OK, Gossip Girl. We’ll admit it. We were pretty concerned last season, when you sent Upper East Side Queen Bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) to NYU, of all places, when you allowed that psycho Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) to have a bizarre affair with a senator/Nate’s cousin, and when the indomitable Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) was all weepy about his faux-mother.
You allowed the insufferable Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) and the even worse Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr) to date. That was horrifying. How could you do that to us?
Oh, and every time Taylor Momsen, aka Jenny Humphrey, aka Little J, spoke, we wanted to slap somebody. We did not appreciate her new “hardcore” attitude. Also, that whole Chuck lying in a gutter in Prague thing? That was scary. We were pretty upset about that too.
Things didn’t seem much more promising when this season kicked off in September.
The good news was that the adorable Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford) got even more beautiful over the summer, since he was all dark and somber post-Serena break-up (another useless relationship. Really, Gossip Girl? Really?) and Little J got banished
The bad news was that Serena was still on the show.
OK, maybe that wasn’t really the bad news. Maybe it was that somehow Serena, Blair and Nate were now all at Columbia University together, and Chuck was back from Prague with Fleur Delacour —or at least the actress who plays her—and a new, kind, charitable attitude. That wasn’t cool, guys.
There were some early plotlines that seemed pretty forced. For instance, there was all this shady stuff about Blair dating the Prince of Monaco or something, but he was pretending to be his chauffeur and the chauffeur was pretending to be him, so Blair was mad. She’s only fit for a real prince, after all.
There was all that business with the troublemaking Georgina (Michelle Tratchenberg) and the baby she tried to pass off as Dan’s. That ended almost as quickly as it started, but it was pretty frustrating, nonetheless.
Both Serena and Nate developed new, confusing love-interests. Serena started crushing on a guy who stole her cab one morning, Colin (Sam Page), while Nate developed a fairly confusing relationship with Juliet (Katie Cassidy), a girl who seems to have it out for Serena.
So things weren’t going so great in Gossip Girl Land/the Upper East Side. Season four didn’t seem any less flimsy and flung together than it’s predecessor. Faithful fans started wondering if they should start making time for 90210 instead.
Thankfully, episode 7, “War at the Rose’s”, made up for it. It didn’t start out so great. Blair and Chuck were still feuding, Serena was still annoying, Juliet still existed, and Dan’s hair had started reaching new heights.
BUT. At Blair’s epic birthday party, which included Madeleine Albright on the guest list, the world of Gossip Girl as we know it finally got going.
First, Dan humiliated Blair with some stupid video of her singing at a Robyn concert, and Rachel Zoe got a load of melted chocolate dumped on her head. The video wasn’t that great, but seeing Rachel Zoe come into contact with something sugary was great.
Second (and best), Blair and Chuck, who earlier in the episode had constructed a treaty to prevent them from causing each other’s destruction, had a VERY ANGRY AND AWESOME hookup. Like... awesome to nth degree. Almost as good as when they first got together in the back of a limo in season one.
Is Gossip Girl saved? Maybe not. After all, Serena’s still on the show. But time will certainly tell. And please: more Chuck and Blair.
See GOSSIP, page B4
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