Previously on Gossip Girl, Nate was being boring with both a middle aged married woman and Vanessa, who managed to cram an entire season of crying into one episode. Blair was dating the woman's stepson, a British lord with a hilariously fake accent. Meanwhile, Serena and Dan accidentally got the script from last season's finale, but went ahead and acted it out anyway. Oh, and Rufus is dating. Which is a storyline. I guess.
I was actually considering pulling the plug on these recaps since 3 episodes in, this show was sucking. And not in that special, awesome way that it usually sucks. But I decided I'd give it another week and thank God I did, because this week was all kinds of great.
But bad news first, in order to get rid of boring cougar and her boring stepson we had to deal with a plot that the show certainly thought was OMG-worthy, the two of them are sleeping together! Honestly, was anyone surprised by this? Other than Vanessa, who got to cry some more, and Blair, who told Vanessa she'd take care of it, then ceased contact with her and was shocked when Vanessa saw her with boring stepson and assumed the worst. Of course, Vanessa is also not in the clear here, since, as much as I hate to say it, Nate was right and she should have told him. But that's about all the interest I can muster in this plotline, the result seeming to be that Nate and Vanessa are done (again), and Blair was too distracted to keep up with everyone else's schenanigans.
Which is too bad, because everything about this episode was so great. The Swirling Vortex took center stage and, although that normally means trouble, this week we finally got to see the plot move forward into post breakup territory. The trouble started when Dan appeared to be winning the breakup by meeting and arranging a date with Amanda, who I had a serious crush on for about a half hour. Seriously, she looks just like Jenny Lewis, has great taste in books, is both rich and unpretentious, and looks JUST like Jenny Lewis. Of course, it was all too good to be true, but I'm getting ahead of myself, for much of the show's first half dealt with Blair's failed attempts to marginalize Amanda. That plan backfired hardcore when Dan and Amanda showed up at Club That We Saw Like Twice Last Season (I assume, it was so generic looking it could have been everywhere and the show is somewhat surprisingly missing any sort of hangout or central gathering place). This gave us the triumphant return of Gossip-Girl-as-plot-device, one of my favorite elements of the show, and ultimately led to Serena deciding for once acting like an adult and attempt to bury the hatchet.
Unfortunately, she also demanded a group date, something that was clearly only ever ending in tears. For a second, after the bland girls burned Amanda's hair I was worried we'd get self-righteous Serena. But instead Josh Schwartz smiled upon us and gave us the greatest development of all -> MEAN GIRL SERENA. We've heard forever about how bad Serena used to be, but getting the chance to actually see her in action should be the shot of adreneline this show needed. And now we've opened up all kinds of plot opportunities: for Blair, who's back to being number 2, for Chuck, who now has someone new to plot with, and for the Humphreys, who have suddenly become public enemies 1 and 2. The ending revelation, that Chuck was paying Amanda to get close to Dan, was just the delicious icing on this week's cake of awesome bitchiness. Honestly, Amanda was too good to be true and my one complaint was how unrealistically she had been behaving for someone who didn't know Dan 24 hours ago. It was nice to see someone's stupid and unrealistic behavior explained for once.
In subplot world, Jenny was treated obnoxiously and ended up skipping school to go to Eleanor's again. I feel bad for Jenny, but I'd rather see her dealing with the mean girls than trapped in a made for TV version of The Devil Wears Prada. She was always the most interesting when she wasn't running away, and I sort of thought they were ultimately setting her up as some kind of vigilante, using mean girl tactics for good. I guess not. Oh, and Rufus is dating. Still. But he can't date Lilly. Whatever.
I have short-changed a number of great things about this episode (Blair actually had files for Draft Day, and literally conducted interviews! And Chuck used the files to find people to date!), because there was just so much to like. If I'm going to be obnoxious about everything this show does wrong (and believe me, I will) then I've got to give it credit for what it gets right. When the writers manage to place us inside the workings of the TMZ lifestyle these kids lead, it makes for truly compelling television. And now that the season seems to have finally found a compelling and new direction, there could be no stopping it.
A-
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