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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Gossip Girl - The Kids are Not Alright recap/review

It's about time Gossip Girl came back. It's not as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but we like our Mondays better with it than without it, thanks.

Blair was looking for an internship to become a Powerful Woman, which, as we remember, is the reason she left Chuck (proving that ego IS stronger than love???). She looked on a list of powerful women and ran into Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo. Blair started stalking Indra’s whereabouts and found that Eleanor Waldorf was going to dress her for an event that very night. So when Blair’s mom offered her an internship with Waldorf designs, Blair accepted, all the while scheming to get close to Indra. Dan warned Blair that it would blow up in her face, and it did. Eleanor cottoned on, and she was hurt that her daughter sought out powerful female role models and Eleanor wasn’t really on the list. She fired Blair and Blair never got to meet Indra. After this, Dan talked to Blair and made Blair decide that her mother was actually a good Powerful Woman figure. She went to her mother and made nice. The two decided that Blair should be a fashion editor/critic, not a designer.

Serena and Chuck teamed up to blackmail Lily. Chuck wanted his empire back and Serena wanted Ben freed from prison. Serena dressed up like her mother and got into Lily’s safe deposit box at the bank. Chuck commented that Serena dressing up like her mother and him acting like her son turned him on. Chuck, you’re so weird. In the safe deposit box was a copy of the affidavit Lily had forged. Any decent handwriting analyst would be able to figure out it wasn’t Serena’s real signature condemning Ben. Lily was hiding the judge involved in the old case in her hotel, and Eric found out about that and joined Serena, tipping her off about how evil their mom was being. Serena tried to hand the affidavit to a reporter at the party everyone attended, but Dan replaced it with a different envelope and saved Lily. We kept talking to the screen, saying, “Doesn’t Serena realize that if this gets out, her mother will go to jail?” It turns out she didn’t; her mother had to inform her.

It turns out that Lily wasn’t all bad. She ended up getting Ben out of prison and she was trying to keep Chuck’s company intact. Chuck and Serena ruined that with their bickering, and a good buyer backed out when he heard about it. Chuck’s company was bought by one of his father’s old frenemies. Bart Bass had shoved this guy, Russell Thorpe, out of too many deals, and so Russell had a grudge against Bart and his empire. Russell told Chuck that he wants to dismantle Bass Industries and sell it in bits, destroying it.

Russell has a daughter, Raina, who is attractive and very into Chuck. One of the final scenes in the episode showed her offering to take him home, presumably for sex. He accepted and left with her. Raina is known for being direct and truthful, but that doesn’t stop her from being extremely coy with Chuck every time she sees him. Every girl knows you have to be coy to be sexy! Psh, it would have been more interesting if her directness transferred to her romantic life as well. We’ve seen the “Sexy Minx” role on this show before. Chuck is not the only one who has exchanged fluids with a Thorpe; Lily slept with Russell, too. The Captain, who is living with Nate and driving him crazy, is going to be working with Thorpe to get back into high circles.

Dan spent most of the episode trying to get a date with Serena, but she kept ditching him to work on her blackmailing project. This cost him an interview for an important internship. Serena confessed that she thinks she keeps testing him to see if one day he will just ditch HER, and they agreed that they shouldn’t date until they trust each other and the timing is right….which was weird. If she can’t trust Dan, how can she trust this new guy, Ben? She took Ben out for coffee after his release from prison. They are totally hooking up now. Dan and Blair went to another movie together.

Complaint: they are still in college. What’s with all of the business plotlines? Save those for the summer. We want young, catty drama. And does anyone really care what The Captain is doing? Nate’s dad needs to get interesting or ship out. His new job with the new enemy might make him useful, but during this episode, he was a dud.

Plenty of schemes, but not enough fun. Things wrapped up too neatly. But at least we have the Dan/Blair pairing to look forward to. We know they aren’t the endgame, and we would flip out if they were. It needs to be Chuck/Blair, Serena/Nate, and Dan/Jenny (incest would work for them). But, for now, we are just happy that Blair might start up with someone who isn’t Chuck or Nate. Chuck keeps getting all of these great post-Blair girlfriends. He doesn’t deserve them, so it’s time that Blair gets hers.

Episode grade: B-

5 comments:

  1. "not as good as seasons one and two but we like our monday nights better with it.."
    "plenty of scheming but not enough fun...'

    Exactly! very well said!

    there I was excited for CW's winter return only to spend two hours ruminating on how superior The Vampire Diaries is to its network siblings. a solid reminder of why I don't tune it for 90 regularly! it wasn't all bad but I felt like I was watching someone do a scene for drama class... I know that nobody watches that show so I won't grumble about it in detail...

    as for Gossip girl, I understand why they need to break Blair and Chuck up for awhile,but an episode of GG with NO scenes between the two losses about 75% of its appeal. also I kept thinking, really? a scandal at a party, didn't I see this episode before? Serena hooking up with a sandy haired older gut (I like Ben just fine but we're on number 3 now right?) its almost like a procedural!

    that said I like my Gossip Girl too, I wouldn't want Monday night without it either.

    as for Dan/Blair.. eh, I don't know..maybe it will be fun to watch...but it kind of feels like their just responding to their fandom.

    maybe this is what happens when show run for a long time- in the beginning they really have a story to tell, but after 2 or 3 years the original story has been told and they don't really have a new story to tell. and that leaves the character just wondering about getting into the same kinds of trouble over and over...

    I worry about the residents of mystic falls- the show is so inherently intense- how many years can they keep that up, how much story is there to tell? remember the end of Prison break- I liked it b/c four years of that would have killed anyone!

    as it turned out ABC family saved the night with a Beav-centric ep of greek, you probably didn't see it but it was sweet :)


    sorry that's way more then what belongs in a comment post... I hope you don't mind my ranting here.


    _Hatts

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  2. Don't mind the ranting at all. Some writers just don't have more stories in them. It seems like TVD's writers have so many that they churn out about five per episode. You see people able to write many books in a series and keep it going, and even have it improve. We don't think length of time is an excuse. If you run out of story, end it.

    But we like this show. Dan and Blair is at least NEW

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have to share this ode to tv & film with you

    Multifandoms | Bohemian Rhapsody - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ecSK77iQ1vI

    -hatts

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  4. That's a well-done fan video! Too much One Tree Hill and Twilight for our taste, but definitely an A for effort.

    ReplyDelete