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Gossip Girl: The Age of Dissonance

The Rundown

Gossip Girl is back! And Monday nights were looking so bleak.

Constance Billard and St. Jude are putting on their senior play, which naturally means the following: a) the play in question is The Age of Innocence, b) there’s a multi-million dollar production budget, c) Broadway’s hottest director has been enlisted, and d) Blair and Serena have been cast as Ellen and May, respectively.

Chuck has weaseled out of the production with an outlandish excuse so that he can run his empire, Blair is horrified that her leading man is Dan Humphrey, Serena has an unrequited crush on their director (despite the ghost of Aaron Rose past), Vanessa is filming it all for her constant documentary-in-progress, and Dorota is Blair’s hair and make-up lady and awesome as always.

Blair’s distaste over her romantic lead is thrown aside by a more shocking discovery: Nelly Yuki learns via text that she has gained early acceptance into Yale, which is quickly followed by a gloating GG post. Blair assumes that Nelly is the GG leak, but before she can fulfill her prophesy of “Nelly Yuki must be destroyed,” Nelly points out that Blair has made plenty of enemies willing to expose her humiliation to the internets.

Jenny is like this guy I went to high school with who dropped out sophomore year to homeschool instead and suddenly started coming to school more than when he was an actual student, which is to say, she is of course doing costumes for the play (except not really; see below). Dan’s reverse jailbait girlfriend Rachel shows up and the nearby older teachers quickly turn into a bunch of whispering mean girls. Dan entreats Jenny to pass Rachel a note, which you know will ultimately have disastrous consequences, especially since she returns the note to Jenny with her apartment key.

In the meantime, Chuck is still obsessed with the mysterious “Elle” despite the fact that she was wearing a mask during their initial meeting, is boring, and has a bad fake tan. So he sees her at lunch with his semi-archenemy Carter Baizen as “Hayley,” and she runs away and he offers to help her and then she gets kidnapped and then he finds her again and then she says that she was just using him and blah blah blah. All you need to know is that the annoying Eyes Wide Shut subplot seems to have gone away for now, at least as it pertains to “Elle,” and that Carter is back kicking around and seemingly part of the secret society.

Back to the interesting stuff. Blair hunts down Headmistress Queller and gets the lowdown on Yale, to wit, that they consider hazing a faculty member to be a serious offense and that she can pretty much kiss off her college dreams. Of course, telling Blair that she will not be attending Yale is akin to telling her that can’t wear gigantic bows on her head or plot revenge, so a nuclear meltdown commences.

To add insult to injury, Gossip Girl’s latest update concerns the cozy nature of Blair’s ex the Duke and his stepmother. Further incited, and having eliminated Nelly Yuki as the culprit, Blair now suspects Vanessa to be the source of the leaks. Alas, poor Blair is so downtrodden in her new Ellen Olenska role that not even Serena takes her sturm und drang seriously as she screeches death to Vanessa.

Serena is far more occupied with gaining the interest of director Julian, and goes out to dinner with him, Vanessa, and Nate. Vanessa and Julian have more in common to discuss and Serena and Nate sit and look pretty per usual. Vanessa later confesses to Serena that she finds Julian to be pompous and self-absorbed, which, to her credit, she confesses is pretty bad coming from her.

Meanwhile, Rufus has discovered Rachel’s note/key because Jenny is not a very good accomplice, and smolders mellowly. In a mortifying yet well-deserved turn, he confronts Rachel in her apartment and tells her to stop being a ho-bag and leave his son alone. Dan finds out from Jenny that his note was received by Rachel, but that its response and enclosed key was confiscated by Rufus. He knows he’s in the poop, but the whole “not while you’re under my roof” thing still eludes him.

Vanessa serves as the Cyrano de Bergerac to Serena’s Christian de Neuvillette (or, alternately, C.D. Bales to her Chris McConnell) and coaches her over an earpiece while Serena tries to impress Julian. Naturally, Nate overhears a key phrase and thinks that the unaware Vanessa is praising Julian directly and stomps off. Serena manages to impress Julian with her newfound eloquence, but her victory is cut short when she receives an ironically timed GG post on her phone about her getting into Yale on the sole basis of a press release.

Serena assumes that the Yale press release post was the work of a vengeful Blair. She essentially accuses Blair of being an irredeemably bad person and huffs off despite Blair’s denials of authorship. Dan decides to be a big boy and break it off with Rachel, but they end up getting busy backstage instead, which seems like mixed signals at best. Nate, who is already convinced that Julian has Vanessa in his thrall, is further incensed when Julian tells him that his acting skills are subpar and that clearly he “doesn’t know what it’s like to go bankrupt.” Clearly Julian does not read Page Six.

Teenage emotions and hormones are running high as the curtains open. In need of a target for her rage, Blair has decided that Dan is the GG source, and they squabble onstage sotto voce between lines. A group scene has Nate forget his lines and then break character in the most spectacular fashion, which as you might imagine, has the unintended adorability of an angered Pomeranian. This precipitates an onstage bitchfest, with everyone voicing their various displeasures, not least of which is Nelly Yuki’s ire about being stuck in a fat suit.

Charles Isherwood, THE important critic in the audience (there’s always one, isn’t there?) approaches Julian after the show, and before Julian can complain about the rank teenage amateurs that he’s been stuck with, compliments Julian on the “radical deconstruction of the 2nd act.” Julian is a pretentious jackass, so he naturally takes credit, to all the surrounding students’ disgust (even Serena’s). When Serena wonders aloud why she ever had a crush on him, Julian points out that he’s gay.

Through Blair’s angry onstage accusations, Dan has pieced together that there can be only one logical source: Rachel. Sickened by the Blair-like tactics that she’s resorted to, he breaks up with her in the most Dan Humphrey (read: self-righteous) manner possible. Encountering Blair on his way out, he reveals the source of the leaks and in the best line of the night, adds, “we also had sex in the costume closet, so you can do whatever you want with that.”

Blair approaches Rachel and asks her “how do I make your fate as bleak as mine?” Rachel is apologetic and wonders at what she’s become, to which I say, you weren’t all that great before you went commando, sister. Blair has seconds thoughts about punishing Rachel, as she realizes that no amount of torture will change her admission status.

Tying up the couples plot lines, Nate is still feeling out of sorts over the fact that he and Vanessa have nothing in common. Blah blah blah, exposition exposition, Nate watches the movie version of The Age of Innocence and decides to give the whole book learning/indie movie/stuff Vanessa likes thing the old college try. I don’t know how my dislike of Vanessa transformed into like (and a love of the Vanessa/Nate pairing), but there you go. Possibly my hatred of Rachel distracted me, but she tells Dan via a note written in the most childish handwriting possible (and using turquoise ink) that she is moving back to Iowa. Yay!

There is no darker or scarier Blair than a Blair untethered to her years of planning. Serena approaches her at one of these mystery bars where 18 year olds can get a martini, and Blair rejects her attempts at reconciliation. In the requisite heartbreaking Chuck/Blair turn, Chuck decides to stop mooning over lame masked women and waits at Blair’s place for her to come home. Not only is she still at the bar, but Carter Baizen shows up…and Blair seems to be okay with that.

Next week: Blair commences a new reign of destruction that involves Carter and the fact that Blair and Chuck can never get together despite my nightly prayers. I just hope this doesn’t bring back the Eyes Wide Shut subplot.

The Style

Best high school play costumes ever. Both Blair and Serena wore dresses from Marchesa’s fall 2008 collection.