Alright, that's it. We're starting to get a little tired of Blair. Don't get us wrong, we LOVE her. But we'd strongly prefer that she use her powers for good -- or at least the good kind of evil, rather than the pathetic kind. But, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
First things first, Jenny's dropped out of school to work on Eleanor Waldorf's collection for fashion week. She's managing to slide under the radar of suspicion with innocent smiles and little white lies, but since nothing ever seems to work out well when Jenny practices to deceive, we feel like it's only a matter of time before the whole thing comes crashing down around her.
Lily's hard at work while Bart is travelling the world, outfitting their shared home with priceless works of art. She plans to make the crowning jewell of her collection a tasteful Maplethorpe for which she was the model, back in her days as a rockstar girlfriend, but alas, her art dealer discovers that it's already been sold to another buyer, which turns out to be Bart Bass. Lily's surprised that Bart would be so thoughtful to purchase the picture for her as a gift. Lily's outfit, by the way, is FIERCE.
After last week's hair-raising debacle with Dan and Amanda, Serena's decided to shake it off and get back to the business of ruling the school, which makes Blair nearly insane to claw her way back to the throne that's rightfully hers. She tries to bribe the ladies-in-waiting with second row seats to her mother's show at Fashion Week, but Serena trumps Blair's social connections with a picture on page six: Serena, arm in arm with a well known celebutante.
Meanwhile, Dan sends a short story to the Paris Review for consideration. Inexplicably, he gets a meeting with someone (Can it possibly be the editor? Is it reasonable that the Paris Review would take a meeting with a high school kid whose story they didn't even like?), who tells him the story is boring and he needs to get a more exciting life. Dan decides the best way to make his life more exciting is to hang out with Chuck Bass. We can't blame him here -- Chuck already makes our lives (and apparently, Drew Barrymore's life) more exciting. Chuck gives him that disdainful squint that we love so much, and says, "You're lucky I'm bored." Alright then, let's do this.
Jenny's made herself indispensible to Eleanor Waldorf, which is good because she might have to move in with her when she alienates everyone else in her life in the name of fashion. Eleanor's worried about the show's publicity, and Jenny suggests stacking the front row with Serena and her new celebutante friends. This plan sends Blair into a downward spiral of jealousy. Careful Blair, you're schemin' on a thing, that's sabotage.
Dan's mission to witness life as Chuck Bass turns out to be a little on the tame side. Chuck takes Dan to a bar, and orders some shots. Turns out the shots are only to wash down what we presume to be ecstasy, which Chuck hands over in a weird, Lawrence-Fishburne-Matrix moment. Dan takes the shot and the pills, but their effect later on manifests itself as mild drunkenness so we feel like we may have been wrong about the ex. Regardless, Chuck eventually gets bored and dumps Dan back on the street without his shoes. In short, it's nothing at all like that night on 90210 when Emily Valentine spiked Brandon's soda with ex at the underground rave. We sort of wish it had been.
Back in Brooklyn, Blair shows up at the loft to out Jenny to Rufus for her reckless school-skipping. Rufus busts in on Jenny at Eleanor Waldorf's studio and drags her home by her ear.
Blair's still pissed about Serena abandoning her to sit on the front row with the celebutantes. Serena tries to passify Blair with tickets to the Marc Jacobs after-party, but Blair's insecurities are not to be corralled by kindness.
Paris Review guy tells Dan to write his story from Chuck's point of view. Secretly, we think, Dan would rather die, but being a man committed to his art, he goes out in search of Chuck. Back at the bar, Dan unwittingly walks in on a rare vulnerable moment between Chuck and Bart (we mean vulnerable on Chuck's side, Bart's still an asshole). Dan plies Chuck for information about his childhood and past to which Chuck is oddly responsive. Eventually, Chuck gets bored again and goes to the bar to proposition a hooker. The girl, who's not, in fact, a prostitute, tells her boyfriend, who gets in Chuck's face, which we find to be a bit ludicrous. The boyfriend looks like he's probably some sort of accountant, and not a large one -- we feel like Chuck could probably kill him with his bare hands if it came right down to it. The boyfriend takes (it has to be said) an incredibly un-intimidating step toward Chuck, but he's stopped by Dan's right hook laying him out on the floor. A scuffle ensues, and Dan and Chuck wind up in a jail cell for a predictable heart-to-heart in which Chuck tearfully admits that his mother died in childbirth and he's always felt rejected by his father. Dan hits him with: "It's not your fault," Good-Will-Hunting-style, and we half expect them to fall weeping into each other's arms.
The bromance is interrupted by Chuck's lawyer who's come to bail him out. The jail people give Chuck the wrong bag of personal items, Chuck uncovers Dan's story about him, and feels outraged by this betrayal, which we can totally understand because it's not like Chuck would ever think of using anybody.
Bart arrives home bearing a gift for Lily, who's surprised to open a necklace and not the Maplethorpe. Turns out Bart did buy it, but not as a gift. Lily freaks out that he hired a private investigator to look into her past. We're creeped out by Bart in general.
The sun rises on Eleanor's fashion show, and Blair's back to her scheming ways. Let's pause for a moment and talk about Jenny's outfit and how much we wish it was ours:
Blair rearranges the seats at the fashion show, placing Serena in the back. Eleanor arrives on the scene and overrules Blair, which makes us feel embarrassed for her. Backstage, Blair sends all the models home in the hope that Jenny will be blamed if the fashion show's a disaster -- a train of logic we can't really follow since the person she's really hurting is her own mother. Also, it's not like no one will find out that she ruined the show, not Jenny. In a make-it-work moment that would make Tim Gunn proud, Jenny pulls the celebutantes off the front row and uses them as models. Blair tries one last attempt at sabotage by putting Serena in one of Jenny's designs instead of Eleanor's -- again, eventually she will be found out -- what's the point of this? Serena and the dress are the hit of the show. Jenny tells Eleanor she never intended her dress to go on the runway and begs her to take credit for the design.
Blair decides it's time to put her grievances aside and condescend to apologize to Serena. What annoys us about this is that after nearly a full episode's worth of attempts to completely humiliate Serena, Blair still seems to think that a half-apology is all that's needed for she and Serena to bask, once again, in the warmth of friendship. Turns out Serena's just as annoyed by Blair's idiocy as we are, and says as much. Blair's shock that her apology isn't immediately accepted, makes us more annoyed at her.
As the episode draws to a close, we have, as usual, one final question: Where the hell are Nate and Vanessa?
