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Harsh though the recaps have been, I found today that the cumulative effect of the past few episodes resulted in a feeling approaching thrill in the hours leading up to tonight's installment. And I was not disappointed! How great! Hilarious, breezy and fun, with everybody -- particularly Blair and Georgina -- looking fantastic. They weren't kidding when they said the second half of the season was going to lighten up. That was one of the most awesome fucking episodes in years.
That lacrosse song from when Blair tried to break Serena's legs! Two St. Vincent songs! Serena wearing her versions of a school uniform again! Dan and Nate in St. Jude's jackets! Chuck wearing the Scarf! (For some reason, this all choked me up, so it might have heightened the emotional response to the rest of the episode -- but I doubt it. It was objectively fantastic.) Blair Waldorf actually acting like Blair Waldorf!
So. Back alone from her honeymoon -- with a dour Royal Minder in tow, who seems to herself be in love with Louis -- Blair wastes no time in fixing things so she doesn't have to worry with Dan for the year, by (of course) dressing up in costume with Dorota and sending them on a surprise trickery date. In parallel to Blair's attempts to time travel everybody back to safety, Georgina uses her extensive UES payroll to arrange a V-Day party at the Empire, with the fabulous/brilliant theme of Constance Billard.
Lola -- since the restraining order Nate's begging for still hasn't kicked in -- winds up working the party, where she runs into... Ivy, who's in town on a secret errand for a mysterious "her." By the end of that awkward encounter, Lola's figured out the whole Charlie Peepers ruse, and starts doing some investigating of her own. But what's Ivy's secret? Turns out she's been living in the Hamptons, with her favorite fake grandmother... And it seems time is running out for old CeCe.
While Blair spends the party running around, whipping Serena into a Dan Frenzy and Dan into what she thinks is a Serena Frenzy, things get complicated when Georgina decides to trigger the dowry clause by blackmailing Dan into kissing Blair. But when it finally happens, it is for real and it is a scorcher... As well as being witnessed by Georgie and Serena, both. Cue hysterics from Serena, aloof shutdown from Blair, and misery for all! Not to mention Georgina's parting gift -- a tip to Chuck about the kiss, outwith her responsibilities as GG -- triggers something far deadlier: Chuck seduces Dan's agent Alessandra, the better to make his revenge.
Week: While Serena falls down a neverending pit of despair and/or meets the guest star who'll be making an attempt on her life, Dan and Chuck begin their epic battle for the heart of a woman who can't date for the year. And apparently, given the many kisses he'll be sharing with B, Dan is winning. I, for one, cannot wait.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
CeCe and Ivy formed a very strong connection, but Lily kept running into Lola for ridiculous reasons, and Nate for kinda creepy stalker reasons. Dan did his best to ruin Blair's wedding, but ended up just ruining her life instead; Serena somehow managed to make it all about her regardless. She was having a pretty insane hair day. Georgina did nothing in particular to move things along, and Blair sold herself into gilded cage slavery.
LIKE A MONTH LATER?
Who hates Valentine's Day is Gossip Girl, but who doesn't is kissing couples of all different kinds of genders and combinations. Not to mention Dorota, who is overjoyed that Blair is finally back from her honeymoon -- alone -- and looking relatively unharmed.
Or well, not quite alone. She's also got a Royal Minder, euphemistically "social secretary," whom Blair has decided to call "Creeper" in lieu of any real human respect. As we'll see, Creeper is in love with Louis Grimaldi in a secret, creeper way, and thus will hopefully provide the out for Blair that tuberculosis failed to do.
Blair: "She reads my mail, and performs nightly bed checks!"
Creeper: "My accent defies belief, but at least I'm as off-putting as I'm meant to be."
Rather than any of the big parties the rest of the cast has planned, Creeper's mandate for tonight is that Blair will choose one of several philanthropic functions in order to make her stateside debut as Princess. Spoiler, she's totally going to end up at the big party at the end of the episode, because in five years there has never been a single episode where everybody doesn't end up at the Big Party. Nobody tell Creeper, though.
PRADA
Dan finds Rufus buying Lily some holiday jewelry with her money, courtesy of a Cartier operative -- who is also secretly under the employ of Georgina, naturally -- when he comes over to get a curious object. Seems he keeps movies in the form of physical objects, filed in something the shape of a book, and then carts that entire book around full of all his movies. That is some quaint shit right there.
Rufus: "Are you planning on toting your big book of movies in physical form over to Chez Waldorf, the better to pathetically attempt to hook up with a married woman who already has two other boyfriends?"
Dan: "You know me too well, father. And for your part, I see that you are buying Lily presents with her own money? Did you even manage to put on pants today?"
Rufus: "As long as I get this jewelry picked out before she comes home from DC, I won't be punished. Later on, we're checking into the Empire Hotel for a little sexuality. I play a housemaid who was late picking out Mistress's jewelry, and she plays a WASP from the Hamptons with a variable number of children who goes unexplainably missing for weeks at a time."
Dan: "Sexy."
Rufus: "It was Chuck's idea."
CHARLIE VS CHARLIE
Lola notices Ivy, and runs over to have a little chat with her. As the only waiter at this event, it is of course her prerogative to sit down on a chaise longue and catch up with the girl who's been impersonating her lo these many months, and still nobody asks the salient questions about this scenario.
Like: "How is it possible that Nate is pulling the strings of this girl's actual livelihood, and yet still her name hasn't rung any bells for him? Are we meant to honestly believe that he hasn't even figured out her last name yet?"
Or: "Has this bitch seriously never heard of Gossip Girl? Or the newspaper? She never once wondered why she was constantly in the news?"
Or: "Why does everybody suddenly know Lola on every part of this show just from literally bumping into her in different locations?"
Or: "The fact that Ivy didn't immediately fucking bolt the second Lola started yelling her name, what is that about? Why is Ivy here at all? Why is any of this happening?"
MEANWHILE
Blair really overextends this time, telling Serena all these lies about how Dan was saying the spark was back and that it was worth pursuing. I mean, she was doing all the talking and it'd be very in-character if she just imagined the entire conversation going the way she wanted it to, but because this is like the third (and not the last) time poor stupid Serena's gotten her hopes up today, it comes across as unnecessarily cruel.
I mean, if Blair can't even admit that Dan is a possibility, then this whole situation assumes a different, and the correct, shape: It's telling the story it's telling us it's telling, which is that Dan/Louis was a shell game all along to keep Dan from getting between B and S, but it's reaching so far back into antiquity to even remember how Blair used to work, in a way where this makes sense: That girl who would force these situations into existence by sheer force of indomitable will, that girl who would do anything to save Serena, that girl whose loyalty was so twined up with her jealousy she couldn't ever be completely sure of her own motives... It seems like a lot to ask, to suddenly have that girl back. And that's to say nothing of the fear that she'll just vanish again.
PLOT MECHANICS
So while S is running off, all cheered up for the eightieth time that Dan's not going to pull the same shit as always, and Blair realizes that she still has Dan's necktie in her hand from when she was mussing up his hair and getting him all St. Juded up, Dan traces the sound of Gossip Girl's blasts to Chuck's room, where he finds Georgina (wearing the St. Jude's uniform we never once saw her wearing) and immediately realizes that A, she's Gossip Girl -- or her henchwoman -- somehow, and B, she no longer has any leverage over him, as far as selling Blair out to the Prince.
Dan: "Do you really want us to get back together?"
Blair: "I just want to you to be happy! Tell me what would make you happy, Dan."
Her voice cracks at the end, eyes searching his face wildly, all her old tics coming out again now that she's back to her old self, and he kisses the hell out of her, just like she wanted.
Behind them, the door cracks open again, but they don't notice. Georgina gets her shot and giggles, running off. Serena just shakes her head when Dan chases her, and Blair starts crying. It's pretty apocalyptic.
Alessandra flirts drunkenly with Chuck downstairs, taking a break from her Gal's Night Out to troll for some creepy Charlie Trout sex. Wait, so is this a St. Vincent performance that they're all hanging out at? I'm so confused. I thought it was the Cardiac Ball, but then why is Creeper chilling down in the Empire Bar? Oh well, anyway she's about ready to go.
Serena: "So is this about dicking with me, or is it payback, or taking things of mine away, or...?"
Blair: "Actually none of the above, this time. I actually don't have an explanation for my behavior. I'm as confused as you are."
Serena: "For a year supposedly about breaking my old patterns, I sure have fucked that up completely."
CHARLOTTE LIGHT & DARK
While Creeper finally just escorts Blair from the suite by hand, Ivy and Lola chill out and take their leisurely time catching up, almost as though daring the Fates to send any of the ten castmembers on this show that would be able to correctly identify the ruse in play and send the situation spiraling out of control. Of course, what the Fates send is the one person on the show who wouldn't put the pieces together, Nate Archibald, so they're fine. Ivy bounces, and Nate presses once again on the bruise of Lola's disinterest in his lifestyle -- it's still not cute, please treat women like people -- and then somehow Nate manages to put the whole thing together for Lola without ever actually understanding it himself.
Lola: "Why was Ivy Dickens here?"
Nate: "That's just a fake name! Her real name is Charlie Rhodes, she's my friend's cousin."
Lola: "I guess in addition to not having the internet or newspapers where I come from, I also didn't know that I have a cousin, or else I would put a stop to this right now. I make less and less sense as time goes on. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to act all sketchy some more. These cocktail trays and crudite I should be passing aren't going to ignore themselves."