Gossip Girl - War at the Roses recap/review

At the start of the episode, Serena struggled with getting to know Professor Colin platonically. Oh darn. Serena actually has to form a connection to a man before giving herself to him physically. What a novel idea…. We hardly ever get on Serena for her whorish ways, because she's so nice and we love her, but her outfits have been ridiculous lately, and now this "struggle." Ugh. This episode revealed that Colin is Juliet’s cousin and financial benefactor, but he is not in on her plan to take down Serena. In fact, he’s not even aware of Juliet and Ben’s scheme, which includes getting Serena expelled for hooking up with a professor (even though she didn’t). Juliet managed to get a kiss on camera, and who knows how or if she is going to use it. Juliet is getting more interesting now that she has so many conflicting loyalties. She is in league with her brother, owes her cousin big time, and is slightly in love with Nate. She doesn’t seem like a bad person, and we wonder what will happen to her. We think it’s insanely unbelievable that Serena thinks Juliet is her friend after the Hamilton House key debacle, but whatever.

Serena and Nate got together to help Chuck and Blair make a peace treaty. It was a literal legal document. Dan was upset that Jenny couldn’t come for Lily and Rufus’ anniversary because of Chuck and Blair. Dan stole the peace treaty to find out what the secret provision was and use it to start another war between the exes. He figured he could get on Chuck’s good side and secure Jenny a way to come back to NYC. Eric helped him with this plan, but after his conscience got the better of him, Eric dropped out.

Blair turned 20, and her party and Lily and Rufus’ first anniversary party happened on the same night. Lily and Rufus just ended up celebrated their marriage at Blair’s party, so everyone except Vanessa showed up. Dan invited a Swedish musical artist (Robyn) to Blair’s party. Robyn had a copy of Blair singing “Stand By Your Man” in karaoke, drunk. Blair freaked out and blamed Chuck, but the truth about who was responsible came out. It obviously would have gone better for Blair if she had just laughed it off regally, but she is young, wants to appear powerful and in control, and Chuck was there to make her crazy. Plus, we loved seeing that useless Rachel Zoe covered in chocolate. We groaned at the episode’s ending, because Vanessa appeared, briefly. But then, the show made up for it by having Chuck and Blair rescind the peace treaty and start expressing their hatred for one another. This ended it hate sex on top of a piano. Joy! For hate sex, it was supremely adorable, and we grinned from ear to ear. We don’t think they are officially back together yet. Enemies with benefits? However, this is a step in the right direction.

We liked this episode because of all the scheming, the ending, and the fact that it was interesting the whole way through. It also had a lack of Vanessa and Jenny. We think Vanessa just needs to get killed already. Everyone would love it. Question: When did Eleanor Waldorf turn into a good mom? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see more of evil, scheming Dan? We think the show should make Jenny good again and make Dan evil.

Episode grade: A