphrey on him...
No! Chuck was merely coming to apologize, and Dan isn't hiding from Serena but in fact driving Blair's getaway car! Finally, the chauffeur gets the girl! For five seconds, most likely, but still: That part was wonderful.
Gossip Girl: "Weddings mark one of the largest transitions you can make in your life. They are a new beginning, the step in a person's evolution. But evolving is a tricky thing. You can't change without changing the world around you. And not everyone might see your transformation the same way you do. But if you can make it through and truly be reborn... Then maybe so can I. So beginning today, the past is just a prologue. It all starts from here."
Who caught the bouquet? Gossip Girl, of course. Who is typing the words above? Gossip Girl, naturally. And to whom do we refer? Why, Mrs. Georgina Sparks-Husband! You know, like how that makes total sense.
WEEK
I'm so sure Georgina is actually Gossip Girl; Dan and Blair probably don't even make it out of the city; Serena continues to wallow in her own bathos; Louis joins the circus or becomes a serial killer or turns out to be Lord Marcus in a Prince Louis mask or whatever nonsensical character change is fated for him; somebody maybe uploaded the video that wasn't actually Georgina, which is a snoozy mystery that couldn't matter less; and Nate learns the tricky ins and outs of Lola's serotonin receptors.
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.