The Gossip Girl Review: The Debarted

The Gossip Girl Review: Chuck Bass Sees Dead People

"The Island still needs you, Chuck."

So between planning the holiday party and the next glorious opportunity to shoot Serena’s boobs, the Gossip Girl producers asked the writers, “What was our biggest triumph last year?” The whole room said in unison, “Bart’s funeral,” and they were right. We got incredible performances out of Chuck and Blair, a really emotional ending, gripping and uncomfortable situations for pretty much all the characters, and a feeling that 2009 was going to be EPIC.

In short, the cake was a lie.

Bart Bass’ funeral episode was incredible because they just gave Chuck the damn ball and let him run roughshod over everyone. That’s it. This time around, I don’t know. The way they worked in Bart’s influcence over Chuck was just plain odd. For the Lost watching audience, there was no way to watch that and not think, “Did they just turn Bart into Christian Shepherd? What the hell is going on?”

I didn’t get it. Can’t we just throw Chuck the damn ball again and let him do what he does best? He didn’t need some ghost of fathers’ past last year and he certainly doesn’t need it now. It was too much, and sadly it took a lot of power out of what could have been a great Blair/Chuck episode, which we always enjoy.

For all of season three we’ve been watching Chuck come to Blair’s rescue, with maybe one or two exceptions. This episode was Blair’s chance to show us that she’s the strong one, to remind us that she IS a fierce force of good for those she loves…and they watered her down with the ghost of BART BASS? Get off my plane. On to the review!

Gossip Girl Review: The Lost Boy

GOSSIP GIRL REVIEW: WHERE PEOPLE ACTUALLY THINK THEY CAN OUTBID CHUCK BASS

“Why does that awkward British auctioneer keep saying ‘Ha?'”

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Gossip Girl, it’s that everyone sucks at keeping secrets. Sometimes it’s not their fault. Sometimes important pieces of the puzzle literally fall off a table into the hands of the Humphreys, who bumble and stumble their way into telling everyone in earshot that Serena got married in Spain and Blair could be pregnant with Basstard child. But mostly they can’t keep secrets because none of them know how to lie.
This was the first fun episode of the season because it finally gave us the power struggles and the schemes that we all crave. While it wasn’t exactly Chuck Bass making up a new student to unseat Blair (I still love that episode, shut up), it was good enough. That said, the wheels kind of fell off once we reached the least secure Sotheby’s auction in the history of mankind. The fact that we didn’t get just ONE punch thrown made me feel cheated. I’m getting ahead of myself.

THE LOST BOY

Georgina and Dan have now been hooking up, a fact that is thrust (See what I did there?) in Blair’s face when she doesn’t realize that an oversized sock on the door handle means occupants are gettin’ biz-ay. Blair leaves in a huff, Dan gives the first botched lie of the episode about forty seconds in, and Serena apparently didn’t hear the clopping of Blair’s heels and runs right into Dan, which sets Inexplicable Casanova up for his second lie in thirty seconds. He’s heating up!

At this point, Blair, Serena, and Vanessa (VANESSA!) feel free to judge Dan and mock the fact that he’s Humphreying the most devious, evil girl they’ve ever known. Two things: if I’m Dan Humphrey, I’m looking around at my present situation and thinking why not? There are groupies by the handful and Dan can take a crack at the conwoman who seduced him GUILT FREE! Have we ever known Dan to have standards OR discretion? NO! Secondly, and Serena headed me off on this before I could write it, there’s no WAY they can judge Dan after some of the stuff they’ve pulled…and for two out of three, it’s Chuck Bass.

People, and herpes, don't forget.

Then Vanessa stumbles onto Scott’s (Poor man’s Jacob Black) lie that he’s even a student at NYU, and we immediately jump back into the time-honored tradition of treading on Vanessa. Having the plot smack Vanessa around is like laughing at videos of skateboarders getting their nuts crushed: you’d feel worse if it didn’t just feel right. Vanessa of course gets this query confirmed when a girl behind a counter tells her he’s not enrolled. Counter Girl tries to soften this blow by telling Vanessa, “I used to date a guy who told me his dad invented the battery.”

So here are some facts about NYU students that Gossip Girl has given us: they sit in their rooms and watch documentaries about community gardens and can be convinced of pretty much anything. I have NYU’s Admissions Department on line 2, they say they need a word with the producers.

more after the jump.

Gossip Girl Review: The Freshmen

GOSSIP GIRL: Solo cups, headbands, and Serena’s still an idiot. 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

"We can both agree Asher Roth sucks, right?"

I can’t say I was blown away by this week’s episode, and GOD KNOWS we were all underwhelmed after that swing-and-a-miss that was the premiere, but it didn’t suck completely. In fact, it was one of the more true to life Gossip Girl episodes we’ve ever had.

After the prerequisite “where are they now?” episode, we finally had to face the music of college…and oddly, that music was real life Leighton Meester singing. Twice. Dan, Blair, Vanessa, and the kid who looks like a poor man’s Jacob Black are all at NYU, Chuck’s running Quantum, Lily/Eric/Jenny are irrelevant, and Serena is all about just messing her life up. We’ll address Serena in a bit, but let’s deal with the biggest waste of our time right off the bat.

Nate and Bree, fresh off their polo expedition (it still bugs me that an apparently competent Bree never realized that the polo match was an Archibald institution) decide that the only way to burn through their infant relationship is to lock themselves in a room until they hate each other. While this sounds like the pitch sheet for one of the worst reality TV shows of all time, it actually becomes the starting point to what should be a committed relationship (Which, by Gossip Girl timelines, will be all of five episodes maybe. Actually, five is pushing it).