Gossip Girl: Restoring the Natural Order

Gossip Girl: "All About My Brother"
All hail Queen B! It's good thing that Blair didn't go to all the trouble of moving to France, because even without Serena's promised help, it only took B three episodes to fully resume her status at the top of the social pyramid. And thank goodness Jenny has finally socially crashed and burned for what we can only hope is that last time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this episode--at least as much as I can enjoy an episode with no Chuck and plenty of Jenny. Even though he recently developed a fairly pleasing personality, Nate was not particularly missed tonight. Chuck, however, must return. Immediately.

I really liked tonight's renewed focus on the Gossip Girl blog, which, after all, is the premise of the show. It seems to have been slipping into the background for a while now, but I'm glad it was at the forefront tonight. The more I get to hear Kristen Bell, the better (is it wrong that when she says "You know you love me, XOXO" in the opening, it almost brings a tear to my eye?).

Eric's outing was the second coming out I've seen on TV in two days. At least Eric is dealing with it 50-55 years before Uncle Saul got around to it on Brothers and Sisters. But, seriously, Eric met Asher at the Ostroff Center and liked him? Him? Because if the dude was half the asshat in rehab that he is in the outside world, Eric made a major character misjudgement.

And Serena. Oh, Serena, things are not getting better. Early in the episode, when Georgie showed up with the video, it felt very anticlimactic, because all I was getting from the video was that Serena was involved in some sort of orgy. Yes, participating in drunken orgies is not exactly a sign of great moral character, but it did not seem nearly bad enough to cause all this trouble--after all, whatever she did was supposed to scandalize even Chuck...and we all know that an orgy wouldn't phase old Chuck for a second.

But, then, in the final moments, we find out what I've been speculating for weeks: Serena killed someone, or so she says. I think the most remarkable part of the revelation scene was that Serena's tears and eyeliner were combining to make her look eerily like Mia from Heroes. And I want no reminders of Mia from Heroes.

I see why Serena maybe doesn't want to tell Dan that she killed someone during some sort of orgy, but not telling him anything isn't working any better. It seems like she could come up with some kind of half-truth ("I knew Georgina when I was really wild and she's a horrible influence and knows things that I did that I'm not proud of.") that would at least buy her some more time.

Highlights!

• Nelly Yuki is now part of Blair's gang! Yea! This is awesome news! (Look, she's in the picture on the far left!) That girl rocks some seriously wicked glasses. I'm surprised she has time for these events, parties, and scheming sessions, what with being a concert pianist, scholar and all, but I'm not complaining.


• Wow, "Sarah" really latched on to Dan/Vanessa. They should find that suspicious. They (especially Vanessa) are not that interesting.


• I called that Eric and Asher had a relationship even before Dan saw Asher kissing a boy on the street.


• Lilly: "When you revise the seating chart, don't forget to put Mr. Spitzer as far away from Serena's table as possible."


• Jenny's not a very good bitch. Her delivery on "Even you should know that jealously clashes with L.L. Bean pants" was off. Or maybe it's just a really weird thing to say. I don't know, something about that was weird.


• Dan: "And she dissed my pants."


• Hazel (?) (when Gossip Girl reported that Jenny's bf is gay): "Now you know how Vanessa Hudgens feels."


• Like the girls in Blair's posse, I'm glad Gossip Girl "got her balls back" too.


• Blair said "endgame"! For an Alias fan, that's pretty exciting.


• Why would Nelly Yuki be displaying such loyalty to Blair one week after she messed up her ability to do well on the SATs? I guess Nelly has yet to figure out the extent of Blair's scheming.


• Georgina! Outing Eric at dinner was way harsh! Wow, I knew he was gay and I knew he was going to be outed, but I didn't think she was going to do it. Poor Eric always gets dragged into Serena's battles


• Rufus should knock Jenny over the head with something. He's about the worst parent ever. She weighs like 90 pounds--how hard is it to keep her from going out a door?


• Aw, Eric confides in Chuck! That's so sweet.


• Blair's party dress was fantastic.


• Blair (dispensing life lessons): "The most important parties to attend are the ones you're not invited to."


• It's nice to see Blair's agenda finally lining up on the side of truth and justice for once. She's acting like a superhero tonight by avenging Eric and taking down Asher and Little J.


• Izzy: "And to think, I almost asked you to wear a matching dress!"


• Gossip Girl: "Don't worry, Little J, the sun will come out tomorrow, even though your boyfriend did today."


• If it's an consolation after her fall from grace, Jenny's dress was pretty. I wonder what she had to steal/pawn to get that one.


• And this line wasn't funny, but I thought it was sweet and rather beautiful. Blair: "We're sisters, we're family, what's you is me. There's nothing you could say that would ever make me let go."

And next week, it seems that Serena decides that the best way to keep her horrible secret drink heavily and sleep around. That's brilliant, S.

(photo: cwtv.com)