The Dark Night
Updated 2008-09-16 08:48:34
Over shots of the usual NYC summer fun -- water hydrants, ice cream, being outdoors when you should not be outdoors, Al Gore applying SPF a billion -- GG offers some "simple tips to beat the heat." Parasols, fanning of oneself, etc. "One: drink plenty of fluids." Chuck Bass slurps down straight scotch. "Two: stay out of the sun." Jenny wrestles bolts of fabric and her purse down the sidewalk, apologizing to all and sundry. "Three: Limit all physical activity..." Dan and Serena make out in a doorway. "...That is, within reason." Blair drags Lord Marcus through her house, trying to make out all over him. "I thought you wanted my help with this party you're hosting," Marcus whines. "A back-to-school party for seniors and their parents? It can wait." Marcus isn't sure he agrees -- and what if somebody walks in, like Dorota? "So? Didn't you see Atonement ? That scene in the library when they're discovered?" It was hot. Lord Marcus hates hot. "No. No, Blair, that's not you. You're a delicate little flower. Nothing like that tart Keira Knightley."
All of this is news to Blair, who thinks of herself as quite Continental, not to mention being bored of riding bikes and skipping gaily through sun-dappled parks. It's time to get down: "It's just, we've been dating a while, and I thought..." Marcus lies that he feels the same way. "You're very special to me. I want the moment to equal it." He kisses her forehead, and just in case you thought this wasn't a British issue, he immediately and awkwardly protests that the tea is getting cold. He scampers off, and Blair stares after him like he's a bewildering turkey leg hallucination; Gossip Girl is loving it. "And if the heat's still too much, there's always a cold shower."
Jenny grunts and groans and picks shit up off the sidewalk while talking to Vanessa about Nate and his whole push-me-pull-you issue. "What was I saying? Oh, right, right: You like him, he likes you, so just call him." You know who I'm going to call to get relationship advice from before I go running to Jenny -- or anybody surnamed "Humphrey"? Literally everybody in the whole world. I would get Kim Jong Il's dating input first. I would also follow it first.
Vanessa points out that Nate stood her up, and Jenny applies some Humphrey logic to the situation: "He just made you wait a really long time and then called to cancel! That's completely different." I'm starting to see how Jenny could have dated that gay dude for so long without noticing what was up. "And besides, he only did that to spare you his family drama, which is just more proof that he likes you." Or, you know, finds you as pointless and unnecessary as everybody else in the world does. "And calling him won't look desperate?" Because, and I hate to keep harping on this, nobody knows how to avoid the appearance of desperation quite like a Humphrey. Case in point: "It might. It will. It will, but in a cute, romantic way."
Vanessa, aka Desperation Personified, asks a question with many, many itemized answers: "What is wrong with me?" Rather than reeling them off, Jenny waits for her to get more effing specific. "I am so not the whiny-should-I-call-him girl!" And points for introspection, because even Abrams knows she's more of a stalky-should-I-climb-in-his-window type of gal. "Exactly," Jenny agrees, "You are Vanessa the do-whatever-she-wants girl, and you want to call him, so just do it! Look, I gotta go. Laurel is gonna kill me, okay? Bye." I have to say, even though it's sort of a meeting of the irresistible idiot and the immovable freak, I like this scene. I am a sucker for empowerment, and just hearing Jenny call her that makes me like both their stupid asses a little bit more. Of course, if Vanessa Hate is what you're looking for, this is sadly not the week. This episode might as well be called "This Old Abrams," given the renovations in store. Jenny immediately drops everything and is reduced to asking passersby for help, but it's Manhattan so they're all talking on iPhones about gentrification or dumping their AIG stocks or whatever and they're too busy to help. Or maybe they just get a kick out of things going wrong for Jenny Humphrey.
Nate stands in a store being dressed by his scary MILF the Duchess, who muses that Ralph Lauren adores him before blowing off his request for yet more cash. "What happened to the money I gave you?" It's gone, but he swears he can pay her back when the accounts are unfrozen. Which, Catherine points out, won't be until the Captain comes back to the U.S., which is scheduled for the fifth of never. "...Where was it again? Dominica?" Nate gets very hushy-hushy about it and exclaims, wide-eyed and scandalized, that he told her that in confidence. "You told me that in bed ," she corrects deliciously, and he makes a face. "Relax, gorgeous. We can discuss this tomorrow over lunch. I got us a room at the Mercer, we can order in. I'm so glad this didn't end." He says "Me too," but what he means is, "How awesome is it that the tacit whoring I was doing last year has become actual explicit whoring this year?" She tosses the rest at him and runs off to get more ties so that Vanessa can call him.
So desperate are Nate's straits that he's actually excited to hear from her and answers the phone as happily as he used to when Jenny would call him to get her out of her various shoplifting emergencies. They have a vague conversation in the manner of Nate and Vanessa, so like basically a lot of stuttering occurs so that they can arrange a vague plan to see each other at some future time in some future location, and then Catherine comes back so he hangs up and lies that it was his mom, because one thing you should always do is talk about your mom in front of your Cougar Momma as much as possible. It's creepy on many levels! He mentions the big St. Jude's/Constance Billard party again, so that we know he's going to be at Blair's, and kisses her suddenly suspicious cheek before going off to try on his whore clothes.
Serena and Dan are walking down the street eating ice cream. I must say that the PA in charge of making everybody look totally sweaty and dewy and moist and unattractive to the touch really did his job in this scene. Maybe it was God, I have no idea when this was filmed. Dan refers to the big bash as their "coming out party," (Did you see SNL this week? James Franco does a better Penn Badgely than Penn does, although I will mention, in case it comes up later I guess, my belief that if Serena had a penis it would be huge , just like the rest of her) about which Serena has no fear at all, because people are going to figure it out. "We're not exactly the world's most covert secret couple," she says. You're not the most interesting couple either, so it's kind of a null sum. Dan says his family is getting a little "curious" about his new friend Clyde who keeps calling him. WTF is the point of this pageantry? God knows the only interesting thing about their family is the fact that Dan is dating a murderer and that has always been true. What do they talk about if Dan's not talking about Serena? Even if they weren't "secretly dating," his emo ass would still be chattering fucking nonstop about her.
Serena's excited: "See? Come on. We tell everybody once, and then it's done. And now -- thank you universe -- we have the perfect opportunity." A party hosted by Blair Waldorf, "The Biggest Dan Humphrey Supporter in all of Manhattan," as Dan calls her. Serena asks what the heck he's so afraid of that he keeps whining about everything, and because this also is a very short question with a very long, very boring answer, he reverts to smart-alecky: "Right now? Heatstroke." Which to be fair is a worthwhile concern, given the buckets they are continuing to sweat. I need a Gatorade just sitting here. She's moderately exasperated, because none of this drama makes sense to her, because she is Serena: she just wants to have fun. He realizes he's being flippant in exactly the wrong way, and sort of apologizes: "Look, right now things are just... They're so good between us, you know, and if we just start telling people..." What? What could anybody possibly say that would change it? He agrees with Serena that, as usual, the entire problem is in his stupid chiseled-cheekbone brain, and she kisses him, and they make out, and about a foot away there's a random Dawn Weiner snapping photos of them. GG: "Looks like your coming-out party just moved up!"
Chuck walks Ann (previous winner of the Katy Perry Experimental Lesbian Crush Award on ANTM , looking gorgeous as usual, to the door. "Rachel, I'll give you a call when I'm feeling better." He and Blair both get the GG blast about D and S being spotted snogging "like all is forgiven" in their separate houses; B shuts her phone in a disgusted rage ("I knew it!") as GG asks -- very fucking rhetorically from where I'm standing -- whether "round two" will be any different. No. No, it will not, because there is something broken inside of Dan Humphrey.
Jenny runs in squealing and sweats all over Dan because she's so excited about his rededication to eradicating anything good or cool about his girlfriend, after confirming that the photo wasn't doctored. I was going to say, "Yeah, like the GG readers are that pathetically into it and have that much time," but then I realized yeah they are and yeah they do, which is basically the point of the internet, so I didn't. Laurel calls again, so Jenny runs off again to answer the phone, so we are to understand that Jenny is just being worked to death still because being an intern is hard especially when you get your legs broken for losing the chiffon. Rufus seems moderately pleased for his son, but -- just as Dan predicted -- starts asking sensible, world-destroying questions like, "And you two have worked out all your issues?" And if you know Dan at all, you know that's all it takes to send him back to the dark side. I mean... The actual verbalized reasons for their breakup were right by being wrong, because Dan saying "I can't trust you" implicitly contains the dependent clause "...because my constant judgmental superiority paints you into a corner where you constantly have to lie to me, just so I'll stop yelling at you," but I mean, I think it would be awesome if they actually broke up and started seeing other people. Does anybody honestly care if they're together? I'm happy to have Dan and in fact the entire Brooklyn contingent on the show in their own right -- you heard me -- and at this point it's just kind of dumb. Dan lies that their problems have all magically disappeared, and Rufus looks at him funny, because their problems are still standing right in front of him.
Vanessa walks Nate down the street, wondering at his ability to avoid perspiring; he explains that on the Upper East Side, getting hot is frowned upon. They talk some more about how they should really get together at some future time at some future location, and she points out that time that he stood her up, and he promises it won't happen again, and then they have that conversation for the twelfth through eighteenth times, and hold hands near a Vespa, which is so like poetically perfect, and the point is that Catherine is watching them from a car down the street. Uh oh! Stalker versus stalker! "Rumor is, Nate Archibald has a hidden lady. Careful, N! Secrets don't keep long in this heat..."
Blair checks things off lists, which is right now her favorite thing she still gets to do, with Serena sitting happily, if distractedly, beside her, relaying messages and receipts from Dorota. "Eleanor comes home today," Serena notes. "You excited she finally gets to meet Marcus?" Blair is: "And see why he's so wonderful? It's not often you find a man who's intelligent, sophisticated, has an appreciation for Golden Age Hollywood and is a gentleman to boot." (Not unless you're Jenny, and then they fall on you out of the sky like hotdogs from heaven.) "You know he hasn't pressured me about sex once?" Her tone's brilliance falters a beat later: "Not once ." Serena says some meaningless pseudo-interested thing about this and then asks if Blair has any thoughts on her and Dan, since everybody now knows. "Even Dorota told me she was happy for me!"
Blair puts down her pen, and without looking up says she's happy for her. "B, I know you don't approve of him..." True , Blair scoffs. "And I know that he's not the Twenty-Second Lord of Westmorelandshire." Also true. S is sad, and finally just asks why B isn't being supportive. "Have you two talked about everything? All the very real reasons you broke up last year?" Serena admits that they have not, "not completely" anyway, and Blair says that when they do -- provided they're still together, which everybody including both of them knows they won't be -- she'll spout a little sunshine. "Till then, I think you're just fooling yourselves." Word, girl. Serena's put off, and B doesn't really care, answering the phone with a fake bright smile. "Duchess! To what do I owe this pleasure?" Serena mumbles and leaves; Blair just waves her away. And yes, there's a bit of irony in B daring to call anybody out on "fooling yourself," especially in terms of romance, but that doesn't mean she's wrong about this. "Sneaky little Nate! Yes, I know exactly the girl you're talking about. Her name is Vanessa. She lives in... Brooklyn ."
Nate gets off the Palace elevator into the Bass suite, where Chuck is swanning around in a Heff robe with a doobie in hand. "Smoke?" Nate begs off and Chuck asks what he wants. "About last week... Um, the money? I, uh, I might have overreacted a little." Chuck says that's an understatement, and Nate agrees. "Yeah. And, hey, if you can, I would love to take you up on the offer. As a loan..." Chuck reminds him of his mysterious other sources, which Nate characterizes as "asking for a lot," and Chuck is not that sorry to tell him more bad news: "I'd love to accommodate you, but when you spurned my offer I sent the money to my financial guides." Nate's eyes go wide. "It's tied up in bonds for six months." Nate swallows and plays it off, promising for the eightieth time to "find another way." (I think at this point it's safe to say that he will; I just wish it involved punching and then fucking over the Captain, God willing.) "So, uh, have you seen Blair and Lord Fauntleroy recently?" Of course not! Nate's been too busy alternately slumming and whoring that ass. Chuck evinces a big old headache and Nate asks if he's okay. Chuck hums in the negative, copping to being "off [his] game of late," but -- in his own little hopeful way -- says he's expecting a return to form soon. As in now, I guess: The butler brings in some girl from Tokyo and they bow to each other very slowly while Nate rolls his eyes and Chuck says "Konnichiwa" like it's a particularly exotic sex act and I have to say that is probably the weirdest thing that happens in the whole episode.
Laurel runs around pistol-whipping people and sticking things under their fingernails, which is a drag on any old day but especially today, because the A/C is out and Eleanor's on her way home. Jenny's task list for the day includes cleaning the atelier and bathrooms -- per Laurel, "Someone decided to give us a second look at breakfast" -- after she's done with the fitting she's doing. She explains to the model that Laurel believes in her interns paying their dues, and the model explains to us, like we're dumb, that Jenny really wants this. Jenny jumps right on the exposition train. "Why, because for the past three months I've put up with midnight coffee runs, fifteen-hour days, cleaning up after the two in-house bulimics, all so that Eleanor Waldorf will spend five minutes looking at my designs? Yeah. Yeah, I really, really do." Checking, checking... Nope. Still don't care.
Jenny fusses with the dress for awhile, concerned that something's not right with it, and that random, very familiar-looking girl has a conversation en français with Air France, the gist of which is that Eleanor's on time and heading to the Hudson. Laurel makes ready to run off, once more mentioning the party, and Jenny approaches with her design issues. Oh, Jenny. Laurel reaches back for her cat o' nine tails and asks if she ever saw Cinderella . Jenny thinks, "OMG that's my whole life, minus any parents or helpful authority figures of any kind," but just says yes, and Laurel reminds her of "the little birds that helped her dress," and how they "didn't offer their opinion," suggesting that Jenny try imagining she's one of those birds, and to fly the fuck away. Jenny does, narrowly missing the whooshing swoop of Laurel's vicious nunchuk attack.
It is SO HOT in NYC in the summer, you guys. I know this not from personal experience but from the fact that the show literally cannot shut up about it for five seconds. Which makes Dan's vest all the more hilarious. Serena bitches about Blair for a second before reining herself in, but Dan's all about Serena complaining about her friends, because that means she agrees with him that her life is empty and sick, so everything is perfect. "I mean, obviously we have things to talk about, and we'll talk about them, but it's no big deal, right?" Dan doesn't immediately reply, because the words of Rufus are echoing in his ears, and she freezes. "Oh, God. You agree with her!" I mean... This is what's happened so far. Dan and Serena were like, "If we tell people they'll start asking questions that we can't ignore!" And then people found out, and each of them got one person in their life asking questions that they can't ignore, and now they're like, "Holy shit, you too? These second thoughts are a bitch. Let's go back to not thinking at all." Lily (!) calls from Shanghai and Serena bounces off to take the call; Dan turns around to see the Three Middle Schoolers of the Apocalypse standing before him in Blair-wear, Penelope (I think) clothes, and Total Serena garb. Things are about to get awesome, I bet.
"Are you Dan Humphrey?" asks the Blair one, and he's like, "Yessss?" She starts bitching at him for getting back together with S: "Don't you know she's just gonna lie to you again?" The Penelope one is all, "She doesn't respect you. She never will." Dan, understandably amazed by how things just got amazing, asks the little girls WTF and Blair II explains: "We read about everything on Gossip Girl. Your whole breakup? We're on your side. Except for her, she's a Serena." Lil' S stares him down with an awesome, withering glare. Dan stammers and finally explains that what is happening is "both creepy and none of [their] business," and asks them to go. Serena comes back just then, relaying the info that Lily and Bart are on a yacht with some Greek prince. I love this show, because they do that all the time without even blinking. And actually, most of the time it's a yacht, come to think of it. Lil' S perks up when Giant S arrives, and Dan tells her to ignore all three of them.
Lil' S doesn't shut up at Dan's command, quite like her older counterpart: "Serena, how could you forgive him after sleeping with Georgina?" Their jaws both drop and he swears he didn't sleep with Sparks, and asks them to leave again. Penelopette complains that they're on his side, and Lil' S stands her ground. "Not me. His mouth kissed Georgina's! Think about that the next time you..." Serena laughs, flipping out a little, and says that she's now also telling them to move along. "Shoo," she says, and when they're gone she's all WTF, and Dan's like, "That... was Gossip Girl." They talk about how there are things they need to talk about but of course shift immediately to talking about when they're going to talk about talking about those issues, at some future time in some future location, and blah blah things are awkward because now the Gods themselves are sending tiny little imps to tell them to just break up already. What's really cool/interesting about this episode is that, three weeks in, we're finally back to where the cliffhangers left us, basically. So it seemed like a fake-out the whole time they were in the Hamptons, and by the end of this episode basically all those lies have become true. I love that.
Nate's sitting in Vanessa's Rufus coffee shop, ignoring her and taking texts from Catherine demanding his presence, and Vanessa gets all depressing and flirty trying to distract him, and just as they're about to go for Round 19 of the same goddamn conversation, Blair enters and everybody watching sits up a little straighter. "What an unusual little space! Half gallery, half boho coffee shop. But then unusual pairings seem to be the order of the day..." Unusual pairing exhibit N/V stares up at her hatefully, and N asks what she's doing there. Awesomely breezy, she grins down with wide, innocent eyes: "Being angry at you, for one! Here I thought I'd surprise you by bringing Vanessa to tonight's party, when lo and behold, you two have rekindled your love in secret!" (Total Blair plan! Throw everybody into a room, stir some shit up, watch fireworks. She'd do this even if she and Catherine weren't in a détente, just because it's awesome. I forgot how much I missed Scheme-y B.) "You came all the way to Brooklyn to invite me to a party for a school that I don't even go to?" Lest V think B would ever do her a goddamn favor in her life, Blair explains precisely that it was only as a favor for Nate, whose mother has apparently come down with a migraine. "When I thought of you coming all alone, I just wanted to do something nice. Is that so hard to believe?" As one, both Nate and Vanessa note that actually yes, it is hard to believe. And good on her. I wouldn't want Vanessa in my house either, going through my things like she does.
Vanessa excuses herself to accept a delivery and Nate whispers, "Blair, what are you really doing here? You can't stand Vanessa, and you've never done anything when something wasn't in it for you." Blair says she's not even having it, this whole MILF affair, and Nate asks if that means she's planning on distracting him with Vanessa. She says yes, but it's a total lie, and Nate at least knows that much: "It's just, as your plans go? It's kinda nice." Blair reminds him not to be offensive, and adds that if he's interested in holding onto Vanessa, he's going to have to "step it up." I love that Nate is so ineffectual that "stepping it up" in this case basically means "be in the same location, at the same time, for some finite amount of minutes." B's voice rises to its normal commanding pitch as Vanessa returns: "So I can look forward to seeing you tonight?" Nate agrees, and shakes off Vanessa's kind of pathetic joy at being allowed to accompany him to a party in a particularly gay way. B leaves and Nate makes a truly hilarious, resigned Fuck It face. Down on the street, B hollas at her Duchess: "It's me. He's bringing her. And for the record, whatever you're planning with Nate, my bedroom floor is off-limits."
A disappointed Asian "massage therapist" drags her stuff back Tokyo-ward; Chuck heads straight for the bar. Serena perches on the counter and beams down at Chuck: "Who was that?" He calls the departing woman a "whiff of the Far East," and Serena's all, "Sometimes I envy you, the way you just..." And it's an interesting acting choice that I hope pays off, because that's Old (or Next) Serena talking for a second before she catches herself. "Ew! What am I saying? You're disgusting." Chuck tells her to chill out, since "nothing happened with Madame Butterfly" anyway. Serena doesn't believe it at first, but -- note how Chuck, for all his bullshit and love of torturing her, actually does always approach Serena as his sister now, which I love so much -- Chuck assures her it's not happening, and hasn't been all week. Serena's agog, and he charmingly says he'll take her incredulity as a compliment. Serena keeps pushing, and he says he's tried everything, "from the erotic to the pharmaceutical." She laughs sweetly in his face and says that it's obvious: he's not over B.
Now, it's been a while since I was a teenage boy, but I think we can agree that while this is good for the funny, and a good storyline, it's about as realistic as a high school chorale singing "Glamorous" in their knee socks and, from where I'm standing, just as awesome. "This is your body's way of telling you," she says. And again, medically speaking, I think it would actually be his body's way of saying something is either dreadfully wrong , or else Nate just jumped a few lengths in the horserace for Chuck's dick. "I don't have a romantic bone in my body," Chuck says, looking down at himself angrily: "Least of all that one." Serena flounces around, and he admits she's raising an interesting idea. "Clearly there's some sort of... Blockage." He thinks for a bit, and she knows what he's going to say before he says it, registering a powerful disagreement. "One more go-round, just to clear the pipes." She orders him not to use B as "sexual Drano," which is evocative to say the least, and he smiles. "...I have to make myself presentable. I have a party to attend." I missed Scheme-y Rape-y Chuck, too! He downs his drink and winks at S: "By the way, congrats on you and Humphrey. Water always finds its own level." Chuck is ... so hot right now. When the hell did that happen?
Jenny continues to critique Eleanor's design, pointing out to the model that they could just hem the dress in some particular spot and get rid of "all that stuff by the collar," and the model agrees that it would be much improved. "I just... I feel like the dress is trying too hard. And this part is so '90s..." Cue Eleanor Waldorf materializing from out of the shadows and asking who the fuck Jenny is. "Uh... I'm Jenny Humphrey, the Parsons intern. Uh, I thought you were going home, Laurel went to go meet you." Nope, she came to the office. There's nothing at the house -- giving her daughter an eating disorder, writing letters to her gay husband, dressing her entire house in Veronica's Closet underwear -- that can't wait.
She sends the guy home with her bags and then marvels at how interns suddenly have opinions. Jenny ankle-dips her way into oblivion, backpedaling and eating shit, and Eleanor's like, "Telling the model that has to wear my design all the many, many things that are wrong with it?" Point. She sends the model home and looks at Jenny like she's a bug. Jenny continues to sweat and freak out, and promises it won't happen again. Which Eleanor somehow already knew. "Not here, at least. I need people around here that I can trust." Jenny's mouth opens and closes fifteen times like a codfish. "Clean out your station." Jenny's amazed, having taken apprenticeship lessons from her brother, Mr. "Jay McInerney Can Wait" himself. "No, please, you can't!" Eleanor sticks her hand in Jenny's face from across the room. "Oh yes please I can. And if you are still hoping for a letter of recommendation, you. Won't. Argue." She does the alligator fingers of STFU, Jenny starts to cry, and Eleanor stalks away bitching about the A/C. Oh Eleanor, jetlag is such a bitch! You couldn't smack her around just a little?
In a nod to the '70s heyday of anything-goes outdoor sex, Lord Marcus and Nate are both wandering the park, so they meet up and Marcus is like, "Will I see you at Bleh's tonight?" and mentions that he's bringing the Duchess, which freaks Nate out, and Marcus is all, "Oh yes. Oh, she and Bleh are fast friends, I always find them whispering in a corner. It's a bit troubling, come to think of it..." Marcus runs off and Nate's deltoids are just barely equal to the challenge of carrying the heavy burden of being Nathanial Archibald as he calls V to cancel on her leftover ass yet one more time. Gee, I hope they have yet one more conversation about that later, because I bet this time she'll really impress upon him how important she is to his world.
Rufus enters the DUMBO loft, where of course Vanessa's cat burglar ass is sitting at the counter being morose and unnecessary in the greater scheme of things. They chat and Rufus asks, awesomely, if Dan's "still reading one of those Dan-and-Serena-Should-They-Or-Shouldn't-They threads," and she's like, "Yes. Still." Rufus asks V why she's being maudlin this time and she hands him the "I am underappreciated" monologue she usually gives Nate and/or Jenny, basically verbatim from the teaser, and before Rufus can look her right in the eye and say, " Nobody is ever going to care ," Dan comes in and Rufus, saved by the dolt and knowing that he shared his self-Googling DNA with the next generation, is like, "What does the internet think about you right now?" Well, that's hilarious on many levels, but props to Dan for reporting honestly: "Turns out most people think I'm an ass, but a passionate minority holds I'm just an idiot." While the entire world agrees that you're a lot easier to take shirtless.
V lies and says that Nate will be along eventually, and Rufus offers to escort Dan to the party, because what's more unwelcome than Rufus Humphrey at a St. Jude's function at stately Waldorf Mansion? "Humphrey? Of the Hudson River Trailer Park Humphreys? You donated that urinal on the third floor, right?" Dan begs off, noting that things are "awkward enough" without adding an additional Humphrey to the equation, and Rufus says he's not necessarily the third wheel that he seems to be. "I can bring a date!" Dan laughs and admits that Rufus dating is "just within the gates" of the "realm of possibility." (Nice simile. How's that novel coming?) Rufus says one day he just might surprise you, and he and Vanessa share a glance completely devoid of any import unless you're gross inside, and Rufus props his chin on his hand and looks at Vanessa. As usual, the more boyish- and/or retarded-looking Rufus's pose, the cuter and more dashing he gets. "You know, if you really like this guy, you should call him. Tell him how you feel." Instead of pointing out that, now that he's repeated Jenny's dialogue from twenty minutes ago verbatim, her life has become one endless episode of Scooby Doo with that same vase racing past over and over and over again, she admits she's tempted by this "mature" (overdramatic, oblivious, completely self-involved) response. "Or if you're looking for something immature, you could tell him you left the phone in the gallery and never got the message. I've seen you be very forgetful..."
(Where the fuck did we, as a people, get the idea that climbing up on the coffee cart and declaring our undying love for people was a good idea? It's the stupidest, most solipsistic thing I can think of. I mean, romantic gestures are one thing, but if you're trying to answer a complicated question like this, I can't think of anything more pointless. If you honestly don't know how somebody feels about you, take a moment to remember that actually you totally do , and proceed accordingly. There's nothing grosser to me than taking something as beautiful and private as love and turning it into performance like that. "Until just this second, my feelings for you were actually about you, but watch! Boom, now they're all about me! Look at me, everybody! I'm going to publicly shame the object of my affection! It's a sign of respect!" Anything you get out of this transaction, you could have gotten to begin with by being straightforward. "Just tell him how you feel" is shorthand for, "I get that you feel powerless because he's not giving you the answer you want, so if you just act insane and make a spectacle of yourself, maybe that'll work. And if not -- and that's a tiny, tiny if -- well, at least you'll have severed any chance of meaningful contact with him moving forward. You'll either be his new girlfriend, or that crazy cart-climbing stalker that he avoids in the hallway, but at least you'll be somebody!")
Oh the glasses and their clinking at this party! Lord Marcus brings the Duchess of Beaton a cocktail, Blair explains to Nelly Yuki (NELLY YUKI!) that his "ancestral home" is next to Balmoral, and at some point Prince Harry ran naked across their lawn. Each year you go back that this could have happened, this story goes from being one kind of thing to completely some other kind of thing, but man, I personally translate Nelly Yuki's shrill scream of delight as an imminently sensible "Prince Harry can run naked across my lawn any old time." Harry is so the new Wills. Later, Penelope asks Blair if she's actually giving up on Yale, which she's obsessed about since she was a little girl. "I know, but Marcus keeps begging me to consider Oxford..." Chuck appears out of nowhere and decries Blair's "wasted potential." Penelope scatters, because she is Chuck and Blair's daughter from the future and if they're all in the same place at the same time, they'll figure it out and reject her and then she'll never become heir to the Phoenix Force and hunt her fellow mutants in a future dystopian wasteland. Blair asks what Chuck's on about, and of course he gets all rapey immediately. Thank God.
"The thing that always fascinated me about you: The cool exterior, the fire below." (Burlesque reference #1.) Blair awesomely reminds Chuck he's new money: "You are living proof a person can't buy class." Chuck dares her to lie and say that "Bertie Wooster" is satisfying her needs: "Titles aside, a suit of armor makes for a cold bedfellow." (#2.) Blair informs Chuck about her "amazing sex life" with Lord Marcus, and Chuck turns into a regular old octopus-handed pervert, turning her around in a sudden movement and then feelin' all over her and breathing in her ear and being totally, totally excellent. "What names does he call you when you make love?" Her face goes freaky and she's like this total slave to desire or whatever. "Where does he put his hand?" She breathes and acts like she's been hypnotized by Kaa. Like there are little horny circles whirling in her eyeballs.
"Does he..." And I don't know what he says, but it's too OMFG for the CW, and he gives her a furnace-breath in the ear, causing her eyeballs to roll hilariously up so far she's looking at her horny brain. "...Have sex with me," he says, and such is the erotic trance he has put her in that it actually takes her a second to snap on that. " What? " He assures her it would be just once -- "That's all I need" -- and she gives a good impression of being disgusted. Or, I mean, she would if you were only listening and not watching, because her mouth is saying "You are disgusting, and I hate you" but her body is still saying every naughty word it knows at the top of its imaginary lungs. "Then why are you still holding my hand?" She jerks away and runs off to host the party, but he grins because baby, it's back.
Dan picks up Serena and instead of talking about their problems like they said they would, they make awkward small talk, he tells her she looks great like fifty times, the lights flicker, they wait for the elevator, and Serena's so stuck for conversation she's like, "...Did you do anything this afternoon? ...Chuck had a Japanese stewardess over today..." Dan bangs on the button like a billion times, so Serena will stop talking about her family or herself or her day and go back to feeling quietly bad about herself.
Blair's displeased with Nate for not bringing Vanessa, and he says he's not putting V in her "trap or whatever it is," and she's like, "Please, you want me to feel bad? You're not exactly occupying the moral high ground, Archibald." I am so loving Blair's take on Nate, and the way they interact now. While I would love a spinoff that was just Nate and Serena having an awesome day once a week, because they're the only nice people on this show and I love them the most, I do wish he'd interact with everybody more often. It's like, all he ever, ever does is whore it up, hit his dad in the face, be gay with Chuck, and crap on Vanessa. Which is a valid spinoff of its own, and three of the many things I love about him, but I like him too much for that to be all. Especially considering his history with the two main ladies, he should be up in their confusion at all times.
"I just hope it's worth it," Nate says, speaking vaguely from his moral upper hand (given that he doesn't know what the plan is, because as usual there is no plan but for mayhem ) and once again reproducing an earlier scene (the time he pulled ethical rank on Jenny for the yogurt incident) and once again this causes the girl to question herself for all of five seconds before shrugging it off, because what, it's Nate, he just doesn't register. Catherine grabs Nate away from B and threateningly/sweetly notes how long it's been since they last spoke. Nate bitches at Catherine for using his friends for "some power play" to prove she's the one in control. I adore, absolutely adore, how at no point in the episode does anybody, including the perps themselves, ever figure out the actual evil plan here. Every single person involved in this is like, "...And then bad shit happens. Which we'll get to, if it works out that way."
"I don't like sharing my toys. Especially if I've paid for them," says Catherine. Way to point out the tadpole in the room, lady. "Where's your friend? I was looking forward to meeting her." Nate tells her to go fuck herself in all ways simultaneously, and she quickly apologizes for being, in all honestly, pretty much a total cunt just then, taking his hand. Cue Vanessa arriving on her own -- now, and for the rest of her life -- taking a big sip from the steaming hot cup of Nate's bullshit, and turning on her heel to go barf somewhere, uttering a desultory OMG as she goes. Which is all it takes to interrupt the power grid of the entire Upper East Side, because when God heard that, he was like, "The fuck is Vanessa doing at a party at the Hudson? Oh, hell no." The Elevator of Avoidance, the Atelier of Abuse, all swanky places go black. Blair, of course, immediately barks, "It'll be fine!" but privately she's worried that GG is right: "Sorry to break it to you, B, but this party just went over to the dark side."
B roams the party, bearing candles and news: the blackout's city-wide, everything's going to be fine. Nate chases Vanessa through the people and finds her being held quite tightly by Lord Marcus, who is refusing to let her flee the scene because he thinks her safety is important. Okay, here's where my knowledge fails: I get that a blackout is scary and that everything doesn't work, but I don't understand the danger here. In Houston it's like Beirut right now, for sure, and in my new neighborhood in East Austin I would not at all be interested in running out into the street at a time like this, but: it's the Upper East Side. Maybe this show has just painted too rosy a picture, but all I can picture in my mind's eye is like hedge fund managers breaking into microbreweries and calling each other "bro" or like razing those cheap multipurpose condo-slash-Starbucks-slash-Chico's places to the ground while calling each other "bro." That's what UES looting says to me. Are there actual human beings on the UES? Why have we not seen them? And more importantly, if there are, and they are actively running buck wild right now during the blackout , why can't we see them? Just a glimpse. Plus meanwhile I'm so sure Vanessa can't take care of herself, being an accomplished felon hailing from the rough streets of Hudson River Trailer Park via some maple-syrup harvesting commune in Lesbian, Vermont, pop. most of Vermont, and besides, I'm so sure she would even make it down that many flights of stairs. She'd give up halfway and be like, "I should just call these stairs and tell them how I feel."
Nate pulls Vanessa into a side room with much hushing, as grateful for the distraction as for the chance to actually be involved in drama for once. "I can't believe this! Here I kept thinking, Nate's so much different than Blair and all the others. But you're just as bad!" Nate says it's not that simple, and Vanessa actually manages to get through this whole scene by playing the Dan card legitimately: "Are you sleeping with that woman?" Well, yes. She nods sadly. "Is that the reason you keep canceling on me?" Also yes, but. "No, Nate. There are no buts. You lied to me, and you're sleeping with some Mrs. Robinson, and while on the Upper East Side that might be totally normal?" Nice line, but not as perfectly perfect as the next line, which (combined with the rest of the episode pretty much made me like Vanessa Abrams. I know!) she issues in a perfectly understandable edge-of-tears voice: "I didn't sign up for some creepy love triangle with you and someone's mom." And as great as that line is, both in character and as a proper summing up, Nate's is maybe the line of the week: "She's giving me money! " Awesome. Just awesome. I saw this in a theatre with a bunch of people and there was this like audible gasp of wonderment when he said that. It was like he pulled off his wig, was how effective this scene was. Vanessa's like, "Okay, what did I just say? " He protests that he and his mom are in terrible straits as usual, and that he didn't have options; Vanessa is once again the good version of Dan, with a candle in her hand, turning softly and looking him in the eye. "Tell me everything."
Oh, this part is also awesome. A butler passes by, wonderfully enough, with a flashlight and canapés as B lights candles and tells everybody to drink up, have a candle, stop bitching, the power will be back soon. Catherine comes running up asking if she's seen Nate, and Blair offers the second-best line of the night: "Um, no. It's a blackout ." Catherine whines about him running off with Vanessa, and it's just so Blair that when the chips are down and she has to choose between somebody else's bullshit drama and her own party going south due to an act of God, she just immediately stops caring about the first thing. "Honestly, Catherine? So what? If they want to be together, you can't stop them. Just deal with it." Catherine hisses that B wouldn't understand, and B pushes her sudden advantage: "Hot young guy, aging beauty, enjoying her last hurrah before the surgeries start? It's called a cliché?" Catherine rallies and gets in her face, as interested as she is in explaining her personal story as she is in shutting B up, framing it as a proof.
Axiom One: "Is Marcus everything you could possibly hope for?" Absolutely accepted. Axiom Two: "Really? There's not one thing that's missing?" Hmm. Axiom Three: "That one thing you tell yourself you can live without? That you'd happily sacrifice for the rest?" B is flummoxed, because what? Because being British runs in the family, that's what. Conclusion: "You're gonna sacrifice it every day for the rest of your life." Ergo: "Nate makes me feel alive. I'm not gonna give that up." B is stricken, but like I'm so sure you have to be in a sham marriage to want to fuck Nate Archibald. Chuck is neither married nor gay and that's still like his favorite thing. Still, it's persuasive.
TO ME, MY HOUNDS OF UPPANCE! THY TIME IS COME! Dan calls on the elevator phone to notify the people, and he thanks them and hangs up. "Well, it's a citywide blackout, so the guy says we just have to wait." Serena very carefully does not say something, and Dan notices. "What?" She gives a cute smile and shakes her head, because this is a thing she learned right away. (I think the idea at the time was that if you got Dan Humphrey stoned or drunk and turned on Dynasty , it would take him no time at all to say without prompting, "See those rich people? My girlfriend's a bitch.") "I know when you're thinking of something. Just tell me," he says, like the understanding boyfriend he is incapable of being. She begs off, and he keeps pushing, so after denying him his passion three times, she finally is like, well obviously you should have mentioned my name. "Are you kidding ?" he says, and she's like, forget it. "No, seriously. You think that there's like a box that says Open In Event Of Serena Van Der Woodsen Emergency?" Basically yeah, but she's more diplomatic than I would be, obviously: "I live in the building. That's all."
There's an edge in her voice I haven't heard before. Is it... Is it possible that the "many reasons" for their breakup are the actual reasons for their breakup? Is it possible that the total nastiness of this one part of Dan is about to be uttered aloud? Because that's all I'm asking. Everybody's got their creepy surprise parties and there are lots of reasons to love Dan, and the second somebody (preferably S) says it aloud, I'm in. Because that means he's in the game, which is all I ever wanted. But like if that happens, I won't have anybody left to hate, because Jenny is a moron, bless her heart, and her dad is about to get interesting again when Lily comes home next week. I prefer a world where I don't hate anybody but ... As it is, I tell like three jokes a recap, and most of them are at Dan's or Vanessa's expense. I'm going to have to reinvent myself.
Dan's like, "There are an entire city's worth of people stuck in elevators right now." Valid. Serena tells him to shut up about it, if he's not going to call, because his constant outrage as a class warrior just makes it hotter. Also valid. Dan stands there for five seconds -- good on you -- before vengefully grabbing the phone. She's like, "OMG proving a point, forget it" but he just tells the guy that yes, yes he just called, sorry, but he forgot to mention Serena van der Woodsen was also in the elevator. "...Okay. Thanks." He stands very, very quietly for a long, long while, and then in the most amazing, endearing deadpan, goes, "Well, they're gonna send someone, so..." He stares at the ceiling. Honestly it should feel better than it does, because my black heart is having a whole Cindy Lou Who moment right now.
Speaking of, Jenny's on her way out the door into the terrifying chaos of a UES power outage and Eleanor's like, "Even being the only parent worse than yours, I will not send you out into a blackout. Don't you know there are Bros out there looting the Pottery Barn?" She grabs Jenny roughly by the wrist and swings her around in the air -- that part was awesome -- and places her across the table, holding a flashlight on her designs. Jenny gives in, because that's her Indian name, "Gives In To Whatever All The Effing Time No Matter What Because Of Self Esteem," and Eleanor privately natters about the neckline on a dress she's looking at. Jenny says it's sooooo cute and Eleanor's like, "Sack up and pretend you're Tina Fey. I can't fire you twice, although I can beat you until the sun comes up." Jenny says it looks like "a Pilgrim at a funeral" even though what it looks like is something Blair would wear, which it occurs to me that Blair kind of does dress like a Pilgrim who dropped acid ten minutes before a funeral. Jenny apologizes for having an opinion, but Eleanor tells her that she's absolutely right, and not to let it go to her head. (She immediately does.)
Nate wraps up his whole sordid story by saying that Anne is still under the impression that Chuck is funding their lifestyle, so she's not asking questions about the Duchy millions, and Vanessa again asks for the UES ethical tutorial. "So borrowing money from your son's friend is fine, but whoring him out to pay the club bill isn't?" ...Yeah? I don't even get how that's confusing. "Do you wanna be with this woman?" Nate says that, now that they are out of the Hamptons and he's being forced to budget his time more carefully, he no longer wants to fuck the very hot Catherine, but instead wants to be with the very lovely Vanessa. In both cases it's a trade-off of unimaginable proportions. However, he realizes that Vanessa is too upstanding to love a common whore like him, and Vanessa's like, "Not so fast, cowboy." She tells him he's "better than this," which, how would anybody know because it's all he's ever done on this show, and sends him out to break up with Catherine and become poor, just like she always wanted, with her homeschooled minimum-wage ass.
He nods, they touch melons intimately, the magical Humphriana music happens so you know this is supposed to be a positive moral choice and not the total death blow to his family and lifestyle that it actually is, and he goes off to dump the MILF. She's like, "I'll be here until you get back," and instead of snorting and being like, "For many reasons, number one being that you can't leave this house right now and number two being that you are a total stalker as a way of life," he kisses her hand. Oh, Nate. I put up with mountains of shit for loving him so much but it's like... He's not the kind of guy you want to date, but it would be nice if he was in love with you and being all annoying about it all the time and kissing your hand and being a boring but standup kind of guy and climbing up on coffee carts and whatnot. Which is also what makes him a very good friend, because right now he's totally drowning in just absolutely fantastical bullshit, but all he's worried about is making sure Vanessa, Anne Archibald, Chuck -- even the Captain -- don't have a bad day. That's all he's got. It's a lot.
That PA with his spritzer of fictional sweat has, once again, gone completely insane on everybody. The entire cast is moister than Leo in Romeo + Juliet at this point. Marcus is doing something lordly on the phone when B runs up and attempts to eat his face; he responds by weakly mentioning that he's on with the building manager, and she's like, "I need you." She kisses him all hardcore again and he's not getting it. "What? Has something happened? Everyone seems quite calm." Um yeah something happened, your mom just instilled my clitoris with a sense of mortality. She attempts to climb him and he's all, "Get off me! We are Hosts ." Which normally would snap her out of it, and good on him for knowing that, but the poor thing's got the Black Snake Moan! Only the lukewarm attentions of a disinterested toff will satisfy! "MAKE ME FEEL ALIVE!" the sex-crazed demon in Blair's adorable party dress screams as her hair comes alive, crawling with sparks and flames and lighting up the night. Lord Marcus's junk is, frankly, terrified.
Blair does not care! Blair is On Fire to a Springsteenian degree! Someone took a dull baby knife and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of her soul! It was the perverse Tantric sex magics of Chuck Bass and the total Nate-fucking desperation of the Duchess of Beaton that did that! She's been bitten by the tarantula of love! It is time! Blair is a good liar because she never knows when she is lying or when she is telling the truth because she believes the version of reality she has committed to absolutely which is why she's such a success most of the time! This is one of those times where that is happening! MAKE HER FEEL ALIVE! There is a vigorous hardcore porno about to explode all over your life if you are man enough to accept it! SHUT UP AND COME TO MY BEDROOM says the Blair creature (while the actual Blair is like, "OMG the things I do to prove I'm in control suddenly involve pretending to be completely out of control on a level I can't even consciously control," which is what it's like to be a grown up, only all the time) and runs off. And while Lord Marcus is getting the vapors and wishing he had a hot water bottle and a down comforter right about now, it's Chuck who chases after her. And not by his nose, either. "Looks like Lady B is determined to have it all. Question is, who with?"
Vanessa, no doubt going through every nook and cranny of the random library or dining room or library or swimming pool or wherever Nate left her, assumes that it's Nate returning when the door snaps shut in the darkness. But no: it's Catherine. "Actually, I was looking for him myself." And you know, it's a sign of respect that I really appreciate actually, that this is an act break. It's not Dan/Serena finally fucking tearing each other limb from limb, it's not Blair tying Marcus to the bedpost or finally getting that threesome she deserves, or Jenny becoming Eleanor's favorite daughter or Rufus cutting Lily's name into his skin over and over in the dark, but just this: Vanessa, being smarter and stronger than anybody ever was, in the dark, with an adulterous MILF who's, frankly, nearly respectable at this point. The two least-talked-about characters, Vanessa and Nate, totally own this episode , and I like how the episode is just going to pretend we care. That's sweet. And it kind of... makes you care.
"Vanessa, is it?" V stares disgustedly at Catherine, who is about to stop being polite and start getting real. "Oh, I see. You're thinking, look at this awful woman who's taking advantage of an innocent young boy." Yep, pretty much: "Nate told me everything. I think what you're doing is disgusting." Catherine points out how Brooklyn-sad this tableau is, then: "And yet you're here, waiting for him, willing to forgive and forget. You must really care for him." Dude, the Duchess can say any line of dialogue, no matter how Chronicles of Ridic it is, and it's still awesome. I'm so thankful for the aristocracy on this show right now. Vanessa blows her off Blair-style about how she wouldn't understand, but Catherine begs to differ: "See, that's where you're wrong. You have no idea how I feel about Nate and what I would do to keep him. You want me to tell you?" OMFG YES. Please, please let it involve paparazzi on the Pont D'Alma levels of corruption. It's totally scary, but to her credit V doesn't back down.
Blair Waldorf sits on her bed, pretty as a picture, waiting for her life to begin. There's a sound at the door, and she nearly whispers. Anything is better than this, anything is better than knowing you've pledged your life to a pursuit as fruitless as Eleanor and Harold's. All she needed, she said, was for him to look good, and for her to look good. They'll look good together. But the Duchess can't be right; she can't be that girl. That whiny-why-won't-he-fuck-me girl. She saved Jenny from that; she would never be there in the first place. She loves her mother, and she loves her father. She loves Eric van der Woodsen. This is not the story she belongs in. She wills herself out of that story, and into a new one. She invites him in, to a prettier picture: "Marcus, is that you?" And her visitor's response, well. The whole Gossip Girl dress-a-like thing was meta, but here you've got a British guy doing an American guy's impersonation of a British accent when Chuck says, "Blow out your candle." And ordinarily that would be casual snark, noting the particular absurdities of like this business we call show, but: that's all they ever do, isn't it? It's all she's ever done: impersonate somebody, impersonating somebody else, impersonating perfection. The burlesque. She listens to this lie, and what it means. Heathcliff at the door pretending higher aristocracy, Jay Gatsby with all the money in the world. She blows that motherfucking candle right the hell out.
Someone enters her chamber, pretty as a picture. Lit by the window, he takes her in his arms and they kiss. The cool exterior, the fire below. The suit of armor, forgotten on the floor. She pulls him too her, even more forceful than he. It's in black and white, set against the window; it's hot. It's not about the darkness or the light; it's about that thing you were missing until you noticed you were missing it. This is a show whose title says, "This is about surveillance. This is about a surveillance culture, where you're on camera all the time. Paparazzo or Cheney, smile! You're being documented." Everybody knows everything because GG is everywhere, because rumor and reputation and gossip are everywhere. The person you are, and the person everybody thinks you are, and the person you want everybody to think you are. And then there's the Dark Night, where the masks come off and everybody -- for once, even Serena -- tells the truth.
We're talking about a couple whose every interaction, every line of dialogue, is about spinning English on the actuality, because the actuality cuts too close to the bone. Blair and Chuck pretend, on odd- or even-numbered days, that they are all about power, about moving everybody else around on a chessboard. That's their thing. But the truth is that the thing they have in common is, as ever, stark fear at being discovered on their day off. Their burlesque is built on eyes and gossip and reputation. Without it, they are nothing. Equally hard core, in different ways. Tonight the masks come off, but these two are the only ones who are, for most of the sunlit day, mostly mask. Nate too: The desperation here is born of the fact that they've never been allowed to look at what's underneath, but for spots and glances. There's always somebody watching. The UES stacks the deck against love.
Chuck's mask is that he's a reprobate so he can't love anybody so he can't love Blair so he has to fuck everybody so he has to fuck Blair. Blair's mask is that she's perfect so she must love somebody perfect so she can't love Chuck so she has to love Marcus who won't fuck her. It's about power, and it's about the public and the private face. Lily's about another kind of mask; Eric's about the repudiation of masks, and his sister and Nate spend most of their lives trying not to wear masks, and constantly being forced into it to save hearts and lives. The new aristocracy doesn't have masks beyond normalcy, and gosh, the Brooklyn crew don't even have masks, because they can't afford them. But if you ask this show what it's about, it'll tell you: gossip, reputation, masks. The terrible, wonderful risk of letting those masks fall. And here, now, even for just these two, even in the dark: there are real things and fake things. This is one of the real things and they don't even know it: they know the other one could fuck them over at any time, if they give in. The UES stacks the deck against love. But the lights are out and, for an hour, nobody is watching. Nothing is performance. No coffee carts, no vows, nothing but this: bodies and desire. Feeling alive, in the dark, before the lights come on again.
"I spent the last month going around and meeting with the stores and the boutiques that carry my clothes." Jenny breathes: awesome. "I felt like a fat cheerleader." (Like my daughter; like an out-of-work model; like somebody whose husband leaves her holding the bag.) "As a designer, your worst fear is becoming irrelevant. Then I come back here, and find out the teenage intern tells me that exact thing." Jenny apologizes, but Eleanor's never been one for the easy truth: just for keeping quiet about it. In real life I would love Eleanor and overlook what she did, but the sad thing about TV is that I know Blair better and I can't. "Maybe that is exactly what I needed to hear." Speaking of, Jenny brains up and tells Eleanor the thing she needs to hear, and the thing Jenny needs to say. Canny: "You know, the first real dress I ever bought was one of yours." Eleanor shoots her a look and tells her to spare the pity and spoil the neurotic designer. "It's true! I bought it from... Well, from a consignment store..." Eleanor grunts in understanding: not judging, just understanding. "...Because that was the only way I could afford it." Eleanor nods, fanning herself.
I want to know about Eleanor's childhood. Because we already know her love life is isomorphic to Jenny's, and we know Harold is independently wealthy, and Eleanor is artistically gifted, so: are they the same? (Does Eleanor, in fact, have a brother I despise more than words can say? And will she, fingers crossed, give Jenny a raging eating disorder in addition to loving her more than Blair? Because I am now convinced that's what is happening, which is just so perfectly awesome.) "I was twelve, and I just wore it around the apartment. For months. It was one of the first things that made me want to become a designer." Jenny -- canny -- turns her flashlight on Eleanor's face to gauge her response. Which is just so beautiful, because she's not lying, but burlesque never is. "Jenny," Eleanor says distractedly, fanning herself, hiding her eyes with the fan before Jenny's flashlight onslaught: "The light."
HOUNDS! "What do you want, Dan? For me to never say my name?" And even given that they were supposed to talk about this tonight, and being stuck in an elevator is a perfect opportunity, I still can't exactly complain about his response: "I'm not gonna get into this now." Serena ... basically says what I just said, that &