Tell me the truth, does that Buffy joke in the headline make sense? It's just that I'm ever so proud of myself.
So, anyway, wasn't it you who was just saying earlier, "Gosh, should I listen to Frank Ocean's entire boring album tonight, or watch Gossip Girl?" Luckily for all of us, we didn't have to choose.
The Good: Everybody looked smashing. Lonelyboy and Blair in particular were literally breathtaking nearly the entire episode. And once Serena changed out of her strange umpire attire and braided her hair like a farmer, she was lookin' pretty good too. Georgina was her best self in ages, and Funny Blonde Minion was very, very funny this week. Love that girl.
The Bad: Sometimes it's hard to tell if Serena is acting fake, or acting fake. Tonight, she was "overjoyed" (and secretly conflicted?) to learn that Steven Spence was about to propose marriage, which came off as either a very layered approach to a simple if convoluted plot, or just poor direction on the part of Amy Heckerling. I want to say the former, because the latter involves dissing two of my biggest she-roes, but enough line readings were off throughout that I'm still undecided. Any case, it's rescued by the Serena-centric worries of everybody behind her back where they hope against hope that she is suddenly not Serena and thus not making the terrible decisions that she, of course, is totally making.
(Why, why, why when they list Serena's beaux do they never mention Tripp? Oh, sweet Tripp. What happened there? Didn't he try to throw Nate in the river or have him... Yeah, he tried to have Nate killed by that lovely Chef/Criminal, and that's why Blair lost her baby and her mind and two years of actually being a character on this show. Bad Tripp! Oh Tripp, you know I can't stay mad at you.)
The Outcome: As predicted, this episode was chock-full of scandal and twists and hurt feelings and major breakups and major makeups and major breakups that turned into makeups and makeups that turned into breakups and very little discussion of the Sudan Oil Embargo. Also as predicted, Georgina has been proudly masturbating herself senseless ever since she got ahold of the Serena/Dan sex tape last week.
Unnerved by the impending engagement, Sage relents and agrees to wear a Waldorf original for her coming out. And, thanks to Dan's input, it's quite a sexy number: Seems Blair has decided to lean into her new pigeonholing as agent provocouture. (Was that a pun GG would make? Was it loopy enough.) Of course, there are a million other schemes going on here, like, Dan and Georgina have about six going on, Blair changes course mid-scheme a few times, and Sage tries her best to live up to the "show, don't tell" way our series has decided to prove her scheminess.
Meanwhile, Chuck sends Ivy into PRADA for a truly ridiculous scheme I won't bore you with that very nearly drives the ever-elusive wedge between Lily and (money) Bart that Chuck thinks will be his salvation. And when she's not doing that, something about Rufus meeting up again with Bex to a romantic tootling tune that says we'll be seeing Miss Pixie Art Dealer again in the near future.
Also, Ivy has secret shitloads of Cece money from Lola, and after promising she won't hold her money over Rufus like Lily did, she immediately starts holding it over him like Lily did. At PRADA, Bart finally comes clean about the oil-for-horses deal and Lily literally shrugs one shoulder when he explains that he is a federal criminal. "Ah, fuck it," she says, deep into her gin.
After confirming the Powerful Woman/Bart Takedown plan for Chuck and Blair, Dan decides to release the Chuck Chapter of his serial, a shining tribute to Chuck's neverending battle with his leathery undead pops. Blair tries to derail the engagement, but at the last second pulls back and warns S, setting up a temporary détente between the OTP. But once Sage gets ahold of that Apartment sex tape and blasts it during her debut, Jenny Humphrey style, the fragile peace between Blair and both partners on the tape goes awry. So a brief flirtation with Blair and Dan's (and B and S's) lovely relationship is once again thrown to the tigers, Blair and Chuck stand around mooing about love for a bit, Steven/Sage dumps Serena/Nate maybe forever, and S ends up at a diner with Dan, where they while away the night pretending to eat food.
Week: Ivy makes her outsides look as crazy as her insides, taking a new and daring Roseanne Roseannadanna look to the streets. Everybody bids on art, putting Lily up against whatever is going on with Ivy and Rufus, presumably, up against Bex where he belongs. Eleanor comes home to save her company, and Chuck may or may not run up some stairs. Oh, and Serena's weird Vespa obsession crops up again, this time in front of a castle I think. All the easier for the wolves to get at Dan once and for all, I figure.
PREVIOUSLY
Serena's random stepmother story, every bit as weirdly old as Blair's two years of princessdom out of high school, chunders on unabated. We persist in understanding -- told but never shown, as it were -- that Sage Spence is an unholy admixture of both Serena and Blair; an It Girl who yet moves and shakes like a Powerful Woman, a blonde with brown hair. Superboy Prime for the CW set. Nate and Blair and Chuck continue to attempt to wrest their various companies away from their various parents, in an oddly mimeographic but also true-to-life fashion. Rufus and Ivy are now meth addicts living in DUMBO surrounded by personal effects, as Lily drinks her life away and the vile Bart Bass violates US trade embargos with relative abandon.
BUT COTILLIONS
Will come and Cotillions will go, as GG reminds us: Women will always be for sale at their age of their majority, no matter who's the Speaker of the House. And so it goes. Blair ushers into her drawing room a Rumspringing, callow lass; a Sarah both Plain and Tall, with neck up to here and sleeves down to there. Imagine a nightgown for the Oldest Living Confederate Widow, and then increase its modesty perforce: This is the new Waldorf.
Blair: "Dan! Stop eating my food and wearing my dresses, and tell me what you think of this unbelievably dowdy dress!"
Dan: "It's weird because that dress is not for whores, and yet you are a whore."
Blair: "What would I do without men's opinions? Humphrey is correct, as usual. Let us skank this bitch up, immediately. I have already revised this fashion line countless times this season, ignoring all rules and likelihoods of fashion. What is one more?"
Georgina: "...Diiiiid somebody say skank?"
Blair: "I suppose we all must have our muses. Take it away, upstairs."
Dan: "You are even more of a stalker now than when you were my stalker."
Georgina: "I begin to worry that you will start acting like a normal human being who has feelings, decency, or respect for his loved ones."
Dan: "It is like you have never seen this show that we are on."
UWS
Serena: "Are the pancakes okay? I do so enjoy cooking and laboring, in our pretend world where that would ever happen."
Steven: "I prefer waffles."
Serena: "That gives me a boner and I don't know why."
Steven: "I guess we are in love, little child-woman. I guess we've finally broken through to that level in our relationship where we shrug and admit, bone-dry, that we are each the best the other can do. And settle in for the Long Wait."
Sage: "No pancakes for me! I'm getting fitted for my Cotillion dress today. I lost weight without even trying! Ah, youth."
Serena: "I haven't even dug into my bag of stepmother tricks yet, you little demon. I'll have you in the Pedowitz Center by end of day if you don't stop saying such vicious things. I'll embarrass you at Cotillion worse than Jenny Humphrey did us all."
Sage: "Bitch, you ain't coming to my Cotillion!"
Serena: "I'll admit, I wasn't sure you did that here, on the Upper West Side. I imagined some sort of arena sport. They'd toss down a crown and you'd fight for it, bare-fisted and bare-breasted, as tradition demands."
Sage: "No, it's just like normal Cotillion. Except with the execrable poor."
Serena: "Well, I hope you enjoy it. I sure do remember enjoying mine, because I am mentally ill and don't remember things."
Steven: "I was going to invite you to Cotillion. But then I did not. Does that make you paranoid? That's exactly the nonsense plot reason."
Sage, verbatim: "So much for being the only teenager on my father's arm tonight."
Seriously. For real. For real, Sage Spence. Why are these idiots always buying each other rings from Harry Winston and getting shot overseas and becoming child brides and getting fake-pregnant all the time? I am like twice as old as these bitches and I still don't believe I'm old enough to marry Chuck Bass. Or even Steven Spence.
WALDORF
Georgina: "I think that you, like Serena before you, have moved into this Brady Bunch-style bathroom/bedroom suite with Blair in order to force her to admit she loves you."
Dan: "That would seem apparent. Also, though, I am homeless for no reason at all."
Georgina: "Hand over your chapter before I start trouble. Also, I speak five languages. It explains a lot of my more outlandish spy activities, somehow."
Dan: "So you speak five languages and you have a photographic memory? This show is so weird that we keep saying things like that about you and then they never come up again."
Georgina: "Give me your chapter, or I will pilot a space shuttle to the space station. While performing a never-before-attempted neurological graft. On a member of my ska band."
Dorota: "Hey Dan, have you seen this engagement ring Blair's been wearing all season? I just thought I would show it to you for no reason at all."
Dan: "Thanks, you walking plot device. I have somehow been inspired by that huge ugly engagement ring to publish a long, sloppy literary blow job for Chuck Bass."
Dorota: "Mister Chuck he inspire your most gayest work, historically."
Dan: "He do, Dorota. He do inspire."
Dorota: "In original Gossip Girl books Mister Chuck and Lonelyboy have hot bisexual affair and Mister Chuck stay gay forever after. Also, he have pet monkey."
Dan: "Why do you always bring that up?"
Dorota: "Because it is amazing?"
OPERATION IVY
Ivy: "Mysterious interlocutor who may be Lola or may be a twist, I'm sorry to report that Nate is no longer biting the hand that feeds him by writing shitty things about Lily in The Spectator. And then for a bit I was giving GG tips about stuff from Rufus's boxes and boxes of painful secrets, but he literally burned all that stuff I guess. I am still working on another way to ruin Lily by not interacting with Lily in any way."
Lola (?): "It's weird because you are the schemingest person, but your schemes always make the least amount of sense and go to the most ridiculous places for eventually zero payoff and you always end up looking like you're not a total asshole. How do you do that?"
Ivy: "I'm the judgy outsider pushed beyond her limits. Consider me, like, weaponized Vanessa."
Rufus: "[Gallery talk. In an unending deluge.]"
Ivy: "Are we still on that? Is 'art gallery' code for 'crystal methamphetamine'?"
Rufus: "You wanna come with me to get some more 'art gallery'? And then smoke it in an alleyway?"
Ivy: "No, I have important sneaky business elsewhere that I don't feel like telling you."
They kiss, and I mean like even they are grossed out when they kiss.
EMPIRE
Nate: "Why are you hanging around in your house instead of reporting your father to the FBI for breaking US trade embargos?"
Chuck: "What's amazing to me is that in six seasons of this show that is the first plotpoint you have ever retained for more than five minutes."
Nate: "Well, just like my father before me, I have also engaged in white-collar fraud. If you were wondering what my shifty looks are all about."
Chuck: "So now Bart will own all of our various businesses eventually. Too real."
Chuck: "Why are you carrying around that tuxedo when you could be wearing it? That's like the best thing that ever happens on this entire show."
Nate: "Well, as a consequence of that, I generally have sex whenever I put this on. So I'm having it cleaned before Cotillion."
Chuck, verbatim: "I hope your third time coming out is finally a charm."
Nate: "Every episode of this show is a chance for that to happen, bro."
Serena comes in as Chuck is leaving, and they both think about what if they knew each other or ever had a scene together ever.
Nate: "More breakfast?"
Serena: "I don't have time to listen to your problems, Nate. I need to talk about Steven Spence."
Nate: "My girlfriend's dad, who is also your boyfriend and also fucked your mom?"
Serena: "Yeah, he's acting weird."
Nate: "We could narrow this down faster by listing what is not weird."
Nate, verbatim: "Could the 'weirdness' be that Steven hooked up with your mom in a dungeon when you were in grade school?"
Serena, ditto: "No. Once he actually remembered that that happened, it wasn't weird at all. He got over it really quickly."
In case that didn't prove the show is feeling winky tonight, stay with us:
Nate: "This is where my advice skills fall short. Most of my exes would just steal my phone or go through all my emails."
Serena: "Nice. Good, this is good."
Nate: "I was joking. But also truthing. But also it was not advice so much as a comment on how ridiculous my storylines always are."
Serena: "And yet."
RANDOM STREET CORNER (EAST)
Chuck sneaks up on Lily, making her scream. She's been avoiding him ever since that conversation she had with Bart where she told him she wouldn't avoid Chuck because he was her only child. Presumably, he then got her drunk and bought her something shiny, and now she's acting like Chuck is a stalker.
Chuck: "Or else I'm right about everything, and you're the one that could help me get proof..."
Lily: "Of what? This whole episode I'm going to give you ample opportunity to explain about the Sudanese oil deals, and you're just going to..."
Chuck: "Hotels! Faked deaths! Grumbly voice!"
Lily: "-- Like that. Later, Charles."
Ivy appears literally out of the nowhere previously occupied by Chuck. The two most out-of-nowhere people that constantly sneak up on you, sneaking up on each other. It gives me the screamin' meemies. Inception of sneakings.
Ivy: "Are you bringing down Bart and Lily?"
Chuck: "Kind of, but not Lily. She's pretty great. We have like the only healthy rel..."
Ivy: "-- Okay, I'll help you bring down Lily."
RANDOM STREET CORNER (WEST)
Sage bonks a cutie with her Cotillion dress outside of the van der Spences' UWS apartment, because she cannot see where she is going. Blair appears out of the nowhere currently obscured by the dress.
Blair: "What a shitty Cotillion dress. Do me a favor."
Sage: "That Waldorf charm still twerkin', I see."
Blair: "I'm just saying you're stupid and awful. Now do my bidding and wear my newly whore clothes I just made in the last hour to your stupid Cotillion where I hope you die."
Sage: "Uh, no thanks. Your manners are not great."
Blair: "Why are you being such a bitch?"
UWS
Serena's fingers go a-poking into Steven's various attachés and valises until she prizes out a big old ugly engagement ring. And what happens , I don't know what it is. Serena pretending to be happy? Blake Lively pretending that Serena is happy? All of us simultaneously realizing that we have no idea what happy Serena would even look like? It's sort of shivery and spastic and upsetting, like a dog coming down the street foamin' all on the mouth. Shaking, but still focused. On your neck.
Sage: "Oh my God, Serena! Are you okay? You looked fucked up!"
Serena: "This is apparently what I look like when I'm excited about something. I've never been excited about anything before so I'm still workin' out the kinks..."
Sage: "Well cut that shit out! You look like The Possession Of Emily Rose! You look like you're about to discover you're an Airbender or something."
Serena: "Okay, but I didn't find a huge ugly engagement ring in there."
Sage: "Oh, you mean this one? Because I am about to go straight ham on you now."
UES
Chuck: "Why would I want the help of a con artist and a probable sociopath?"
Ivy: "I am neither of those things..."
Chuck: "Girl, you are both of those things."
Ivy: "Either way, we're both stalking Lily for the same reason this time."
Chuck: "I guess we are. I guess somehow all those episodes of Bart accusing me of trying to destroy their zombie marriage have actually turned into me doing that."
Ivy: "Quick, come up with the most ludicrous plan you have ever come up with."
Chuck: "You sneak into PRADA and create the illusion that I have been hanging out with Lily and telling her about the Sudanese oil deals. Then Bart will punch a nearby window, resulting in an internet apocalypse."
Just kidding. There aren't enough Rufus/Lily fans in the world at this point to drum up that kind of shipper bullshit. But it's fun to reminisce. (And even more fun to remember to take your meds, ladies!)
UWS
Sage, with ring: "Please tell me this is an inappropriate gift for my debut and not an engagement ring for Serena."
Steven: "A gift? No, it is not."
Sage: "Dad, stop talking like Yoda."
(How is that talking like Yoda?)
Steven: "Fine. I was so nervous about marrying a little child that I forgot to ask her to your Cotillion. I guess now I will propose marriage at your Cotillion, ruining everything at once like I'm Blair Waldorf or something."
Sage: "So you're Lily's age and I'm Serena's age. How does the asking-the-father's-blessing thing work?"
Steven: "I plan on asking Lily about it sometime between now and your Cotillion."
Sage: "Well. Stay away from any dungeons, you disgusting old assholes."
ATELIER
Blonde Minion's name is Jessica. I know that we know that, but I also never know that. I hope she gets big things out of this. Look how well Penelope's doing, and Jessica's funnier than she is. Or at least goofier. Anyway, Blair is dressing her up in a Cotillion dress? For some reason. I think her plan is to sneak Jessica into Society tonight?
Jessica: "I should take Dan as my date. I don't hate myself enough yet, you see..."
Blair: "No. A real debutante, even on the UWS, would never take Dan Humphrey to Cotillion. Even though every season on this show somebody takes Dan Humphrey to Cotillion."
Dan: "Dominick Dunne was from Hartford, and he was considered high society..."
Blair: "Do you honestly fucking think none of us picked up on that reference? Isn't that like your entire storyline this year? And last year?"
Jessica: "I really liked the Chuck chapter. Remarkably gay."
Dan: "Yes, I am. Oh, I mean we. We are."
Blair: "Wait, you wrote a Chuck chapter? After I gave you a place to live? GTFO."
Dan: "Twist! It is a long slow sloppy blowjob, just like everything I have ever written about Chuck."
Jessica: "Yeah, and you're not even in it. That would disrupt the powerfully gay narrative."
Blair: "There is no Chuck story without Blair. A House is not a Home, a Chair is just a..."
Dan: "Twist! That's why I wrote it. To show that he doesn't give a shit about you. By the way, who's taking you to Cotillion?"
Blair: "Not Chuck, he's busy being Chuck."
Dan: "Exactly."
Blair: "But I'm going to continue to delude myself that I am exactly the same amount of busy being Blair. You know, I almost hate myself enough to date you right now, Humphrey. Keep it comin'."
PRADA
Lily: "Sorry about that time I fucked your boyfriend!"
Serena: "As if there's ever been a day where I don't have to say that to somebody on this show."
Lily: "Any idea why he called me for coffee today? I'd hate to have to apologize for it again..."
Serena: "I think he's going to propose marriage."
Lily: "That is some ass-backwards shit, my dear."
Serena: "What, Blair's been engaged like six times on this show."
Lily: "Yeah, but at least she pretended to go to college."
Serena: "Well, whatever. I never gave thought to marrying him until today, but it was like once I saw that ring, I just... Oh Mom, it was like my heart opened up full of butterflies and all the butterflies were going, Sure whatever."
Lily: "Oh, honey. I know that feeling well. All six of my marriages -- including the illegal one to Rufus that made me a bigamist and kept you from dating Dan occasionally, but not all the time -- were just like that. That overwhelming feeling of not giving a shit about what is going on in my life or where my decisions might lead."
Serena: "Mom, thank you. I feel so 'close' to you right now."
Lily: "It's just such a beautiful day, to see my favorite daughter finally just give in and let the pills take over. Today, you are a Rhodes Woman."
ATELIER
Sage: "Jessica, you old and rough. Also, why would they let some Columbia grad just randomly into Cotillion?"
Jessica: "I'm here to be hilarious, not make sense."
Blair: "Not even that, Blonde Minion. Once again, it's time to make Sage the Waldorf It Girl, despite there being literally dozens of other young women nearby at any time."
Sage: "Thing is, Steven's proposing to Serena tonight..."
Blair: "HA! I knew she'd lock that shit down."
Sage: "...And I want to team up with you to ruin her life. See, he's going to be doing it at Cotillion, which you are crazy enough to think is somehow about you, so it'll overshadow..."
Blair: "Do go on. But also make up multiple, even-more-likely to blow up in everybody's face plans, and then do not tell me what they are."
Sage: "I'm glad I have your trust, for no reason."
OPERATION IVY
"Spray around my cologne, and put a copy of Bart's will on Lily's desk. Now fill a glass with scotch. Now drink it. I wouldn't leave a drop."
And just like that, the illusion is complete! It's like the opposite of camouflage, it's eerie. The Ghost of Chuck! Taking meetings! At least, until Bart Bass walks in and finds Ivy just chilling in PRADA, spraying eurotrash cologne everywhere and drinking his scotch like a lunatic.
Bart: "Who the hell are you?"
Ivy: "That is a long fucking story. It begins with a fingerbanging on Headmistress Queller's desk upstairs at Const..."
OPERATION SPENCE
Blair: "Lily, can we briefly talk on the phone about Serena's engagement?"
Lily: "Like people talk on the phone. I mean sure. I mean whatever. I mean, she's his problem now."
Blair: "But you know what comes . The wolves."
Lily: "Why should the fact that my daughter only makes terrible decisions lead us to believe she's making a terrible decision?"
Blair: "Listen to yourself."
Lily: "You're right. I should shut this down like the asshole I am."
Steven: "Lily, thanks for meeting me for coffee."
The ensuing bloodbath is awesome. Too awesome, it seems, to even show us.
Sage: "That was literally the whole thing? You just pointed out that her daughter is retarded and then blam?"
Blair: "That's what Lily thinks parenting looks like."
Sage: "God, that's sad."
Blair: "But we have all this money."
Sage: "Good point."
OPERATION IVY
Ivy: "...And that's how I ended up with a summer house in LA, but then randomly, she cancels that lease and moves me to New York, like on that same day, it was so weird, okay but so little did I know that Chef Cutie would follow me here, and eventually become a hired killer for Tripp Vanderbilt..."
Bart: "Oh my God. Just leave."
Ivy: "Wait, so then I moved to the Hamptons to Dolores Claiborne CeCe Rhodes and for a second I inherited everything on the entire show and I threw Lily and Rufus out of PRADA but then we had to dress up like hookers and it turned out that Lola was actually Serena's sister in addition to being her cousin but then she got another pilot on NBC and..."
Bart: "And hand me that will you're hiding behind your back. I should have known from that eurotrash cologne everywhere. And the crazy girl. This is a Chuck thing. Ghost of Chuck, are you here now? Are you in this room?"
Ghost Of Chuck: "[Sexual innuendo.]"
WALDORF
Blair and Dan both look fucking phenomenal. And they know it. I am torn; to look at Dan Humphrey is to see what real beauty looks like, and then you think about all the hours and days his hair spends looking like how it usually looks. And it's like, Who do you get mad at? You know what I mean? Can't blame Jeff Buckley, he's dead. Can't blame Penn Badgely, he's doing his best. Can't yell at the hair, it's just hair so it can't hear you yelling. I guess we just take this in and enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe put on that one Sia song.
Dan: "I know Chuck's busy, and no one should go to Cotillion alone, and I am transparent as ever..."
Blair: "Well. I suppose I could overlook your upbringing now that you're a regular feature in Vanity Fair."
You know what it is, it's that the first three years of this show it was kids metaphorically acting like adults. A fantasy parallel world where Blair wasn't really the Queen of New York and she didn't really "banish" Princess Jenny, we just pretended those things were true; where Serena's social climbing was about being on the arm of similarly diaphanous It Boys, not marrying actual pharmaceutical CEOs. You could then look at the second half of this show as being a concentrated effort to play out those exact same stories, but in real life: Basically, taking the entire cool part out and just watching children actually act like adults, in a boring adult world.
Like okay: If Jenny were still on the show now, she would actually be married to an actual gay guy who would actually be having an affair with Eric. You know? Totally different dynamic. (That is a bad example because that sounds fucking fantastic, but you see what I mean. Make a fake Queen into a real Princess, and there's no place for anything but what you're looking at.)
There was a wish-fulfillment aspect of the books that never made it to the screen, in those early years, where Serena and Blair were constantly the Face or the Muse or the Whatever of actual jet-setting famous rappers and whatever; what made the show brilliant was that it was like a boutique inset to the real world, actually taking that even further and more excitingly, because your life as a viewer was exactly as glamorous as their lives, because their lives were all emotional craziness and drama without the consequences.
We've all got a Nate Archibald, he doesn't literally need to have millions of dollars in order to be the Nate Archibald. We've all got a Blair we love more than anything and have to hold onto her through the storm, because best friends are forever.
But by making the metaphor real, the show turned into a soap opera like any other soap opera -- fabulously wealthy people having ridiculous problems; children living out these grownup situations like in any Danielle Steele potboiler -- and the heart vanished, because they weren't us anymore. Just these weird monsters.
OPERATION SPENCE
Serena's getting a manicure, for the paparazzi's engagement-ring pics, when she gets two things at once on her phone: Steven Spence telling Serena not to bother coming to Cotillion tonight (presumably thanks to a Blair-operated Lily), and then a GG blast about Steven leaving Harry Winston without the ring he went in there with. A lot of information at once, especially for good old Serena.
COTILLION
Georgina: "I know your Chuck chapter puts you on deadline for Vanity Fair, but I'm still gonna need to see your Blair chapter stat. The better to somehow get it published, presumably, and wreck the wreckage that you already are."
Dan: "What if Blair and I really are in love, though?"
Georgina: "All the more important that I ruin everything. Pull your ass together. Oh, and also there's this sex tape I've had since last week, which has taken up a lot of my free time with constant masturbation."
Dan: "Fine. But give me until midnight to show you the Blair chapter while we're all standing around at this Cotillion. The tradition on this show of one big party where everybody is comes first, you know that."
Sage bumps into Georgina and somehow steals the phone, I guess because she just somehow knows there's a sex tape on there, because she is a black-hat hacker who speaks six languages and thus can best Georgina, which kind of ruins the entire point of Georgina.
Blair: "Give me champagne and sooth my nerves about this plan you told me to do where my entire fashion line is for whores now."
Dan: "I'm such an accomplished ruiner that I didn't even notice me doing that."
Chuck: "Blair, I came to this Cotillion because I too somehow think it's about you. Nice blowjob btw, Humphrey."
Dan: "Been too long since I heard that from you. Hey, how about an awkward and painfully overextended metaphor about Zeus and Cronus that literally nobody involved with this show understands? Spoiler alert, I will also use it to remind everybody how Chuck is a total rapist."
Serena: "Lily Bass! You told Steven Spence not to marry me!"
Lily: "I merely expressed my concern that you shouldn't ever be allowed to make your own decisions, because you are a moron."
Serena: "Says the bitch who got married seven times, including once in bigamy and once in a zombie marriage. And who has more kids than somebody on a TLC show."
Lily: "Don't blame me, blame Blair. You had to know this was her fault, come on."
This part, though. It rings so true that it actually retroactively makes sense of Serena's petit mal at the beginning of the episode, it's great:
Serena: "You knew how much I wanted this."
Lily: "I knew you wanted someone, but let's face it, Serena. You don't have boyfriends. You have life rafts."
(Bart: "...Diiiid somebody say my name?")
Serena: "That you keep taking from me! And leaving me to drown! First you got together with Rufus so that I could never be with Dan, and now you're jealous that some man that doesn't remember sleeping with you is in love with me... I'm not gonna let you ruin this."
Even Lily has to admit that Serena's narrative is compelling here; she's privileged in a sort of Mitt Romney way, right, like she's not an active racist, she just doesn't get why poor people don't just make more money. "Even if I never actually stole your boyfriends from you, I sure did put them in jail and marry their dads a lot." But it's that kind of privilege, not actual malice, that keeps empires going.
ACTUAL COTILLION
Yeah, did you forget there was actually a Cotillion happening at this Cotillion? Me too. These assholes.
DRAMARAMA
Blair: "I just wanted to say real quick that fuck you, Sage. How are those favors you're doing me going?"
Sage: "Well, I uninvited Serena from the Cotillion using my dad's phone, and then tricked him into taking one of my rings to Harry Winston and being photographed. Which, you have to admit, is pretty baroque."
Blair: "Well, their engagement could still happen, and I have to stop that for some reason that still doesn't hugely make sense."
Sage: "Don't worry, I'm on top of it. Jenny Style."
Lily: "Hey, Bart! Nice to see your nasty old ass at this Cotillion."
Bart: "I am very mad! You had a secret meeting with Ghost Of Chuck!"
Lily: "I don't recall any such meeting."
Bart: "Are you saying it was an illusion? Why, now that you mention it there was a strange blonde girl there lying through her teeth..."
Lily: "Twenty-something, 5'4", slim? Could pass as Serena's cousin? Crazy eyes and a voice like the Iron Giant? You magnificent fool. When are you going to learn that it's Ivy? That it's always Ivy?"
Chuck: "Last chance to ally with me against your rich, powerful husband. I swear to God you'll be Ruth Madoff by the end of this."
Lily: "That is the most fucked-up thing anybody has ever said to me. How dare you."
New Yorkers' hatred for Ruth Madoff, remember? It was the new "We can't wait until poor Jennifer Aniston commits suicide" thing for like a whole year, it was awesome.
ACTUAL COTILLION
Serena: "Steven! Oh sorry, random balding guy. I'm going to have to get better at this."
RBG: "No prob. My trophy child-bride does that all the time. I found her at Macy's once, she'd been holding this old dude's hand for like an hour and he totally thought she was his trophy child-bride. Oh, how we laughed. And then swapped."
DRAMARAMA
Blair: "Serena! Inexplicable backflip!"
Serena: "I don't have time. I'm trying to save my sick sad marriage."
Blair: "No honey, that was an illusion I cooked up with Sage. Because we are both bitches."
Serena: "Is that your apology?"
Blair: "This is about Waldorf Designs, you jerk. Another gross old guy will come along in five minutes. Perspective."
Serena: "What is wrong with you?"
Blair: "Nothing! Here's that inexplicable backflip I was warning you about... There it is. Suddenly, I want you to marry Steven and I'm all of a sudden really sorry about doing fucking everything in my power to shut it down. Besties?"
Serena: "You betcha."
They hug and kiss and it's so stupid, because what?
Georgina: "I hope you're enjoying this Cotillion."
Dan: "Yeah, I'm the first person in human history to do that."
Georgina: "Well, sex tape at midnight. Just think about that."
Dan: "I'm just going to stall for no reason until then."
Steven: "Serena, thank goodness you're here. I can't wait to propose to you."
Serena: "Hang on, you need to explain this entire episode to me again."
Sage takes the stage, whipping off her coat to reveal a sexy dress by Waldorf Designs. Check. But then also, on the slide projector PowerPoint thing, suddenly there are Dan and Serena fucking. Everybody shits themselves, both in the Actual Cotillion and also in our corner.
Serena: "Steven, I may have left out this sex tape last week. Actually, there are a few sex tapes you should know about, now that I'm thinking about it..."
Steven: "Everybody breaks up in this episode, huh? Midway through the season, exactly, everybody breaks up. Well then I guess I better get my panties in a twist about this."
Serena: "Sage did this! You cannot let her sabotage our relationship!"
Steven: "Excuse me if I don't take parenting advice from a woman who recorded herself having sex with her ex to get revenge on her best friend!"
Serena: "Excused! Now get on your knee and propose, goddammit!"
Dan: "Blair, I'm so sorry that I fucked Serena one time after we broke up, sending her into a self-destructive slut spiral that meant she fucked C-level music celebs for coke and then died."
Blair: "That's okay, I'm still royally pissed at you for no good reason at all."
Dan: "[Long explanation of last season's finale and how he never does anything wrong and Serena is a whore and Chuck is a rapist and blah-blah.]"
Blair: "This is just like when Jennifer gave Chuck her virginity in a nihilistic nuclear detonation of her entire life! Except not like that in any way whatsoever."
Dan: "Well, I hope you enjoy dying alone. Because I am the only other option."
Blair: "If it's between that and you, I choose that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go carry Chuck around on my back like the worthless drudge I believe myself to be."
Georgina: "I know, I know. But what happened was, Sage stole my phone to use the sex tape to break up Serena and her dad."
Dan: "Wow, that could not be less relevant to my life. Good job ruining my nonexistent relationship with Blair, though."
Georgina: "Whatever gets me those pages! You go get those, and I'm gonna roofie some random teen boys."
ACTUAL COTILLION
Sage: "This Cotillion fucking rocks. Just puttin' that out there."
Nate: "It might be my worst one ever. I miss Carter Baizen so much sometimes."
Yeah? I miss Carter Baizen so much all the time.
Georgina: "Remember when I offered Ivy a job and nothing ever came of it? Same deal with you, Sage. Now gimme back my sex tape phone."
Nate: "Wait, it was you that did that? Oh, we are so broken up just like everybody else on this show."
Sage, verbatim: "Nate! Nate, where are you going? We were in the middle of a dance!"
Haha, stupid Sage. Steven jumps on her out of nowhere, covering up her grownup dress and hustling her home like she's not older than everybody else at this entire thing.
OPERATION IVY
Rufus: "Thank God! All my other 'art gallery' dealers were dry. I'll be right over."
Ivy: "You came up with money out of nowhere? But how will I secretly control you?"
Rufus: "Remember Bex? You better, because the score just started playing a very romantic love-affair fragment that means she's going to suddenly be the person I was meant to be with all along."
Ivy: "Good thing I'm not actually into your old ass, or that would turn my crazy up so fast. At least it's happening organically."
Rufus: "I wonder who the mysterious person is that bought all that 'art gallery' off her. I'll call her and find out. Bex, my once and future lady love, I know what the word 'anonymous' means, but could you tell me where all of my 'art gallery' money is coming from suddenly?"
Bex: "No. But it is Ivy."
Rufus: "That bitch has been holding out on me? Think of all the 'art gallery' we could have been snorting and smoking and injecting between our toes and eyeballs."
Or whatever, I don't know how it works exactly but I know they are doing it.
COTILLION
Serena: "Hoo boy, that Sage. I tell ya."
Blair: "Can it, sister. I'm so sure our fragile peace could survive you fucking Dan just to mess with my head. Just literally for only that reason."
Serena: "I mean, the show seems to have somehow forgotten that I was in love with him the entire time, and you couldn't wait to get back to Chuck, but..."
Blair: "Even for Serena van der Woodsen, it's remarkable. You actually managed to go back to the same exact place as with Nate, wearing the same exact clothes as with Nate, doing the same exact moves as with Nate. Tell me, did you also run off a kill a dude that night?"
Serena: "That dude, this time, was me."
Blair: "Attend to my narrative here, honey. You took Nate's virginity on that same bar, when I loved him. It is not a coincidence that you went back there to prove you could take Dan too."
Serena: "You are all about Chuck. I'm sorry, but you're not the fat friend with a crush on every single boy so that no matter what happens you get to start crying and make everything about you and ruin every party you go to with your infinite crushes. Everybody fuckin' hates that girl, don't go out like that."
Blair: "Nevertheless, you took things way farther than either of us have ever taken things, in the tempestuous love affair that defines us. You didn't just cross the line, you erased it. Like a Chuck, like an actual sociopath."
Serena: "Nah. You did that when you took Dan. I realize it was two years of Prince Louis and playing Chuck against him before you officially did it, but the point is that you did it, and you knew I would take every single motherfucking one of us down with me when you did. I am not the bad guy here. It's sick and weird in a lot of ways, but it's not what destroyed our friendship. Your jealous ass tryna break my toys did that."
And then -- only I think because the sex tape just happened tonight, whereas Dair was seemingly lifetimes ago -- Blair gets to leave with the upper hand and Serena has to stand there feeling bad, even though sisters before misters.
OPERATION IVY
Ivy: "You goin' through my mail? Momma don't like that."
Rufus: "Why do you have a bajillion dollars? Why are you buying 'art gallery' so I'll have money instead of just giving me money? Are you the new Lily? Am I just your trophy?"
Ivy: "Ugh, you're like a hundred. No. I just didn't want you to think I was doing that, so I had to do exactly that."
Rufus: "Where did all this money come from?"
Ivy: "I didn't steal it. Lola returned it to me. That's Carol's portion of Cece's estate."
Rufus, verbatim: "That makes sense."
Does it?
Rufus: "So wait, why did I move you in here to begin with, if you had all this money. Are you just using me in some bizarre Byzantine plot with a nonexistent sister-cousin who only exists on the phone, in order to hurt Lily Bass who doesn't give a shit about either of us anyway?"
Ivy: "No, I just hate money. I hate buying things with money, I hate survival. I hate luxury, I hate enjoyment of things. I just want to be in a loft with a creepy old man, bein' poor."
Rufus: "That makes sense."
Does it, though?
Rufus: "Okay, here's my plan. I will spend all of your money on myself, just like with Lily. But instead of resenting you for it, like with Lily, I will just resent you for it."
Ivy: "Sounds good!"
But does it?
UWS
Serena: "Steven, have you forgotten about dumping me? Because my ring finger's getting' cold."
Steven: "Not this time, S. This time, I will remember that you are gross."
Serena: "Listen, that time I OD'd on public transport and then washed ashore upriver near your Poughkeepsie home? That sex tape was from before that. Like right before. Everything is different now, several weeks later!"
Steven: "Not buying it. I think your kinda gross goes all the way down."
Serena: "...Suddenly I really miss Dan Humphrey. Huh."
Dan: "Hey, you nasty slut."
Serena: "Hey, you social embarrassment. Want to go eat hamburgers and french fries and drink milkshakes and wallow in how horrible we are?"
Dan: "When you're desperate and self-destructive, that really turns me on. It's a date!"
EMPIRE
Blair: "Chuck? Thanks for never raping Serena."
Chuck: "It's sad because it throws off the symmetry of the show, but also she has the metric volume of six of me. I am very tiny and she is huge and hot."
Blair: "Anyway, they're back to being officially the grossest people."
Chuck: "Our time will come again."
Blair: "...Sounds like a but. Wait, are you still doing your Powerful Bass stuff? I thought tonight was the end of that."
Chuck: "Turns out Lily's kind of a money-addicted alcoholic."
Blair: "You're shittin' me."
PRADA
Bart: "Lily, I have to be completely honest with you."
Lily: "You're shittin' me."
Bart: "Chuck was right. I did violate the US trade embargo against Sudan, using horses and oil portraits of horses."
Lily: "Well, whatever. I never gave thought to your illegalities until today, but not even when Russell Thorpe tried to blow up Blair Waldorf, but now that you're telling me... It's like I think about your money, and my heart just opens up full of butterflies, and all the butterflies are going, Sure whatever."
Bart: "So we're good."
Lily: "Yeah, fuck it."
OPERATION IVY
Ivy: "So how did Operation Sudan go?"
Chuck: "There were a lot of schemes in this episode. Sort of a Sara Goodman hallmark, all that hustle and nothing really going down. The illusion of complexity. Anyway, no. Lily and Bart are fine, still."
Ivy: "Son of a bitch. I really thought he'd be convinced that your ghost was haunting their house and drinking their scotch and perusing their documents."
Chuck: "It did seem foolproof. Ah well. Maybe week."
Ivy: "...Oh wait, he had an envelope."
Chuck: "An envelope you say. Well, that's almost as stunning a reveal as that time we found a photograph of him walking into a building."
WALDORF
Blair: "Dorota! Fill me in on what's happening at the end of this episode!"
Dorota: "The Subtle Sage Sexuality Teen Whore dress is a hit! Jean-Pierre call me for pattern. That bitch even hot on the phone."
Blair: "What a relief! Or it would be, if I had any interest or agency in my own life and wasn't just fucking around waiting for Chuck to marry me."
Dorota: "That not all. Miss Eleanor call too, say you Whore of Babylon. She come home to restore Waldorf name."
Blair: "...I'm going to need a pecan pie and a few minutes alone."
POOR PEOPLE DINER
Serena: "Do you think my mom's right? Do I depend on guys to an unhealthy degree?"
Dan: "No comment."
Serena: "And meanwhile girls are now hitting on you because of the sex tape? It's almost like there are two standards for sexual behavior in our society, one for men and the other for women."
Dan: "The fact that you're just twigging to this now, when it's your entire life story, is part of what makes you beautiful."
Diner Lady: "You guys want pie?"
Serena: "I want all the pie. List then and then bring them. An unholy carbohydrate orgy."
Diner Lady: "You actually gonna eat it?"
Serena & Dan: "Yes, that is the illusion this television show has decided to create."
Gossip Girl: "Isn't that gross? Serena and Dan. Oh my God, you guys. XOXO."
WEEK
For the sixth episode running, Blair stresses out about the threat of Eleanor to no real avail and Chuck tries more nonsense out on Lily's marriage, also to no real avail. Ivy and Rufus open their 'art gallery,' probably resulting in a big 'art' party the whole cast attends, and turn in their desperation to bath salts. One wild 36 hours later, the Upper East Side and Gossip Girl light up social media with strange stories of a mask-wearing couple breaking into apartments and setting up their Christmas decorations while they are asleep. Serena and Dan unhinge their jaws and finally just swallow each other whole, resulting in a mutant beast that scours the countryside looking for Lily's other children and devouring them one by one, just like in mythology.
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 recently on Tor.com.