In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
So it's been four months and suddenly everybody on the show realizes that Serena is missing. Like they actually, I'm not exaggerating, they actually have conversations about, "Did she really just slip our minds for four entire months? That is so Serena." Which, to be fair.
Chuck's in Dubai with his father's translator, some lady who knows some kind of secret that Bart pays her $10M to keep even though she doesn't know what it is. Nate is in town, chattin' it up with Gossip Girl and operating some kind of business that is a website or a newspaper or possibly it is an App. Blair is in France with her PR director, another of her beautiful French randoms who sometimes books transatlantic flights for her when he feels like she should go away, and with whom she takes her tea in Versailles or something? Very little about Blair's life ever makes sense, really.
But even less believably: Bart and Lily have taken a yacht around the world in order to reverse their aging processes, while Rufus is now roomies with Ivy because nobody else will have her, everybody is sick of him and his jacked-up face, and because he's the only person too dumb to even question why she is on this show. Oh, and Dan and Georgina are in Italy or something doing God knows what. Making coats out of puppies or angling after King Triton's trident, presumably. Stealing little brothers for the Goblin King like they do.
(This is all coming off the finale, in which Serena taped herself fucking Dan on the bar at the Apartment and caused Dan and Blair to excommunicate her, which caused her to become a drug ho and eventually OD on the train. What else... Bart took Lily back from Rufus because he is marginally less of a choad, Chuck was pissed about something, Charlie and Ivy dressed up like hookers at one point? I think? Dan and Georgina are writing this tell-all that basically just seems like The Inside with the names written back in. Blair and Chuck met up in Monte Carlo and are in love but are refusing to date until everything is perfect, just like Dan and Serena did years ago, which turned out well. And Ivy took away all of Lily's money, but then Lily took it back, and then I think Ivy took it back-back, but Lily won I think. Well, considering one of them now lives with Rufus, I guess for sure she won that round.)
So once they remember that Serena exists, all of them at the same time -- even the same time of day, despite being in varied global places, because fuck time zones on this show, that's nothin' new -- oh but they do all come rushing right home. Except for Nate, who was already there, and who has traded in his Lip Thing for a whole other new Lip Thing that is even more distracting, and who has traded in his various cougar loves for a tiny little slip of an intern.
Bart menaces Chuck's random lady he's dragging everywhere, Chuck menaces the pretty little French fella that Blair drags everywhere, everybody is mean to Dan to because his hair is more embarrassing than ever before and he's being dragged everywhere by Georgina, and nobody can find Serena. Damian Dalgaard sends them to Poughkeepsie, where Georgina presumes Serena has found her way into a mental hospital at last, but no. It is much worse.
Because, you see, in four months Serena has: Come literally back to life, changed her name to "Sabrina," invented a new Wisconsinian background and Vassar education for herself, snagged a holistic pharmaceutical entrepreneur played by Barry Watson, and ingratiated herself with the Upstate Gays -- her people, I buy that part -- such that she's a groomsmaid in a big gay wedding.
Which is where the NJBC, plus D+G, with the help of DD and GG, find her. Presuming she is getting married and intent on ruining whatever happiness she's managed to cobble together, they crash the gay wedding and make dicks of themselves*, at which point Serena, wisely, turns their asses out.
*(Often in this lazy and truly mortifying, stair-stepping von Trapp/Three Stooges sequence, where they each deliver one painful line of dialogue, down the line -- Bitchy comment, quirky nonsense, old-school zinger, incomprehensible growling, stoned real talk -- over and over and over, until you feel like you're going bonkers. I'm talking, like, sub-Hart Of Dixie bullshit.)
Back in the city, Chuck and his translator lady do some kind of Bass Industries mustache-twirling, but the real story is Ivy, who exposits that Charlie is off on an NBC show now (so meta!) and that she is doing unthinkable manipulations to poor dumb Rufus for some reason of Lily hate. By the end of the hour, she takes that shit one step further, and finally fulfills the promise of intergenerational Rufus-boning that Vanessa Abrams made us so very long ago. Which is what Dan walks in on -- his father, I'm saying, fucking the girl who once forced him to fingerbang her while calling her "Serena" for what turned out to be just kicks, like, solely because she thought it would be weird, so she did it -- and sneaks quietly away from, in way the most interesting part of the entire episode.
Blair and Chuck profess their love for one another several thousand times and whatever, Georgina has become a non sequitur-spouting nonsense fountain, Nate proves as useful as he ever has, and Ivy's continued presence remains unearned. But on the other hand, Serena is happy and healthy and comfortably nestled just across the Park from PRADA with a rich dude, so I'd say it comes out about even.
week: I really can't tell. I've watched the trailer several times and I can't put it together. Nate's intern is a minor, somebody is attacked on the face by pantyhose, Dan's hair continues to suck a quart of taints, and presumably Blair will stop at nothing to fuck up Serena's day accidentally while Ivy continues to do whatever madness and Bart's luggage face opens and closes with a creaking. Nine more episodes and you know what, I'm actually very excited. XOXO.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Gossip Girl stole herself back from Serena, giving Nate a meaningless clue to her identity which -- for lack of anything better to do -- he is now using in a game of cat-and-mouse that involves bitchy late-night chats with her. Dan was summoned to a Roman writers' retreat, and after Serena lost her mind completely he took Georgina along the better to ruin lives. As is his wont. Ivy and Lola put together some sort of plan to take down Lily Rhodes-van der Woodsen-variable number of Somethings-Bass-Humphrey-Bass, who has left Rufus for Bart, the father of her only real child, who has returned from the dead due to the mysterious magics of Elizabeth Hurley. Blair and Chuck hooked up in Monte Carlo, where the horse-beatings continue in grand fashion, while Serena has returned to her incarnation as a common coke whore/murderess.
LESS PREVIOUSLY BUT STILL PREVIOUSLY
The first of the structural gimmicks in the episode appears immediately: A form of enjambment in which the lines from one scene inform the action of the . Sounds fun in theory, but the whole thing is so silly and repetitive that it's much less enjoyable in practice. Repeat several times, interpolating between absolutely every line of dialogue, forever:
Person: "[Double entendre regarding Blair and Chuck, fucking.]"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
ITALIA
Dan: "This is the worst my hair has ever looked."
Georgina: "Keep striving, though. Listen, we're Under A Tuscan Sun! Literally! But also figuratively, as I'm a pointless middle-aged mom in her second adolescence, and you are a gay dude."
Dan: "Except I don't remember how any of this happened. Could you exposit at length, until I'm sore and exhausted and sick inside?"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Georgina: "Sure. Once we got to Rome, I decided that you should just skip the retreat and sit in some kind of ruins, typing on a very old typewriter."
Dan: "That sounds remarkably unpleasant and sweaty."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Georgina: "Well, nobody can hack an old black typewriter."
Dan: "Look who you're talking to."
Georgina: "Anyway, let's rewrite the same book you already wrote and pretend it's interesting."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
PRADA
Gossip Girl: "My literary technique for this episode will be talking about how this is the last season of this show, and but also how I will finally be exposed in the finale. It's all very subtle."
Lily: "That was so fun renewing our vows in the Seychelles! My distressed leather luggage really complements your skin, you gross old monster I married twice for cash."
Bart: "I really enjoyed spending time with Eric off the African coast."
Lily: "I was drunk mostly, but that sounds random enough to be true. Hey, look at all this mail covering every inch of the entirety of PRADA! I sure do get a lot of giant packages delivered."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Bart: "If only you had an assistant to clean up all these packages!"
Lily: "It's weird because I thought Serena was going to take care of that. It's like the only job she's qualified for, locating the mail on our kitchen table and like, noticing it."
Bart: "Maybe not, given all these boxes of her crap Blair sent over. It looks like she hasn't unpacked at all!"
Lily: "Come to think of it, I haven't heard from her in four months. I wonder if she is alive."
Bart: "Really?"
Lily: "Not hugely, but kind of."
SPECTATOR
Sage: "I'm your new intern! I was sent here by a Journalism professor at Columbia, that college you have never attended."
Nate: "He was my favorite professor. Or would have been. I'm sure of it."
Sage: "He would have been very proud of you, if you'd ever met him. Look at all you've accomplished!"
Nate: "Yes. Running a newspaper or website or magazine or leaflet or app is not all fun and games. Especially now that I have no investors and my partner -- who had like four identities, including Chuck's Fake Mom, a Traveling Sex Carnie, Bart Bass's BFF, and Nate's Latest Cougar #265 -- has vanished from the show."
Sage: "I'm an actual journalist who actually went to j-school. You know what that means?"
Nate: "Your prospects are so shitty you ended up here after a long downward spiral?"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Sage: "That, but also that I cannot be trusted. I'm a mole."
Nate: "You certainly look like one. Hey, you know what I've never tried? Sex with somebody age-appropriate."
Sage: "I'm not sure you could call me that, but at least you're passing your abuse on to a new generation of victims."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Lily: "Nate, do you remember my daughter Serena?"
Nate: "No. Wait, yes. How is she?"
Lily: "Missing. For like a long time. I just noticed!"
Nate: "I wouldn't worry about it. Her inability to Be Places is second only to the fact that she is a known coke whore. She probably OD'd on the train to Beacon."
Lily: "Wait, are you saying people are incapable of growth or change?"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
VERSAILLES?
I don't know. It's fun to pretend it's Versailles, anyway, given Blair's travesty of a life, and there's like a castle and a horse. Good enough for me.
Eleanor: "You're still not good enough, no matter what you do!"
Blair: "Thanks, Mom! I will do more fashion now."
Jean-Pierre: "I am your PR Director and also gay BFF, and I am at your beck and call. My name is Jean-Pierre, if you can believe it. Now! Let us do some fashion!"
Nate: "Blair! Serena is missing!"
Blair: "Someone we know is missing, Jean-Pierre! More importantly, do you like my chapeau?"
Jean-Pierre: "It would look better on a True Friend. I am booking you a flight to find her."
Blair: "Without a pretty gay dude bossing me around and making my decisions for me, I would have no identity whatsoever."
INSIDE II: THE INSIDENING
Georgina: "Did you really fuck Serena on the bar at the Campbell apartment? Sounds remarkably like the night we had a threesome on a sex tape and then killed a man."
Dan: "Now that you mention it, she did manage to tape us doing it."
Georgina: "So that'll probably come up at some point. Oh, your phone is ringing because it's the same time in every time zone on this show."
Georgina: "Hello?"
Blair: "Your voice sounds particularly masculine today, Dan. Anyway, Serena has been missing for months and we're all simultaneously noticing. I'm afraid the Witches got to her again, with their magickal invocations and ether-soaked Carnivale masques."
Georgina, hanging up: "Dan, change of plans. You wanna see a dead body?"
HO TRAIN FLASHBACK
Serena: (ODing.)
Random Chick: "Oh my God, that's disgusting!"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Random Chick: "Seriously, it's discouraging seeing what such a lovely woman will do to herself..."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Random Chick: "I just wish somebody would step in and help her. But really, that would still be denying her the agency of her actions, continuing the infantilizing objectification that caused such a horrible thing to happen!"
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
Random Chick: "Hopefully this final season will enable her to reach past the roadblocks of her past and find a new life where she's able to rely on herself to make good decisions, because she has self-respect and the support of those around her, instead of merely relying on the last sentence the last person said to her, because she's too stupid to think for herself."
Blair & Chuck: [(Fucking.)]
DUBAI
Nameless Translator: "Hey, why did you drag me to this building?"
Chuck: "For Bass Industries Storyline purposes. I need you to tell me something that neither of us know anything about."
Nameless Translator: "Give me lots of money and maybe I will tell you think I don't know anything about."
Chuck: "Done. Hey, did you ever fuck my uncle?"
Nameless Translator: "Everybody has fucked your uncle. Maybe that is the secret."
Chuck: "Trust me, that is not a secret. Oh wait, a text message... Would you like to accompany me to New York City to find my sister?"
Nameless Translator: "Sure, because that makes sense."
SPECTATOR
Nate: "I have had a grand idea! I will ask my friend where she is."
Gossip Girl: "Serena van der Woodsen is dead."
Nate: "Shocker there."
PRADA
Lily: "Charles! I am so excited to see you my face moved a little!"
Bart: "Not mine."
Chuck: "This is my friend Amira Abbar. I picked her up in Dubai."
Bart: "Hello, translator I have never met before in my life. Nice to meet you for the very first time."
Amira: "You people are ridic."
Blair: "[Horrible double entendre about fucking.]"
Chuck: "Who's your gorgeous friend?"
Blair: "This is Jean-Pierre. He came free with my makeover at a mall. Who's yours?"
Chuck: "Amira. And same."
Everybody: "Oh ho! Jealousy spotted off the port bow!"
Blair & Chuck: "[More horrible double entendres about fucking.]"
They get rid of Amira and Jean-Pierre -- so yes that was the entire point, to fake some fake-jealousy and keep us all on the edge of our divans and chaises and other fainting furniture -- and then stare at each other like goons.
BQE
Dan: "Your mommy minivan is a real shithole."
Georgina: "I hate having kids! But whatever, character makes less and less sense as time goes on. It approaches a hyperbolic limit of total zero, quick as a flash."
Blair & Chuck: "[Fucking.]"
Georgina: "Since he's literally kept every other member of that family as a drug-addicted sex slave at some point, I texted Damian Dalgaard about Serena. Seems she's in Poughkeepsie? I'm guessing she's at the mental hospital there."
Dan: "Is it a nice place?"
Georgina: "Of all the places I've been shuffled off to, yes."
BLUCK
Blair: "Swear nothing's going on between you and Amira?"
Chuck: "You mean ... sexually? No way. I'm using her as a weapon against Bart Bass for taking my company back from me after he..."
Blair: "NOBODY CARES."
Blair & Chuck: "[Literally uncountable double entendres about fucking, each more horrible than the last.]"
Blair: "So it's decided. We won't date anybody else until you feel like getting married. I love being in charge of my destiny! Or I would, if I knew what that felt like."
Chuck: "Suits me just fine. Almost like a fatwa, wouldn't you say?"
Blair: "Now that Amira's on the show, not so much. But cheers for remembering a goddamn thing that has ever happened on this show."
Chuck: "Great, so we're still in love, but not together and not dating anybody else and not talking about it to anybody else. That sounds riveting."
Blair: "Fourth season holla!"
DUMBO
Lily: "Look, I really don't want to be here or look at what you've done to your pretty face, but Momma gots a problem."
Rufus: "I'll pour you a glass right away..."
Lily: "Where is Serena. My daughter."
Rufus: "Our daughter."
Lily: "Absolutely in no way. I think you've had like three scenes together in the entire show."
Rufus: "Wait, don't tell me. Has she been missing for months and months and you just now noticed? Classic Rhodes Woman Bullshit."
Lily: "Mentiroso! As I can see from this diaphanous glittery remnant we'll go ahead and call a sweater, she's here..."
Ivy: "First of all, like Rufus would hide that girl in his apartment. Second of all, like Serena would think of him or come to Brooklyn for any reason at all. Third of all, that is my glittery remnant. I live here with Rufus, for no reason whatsoever."
Rufus: "That's not true. I'm just desperately lonely, as usual. I tried dressing up Dan's Cabbage Patch Doll as a hipster, but even that didn't do the trick. I couldn't get the hair awful enough."
Lily: "What in the fuck is going on here?"
Ivy: "I think she'll take that morning wine now."
Lily: "You were supposed to be dead in a gutter, with dogs fighting over your bits!"
Ivy: "Yeah, well. I came back from the dead just to eff with you."
Rufus: "By the way, she's sleeping in Dan's room. I don't want any of that. This ain't Vanessa Abrams over here."
Lily: "God, gross. Like I care about any of this. Just help me find my daughter."
Rufus: "Sure, what's her name again? Pilot Inspektor?"
Lily: "No idea what you're talking about. Her name is Serena. Serena Galadriel Angela Davis Aviva Drescher van der Woodsen. Lily out!"
Rufus & Ivy: "Man, she is the worst now."
PRADA
Blair: "There are no clues in these boxes! Which I already knew, since I had them sent over myself after I kicked her out of the house and ran off to Monte Carlo."
Chuck: "Speaking of bad decisions, check out my sport jacket! I look like Missy Elliott during her Bagger Vance phase."
Nate: "Well, Gossip Girl is of no help. Which I thought she might be, for no reason anyone can fathom."
Blair: "-- I am going to get hysterical now because I secretly do care! Haven't you ever seen a Hitchcock movie, or watched Dateline? Or seen a Serena storyline before? There are three major outcomes here*, kidnap/ransom, torture/murder, or brainwash/cult."
*(In order: Juliet and Cousin Ben; Georgina and Pete Fairman; Dan Humphrey and Aaron-Bobby Rose for the brainwashers and Gabriel and Poppy for the cult. Check, check and check. Nihil sub sole novum, En kol chadásh táchat hashámesh, etc.)
Blair: "Look, we all know Serena is self-destructive. I don't mind that, usually it is pretty funny to watch. But this time, I feel like I'm partially responsible. For her death, I mean. And that makes me feel a little bad."
Nate: "Okay, I will go ask Gossip Girl the same question over and over."
Everybody Else: "We will be non-specifically helpful also."
DUMBO
Ivy: "As part of your Hitchcockian plan to make me the new Vanessa Abrams -- now with intense vocal fry! -- I thought we could get an art gallery and serve cat poop coffee at it. I have taken the liberty of finding several options..."
Rufus: "I have no direction in life and no visible means of support. Thank you for taking care of the basic shit of life. You'd think as a grown man, relying on a teenaged girl for my emotional and basic survival needs would embarrass me. And I'd say to that, you think wrong. Pay attention."
Ivy: "Okay, but here's the deal. You have to earn my work as your teenage mommy by getting out of my hair for a minute. Go 'help' Lily find her daughter."
Rufus: "Couldn't we just call you 'Serena' instead? Take the shortcut?"
Ivy: "All in time, my little basket case. Now get out."
Lola's voicemail: "Please leave me a message, as I've landed a pilot on the only other broadcast network doing near as shitty as this one and can't come to the phone. Also, who even uses a phone to call people, or even uses voicemail? Get crucial."
(Beeeeep.)
Ivy: "Congrats on your NBC pilot, fake sister-cousin! Listen, I am doing a great job breaking Rufus Humphrey. I already jacked up his pretty face almost unrecognizably, and will soon be enslaving him to my hand job artistry. Call me, bitch!"
UPSTATE, IN 2 SEPARATE CARS
Chuck: "How do we know, Nathaniel, that we're not being led on a merry wild goose chase? You're relying on Gossip Girl and Damian Dalgaard, who together equal the lyingness and sexual perversion of like Georgina Sparks. Or myself."
In-character humblebrag, or odious pandering meta-reference? You make the call. We are, by the way, all at the same gas station -- the NJBC in one car, D&G in the other -- so you get to see Chuck interacting with gas-station snack foods. It's kind of mesmerizing, like seeing a poodle at the opera.
Nobody: "I'm just glad she wasn't in that mental institution as we all assumed."
Georgina: "Dan, I do wish we had fucked in that mental institution. It's kind of all my stuff at once."
Dan: "Speaking as a Humphrey Man, mine too."
Nate: "The thing is that after asking Gossip Girl the same question several times, I offered to lose the spurious impractical evidence I have on her real identity."
Very Much Nobody On Earth: "It's really important that we find out who Gossip Girl is!"
Georgina spots Chuck's giant limo -- "I memorized the license plate," she says, which God Bless but also references Dan's line in the last finale about her photographic memory, which again God Bless -- and suddenly we are all together. Georgina cuts the limo off with her minivan at the foot of the driveway where, apparently, Serena's remains will be found.
Dan: "This was a lot more fun when we did this together in those outfits."
Blair: "You're tellin' me, sister."
Dan: "I'm still jealous that you dumped me for very valid reasons such as my personality and my haircut and fucking Serena in front of your very eyes for no reason."
Blair: "It honestly slipped my mind that we dated at all."
Dan: "Speaking of my one million resentments, everybody has to do exactly what Georgie says, and not help Serena when we find her. I am a petty bitch."
Georgina: "No surprises there! But seriously, you guys. We gotta Grizzly Man this shit, for Dan's new book."
Blair, verbatim: "This isn't a reality show, Sparks. This is reality. A concept I know you're a little fuzzy on. So whatever filth-filled, paint-huffing meth den we find Serena cracked out in, we don't judge."
Nate: "We're still her friends no matter what. NJBC por vida."
Chuck: "We're practically family! Some seasons, literally!"
Georgina: "Whatever. If we've learned anything from this show it's that Serena is capable of almost anything, and also nothing. She is everywhere and nowhere. You cannot imagine what we are likely to find..."
What they find: A beautiful modern mansion on a hilltop, full of windows and sunlight and strangers saying a friendly "How do."
Georgina: "...I would just like to point out that most serial killers are high-functioning members of society who lead a double life. She could be trapped in the basement, or buried in the backyard..."
Dan: "Here's hopin'."
PARTYTIME!
Servant: "Upper East Side Dickholes, party of five. Shall I announce?"
UESD: "We're looking for Serena! Blonde, legs for days..."
Servant: "Um..."
UESD: "Boobs."
Servant: "Ah! Gotcha. Right this way. Miss Sabrina, a party of dickholes is here for you."
Sabrina stares, stares, stares. Her boobs stare, stare, stare. The UESD stare, stare, stare.
GG: "...And the only thing more disturbing than finding her on drugs or in a psych ward? Seeing her happy and healthy. Who wants that?"
TELEVISION WITHOUT PITY RECAPPER JACOB CLIFTON IS WHO
Sabrina: "What is that you are doing here?"
UESD: "Looking for you."
NJBC: "We were so worried, once we remembered you exist!"
D+G: "Not us, we wanted to document your downfall!"
Sabrina: "I don't have time for your nonsense, jerxx. I'm hosting a fucking high-class party here. Leave."
UESD: "But we love crashing parties in each episode of this show!"
Georgina: "Especially when it involves infiltrating a sophisticated yet deadly cult. Now which one is the charismatic leader...?"
First of all, that has only happened twice on this show.
Second of all, fucking Georgina Sparks is the absolute worst. She's like, take an episode of Friends from the first season, any episode, and follow it up from any episode of Friends from its last season. Informative, because they all become caricatures of themselves by playing to the audience for so long -- nothing new there -- but also because if you do this, you will instantly hate Phoebe Buffay for ever and ever for the rest of your life. Georgina Sparks, there is more to fucking life than spouting random creepy-sounding bullshit in every scene like you're a refugee from Go On or Community.
You know, I used to be sad, reading about how Kati & Iz were originally intended to be these cryptic sibyls who would say weird, funny shit in the background of every scene. Sounded great, and kind of Bunheads-random. But now, having seen the absolute clusterfuck of retarded that is Hart Of Dixie (not to mention the Why Cats Paint freakshow that is Bunheads), plus now seeing Georgie put it in practice, I must say I'm a lot happier about what happened.
And third of all, this is when the real irritating thing starts, where they line up the UESD and have them each say a line that expresses their tissue-thin motivations, sequentially, in the cartoonish voice they now have, in every scene to follow. It's not even a conceit or like a funny writing trick, it's just dumb. Dumb like the line I ignored earlier, where Blair actually refers to Serena as not being quote "country strong." Through gritted teeth, granted, but still. FFS.
Barry Watson: "Sabrina, my coeducational little knockout! You invited friends. Annoying ones."
Monica: "We are here because I'm sorry about how mean I was to her, just for fucking my boyfriend in public!"
Rachel: "Just like my nemesis Gossip Girl this season, she is full of secrets."
Chandler: "You know what's not secret? I am a perv."
Phoebe: "So many secrets you could write a book, in fact."
Ross: "I did write a book about it! And I'm going to write another one that is the same book!"
Barry Watson: "Sabrina and I are still at that stage in dating where I have to be nice, no matter how repulsive you are. So... The more the merrier! At this event that's still very vague for purposes of upcoming hilarity."
Sabrina, hissing: "One drink and GTFO. I won't have you ruining this precious, weirdly vague event."
PRADA
Rufus: "I know I'm not exactly a welcome houseguest these days, but we shouldn't let our recent history overshadow our past."
Lily: "Okay. But how about we do let common etiquette overshadow your rude ass just walking the fuck up in here without pretext or prelude."
Rufus: "Just tell me your problems, and how I can wade in to make them worse."
Lily: "Well, I'm starting to feel weird about ignoring my unstable daughter all summer. What with her being a homeless hobo-fucking drug addict and all. I mean, what if there was important mail in that pile as tall as a man? I think there were leftover waffles under all that shit. Possibly Jenny or Eric could be in there somewhere."
Rufus: "The important thing is that no matter how much of a trainwreck our children turn out to be, separately and as a group, none of it is our fault."
Lily: "The fuck?"
Rufus: "That's what you told me, back when I threw Jenny out of my house for no reason."
Lily: "You understand that I'm drunk much of the time, correct? You really shouldn't base your parenting on the shit I say."
Rufus: "We raised good girls, Lily. You and me. Together. As lovers."
Lily: "Jenny Humphrey? Is the worst. She's so awful that she used to regularly warp the show around herself like a visit from the Elder Gods of the Lovecraft pantheon. And Serena van der Woodsen? That ho killed a dude during an orgy, okay. She summoned wolves to kill a Congressman. She managed to take down Cousin Ben's entire family, turning his sister into some kind of Phantom of the Opera. And let's not even start on the little shit she drove your son to become. And that's just two of our hundred kids. They still haven't found Pilot Inspektor's body, Eric tried to kill himself a dozen times, and Blair Waldorf has been insane for no little time now."
Rufus: "I mean, you have to account for the fact that they're women and adjust your standards appropriately, but..."
Lily: "-- So what brings you here today, Rufus? Explaining why you're shacked up with that Ivy trash, maybe?"
Ivy: "Yes! Hey, guys. Just let myself in, you know, like how happens on this show."
Lily: "Maybe we could just call you 'Serena' and say fuck it."
Rufus: "That's what I was thinking!"
Ivy: "Rufus, blah blah blah."
Rufus: "I guess I'll take my leave now?"
He... Does. What was this scene about?
Ivy: "All this fake-worrying about Serena is giving you pretend frown lines. Maybe you need some Botox."
Rufus: "Ixnay on the otox-Bay. Let's get out of here, Vaness... Charl... Um."
POUGHKEEPSIE
Rose: "I should really be getting back to the Spectator, now that we've solved this mystery."
Dorothy: "Not until we ruin my former best friend's new life under the guise of caring for her."
Blanche: "I will fuck everybody at this wedding if I have to, to prove I still love you."
Live-In Gay Chef: "I am just so happy to be mad at both my ex-girlfriends in the same lovely location."
Sophia: "I have no idea what the fuck is going on, because I have dementia."
If it's not Sabrina's wedding, they wonder, why is she wearing white? That would be gauche. But then, if it is Sabrina's wedding, why are her tits out? Quite the knuckleball she's throwing them.
Dana Plato: "Maybe 'Sabrina' took too many happy pills and thinks she's a character in Dan's book. You know, like how Dan always kinda thought that."
Todd Bridges: "That actually makes a little sense."
Gary Coleman: "What you talkin' about, Todd Bridges?"
Dana Plato: "Or maybe they're putting together a virgin sacrifice, into that volcano."
Conrad Bain: "I see neither virgin nor volcano here. Not a single one of each. What I do see is little sandwiches."
THE PLAN
Objective: Ruin this wedding and Sabrina's new life, regardless of the facts.
Methodology: Everybody continues to talk in that mortifying stair-stepping way, literally placed in sequential order as they talk, and talk, and talk. It's so dead inside that they actors themselves speak in different directions, meeting random eyelines and mumbling like sub-par SNL hosts reading off cue cards because they were too busy to come to rehearsal.
Eli Manning: "I'm going to call Lily for a quick sitrep. She cares a little more than me and a little less than Blair. Plus, she can read. That could be an asset."
January Jones: "I'm professional enough to at least try and fake a real emotion at this point. After three years of nothing to work with, I'm willing to just pretend and wait it out."
Robert DeNiro: "I am better than this. Just wanted you all to know."
Daniel Craig: "Nobody on earth has ever talked like this in the history of mouths. But at least I'm dressed like an organ-grinder's monkey."
Louise Lasser: "Should have left well enough alone. Guess I'll go rooting around for drugs."
Step One: Nate calls Lily for a quick sitrep.
Step Two: Georgina fucks a priest for literally no reason.
Step Three: Blair and Dan track down Serena.
Dan: "Why would I do that? I hate the bitch, I don't care what's happening here."
Blair: Slaps the shit out of him.
Dan: "I owe you nothing. You chose Chuck over me, therefore I hope Serena dies."
New Step Three: Blair tracks down Serena to make her feel good about herself.
(Secret Step Three: Dan tracks down Serena to make her feel awful about herself.)
And break!
BASS APT
Amira: "I'm in here, Chuck. Staring at the same spot of the wall you always stare at, drinking your same liquor. Hating your same dad."
Bart: "It is I! Bart Bass! Back from the dead and lurking in apartments!"
Amira: "You're really cutting into my staring time here. State your business."
Bart: "You must not tell Chuck the thing that you don't know what it is."
Amira: "Okay. For ten million dollars, I will pretend not to know the thing you're talking about, which I don't know what it is."
Bart: "Done. I am the best negotiator of America!"
WEDDING
Barry Watson: "Everything okay, Sabrina? You seem nervous about this function."
Sabrina: "I am nervous about this function we are holding at your second home. I want it to be perfect for various reasons."
Barry Watson: "So do I, young lady I've been dating for less than four months. Listen, I just wanted to say a quick list of things I love about you, like your name Sabrina and how you go to Vassar and that you are from Wisconsin."
Sabrina: "Those are my most cherished attributes too. Besides these puppies, I mean."
Barry Watson: "Oh, are your breasts out? I hadn't noticed, because I am a hell of a guy."
Dan: "Sabrina. Cherokee and Weetzie Bat, nice to see you guys as always."
Sabrina: "Thank you! God, it's like he doesn't even notice 'em, perkin' up the breeze like this. What do you want, though. Why are you here."
Dan: "I want to make you feel just wretched."
Sabrina: "Continue. With unwarranted hostility and out-of-character directness, if you please."
Dan: "Fine. I just wanted to say best wishes. I hope you do marry Barry Watson."
Quote: "Frankly, it would be the kind of desperate, attention-seeking stunt that would prove you're every bit as shallow and sad as the character in my book."
Sabrina: (Slaps the shit out of him with such well-earned and righteous force that his hideous loaf of oiled '80s curls flips the entire other way, like a Vegas croupier doing card tricks.)
Dan: "My hideous loaf! My one blown pupil! My sudden brain hemorrhage! Who's that at the end of the tunnel? Is that CeCe Rhodes? Come over here and give Danny some sugar."
He dies, choking on his own awful nature. Sabrina drags his corpse into a shrubbery and continues merrily on her way.
Chuck: "I called the Ostroff Center, although they've for some reason changed the name to the Pedowitz Institute."
Georgina, Nate in tow: "...Guess what I found?"
Blair, verbatim: "Looks like Nate Archibald to me."
Chuck: "Nailed it."
Nate: "I found her snorting ointments in the bathroom. Apparently Sabrina is on drugs."
Georgina & Chuck: "[Pandering atheist joke that doesn't make any sense, but plays to that kind of atheist that, in lieu of a personality just like any worthless pothead, will dependably cheer at the very mention of atheism.]"
UESD: "We have to stop this wedding! Serena must never be happy!"
Dan: "Well, it's not her wedding. I'd say more, but that would ruin you ruining everything. Please, go on ahead making assholes of us all."
Barry Watson: "When Sabrina came here to our small town of Poughkeepsie four months ago, she was replacing a beloved doctor and we thought she'd never fit in. A real fish out of water, she was! Why, she wore her Louboutins even when it was our town's annual Cover Everything In Cow Shit Day!"
Crowd: (Amused murmurs.)
Barry Watson: "But she's come a long way. Rassled an alligator, upheld crude southern stereotypes, invented a new type of chili. Even indulged massive amounts of warmed-over quirkiness that would shame a lesser actress into ritual suicide..."
Crowd: "Why are you talking about this? This is not why we are here!"
The UESD takes the stage, in order of Why Is Any Of This Happening.
Inès Serrano: "Put down your glasses! Do not toast this union! Do not marry this woman! Her name isn't even Sabrina! She doesn't even go to this school!"
Valet: "As a crazy person myself, I am proud to present you a quick précis on what I see as Serena/Sabrina's major faults. I'm talking history of mental imbalance, drug use, promiscuity, rap sheet, snuff film..."
Joseph Garcin: "She's my sister, sometimes, and I am actually pretty worried about her. Also, I will fuck all of you. Just putting that out there."
Estelle Rigault: "Guys, wait. This just in, we are at a gay wedding. See those dudes up there dressed like Chuck? I spotted them, because I am a journalist. I think we effed up again. Repeat, this is a gay wedding."
Hell: Is other people. Specifically these ones.
UPSTAIRS
Sabrina: "...Because having known me for three months is enough to make me their Maid of Honor, that's why. The gays love me."
UESD: "We found drugs!"
Sabrina: "Uh, I'm sure you did. Barry Watson is a holistic health manufacturer."
Chuck: "Wait, you're Steven Spence. I saw your TED talk!"
Nope.
Blair: "But Serena, you disappeared! That's still in play!"
Sabrina: "Uh, I did what you said. You kicked me out, I went. And Dan and Nate didn't want anything to do with me..."
Nate: "Did I really say that? Meh. Who knows."
Sabrina: "So I picked myself up off that traincar floor where I was dead, wiped a fair amount of vomit off whatever I call clothes, came up with money out of nowhere whatsoever or else you would have been able to track me, and created a new identity for myself. Sorry, Steven Spence."
Steven Spence: "It's okay. I don't really love you because of your name or where you matriculate, or even because you are from Wisconsin. I think we all know why I love you. And they're not going anywhere."
Sabrina: "Aw, you did notice! You are a hell of a guy. Unlike these jokers. Usually when I act out by disappearing, you figure it out within weeks."
Dan: "I noticed, I just didn't give a shit."
Nate: "And I was running some type of a business."
Blair: "And I was in Versailles."
Chuck: "And I was in Dubai working on a secret I think my fath..."
NOBODY: CARES.
Blair: "Wait, so you died choking on your own cokewhore vomit?"
Sabrina: "As if you care!"
Steven: "Um, I kind of do a little bit."
AND WHILE DAN'S ON A ROLL...
Dan: "Also, while I'm handing out disgusting behavior, I just want to put it out there that I'm still mad at you for breaking up with me."
Blair: "I'll deal."
Dan: "But really what I'm mad about is that you dumped me for Chuck..."
Blair: "Yeah, that was a real stunner."
Dan: "...And now you're not even with him?"
Blair: "We have a sensible plan! I will continue to live in my mother's shadow, and then when he feels like it, I'll crawl back under his. We both have things to do."
Dan: "You broke up with me for things. Simply just whatever things. I'm pretty sure he's hosing you, but whatever. As long as everyone is miserable."
Blair: "It's the Dan Mist! He just speaks and suddenly I doubt it all! That old black magic once again! You're like the undermining, bitchy best friend I always wanted to be."
Dan: "Well, my job here is done. Wait, try this on verbatim: You think you two have an epic love, but all you have are excuses."
Blair: "Wow, that was devastatingly shitty. Well done. But speaking of epic love, I have to go find Serena."
DUMBO
Ivy: "Sorry I just dropped by Lily's like that, but I wanted to cause as much havoc for both of you as possible. Speaking of which, I am giving you an over-the-pantser while we're discussing what a bitch she is. JIC your groin is as insensate as your fucked-with face."
Rufus: "See, I thought that was what was going on. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's kind of like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle or Poison Ivy right now."
Ivy: "First of all, human sexuality is a moving target. And secondly, though, don't I make you feel good, Rufus? Don't you like this?"
Rufus: "I don't know that I entirely want to this to happen. I don't want anybody to find out..."
Ivy: "Say whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel better. But this is happening."
It: Happens.
Of all the characters on this show you might have presumed would at some point be acting out a gay porn, I gotta say: Twist. Cheers.
(I'm gonna presume the part clearly missing here -- where he calls her Vanessa and she's cool with that -- will be on the DVD? Because absolutely that has to happen.)
POUGHKEEPSIE, POUGHSTDEBACLE
Sabrina: "Oh, hell. Why are you even still here?"
Blair: "I'm not leaving without you!"
Sabrina: (Stares that bored ice-cold Rhodes Woman stare.)
Blair: "...Or at least not without apologizing?"
Sabrina: "For what? I don't have all day, and you're pretty much a scourge on my life."
Blair: "I have many regrets. But however complicated our friendship got, I shouldn't have let it go. I shouldn't have let you go. BFF is a real saying, you know."
Sabrina: "Don't condescend to me intellectually, today of all days."
Blair: "It means, Best Friends Forever. It is an acronym. I'm spelling that out for our viewers at home. Just in case they also have amnesia or a drug problem. Forever means without stopping. We have to admit, just like we do at the end of every run of episodes each season, that we are stuck with each other."
Sabrina: "But I don't want to be stuck. With you, or any other kind of way. Now, I'm grateful for your kindness -- and I know you were under duress to make up for lost time -- but I really do want, and deserve a fresh start. With Steven Spence. Built on a heap of lies."
Blair, flipping it: "Fine. If that's how you want it, stay here. You can have Poughkeepsie. Hell, you can even have Schenectady. But I get Manhattan. Standard Jenny Protocol is now in effect."
Gossip Girl: "Poor B! Looks like she just got dumped by the love of her life. And in case you are some kind of windowlicking peckerhead that has never seen this or any television show before, I am not talking about Chuck or Dan. I am talking about Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen, whose relationship forms the central romance of the show, and has done so the entire time. Blair Waldorf is the one on the left, Serena is the one on the right. The blonde, see her? That's Serena. That's the one I was just referring to before. Do you get it yet? Shall I make a diagram? You know what actually, just email me if you don't get it. I'm starting to feel a little patronizing."
Sabrina: "...Hey, Steven Spence? We're going back to your loft in Manhattan immediately. I've got a bitch to fuck with. And all the time in the world, now that my little Vassar secret is out."
Steven Spence: "Yeah. You really 'had me going' with that one."
UES
Blair: "The two of us alone in your limo? You're really tempting fate."
Chuck: "I GUESS I DON'T GET WHAT YOU'RE IMPLYING."
Blair: "Dan kinda got in my head, and I'm starting to think maybe we -- meaning you -- are just using our -- meaning your -- little plan as a way of not being together."
Chuck: "Yes. It's all a cunning plan to give myself blueballs. That Dan's really onto something."
They talk about their feelings. You know how they're always having those? Well. Blair's feelings are that she is, once again, being screwed by her storyline -- and that, irritatingly enough, Dan is the only person she knows that's both perspicacious and shitty enough to point it out. Chuck's feelings are more along the lines of how every time something bad happens in his life, a random guest star -- usually his dad or dad-uncle, but really it could be anybody -- points out that it's all Blair's fault. And what he's starting to realize is that yes, they are correct in this conclusion, but only because he lets her fuck everything up all the time. So in order to hate her less, he's got to work on hating her more, until such time as he's just toxic and codependent enough to force her to share the blame for his continuous boring fuckups, and absolutely no more than that. It's a real tightrope we're walking.
SPECTATOR
Sage: "Hey, Nate. Still burning that midnight oil?"
Nate: "Whatever this business is, it won't run itself!"
Sage: "Maybe it could, though. Let's give it a shot. Come downstairs and buy me drinks, so I won't get carded."
Nate: "You remind me so much of myself at your age. Whatever that happens to be. I was always saying that to super-hot old ladies, before their inevitable obsession with destroying Serena kicked in and we forgot we were dating each other and just kind of wandered off into separate storylines. You have no idea how many times that has happened."
Sage: "Well, it won't happen to me. Like all interns at your company that produces nothing and cannot be defined, I am too young to give a shit about Serena. I'm like, Serena Who? and your old ass is all, She used to be somebody."
Nate: "And now she is somebody named Sabrina."
PRADA
Sabrina: "Since you know all about me now, having somehow never heard of me before -- despite being a rich person who lives in Manhattan and throws gala events and the million other reasons you would obviously know who I am -- I thought I should show you where I didn't really grow up. It is called PRADA MARFA and it was built on the backs of many, many ex-husbands. I have no idea who lives here now. But they have a shitload of unopened mail."
Steven Whatever: "That's so funny that I managed to not know who you are, despite living just across the Park."
Sabrina: "Wait, the Upper West Side is real? I thought that was just a scary story from the Old Country that Vanya used to tell us when we were going out to do drugs and have orgies and kill guys."
BASS APT
Chuck: "Amira! Sorry for leaving you out of this episode. Or involving you in this episode, really. Your presence so far makes little sense, to be honest. You're like Ivy in that respect, or the sad decrepit remains of the once-great Georgina Sparks."
Amira flips open a suitcase with ten million dollars in it.
Chuck: "What is going on here?"
Amira: "What is going on here is that your dad gave me this money for no reason."
Chuck: "Really? No reason at all?"
Amira: "Yeah! So I'm going to stick around for a while and see what else you crazy monkeyfucks will get up to. This is more fun than my real life as a globetrotting translator for the rich and powerful. Who wants to see the world when I can stare at that one spot on your wall all day long every day, and hope I'm not here when Bart Bass burns this entire building down."
Chuck: "Cool, because I have no friends. I'm a loner, Amira. A rebel. A Chuck Bass."
DUMBO
Dan: "Thanks for walking me to my door, Georgina. You didn't have to do that."
Georgina: "I know, right? Literally. There was no narrative reason whatsoever for me to do that."
Dan: "Well, say hi to our baby."
Georgina: "I will, if I see him."
INSIDE
Rufus, fucking Cousin Peepers. Just goin' to town, at some terrifying Nicolas Roeg angle that makes no sense in terms of physics but in and of itself makes total sense, because it's exactly as mind-bending as it feels. Dreams in the Witch House, man. Cats lying down with dogs. Rufii lying down with Ivii. Class distinctions tossed off with a ne'er you mind, money no longer a factor, age only a number. Those once-supple Frankenstein golem lips comin' at you, again and again. Her giant eyeballs rollin' around. Rufus with a plate of waffles perched on his dad-belly, humming happily to himself and dripping butter on the sheets. Choker necklace knocking you in the teeth, snaggin' nostril on the way down. Damaged cartilage in his left knee forcing an audible.
A poignant tapping sound -- not quite a slap -- followed by a disheartened murmur: "C'mon, li'l guy." The exuberant titter of youth fading to a sustained and sympathetic aww.
God, what Ivy in bed must sound like. A cemetery gate at dusk, rusty hinge swinging free in a brisk and desolate wind.
Dan creeps silently out the way he came, dropping marbles and a dopp kit as he goes. What is seen cannot be unseen.
"What's my name? Say my name!"
"Charlie? Uh, Charlotte! Vanessa!"
"Say my name, bitch!"
"Ivy!"
"Say it!"
"Serena! Serena, oh God! Just let go of those! Waffles. Waffles!"
WEEK
Joe Lazarov directs as Serena takes to the Board of the Central Park Conservancy for -- get this -- a big party, while Barry Watson and "Sage" both turn out to have age-appropriate secrets of their own. Blair suddenly has a fashion line, and one of her past rivals turns up with a new trick. Chuck and the dead chick from Lost try to find out that thing that they don't know what it is, risking Lily's "happiness" in the process. And I'm guessing Dan throws in the towel and checks into the newly christened (and now strangely apropos) Pedowitz Institute.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife and Homeland 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, his novel The Urges, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this month on Tor.com.