Summer, Kind Of Wonderful
Updated 2008-09-02 09:00:19
Nate's making out with somebody in the Hamptons, which from what I understand is mostly what you do in the Hamptons when you're not running people over drunk in your SUV. But there are surprising things about this particular make out session thing one being that it's a woman and thing two being that it's not somebody we know. The coolest thing about this very cool episode is that it's not quite a reset from the stupid finale -- it erases it while still taking it into account. So like, you might think this is Serena from the blonde hair and the fact that she's kissing Nate, not to mention the only interesting thing about Nate has always been Serena. But in fact it is Mädchen Amick, who is now old enough to be a cougar, if not a MILF. She is still hot like the sun, but it's a weird match because she's always been best with bad boys, and Nate is essentially neither bad nor boy.
"Unlike the rest of us, sex, lies and scandal never take a vacation. Instead, they take the Long Island Expressway and head east to the Hamptons. Some would say summer is their busiest season." Cougar Catherine runs her nails down Nate's chest, he bites her shoulder, it's all very unfathomable. "Think Park Avenue, but with tennis whites and Bain de Soleil. The players change, but the game remains the same..." What game? Tennis? Cheating? In a car? "I've been waiting for this all day," Nate "moans" "seductively," and Catherine's all exposition, which is after all a proven turn-on for Nate: "Are you sure Serena's still okay with covering for you? She was a little cold." By all means let's discuss Serena van der Woodsen's emotional -- or perhaps actual -- temperature when I'm this close to a hand job on a busy street. Cougars think they have all the time in the world! "You haven't told her anything?" "Just that I'm seeing somebody I'm not ready to introduce to anybody yet --" she shoves him down against the seat "-- Or ever." I'm guessing Serena assumes Nate's finally ready to come out of the closet and this is her way of being supportive.
Nate takes a little time off for exposition now as well, whilst still making out, and I mean, the fact that this isn't entirely ridiculous is a testament to their acting talents, because I've seen less awkward on-paper exposition on the late great Passions : "Look, she needed time to decompress from her breakup anyway. Covering for me works for her, too." Got that? A car goes by and they chill out for like two seconds, then get all hot and heavy again and start talking about how they're going to go fuck in her guesthouse, meaning that she's married, meaning that... Nate is still just so boring. Bless his heart, but I mean, I don't know what it would take at this point. A hail of bullets or something, an earthquake or volcano could perhaps fix Nate's boringness issues.
Chuck's at the beach watching girls running around stupidly for his entertainment, wearing a funny hat and a stripy shirt. He wears green this whole episode, and I will say that as much as I love his usual pageantry, he was born to wear beach costumery. "Girls," says he, "You don't know how thankful I am to have finally found a use for geometry in my daily life." All three of the female members of this rhombus immediately drop their tops at his unspoken command, and he totally goes "Yesssss," like a supervillain. But what's this? A Gossip Girl blast: "Spotted: Blair Waldorf at Charles de Gaulle, homeward bound. What could possibly make Queen B abandon her two dads before Labor Day? We bet Chuck Bass wants to know." One of the girls asks, in a ridiculous accent, if "Mr. Chuck" has anything he needs "caretaking of," and he says the only care he's taking is that of this girl and her two butterface friends. They all grin like they even care about anything.
Serena's walking around the beach like the beautiful ghost of a total stranger, but takes time out to disapprove of the smirking Chuck Bass, who raises a champagne glass. She puts down a blanket in slow-motion so she can stare into the abyss. If you clocked every teenage girl who did that, in just the last summer even, the sheer number of hours spent staring sadly out at the waves while imagining tears running down your face and considering your deep and mournful identification with the lyrics of like All-American Rejects songs, your calculator would melt. "Also spotted: Serena Van der Woodsen, on Cooper's Beach... Alone again. We've heard talk that things are heating up with Nate Archibald. And where there's smoke, there's usually fire. But if that's the case, why has Nate fallen right off our radar and Serena, as always, sighted solo? Wonder what she'd do if she knew Lonelyboy wasn't so lonely anymore..."
Oh yes, do let's check in with Humphrey. He's making out in a SoHo bookshop that looks like the one from Funny Face with a random girl while Jay McInerney reads from Bright Lights, Big City . So basically, if only Tom Waits were there getting shitfaced with Haruki Murakami and all three of them were watching him mack on this girl, Dan Humphrey would fall over dead from this being his number one hipster fantasy of all time. "You wanted an explanation, an ending that would assign blame and dish up justice..." Wait, is Jay talking about the season finale? Is he speaking directly to us? "...But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name." OMG, he's talking about Georgina Sparks! Yes, that same exact feeling! Jay McInerney can see us! I love you, Jay! Please make nice with Bret. (And tell him to call me!)
Anyway, it's not super interesting. He mugs with this random girl A, and totally acts like a player until she gives him her number and leaves, and then Jay finishes up and explains that Dan is his intern or something, and this was a reading from Dan's -- of course -- favorite chapter of the book, but Dan didn't even notice because he is a little shit, and there's this short story that Dan has not yet written that Noah Shapiro, who has apparently left Paul Hastings to become an editor at the Paris Review , is just dying to read (and in case you need reminding, at this point in the farce: Dan is a teenaged child), but Dan sucks and so Jay tells him to go fucking write a short story already and take this laughably science fiction-level implausible opportunity by the horns -- which Dan won't, because he sucks. Instead Dan macks on some other random girl and then walks out feeling both studly and gross. "Well well well, Lonelyboy. Maybe dating and dumping Serena wasn't such a bad idea. Looks like it's time to give you a new nickname. How about Playboy?" When Gossip Girl is on, she's on. And you know I XO her. But when she's got nothing, girl's got nothing .
Eleanor Waldorf Designs & Sweatshop, where everybody is running around like chickens except for Jenny Humphrey, who is dressed semi-cute. Awesome Assistant Laurel, maybe it's the close-ups but I think she's aged about five years since last season, is being very high-strung. "People, people, I'm worried. Eleanor returns next week, and we are still behind. Now since I have to go to that party this weekend, I won't be around, and therefore, neither will you, so you better get twice as much work done today, or you will regret it." Laurel squeezes one assistant's face until it cracks, and then tosses the girl's puppet-limp body onto a small pile of floral-print discards. Another is wrapped in prosciutto and fed to the dogs.
Jenny takes a garment off her sweatshop sewing machine and makes a face like she's about to beg for coal to take home to Tiny Tim: "As for Little J, looks like this summer has been all work and no play." Laurel is just completely dismissive and doesn't believe she's actually finished the day's piecework, and she's like, "Don't you have a life?" Jenny's all, "No, my gay boyfriend outed my other gay boyfriend and then my weird-faced friends dumped me for my fake dating of gays, so now all I do is come here and sweat blood, and then go home and sit quietly without eating. Also, I made a hideous dress, look." Laurel slaps her pretty little face and some other hollow-eyed (And familiar-looking! Who is she?) girl is like, "I was an intern once, too. It gets better."
Laurel spits on the dress: What is it for, besides sitting around being stupid? And by metonymy, you yourself? Jenny -- not timidly, either because she's being cool or because of her unfortunate brain damage -- says that in fact, the dress is not for spitting but for the White Party. "For the Vitamin Water Party?" Laurel corrects her -- which is awesome, because if you're doing product placement you should make a hilarious joke about product placement, and saying "Vitamin Water" scornfully a thousand times in one episode is subtle indeed -- and touches the hideous thing. "Who invited you? ...Oh, lace? Ugh! It's not even white, it's bone." She boxes Little J's ears so harshly that she can barely hear the next bit, for all the ringing: "It's way too big for you. Don't you know how to fit? It's huge."
Jenny confirms that yes, it's the brain damage talking in this scene, helpfully saying that it's not for her, it's for the gigantically huge fatness of Laurel: "I'm not going to the party, so..." Laurel laughs, discreetly hiding a nine-inch Wusthof behind her apparently enormous ass: "So you thought I might wear some Holly Hobby frock made by an intern so that when I get photographed, your work ends up in W ?" Jenny does the ankle-dip I've been waiting all fucking summer for, and Laurel nods: "If I'm gonna wear a custom anything, it's gonna matter." She raises the blade above her head with a demonic glint in her eye, but just before she strikes the killing blow, that familiar-looking chick comes back with something for her to sign. Laurel forgets Jenny exists, after telling her to take a giant box of buttons home with her and do something degrading with them. "Oh, and put that away. Eggshell gives me a migraine." The familiar girl silently mouths, "I'm sorry!" ... but sadly, not silently enough. Laurel's head swivels all the way around shooting lasers and before you know it, where the girl was standing there is only dust, in a sad pair of hundred-dollar Kors pumps.
In DUMBO, Jenny dumps the buttons or whatever out on the table and tells Dan that she is no longer eating, but would enjoy a nice cold popsicle; their mother is at South Pacific with Alexander Bancroft. Dan asks about the buttons, and she asks if he's finished his story yet: "I'm hoping by reading it that maybe I can figure out why you and Serena broke up anyway," too true. Except by not writing it, he's even more eloquently explaining why they broke up, which is that he is a shithead who fucks things up due to his enormous self-obsession. "Yeah," Dan sighs dramatically. "Yeah, me, too." The title of the story, which is all he's written, is "5.19.08," which in addition to being precisely as pretentious as Dan must be, but also clever of the show in a whole other way . Rather than fetching some coffee and a wee trampoline to get the fuck over himself, and actually applying some goddamn elbow grease to the situation, Dan decides that he is simply too delicate a flower to write a single word, and lumbers out of the house to go suck McInerney off instead.
Chuck is looking ... quite presentable when Serena enters for a bit of role-reversal, and catches him checking himself out in the mirror. "This is the first time I've seen you look in the mirror all summer. Here I thought if you did, you'd turn to stone. You must be pretty nervous about something if you're willing to take that risk." To be honest, I don't even know what she means. I guess he hasn't looked in the mirror because he's been having improbable sex, but the turning-to-stone thing, I don't get. Is Harry Hamlin involved? "Ha ha, sis. I'm on my way out to Lily Pond. With the triplets returning to Rio, I thought I'd continue my tour of South America. I'm thinking Argentina." I mean, he looks great. His hair is all dorky-cool and it's like he's impersonating somebody from the future impersonating somebody from that movie Pleasantville . Which is, incidentally, my favorite look of all time, which is in turn reason number like twelve that Mad Men , or what we call " Gossip Girl For Grownups," is total porn.
"Then what are the flowers for?" Chuck's face gets scared, and you know that is a lot of face to be all one thing at once. "You wouldn't perhaps have overheard a recent phone call with a certain best friend of mine? Who mentioned she's on her way out here on the jitney?" Chuck's ironic answer is perfect; perfectly Chuck, perfectly Gossip Girl , and perfectly hilarious: "...What's a jitney?" Serena says great, because he hasn't got a chance in hell after the way Chuck deserted Blair at the helipad . (And I mean, the fact she went from choppers to shuttle busses says it all, doesn't it?) Chuck says if she's getting her info from her "boyfriend Nate," she can shut it, because who wants relationship advice from somebody in a fake relationship anyway. And man, if he's exhausted by the fake relationships now, wait until the end of the episode. (And on that note, where the hell is Lily?) He takes the flowers and wishes her a good evening alone with her thoughts. She smiles that above-it smile she always gets with him, which I love, and tells him in turn to enjoy his suicide mission.
"Spotted: Chuck Bass, waiting for the jitney. A dozen roses in one hand, his heart in the other," and a scrumptious salmon suit pulling everything together. Blair steps off the bus and looks at him with a huge smile, but not like you think. That Waldorf pride shines in the back of it. "You know what they say: a man is a good thing to come home for, but an even better thing to come home with ." A tall hottie gets off the bus and kisses Blair soundly; she flashes her eyes at Chuck and he skulks off, and she makes that face she always makes. Like how there are things she doesn't like doing, and hurt her, but these are things that are more important, so she has to do these things no matter how much it hurts you, and her. Except for how, you know, she doesn't: this whole obsession with her own reputation and virtue and power of will and invulnerable -- all the things that make her awesome -- are also what she trips on, every time. He embarrassed her, and for Blair, that's even closer to the foundation stones than love, or else she could get over it. If an irresistible force met an immovable object, the resulting thing would rule the school and wear cute headbands, but it would also fuck up its life a lot of the time. Or, as Gossip Girl says: "Ain't karma a bitch? We know Blair Waldorf is."
Next day, where we are treated to some yucky Cribs -style wipes and slides before finally coming to visual rest on S and B sitting poolside. Serena's best outfit is later, but this bathing suit is definitely in Blair's Top Two outfits this week: "You didn't do anything all summer? Please don't tell me you just sat around watching The Closer and eating takeout from Nick and Toni's..." Serena corrects her, but not by much: it was Della Femina. "What about all those rumors I heard about you and Nate?" Serena shakes her head: "Completely untrue. They just got people off my back about being sad, and then Nate could do whatever he wanted, so it worked out for both of us." Instead of asking the obvious question in response, which is still going to be whether Nate is sleeping with dudes yet, B is like, "So no fun whatsoever? All summer?" Well, there was a hot lifeguard, but Serena turned him down. "What? Are you crazy? A hot lifeguard is like Kleenex: use once and throw away. You couldn't ask for a better rebound."
One word: townie . I don't understand what's so complicated about that concept. (And in case you need reminding, at this juncture: Blair Waldorf has slept with two boys in her entire life, both of them gayer than actual gay people, and has never so much as touched the waxed chest or legs of a lifeguard, but I love it when she acts like this weary, worldly woman of leisure. Truly, you are the last of the savages. Tell me the part about tea parties again?)
"I don't think I'm ready. I still miss Dan sometimes. More than sometimes, all the time." And I think B speaks for us all when she says that the only thing lamer than dating Dan Humphrey is mourning Dan Humphrey: "And the only reason you're still sitting shiva is because you haven't gotten back out there and had your summer fling!" Because what Blair Waldorf is, is so down with the Jews. Right then, Chuck comes around the corner looking amazing and telling somebody -- or, one hopes, an imaginary nobody -- about how he fucked some girls and then he fucked some other girls and now he's going to fuck a whole bunch of ... Oh, Blair! He didn't know you were here! Not to be outdone in the awesome fake drama department, Blair goes impressively nuts: her voice changes octaves, her face gets twitchy and weird like somebody's got a camera on her, and she actually has the balls to start her lie in medias res .
"...James is the classiest guy I've ever met you know he drinks gin martinis and he speaks six languages and he gave me this amazing Bulgari pearl choker with a gold B clasp on it..." Before she can get to how he also has the powers of levitation and speaks the languages of all the animals, Serena's like, "Wait, I thought your Dad gave you that. Who's James?" Serena gets a little eyeball prompting from B and realizes the game, so then she goes off her rocker. This whole scene is so awesome. S starts strong but doesn't exactly stick her landing: "Oh my God B he sounds amazing the last time we talked, um, you hadn't even met him." C+ for S on this one, between her late start and mentioning reality. "Oh I know! He swept me off my feet he's so charming plus he tells the best stories..." Serena gives a really great face, like, "Oh, that's so wonderful, my friend whom I love and support, who has a newfound happiness in life, for which I am in turn also happy."
"You're lying," Chuck immediately explains to them: "Your eyes are doing that thing where they don't match your mouth." B, whose eyes are in fact doing just that thing, is a little shaken: "I wasn't aware that robots got jealous. Did they update your software while I was away?" What is with the Chuck insults? Calling him mythological monsters and science fiction robots now? Let's get dirty, people. "You and I both know this guy's just a prop you bought to try to hurt me like I hurt you." B swears he didn't, and the blaze from her pants catching on fire nearly takes off one of Serena's sympathetic eyebrows.
"...Well, I will admit waiting for you in Tuscany the first few days was mildly humiliating. But when I realized you weren't gonna show, I rallied. Luckily, I made a friend on the trip over." Chuck notifies her that the lame greasy guy is from the finale, "Boring Ben," was fired from Bass Industries, at his request. Now that's how it's done. (I hope nothing truly awful happened to Lydia Hearst!) "Well, I owe [Boring Ben] everything. He introduced me to James. You know, I think he might be the one..." Chuck tells her to prove it, which: I'm not even sure what he means, and B's like, No. "But if you want to get to know James better, I'll bring him to dinner tonight. I'll bet you'll like him just as much as I do!" Chuck's British accent comes out a little, for I think the first time -- it is foreshadowing! -- and he's like, Um, you mean like I won't like him at all? And then I'll date him to piss off some other rapist?" Chuck leaves to get all prettied up for dinner, and B says it's time to go find Serena a townie to fuck. "But we have to stop at Nate's first. He has something of mine..." I hope it's not extra pants, because apparently he has none this week.
Rufus is still in the exact same place (where the hell is Lily?) on the exact same tourbus he was on last time we saw him, which is symbolic of like his entire life. He tells Jenny that the hard-rockin' state of Vermont has been hospitable, and that Vanessa brought her presumably horrible parents to his hard-rockin' rock show last night, but had little to say of Dan. Jenny pins another viciously derivative frock to a dressform she probably stole from a friend, and pretends to care. Still caring, almost inappropriately so, is their long-distance father figure: "I had hoped maybe that she could help him get over Serena this summer." Jenny rolls her eyes and says that being a total whore up and down the five boroughs seems to be doing the trick. "Is he still dating up a storm?" Rufus says, which is an amazing thing to hear a person say.
"Have him call me when he wakes up." It's Dan: that's nevernever o'clock. "Hey, you know, you haven't told me how the dress went over." Seriously? He's calling from the ... Okay, well, I can see that being all Jenny has talked about, so it's only polite. Rufus tells her to wear the Bone-Colored Monstrosity herself, if she can somehow scale it down from its circus-tent current size, and Jenny says that while it's "nice," not to say condescending, that Rufus is so encouraging toward his children while doing everything he can to be in a different part of the country from them for as long as possible, but that as usual his cluelessness has outstretched his desultory interest in their lives. "The White Party's, like, super exclusive. I mean, summer interns do not get to go. Last year, they even turned away Jack Johnson." Wait, so my house is super exclusive?
"Sounds like a party with taste," Rufus says, and I hate him so much that he just spontaneously made me a Jack Johnson fan, and it's because of shit like this: "Also sounds like the kind of party the van der Woodsens would go to. Have you asked Eric about it?" At least Jenny has the class to point out what a transparent, shitty maneuver that would be (not that she's not going to immediately do just that when she gets off the phone): "Yeah, that might be a little awkward, considering the last conversation we had. I sort of said some things I shouldn't have. " On reflection, Jenny thinks, maybe the whole internship thing was a mistake, and she should have gone on hard-rockin' tour with Rufus after all: "Eleanor's been in Paris like, the entire time, and Laurel's been so worried about everything. What if it was a waste?" Rufus is like, I know that you, my teenage daughter, could drink me under the table in front of Better Than Ezra because I am a pantywaist, and thus it was not to be: "It's not a waste if there's time to change it. Maybe you should start with Eric and then go from there."
I hope Eric slaps her silly. I really do. It's not charitable, but what, you're going to fuck up the Skittles Jenny Humphrey's got rattling around in there? So Jenny's like, "Word, Dad. Thanks for telling me the stupidest possible thing I can do, which is call up a perfectly sensible person, whose life I very carefully and deliberately shit on -- immediately after he admitted having just been released from the booby hatch for a suicide attempt -- and then, without even a token attempt at reconciliation, I will ask him for a favor which benefits only me. And father, I will do this thing. I will do it because I am a fool, and because I am a jerk, but most of all: because I am a Humphrey."
J. Mac's writing -- actually writing words, Dan , on a piece of paper, which is how you know he's a writer -- at a bar when Dan comes wandering in, I guess on the off chance reality will maybe agree that his made-up internal drama is more important than responsibility for his commitments. I think not. The bartender tells him to get lost: this bar is only reserved for what Dan will one day become, not Dan as he is, and if the bar can wait until that day, so can Dan. "It's all right, Joe. He's with me." He is not, nor has he ever been. Dan apologizes for showing late, and J. Mac says he wouldn't be, if he'd shown on time. "Something tells me you're here empty-handed?" Dan swears he only needs one more day -- as though, Jay immediately points out, the last sixty days weren't enough. He informs him that he is not sitting down, because he is not serious about writing, because excuses are for the unemployed, of which Dan is now one, because why should Jay bother shepherding the serious amounts of Dan bullshit that comes with being his literary legend mentor when he could just say fuck it and get drunk right now, and Dan's all, "But I looooove you," and Jay says that if Dan loved him he wouldn't suck so bad and if he was a real writer he would fucking write and also get his ass gone, so Dan does. Oh, Dangerous Dan! Your dreams are deader than a show horse murdered for the insurance money. It's enough to make you fuck John Edwards, it really is.
Eric's a bit taller and brunette on a beach when his phone rings. He looks at the name, thinks about it for a second, and answers: "If it's apology time, you're about three months late... And let me guess, you want something." Then, instead of hanging up, he listens to Jenny blather on -- doing a really good Dan Humphrey impression, come to think of it -- about how she's a bitch and she knows it, but he might be interested to know that she felt really bad about it, like, all summer. (Silence.) "You were the only person that was friends with me for me, and I hurt you the worst." Eric points out that: Jenny was fucked over by her lies worse than anybody, especially Eric, because his superpower is not getting hurt by lies because he's the only honest person on the entire Upper East Side, and additionally he has no friends, for the exact same reason. So what does her scheming ass want, besides to be friends because they have no other friends, plus apparently the same taste in dudes? "Well, do you happen to be in the Hamptons right now?"
S is applying lipstick when somebody, her date, honks. She's not loving that. Blair is. "Ooh, a honk instead of a knock. Did someone order a townie?" Serena goes to the window and finally, finally says something Serena would actually say: "Oh God, the lifeguard's got a Camaro. And not in an ironic 'I've Got A Camaro' way." (This is who we wanted, and you had her squealing over Vespas? Give me more.) Blair's like, "Good luck with the strange native customs, and I will tell anybody who asks, which is nobody, that you are with Nate, even though I still don't know what that's about. S thanks her and says she doesn't know where Nate is, then ducks out.
Where he is, is the bedroom Chez Madame Very-Married, whose mistress is right this second climbing around all over his muscles and bitching about how the end of the summer is so sad because beauty's but a flower which wrinkles will devour and brightness falls from the air or whatever, so you have to fuck high school boys while they're still in high school. He's like, "Let's keep doing it after school starts," which is so adorable she barely laughs in his face. "I can be really sneaky ," Nate says, because he is awesome. Oh, I do love him, with a Lee Adama love ; if I loved him less, I might talk about it more. "Sneaky is cute at your age. A couple decades later, not so much." He says if he's so cute then they should talk instead of fucking, implying he understands the word "cute" as much as all the other things Nate doesn't really understand, which is most things to be honest, so she blows him just to shut him up for a minute. If only it were that simple, Mädchen, but I like where your head's at. And scene.
Chuck fills James's glass at CeCe's table, and asks if he's met Harold Waldorf -- then slips a second bonus question inside the question, which is whether he knows Roman's name. Answers: Yes and yes. "Only briefly, at the château. Although Cat didn't seem to like me nearly as much. I have the scars to prove it." CeCe laughs, because when you're old, nature attacking people is funny. Chuck notes that they've certainly crammed a lot of BS into their fake romance: "I wonder, has Blair had a chance to share her favorite movies with you yet? Tiffany's , Sitting. Roman Holiday ... And of course, Charade ?" James is confused, because he doesn't hear the total implicatiness of Chuck's emphasis on that last: isn't her third favorite Funny Face ?
( Roman Holiday ... I wonder if last year was Breakfast At Tiffany's and this year is Roman Holiday ? That would be cool, but also would be sad when Blair goes blind for the suspenseful Wait Until Dark season. But then if there's a Charade year I'll finally get my hail of bullets, which will be good. I'm torn. And wait, does that make Serena's lifeguard Sabrina ? Fuck it, I'm confusing myself. Wait, Dan is Sabrina! That's awesome. Serena and Sabrina.)
Blair agrees, sorry, with James -- she hates Charade -- and tells Chuck to stop harassing him. Eric notes how boring it is to watch people play How Well Do You Know Blair Waldorf? if you already know Blair Waldorf; CeCe agrees, and adds that Chuck's also being totally transparent. Nice. "Well thank you, Grandma," he says, and I love that CeCe distrusts him a little bit, even though I equally love how much Lily likes Chuck: "Why is it when you say that word it sounds like an insult?" James gets a little steely, claiming that he wants to learn everything about Blair, and what better way than learn than by taking quizzes, especially those proctored by a stalky creepy tiki-faced rapist?
"Well, it's a shame you guys took a bus and not a limo. I don't know if you know this, but Blair loves a limo..." Oh no he didn't! Blair randomly and awkwardly -- and transparently -- asks James for the salt and pepper, and when James reaches for it, he exposes his sweater sleeve, where she's pinned the little heart charm she once sewed into a shirt of Nate's. (Meaning that the thing she needed to get from Nate was her heart, which she's now wearing on James's sleeve , because this show is awesome and about to get more awesome.) Chuck's stops. She grins again, and he excuses himself. Blair follows right after, provoking awkwardness for James and sympathy/fear in CeCe and Eric.
They meet in a long stand of trees, in a beautiful, beautiful garden. His suit is mint green suit, hers a clashing kelly. "Look, I know what that pin means to you. You gave it to Nate the first time you said you loved him." Blair promises she thought James should have it now; Chuck asks if she really feels that way about James now. Blair (Leighton, too) begins to weep, swearing: "I do." She's so proud, looking in his eyes; he's so sad. This is probably their best scene ever. I watched it drunk and I've watched it sober and I just watched it again. It's really pretty phenomenal, because what they're saying is teenage-awkward at its most vérité, but the way they do it, it might be the best-acted scene of the whole show, including anything with Lily or Eric. "...I'll see you at school," he says, eyes begging; he leaves. Blair watches him go and cries, after a moment shaking her head and coming back to herself. The burlesque. She hops back up onto the deck, grabbing James's sleeve immediately: "Oh my goodness, my pin must have gotten caught on your sweater by mistake." James shrugs it off: he didn't feel anything. Neither did she.
Postcoital snuggling of cougar and tadpole, and then a car drives up. "Well, Nathaniel, you have a choice. Under the bed or out the window." Nate takes like ten minutes to understand what she's saying, because apparently the husband was supposed to be gone for the next week, but she just shrugs because it's all part of the game, then tosses him out the window, clothes soon after. He prances around the corner and into the street, where Serena's Camaro almost runs him down. Serena follows Nate's gaze to Catherine, whom she's met, kissing her husband, whom Serena most assuredly has not met; Nate runs off in his boxers and Serena gets pissed. Nobody said we were suddenly banging married chicks, much less implicating Serena in said married-chick-banging. That's advanced, although you'd be stretching to say it's all that out of character for Nate, who pretty much just does whatever old people tell him to do.
In town, shopping: " Damn that motherchucker. Ugh! He's totally right, I don't even like James!" S is like, "Thank you, duh. I've been waiting for that." Blair's wearing a cute flowy summer dress with a floral print of such massive scale Georgia O'Keefe would be proud.
Blair continues to explain the obvious: "I only hooked up with him a week ago because I knew that I couldn't get off the plane alone. And it would kill me if Chuck knew that he'd ruined my summer." Serena realizes that Blair is talking about reality and gets concerned: "Oh, B... I'm so sorry. Was it really bad?" So bad, in fact, you can't even enjoy your cabana at the Hotel du Cap without having visions of him. "Amid all the fireworks on Bastille Day, all I could see was that Chuck Bastard."
Down the street, Nate's trying to persuade Chuck to stay for the Vitamin Water White Party. "Pretty girls, white dresses..." They cross the street as Chuck's saying unless there's a sprinkler, he doesn't care. He also makes the very good point that summer is tourist season in the city, which a boy with a dime could very well turn into sex city. Nate hums noncommittally as though he cares, and Chuck's immediately like, "Okay, and I don't want Blair throwing her callboy in my face."
Meanwhile B's bemoaning the fact that James is additionally a bore: "Do you know how hard it is to find a good fake boyfriend on short notice?" S says -- and why would she lie, and she's not lying, and this is key to the story to come, I think -- "Well, he was smart and fun at tea yesterday. And he's really cute, too." So either B is right and James is a Kleenex dud, or S is right and he's a catch and B can't see it because she's not even looked at him yet. Which do you think it's going to be? "You don't have to lie anymore, Serena. He served his purpose." Serena nods like she cares. "And now that Chuck is on his way back to the city, I can dump James just in time to go to the White Party stag. How was your date, by the way?" Serena says after a few hours it was more like she needed life saving , rather than guarding , and B laughs and tells her to take baby steps. I agree. As long as they're away from Dan, I don't care what size of step you're utilizing. Step size is completely at your discretion.
"By the way, Archibald, now that the summer's over, I can tell you I never believed any of the talk that you hit it with my sis." Before Nate can splutter or stutter or do whatever his dumb storyline requires, they run into the other pair and Chuck tells "Waldorf" good morning. Then the two non-couples split up and have two different conversations that don't really have any segue enjambment meaning, because Nate's storyline is dumb and Serena's storyline right this second is that she doesn't have one, so we'll take Chuck and B first. He asks where "Princeton" went: "I'm surprised you let him get away." Blair corrects him, it's Georgetown: "And unlike you, I don't lose something if I let it out of my sight." Then, long story short, they go like this they go: "Princeton!" "Georgetown!" "Princeton!" "Georgetown!" like that, and finally B shouts for Serena.
...Who moments ago cutely led Nate away by the elbow like a girlfriend, while nagging him like an older sister: "Why didn't you call me back this morning..." He said he couldn't talk about that in public, and she clarified the problem: "When you told me you secret girlfriend was older, I thought you meant college. Not to mention Catherine's married." Nate assured her that he'd gotten dumped the night before, somehow, even though we didn't see that at all, and again Serena shifted immediately into BFF mode, all, "WHAT? Tell me." He's like, "Um, later." I really, really like this post-murder version of Serena: she's wise, and smart, but still willing to get in over her head with her friends, but still kind of...
Not flaky, and not self-centered either, and I can't think of any words for it that aren't negative or pejorative, but it's like, the coolest thing about Serena is that you can tell her anything and she won't judge you, because she just does not care. Like, she has much much love in her heart and she is very protective and all that, but on a deep level she does not give even one tiny little fuck. She just wants things to be very awesome all the time . I love that so much. She and B are a great pair because B comes off very shallow and fake but it's because she feels everything in her gut, while S is all sweetness and light and fierceness because ... what's the fucking difference? It's like the modeling thing: all they wanted was for Blair to be free, and she couldn't do it, but Serena was right there going, "For one second, stop caring, and you will become beautiful." And then again after the pregnancy scare, same deal. She can afford to be super great, because she doesn't actually care, and that's hard to explain but if they nail it this year, they'll have officially gotten to the heart of the books: To be secure in oneself is to lose essentially that part which fears others.
And hey, speaking of what would appear to be a van der Woodsen trait that skipped a generation: Chuck immediately calls Eric to confirm the Princeton thing, which is wonderful on many levels, because Eric and Chuck are their own vastly more wonderful television show I'll remind you we still have yet to see for any substantial amount of time, because once Chuck sees you as a resource he'll love you forever, because Eric couldn't love Chuck more if he were actually made of Webkinz, and best of all, because Chuck refers to James as "Blair's consort." Nate shakes his head and rolls his eyes because finally he has some drama of his own, and everybody's bogarting, but also because he naturally knows that drama is inherently stupid, and because he knows what happens when you fuck with Blair Waldorf. "Do some [British-inflected] re search , Junior," says Chuck. "I'm in the mood to be right."
DUMBO. And for once I am not talking about the Brooklyn experiment in quantum gentrification. Listen to this horseshit: "I can't believe that I get a job working for my literary idol, and he... And he cans me, you know?" DAN, YOU IGNORANT SLUT. I can't believe you got a job working for your literary idol and proved to him that you don't have what it takes , while taking a dump on his goodwill, and yet missed this most salient point, where you could be the most talented person in the universe and nobody will ever know, because your lightning never touches the ground. Of all the shit, both Humphrey and Dan-specific, that Dan has pulled, in some ways I find this the most insanely gross.
And I'm not even going to get into a whole "what is a real writer" thing, because like I know anything, but it's like Chuck later, where he can't manage to say aloud that he loves Blair: the only people who do that are guilty of asshead disease and terminal drama. Writing is opening up a crack just wide enough to let some light into you, and some you onto the page, so that the next person feels less alone. And if this is the thing that frightens you -- like Chuck and like Blair, under her garments -- then you have chosen precisely the wrong job, because that's the entire requirement: being honest, for a living, for the rest of your life.
Now, I too would be horrified by a glimpse into the dreary stupid soul of Dan Humphrey, so on this level I cannot blame him. However, playing the victim card will not win you a pony in this instance. Unless you are the worst parent in history, in which case you will get a clap on the motherfucking back. "I did everything he asked --" Except the only thing he actually asked for from you "-- from picking up his dry cleaning to keeping him sober before noon. Which was, believe me, the hardest thing I've ever done." Oh bitter, bitter. "Harder than finishing that story?" Word. And lest you think that Rufus is headed the right direction here, remember who we're dealing with.
Dan, making tea : "I just couldn't write it, Dad. I... I don't know why." Because you are a dilettante and a lazy ass. It's actually quite simple. "You're talking to a guy who couldn't finish a new song in twelve years. I get it." OMG it's like a beautiful sunrise over Neverland Ranch, I finally understand what happened to their family: Rufus is a loser! That was quite simple, as it turns out.
Dan explains that the story -- okay -- is about "the dissolution of a relationship between two people from different worlds." Rufus calls it science fiction, I call it "heightened reality," but I like the juxtaposition of "different worlds" as a sci-fi trope and "different from real life" as a sci-fi definition. Truly, Dan and Serena's relationship -- not to mention his perspective on it -- partake of both.
"Well, if I can offer some fatherly advice from three hundred miles away..." (Psst. You can't. People can, but you cannot. You've left your children in the hands of these awful people, including your horrible wife. Fly away home, ladybug. ) Plus, Dan's problems are so self-inflicted and stupid and generic that Dan already "knows" the "secret" to why he is a "fuckup": "I haven't finished the story because I haven't dealt with my feelings over the way I ended it with Serena." Rufus congratulates him on Psych-101ing himself, making Rufus even more superfluous than he has always, always been to his children's lives, and then Dan... just keeps talking and talking and talking.
"I've tried not to think about her all summer. I was afraid if I did, that I would... I would see that I made a huge mistake. So I've just been trying to distract myself the best I can." When Dan talks about his relationship with Serena, it feels like karate on my face.
"Well, you've been running all summer. Maybe it's time you stopped, and you turned around and faced it." I guess Rufus Humphrey is sort of like a "community organizer," except without actual responsibilities.
Croquet , they're playing. On other shows, the girls go get pedicures and the men hit a bar and look at naked ladies. On this show, when the girls are busy? Croquet. I shouldn't laugh; the house I'm moving into, half of the lot is yard -- it's like a garage apartment without the house in front, so it's like super cute, but you're not actually looking at it from far away like the optical illusion would have you believe -- and the first thing every one of my friends says is "croquet," and for the exact same reason really, which is that everybody on earth secretly just wants to live inside The Secret History and that's why we dress like we do, drink the drinks we drink, study the subjects we study, practice the arcane arts that we practice, kill the farmers we kill.
Chuck is resplendent in argyle sweater and knee socks, khaki shorts, and again with the sexy naughty-schoolboy hair, bowtie and ducktail. I think I am finally down with the Bass. Chuck is playing Red, of course. Eric is Blue and Nate is I guess Black. Eric is wearing like a golfer's polo with a green pattern, none too tasteful but not outlandish, and he has girlish feet even in topsiders. Nate is dressed in a ribbed tee that laces up the front, looks amazing, and had to have been a Chuck-influenced purchase. "So not only did James Schiller not go to Princeton, he also didn't go to Georgetown. In fact, I couldn't find a record of him at any of the big schools." Nate's amazed at Eric's Sherlock skills, but also I think curious as to how this is the way he fits into Chuck's schemes. "An Untalented Mr. Ripley," Chuck calls James, awesomely. "If you want entrée into the upper class, there's no easier mark than a wronged woman. It's time to call in the big guns." Chuck speed-dials a PI named Mike, causing Nate to flounce and Eric to gape. Just then, Serena storms across the lawn shouting Nate's name. Eric bounces: "I know that face. That face is not your friend." Serena has just been informed by CeCe that she's Nate's date for the Vitamin Water White Party, which is not necessary if Catherine dumped him. Nate looks dewy, and guilty. And to be honest, still a little confused.
Speaking of queer things to do in the Hamptons in the summer, let's chat while we slowly walk old-timey bicycles through a sun-dappled park. Blair begins to break up with James: "The past six days have been exactly what I needed them to be..." He agrees, and says there's something he needs to tell her -- she interrupts with a "me first" but then her phone rings with a text: Looks like I'll be seeing you and 'Princeton' at the White Party after all... She plops the phone handily into her bike's giant wicker basket, swallows, readjusts her posture and turns flirty again: "...I just wanted to ask if you'd like to come to the White Party with me tonight." He's happy to let his secret slide a bit longer, although of course B doesn't know about that because she's not looking and neither are we, but her pained smile at keeping the charade going is pretty eloquent.
Nate apologizes for once again using S as his beard, even after their whole talk this morning, but Serena has mellowed: "I get it. You have feelings for her. But let's just be honest about why you want to go tonight. You wanna check out the competition." Nate says it's not that he wants to check out the competition, he just wants to see her and her husband together, close up. Adding another concept to the list of things Nate doesn't seem to grasp. "Yeah, that's called checking out the competition. Which is stupid and potentially dangerous, Nate." He agrees, after spending way too long processing her words, but she's not done: "...But since I've been stupid and dangerous in the past, I'm not one to talk, am I?" (Might you be referring to that dude you killed? Awesome.) "It was probably gonna be an uneventful evening anyway." Wait, is she saying she's going to kill some more dudes? Is that what's going to happen? That's brilliant! At the beginning of every season, Serena should kill some guy and spend the whole season completely ignoring it, and every four episodes Dan can break up with her for no damn reason, and she won't even care because she is back on her killing spree. Serena tells him to pick her up at five and punches him softly on the shoulder for being a doofus; he stands there and feels some "feelings" or some shit.
"Sometimes the stars align for two old friends to come together," says Gossip Girl, "But sometimes they align for two old flames to totally combust." Yet again I have no idea what she's fucking talking about, but onscreen there is Dan getting off the jitney and into a taxicab. "Wonder what the sky holds for S tonight: Friendship? Or fireworks?" ... But like are you asking or telling, because I foresee the fickle finger of fate finagling a few fireworks for these four old friends, Fossip Firl.
VITAMINS! WATER! WHITE! This party has it all. Neatly, when we head inside and away from the Jack Johnsonless poolside festivities, the annoying music gets quieter. Eric and Jenny walk through the house and Jenny plays it cool, which is to say rude: "Hey, thanks again for giving me another chance." Slap her. Slapherslapherslapher. Tossherinthepool. Do it. "Thanks for being worthy of it," he says graciously, but doesn't even look her in the eye as he says -- and you know he learned that maneuver from Mama -- "You know you're on probation, right?" They pass Laurel, who's putting her Gauloise out in a young seamstress's eye as she kisses some supermodel's ass, and Jenny nods while walking quickly away in a serpentine fashion so as to avoid getting hit by the cherry Laurel's surely just flicked at her head.
Meanwhile, Nate and Serena pass Catherine and her husband, earning themselves a sour mean scary look; she excuses herself and launches past Nate, but not even the Doppler Effect can take the sting off her hiss: " Trying to ruin my marriage? " Nate meekly requests that Serena get him drunk, and Serena sweetly complies, taking his arm and marching him toward the bar. Serena van der Woodsen is like the Pippi Longstocking of underage drinking.
CeCe's getting ready for a party or a meeting of her coven or something when there's a knock at the door. Who's there? Why it's Daniel Humphrey, last seen telling her to take her fake cancer and shove it where only J.P. Morgan was ever allowed to go. CeCe admits that she's surprised to see him, given that she is terrifying and he is a pantywaist like his father: "[Serena]'s gone ahead to a party ... that I'm quite late for myself."
(CeCe rocks the Vitamin Water White Party? Awesome, I bet she and Diddy have a lot to talk about. They're both crazy rich, they both hate Dan and dated Jennifer Lopez, and they've both recorded duets with Nicole Scherzinger. What I'm trying to say is that the White Party is trashy, and its nefarious purpose is to turn the Hamptons into Miami, which is like quantum gentrification in reverse. I don't like it, it is unfamiliar and threatening to me; this is also why I refuse to acknowledge the Las Vegas exists. I prefer to believe that Brandon Flowers invented Las Vegas to frighten me, thus giving himself a reason to comfort me.)
CeCe randomly asks Dan to come in and help her with her pearls, and he stutters and stammers and whatever and finally does, then takes a look at her. "You seem, uh... I don't know. You seem different." And because her fake cancer was actually real, which nobody knows -- and because Queller is still a Producer, as well as the writer of some of the best episodes of this show and lots of others -- you can buy what she's saying as genuine: "Certain things are in remission, Mr. Humphrey. Not the least of which is my former attitude. Going through something like I did changes you, you can see things differently." And if pretty is what changes, damn, CeCe. You got like ten times hotter from your cancer. WTG! "Like how the keys to someone else's happiness are not necessarily the same ones as for your own. Serena thinks she had me fooled this summer, but I know the truth. You are still in her heart." Dan laughs and wonders if CeCe's been drinking lighter fluid again, but she just giggles at him and holds up an invitation to the Vitamin Water White Party. "This party that you're about to take me to... It has a very strict dress code." She winks and crooks a finger at him, and he laughs and follows her into some other room, where fingers crossed they do it, because I am not kidding, those two had more chemistry in this two minute scene than Dan and Serena have in most episodes.
Blair and James walk along the pool; sometimes we see them through glass and other times we see them clearly. "...And all of that is to say what I wanted to talk to you about earlier, is that my feelings for you have deepened, and I..." OMG is he going to tell her how ardently he admires and loves her? Doesn't he know we already have a Darcy? "I can't help thinking that what I've done is something so terrible, so inappropriate..." Blair's not listening; she's literally placing him in a certain location, holding his wrist and positioning him just right, angle and light, so that Chuck can't help but notice. She interrupts with hysterical laughter: "You're so funny! I'm... I'm sorry, I could just listen to you all day!" James asks if the whole "so terrible and inappropriate thing I've done" speech was funny in some way, because he doesn't know how this crew rolls yet, and she randomly kisses him. Sadly, she flicks one last triumphant look Chuck's way, which James catches, and he becomes sad and runs away. Chuck gets a poisonous look and follows; Blair finally notices that she has reason for concern.
Jenny orders VITAMIN WATER at the bar and then Laurel comes up and orders some more VITAMIN WATER at the VITAMIN WATER WHITE PARTY and then they stand there and drink some refreshing VITAMIN WATER WHITE PARTY VITAMIN WATER, and finally Laurel, having had the shit refreshed out of her like only VITAMIN WATER can do, speaks.
("Man, that Vitamin Water was good. Plus all those vitamins, you know, in the water. I have truly had the everloving shit refreshed out of me. I haven't been refreshed like that since grade school.")
"So, Jenny... How did you manage to get in? And in that dress? You know, I checked at the door, and your name's not on the list, and they said you were someone's plus-one. But I told them that someone like you couldn't possibly know anyone here..." Laurel strokes Jenny's palm to lull her into a false sense of security and calm, to which she is susceptible having been so recently refreshed by the Vitamin Water until her eyes crossed, and then slyly pulls out a stainless steel knitting needle, but just as she's readying to stick it right through Jenny's draping hand, Tinsley Mortimer appears.
(That part is not a lie. We both know that I would totally lie and say Tinsley was there even if she wasn't -- with like a basket of four-leaf clovers and a magical hat that grants wishes, because she truly is like a unicorn in person form -- but in this particular case it came out not of my head, but of Gossip Girl's. And yeah, she is dressed crazy, but not that crazy. As a wise man once said, "Taste is a matter of taste.")
"Oh, look. Actually, here's someone I know coming right now," says Jenny, with none of the bitchiness those words suggest on the page. Eric introduces them to Tinsley Mortimer with much excitement w/r/t Jenny and not so much enthusiasm for Laurel. Tinsley and Jenny have a somewhat soul-killingly awkward conversation about this and that, "I have a look book full of pictures of you" and "you're so sweet" and "I used to cut your name into my abdomen with tiny little shallow cuts" and "OMG. Me too" and "I thought that if I said your name out loud a thousand times before 'We Break The Dawn' ended on the radio that we would be friends and now it came true" and "That's how I chose my husband" and "You have amazing taste" and "I can tell you're not lying." They talk about how Jenny's a "fashion" "designer" who is "wearing" currently one of her own "pieces" even though it's not white. And speaking of bone, I think I can see one where Laurel's digging her nails into her hand.
Blair totally tries to bluff: "Is something wrong?" Yeah, the whole making-Chuck-jealous thing. Is wrong. Blair denies and denies and finally James says something so effortlessly dorky and dumb that he instantly becomes my new favorite character: "It's no wonder you hate Charade . It hits too close to home." Now either Gossip Girl or James has not seen the movie, because it contains no actual charades or games of charades or anything that would make sense here. There are more identity games in Tiffany's for starters. (And if you think you haven't seen it, you have, it's the one Julia Roberts finishes watching before she goes downstairs to hear Richard Gere play a song on the piano, which he himself wrote, and this is what Richard Gere is like, all the time. Imagine.) Blair smiles that "asking a favor" smile that means she's edging up on begging, and tries to explain in a way that would only make sense if you A) were Blair and B) knew the whole story: "You don't understand. Chuck is an awful person. He does terrible things. He uses people!"
James points out that so does she, and he's Exhibit J. "I can't believe I've been so stupid. I bet you don't even like me at all." Blair rolls her eyes, but she knows when a jig is up. "...No. Not really, I mean... You're kind of boring." That is so awesome, I can't believe she said that. James asks if he actually is, or if she actually has no idea and never bothered to find out because she's an asshole. He nods to Chuck and leaves, telling her they deserve each other, and Chuck sliiiides on up beside her. "You really know how to hurt people. I admire you for it." Blair tells him it's his fault, because she wouldn't even have needed a James if he hadn't pulled his little stunt: "You made me use him!" Chuck points out that he did nothing, and she was just being her usual weird, manipulative self: "Don't you see? We're the same. Stop trying to fight it." Blair's fake tan is all, "I will fight until my last dying breath, because any resemblance to you is something I would hate about myself!" She runs off into the Vitamin Water White Party and he stands still in the middle of the Vitamin Water White Party but honestly they're both being exactly the same amount of ridiculously dramatic.
Party shots, Tinsley grinning at Little J across the pool, Serena dragging Nate around and accidentally past Catherine, trying to cheer him up. " What are you still doing here? " she spits at him, which is after all a valid question, because if anybody has reason to be antsy it's the felon cheating on her husband with a child, and Serena's all, "She is so out of Book Club," pointing out that Catherine is the total creep here and Nate has nothing to feel bad about, because of all people in this world Serena has first-hand experience with Nate's total lack of sexual accountability. "I just wish I could make her feel as badly as I feel right now," Nate says somewhat uncharacteristically, but Serena grabs him ("You totally can!") and kisses the hell out of him. It's AWESOME. Just entirely fabulous. Catherine stares, CeCe stares, everybody's freaked out, they break apart and then laugh their asses off. Until Serena sees Dan staring at them, the usual judgmental, idiotic thundercloud of self-satisfied bullshit forming as I type. "Spotted: Serena and Nate in a massive display of PDA... And that's exactly what Dan Humphrey is." (Perfectly Dickless Asshole? Pathetic, Dabbling Apprentice? Pretentious, Deluded Amateur. ) "Pretty Damn Angry." (Ah.)
He storms past, because of course Serena should magically have known that two months after dumping her for literally no reason he would appear at this random tacky party and she could not under any circumstances be spending time with a friend she's known since grade school, much less kissing anybody. And the reason for that is that he took the jitney, so he was on that bus for hours just thinking about how perfect it was going to be when he finally showed up and forgave her for the imaginary thing he needed to forgive her for, and she'd throw herself down at his feet and apologize for being rich and promise to make it up to him, no matter what he wanted, and she'd be grateful for it. Instead, she's having fun, because Serena does not give a fuck. She cares deeply about Dan and about mooning around, but now that she's worked out the whole murder thing for herself, he's got nothing on her.
Of course she immediately goes into fixer mode, for the third time this week, running after him all, "Wait, wait!" And he tells her no thanks, while doing a curious thing, which is standing very, very still, as if he thinks he's creating the illusion of walking away simply by saying no thanks. Serena points out that he appeared out of nowhere after two months, and surprised her, and he retaliates with the very nasty "I have to say you didn't. Nate, huh? I guess even bad history repeats itself." So, the girl you came to the Hamptons to find, you managed to call her a whore within the first three sentences. I have to say you're not really shocking me either, Dan. Slap him! Slap him silly! Slap him so hard he can't even order a Vitamin Water so he dies of dehydration.
Serena swears there's an explanation, she was helping Nate make somebody jealous, but she can't say who and she can't say why, which is not the point -- because the point is that Dan is being twice his usual cocksucker self from a position a tenth as valid -- and Dan says that no, still Serena is a whore because guess what: "It can't just be I kissed Nate. It has to be I kissed Nate because someone I can't name needed to see it for a reason I can't explain. It's the same drama, different city." Agreed, except all of that is also Dan's fault for being so manipulative and controlling in the first place that she feels like she has to hide and cover up and lie about the most basic shit in the fear that he'll throw a big fucking hissy fit about it ... which he's going to do anyway. He exits pompously off the "same drama, different city" line, and -- Thank God! -- runs smack into the two random girls from the reading. Long story short, they are stock footage in human form about how Dan's a dumb whore, then pour VITAMIN WATER on him. "Let me guess," Serena says -- in a not entirely arch manner -- "You can explain