Jackdaws, Or: Humphrey's Complaint

S05E22

So very many schemes! Nate and Lola, that braintrust, get three of 'em cooking right away -- which is at the least one too many -- when they decide to use Diana to take Gossip Girl away from poor crazy Serena, use Serena to take down Diana to save the Spectator, and use thence Diana to get the truth about Jack Bass and Chuck's unendingly troubled genetic code. Of course, all three are doomed once Serena very Serenaly tips her hand about working with Diana her own self in another scheme, which is to say immediately and without finesse, so then they have to do a separate scheme with her to work against Diana in turn. It's frothy and delightful.

The encoded contents of Diana's Little Red Daybook are proving difficult for old Nate and Chuck to decipher, but a Nate brainwave -- "You need ex-CIA, or a serial killer" -- brings Blair into the mix. She's more than happy to help, since Dan's got her on the road to recovering herself and is in turn off musing about spending a literary summer in Rome. One fake massage from Dorota later, and they've figured out that the codes in Diana's book represent different international travel destinations in one of the most hilariously bizarre scenes we've had in a long time.

Diana gives both Nate and Serena the phone number for the real Gossip Girl, which because of the other eight things going on means everybody is invited to Diana's secret meeting -- which is at the same roving Eyes Wide Shut tattoo sex club from years past! No Carter Baizen, BOO!, but we learn Diana's old persona: India (anagrams!), the madam of the whole operation.

How long does it take Dan to get Grimaldi-suspicious about Blair working with Chuck on shit that doesn't concern him? A whole half of the episode, glad you asked. But it works out wonderfully in the long run -- Dan once again proves his worthiness, thankfully -- and it's actually a fair issue, considering their part in the sex club scheme is touring it together, getting secret boners.

While they search for Jack and Serena looks for Gossip Girl, it's only a fair amount of time before India catches them on the surveillance cameras... And Nate and Lola meet up with her, just as Chuck is running into Jack and Blair opens the door on something that sends her screaming into the night. (This was the best act out of the season, just a stunning series of incredibly stressful reveals. It was great.)

Meanwhile, Nate and Lola set Serena up to get the laptop back into the hands of Gossip Girl, which leads to a bit of a breakdown -- but now they can't even use the whorehouse secret to oust Diana, because they don't have GG anymore. Lola suggests blowing it up on The Spectator, which is so ethically confusing that Nate just fucks Lola instead of dealing with it. Back at Chez Waldorf, Dorota -- I'm just gonna say it, she's the episode MVP -- comforts Serena, who must confront a life without even blogging.

"Why do you have to be so melodramatic about everything?" Jack asks Chuck, but an answer is no more forthcoming than it has been for the last five years. Whatever Jack is hiding in the sex mansion, Blair won't exactly tell Chuck, but on her way back to DUMBO advises him to find out for himself. And when he does? Hoo boy.

Let's just say Chuck's parentage just got even more fucked up, and Lily's marriage to Rufus might be even more tenuous than we thought. Legally speaking.

Week: Serena, it would seem, manages to leverage Blair and Chuck's new alliance against Dan's suddenly perfect boyfriend nature, resulting in drama for all.

PREVIOUSLY

Lola was pretty sure Serena was the new Gossip Girl, but her attempts to prove it seemed only to complicate matters further, while Diana Payne was interested in keeping Serena in power to protect secrets of her own. One of those secrets was (or was not) the fact that she is (or is not) one of Chuck's many mothers. After Nate whored himself out to the cougar once again, though, a strange photograph revealed that it might just be Chuck's father that's the real mystery after all.

GGHQ

Dorota: "Miss Serena, it smell in here like Mtn Dew and desperation."
Serena: "I'm just blogging up a storm, don't worry about it. It's this, or I kill myself."
Dorota: "You no learn how to publish blog then, because nobody know all this things you writing. Also, Mr. Nate fire you. Maybe short novel or novelette until you understand how internet work."
Serena: "I order you to be happy for me."
Dorota: "Then happy I am, you crazy brat."

PAYNE

Diana: "Uncle Jack, don't worry about our big sex party tonight. Surely everyone in the cast won't show up, like happens in every episode. Also, don't worry about our whole maternity/paternity trick on Chuck. This show almost never obsesses on that storyline, bringing it back from the dead like a zombie every three episodes. Everything is fine. Hang on, call waiting."

Nate: "You up? You out?"
Diana: "Nate, good to hear from you. Remember that book you stole from my underwear drawer last week?"
Nate: "I can honestly say that I do not."
Diana: "Put down the bong and bring me my book, or I'll act slinky and spooky about it."
Nate: "Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about."
Diana: "It is not a compliment when I say this, but I almost believe you."

EMPIRE

Chuck: "Was that one of my moms?"
Nate: "Yeah, Diana. I 'played' it 'clueless.'"
Chuck: "We're never going to prove that Uncle Jack is my dad, because this whole book -- which clearly is central to that plotline -- is in a secret code. You know, like grown people tend to do with their dayrunners."
Nate: "You know who could help decode that book is a crazy person, like somebody from the military or a serial kil..."
Chuck: "-- You're right. Blair Waldorf is the key."

NOLA

Nate: "How about you, Lola. Any luck hacking into the Gossip Girl website using that old password?"

By Jacob Clifton

NOLA

Nate: "How about you, Lola. Any luck hacking into the Gossip Girl website using that old password?"
Lola: "No. I had no way of knowing this entire episode was about the art of decryption."
Nate: "Well, I'm sorry I doubted your wild unsubstantiated claims for like one second."
Lola: "And for calling me a fame-whoring social climber? And lots of other things I don't mind reminding you about?"
Nate: "God, you are the worst."

WALDORF

Blair: "Can I ... shave you?"
Dan: "Please to remember that I am not Chuck Bass. But anyway, I have to go to Brooklyn to meet Alessandra."
Blair: "How much of your Inside sequel have you actually written? The truth."
Dan: "None of it. I am basically uncreative."
Blair: "Me too. But since you reminded me that I used to be awesome, my plan is to spend the day at the Met."
Dan: "Are you going to initiate another two-year storyline based on meeting another royal person that talks like he's choking on oysters?"
Blair: "No, just looking at art."
Dan: "Then you have my permission. We can have lunch later."
Blair: "You know, most couples don't give each other the freedom we do."
Dan: "Thanks for reminding me not to trust you, Rufus."

NOLA

Lola: "The fact that being Gossip Girl is what's keeping Serena from killing us all makes me think we should take it away from her."
Nate: "You mean by expressing concern for her well-being and talking it over like adults?"
Lola: "No way! Through an incredibly complex scheme that makes no sense at all. I mean, you and Serena haven't been alienated from each other in a good week or so."
Nate: "Everything is so complicated. And please don't say we should work with the real Gossip Girl. For one thing, I still secretly am working with the real Gossip Girl. And for another one, the real Gossip Girl is scary. Not scary like Serena is scary -- which is to say like a hungry badger is scary -- but scary like Waldorf is scary. Like a hungry badger with a gun."
Lola: "Remind me quickly of your other four storylines."
Nate: "Right, well in addition to taking down Serena as Gossip Girl, I also need to get rid of Diana Payne by talking to her investor, who may be Chuck's real father but certainly is his uncle."
Lola: "Uncles who are also your dad. Of all the parallel themes, that's the one that sticks? This show is so fucking odd."

By Jacob Clifton

DUMBO

Alessandra: "Hey, just chilling in your house, alone, going through your stuff."
Dan: "I am okay with you doing whatever you want. Sad to say, though, that I have no manuscripts to show you."
Alessandra: "I figured as much, based on your entire personality. But I have a plan!"
Dan: "What is it?"
Alessandra: "It's a secret!"
Dan: "Again, I'm relatively unfamiliar with the duties of a literary agent, so this all seems normal. What do you need me to do?"
Alessandra: "Meet my mysterious creepy friend for lunch. Tell nobody."
Dan: "But I'm having lunch with my control freak girlfriend who's legitimately going through an identity crisis!"
Alessandra: "Not anymore you're not!"

SOME RANDOM STREET

Blair: "Chuck. I don't have time for any of your nonsense, I have a very busy day planned."
Dan text: Please do not eat lunch with me today.
Chuck: "But I need you to decrypt a coded message!"
Blair: "That sounds legit, sure."

GGHQ

Serena: "Fuck you want? I'm blogging!"
Lola: "I just wanted to apologize for standing up for myself every time you lie to my face. And for having lunch with my biological father, causing you to become evil."
Serena: "Get the hell out of here. And don't tell anybody I'm Gossip Girl, or else."
Lola: "Okay, listen. Diana is working with the real GG to take you down. And I think she has secret secrets of Diana's, above and beyond the fake one I blew up last week."
Serena: "Weird!"
Lola: "But if you could figure out Diana's big secret first, then we could beat both of them. Problem is, her stolen datebook is in code."
Serena: "So call Blair."

Serena: "Actually, no, wait. I seem to remember seeing a slim leatherbound volume lying around the place, once or twice, with gold embossing on the cover reading THE SECRET KEY TO MY CODED DAYRUNNER. That might help?"
Lola: "Uh, you're right. That does sound like a clue, Serena. Do you think you could get that for me?"
Both Of Them, Silently: "This bitch thinks she's so smart."
Serena Text to DP: I told them there was a secret codebook! Our plan, such as it is, will most likely succeed!

By Jacob Clifton

SPECTATOR

Serena: "No book yet. But I found a Big Ben paperweight!"
NOLA: "Focus, girl."
Serena: "I'll keep looking, okay? I'm sure it's around here somewhere."

Diana: "A secret codebook? That was, for you, quite genius."
Serena: "It's not a compliment if it's true. Or if you say it like that. But either way, they're going to be running in circles all episode on this one."
Diana: "I would like it back, though. Would you go steal it from your friends?"
Serena: "Remind me again what this storyline is about?"
Diana: "It's a quid pro quo, Clarice. You do whatever I say, turning on your friends and alienating them like always for no real reason, and then I give you some useless crap like the outdated number for Gossip Girl's burner phone that everybody already knows anyway."

WALDORF

Blair comes downstairs wearing a skintight cobalt-blue Diana Payne number, adorably throwing around Diana Payne catchphrases -- "Cheers, thanks a lot. You're adorable. Spectator." -- in a tremendously enjoyable accent. While it does little to assuage one's worries that Blair will just never be a sane person again, it's much more like her long-ago craziness that she would do this, and therefore phenomenal to see.

Chuck: "[Obligatory sexual reference to seeing his one-time soulmate dressed up like his best friend's cougar and possibly his own mother.]"
Blair: "Gross. Give me the codebook."
Chuck: "What's that sliderule thing in your hand?"
Blair: "A handy tool called a cipher slide. All crazy people have them. I got mine when I was a child, desperately wishing my mother cared enough to read my diary."

Blair, immediately: "Ah, a classic [whatever] encryption. Not unbreakable, but it can take a long time, especially without software..."
Chuck: "Too bad we don't have that. Software, I mean. In 2012."

Blair: "Well, one regular set of codes all take place on Saturdays, including tonight."
Chuck: "And some of those Saturdays I remember well, because Nate was boning my mom in the room door on them."
Blair: "So let's shake his weed-addled mind into sharing some details."

By Jacob Clifton

LUCIA

Lucia: "Lonelyboy! I am a big fan! In fact, I asked Alessandra to send you to secret lunch with me so I could invite you to join this summer's group of artists in residence at the Italian Arts and Letters Institute, in Rome."
Dan: "Roth! And Mailer!"

Ugh. Of course. Just of course.

Lucia: "Yeah, and also Sontag, DeLillo, and Ondaatje."
Dan: "I pretend to have read those people but I have not read those people. Mostly because I wasn't born in the mid-'70s like the person that wrote this, and wouldn't have been force-fed DeLillo and Ondaatje in '90s liberal arts college as a result."
Lucia: "Sontag?"
Dan: (A blank, yet somehow doleful, silent stare.)
Lucia: "I'm just saying, diversity is important."
Dan: "And I'm just saying, self-mythologizing white guy whines, constant masturbation and the enlightened mistreatment of women covers my entire oeuvre. When do we leave?"
Lucia: "Immediately after our pranzo d'affari."
Dan: "Great! But wait, my girlfriend is getting a new personality together and I should really be here to supervise..."
Lucia: "Mailer and Roth, huh?"

EMPIRE

Lola: "So the backwards trail of Diana's existence ends up at when she first bought that party house in LA, where she fucked you on the floor..."
Nate: "I kind of remember that."
Serena: "Hey, just walked right the hell in like usual. Listen, sorry I couldn't find that codebook, but I was thinking if I could just steal the other book it might jog my memory."
Nate: "Chuck has it, over at Blair's."
Chair: "No, we're here too. Hi, Serena. Hi, other one. Jenny? No. Vanessa? No..."
Lola: "-- It's Lola. We've been through this."
Blair: "I've done some preliminary codebreaking, but without the advent of software in our parallel universe we're going to have to rely on Nate for the step..."
Nate: "Yay! I love to help."
Blair: "...Which is too bad, because he is retarded."
Nate: "Aw."

DAIR

Blair: "Hey, what's up?"
Dan: "I've been invited to the Institute of Arts and Letters' summer artists' retreat!"
Blair: "That's amazing! I'm so proud of you! And supportive, like an adult might be."
Dan: "Yeah, but I have to crap all over it anyway."
Blair: "Okay, well, do what you're going to do, I guess."
Dan: "Wait, are you rudely talking on your phone in a museum?"
Blair: "Uh, no. I'm at Chuck's."
Dan: "Okay, I have to go throw a weird fit about that now for no reason."
Blair: "Again, do what you gotta do. I'm busy."

By Jacob Clifton

EMPIRE

Chuck: "Nathaniel, you must remember something Diana was doing that was unusual on those Saturdays."
Blair: "Besides you, of course..."
Lola: "Your datebook just says gym, gym, bangs trimmed, gym."
Nate: "Enough of the gentle ribbing. It is not for my pleasure."
Serena: "I have to go steal this book now."

Seconds pass before they realize Serena ran off with the book, and they chase her to the elevator which is a few feet away, and then the door closes in their faces, and I guess that's a win for Serena. It's fairly awesome to watch, especially with their little helpless faces like, "Well, the elevator door closed. I guess that's it for us."

HUMPHREY

Rufus: "So wait, Blair wants you to go to Rome..."
Dan: "Yeah! She couldn't have been happier for me! The bitch."
Rufus: "No, go back. That's the part I'm not getting."
Dan: "I want her to be happy for me, just not that happy."
Rufus: "Daniel, I want you to think very hard about what you just said, and then even harder about what I'm about to say. Rufus Humphrey thinks you're being an asshole."

Dan: "Which would give me pause normally, but I seem to have contracted that virus of Louis's where to love Blair is to distrust her for no reason."
Rufus: "Are things really so dark that I am suddenly the voice of reason?"
Dan: "It happens once a season, so I guess yes? I guess I just want her to be obsessed with me and work against my own happiness and empowerment. You know, like I do to the women I love."
Rufus: "Or you could act normal for like one second."
Dan: "You're right. I have to stalk her immediately and undermine our mutual trust on every level, eventually using our love as a flimsy excuse to avoid actual work. That way I can sabotage my relationship and my career, at the same time."
Rufus: "God, you're such a fucking Humphrey."

By Jacob Clifton

EMPIRE

Everybody: "Fucking Serena, fucking everything up for everybody like usual."
Serena: "Sorry, guys! I just wanted to leverage Nate's career against my desire to get an obsolete phone number everybody already has."
Everybody: "What?"
Serena: "I keep telling everybody that my hobby of being Gossip Girl is the only thing that's keeping me alive. Why can't anybody hear me when I say this?"
Everybody: "Anyway, glad we caught you before you reached the lobby of this hotel."
Chuck: "Meanwhile, you're also fucking up my chances of finding my father and/or mother."
Serena: "Wait, what? You have an uncle-father too? That is nuts. Okay, I'm back on your team. Or am I?"

PORTUGAL

Thanks to grimy Lola's 99 percent connections to the underworld of spa employees, they've managed to get Diana's masseuse replaced by -- the show's first-ever worthwhile use of -- Dorota. Who Eastern-blocs Diana into submission, using neurolinguistic programming and Reichian pressure-point techniques to help them figure out the code. That's the legitimately awesome part.

The hilariously awesome part, though, is what's going on back at the Empire, to wit:

NJBC: "She was in Portugal? What do we know about Portugal?"
Nate: "They speak Portuguese? Maybe."
Chuck: "Of all the household employees who molested me over the years, one favorite was a Portuguese tutor from Lisbon. I remember her breasts, her thighs and her country code, 351."
Blair: "...Which we have down for that weekend, thanks to my cipher slide. So now we know she's using encrypted country codes in her datebook, which we also could have figured out from the fact that she works and travels out of an office that Nate owns, but I guess that was unrealistic so we went with the old 'childhood memories of telephone dialing codes never fade' instead. That hoary old truism."

I mean...

Chuck: "Fine, so decrypt the number for tonight and I'll give it a call."
Sex Club: "Reservation for three? For a person you never told me who you are?"
Chuck: "Yes, and the address please? For this secret illegal sex party?"
Sex Club: "Sure thing, I'll get that for you."
Chuck: "Thanks! You've been really helpful."
Sex Club: "No problem... Okay, and you're all set up, person that I don't know your name."

By Jacob Clifton

Who is going to the whorehouse? Everybody. Why are we going to the whorehouse? To find Diana's secrets, Uncle Jack's whereabouts, and -- God willing -- a steamin' cup of Carter Baizen.

Serena: "Wait, what about me trying to figure out Gossip Girl?"
Everybody: "That is so irrelevant. Gossip Girl is so irrelevant."
Serena: "ARGH! SERENA SMASH!"

Dan: "Taxi driver, follow that limo containing all my friends! Covertly!"
Cabbie: "This is going to be the most expensive cab ride of your life."

SERENA PLANS ARE LIKE

Diana: "My book! How did you get it?"
Serena: "I said, can I have that book? And they said yes."
Diana: "Cool. Well, here's that useless number. Now I have to go to a sex club."

Lola: "Hey, Serena. Imagine seeing you here, moments after I saw you upstairs. Can I help you track down Gossip Girl? Since I'm the only person who knows you're impersonating her, I kind of feel implicated. And I'd rather you were GG, because from what everybody is saying you're much less effective at it."
Serena: "Oh, am I? Because I just did technological magic feats and am now tracking the GPS of that obsolete burner phone all over the place."
Lola: "Unlikely, but I'm scamming you anyway so whatever. Let's hop in my sad van and track that bitch down!"

INDIA

Nate, Chuck and Blair arrive at the sex party, and two-thirds of them are scandalized!

Chuck: "Yeah, you guys weren't really in that storyline, huh. Know then that I have had dealings with them. A lot of shitty actresses come through here, and I fuck 'em all. Sometimes they roam empty houses with candles and then get kidnapped by Carter Baizen, the lucky bitches. Other times, that is itself an elaborate hoax."
Everybody: "So it makes sense for Uncle Jack to be here, but we're actually tracking Diana. That's a different storyline. Are you saying that Uncle Jack is just randomly going to be here?"
Chuck: "That is what I'm saying."

Ho: "Are you the random people who didn't give their name? And are clearly children? Come right in. Can I show you to the various bedrooms, Chair?"
Chair: "You absolutely can do that."

By Jacob Clifton

Hos be climbin' all over old white guys, everywhere you look. There aren't any masks this time, but the old white guys are doing even more sinister shit than usual, like caressing the faces of the hos in slow-motion, or making them stand very still and eat an orange, or do a dance to no music. The vibe is like, there is a room somewhere in this house where maybe not everybody comes out of there again at the end of the night.

Old White Guy: "Jolly proud erection you have there."
Old White Guy: "Body by Bowflex, hard-on by Pfizer."
Old White Guy: "This is so much better than golf."
Old White Guy: "This is pretty much exactly the same thing as golf."

Nate: "All alone at the sex party. I wonder how I will spend my time. I wonder what I am doing here, and why. Hey, is that Cee Lo Green?"
Serena & Lola: "Nate, hi! We just randomly got handed these waitress ho clothes, so I guess we're undercover."
Nate: "I guess the madam is named India? A fairly obvious near-anagram?"
Serena: "Yes, but for what?" (Momentary blond threeway of confusion.)
Nate: "Just remember that sneakiness is of the essence."
Serena: "This is not my first rodeo. I'm gonna pass some apps."
Lola: "This is absolutely my first rodeo! And it is awesome!"

You got me, Lola. You got me there.

CHAIR

Ho: "So you didn't like the four-poster bed? I figured you for a royalty fetish."
Blair: "Until lately."
Chuck: "Do you have like a dark, small space? Closet, attic, wine cellar?"
Ho: "You realize you're not the only people here, right?"
Blair: "Just show us every room of the house, including the ones where people are fucking."

This is exactly the kind of shit that is going to prove Dan Humphrey right. I just know it.

HUMPHREY

Taxi: "Meter's running, kid. [He actually says that.] We just gonna stare up at the sex club mansion all night, or what?"
Dan: "Hang on, I have to whine to my papa some more before I decide to do anything."

Rufus: "So now you've stalked her to a sex mansion? That's like the opposite of trusting her."
Dan: "And yet it is indubitably a sex mansion, into which she has gone, with Chuck."
Rufus: "It's only the past two seasons that make me think probably you're still the one being paranoid, because there is no limit to how contrived these Blair-mistrusting scenarios can get, but know this. If you go in there, you're only going to have one explanation, and that will ruin your relationship. So what are you going to do?"
Dan: "Not go to Rome, that's for goddamn sure."

Indiana: "Uncle Jack, don't worry about Nate and Lola being at our sex party. We have bigger secrets, like that secret person we're keeping in this sex house where the entire cast just showed up."

Understandably, there are a million cameras all over this sex mansion, so it's of course at this precise moment that she sees Chuck and Blair touring the entire place. The one thing that could wreck her ludicrous plan to conceal Mr. Rochester's First Wife or whoever it is while also throwing a sex party under her double-identity of India, the Madam Nobody Ever Recognizes.

CHAIR

Chair: "If we were going to fuck in a dumbwaiter, that might be interesting."
Serena: "You guys! Why are you here at this sex party!?"
Everybody: "Why are any of us here at this sex party?"
Serena: "I'm here tracking Gossip Girl's burner phone. I presume you're here tracking Indiana and Uncle-Father Jack?"
Everybody: "Well, it was nice running into you. I hope nobody sees a single one of us and makes the obvious connection to the rest of us..."

Police Raid! Just as Serena is apparently using her spy satellites to locate Gossip Girl somewhere in the sex mansion. Oh, and you were so close, girl. So ridiculously, unbelievably close. More believable: She's the only one of the castmembers who actually ends up leaving during the fake police raid, and she doesn't run into Dan out there. Even Nate and Lola manage to sneak up the stairs, discovering Indiana in one room, while Chuck is finding Jack in a second room, and a curious thing is happening in a third room.

Blair, affectingly enough: "Oh my God, no. No, it can't be..."

Who is Rochester's Wife? Who is up there? Elizabeth Fischer wouldn't scare her like this. Eric and Jenny are never coming back. And she's also super-sad, too. It's neither of Chuck's parents-of-the-moment, because they're in the other two rooms. So unless it's somebody unexpected having some scary sex, which it is not, it's going to be ... Bart, right? God damn it. Just goddammit. Ed Westwick is a good actor! (Maybe technically a great one, if you consider how many constraints playing Chuck Bass actually entails.) Bart's death was one of his greatest things. So rather than giving Ed Westwick something to work with, let's by all means start retroactively taking things away. That makes sense, right?

BASSES

Jack: "Chuck, I'd love to chat, but..."

By Jacob Clifton

Blair, affectingly enough: "Oh my God, no. No, it can't be..."

BASSES

Jack: "Chuck, I'd love to chat, but..."
Chuck: "I want answers! Blood donor! Fake mommy number one! Fake mommy number two! Answers!"
Jack: "I really do have to go, but it's been fun watching you act melodramatic as usual."
Chuck: "This is your tattoo in this picture of Elizabeth Fischer having a baby!"
Jack: "That picture is twenty years old, who cares?"
Chuck: "You fucked my mother! Resulting in me!"
Jack: "I fucked a lot of Elizabeths. I fucked a lot of everybody. It's my thing."
Chuck: "Fine. Just tell me whether you're my father. It matters, I guess."

The bouncers somehow get Chuck out of there just as Blair's bouncers are somehow letting her run rampant around the place.

Blair: "What just happened? Did you tell him? What you're really hiding here."
Jack: "Fine, I'll tell you the secrets. Just to create more drama between you and Chuck, I will tell you what I couldn't tell him."

INDIANA

Indiana: "Nate, you and your sidekick are becoming an ass-ache of unbel..."
Nate: "-- No! I may not have been able to nab you on child porn, and we might have a kick-ass professional relationship, and one of the more believable friendships on the show, but this time I am taking you down! You are a Madam, Madame!"
Indiana: "And so what, you're going to take the Spectator away from me? You can't even prove I own this roving millionaire sex club. Maybe I'm just here, perving out. Just like you are. Do you honestly think I'll suffer more than you in this narrative? Weird British cougar versus rich hot white guy, who's grosser for coming here?"
Nate: "I am ... just so bad at blackmailing you! It is getting embarrassing! But I'll tell the cops about you!"
Diana: "The cops that are not coming? The fake police raid is what you're talking about? Which I clearly perpetrated?"
Nate: "Oh, right. Right, I knew that."
Diana: "I mean it was like five minutes ag..."
Nate: "-- All right! You've made your point."

By Jacob Clifton

SERENA PLANS CAN ALSO BE LIKE

Lola: "Can I say something? I will tell Gossip Girl about it! Why, I think that's her now!"
Serena: "Hey, I just wandered around the parking lot for a while and then realized it wasn't an actual raid, so I came back inside. How's it going?"
Lola: "Serena, this sex club is being run by Diana, and we need Gossip Girl to tell everybody! For some reason."
Serena: "Cool, I just left my laptop unattended downstairs, knowing that the real Gossip Girl was around here somewhere and obsessed with exacting vengeance on me and getting her website back. I'll just write the blast on my phone instead of checking into that situation... Hey, it says I'm locked out! That's weird. Hang on while I sign into this website again..."
Diana: "-- Not to interrupt this riveting television show of a debutante trying to log into a website on her phone, but I am going to get the fuck on up out of here."

MRS ROCHESTER

Jack: "Blair, you probably shouldn't tell Chuck about Mrs. Rochester."
Blair: "Of course I am going to! Do you realize how many annoying storylines this will quash?"
Jack: "That's exactly what I mean. You have the potential to fuck up literally everybody on this show, if it's Bart, because that means Lily is a bigamist, which will ruin the lives of half of the characters, and Chuck hasn't tried to commit suicide in a while so that'll probably go down, and then your relationship with Dan will be doubly doomed, and it'll fuck things up for Serena and Lola, and everybody will be poor. Except you."
Blair: "Then I gotta go tell Chuck tout suite. Let's get this shitstorm started."

NOLA

By Jacob Clifton

Serena: "...Well, my computer's gone."
NOLA: "Gossip Girl took it."
Serena: "How do you know? Are you psychic?"
NOLA: "No, you halfwit. But even if it weren't obvious, we would know anyway because we're the ones that set you up."
Serena: "But why? Just because I have tried to destroy both of you numerous times with it? Not to mention the fact that it's turning me into an insane addict?"
NOLA: "To be fair, mostly the latter. You are really starting to scare us. Do you know how desensitized Dorota has to be by now, to people acting fucking crazy?"
Serena: "I can stop any time I want! And I rarely used it toward nefarious ends!"
NOLA: "That's true, circumstantially, but the truth is that you are just exceptionally bad at using it at all. So it's not only sad, but also very sad. Two different ways to be very, very sad. Consider this an intervention."
Serena: "I'm going to call Gossip Girl's obsolete burner phone!"
NOLA: "To what end?"
Serena: "Because I am freaking out and have no idea what I'm doing! Oh wait. It says it's no longer in service. Guess I coulda seen that coming."

"Welp, I guess the last two episodes are going to be my brain going swiftly down the shitter. Probably start Season Six in a Betty Draper Fatsuit thanks to you assholes."

GARDEN

Chair: "Where's the rest of the cast gone?"
Chair: "Like it matters."
Chuck: "Hey, you look really fucked up. You look like I felt when I realized Jack Bass was my..."
Blair: "-- Let's just get out of here."
Chuck: "No more secrets, okay? Just tell me what's going on. Your seriousness is freaking me out."
Blair: "For once, it's not about me. But okay. I think you should go back in that house after I leave."

DUMBO

Dan: "Lucia, it's Dan Humphrey, author of Inside."
Lucia: "I was just about to get on a plane. Have you decided about Rome?"
Dan: "My girlfriend wants me to go..."
Lucia: "Great!"
Dan: "...Which means I'm not."
Lucia: "Well, today was a fucking waste. Later."

INDIANA

Diana: "Shouldn't the boat be here by now? I was so looking forward to riding a boat away from this sex mansion in the middle of the night."
Jack: "Thanks for pretending to call the cops into your own sex party. Not that it helped, in any way."
Diana: "This ridiculous Byzantine plot is going to seriously cost you, once I go back to being just one person."
Jack: "Or maybe I'll just have you murdered."

By Jacob Clifton

NOLA

Nate: "Man, waiting around for GG to get back online is a real bummer."
Lola: "About that. Serena said GG already knew Diana's big sex secret, so she's probably not going to care. Also, everybody is in cahoots with everybody else at this point, so there's that also."
Nate: "Then who can we tell? I wish I owned a magazine or website or webzine or newspaper or podcast or blog or something."
Lola: "Nate, you might own each and every one of those things. Nobody knows for sure. But you do own at least one of them."
Nate: "Are you saying I should use my newspaper to say the news?"
Lola: "Is there a downside to that?"
Nate: "Only one of us in this room is capable of that kind of critical thinking. And it ain't me, sister."

EX-GGHQ

Dorota, verbatim: "Why you eat berries in dark?"
Serena: "Because I am losing it, Dorota. I am straight-up fucking losing it."

Gossip Girl: "Hey, bitches! I'm actually back for real this time. And here's a random blast about Blair and Dan dating, which I sure do hope doesn't push anybody over the edge..."

There's a sound, a little clink, a little bit like shattering glass, as what's left of Serena van der Woodsen's mind goes shooting over Manhattan's East Side, leaving sparks and little rainbow trails in its wake.

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now. It is too late.

DUMBO

Blair: "Hey, babe. Are you mad because I ignored you all day and hung out with Chuck all day? Because it kind of seems like that would upset you. It certainly used to bother Prince Louis when I would do that, in every single episode."
Dan: "It's fine. Hey, as long as we're being honest, here's a huge lie about them not letting me into that summer program after all."
Blair: "You poor thing. Well, you'll catch the one, Tiger. Because you are a rising literary phenomenon. Meanwhile, I have to tell you this amazing story about a brothel."
Dan: "I missed out on a trip to a brothel? Aw, man. I guess I will just never let you out of my sight, ever again, like a total psycho."
Blair: "You're so sweet! It all started with this secret code -- you know I'm an expert cryptologist, right? -- and there was this book, see..."

By Jacob Clifton

INDIA

Chuck: "Hello? Sex party administrative offices? I'm coming in there, so no funny business. Or zombies that look like chicken tikka that has come alive."

Bart! Zombie Bart!

Zombie Bart: "Hello, son. I know it's confusing because I always look like a scrotum with sunstroke, but let me assure you I am actually alive, okay?"

WEEK

Turns out Chuck is actually a science experiment with three parents: One-third chicken tikka scrotum, one third opera rapist and one third whatever the hell Diana Payne is made of. Dan turns up under Blair's bed, uncomfortable with even their current level of intimacy, while Serena begins poisoning their food so that they will both die slowly over time. Meanwhile, the revelation that bigamist Lily's last marriage is still in effect causes her to be blackballed from society, which will be quite the change of pace. Lola, as the new Vanessa, offers to blow Rufus in sympathy, but it's been a while since that was really on the table. As we all know.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Killing, 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.