What's going on with Dan is that he is pretending to be on his book tour, but secretly he is hiding in DUMBO, listening to chillwave and losing ten pounds every single day, because people don't give a shit about his stupid book like he wishes they would. Rufus finds him there by accident, realizes suddenly that Skype doesn't rule out being a huge dorky liar, and gives him a pep talk. Dan responds, seemingly, but his pep is as illusory as his itinerary. Soon he will begin drinking, and things will get radically hipster, and finally this show will be awesome again. Dan joins Nate for best moment this week, but got about five minutes total to show us.
What's going on with Human Plot Device Diana Payne is that she has upgraded her Storyline Contriving abilities to a record level and basically just wanders around the entire show sparking off storylines and creating conflict and doing magic spells and chewing on the set and making no goddamn sense at all. Also, she is working with William Vanderbilt, and that's I guess what this whole thing has been about. Lame, she's lame, she is full of it. Just chock full.
What's going on with Serena is that she has had it with Gossip Girl's mess and she will be taking her down! Just kidding, that's a lie like always. But wait, no, this time it isn't a lie because Human Plot Device Diana Payne has somehow manipulated Cousin Peepers into saying that Gossip Girl has made her feel like behaving erratically, and because Serena is such a caring (well, condescending) individual, this time she will really be going after Gossip Girl. Maybe.
It was fun. Serena would have won, except her storyline also involved running into Ivy's ex-boyfriend Max, at random, because he is in New York, at random, because he has a job interview, at random. Oh, did you think he came to find Ivy? No, that would actually make sense. In fact, he's just wandering around the USA, cutie at large, when he serendipitously runs into the best friend and cousin of the girl that his ex-girlfriend is very visibly and publicly impersonating. As one does.
What's going on with Blair Waldorf is a motherfucking tragedy, in my opinion. What I want to say is that Chuck's apology menu last week so upset her delicate mental balance that she has gone to a sick, sad place -- like a Jenny Humphrey virginity place -- and that's why she hounds Chuck all over creation until he kisses her, at which point she snaps out of it and then Dorota and Chuck agree that playing sick shitty mind games with her is appropriate. Which it wouldn't be, even if she were mentally deficient or a child, which is what she is this season anyway.
What's going on with Nate and Ivy is that Nate is really dumb and keeps forgetting that Ivy can't hook up with him because he is dating their boss, a fact she reminds him of something like four times in this episode. So then Diana, in her pursuit of making every single storyline work by the laziest and most contrived, unbelievable method possible, manages to hook up Max and Serena, and fires Ivy, and makes Ivy kiss Max, and Nate watch, and all of this goes down at Sleep No More and basically amounts to Diana Payne doing her Liz Hurley impression and saying literally:
"You, stand over here. Now you, put on a mask and then go over there and then take off your mask and then without looking, kiss that person over there while this third person stares at you. Meanwhile, I have a fourth person ready over in that corner to take a picture of all of this going down. Don't worry, there's a reason for all of this."
Next week: Dan's expected descent into alcoholism coincides beautifully with Blair's wedding shower, and Max decides what to do with Ivy's secret. Presumably as well: Diana does more blatant, explicit, horrifyingly lame plot manipulation; everybody almost finds out about Charlie but then they don't; Serena nearly but then completely doesn't do anything regarding Gossip Girl; Nate feels controlled and worries about his lack of empowerment but then doesn't do anything about that. It's in the bangs, Nate. You lost it with your bangs.
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OUTSIDE
Not sure about the juxtaposition with Macbeth stuff, but the Sabrina dream that heads up this episode is pretty interesting. Those movies are about a girl, the chauffeur's daughter, a sort of Philadelphia Story in reverse, who is presented with two affluent men rather than two rakes -- one whom she's always presumed to love, and the other she never found that interesting -- and surprises herself by her choice between them.
Of course, since it's Blair, she's playing the eponymous Audrey Hepburn character in the dream, but I wonder whether that's really the story she's telling herself. Whether the dream is about moving forward with the Prince she's always imagined, v. falling into the arms of the other brother. It's a simple story but she's not a simple girl and, parts of this season to the contrary, this isn't a simple show.
Louis v. Chuck is the choice they're selling us -- the choice she is selling us -- but I don't think I'm out of bounds suggesting that, on the long view, maybe she's just using them to cancel each other out. Which would put a different spin on the Sabrina dream, because she's not the chauffeur's daughter: Dan is. And if she can get her two princes to a zero sum, it won't matter what he is, anymore. Just a theory.
I like to think of life as a limousine. Though we are all riding together we must remember our places. There is a front seat and a back seat and a window in between.
The relationship with Chuck is gross, because Blair and Chuck are both gross; it's entirely disgusting in this episode to watch her try to make him into a demon again, just like Louis did last week. But not disgusting in the usual way; not as a misguided attempt to reverse the burlesque at Victrola, or the way it went with Carter Baizen when she was trying to make herself dirty enough for him.
It's not even disgusting in the way where, once again, Chuck makes decisions on Blair's behalf -- although that is very disgusting -- because the whole thing is such a mirror-on-mirror thing for her own stuff. I no longer trust this show to give us a character-centered journey for these people, so the intentions of the show must be considered separately from the intentions of the fictional people, where once they were the same thing. But, if this is about deriving Dan from the shuffle of Chuck against Louis until nothing means anything, then this is a valid story to tell, because it means Blair is in control of the story and has been the entire time.
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