'Gossip Girl' recap: Now change partners!
Dec 6, 2007, 01:26 PM | by Youyoung Lee
Categories: 'Gossip Girl', Mini TV Watch
“I should have never let you let me go.”
These wise words may have sprung from Rufus in Brooklyn, but his statement proved to be the resounding theme of last night’s installment of Gossip Girl. Couples—swapped, jiggled, and twisted like Rubik's cubes—expelled ridiculous amounts of pheromones on the Upper East Side. Everyone, it seemed, in their post-Thanksgiving gluttony arrived ready to indulge in other sins, like hot sex and drinking. Forget propriety. Anyone else feel like Grandma “I don’t like my ice cubes to get lonely” Van der Woodsen was thisclose to standing up on the bar throwing her fist in the air, and shouting “Let’s get ready to part-ayy!” Yeah, thought so.
I could sum up the debutante ball in a GG breath: Chuck was staring after Blair staring after Nate staring after Carter staring after Serena staring after Dan, until all the staring exploded in—what else?—a smackdown.
The long of it? This episode recalled other literary works, like if Chuck were the misunderstood, lovelorn Cyrano (of Edmond Rostand),
and Serena’s grandmother the perpetual witch of a V.C. Andrews saga.
There were many things to love/hate about Grandma: her unbelievable
age, her “my lungs are sick” ploy to get Serena to exercise her “good
graces” at the cotillion, her shameless attempt to buy out the entire Humphrey family fortune paintings
in exchange for the equivalent of a restraining order. But the sweetest
cookie Grandma baked was her speech to Dan at the Waldorf’s cocktail
party; it should go
down as one of the best-written monologues on a teen soap opera, ever:
“The way you feel, it never goes away. It just gets worse. You’re always going to use your dessert fork for your entrée, you’ll always feel under-dressed. No matter what you wear at dinner parties it’ll always be as if there’s a language that sounds like English and you think you speak it but they don’t hear you—and you don’t understand them. As time passes you’ll always feel that people never see you when they look at you, but wonder whether you’re Serena’s charity case. Until the day comes when you realize that girls like Serena don’t end up with Dan, they end up with the Carters of the world, and you they turn into cocktail party anecdotes of their foolish youth. So why don’t you give it up and spare yourself the pain? I’m sure Serena would understand.”
To cop a line from Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, that’s way harsh. But brilliant. Anyway, Serena and Dan are a cute couple, with an emphasis on the latter of the two, but I’m starting to get annoyed by Serena’s half-assed attitude. The answer is not, as S. would have us believe, to run away: run away to boarding school after cheating with your best friend’s boyfriend, call the night off when your boyfriend rightly points out that Grandma is a hater, and yes, years ago, jump on a boat in Santorini after spending the night with Carter. Wait, what? Are we finally getting a glimpse of S.’s shady European past? I’m digging it.
Since EW’s holiday party is today, I’m going to leave you with one last delicious chocolate-covered nougat: Blair’s sudden sex-hungry turn! EW’s Jessica Shaw called Blair “virgin-obsessed” in her in-depth GG article, but several episodes later, B. is (just like S. before her) newly sex-obsessed. Either Chuck’s multiple liaisons have given him amazing bedroom prowess, or B.'s having a moment. Either way, girl writhed around to such wanton effect that I wondered why we didn’t see any of those skills during her burlesque show.
What a great episode. I can honestly say I didn’t want it to end. But alas, all things must, so: Who else thought it was weird that the New York Times article was out before the Sunday night was even over? What’s up with the minority twins’ metallic jazzercise gear during rehearsal? Wasn't it creepy how Lily was watching her daughter make out? Finally, anyone else completely excuse Nate for having no personality after witnessing those guns?
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