Gossip Girl: She's Coming Undone

Gossip Girl: "Desperately Seeking Serena"

Just to begin with a tie-in to The O.C. (which we all know I like to do as often as possible), episode 15 of season 1 of The O.C., "The Third Wheel," prominently featured Oliver, a newcomer/outsider whose drug problems and neurosis wreaked havok for episodes, broke up Ryan and Marissa, and generally pushed fans to the brink. Now episode 15 of season 1 of Gossip Girl is prominently featuring Georgina, a newcomer/outsider whose drug problems and neurosis promise to wreak havoc for episodes and seem likely to break up Dan and Serena. What remains to be seen is if Georgina will become as intolerable as Oliver was.

So far, I'd say that she's fairly solidly less annoying than Oliver. I'm not convinced yet that she's fantastic or all that interesting--in a show with Chuck and Blair, it's hard to carve out some new territory as a likeable villian. Michelle Trachtenberg did ok. I thought her first few scenes were a bit weak, and I did begin to wonder if maybe Mischa wouldn't have done a better job (which, honestly, is not like wondering if Glenn Close or Cate Blanchett would do a better job). I thought, though, that Michelle did better when Georgina began to get really evil.

And, evil Georgina was. With Oliver, we always suspected he was a psycho villain, but we didn't get any conclusive proof for several episodes, but Georgina flat out roofied Serena in her first episode! Yikes. Slipping your friend a date rape drug...that's showing your true colors.

Serena doesn't seem to be handling the Georgina situation as well as she could be. For example, if you're going to have Chuck (Chuck!) call Dan and make up an excuse for you, you definitely need to at least at some point find out what the excuse was before you talk to Dan the next day. One of the funniest lines of the night was Blair teasing Serena about her "stomach migraine."

Hmm, it's a sad day when Serena is rapidly becoming the most pathetic person on a show that includes characters like Nate and Vanessa. To be fair, Nate is making great strides to remove himself from the running for that title. His mopeyness quotient is absolutely plummeting. He made a few funny comments. And he is now repeatedly thinking about people other than himself.

I don't even want to talk about Jenny.

And then there was Blair and her campaign against Nelly Yuki, which was pretty great. Nelly Yuki herself was actually pretty great. The students as this school are certainly as strange breed. The girl may be a National Merit Scholar, concert pianist, Sorbonne student, etc., but the poor girl didn't stand a chance once Blair came after her. I also really liked Nelly's boyfriend Todd. He was hot--maybe Blair should date him.

Highlights:

• Dan actually got to be funny for the first third of the episode. His story about striking out during a T-ball game was great. "The ball was on a tee!"
• Chuck and Blair look like citrus today. Yikes--Chuck's jacket is very, very orange. And Jenny's yellow tights are also quite bright. It looks like neon is in on the Upper East Side.
• Dan (when Serena covers his eyes and kisses him): "Oh, Chuck, I had no idea you felt that way about me."
  Serena: "Good to know you're still a little bit funny." (Tell me about it...)
  Jenny, when you're wearing neon yellow tights and someone still gives you his phone number, you'd better take what you can get.
• It's not a good sign that Lilly van der Woodsen, Blair, and Chuck all can't stand Georgina. It's not like any of those people have a strict moral code of conduct.
• Dan: "I've been wondering where you were. I've been waiting for you."
  Chuck: "You mean all your life?"
• Dan: "Serena, don't take this the wrong way, but you sound just like this jackass we know."
• Is it just me, or are Dan/Chuck interactions crazy-hot?
• Well, I guess the way to make me like Nate the best of two people is to put him with Vanessa.
• I thought Dan was supposed to be smart; I don't think he needs to be freaking out quite this much over the SATs.
• Nate: "Oh, you said 'punk'? You had me at 'lesbian.'" (Wow, Nate's being funny--have we slipped into an alternate universe?)
• Does Vanessa even go to high school? Wouldn't she have needed to preregister to take the SATs?
• Izzy: "You never did tell us how you got Todd to play along."
  Blair: "Isabelle, what are you doing later tonight?"
  Izzy: "Not Todd."
  Blair: "I guess I'm going to have to come up with something else then."
• I want to explore the alliance between Dan and Blair!!!
• Chuck! Yellow pants! Purple cardigan!
• Georgie seems pretty mad...what did she and Serena do last year? At this point, it seems like if it were anything less than killing someone, it would seem anti-climatic.
• Now Georgie's trying to mess with Dan. But we knew that already...
• Hazel (I think that's her name) gets a good line next week with: "It's pretty hard to party after the gay-bomb drops."

(photo: cwtv.com)