Windows 8 Device
Fug Nation, it's true: You just can't enjoy pie in bed with your boyfriend on Thanksgiving unless you are watching the parade on a brand new tented Windows Whatever device. This expensive product placement is ignoring the fact that I can't enjoy watching the parade EVER. I am the grinch that hates parades. Gay Pride in San Francisco being the exception -- that was a damn good time. Thanksgiving Day I could maybe deal with as my kids get older, MAYBE, but the Rose Parade makes me want to hit things. As does Serena and Dan's decision to cook Thanksgiving dinner for their friends, as if it's SO EASY to conceive and execute an entire meal like that THE MORNING OF. Her family chef -- and we know they have one because Lily has mentioned it before -- must hate her.
Chuck
Chuck is deeply ashamed that he wasted seven full episodes of acting time on the worst revenge storyline ever (except for 75 percent of what's been on Revenge this year, which... ugh). I really sincerely wish they'd just given him a Sharpie in episode 1 and cut to him crossing off people's faces without any kind of plot nor explanation.
Rufus
I also wish he would pop over to Rufus's and put a big red Sharpie X over this shirt. He looks like he's trying to learn the menu for his first night waiting tables at Don Julio's.
Blair
In fact, Chuck needs to go on a Sharpie fashion rampage, because this is also unacceptable. Those pants are a sin against her lower half.
Booty
I MEAN. Leighton Meester is as big as a minute, but they make her look wider than a mile. Also, have you noticed I haven't mentioned any plot yet? Because there is barely any.
Dorota
This blurry photo is to show you Blair's suitcase, which is super cute, and the kind of thing you own when you have servants to carry them around for you. Blair is headed off to France to spend the holidays with her dad and Eleanor and the crew. There is a blithe mention, if I remember correctly, of her throwing up a pie on Thanksgiving in an earlier season -- and it's treated TERRIBLY glibly, as if no one remembers that it was because Blair had an eating disorder (a carryover from the books that was quickly abandoned). Oh, show.
Serena
Serena's Windows Thingy device is teaching her how to snap her fingers and make Thanksgiving happen. This contraption is MAGIC. I hope it can thaw a turkey in under 30 minutes. This whole thing is hilarious. Serena can't even cook pancakes; we know this because 7th Heaven and his kid could barely choke down one piece.
Serena
Does Serena even know that's a SKIRT she's wearing over her dress, not an apron? Does she understand that dresses already have skirts ATTACHED to them? Did she accidentally try to take her own temperature by jamming a meat thermometer into her skull, and slowly her common sense is bleeding out over her shoulders? Anyway, Serena Van Der WTFsen goes to Blair's to invite her to Thanksgiving. And between a first-class ticket to FRANCE and a chance to split up Serena and Dan's newfound domesticity, Blair chooses the latter. I hope her parents never fly her anywhere ever again.
Dorota
Dorota's face says everything. Her face IS everything. She will be the greatest loss of all when this show is finally done. Also, apparently Vanya took the kids to Minsk this season. Kind of mean of Blair to make Dorota work when she knew she herself was (supposedly) going to Paris. I actually want this whole show to end with Dorota burning down everyone's apartments, and/or picking up a snow globe that has all these yahoos trapped inside it.
Sage
Blair decides to rope in Sage AGAIN, because that has only backfired on her twice so far, and why learn from the past? She convinces Sage to "bump into" Serena at the market with her depressed father, so they can all somehow end up at the penthouse together and marry Serena off to the vitamin mogul they all so dreaded. He should put that on his dating profile: "Considered by top UES schemers to be a semi-livable alternative to Dan Humphrey."
Barry
Back to Blah-ry Watson (nothing personal, Barry; your character is just a snooze). As planned, he runs into Serena at the market and unfurls his tongue from his mouth so he can pant over her and maybe get her to throw him a treat. She invites them to Thanksgiving and they accept, which is absurd in part because of the aforementioned Pancake Affair. Wouldn't you go, "Um, can't make it, but we'll bring a pie for dessert that we at least know will taste good"?
Zzzz
You can tell Sage and Pater-Sage had no intention of buying anything, as they have... lemons. I think. So I'm not sure how Sage convinced him to go the store. Serena has a modest array of veggies and potatoes, the kind of thing which suggests she walked in there, blinked at the produce section, and muttered, "I'll just get one of everything." I can't wait until, confused, she actually attempts to chop Sage and put her in the stuffing.
Dan and Georgina
Dan tells Georgina that he has already turned in his Serena chapter, and swears it's an honest one. Georgina is furious, of course, that she hasn't seen it first. Dan also shares that it's running THAT DAY on Vanity Fair's site, which should be his indicator that Vanity Fair hates it. You don't run a piece you think is actually buzzy and successful on THANKSGIVING DAY, when everyone is either watching football or in a food coma, or both. There's a reason celebrities like to announce divorces over holiday weekends; it's because people generally are napping on the news cycle.
Georgina
Georgina goes to the girl Dan submitted his piece to, and she lets slip that there were two Serena chapters. Georgina is unable to blackmail her into showing her either one, though she does attempt to bond with the woman's moppet in the most hilariously dismissive, disgusted way. She and Dorota need a spinoff.
Chuck
This is still happening, by the way.
Blair and Nate
These two are worried about Chuck. I guess it turns out that the accountant dude just died in a freak accident off Bart Bass's yacht, and Nate discovered that the horse-owning Sheik died in ANOTHER freak accident involving Bart-arranged transportation. And of course, only Nate Archibald, Mind of a Generation, can put this together. So Blair decides to jolly Chuck out of his funk the only way she knows how, and y'all, I sincerely apologize for what is about to happen.
Blair
Blair decides to go SEXY POCAHONTAS and grind all up on Chuck and convince him to come to Thanksgiving with her, since Lily won't be there. AND IT WORKS. This is the worst. I cannot believe they made Leighton Meester wear this, and I can't believe she actually managed to DO IT with conviction. I am as embarrassed for her as I routinely am for Chuck because of the various weirdo art pieces around his suite. Although in fairness I think that sculpture is just craning its neck to get a better look, and maybe a decent Twitpic.
Serena
Do you see all that food behind Serena? A maximum of two hours has passed, I think, maybe three. MAYBE four. Still: We're supposed to believe Serena -- having located a REAL apron -- got back from the store and put all that together with just DAN?
No
INCLUDING A FULLY-COOKED TURKEY THAT WAS RAW AND COLD AT THE GROCERY STORE? No. Somewhere there is a chef in their employ who was bribed to rip his/her own Thanksgiving feast from the mouths of his/her children and bring it over to Serena's place because her need was greater. Also, that turkey will never feed all these people, and ALSO, everyone knows you buy a larger bird than you need so that you can make turkey sandwiches the next several days. It's the law. My family once cooked a turkey and waited for it to get cold JUST to make sandwiches. They are the best sandwiches. Especially if you put a little mashed potato and stuffing on there. Yup. Starch and carbs on bread. LIVE DAMMIT.
Lily and Bart
Oh, and Sad Clown Lily had to cancel her beach trip because of Contrivance. So GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER.
Dan and Barry
Dan and Barry whip it out and measure, and it turns out Serena had ripped off their junk during their relationships so they are equally without. Barry appears horrified at Serena's readiness to jump back in the sack with Dan even though they had been poised to get engaged. Barry is right. And Barry SHOULD be voicing this concern to DAN, and indeed the fact that Dan is not freaking out about this suggests perhaps his motives truly ARE suspect. I mean, he was neurotic about Blair and Chuck for like two seasons.
Chuck
Sage and Nate sneak off to reconcile and make out, although it's a front so that he and Chuck can hack into Bart's computer and Find Secrets. Still, Nate agrees to tongue Sage anyway -- it's Thanksgiving, after all, and God knows Serena's food won't be well-seasoned -- and Sage is all, "I don't mind if you watch," to Chuck, and he leers at them and says, "She's a keeper, Nathaniel." I kind of miss horrifically pervy Chuck.
Lily
Naturally, Blair sits down to dinner and sweetly expresses condolences to Bart for all the transportation-related fatalities in his life. And Lily freaks out when they can more or less prove it, so she confronts Bart in his office and I can't entirely remember how he wriggles out of it, but he appears to; just as Chuck thinks Lily is about to side with him, she instead makes a lame apology for trying to force a reconciliation and wanders away. Also, this dress looks so uncomfortable. It's like UES chain mail.
Georgina
Georgina gets the alert that "the correct chapter" about Serena -- as in, the mean one; the nice one was just a dumb red herring, except that someday Dan will probably show it to Serena in an effort to prove that he's nice and she'll read it and be like, "Fortunately I am between sex partners right now so let's be in love again" -- has posted on Vanity Fair, where nobody will read it except the people in this room. And read it they do. Serena is so upset that she flounces off to her bedroom. Everybody else wonders silently whether they can PLEASE start eating because that food has already been sitting out for several hours now.
Serena
The piece alleges that Serena is a love-desperate damaged princess with daddy issues. Dan tells her it's all true. That is way harsh, Tai. Serena is irritated that Dan walked all over her in this manner. Well, you ARE wearing a carpet, girl.
Blair
Blair gives thanks that Dan's story has distracted anyone from sending Gossip Girl a blast about her inglorious bloat suit. (Seriously, HOW do you find a garment that does that to Leighton Meester?)
Nate and Dan
As Dan clears out his backpack of things from Serena's quarters, Nate casually saunters up and slugs him. It's kind of great. Dan shrugs it off and heads for the elevators, where Bart Bass wryly notes, "I'm a fan of your work," or some such. He appears to mean it. Maybe Dan should ghost-write Bart's memoir. We'll call it Bass-Produced Garbage. Or Bass Exodus.
Sage and Nate
While Sage and Nate are reconciling, he confesses to her that he did cook the books at the Spectator, and now Bart is blackmailing him about it. Her response is basically, "Eh, you're still hot." Also, she's got VITAMIN MONEY, dude. Help her spend it.
Lily
What ho! Lily tells Bart she needs a few days away from all the stress of Chuck's vendetta, then calls Chuck and tells him she's on his side. She also apparently read the microfilm before she destroyed it, using her mother's jeweler's loupe. So we're supposed to think she read the vile evidence, but sided with Bart and burnt it anyway? What a jerkwad. She promises Chuck she'll tell him everything she remembers about it. Well, that is great! What could be more iron-clad than the ramblings of a wishy-washy socialite who spikes her morning coffee? Insert Petraeus Scandal joke here.
Blair and Chuck
These two yokels toast each other and can MAYBE FINALLY BE TOGETHER except that Chuck isn't done yet but he's very close, again, or something. Not to be too graphic, but dude's balls have got to be a vibrant shade of blue at this point.
Serena
Awesomely, Serena lies in bed all lonely and sad and then... calls Barry. SHE IS THE WORST. It's kind of brilliant. Even better would be if she woke up next week in the bed of that random Ben dude she was in love with for four seconds, or that awful Aaron Rose that she was in love with for three seconds, or Nate's idiot congressman cousin that she was in love with for five seconds, or Ivy's rando ex-boyfriend that she considered sleeping with for a hot second. Find a mirror, Serena, and look into it. The screen of your iPhone, darkened by Barry's rejection, will work well enough.
Barry
And indeed, Barry blows off her call because he's enthralled by Dan's poorly written tribute to Serena's terribleness. It's juicy, and not psychologically incorrect, but Vanity Fair would never publish that without someone else rewriting it into an actual literary stab.
Rufus
Lonelyboy's lonely dad is sitting alone when Dan returns home, chagrined and bruised. Rufus recalls an earlier conversation about the perils of turning into Bart Bass, and wonders if that's what Dan is doing. "I have a plan," Dan says, which should strike fear and inspiration into the hearts of exactly no one.
Dan
SIGH. Dan's big dramatic plan ends in... MORE WRITING. I wonder if he's going to do a whole chapter on how all the nasty installments were a social experiment, and how he's secretly innocent of wrongdoing because he was INTENTIONALLY acting that way to make them all hate him, to prove a point about how hateful their world is and how it ruins people. Whatever it is, if it lets him off the hook with them, I am OUT. Oh, wait, there are only two more episodes left, so I will be out REGARDLESS. Okay, Dan Humphrey, do your worst.