Gossip Girl sure decided to start this episode off with a bang….or better stated, a crash. The show opens with Serena and Trip driving a Range Rover down some rural road at night and Serena looking out the window, forlorn. They exchange a few curt phrases and Trip says, “I can’t stand this, I love you.” But Serena says it is too late and everything is ruined. They both stare at each other throughout this entire exchange and Trip has his eyes off the road for a noticeably long time. He doesn’t spot the wolves on the road and when he slams on the brakes to avoid them, they crash into a railing. But…
12 HOURS EARLIER: (And back on the Upper East Side)
Chuck is trying to pretend like it is just any other day, but it is obvious to Blair (and everyone) that he is upset. When he heads out to an important business meeting, Blair clears her schedule to be with him.
Lily is frantically going through her closet looking for the letter from Dr. Van Der Woodsen that she hurriedly stuck in her coat pocket on Thanksgiving (in the coat that Maureen took by mistake). Rufus is trying to help but we get the impression that Lily sees it as meddling. Lily claims that she is acting strangely because she is upset about Serena hiding out with a married congressman and Rufus is nothing but supportive. But Lily just can’t explain to him what is really going on.
And Lily was right. Serena and Trip are holed up together in his family’s cottage and it’s clear that they have not left the house very much in the last week. Trip has been avoiding work for the most part. They know Maureen will go public with the affair at some point, and they are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Serena tries to reassure Trip that it will be hard, but they can get through it together.
The property that Chuck wants to buy turns out to be a homeless shelter. And even the heartless Blair Waldorf herself has an issue with this. Apparently today is the anniversary of Bart’s death and Blair tells Chuck he should either be at home or laying flowers on his grave. Chuck is just focusing a lot on the money and success and refuses to mourn his father. Blair calls him out on it. And a few minutes later, Chuck sees his father’s image telling him he made the right choice about the building, and he ignores his ghost.
Queen Bee Jenny Humphrey is hanging out with her minions displaying her brand new, incredibly hard to get designer bag when up walks one of the mean girls, Sawyer, with the same one. She offers to have a schedule for when they can each wear it, but we know Jenny would never settle for that. Predictably she tells the girl to return it and when she says she won’t, Jenny banishes her from the group. Meanest Queen Ever! Then Sawyer meets up with Eric and Kira and we realize this was all part of their elaborate a multi-faceted plan to take down Jenny. The point of this was to show the other minions just how bad Jenny can be, and it seems like a success.
Oh, Dan and his girl troubles. And Nate, who seems only to exist to help Dan with his girl troubles. Dan now thinks that everyone was right about him having feelings for Vanessa but now the window of opportunity has closed cause she is all about this Paul Hoffman guy from drama club. Nate tells him to either really go for Vanessa or just move on to someone random. V shows up and her and a friend invite him to a retreat and when he tries to say no, Nate convinces him to go. I mean, he can either make his move on Vanessa or hook up with this friend – it’s a win-win.
Rufus goes to the Coop meeting and the women indirectly accuse him of being a trophy husband just like they are trophy wives….he doesn’t work and “sacrifices independence for love” and then eventually the significant other gets bored with them and moves on. This is totally the case of the women at the meeting and they awkwardly project these issues onto Rufus.
Trip leaves his love nest for groceries –err to meet with his grandfather- err to meet with Maureen…these lies are hard to keep straight, aren’t they? The point is that S has no idea where he is, and he lies to her about it. So Maureen is calm, cool, and collected when she says that she thinks Serena is just a phase they will both look back on and laugh eventually. She tells Trip she is going to make a women-to-women appeal to her. Interesting… I wonder if that has anything to do with the super-blackmail material she accidentally came across at Lily’s on Thanksgiving…
 Meanwhile, Chuck is getting drunk and having a conversation with his dead father’s ghost. Bart is basically telling Chuck he should’ve signed the papers already and he shouldn’t worry about the homeless residents (oxy-moron). Then he transitions into telling Chuck how he is not good enough, hasn’t done anything worthwhile and how loving Blair has made him soft and hence a bad businessman. Nice parenting skills, Bart’s Ghost.
Back at the cottage, the heat has gone out, there is no wifi or cable and Serena is bored. So she calls Nate. It’s a little awkward for him, but he plays along. He directs S to his boyhood pot stash and they get off the phone. But just then, guess who shows up?
Maureen! She presents Serena with a proposition: Maureen will still be Trip’s wife, but S can be his private mistress. Maureen will be Jackie O and S will be Marilyn. Sounds about right. Serena tells Maureen there is no way she is going to go for this until she sees that Maureen has the letter. Maureen threatens to tell Rufus about Lily’s cheating ways because apparently her and Dr. Van Der Woodsen were staying at a hotel together this summer. S looks dumbfounded as Maureen leaves.
 Blair comes to find Chuck who ditched out on her lunch plans. She tries to tell him to let her in and to confide in her, but Chuck is closed off. He tells her he doesn’t need her to take care of him and asks her to leave. He is like Chuck from last year all over again.
Eric is talking to the remaining Mean Girls, telling them they better watch out in case Jenny doesn’t approve of their Christmas gifts…she might banish them too. They seem to be eating it up when suddenly Jenny appears with copies of her bag for each of them. She tells them she was just mad at Sawyer for ruining the surprise. So Jenny has successfully bought back their affection and one-upped Eric.
So Blair goes to get some back up from Lily, who must also be having a really hard day…except Lily doesn’t even remember that it is the anniversary of Bart’s death. She agrees to go see “Charles” but it is doubtful it will do any good. When Rufus hears what day it is, he assumes that is why Lily is so upset, and she plays along.
S calls Nate when she can’t get a hold of Trip and Nate tells her that his Grandfather is in Bermuda and Trip is lying to her. Then he gets in a car and heads over to rescue her.
Lily heads over to Chucks and asks him to come with her to the cemetery but, of course, he refuses. She seems to be getting through to him, but then she gets a frantic call from Serena. S apologizes to her mom and explains the whole situation, including Maureen’s threats and Trip’s lies. So Lily says she will come clean to Rufus and that Serena should just work of getting home and they will fix everything.
So on her way out, S runs into Trip coming home and she calls him a liar. He begs her to at least let him drive her back and they can talk in the car. She agrees to the ride, not to the talking. And I think we all know how that car ride ends up. So when Trip wakes up he sees Serena out cold next to him having cracked her head against the windshield. And the first thing he does is pick up the phone and call Maureen.
Nate arrives at the scene just in time to see S being loaded into the ambulance asking for Trip, who is nowhere to be found. She tells Nate that Trip was driving. Nate calls Trip and leaves a message that unless he meets him at the hospital, he is going to the police.
Lily is just about to tell Rufus everything when she gets the call about Serena.
Dan is back in the dorms, making out with Vanessa’s friend who tried to seduce him by showing him a video of a performance art piece she made naked. Anyway, the kissing is awkward and Dan is saved by the bell, a phone call letting him know about Serena’s accident. He goes by Blair’s room and picks up Vanessa on the way. Chuck finds out too and when Ghost Bart criticizes him for blowing off the meeting to be at S’s side, he yells at him to leave him alone.
Trip meets Nate at the hospital and Nate starts screaming at him about leaving her alone and moving her to the driver’s seat. Trip claims he had to do it but Nate tells him it is unforgiveable. He threatens to go to the police but Maureen says she is ready with a statement that says Trip was with her all night, and the powerful Grandfather will back them up. No one will believe Serena’s word against theirs, she has a history of drinking, partying and men. When Maureen heads for the car, Trip tells Nate he would love to see Serena, and Nate responds by punching him in the face and telling him to stay away from Serena from now on.
 Lily goes in to see a banged up, but conscious Serena. Serena realizes that Lily didn’t tell Rufus the truth yet, and she is angry. Blair comes in and S tells B she was right about this whole Trip thing. Chuck is having flashbacks in the hospital about when his father died and how he ran away from the whole thing. Blair comforts him and tells him that he has grown so much is a person and is becoming a man in the way his father never was because he lets people into his life and makes meaningful connections. They decide to go to his grave to say goodbye once and for all.
Eric had been listening to Jenny’s phone call about getting that fancy new bag, and so he knew which one to order for Sawyer. But Jenny figured out his plan and knew he was listening, so she bought more bags for the other girls. At the vending machine at the hospital, they decide to call a truce. Really kind of anticlimactic way to end that potentially awesome storyline, but hey, it’s almost Christmas so I guess we can forgive even GG for getting a little filled with holiday cheer.
Rufus is still back at Lily’s and is about to head over to the hospital when Maureen stops him at the door. She tells him she has been having some trouble in her marriage and she would hate see anyone else go through the same thing. And she hands him the letter and asks him to read it.
Vanessa and Dan are at the hospital chatting when suddenly Dan blurts out: Vanessa, I love you. And Vanessa, very casually, says that she loves him too. Then when he tells her he was hoping for a different reaction, she tells him that he is under a lot of stress and that can cause people to say things they don’t mean. Then she gets up to check on Serena. Yikes.
When Lily and the kids get back to the apartment, Rufus is nowhere to be found, but the letter is sitting on the table and Lily knows that Rufus knows. Rufus is across town meeting with one of the coop women, asking her for marital advice.
Nate is sleeping in Serena’s room and when she wakes up and sees him, she smiles.
Jenny goes to meet up with international drug dealer Damien, and thanks him for letting her earn enough to buy all those bags. Apparently these two have been up to no good for a while now…
Chuck brings yellow roses (his mother’s favorite) to his father’s grave but when he gets there he is not alone. There is a woman there mourning, who also laid yellow flowers. When she sees him, she says “Charles” and then takes off. He sees that she has also laid a locket with his mother’s initial “E” on the grave with a picture of Bart inside. Hmmmmmm. What could be going on here?
I guess we’ll have to wait until after the holidays to find out…Xoxo! |
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