Everything Was Beautiful & Nothing Hurt

S06E02

What a fun episode! Everything that was wrong last week got wrenched right, as the pieces of the last chapter continue falling into place. There was good mixing of storylines, the Bart Bass stuff barely dragged at all, and everybody -- especially Georgina, back to being her crazy/funny self after last week's odd detour -- looked gorgeous. As inspiring as one would like in a season premiere, and only a week late.

Nate and Serena spot their respective significant others -- Steven and Sage -- sharing an intimate breakfast, and immediately go nuts because of how they've been burned before. Serena cues up the wolves on speed dial, Nate swears off dating anybody under a hundred, it's a gay old time. But when S makes her grownup debut as the newest boardmember of the Central Park Conservancy, hosting a gala of some kind, the truth comes out: Steven and Sage aren't dating, they're father and daughter. Daughter who, it turns out, not only goes to Constance Billard but can apparently match Serena daddy issue for daddy issue, as we end on her swearing to break up the happy couple.

Lily's finest moments this week were in cautioning Serena to overlook any cheating on Steven's part until after the gala, but her own sad version -- taking diamonds to ignore Bart's long-ago affair with Translator Amira, but mostly his transparent attempts to turn her against Chuck -- put her squarely in Tooltown for the episode. And there was much to overlook. Amira, who's gone now so oh well, has put Chuck on the trail of What Really Happened to cause Bart to fake his death, and even given him his first clue (a picture of some dude). In the end, Chuck prances around threatening his dad with vague things, making him laugh uproariously. As per.

A much better showing for Chuck in Blair's storyline, which is the greatest by far: Their breezy and loyal friendship shows a lot of promise for a dynamic the show has tried -- and failed -- to create before. But maybe that's because the focus is on Blair's career, as it should be: As the head of Waldorf Designs, her new collection is set to debut at Fashion Week. Nelly Yuki, now a reporter for WWD, arrives for a pre-show critique and spread, but immediately drops the bomb that Poppy Lifton is back in town and designing what turns out to be an identical line. While the thrust of the story is about Nelly playing them off each other (and giving Dan some incendiary advice), in the end it's actually a great lesson for Blair, once again, to hear: That her natural tendency to implode means making her flip out is usually as simple as sitting back and doing nothing. In the end, Dorota saves the day with an imported hodgepodge of fashion superstars, and Blair sets out to create an entire line in ten days.

Dan and Nate spend the episode circling each other regarding the possibility of serializing Inside II through Nate's internet concern -- a career-maker for both of them, since they have nothing else going on -- and once the fabulous Georgina Sparks's promises of a bidding war fall apart thanks to the rest of the cast's exploits, they decide to go for it. Oh, and they're roomies again after a hilarious and well-played subplot about Georgina's Dan-obsessions kicking back into overdrive. Dan's reasoning for blowing the mother up are laid out in a perfectly clear way: Between Blair's return to Chuckly form and Rufus's descent into depravity, he's a man without a home. Only by destroying absolutely everyone will he ever find peace. And you can't say that's wrong in his particular case, considering he's still holding grudges from like, the pilot.

All in all, a pretty great episode. The push and pull of youth and age, always a prime focus of Serena/Dan's stories in the early years and Nate/Chuck's in the latter, has now come to visit them all. Even Blair, with her worrisome equation of Chuck's love with life success, seems a little clear-headed now that she's actually captaining a ship. Most of all, though, the episode seems to point the vector we'll be following for the duration: We've been watching long enough that what was once a show about children pretending to be adults has become a show about adults slowly realizing that everybody's pretending to be an adult. It's a solid way to go out, if that's how we're going to do it.

Week: Sage becomes the face of Waldorf Designs, I think, which can only cause trouble for everybody. Nate and Dan prepare for the slings and arrows of outrage and infamy. Blair and mother issues and Chuck and his father issues, as they try to take on their parents' empires in exactly opposite ways. Maybe a little Ivy action.

PREVIOUSLY

Blair's inherited fashion empire is every bit as important as Chuck's disinherited real estate empire; therefore their shared intent is to both become Powerful Women before their love can once again be consummated. Serena has moved across the Park, into a strange parallel dimension called the Upper West Side, from which she hopes to rule the land as a very sophisticated Grown-Ass Lady. Nathaniel Archibald believes himself to own a company that provides goods or a service of some kind, and is dating a young lady with a preposterous name. Dan and Georgina are working to provide support for one another in becoming the most perfect assholes they can possibly be. Jenny and Eric are operating a pirate ship and black-bag private security firm off the "coast of Africa," while Pilot Inspektor has become a hair colorist and gluten advisor to the stars. Lily and Rufus are dating the oldest and the youngest creeps, respectively, that have ever creeped on this show.

UP & AT 'EM, UES

Ladyhawke sings us a pretty little song as we travel from bed to bed, watching rich white people wake up whenever they feel like it and act like it's the saddest thing of life.

Nate: "Gosh, I am tired this morning."
Sage: "Maybe it's because of all of our sex-having."
Serena: "I just wish I had five more minutes to be asleep in this track suit on your bed that looks like a couch from a plastic surgeon's waiting room."
Barry Watson: "I am so old that I wake up at four AM every morning. I use the time for journaling."
Chuck: "I have a lot more time to sit around being intense about vague things, now that I am not having sex with every single person."

Pretty awesomely, Dan opens his eyes to find Georgina staring down at him.

Dan: "I thought we agreed that you would cut that shit out."
Georgina: "Yeah, that would be dumb. Do you realize how easy it is to stalk you now that you live with me?"
Dan: "I don't live with you, I am staying on your couch because I can never go to Brooklyn again because I saw something nasty in the woodshed."
Phillip: "How am I okay with anything that ever happens on this show? I shouldn't even exist, is how little sense I make."

Blair: "Dorota! Why didn't you wake me up?"
Dorota: "Bitch because you grown up human."
Blair: "Feed me, bathe me, and take me to the atelier."

By Jacob Clifton

For some reason I thought that word was like champagne or couture, like you can't use it unless it's specifically that thing, but I was apparently making that up. Apparently, it is one of those words one can throw around willy-nilly. Anyway, B's particularly stressed because she's being interviewed by WWD today -- "It's WWD-Day," she yelps cutely -- and also because she is particularly stressed pretty much all the time.

BASS APT

Chuck ignores a call from Lily, which seems out of character until you realize that Amira is packing up her suitcase full of bajillions of dollars and this is his last chance to spend time with her: The woman I'm presuming, from having seen this show a few times before, will one day be revealed to be Chuck's birth mother.

Amira: "Did you know I have a fiancé and a whole life and a flight to Dubai?"
Chuck: "I don't even really believe that other people exist when I close my eyes, so."
Amira: "The only reason I'm here, which is no reason at all really, is to help you find out what the thing is that I don't know that I know. And now I have a suitcase of bajillions of dollars, so I don't even really care about that. Despite my last words in the last episode being specifically that I would help you figure this out."
Chuck: "But it has something to do with why my dad faked his death! My father faked his death for something to do with a hotel deal. Why would he lie about being in Dubai? Why would all the negotiations happen completely off the books? Why would he pay you $10 million not to ask any of these questions?"
Amira: "The only person that cares about any of this is you. Please don't drag us through another Bass Industries bullshit thing about documents and signatures and whatever. The towering boringness of Raina Thorpe is not really something we need to revisit."

Not even Chuck or Amira can manage to care about the answers to these questions, or produce even half of a valid reason for her to have been on this show at any point for any reason so far, so they decide to have brunch.

UWS

Serena: "Barry Watson, will you come to my gala tonight?"
Barry Watson: "Pray exposit at length."

She does. Seems she's gotten herself onto the board of the Central Park Conservancy, and will be hosting a gala which Lily herself has handled in the past. I hope something dreadful doesn't go wrong involving the rest of the cast, Gossip Girl, Serena's history, Blair's penchant for scheming or Georgina looking fucking amazing. I sure hope all of those things don't happen like usual.

By Jacob Clifton

Serena & Barry Watson say shit like: "Tonight marks the start of a whole new era!" And "Serena takes Manhattan!" And the number one sign you are about to be eaten by wolves, Serena saying "I couldn't be happier to leave my old life behind!" Dude, if Serena van der Woodsen says that shit to you, run. There is no escape and it is already too late, but at least try to run. This entire show is just a running account of how many people Serena can take down with her each time she says that phrase.

L'ATALIER WALDORF

Is nicely appointed, if a little basic boutique-y: There's bolts of fabric around, Princess Mombi cabinets showing off all of Eleanor's classic designs, a private office, some conference rooms, whatever. Imagine Victoria's Secret, but with more counter space.

Dorota: "Me wonder if WWD writer-human think no designer seamstress model in building? No for why?"
Blair: "It is kind of fucked up that Eleanor's Paris team declined to follow me -- the president of the company and apparently sole designer -- back to New York, but who cares? Who needs an entire team of gifted craftsmen when I have two random henchwomen? This week it's Kati from Constance Billard, and also that blonde one that's actually funny."

BROOKLYN WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

Dan, verbatim: "To think that I used to consider Brooklyn a moral high ground. Now that my father's fallen off his pedestal, I'm free of such delusions!"
Georgina: "Only a mentally ill person like myself could ever want to fuck a person who talks like that. Everything you just said is even more boner-repellent than the pube farm up top."
Dan: "I'm so glad you're my literary agent for this book that doesn't exist, in any industry that has always worked the opposite of how this show thinks."
Georgina: "Just keep writing those scathing exposés on UES people nobody has ever heard of. We're going to burn some very tiny, inconsequential bridges together."

BASS BRUNCH

Bart: "I'm so old, remind me what is going on?"
Lily: "Yeah, I haven't really been paying attention either, because of how boring Bart Bass storylines always are."
Amira: "Well, now apparently I'm here because I am the Mentalist and can read minds, in addition to translating languages and also being a travel agent or something."
Chuck: "I'm just here because I have nothing else going on, as I've been neutered. It's very romantic."
Amira: "I'm not fucking him, he's a tiny little child that dresses like an Old West charlatan half the time."
Chuck: "Honestly I wasn't even trying to imply anything sexual, I just have a naturally grody voice. So listen Dad, did you ever do anything sketchy that Amira knows about?"
Bart: "Not that I can recall, no."
Chuck: "Really? Because I think you did."
Bart: "...Well, brunch has been great but I'm afraid Bass Industries storylines bore even me, Bart Bass. I'm going to leave brunch and then probably murder Amira, the Woman From Dubai With Many Jobs But Also No Jobs."
Amira: "I hope you don't, but it does seem likely. Also, I read it in your mind."
Lily: "Be nice to your dad! I think that's what a mom would say maybe. Or like, Don't go swimming yet! Not until you digest your brunch!"

Amira: "I'm not fucking him, he's a tiny little child that dresses like an Old West charlatan half the time."
Chuck: "Honestly I wasn't even trying to imply anything sexual, I just have a naturally grody voice. So listen Dad, did you ever do anything sketchy that Amira knows about?"
Bart: "Not that I can recall, no."
Chuck: "Really? Because I think you did."
Bart: "...Well, brunch has been great but I'm afraid Bass Industries storylines bore even me, Bart Bass. I'm going to leave brunch and then probably murder Amira, the Woman From Dubai With Many Jobs But Also No Jobs."
Amira: "I hope you don't, but it does seem likely. Also, I read it in your mind."
Lily: "Be nice to your dad! I think that's what a mom would say maybe. Or like, Don't go swimming yet! Not until you digest your brunch!"

ATELIER

Reality: "Blair, why don't you just work hard and hire people for the jobs they are trained to do?"
Blair: "No, I'm going to call in random minions, give them ludicrous backstories for no reason, and then get real abusive. Have you not seen this show?"
Reality: "We are not even vaguely acquainted."

Nelly Yuki: "For example, I am now a reporter for Women's Wear Daily, with contacts throughout the fashion industry."
Blair: "The guest arc situation in this final season is somewhat 'catch as catch can,' as we're learning."
Blonde Minion: Somehow manages to get both legs in one leg of a pair of tights; goes hopping around like a Swiftian allegory. Very droll.

THE SPECTATOR

Serena: "It's so fun sitting on this random bench with you, Nate. And thanks for sponsoring my gala!"
Nate: "Thanks for pretending I have a real company! But listen, don't you think it would make sense for you to get back together with Blair?"
Serena: "I'm not mad, I'm just bored of her bullshit and... I dunno, just better than the rest of you. I think Steven has fucked grown-upness into me. I think that's how things work."
Nate: "Serena, if that were true I would have gone through menopause by now."

By Jacob Clifton

Serena: "Speaking of the exploitation and abuse that characterized your early years on the show, are you seeing anybody new?"
Nate: "A horrible girl-child with a wretched temper and a stupid name. She wears these hats that just make you want to slap her little face."
Serena: "How weird because my boyfriend is across the street having luncheon with somebody exactly like that."
Nate: "Oh my God what are the odds that our two lovers would be cheating on us with each other, right across the street from where we are randomly sitting on a bench."
Serena: "Nil. Literally there is no chance of that. And yet here we are. On this show still."

WHAT NELLY HAS BEEN UP TO

Nelly says: "Once I got into Yale, I realized I didn't have to dress like you anymore."
Nelly thinks: Her attempts to dress like Blair Waldorf ever got further than 'Andie Walsh stapling 45s to the ceiling of a record shop with Annie Potts.'

Nelly says: "I still have night terrors about Nairtinis and yogurt bombs... Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night shouting, Tights are not pants!"
Nelly thinks: Tights are fucking pants, which they fucking are not.

Nelly says: "I am not biased. I play fair. That's why I got into Yale, and you didn't."
Nelly thinks: Along the same douchebag lines as your average Dan Humphreys or Vanessa Abramses.

Nelly says: "Did I mention I graduated early?"
Nelly thinks: I have no idea. Just get her out of here.

The deal is that Poppy Lifton -- "That Ponzi-scheming fauxcialite?" -- is also debuting a fashion line, and Nelly's pitch for this story is "Society Goes Sartorial," pitting Poppy and Blair against one another to see whose unearned privilege and vanity line delusions are more hilarious. Spoiler, neither of them are that hilarious, and there is no point in having Poppy Lifton in this episode except to pretend that this season is going to show respect for the preceding five seasons of the show, which is a matter of more subtlety and thought than just cramming in characters we barely remember from storylines that didn't even make sense in the first place.

AN ILL-STARRED LUNCHEON QUADRILLE

Nate: "Dear Sage, I am breaking up with you despite not knowing anything about what the fuck is going on."
Serena: "That was kind of stupid, even for you."
Nate: "Well, either this show is kind of crappy and contrived, or it's not a coincidence that our lovers are luncheoning together."
Serena: "Or maybe both."

Serena: "Do you watch that show Millionaire Matchmaker?"
Nate: "Yeah, of course I do. How else do you think I get Chuck to finance my entire lifestyle and pretend company?"
Serena: "Oh, because I was going to say you shouldn't watch that. It's bad for you. Not only are her assistants some of the grossest ass-bag tattoo trash I've ever seen in my life, but they named their child 'Sin Halo Jude' and they dress him in baby undertaker clothes. This isn't the '90s, we don't live in the Jim Rose Penis Piercing Freak Circus anymore. Kid Rock was a long, long time ago. If you wouldn't have those people in your home, why invite them in through the television? And more to the point, that woman is a monster of a person, just utter garbage. And that's not even getting to the TV show part of it, which I don't know if you've noticed this but it's about a woman whose career is that she is a literal pimp, of mentally ill prostitutes. Women so out of touch with their own bodies that they are willing to have sex for the rest of their lives with somebody based on how many purses they can buy -- and she actually helps them be better at this, so they can better accomplish selling themselves out in this way. You aren't born that way, with your brain hollowed out. Those whores are made, and it's not a happy story. And when you watch that show, you become part of that story. You know, just because you're gay doesn't mean you have to watch everything on that channel."

PRADA

Lily: "Did you have an affair with Amira, or did you spend a weekend with her in Dubai doing something else? Something that might cause you to fake your own death, but was simultaneously so boring that she can't remember what it is?"
Bart: "Yeah, and I think you just proved why I didn't bother telling you about it."
Lily: "I know, I almost fell asleep just saying those words."
Bart: "Anyway, how weird that she's extorting money from me, huh?"
Lily: "Yeah, it makes me worry about Charles or something. I haven't really been paying attention to this storyline, though, so I could be way off base."

SERENA

Barry Watson: "You sure call me a lot, woman. I was given to understand that people of your generation preferred texting to voice calls."
Serena: "I was just wondering if we were exclusively dating each other or what."
Barry Watson: "Remember how you lived in my Poughkeepsie mansion for four months under an assumed name and eventually were the Maid of Honor at my gay wedding? In upstate New York it doesn't get more intimate than that."

By Jacob Clifton

SERENA

THE SPECTATOR

Nate: "Remind me again why you're here, and also if we're friends right now."
Dan: "Yes, and also I'm here to talk to you about that book I already wrote, that I'm writing again."
Nate: "Would you like me to publish it?"
Dan: "Oh cool, do you publish books?"
Nate: "It's as likely as anything else, I'll put it that way."

ATELIER

Blair: "Minions, report!"
Minions: "You have the same clothing line as Poppy, like, even down to the fabrics and lines."
Blair: "Either this show is pretty crappy and contrived, or this is a sibylline coincidence that will lead me to unravel my own doom, as in the myths and legends of yore."
Minions: "Or both!"
Blair: "Then lead on, MacDuff. Let's destroy those dresses of Poppy Lifton, like would happen in real life."

CHARLES & LILY

Lily: "Charles! I can't believe you brought your girlfriend that slept with my husband to brunch!"
Chuck: "Not one portion of that is true, but please don't involve yourself. Isn't it enough that I'm not aiming for you? And that your husband totally stole the company from me that you and I spent years fighting for?"
Lily: "I will still find a way to make this all about me!"
Chuck: "I don't know what to say except I'm really sorry any of this got on you. Or I would be, if that were actually what was happening. Take a pill or something."

Amira: "Hey, what's up?"
Chuck: "Wait, so you did sleep with Bart in Dubai?"
Amira: "Oh boy."
Chuck: "I KNEW IT! YOU ARE MY MOTHER!"

By Jacob Clifton

VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS

Are interested in Dan's book, or whatever it is, but they all want it changed around. Some don't want to rock the boat, or they do but in a Blind Item way, or they want him to leave out the sex, or put in more sex, or be less self-righteous, or take out just the Bass references, or get Georgina out of their office immediately because she just peed in a potted plant. Everybody it's something.

Dan: "What is the point of publishing an exposé if you're not going to expose everything?"
Georgina: "Whatever. Let's just make a shit-ton of money and go from there."
Dan: "Ooohhhhh but my inteeeeeegrity..."
Georgina: "Really? Fuckin' now you're gonna start that shit with me? You rubbed the lamp, honey. I'm just the hell that came billowing out."
Dan: "Thanks. When your personality is paper-thin and based entirely on leveraging your self-worth against everybody else's faults, it's easy to slip back there."

Some clock somewhere goes off and Georgina takes a look at the time on her phone.

Georgina: "3... 2... Annnnd I'm manic. Get ready for some wholly unrealistic optimism comin' your way."

SPEAKING OF

Blair: "So you're going to rappel up the side of this building using a grappling hook..."
Minions: "Can't we just walk in? Kati's ex let us in the first time..."
Blair: "So like all your exes, he is gay. Surprise surprise. But no, that plan is much too sensible and I have no confidence in my line. Nuclear is our only option. Now, if you'll direct your attention to this diagram of how to actually lay in the C4 where Forensics won't find it later..."
Kati: "Yo dawg I heard Serena likes fashion shows so much Poppy's putting a fashion show in her Central Park Conservancy Gala so she can stress while she stresses."
Blair: "Wait, Serena is hosting that gala? And Poppy's having her shit photographed there? How does any of this make sense? And how can I make this an excuse to call Chuck Bass, begging him to help me despite our entire storyline this year supposedly being about me not doing that?

Blonde Minion, meanwhile, has wiggled her entire head into some pantyhose, being a cat burglar of Poppy's fashions and all, so that all you can see is her face through the sheer nude material. It's a fresh moment for this show, I don't think we've ever seen anything like that before. Well done.

By Jacob Clifton

BASS

Amira: "I am not your mother! Probably. In the sense that every single person who ever appears on this show is your mother, I am your mother in that way. And I did fuck your dad, but it doesn't really matter."
Chuck: "But that weekend contains the secret!"
Amira: "I am so tired of this secret. I just want to go home. Maybe he just paid me off so Lily wouldn't find out about our affair or something."
Chuck: "That's unrealistically realistic for this show."
Amira: "Yeah, I wasn't really trying because I don't really care. Later!"
Chuck: "Not exactly. I put your money in my apartment safe and I'm holding you hostage until you can think of that thing you don't know."
Amira: "Wow, you're sort of awful."
Chuck: "Please. Extorting your blackmail money and keeping you prisoner in my home is like, the least abusive thing I've ever done to a woman on this show."

Chuck receives a text from Blair, which did not come from Blair but in fact from his cybercriminal master phone phreaker dad, and rushes off to the Central Park Conservancy Gala so he can help sabotage a Women's Wear Daily article.

PRADA

Lily: "Where's your old-ass boyfriend, Serena? I can't wait to have bridge nights where it's just the two of us and our old-ass husbands!"
Serena: "Off somewhere cheating on me, probably."
Lily: "Aw, that sucks. What's he gonna buy you?"
Serena: "...What?"
Lily: "After he cheats on you, what are you gonna get."
Serena: "Have you been watching that awful show too?"
Lily: "Honey, I've been a whore since way back before that show. Before The Bachelor even."

Serena: "Oh great, and now he just texted that he's coming to my gala. What am I gonna say to him?"
Lily: "Uh, nothing. Did you just completely forget how life works?"
Serena: "Is this Rhodes Woman shit?"
Lily: "This is like the Rhodes Woman LSAT, honey. Don't let him ruin your night. Just think of it as handing him more rope. Only in this case, the rope is made out of your own self-loathing. Pretty soon you'll feel so cold you'll barely be alive."

By Jacob Clifton

EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL

Nate: "Why not, Nate? It's gotta be five o'clock somewhere, and it's not like you have a real job."
(Glug-glug. Ring-ring.)
Sage: "Nate, thanks for finally picking up the phone! I've been calling you all day because of your cryptic voicemail!"
Nate: "The one where I said I was dumping you and then I dumped you and then I hung up and then I refused to answer any of your subsequent calls and texts?"
Sage: "Yeah, I just really feel like you're sending me some mixed messages."
Nate: "Do not ever call me or try to see me again or I will have you shipped out of the country. I am not interested in you and I think you're a bad person."
Sage: "I just don't get what you're trying to say. I'd better buy a dress for this gala tonight so I can ask you to clarify what you mean about our relationship."

AND NOTHING HURT

Serena stomps around her gala, glad-handing cameos and making references to current events and occasions. She is the star of the show!

Barry Watson: "I'm so glad to be here!"
Serena: "Don't even worry about it!"

Georgina looks, among everybody looking great, particularly great. Like the queen of the underworld.

Dan: "Georgina, why are we here at this gala?"
Georgina: "I am in the throes of a force-ten freakout is why! Let's harass all the publishing luminaries at this event!"
Dan: "But we are both famously not welcome here."
Georgina: "Did not having a formal invite ever stop Norman Mailer from showing up?"
Dan: "But what about my integrity?"
Georgina: "This roof is pretty high up, Humphrey. Let's cool it with the obnoxious integrity talk. My heightened emotional state could easily go the other way with very little warning."

Nate, verbatim: "So the Spectator is exploring all kinds of new demographics..."
Serena: "Excuse me, I need Nate for a minute."
Head of Media for Johnson & Johnson: "That's okay, he was talking bollocks anyway."
Serena: "Didn't you break up with Sage?"
Nate: "Yeah, you were sitting right there on the random bench. And PS, didn't you also break up with Steven only to make out with him at this fundraiser?"
Serena: "I'm not going to fight with him until after this Gala. Or ever, if he buys me something."
Nate: "Another thing we've always had in common is our attention sp"

By Jacob Clifton

WWD

Minions: "We made four of Poppy's models take a hansom cab to the duck pond!"
Blair: "But there should be six! That means two of her models might make it to the party wearing her outfits. It only takes one photograph, quote, to eclipse my line forever!"
Chuck: "Blair, I'm here to help you with anything you need."
Blair: "I didn't send you that text message."
Chuck: "It must have come from my father, who is apparently Neo and can do that."

Nate thinks he's fighting with Sage about her much older boyfriend, but she thinks they're fighting because she didn't let on how old she is when she first approached him for some of that wholesome, appropriate, mid-workday boss-intern sex. Even though they've been fighting about this for much of the episode, it's not getting cleared up yet because A) It's the main arc of the entire episode and B) Nate is stupid pretty/pretty stupid. This is how that gets wrapped up:

Sage: "Just pretend you don't know or care about it!"
Nate: "But I can't!"
Sage: "But what if you could?"
Nate: (Somehow this convinces him to make out with her.)

Nelly Yuki: "Dan Humphrey, I love and have always loved you. Before and after I attended Yale. I hate to see you at this party, because it means you have acquiesced. The flame of that horrible Generation X self-righteousness down in your taint, has it been blown out forever?"
Dan: "Not for Nate Archibald's lack of trying. But no! I am not Chuck Klosterman, nor was meant to be. I'm just observing. Like Nick Caraway, or..."
Nelly Yuki: "You're not Nick, you're Gatsby. I learned about this at Yale. Do you really have no idea how pathetic you are?"
Dan: "It's a Humphrey tradition."

Nelly Yuki: "When I was at Yale, I met other people who went to Yale. I realized that smart people who are losers will always be losers, even if they go to Yale."
Dan: "We're not losers, Nelly Yuki."
Nelly Yuki: "Yes I am. Yes, you are. No matter how many times you write Inside it will never come true. Accept it, and you can actually start competing."
Dan: "But they already have anything."
Nelly Yuki: "We have the truth! Stop playing by their rules, and make your own!"
Dan: "Glib and content-free, yet strangely rousing. Like a Republican stump speech."
Nelly Yuki: "Actually I read it on a package of slimming contour garments endorsed by a Real Housewife. I remember the day well, I'd just learned I was going to graduate early from college. From Yale, my alma mater."

Chuck: "Dude, I totally forgot that season where your ghost bitched at me all the time."
Bart: "Anyway, I paid Amira off with that money you stole from her that I already paid her off with, and now I am just sitting here staring into space in your house for no reason."

GALA

Serena: "Blair, oh my God. Please don't be at my Gala. You ruin everything. Every episode there is a big party, and every episode you manage to ruin it."
Blair: "That's what I do, baby. I am a ruiner. I ruin lives. On the other hand, you neglected to inform me, once again, that you'd moved back into town..."
Serena: "Yeah, because it's none of your business. Look, I'm really not playing around. Leave, or security will escort you out."
Minions: "We killed one of Poppy Lifton's models! We left her for dead in a duck pond! Here is her dress for proof! Also a bloody scalp!"
Poppy: "Give me that identical dress you stole from my dead model, you bitches."
Serena: "See, this is exactly what I am talking about. Precisely something like this."

Sage and Steven, after much fussing around with slow Nate and distracted Serena, eventually clarify for everybody that they are daughter and father. She's seventeen, making her a good month or so younger than Serena. Everybody acts like it's this huge deal, like Nate can't believe he's fucking somebody who's basically his same age, and Serena can't believe that the guy she's dating specifically because he's old enough to be her father has a daughter, but eventually they all realize they're kind of ridiculous and after a few laughs, go back to dating each other again, but now with a super-creepy twist of like, "No going down on that newspaper magnate that nearly married your stepmother when they were younger than you and whose Congressman cousin nearly left his wife for her... until you've finished your Trig homework."

BASS APT

Bart: "Don't you ever get tired of trying to get out from under my thumb, boy?"
Chuck: "It was a lot easier when you were dead. I was constantly overcoming this shit, two three times a season, when you were dead. But now I just want to know why you didn't die, because I have a hunch that will help me get back your empire if I find out."
Bart: "Really?"
Chuck: "I don't know. Maybe I just have extreme daddy issues like everybody else. Here, I'll whisper it seductively and if it makes your skin crawl, we'll know it's real."

By Jacob Clifton

BASS APT

SO REAL

Blair manages to work awesome forgotten details of the Ponzi scheme into her freakout on Nelly Yuki and Poppy Lifton, like how Gabriel's supermodel grifter posse was selling "fake African satellites" when they stole all that money and Blair turned Georgina and Jesus against each other. In the end, it's revealed that -- as with all good schemes on this show -- your best bet is to just wind up your toys and let Blair's innate insanity take care of the rest.

Nelly Yuki: "All I did was set up the article and let you do what you always do. Implode."

So she does, and continues to do so, and she acts so insane that Nelly Yuki and Poppy Lifton decide to leave her out of the article altogether, so now suddenly Blair has no designs, no WWD, no connections, no hope. Which is when Serena's security guys finally track her down, and carry her out of there. I'm not even sure there's a plot reason this time, since we already know she will always implode, but in terms of setting up even more obstacles for her to overcome, I'll allow. It's not like last year, where the humiliation itself became the point.

PRADA

Lily: "...I'm just glad Steven was able to buy them off and keep her on the Board, after he got caught punching a newspaper magnate for fucking his daughter... Yeah, you'd think we were real trash, wouldn't you? Might as well get a tattoo or move to LA. Anyway, thanks for the advice, Patti. I sometimes forget how much of a commitment it really takes to be a complete whore."
Bart: "I bought you this necklace!"
Lily: "And not a moment too soon, dear."

ATELIER

Blair: "Do you think I'll lose my mind due to these unrealistic expectations and pressures I'm putting on myself?"
Dorota: "Maybe ask more good how that could possibly not happen. Your bitch mother make you bulimic as child, Miss Blair. Now you ten days from destroying entire legacy. This storyline seems like prime recipe for nervous breakdown."
Blair: "I'm really just curious because without Chuck Bass I'm not really a person."
Dorota: "Oh, yes. Much healthier."

CONSTANCE BILLARD

Sage: "You know what 17-year-old girls hate? Walking to school with their dorky dad and trophy stepmom."
Barry Watson: "Am I dorky? I was pretty hot on Samantha Who?, and that was only like five years ago."
Sage: "Any case, I am going to take every single one of you motherfuckers down with me."
Serena: "Are you honestly saying that I carry no social currency at Constance at all? I am like, the entire reason Gossip Girl exists."
Sage: "Gossip Girl? Bitch, ain't nobody got time for that. Gossip Girl is for old people, irrelevant people, whatever words hurt you the most."

Barry Watson: "So that's kind of what you'll be dealing with, sorry I didn't mention her before."
Serena: "You're underestimating my self-absorption to a level that is like, hurtful. What do I care if your daughter's a bitch or not? Won't kill my buzz none. Frankly, I plan to welcome any excuse to ignore her."

WEEK

Alexa Chung! For like thirty seconds. Chuck and, unexpectedly, Serena and Sage help Blair with her first runway show, but of course Sage ruins everything for everybody because she's awful. Nate and Dan run an exposé on Rufus and Ivy Dickens, to which the UES responds with a resounding "We don't know who those people are!"

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.

By Jacob Clifton

CONSTANCE BILLARD

WEEK