Home'Gossip Girl' recap: OMFG
May 6, 2008, 04:18 PM | by Youyoung Lee
Categories: 'Gossip Girl', Mini TV Watch
To borrow an acronym from the show, OMFG. If you didn't catch last night's revelatory episode of Gossip Girl, do yourself a favor and stop reading this and run, don't walk, to your DVR.
But first things first. As a New Yorker, I was delighted by all of the clever references to the local society. B. name-dropped Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter's hangout, Waverly Inn, before tossing Manhattan's famous-for-doing-nothing socialite Tinsley Mortimer's name in the air and Page Six's noted rep for hairy gossip. Then came the scathing one-liners: "It's hard to continue partying when someone drops the gay bomb," sneered Hazel, once and for all cementing my dislike for the vertically-challenged freshman. "Do you really think that someone like me would date someone like you, Jenny from Brooklyn?" hissed the happy-go-lucky Asher at Jenny, doing a sudden 180 that was as capricious as B.'s mood swings. Asher then fashioned a Faustian bargain to continue their wretched façade: to dispel rumors of Asher's gayness, spread the rumors around that little 15-year old Jenny, um, "spread her legs," to quote Gossip Girl herself.
Also brilliant was the tongue-in-cheek reference to media speculation of Eric's supposed stint as Gossip Girl: "I mean, people thought that I was Gossip Girl," he said bewilderedly to Serena, who then laughed, "You have to admit, it made sense at the time." Which, actually, it didn't to us.
We then dove into a last (for now) feud between the constantly scrappy Jenny and B., with the minions between them seemingly multiplying. While I commented on Kati's awkwardly-explained absence after the writer's strike, it appears that I did so too soon: New Asian-in-residence Nelly Yuki has officially joined the other minority twin to forge ahead as the silent legion. And since when did the nerd get to join the cool clique? Not only is it completely unrealistic, the presence of Nelly Yuki and her thick frames detracts from the cool crowd's credibility. Perhaps they're using her to copy her homework? As B. so kindly pointed out in the last episode, each girl in the group is meant to serve a purpose (except for Hazel of course).
Many of you commented in the last episode recap on your genuine dislike for Michelle Trachtenberg as antagonist Georgina Sparks, but I have to say again that I think that her obnoxiousness plays perfectly into her character's vicious meanness. I don't think she was overacting. In fact, her queasy, unpredictable behavior is exactly what scares the bejeezus out of the entire Van der Woodsen clan. A drastic comparison, perhaps, but like Javier Bardem's mass murderer in No Country for Old Men, she appears to act without incentive or reason; no neatly-concise explanation exists for her continual torture of Serena. Just: "Because I can." Her outing Eric at the dinner table? Because she can. Stealing away Dan and Vanessa? Because she can. And she did.
Eric's outing was pretty predictable, especially after Eric stared longingly after Jenny and Asher in the Constance Billard courtyard. (And how typical was it for Jenny to mistake his concern as admiration for her, dismissing it all with a flip and totally spot-on, "Text me, K?"). I do appreciate how Eric has become the voice of reason on the show, however, rationally and clearly stating at Jenny's UES bash: "Why would I tell everyone I know that I'm gay if I'm not?" Good call.
But the biggest secret — that horrid, terrible secret that Serena had been harboring over for the past 15 episodes — finally came squeaking out at the thunderous end. There were already hints of it through this show and last week's show, but with the gifted USB drive containing a video, I was dreading another sex tape scandal à la Lauren Conrad in The Hills. "Really?" I moaned. "Please don't let this turn into a Lauren vs. Heidi East Coast edition — on the same night no less!" Turns I was dead (ha!) wrong. What was already an excellent episode took an unexpected, morbid twist. "I killed someone," S. cried with genuine dread to a shocked B., the tears streaming down her face smearing her makeup into a clownish frown. Even after the third time of watching the scene, a shiver snaked up my spine, and my heart did a little jump. The Kubrick music pounding in the background, the complete dread... it reminded me of the psycho-metal rock music playing at completely inappropriate times in Michael Haneke's Funny Games, if you were one of the 200 people that watched the film. My take on the situation? In a drunken misunderstanding, an intoxicated Serena pushes off her assailant and accidentally kills him, all while Georgina creepily videotapes the incident from the sidelines.
Well done. There are things that I missed in this recap, of course, but I want to get your feedback on the episode, PopWatchers. Who else was unexpectedly scared out of their minds by S.'s shameful secret? Who else thought that the best line of the show was, hands-down,"Now you know how Vanessa Hudgens feels." How do you think producers handled Eric's coming-out? I thought Lily's "I'm scared" speech was delicately, and honestly, delivered. And who wanted the outed cast member to be Chuck? My prediction is that there are still several cast members to come out of the closet, and that this is only the beginning — and certainly, if clips from next week's episode indicate anything, the beginning of the end for Serena and Dan (Blake Lively and Penn Badgley, pictured).
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