So this episode of Gossip Girl was pretty decent and I give kudos to the cast for their respective roles in this outing. Why am I being nice to this episode of Gossip Girl? Well, the show reminded people of that faraway land named “Gossip Girl: Season One“, when the show was must see TV and things were good. It touched upon the one reason we meet these characters in the first place: Serena slept with Nate and ran off leaving Blair alone, helpless, and hurt. Remember that set up, short attention spanned people? Yeah, that happened!!! The episode also touched upon the long overdue affection between Dan and Vanessa, something that should thrill fans of the book series. Yeah, that happened in the books and hopefully the author of Gossip Girl (who is NOT Josh Schwartz, people), Cecily von Zeigesar, might’ve smiled at the suggestion.
But let me stop babbling and get to the recap and the appearance of Lady Gaga, who creeped me out until now.
Serena Likes To Keep It In The Family…
Serena starts the episode off with trying to convince Blair (and herself) that there isn’t anything going on between her and Trip Vanderbilt (Aaron Tviet), but feat is crushed when a chance encounter with Trip at his office says otherwise. Trip says that he is about to make a big move to D.C., which should be good right? For Serena’s consciousness and Trip’s political career and marriage? Yes? No? Serena thinks its good, and then gets scorned with the Scarlet Letter when Maureen appears and asks Serena to help Trip with the move, because she trusts Serena. Do not trust Maureen Vanderbilt with ANYTHING, kiddies! Her judgement is not so bright in that area.
So Serena runs to the only person who she thinks can help her with her plight: Nate. But Nate is not happy at all about this pairing and asks the question that immediately popped out my mouth when Serena and Trip started playing the Peripheral Mambo with each other: what the hell happened to her love for Carter Baizden?! Serena finally gets Nate to forgive her and be the best friend that he claims to be by stopping her from becoming the next Monica Lewinsky. Meanwhile, Nate tries to convince Mrs. Archibald about Grandfather Vanderbilt’s “involvement” in the campaign scandal that Maureen actually set up.
Nate and Serena reminisce as they ignore Trip’s phone calls as they take a walk in the park. But Nate gets one phone call from Trip that he can’t ignore. Trip has discovered through Mrs. Archibald that Maureen was the culprit of the campaign debacle and is drinking up a storm. Of course, he gives the can’t trust her speech as if he found Maureen in bed with Grandfather Vanderbilt, Granddaddy Moneybucks if you’re nasty… But long story short: Trip has a ‘legitimate’ reason to kick Maureen’s ass to the curb and to get busy with Serena. Nate keeps from Trip that he is with Serena and keeps from Serena that he had just got off the phone with Trip. Nate is just hard headed when I tell him to leave the scheming to the professionals…
At a bar, Nate and Serena realize that the last time they got drunk together in a bar was during the wedding where their illicit affair and cherry popping went down. Nate then picks this moment (in a SLIGHT drunken stupor) and tells Serena about the Masquerade Ball back in Season One when he kissed Jenny, mistaking her for Serena. He also says that he love(d) Serena. They move in closer for a kiss and in walks Trip. Womp, womp, wooooommmmmp.
Trip tells Serena the whole story and Nate just looks defeated most of the time. But he gets his balls handed to him when Serena decides to have her nightcap with Trip instead of Nate. I swear that scene reminded me of one of those Celebreality shows on VH1. That’s bad. In the end, Nate sits alone in the bar while Serena and Trip don’t wait for Maureen to finish packing and finally kiss. Hmm…
The Threesome: The Ugly Aftermath
PTC, put your panties back on. The Threesome was a morality lesson if not shocking.
Dan thinks he is the shizznit and is loving life after his threesome with Olivia and Vanessa. But this goes to show how really clueless the Humphrey men are. As Nate points out to a Too Cool For School Dan, the third person in a threesome should always be a stranger. Not your best friend, because complications are for sure to occur. Dan blows this suitable advice off and then the weirdness starts. First, Dan and Vanessa make plans to go to see Morrissey, but Vanessa wants to be sure that she and Dan and her and Olivia are OK. Dan later tells Olivia that he might join the playwriting program and Olivia is thrilled, but the thrill is gone as soon as Dan mentions going to the concert with Vanessa, instead of going to an interest meeting for the theater kids. But Dan is as clueless as an Afghan soldier in Macy’s and doesn’t see that the catty is about to begin between his mate and best mate.
Olivia later tells Vanessa that Dan is going to have to nix the concert to do his playwriting thing. But do you remember Dan saying that? No? Neither did I. And Olivia takes it even further by forcing Dan to go to the meeting for the theater kids by lying that Vanessa had other plans. Why the two longtime friends didn’t catch onto this? I don’t know.
But Blair enters the foray by enlisting Dan to write a Lady Gaga inspired play that will follow the format of Snow White. But who does Dan sign up to direct the play? Vanessa. Olivia is soooo not amused. During play practice, Olivia makes it known that she has a problem with Vanessa’s presence and thinks that Vanessa is still in love with Dan, which everyone else in the room (Blair and her college minions) thinks is true. Olivia also thinks that Dan actually has feelings for Vanessa, instead of her. Dan denies this, but Olivia is not convinced, so she and Vanessa quit the play. Due to Blair having a huge stake of her popularity in limbo, the two girls come back with a little ‘help’ from Blair, who threatens to expose their threesome to the public.
During the play, Olivia delivers her lines as the Snow White character to Dan’s Prince , but during the final act, Olivia is M.I.A., leaving Dan to fend for himself. Then Blair pushes Vanessa on stage to finish Olivia’s role, which now consists of Dan kissing Vanessa. Dan gets overly dramatic and kisses Vanessa passionately. But Vanessa wants to know what the hell is going on with the kiss. Was Olivia right?
At the after party, Olivia shows up and says that she did what she did so that Dan can realize the truth. But Vanessa appears and tells Olivia that she hasn’t had feelings for Dan in years and is actually seeing someone. This info is too late as Olivia has booked a movie and won’t be back till next fall. Dan looks at Vanessa and realizes that Olivia may have been right.
Blair’s Quest For Stardom!
Blair tries to join a group of snotty theater kids and overhears that they wanted Lady Gaga to perform for a dinner, but couldn’t get her. Blair tries to offer a solution through her stepfather Cyrus, which Head Snot smacks down. This display of disrespect engages Blair to leave high school politics behind and to enter the big leagues.
Finally!
Blair gets Dan (a good writer), Olivia (a famous actress), and Vanessa ( a great director) and puts on the Lady Gaga-esqe play. Blair wins approval of the theater snobs and to add insult to injury, she gets Lady Gaga to let the group in during one of her practice sessions on stage. Now, I have to hand it to Blair, but will she keep this up?
Jenny’s Turn For The Worse
So Jenny gets a taste of the wild side in this episode, as if she hasn’t had it before. By this time, though, I feel as if she is drunk on the craziness that is the Upper East Side.
Chuck Bass is in charge of escorting a Dutch teen around named Damian Dalgaard, who is the son of a potential business partner of Chuck’s. The suave charge catches the eye of Jenny, who offers to give Damian a tour of the city. But while Jenny has her mind on keeping a low profile, Damian has his mind on making business transactions in the form of narcotics, namely ecstasy pills.
Instead of running for the hills, Jenny stays for the ride and buys everything Damian tells her about living the wild life. When Jenny gets caught up in Damian’s latest drug exchange, Chuck Bass shows up and saves Jenny, who didn’t want to be saved. Chuck tells Jenny that she might need to watch her step in her quest in finding herself, because if she goes too far then her quest for Queendom would have been for naught. But does Jenny heed CB’s warning? Hell no. She dials Damian and tells him how much fun she had and wants to meet again. When will this girl ever learn?
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