Gossip Girl: Oh the Humanity.

Last night's episode of Gossip Girl was so abysmal that I would have called in sick today had I not felt staying home from work would only lead to hours of moping around in pajamas and feeling sorry for myself.

Who was responsible for this? Are they letting Daily Intel commentors write the actual episodes now? That might have been an improvement since last night made The City look good in comparison.

For crying out loud, Recession! This too?

Please someone tell me it was a mistimed April Fools prank.

What kind of phone does Chuck Bass have?

I've suspected for the last two or three episodes that Chuck Bass has my phone. No, not that old thing, my new phone, the Samsung Omnia, the child of that unholy and spectacularly corporate alliance between Verizon and Microsoft. (Bill Gates actually cried, "Mwa-hahahaha!" when the papers were signed.) Basically, the Samsung Omnia is trying to be the iPhone for people who don't want AT&T, but is really just another example of Windows screwing up good technology. But even though it takes me 5 minutes to make a phone call and it's physically impossible to hold under my ear with my shoulder, I love my Samsung Omnia because it's really pretty and has Internet.

Anyway, I became very excited last night when Chuck was making a phone call to Connecticut to track down the nanny hooker from his dreams and the 5.0 megapixels camera lens shown above peeked out over the back of his hand. I still don't have a smoking gun, but I am 71% sure Chuck Bass has my phone. I will try to snag a screen shot when there are more illegal videos posted to YouTube and I have less mono.

This post sponsored by Verizon Wireless.

Farewell, Aaron Rose.

As pleased as we all are (pleased as punch) that Aaron Rose is finally, finally gone, and despite the fact that I felt a smidgen of "aw" when Dan's and Serena's lips flew to each other like moths to a flame in the Constance Billard hallway (BTW: What, exactly, is the proximity of the boys' and girls' schools? Everyone is always all up in everyone else's hallways), the masochist in me strangely misses that sinking twinge of uneasiness and despair that Aaron breathed on us like a Dementor's kiss. In a way he was the anti-Chuck, the (supposedly) good that made you feel bad, in contrast to the bad that made you feel good. There was a certain symmetry to that -- all the more now that Chuck's and Aaron's declines coincide, and besides, don't we all know that in real life Aaron Roses aren't shed so easily?

So can we look forward to/dread any more of this pasty rodent with ill-fitting clothing and a knack for manipulation games, haunting Serena during her most vulnerable moments, cropping up out of nowhere with his "I like to date multiple people at a time" eyebrows and a well-timed "I think I'm in falling in love with you?" And when are we going to find out that Aaron was the guy with whom Eric's boyfriend, Jonathan, was slutting around? That plotline practically writes itself.

Serena dumping Aaron over the holiday feels too convenient, even for Gossip Girl's typical wham-bam post-hiatus expositions. And are we to believe he watched HBO and ate ice cream out of cartons in their shared hotel room while S. tangoed the night away at various discotecas? I hope I speak for all of us when I complain that we deserve something bigger, something messier.

How would you have liked to see Aaron go?

Also, how bad do you feel for this guy?

Also also, how amazing was Blair's face in this scene?

Too amazing, is the answer.

From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving: Looking Back on a Year of Gossip Girl

It's the holidays that remind us what's truly important, and today, reading NY Mag's reality index of last Thanksgiving's Gossip Girl, I am thankful for a full year of Monday nights spent with friends and frienemies of the Upper East Side: from the good times, when Blair exposed her slip at a burlesque club then lost it to Chuck Bass in the back of a limo, to the bad, when Vanessa Abrams first barged -- wearing too many colors and not enough discretion -- into Dan's bedroom and our lives. And of course there's nothing like a writers' strike to make us appreciate everything in between.

Monday may not have been Gossip Girl and my official one-year anniversary (I started watching at Season 1, Episode 2), but it did mark the moment when the excitement of a new show cooled down, I stopped weighing her pros and cons, we had our first quasi-fight, I thought to myself, She's beautiful despite her flaws, and decided I was in it for the long haul.

Remembering Gossip Girl...

Only One Year Ago:

--Blair loved Nate.
--2006 sepia-colored drunk Serena was almost killed by a car, but Dan Humphrey saved her.
--Jenny ate lunch on the steps of the Met.
--Chuck was a minor character and tragically not in this episode.
--We thought that Eric was straight and would inevitably itemize with Jenny.
--Gossip Girl employed flash-backs. (How adorably naive!)
--Blair visited the Humphrey home. ("You know what's really weird, is that there's a garage door in your room.")
--Dan and Jenny had a mom.
--Dan and Jenny put on sweaters and played football in the park with their parents.
--Blair developed spontaneous bulimia and went apeshit on a pie.

They were good times, weren't they? Gossip Girl, if you're reading this, Happy Anniversary. I love you.

Little Jenny Humphrey. My, how you've grown!

In honor of tonight's Gossip Girl, and per Ladye Jane's repeated requests ("I'm still waiting to see the side by side of Little J. before and after she got hit by the eyeliner truck"), I give you:

then:


and now:



then:


and now:


then:


and now:




The teenage years are always the hardest.

It makes me sad to see Little J. wasting her scheming potential on a hungover Kaitlin Cooper (who gives her, like, twenty minutes to snatch her dresses out of that trashcan before setting it aflame).

Go back to Blair, J.! Give yourself a real challenge.

PS - Sorry the comparison isn't actually side by side. I am neither 1337 nor dedicated enough to figure that out.

PPS - Now this is just disturbing. You are a role model, J.!

Monday's Gossip Girl: "Bonfire of the Vanity"

I don't have a lot to say about this episode. I could try harder, but I would just turn into one of those guys who spouts lines from Zoolander and laughs hysterically to himself while you force a toothless smile and check again to see if any of the friends you came with have texted you yet. Those guys make me never want to see Zoolander, and I wouldn't want to ruin The Greatest Show of Our Time (TM) for anybody by endless enthusiastic quoting.

That said:

--Aaron is the creepiest villain ever to grace the small screen. I have been having nightmares about him ever since he uttered those three words, Cecil the Caterpillar. Did my ears deceive me, or did he ask Serena to be his muse? Ew.

--Is "Bonfire of the Vanity" meant to describe the scene where Serena gushes over the photo installation of her terrible, terrible forced posing?

--Giant Strawberry makes a reappearance!


--Why no shots of Blair going around to all the jewelry shops in Manhattan and putting items on hold? It was a pretty big deal on her last birthday.

--What's wrong with Chuck lately? Has he still not... relieved himself? Chris & Jessica called attention to this in their reality index:

"[The story] will ruin our family," Chuck pleads to Dan. "Don't do it, please." Minus 4, because he would have assassinated Dan before saying please.

Thank you. I don't like that Chuck keeps acting so vulnerable and... human. I felt better about the world when he was evil and omnipotent, and we were left stunned -- first with glee, then slowly fear -- whenever the writers gave us a fleeting glimpse into his (arguably existent) soul.

--Finally, this is the Eighth Wonder of the World. Victoria, you are truly the Joan of Arc of the Internet Age. I think one reason I'm having trouble processing the episode is that I keep thinking about this. It's like when you play one of those "What's wrong with this picture?" games, and there are SO MANY things wrong with it that you get totally overwhelmed, and your pencil just sort of hovers over the picture, shaking, because you can't decide what to circle first.

I circle Dan Humphrey.

Can I get a Revive?

Last Night's Gossip Girl: Please Define "Guerilla Fashion Show" in 20 Words or Less

In honor of both Gossip Girl and Election Day, I wore a Blair outfit to the polls:

There were also tights involved, but I had a hard enough time positioning my MacBook sideways to try to deal with accessories. But the whole thing is silly anyway since Blair wouldn't be caught dead in thrift store clothes.

On to the episode!

Perhaps it's a sign of our generational differences that when Little J. announced she was throwing a "guerilla fashion show" everyone at my viewing party cupped our ears and croaked, "Wha--?"

So what is a guerilla fashion show? This, apparently:



Please discuss.

Also, thanks to Shoshi for pointing out that "Agnes" is none other than The O.C.'s Kaitlin Cooper, i.e. The Marissa Who Could. As in, could be interesting, could make reasonable fashion choices, could appear on screen without causing me to burst a blood vessel, and could survive all four seasons.

Once more, for old times' sake:




Conventional wisdom says that Dan is up, Little J. is down, but I am firmly rooted in the "Dan is the most irritating character on Gossip Girl" camp. Why?

1. His unparalleled self-righteousness. (Though at least the show seems to acknowledge it now. The writers practically taped a sign on his back this episdoe that said "hypocrite" when he defended Nate to Vanessa, then called Nate a man-whore to his face after he found out about THE KISS.)

2. His "khuh.. you wish" writing successes. (This month in The New Yorker: David Sedaris, John Updike, Vladimir Nabakov, and... oh! Dan Humphrey!)

3. His disappointment at not seeing such already beyond-the-realm-of-human-reason success repeated. (Can you imagine approaching a professor, asking him to read some stupid love story by a high schooler you don't even know, and THEN begging him to promise said high schooler certain acceptance? Shudder.)

Overall "There Might Be Blood" was almost as much of a dud as the last ep. I hate seeing Blair flounder around at the mercy of Chuck and Serena's benevolence. (Though, as usual, she had some great one-liners, and the new Danless Serena, by comparison, borders on the divine.)

According to next week's teaser, here's what we have to look forward to:

--Jenny moves in with Agnes. Hipsters, cameras, sex, syringes... oh my!

--Dan writes an expose on Bart Bass for Vanity Fair. Eyeroll, sigh. At least Chuck will be there, wearing outfits.

--Serena gets dangerously cozy with Aaron the Emosogynist. Thanks to Chris & Jessica for coining that yes! term. Speaking of which, here's the Daily Intel on the new Trouble With A Capital "T":

Sure, we suspected the various women answering Aaron's phone and kissing him and getting on his motorcycle could be signs that he was trouble — but this is television, and often there's an explanation for that sort of stuff: He could have been running an outreach program for Ukrainian sex slaves, for instance. However, we knew for sure Aaron was trouble when we heard him say this line: "I could explain who Tamara is and why she was at my apartment last night, but the fact is, you feel something or you don't. If you're looking for an excuse to keep us apart, that's fine." This deft undermining — rather than giving the girl what she asks of him (an explanation), which would, as he perceives it, give her the upper hand, he flips it around by making her call into question what is wrong with herself that she needs one. Aaron = Classic emosogynist. Which is so realistic. Plus 10.

YES. During the above scene I actually yelled through the television at Serena to stay away from this guy. Cecil the Caterpillar gives me the willies extraordinaire.

Phew. I think that's all I can muster this week. I'm sure there are dozens of observations I missed so please comment below!

And one last word to the kids out there: Stay. In. School.

Life Imitating Art Imitating Life... ad infinitum

When I saw this dress yesterday at Forever 21 I couldn't help but think of:


I'm sure the connection has much more to do with my GG-riddled psyche than any actual cultural phenomena.

Monday's Gossip Girl: "Pret-a-Poor-J"

Why was this episode so bad?

--Too much Jenny. Don't get me wrong, girl is LEAGUES more watchable than last season, and while I'm not crazy about her new look it totally makes sense -- "Blonder, shorter; I was bored" -- in a teenage I-really-think-this-new-look-represents-a-whole-new-me!-but-I'll-never-admit-it kind of way (after all, it isn't the first time we've seen a fifteen-year-old do this), but she just cannot carry an episode. Just like Shenae Grimes cannot carry a series.

--I actually kind of like the idea of Jenny getting in over her head with a creepy photoblogger and his underage girlfriend (ahem), but the plot isolates Jenny from all the other meaningful characters. Until, that is, Nate abruptly confesses his "feelings" for her and renders the budding sexual tension (if you can even call it that) between them useless in future episodes.

--Plus, Jenny's kissing is, as one of my co-viewers said, "uncomfortably aggressive."

--As glad as I am that Dan and Serena are broken up, and as boring as their relationship was while it lasted (for seemingly ever), everyone who has ever watched television knows that romances with "recurring guest stars" are fleeting, insignificant episode wasters. So while it's sweet that you and Serena bonded over your shared and totally made up for television caterpillar camp memories, Aaron "I graduated from RISD with that creepy Cobrasnake clone who's about to take nudie photos of minors" Artist Guy, I wish you'd get off the set. Because every second your adorable designer glasses hog the screen is a second we are not watching this:



"OW! MY HEAD... BAND!"

--Finally, even Chuck and Blair couldn't save this episode. The writers spent 40 minutes dragging us through a sticky mire of sexual frustration, only to establish that Chuck and Blair are stuck in a Catch-22. Not exactly a recipe for compelling drama.

"Chuck and Blair going to the movies? Chuck and Blair holding hands?" So true. Hopefully in the next ep. they can move past all this "three little words" nonsense and get back to loathing and manipulation. Sure, that last scene was kind of tender, but it made me uneasy to see those two being vulnerable, sort of like running into a professor on a Saturday, when they're like, feeding Cheerios to their kid or something. As a co-viewer put it, "I don't like that Blair's crying. You're stronger than that, B.!"

Catching up on Gossip Girl: "The Ex Files" and "The Serena Also Rises"

"How do you know so many twins?"
"Twins find me."


First off:


The Duchess (a.k.a. the nefariously young-looking Madchen Amick) has my phone!

Exciting, if totally unbelievable, since my phone is 1) ugly, 2) inexpensive, 3) over a year old, and 4) not a Blackberry or iPhone (but it does have Vcast!*), yet also forgivable, since Gossip Girl's frightening adeptness at weaving increasingly outrageous product placements into an ever-consistent, adroitly paced plot is one of the many attributes that makes me fall more in love with her each day.

*I don't know what Vcast is. No one does. Yet Verizon continues to spend millions of dollars in advertising to get its clients to care about something we have no use for or interest in. Last month they even billed my parents for "activating" Vcast on their phones. My parents' response: "Um, no?"

In honor of my near-cameo*, I'd like to make some sartorial observations regarding these episodes.

*Another notable near-cameo: the Fug Girls! Did I also hear something about Moe? Victoria?

1. Speaking of Lynchian, how surreal were those field hockey "uniforms"?

Props to B & S's crew for figuring out how to jazz up a gym costume while simultaneously rendering it impossible to engage in actual sweat-inducing activities. I don't even know what to call most of these accessories. Plus, I suspect Gossip Girl's dialog is so fast-paced and its plot so complex that the writers have started taking bets on how much they can get away with. "Okay, okay, Deb, how about in the next scene -- you know, where the girls ruin Dan and Bland's lunch date? -- how about -- get this -- they'll all be wearing field hockey uniforms! You know, not, like, for any reason... just to eff with Jill in costuming!" "Stop it! Jason, stop it! You're making me piss myself!"

Also surreal (and totally consistent with the world of Gossip Girl): Blair having files on every girl in school.

2. "Are those last season's Tory Burch flats?"

BURN. I realize I'm not on campus anymore and can't say this for certain, but there are probably HUNDREDS of Emory girls who needed to hear that. And who promptly donated their so-2007 leopard-print Tory Burch flats immediately following this episode. I only wish Blair had followed it up with, "Seriously? Those things were ugly to begin with." But alas.

3. Constance Billard girls take some outlandish liberty with the school dress code, especially now that they're seniors.

and

...totally the same uniform. Right? Right.

Incidentally, their skirts hem a lot better than my high school uniform ever did. Must be those Upper East Side tailors and all the pleat workshops they went to in graduate school.

4. Was Chuck's wardrobe on vacation these episodes? Step it up.

And now for a word on plot and character development:

WOW!

Well done, guys. Seriously: Dan taking the red pill; Serena diving down the Slut Spiral (as requested); Blair throwing the temper tantrum of a lifetime ("Never go to high school, Dorota!"); Chuck practically crying (which was a little too much actually; I wish his "My mother died in a plane crash in the Andes when I was 4" had been slightly more convincing); Jenny disobeying Rufus, one-upping ELEANOR WALDORF, and speaking for all of us by announcing Blair's mile-wide victory in the Blair v. Serena non-contest; Bart Bass running a background-check on Lily; and, finally, Lily managing not to sneer, "But Serena, you said it was forever," when being told of her break-up with Dan.

Oh and Nate and Vanessa also did stuff. But seriously! I actually enjoyed watching Serena and Dan this time! And I can neither fathom nor express with fewer than eight exclamation marks how awesome Blair and Chuck are getting. How does awesome that is already the awesomest awesome you know get even awesomer?

Answer: Gossip Girl.

Gossip Girl: "The Dark Night" & "Never Been Marcussed" (Spoiler-free)

The good...

Somewhere amid all those long hours working for Anna Wintour, Little J. found some time for acting classes over the summer.

Vanessa is not nearly as hateable as she once was. Thank you, whoever decided Dan's self righteousness is enough for all the Brooklynites on the show. Actually, all Brooklynites everywhere. Actually, all people everywhere.

Nate's plotlines have progressed from utterly forgettable to mildly interesting. Seeing the writers revisit and develop Nate's problem with the Captain rather than let it dangle as a loose end or tie it up neatly, deus ex machina-style, reminds me why I love Gossip Girl (beyond the obvious reasons, i.e. Chuck Bass and Chuck Bass's swimming costume). I'm also happy to see the Mrs. Robinson affair (and Madchen Amick) used for more than a sizzling season opener. Nothing like a moral dilemma to complicate a prettyboy.

The bad...

Serena + Dan = SNOOZEFEST. Please stop teasing your fans with fake break-ups and end it for real.

Where is Lily Vanderwoodsen?

Rufus. As the CW website likes to say in its episode summaries, "Matthew Settle also stars." But my mother summed it up when she said, "Now he's a good-looking guy" (though I think Ellen puts it even better).

Rufus's "date" looked like she had the potential to out-boring Boring Child Mom Humphry. (By the way, CW, don't think I didn't catch that throwaway line of Rufus's: "...and Boring Child Mom Humphry says she plans on visiting soon." That line BETTER just be filler, CW!)

And finally, in a category all their own...

Chuck and Blair. Chuck. And Blair. Blairandchuck. I'm sweating. It's a shame the heat lies in the tease. But if they ever do get together we can at least expect more "On me you'd be so much more" moments.

"Titles aside, a suit of armor makes for a cold bedfellow." When is the rest of primetime going to take a cue from these two and realize the key ingredients to on-(and off-?)screen chemistry are wit and malice? I'm looking at you, "Teresa" and "Stan." Chuck: "Congrats on you and Humphry. Water always finds its own level." (I'm not even sure I know what that means.) But Twin Peaks said it first: "God, Dan is sweet. But he's so dumb. And right now I can only take so much of sweet." Did I say Dan? I meant James. In Twin Peaks it was James.

Gossip Girl Premiere: "Summer, Kind of Wonderful"

First let's tally the egregious product placements. I counted one million and three.

1 Cole Haan
1 Tiffany's (2 if you count Blair's favorite movie being Breakfast at Tiffany's just shortened to "Tiffany's")
1 Coach
1,000,000 Vitamin Water (Kudos to Little J, who did her best to sound natural when ordering the "Rescue" flavor.)

Now some superlatives:

Best New Alliance
Chuck and Eric

Best Pop Culture Reference
Jenny: "Last year they even turned away Jack Johnson!"
Rufus: "Sounds like a party with taste."

Best Gossip Girl Line
"Ain't karma a bitch? We know Blair Waldorf is."

Best Non-Gossip Girl Line
Intern Jenny's Devil-Wears-Prada boss, when waving away Jenny's design: "Eggshell gives me a migraine."

Runner-up:
Serena: "Oh, God. The lifeguard's got a Camaro. And not in an ironic 'I have a Camaro' way."
(What exactly does it look like to ironically have a Camaro, Serena?)

Most Overwritten Line
"All I could see was that Chuck Basstard."
(Second only to: "Damn that Mother Chucker!")

Best All-Around Scene
Chuck trying to keep Blair from leaving the White Party
(Blair: "Give me a reason. And 'I'm Chuck Bass' doesn't count.")

Best WTF Moment
Serena/Nate kiss
(...as in, WTF does Serena's head look like it's attached to a rubber band?!? You're going to HURT him!!!)

And finally...

Character You Most Wanted to Throw the Remote Control At
Dan Humphry
(Geez, Dan, how about giving somebody else a shot next time?)

I bought so many Vitamin Waters after this episode.


*UPDATE: A.V. Club clued me in that Nate's married lover is none other than Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks! I feel pretty dumb for not noticing, but you know what the quality's like on YouTube.