I Guess Now Would Be A Good Time To Talk About 'Gossip Girl.'

“I’m mad!”
“So am I!”

I’m very happy to report that Gossip Girl got back on strong footing this week. The past several episodes have been fun, but definitely flimsy, thanks to a tedious Jenny storyline, not to mention a hapless Nate who’s spent much of the season arbitrarily pining after various women. I did like him hooking up with Jenny, but that whole arc seemed to wrap up too quickly. Or has it? Apparently he still has feelings for Little J, which would have been much more exciting had she still been concerned with social climbing. Back in season one, Jenny was one of my favorite characters as she constantly proved to be a bright, young upstart rival for Blair Bear. This year, however, she’s been nearly irrelevant to everything on the show, which has rendered her a bit tiresome.
Of course, she’s not as awful as Vanessa, the true standard-bearer for terrible television characters. Once again, Vanessa spent this Thanksgiving episode doing little more than pop up and make stupid references (Alexanderplatz? Please). She really gets more intolerable every waking minute. At least at the end of the show, she did something mildly interesting by intercepting Nate’s love letter to Jenny. That’s kind of fun; although, it lends more credence to my overarching theory about her character: namely that VANESSA RUINS EVERYTHING!

On the bright side, we still have Chuck and Blair, who sadly had little to do this episode, but when they did appear, they of course stole the show. I particularly enjoyed Chuck pawing at Serena’s hemline, telling her to raise it. I also find his relationship with Eric to be oddly endearing. I only wish Eric would step up and be the protege Chuck so desperately wants (and needs). But we all know that if Eric goes down that route, he’ll eventually have a crisis of conscience (most likely brought on by righteous Dan Humphrey), causing Eric to go back to his annoyingly “wise” ways.
As for Serena, this whole runner about the greasy artist who always hangs out with other girls has really run its course. It was barely tolerable for one episode, but now it’s been three, and we’ve still been dealing with the same bullshit. Luckily, it was deemphasized a bit this week, as the main conflict was that Aaron has now become sober, which puts his lifestyle at odds with Serena’s martini swilling ways. I kind of liked this problem, if only that it felt like a realistic issue. The only problem was that I feared the show would get holier than thou. Luckily, it didn’t. The sobriety was just a way to push forward a storyline about trust and openness, which was fine. As long as the show never preaches about drinking, I’ll be happy.
A note to the casting director though: the adult guest stars have been great. Wallace Shawn has been genius as Blair’s soon to be stepfather. The teens… well, that’s another story. Vanessa was a travesty enough, but then Aaron — well, he’s fairly dreadful. I know he’s supposed to be an artist, but at least get an artistic type who’s also charismatic. AND CAN ACT. A real miss on that front.
Not a miss was all the Blair shenanigans this week. Her tantrum with her mother was hilariously petulant, and her pointless odyssey with Dorota through the streets of Manhattan a pure delight. I applaud her for not depriving the ducks their dinner, and I only wish she had something a bit more substantial to do this week than roam around in a fit. Then again, the fit was pretty awesome… so yeah, never mind.
Oh, and need I forget THE CAPTAIN? Whenever The Captain’s in town, Nate comes alive. This week he actually had something to do as he turned his father in, lest he become embroiled in some silly ransom scheme. Well done, Nate! I’m gonna miss seeing him get all conflicted about his filial duties, but hey, those are the breaks. At least he has his house back. No word on the electricity. Plus, watching Nate drive off with Chuck in a limo felt like an appropriate return to form. These guys are supposed to be the two most popular dudes in the school. It’s about time we saw them — particularly Nate — living it up again and not moping around Brooklyn after boring idiots like Vaginessa (I just made that up! It doesn’t really make sense — calling her a vagina, but hey, it makes me feel better).
I suppose I should talk about the Humphreys, whose Brooklyn loft expands with every episode. We finally got a glimpse of Little J’s bedroom — or wing, as it were. Soon, maybe Rufus will have a little corner of the loft to call his own (assuming he ever leaves his favorite spot in all of Brooklyn: that stupid kitchen island). Anyway, the Humphreys are all back and a happy family, which was all nice and everything. Let’s get Jenny back in school; so she can upset the social order once again. That is where this show works best, after all — the dog-eat-dog world of Constance Billard.
Am I forgetting anyone? Oh. LILLY. How could I forget her? Another perennially shining star of the series. Again, she didn’t do much this episode beyond acting shocked that Bart (soon to be dead, if rumors are true) spied on her kids. You’d think she’d expect that, but then again, you never know what you’ll get with Lilly. She is a bit cray-cray, we learned. Apparently she did some hard time in a mental institution back in the day. Hey, you’d wind up there too if you realized you’d just spent a good portion of your life trailing Lincoln Hawk.
Anyway, as the show ended, Lills appeared a bit peeved at Bart, which is too bad because I’d hate for her to feel guilty when he ultimately dies (allegedly) in two weeks. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens. What did you think about the episode?