Gossip Girl: A Wedding and Four Funerals

"Don't worry Kim, the dump truck full of money is on its way."

Well, that's that. A whole set of stories came to an end on Gossip Girl last night, didn't they? Goodbye, "Georgina Sparks Lives for a Day." See ya in hell, "The Baby-Leavers Club: Lily's Great Idea." Auf Wiedersehen, "Bree to Be You and Me." Nice knowing you, "Baizen Helen." Lots of stuff was torn down and not much was built up in its place, but I'm sure next week we'll have whole new intrigues to consider. For now, though, let's sift through the wreckage.

Dan Humphrey has a tiny computer. That's how the episode opened, after a gooey montage of people in love and Erik lying weeping and alone in a gutter, with Dan perching his tiny 'puter on a fire hydrant or something and having an e-g-chat-bbm-text-mail with his movie star girlfriend, Hilary Duff. See, Hilary's over in Japan promoting her new movie, I Know Who Killed Haylie Duff, so they have to iSkype on their video phones and make jokes about Harujuku girls and Godzirra. Ohhh youth! So clever and butt-faced. Anyway, while Dan was all happy and in new, fleshy lurve with pasty old Lizzie McGuire, Vanessa was wearing her best cavewoman wig (srsly, lady... the hair... THE HAIR) and frowning about everything. While frowning, Georgina sneaked up behind her and said "Guess whoooo?" After whirling around and throwing hot coffee in her face, Vanessa said "Oh... Georgina. Hi." Georgina was writhing on the floor, shrieking in pain, but eventually composed herself, stood up and said "I know a seeecrettt..."

"Uh oh," thought Vanessa. "She knows about Haylie..." But, no, no it wasn't that. See Georgina had just been in Boston investigating the whole Paddington situation--whose brother was he, whose son was he, can he fly, does he in fact park his car in Harvard yard--and had, of course, found out that Paddington really is Rufus and Lilly's bohemian abandoned love child, and she also knew that Vanessa hadn't told Dan. And because Vanessa lacks any clear motivation or character consistency, she got embroiled in a whole blackmail imbroglio. See, Georgina knew that Vanessa didn't want Dan to know and Georgina also knew that Dan was getting to know (in the biblical sense) Hilary Duff, so she wanted the cavelady to try and convince Dan to stop dating the movie star and re-date sad Georgie, or else she'd tell everyone and V would look like a total sneak. Vanessa said she would do it, which led to weird Jessica Szohr comedy bits in which she read from cue cards and and stuttered and made weird faces and, yes dear friends, there was like 10 minutes of national television last night that was just Jessica Szohr and Michelle Trachtenberg acting, and... pffshhhh. That should probably not exist.

Anyway, Vanessa/Georgina's strategy was to lamely try and convince Dan that Hilary was shtupping Orlando Bloom while promoting her movie, and that would involve Photoshopped tabloid pictures if necessary. While Vanessa was trying to cobble together this hideous Hollywood couple, Dan walked in. So he discovered Vanessa on her bed with her laptop and pictures of Orlando Bloom and Hilary Duff and when Vanessa saw him she yelped and shut the computer. She was clearly very scared and embarrassed. Dan, all too familiar with how it feels to be caught lying in bed and doing embarrassing things while looking at pictures of Orlando Bloom, was kind and concerned. See, he thought that Vanessa was acting weird about Hilary because she was in love with him. Jenny and that sad little boy she hangs around with convinced him of this. Vanessa loves Dan and isn't that awkward. Except, no, Dan, that's not it. (I've probably never liked Vanessa more than when she said to Dan "I'm not in love with you, you moron." It was funny.) So Dan was a little chagrined that Vanessa wasn't in love with him because he'd been thinking about giving her weird, cave-like pity sex all the way on the walk over, but he still wanted to know just what the F was up. Vanessa sighed. "Well, see... the thing is... um... that dude Paddington what I been bonin'? He really is your deformed incest baby that you, Serena, Rufus, and Lily made last season." Dan was stunned. Dan was shocked. Dan was flabbergasted. Well, actually, he wasn't. We didn't get to see his reaction scene. It just cut to a few days later, when other things were heating up.

See another thing that the writers decided we'd like to spend our precious non-work time watching last night was some sort of pas de deux between the eldersex panic that is Rufus and Lily. They're the only adults on the show and I guess some real-life adults watch the show with their kids and need to see regular adult love triangles lest they get too invested/turned on by the teen trysts and feel creepy about themselves, so Rufus and Lily were kind of the stars of the episode last night. Yes, on Gossip Girl, a show about kids and their fashions and sometimes about Polish maids, we sat and watched a wholleeeee episode about damn old people and the leathery little foundling they popped out of their no no special places like a million years ago. It was a curious episode for this reason. This Rufus and Lilying. But anyway! The couple was having problems because Rufus just didn't get Lily's whole society life and Lily just didn't understand Rufus's whole... erm... rocker? life. So maybe they weren't the best couple, perhaps they weren't destined to be the way Erik and his beloved boyfriend Abject Loneliness are meant to be together. But the kids, meddling little shits that they are, decided that they weren't accepting that. So they organized a little meet and greet for the Lilster and Rumper and after they fought for a bit, eventually they kissed and made up over the phone and decided to get married right away. Like... the next day!

Oh, so suddenly there was a wedding to plan, and because Lily is the saddest, loneliest woman in the world (well, second saddest and loneliest woman after Erik), she didn't have any grownup friends who could help her, just annoying teenage girls who she barely knows. If I'm ever planning my wedding and alls I have to help me is lame-o teenage girls, maybe I should really focus on myself rather than dragging another person into my curious misery for the rest of eternity. But, that's just the way I think. Lily sees no problem with this, she doesn't sweat it. What she does sweat is writing her damn vows. She tried one set of vows, but Serena got really frustrated and broke a vase over Lily's head and said "Those are the vows that you read to the German guy you married for two weeks!" And Lily seemed confused and she shook her head and said "Oh dear... oh dear..." And Serena realized that her mother was very old and very tired and very disoriented. "It's OK, Mom" Serena cooed. "Why don't you just lie down and I'll get you some prune juice." "Oh dear, oh dear..." Lily kept saying. Old people are hard to deal with. What can you do about it.

Lily safely shivering and near death while a bunch of hormonal adolescents planned her wedding, the cameras whisked across the East River and over to the DUMBO loft for dumbos that is the humble Casa Humphrey. There a relaxed Rufus smoked his peace pipe and zenned out, while his shark-faced son Dan was wigging the F out. Well, actually, no he wasn't. I mean, you'd expect him to be wigging out, considering he just found out that his secret brother who was supposed to be dead isn't actually dead. But instead he was mostly just mildly concerned, vaguely startled. "Huh, living half brother. My dad did it to that lady he's marrying later today and they have a 20-year-old son now. Hm. What's for lunch?" The one thing he wanted to stop was his dads finding out before the big knot tying. It would just ruin the whole wedding. No, he wanted to be nice and wait til tomorrow to tell Roofie, so just the honeymoon would be ruined. The problem was that Georgina was on the blackmail rampage and the only thing that would stop her would be muscly, wooden relations with one Dan the Man Humphrey. So, shouldering his duty bravely and square-jawedly, he trundled off to delay Georgina from dropping her bomb for just a day.

"I look so much like a catfish it's insane."

When they met, he tried to act totes casual and really into her, though he was just dumbly repeating Vanessa's note card talking points from the earlier, zanier part of the episode. That wily Trachtenberger eventually figured out that Dan did not, in fact, want to wipe the slate clean and start over with her, that he had not been dumped for Orlando Bloom, after they really grossly kissed and Dan didn't touch her ass. And, ew, Dan the sensitive nice writer guy was groping Georgina's ass every time they kissed before she turned evil (again)? Ewwwwwwwwww. Don't you kind of imagine that Michelle Trachtenberg smells like egg salad? Is that just me? Please don't let it just be me.

SO. Georgie knew Dan was lying, so of course she would crash the wedding, because every party on this show (there is one on every episode) has to be inexplicably attended by every single character who's had a line in the episode. And that would spell disaster! It would be especially disastrous because Georgie tromped down to the Chinatown bus (nice veracity there, GG) to pick up bug-eyed Paddington, whom she'd invited down to surprise everyone. So yeah, Georgina is totally evil and will hurt two grown-ass adults on their damn wedding day just to piss off a cavewoman named Og Vanessa and her dumb, ass-grabbing friend Danny. Sigh. Wickedness! Over in a corner Lily was privately freaking out about the whole thing and she and Rufus got into it all over again--had the same conversation about the past and the future that they've been having since the first season--and just as they were about to maybe not go through with the wedding at all or ever, who should come galoompfing up but Paddington. Not knowing who he was, Lily barked at him and he ran away scared. Soon after Georgina flounced up, told everyone the secret, and everyone just stood there shocked, covered head to toe in spilled beans.

But they weren't that shocked. No one was that surprised. I mean, that is a big goddamned deal. And yet people were just sorta like "Oh, OK." I mean, we barely saw Serena react to it. Come to think of it, Serena hasn't really had anything to do with this plotline, even though it's her brother too! I guess girls don't count as much as boys when it comes to bloodlines. And, feh, Serena getting into the mix, adding another character to the equation, would probably just be too hard for everyone to orchestrate, too complex. So it's mostly Dan and Rufus's tale. And then it was Lily's tale. And then it was everyone's tale as the couple ran down to the Chinatown bus and they talked to their undead son and there was crying and embracing and Paddington felt plushy and soft that day, he felt found, he felt rescued. And somewhere in gray old Boston his lonely sad mother heard something snap, off in the distance, and she knew the world was suddenly different. She begin to cry and she didn't know why. Everything was slipping through her fingers.

Back in fabulous New York City, Rufus and Lily decided to get married, and their new son was invited, and there was dancing, and Kim freaking Gordon from Sonic freaking Youth performed the wedding and then she and her band performed a song, and a bunch of tweeners bored at the TV, because who cares about Rufus and Lily, failed to learn an important lesson about who Sonic Youth is. So that was weird and sad, that they'd agree to be on this show, but what can you do. Creaky old Kim Gordon crooned and everyone did self-satisfied dances and who knows what will become of Paddington Winkers. Something tells me he's actually done on the show, that there will be vague references to Lily and Rufus going to visit him, but that he won't actually return. He's uninteresting and unattractive. And, while you can be uninteresting, you just can't be unattractive on the GG. It just can't be done. Never ever.

Of course there were other stories this week. Remember how Natalie was dating that girl from a rival political dynasty? Yeah, neither did I because that story was boring as dirt and nothing ever happened with it. There was this whole foofaraw about JoAnna Garcia doing an arc on Gossip Girl and then... Nerfin'. A hot, red-headed nerfin'. Bree Buckley wasn't a secret assassin sent to sex-kill Nate. Bree Buckley wasn't a craven, off-the-reservation wild child who wanted to bone B. Waldorf. Bree Buckley didn't even get to fire a gun, and she's from Texas! No instead Bree Buckley just sat around and gently did it with Nate and then eventually it was revealed that all had been a cunning stratagem to get to... Carter Baizen. Ruhlly guys? Are you ruhll, ruhll sure that's how you want to go with that? Why would Nate have had a strong connection to Carter Baizen months ago? I mean, what? Bree figured she'd just latch onto someone, anyone in New York "society" and there Carter would be, waiting for her to chase him like a playful puppy? (Mmmm... playful Sebastian Stan puppy...) That is a dumb plan. But whatever.

"In America, I wear special hat."

So as it turned out Serena was having Carter problems because he's a big stupid liar who seduced and almost married someone named Beth so he could get his hands on her money, that someone Beth turned out to be Bree's cousin someone Beth, so Bree was looking for Carter, and Serena didn't want Carter to leave, and so who the hell knows what's going to happen. Alls we know is that Natalie found out he was being used, so he told Bree to get the hell out of his beautiful face before he smiled his beautiful smile and she turned to jello, actual Jell-O, right where she stood. So Bree skittered away, but not before siccing her two meaty boy cousins to scare poor Carter and to put him in the back of the limo. There he sat sandwiched between these two fellows, worried and scared and strangely turned on, and he whisked away into the night and I guess we'll have to wait until next week to find out what happens. With that simply thrilling Carter Baizen story. That doesn't really make all that much sense. Speaking of not making much sense, did I happen to mention that the whole Bree Buckley thing was dumb? Bree Buckley wasn't a Southern Belle who used to be a man. Bree Buckley wasn't trying to marry Nate because her family was broke. Bree Buckley, a short-term supporting character, was just there to find another short-term supporting character and then walk away. What happened with Nate's dearest Grandfather placing that ominous call to someone saying he finally knew how to take down Old Man Buckley? Did I miss something? Fah. What a waste. What dumbness.

Um, that was maybe it! I don't remember. Oh, Georgina is dead. Yep, Blair sent Dorota's doorman boyfriend to go meet her in a bar, pretend to be the Prince of Belarus, and lure her out into an alley. There he told her to kneel, pulled out a silenced pistol, and put two in the back of her head. Dorota's brand of Polish justice is swift and brutal.

At the very end both Serena and Nate looked sad alone in the same way and were standing near each other, so maybe that's the deft writers and directors foreshadowing that Serena and Natalie are gonna squish uglies, again. The goal of the gang on Gossip Girl is to be as incesty as possible with each other until everyone has deformed half-brother babies just like Dan (and to a lesser extent--because of weak girl genes!--Serena) has. You just know that someday, maybe even later this season, Dan and Blair are gonna get freaky. It's just bound to happen. It's like the only thing that hasn't been done. I guess sort of Chuck and Serena. Maybe that will happen too.

And maybe one cool spring night, when they are feeling tipsy and fizzy with champagne, Erik and Nate will find themselves alone together on the veranda. Nate will be making those silly faces he increasingly makes ("My eyes...are getting...WIDER") and Erik will be giggling and wanting to either sigh or cry and there will be the city all twinkling like dark Caribbean sand beneath them. And suddenly they will be very close, breath hot on collars, hands tangled in hair. And you can imagine what happens from there. And the next morning Erik stretches and yawns in bed and turns over, expecting Nate to be gone, for him to have left shamed and worried, so there could be a few episodes all about that secret and Georgina (who'd survived the gunshot and was watching the Nate/Erik doin' it from her hiding place in a big wicker basket) blackmailing and all that dumb stuff. But no, he will be there. Just snoring away, hair rumpled, pleased kitten grin on his mannequin face. "Oh thank God," Erik will think, sinking back into bed.

"They've hired a new writer."