If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet

S05E21

After New York brings up the obvious comparison between Blair's wedding to a prince and Kim Kardashian's wedding to a cross-eyed giant, Blair decides to make a hash of her life as usual. She worms her way into Dan's literary life, makes a fool of herself several different ways, and eventually her desperation/hubris swells up so bad, Nate's lip-like, that she actually manages to out-attention-seek the rest of Brooklyn's literary elite. Too high, too close to the sun! In the end, Dan tells her what it was like watching Gossip Girl in the good old days, when Blair Waldorf used to be awesome, and she agrees that she's been, by comparison, pretty sickening this season. Not sure what Dan can do about it, exactly, but by now we all know Blair -- like all women, really -- deserves and requires the help of a man in discovering things about herself such as a basic personality.

Ongoing confusion surrounding Chuck Bass's parentage has got Nate and Chuck in a tizzy, especially since Nate's still over Lola and thus hasn't got anything going on. Only whoring himself to Diana Payne, to find out who her financial backers are, to find out that "they" are Jack Bass, that Diana probably isn't Chuck's mother, but that Jack Bass probably is, that the nurse we keep running into has apparently the mental stability of an Ivy Dickens and thus keeps lying about everything, and that Diana Payne didn't exist until three years ago, when crazy old fucking Elizabeth Fischer and Jack Bass last schemed their parental schemes. I would have been fine with leaving it at Diana and Jack, but no. Apparently we gotta toggle the Elizabeth switch one more stupid time.

Everything else is Lily. Relatively unrepentant about the Rufus stuff from last week, she's paid off CeCe's nurse to lie about Ivy by breakfast, overturning the will and making Ivy act even crazier. Serena "just happens" to walk by, like happens on this show, while William is having lunch with his other daughter, and a quick visit to plump- and loose-lipped Nate reveals the big truth: That Serena has a mysterious half-sister!

Luckily, Lily has already invited everybody in this storyline to dinner so that she can prove to the press that she's not the monster she's become on this show, but now she can use it to awesomely kill several birds with one stone: Put Rufus out of the house like a trophy-wife puppy before traveling all the way to DUMBO just to be mean and make him cry (awesome), Put William on blast for having daughter-nieces (valid), put the fear of God into Lola (if only), and put Carol in the pokey (yes!) after getting poor dumb-ass wannabe Ivy (ugh) to testify to Carol's original Charlie Scheme.

In grand William van der Woodsen tradition, the good doctor gets Carol to sign her half of CeCe's money over to him -- ostensibly to save her and protect their daughter Lola -- but while he's (obviously) making his way to the heliport he uses to escape with everybody's money all the time, Lola approaches Serena about finally activating her Dark Phoenix powers, destroying Lily and then William and eventually each and every one of their various parents, until only Rufus Humphrey remains for the culling, but Serena's too daddy-issued out to be anything other than disgusting with Lola, so Lola -- of course, being the sneakiest and nosiest and most judgmental of all, being the Vanessa she is -- steals the Gossip Girl website, password and proprietary apps!

week: Lily gets Ivy to play Russian Roulette to prove her loyalty to the Rhodes clan, while secretly poisoning Rufus's green salad and revealing she had this whole thing planned with William, all along, somehow. Aunt Carol and Juliet Sharp meet up in jail and plan the entirety of season. Dan writes down a list of things Blair needs to be, and do, and wear, and say, and think, and weigh, and Blair accomplishes them, through plucky hard work and deep, deep emotional issues. Nate turns out to be Chuck's father, with his mother who is also Nate. Ivy and Lola start doing it, because what is even the point of them anymore. Serena finally just brings a gun to school.

DAYS

Increasingly, Manhattan's Elite were themselves busily acting as several sources into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's Elite. Serena's transformation into mossy blogwitch was complete, while Blair and Lily both realized that to love a Humphrey Man is to pay the Humphrey Price. The latter deemed it too dear, and set her rumpled man-toy out on the curb for Bulk Pickup day, while the former returned to her chrysalis once again to await further instruction on how to be a person. Diana Payne was exposed as one of Chuck Bass's many mothers, our dear Nathaniel shed himself of that thing called Lola, and the oft-abused Ivy Dickens got her ass turned out once again.

MAD SCENES & MAGAZINES

Gossip Girl: "Have you ever heard of magazines? They're this thing from before."
Dorota: "Is one of Miss Blair's many pretensions."
Gossip Girl: "Well, I hope you have an eye out for this latest NYM*, because it is going to make Blair crazy."
Dorota: "Would be something, no?"

Blair: "Dan, enjoy your literary activities and clothing. I will stay here, in a ridiculous housecoat, worrying about absolutely nothing, forever and ever."
Dan: "My hair has once again sucked the nutrients out of me."

*(New York Magazine, The Magazine About New York For New Yorkers In New York & Very Relevant To Those People & To Those Who Secretly Think They Are Those People. Such as your recapper.)

THE HALLS OF JUSTICE

Lily: "Man, I'm glad I paid off that nurse to once again smear Ivy's name into a paste."
Serena: "I know, right? It's fun to hate people with you again."
Lily: "A Rhodes Woman must always have a victim. Preferably one named Charlie."

Ivy appears in full Jennifer Humphrey regalia: Bird's nest hair, a few twigs stuck to her face, bathtub-drunk eyeliner running down, smudged lipstick surrounding her mouth area, fingernails jagged to the quick. Clutching an empty Kiehl's bottle in her hand that once contained... Who knows what? It's empty now, by God.

Ivy: "WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM, DUDE?"
Lily: "How many episodes is this? Do you still not understand how thoroughly jealous of you I am?"
Ivy: "OKAY BUT FOR REAL THOUGH. I HAVE A STAPH INFECTION, MAN."
Lily: "Ugh, how common."

Serena aims a swift kick to Ivy's abdomen, sending her out a second-story window and into the streets, and asks her mom about all that gorgeous tasty money they just won.

By Jacob Clifton

Lily: "Well, now it reverts to the will, so Carol and I will go back to bitching at each other about it like before this whole thing started."
Serena: "That's going to be annoying."
Lily: "Any amount of your annoying aunt is better than knowing Ivy Dickens can afford to eat."
Crazy Hot Reporter: "Lily, Lily! Can money buy you class? And followup question, did you really kick Lincoln Hawk back to DUMBO, essentially calling him a prostitute?"

Lily: "Don't be silly. Paparazzi, please come to PRADA for a dinner where I will make everybody act fake."
Crazy Hot Reporter: "Hey, will Eric or Jenny be there?"
Lily: "They are in Miami, you goose!"
Crazy Hot Reporter: "Pilot Inspektor?"
Lily: "Also Miami. I think."

EMPIRE

Nate: "Diana, I know you can't be calling me for personal reasons. Every time I think of you now, I see a Bass in my face."
Diana: "You broke up with Lola and did something to your face. I think this means we're in love."
Nate: "Do you really think I would sleep with my best friend's mother?"
Diana: "Think about it, okay?"
Nate: "I can try."

PRADA

Serena: "Did you really kick Rufus out? Awesome!"
Lily: "No, I just thought he needed to remember what Poor feels like. It'll be fine. Just bring Lola to the big Fake Dinner and act real fake, okay?"

EMPIRE

Chuck: "I heard you rebounding with a girl on the phone. Care to give me more information?"
Nate, giggling: "No, it was your mom!"
Chuck: "Which of us should find this more awkward?"
Nate: "I'm too high to care, and you were born without shame or a soul, so I guess it's a draw? Anyway, wanna help me oust her from my company for like the third time?"
Chuck: "Let's stop fucking her for now, okay? I'm working through some shit."
Nate: "Hey, can I borrow your jockstrap? And also the only private investigator in the entire city?"

PI Andrew: "Jack Bass is funneling money through Diana Payne to control the Spectator."
Nate: "Huh. I was thinking it would be some other old woman I could fuck. But I mean, it's Jack Bass, right? I can work with that."
PI Andrew: "I went to Eton with him. Consider that one confirmed."

Blair: "I feel as if everything's in its right place. That's a lyric from my new favorite band, Radiohead. Now, hand me my magazines."
Dorota: "No more magazines. Is 2012."
Blair: "I'll at least read New York Magazine. It's for people like me!"

The NYM Approval Matrix describes a graph in which one axis charts a spectrum of Highbrow-to-Lowbrow and the other Brilliant-to-Despicable. Dan Humphrey, for the purposes of this science-fiction program, is notable enough to be on the Matrix, and even more notably, is "Highbrow Brilliant." But with one cruel stroke of the pen comparing the Waldorf/Grimaldi nuptials to Kim Kardashian's recent publicity stunt, Blair finds herself squarely in Despicable Lowbrow territory. Past even Don't Trust The B.

Blair: "I will become as Highbrow as Dan. This instant!"
Dorota: Stark terror.

V.D. DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Serena: "Dad, Lily's throwing a Fake Dinner."
Wm vdW: "Firstly, thanks for just calling me on the phone instead of showing your tits to a horse. Secondly, this is her process. She fixes the outsides before she can fix the insides."

That's brilliant, actually. That's like, "all five seasons are secretly the same television show after all" brilliant. Highbrow Brilliant, if you will.

Serena: "Okay, well can you bring your calming Baldwin voice into the mix? Because Carol's going to be there too, and I need backup."
William: "I'm not in town, but good luck."
Serena: "Really? Because I see you having lunch with Lola, conveniently enough, while we're having this conversation."

Wm vdW: "...Sorry, telemarketers. What were you saying?"
Lola: "So you're my dad, huh?"
Wm vdW: "Yeah. If you remember the backdoor pilot, it hinted that Carol and Lily would've eventually come to blows over my brother Keith, but I guess van der Woodsen Men are as mysterious and alluring as Rhodes Women, given time."
Lola: "So what's my stake here? Any way I can use you to punish my mom?"
Wm vdW: "Serena's been trying that shit for years, no dice. I'm way too self-involved. But there is an upside, which is that I fucked up Serena and Eric so bad I got all my shitty-dadness out of my system, and I'm ready to be somewhat less distant for you."

By Jacob Clifton

Lola: "For a show all about parents, and like everybody has a million parents and sixty secret siblings, it's funny that nobody on this show was actually raised by parents, in any significant way. Just wolves and kidnappers and molesters and immigrants."
Wm vdW: "That's the downside to being in the 1%. There's just one, but it's a doozy! Listen, if you want to tell everybody about us, I'm down with that. I am positive I will suffer no ill consequences, and Serena will probably snatch you bald, but it's your call."
Lola: "No, I'm still quite paranoid, for obvious reasons."

DUMBO

Lily: "Rufus! Is that your name? Of course it is. Rufus Humphrey. I am drunk as hell right now, so I dropped by to bring you a bottle of bubbly bribe."
Rufus: "Are you willing to suffer more of my self-righteous emotional abuse?"
Lily: "Right now you could stick a fork in my arm, not sure I would feel it, so do your worst."
Rufus: You fuckin' know it.

His eyes light up like she just offered him a threesome with Stephin Merrit and he lays the hell into her, then escorts her to the door -- after nearly forcing her to drink champagne out of common tumblers -- with the most amazing exit line of all time, essentially, "Don't come back until you're ready to pretend your money is 'our' money again."

WM VDW HOTEL

Serena, lurking: "Back in town so soon? From a minute ago? And more importantly, lunching with Lola?"
Wm vdW: "I bonded with my 'niece' at CeCe's wake, and I feel sorry for her for being related to us."
Serena: "Okay, but why did you lie about being in town?"
Wm vdW: "Because I didn't want a bunch of this bullshit right here, basically."
Serena: "What about Fake Dinner?"
Wm vdW: "I don't want a lot of Rufus's bullshit either."
Serena: "Well, but please come. For me. And I'll invite Lola, too."
Wm vdW: "Then I will start drinking now. I know how this show works."

SPECTATOR

Secretary: "Any news on Jack Bass's whereabouts?"
Nate: "No, but thanks for asking!"

When Lola walks into a room, she keeps freaking me out looking like Jenny.

Lola: "Hey, I just found out who my dad is and I had lunch with him in public and now I want to talk to somebody about it, so I thought, hey, why not visit my ex-boyfriend at his place of business? After all, I recently pissed him off by exposing his best friend's own tortured parentage."
Nate: "Believe it or not, this is an ongoing thing with Chuck."
Lola: "Wait, really? That's ludicrous."
Nate: "Yeah, I know, but it happened. Keeps happening. There were ladies running around graveyards, a roaming hooker-nanny with a candle, sex people in masks, Carter Baizen of course, a madwoman hired and brainwashed by one Uncle Jack Bass..."

Nate literally stops breathing.

Nate: "Wait. Say that again."
Lola: "I just..."
Nate: "Not you! Hush! Me. I just said... Why does that name sound so familiar? Jack Bass. Jack Bass. Jack Bass... Got it. Can I ignore you now, before I think more thoughts?"
Lola: "Uh, yeah. Good talk?"
Nate: "I enjoy being here for you."

IF THE SHOE DON'T F.I.T.

Blair: "So what's really highbrow is, I thought I would let FIT create a gallery of my castoff accessories, to tell the story of some person barely out of her teens who has made quite the hash of her life."
FIT Hottie: "Um, that does not interest us."
Dorota: "Then I have you beaten. No, I send you back Stephanie Pratt, on full scholarship."
Blair: "Down, Dorota. I can't imagine why I thought this would work."
Dorota: "Is because you self-absorbed and find self infinitely fascinating, so why not everybody do same thing?"
Blair: "Enough. Plan B."

Dan: "What's going on? What's with all this crap piled around the place?"
Blair: "Certainly not jealous of the respect you're getting. Any news on that front?"
Dan: "Funny you just said that. I've been named something by the Young Lions society of people who read things for free, and I want you to squire me to the latest cocktail party thrown in my personal honor."
Blair: "God damn it. I mean, of course."
Dorota: "This bitch gonna pull the tablecloth down with her this time."

SPECTATOR

Serena: "Hey, is Lola here? Ever since I tried multiple times to destroy her already unstable life, she's not picking up the phone."
Nate: "Yeah, she's just been busy finding out you're her sister."

It is amazing how efficiently he does this.

Serena: "Do what?"
Nate: "Annnnnnyway, I got a lot on my desk today. Not work, really, so much as stalking Chuck's various moms."
Serena: "I said fuckin' what?"

DUMBO

Dan: "I should joke about exploiting my friends at this party, right?"
Rufus: "Please take me. I've been playing this guitar for weeks now and I'm starting to annoy even myself."
Dan: "Level with me. Why do you really want to spend time with me? I'm insufferable! Is it because you miss being on somebody's arm?"
Rufus: "Essentially! Also, I don't want to go to Fake Dinner."

By Jacob Clifton

Serena: "Do what?"
Nate: "Annnnnnyway, I got a lot on my desk today. Not work, really, so much as stalking Chuck's various moms."
Serena: "I said fuckin' what?"

DUMBO

PRADA

Serena: "Mom, please cancel Fake Dinner. You see, Lola is my sister."
Lily: "Son of a bitch. It's always something with us."
Serena: "Which is how I know it's true. This explains the whole Chivy/Chola thing, if you think about it. Keeping Lola away from us was only mostly because we're all bitches."
Lily: "Good point. But let's move past hurt emotions, plaster on our happy faces, and figure out a way to use this to fuck everyone over. Okay?"
Serena: "Sounds good!"

Lily calls some mysterious person to cause a ruckus with her, and since she's the only person not already tied up in this a million sick ways, I'm guessing it's Ivy. And because it's Ivy, she's going to do whatever Lily tells her to do, and then Lily is going to fuck her over. Again. And I'm not going to lie: The fact that it's Ivy also means it's going to be pretty satisfying to watch. I don't believe in acting like a bitch, but it's preferable to the Peggy Pureheart routine she's come up with. This, the same girl who washed down her crazy pills with a bottle of vodka and then told Dan to call her Serena while he fucked her? I mean, how annoying is "Ivy," by comparison? I don't love the camp levels Bitch Lily's come to over the last couple years, but when it involves her kicking Rufus in the nuts over and over, or Ivy until she grows a pair, I am in.

SPECTATOR

Nate: "Dear Elizabeth Fischer, please stop lying and tell me who's his mom or what."
PI Andrew: "Diana Payne didn't exist until three years ago."
Nate: "Wait, so she's younger than me?"

By Jacob Clifton

WALDORF

Dorota: "Why you look enchanting? I sense a scheme."
Blair: "I don't want to be Highbrow Brilliant, and I can't compete anyway. What I am is Highbrow Despicable. Gwyneth, Posh, Mayor Bloomberg. These are my people. Memorize these talking points..."
Dorota: "This for after you sabotage Lonelyboy big night?"
Blair: "Yep. Through money."

EMPIRE

Rufus: "Dan won't let me be his date, so I guess I'm coming to Fake Dinner."
Lily: "Fake Dinner is cancelled. Suck it."
Rufus: "Then I guess I'll just keep playing my guitar here in Brooklyn forever."
Lily: "Yeah, or until the heat goes out. Later!"

Ivy: "This better be good."
Lily: "Pay no attention to the creepy hungry grin on my face, and have a seat."

YOUNG LIONS

Young Lion: "Pour some more delicious literature in my glass, thanks."
Waiter: "This is a thrilling account of life under a totalitarian regime told through the graphic novel format, with hints of pomegranate and a leathery finish."
Young Lion: "This caramelized magical realism is delicious! It's nearly making the elbow pads on my sport jacket peel up."
Young Lion: "Have you tried the prosciutto-wrapped hoax memoir? Divine!"

Blair: "Dan, you may remove my unbelievably awesome coat, revealing the dress made of sparkling black diamonds beneath."
Dan: "You look enchanting. Clearly a scheme is afoot. After all, I told you to dress casual."
Blair: "Honey, this is casual."

Nice! But since Gossip Girl hasn't uploaded Dorota's blast about Blair overshadowing Dan yet, Blair's forced to attempt communication with humans. Never goes well. She plops herself into a conversation Dan's having with a famous person, and makes a full ass of herself immediately. Oh, girl. Still rooting for you.

HOUSE OF PAYNE

Nate bribes Victor, formerly of the Empire Hotel and thus a friend/of use, to get into Diana's suite. He tosses the place! But in a Nate way where, first, he folds his jacket like a good boy and lays it carefully over the back of a chair. Somehow they have created the greatest character out of literally nothing. I will say this for S4 and S5: Nathaniel Archibald has become one of the awesomest people on television.

By Jacob Clifton

PRADA

Famous Social Register Guy: "Lily, thanks for inviting me to your Fake Dinner!"
Lily: "It is for being in the social pages, so..."
Dude: "And why is your ten-foot-tall daughter stomping around like she's going to kick something?"
Lily: "Clearly she has forgotten about the happy face we talked about. Oh, Carol! Don't you look ravishing and crazy and shitty some more."

PAYNE

Diana: "Are you just going to go through my underwear drawer? Or are you gonna toss one in here?"
Nate: Instantly removes his clothing, possibly while saying words.

PRADA

Carol: "Okay, William. I guess I'm not blackmailing you anymore now that I got half my mom's money."
Wm vdW: "Good thing we're both so trustworthy!"

Serena: "This is my happy face!"

YOUNG LIONS

After a literary circle-jerk that doesn't last too long, Dan's invited to speak, so of course Blair gets right up in that shit and starts talking. Everybody's like, "She's Despicable! But it must be said, also very Highbrow." She tells them how despicable and highbrow she is, tosses the Young Lions an endowment, and then tries to make everybody slow-clap her, and it's vomitous. Dan is disgusted by his girlfriend's insane, shitty, behavior and -- needless to say -- fully erect by the time she stops talking.

PRADA

Everybody: "This Fake Dinner is going so great!"
Lily: "I can fix that."
Serena: "I can't believe you even served dinner Family Style. You are such a dork."
Lily: "It's very important in our family to share."
Carol: "Bitchy Eighties reference about stealing leg warmers!"
Lily: "Yeah, or the time you had a baby with my husband."
Lola: "Holy shit."

Serena: "Uh, I guess I'm the Lily this time? You need to back your shit down."
Lily: "No, honey. Mommy's very drunk. Listen, Social Register, this bitch used an imposter to steal my niece's trust fund..."
Carol: "Okay, well, I'm just going to go."
Lily: "Not at all, my friend. I have these cops stashed behind the couch."
Cops: "Hey, guys!"

Carol: "Okay, but Ivy would never back your story. She's not going down for this either."
Lily: "I also have Ivy stashed behind the couch."
Ivy: "Hey, guys! I already gave a statement regarding your criminal fraud, so I get off scot-free."
Serena: "I still haven't gotten the memo that it's okay for you to be alive yet, so that pisses me off."
Lola: "I have the most embarrassing family in the universe."

YOUNG LIONS

Dan: "Your ridiculous behavior, is it significant?"
Blair: "Only insofar as I believe in magazines. But there's also a valid point to be made here in which I used Chuck's Empire and Louis's Princeness to make myself feel special, and now with you I realize that I was just playing second fiddle and thinking I was first chair. I don't want to be a second banana, or a third wheel, any longer."
Dan: "None of this stuff matters to me. It's attractive, everybody likes attention, but I do not care about any of this. I'm happy to let you drive. I know what dating Blair Waldorf means, and no matter how dumb things get, it's what I signed on for. Are you so used to being controlled that you can't see how transparent I am when I try to do it? I don't have an agenda. I'm a Humphrey, my agenda is to be better than everybody else. Not in the pages of magazines or on blogs, just right here. In my heart."

Blair: "I don't feel like an equal, regardless of what you're saying. And it's certainly not how I'm being perceived."
Dan: "Well, give up caring how you're perceived, then. When I look at you, I just see awesome."

PAYNE

Nate: "That was good sex, for a three-year-old. I'm just going to go check on my Chuck, and steal this notebook I was about to steal when you came in here and made me fuck you."
Diana: "Wait! Blast."

VDW

Wm vdW: "Why are you still stomping around on me? Sorry I lied, sorry I cheated on your..."
Serena: "No, this is about my daddy issues and nothing else. What's with being all over Lola's jock? The one thing you knew would make me fucking mental?"

She runs through their history, from What Happened In Santorini and the time she stole a horse to the many teachers and legislators and other male authority figures she's seduced over the years, just to connect the dots for his dumb ass, and then takes off.

Serena: "You broke my mom's heart, and now you just broke mine."

Remember when Lily had one?

PRADA

By Jacob Clifton

VDW

Serena: "You broke my mom's heart, and now you just broke mine."

Remember when Lily had one?

PRADA

Rufus: "I'm not staying, I just came to bitch at you some more."
Lily: "Whatever, kiddo. I am knees-deep in Mommy Juice right now."
Rufus: "You paid off that nurse and fucked over everybody. Enough is enough."
Lily: "Are you asking for a divorce? Because you're not getting any younger. I doubt you're gonna find another Upper East Side divorcee to pay for your lifestyle and listen to your constant whining."
Rufus: "Your money? Fuck your money, I shit on your money."
Lily: "You're the one that made it about that, when you went behind my back to save the little girl I was destroying. Sorry if shit got too real for you."
Rufus: "My lifestyle and my fucked-up morality have been incompatible all along!"
Lily: "Trust me when I say there's no judgment here. You're talking to the widow of Bart Bass. If I honestly thought there was anything wrong with living the way you live, I would have killed myself five husbands ago."
Rufus: "Oh, there's judgment here all right!"

That's on the Humphrey crest, actually. It's in Latin, but basically the whole thing is just this knight, holding a rose up in front of the sun and calling it a high-class bitch with no values. In Latin.

EMPIRE

Chuck: "Oh, nothing. Just trying to scrape the image of you fucking my mother out of my brain."
Nate: "Well, I certainly wasn't up to no good out there. I didn't just come back from fucking a former lover -- who is maybe also your mom -- so I could steal her financial information and maybe also sleep with your uncle -- who is maybe also your dad."
Monkey: "You guys should just bone and get it over with. My God."
Chuck: "I mean, what is this show even about."

Dan: "For the record, I fell in love with you when we were working at W, so I am actually familiar with your vicious competitive side. I have no illusions about you."

Blair: "Tell me about that girl. Blair Waldorf, from the show Gossip Girl."
Dan: "Fiercely strong. Independent. Outspoken, beautiful. Capable of anything. And no man, or magazine, could ever take that away from her."
Blair: "She sounds great. I look forward to meeting her again."

Fucking word. Now, literally at this point a song starts up going break the cycle/ round and round we go, in case you were somehow confused about what's going on here, but I'm not going to make fun, because I have to keep going, because I have something in my eye right now. But being as it is a conversation we waited two years for, we judge on the merits: That was beautiful, and to say it was earned is an understatement, and what on earth is going to happen now?

RHODES WOMEN

Wm vdW: "I know jail sucks, but let's think about our daughter. Give me all your mom's money, and we'll take care of Lola. I just wanna do the right thing."
Carol: "Good thing you're so trustworthy! I'm in."

Lily: "Thanks for fucking my sister over with me, Ivy. Here is a million-dollar check I just wrote with a ballpoint pen that says One Million Dollars on it."
Ivy: "Lily, for real though. I came here because I was being paid, but fell in love with you and your family the second I got here."
Lily: "You keep saying that, but I have formed an opinion. Not to mention the fact that there's actually nothing to be done about it. You're a loose end. I already have three kids I pretend don't exist, I can't have another one bouncing around. Not when I'm so close to provoking Rufus's suicide."
Ivy: "I could tear up this check?"

I gotta say, this scene got to me the most out of the whole episode, even more than finally getting Blair back, because it's so well-acted and you can see all sides of them both. You see Ivy thinking, "This time she'll believe me and it'll work and I can be okay again," and you see Lily thinking, "There just isn't a way to do that." She takes Ivy's hands, not roughly, and smiles.

"Goodbye, Ivy."

It's the coldest room in the universe. Maybe I'm just doing my own issues, but there is something very real here, I think. Something about aspiration, sure, and moms, but also something about broken people trying to fit together, or this hope that somehow the person with all the power will see that you're being real, or good, or valiant, or whatever, and they just look you in the eye and smile and say, not entirely without regret, "Goodbye." It's a breakup, it's that WASP hardness, it's getting evicted or expelled or fired. A sudden absence, right there in front of you. It's awful. It's so much worse than Lily simply screwing her over again.

By Jacob Clifton

"Goodbye, Ivy."

As Ivy's tearing up the check in the elevator, Lily answers the phone.

Wm vdW: "I got Carol's half for you, like you asked. But are you sure you're going to take care of Lola with it?"
Lily: "Why would I punish that little girl just because of your extramarital affair?"
Wm vdW: "You've done worse for less reason. In the last twenty-four hours."
Lily: "I'm not a monster, William."
Wm vdW: "Good thing you're so trustworthy, huh?"

Wm vdW: "Take me to JFK, actually. I'll figure this one out on my own."

Lola: "Hey, sis!"
Serena: "Fuck you want? Get out."
Lola: "I thought we could bond over destroying our parents together? You get back at Lily, I get Carol out of jail..."
Serena: "Uh, not interested in being your sister right now, thanks to daddy issues. Please just stay away from my family from now on."
Lola: "Sure, right after I steal the Gossip Girl website from you."

By Jacob Clifton

The login email is SvetlanaSparks, another absolutely gorgeous touch if you think about it. Potential everywhere up in here this week.

EMPIRE

Nate: "How's it going?"
Chuck: "I think maybe I have remembered that mysterious tattoo from the many times I've seen my uncle naked, due to us having sex near and on top of each other ever since I was a little child."
Nate: "I'm not sure I understand."
Monkey: "Fuckin'... Are you guys for real?"
Chuck: "What I'm saying is, I think Jack Bass is my father."
Nate: "But wait, who is your mother?"
Monkey: "NOBODY CARES. NOBODY EVER CARED. JESUS."
Nate: "Okay, wait. Can you start over?"

WEEK

Chuck and Nate, simply dumbfounded about what to do , entreat Blair for help, so of course she dresses up like Diana Payne in some kind of scheme. I have a feeling this one's going to be great.

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.