Gossip Girl

Well HELLO there, surprises-around-every-corner! Gossip Girl’s Season 5, Episode 12: “Father and the Bride” proved to be just as scandalous as we all imagined it would be, right? But in a surprising way…

Let's recap the merriment/the joy/the horror/the... everything.

Beatrice began the episode in full-on schemer mode, plotting against the bride-to-be with her sketchier BF (that freakin' priest, ahem) in an effort to uncover Blair (Leighton Meester)’s dark side. And it worked! Blair got waaasted at her party and then was spotted by police outside the bar with a joint in hand (also plotted!) and was promptly arrested (the grab at the police officer’s, errrr, piece probably didn’t help matters). BUT THEN? Beatrice turned over a new leaf and told Priesty that she wasn’t going to continue with their plan! (WHY? Zero explanation given…)

AND THEN the priest banished her from New York! Or anyway, he convinced her crooked mama in Monaco to send her away on a mission in Africa. UH-mazing. Oh Bea, we hardly knew ye! But we were wondering why you weren’t in those bridesmaids shots from the wedding…

With his partner in crime ousted, Father Cavalia had no other choice but to take his dirty work to the masssster of all things dirty… Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). (Fully-intended double meaning there, guys...) This begs the question: Chuck Bass, do you seriously think this is a good idea?? WHEN do schemes ever actually turn out for the best in this UES world? Le sigh.

In Better-Dude Land (admit it, it’s true), Dan (Penn Badgley) is struggling with his former girlfriend falling back in love with him… except he doesn’t know it. Meanwhile, his publishers only want a sequel to Inside and, much to his chagrin, they love the press he's getting from being with Serena (Blake Lively). (Wah wahhh. We've been told this book storyline is gonna come into major play soon, but so far... zzzzz.) Dan's anything but subtle about his rejection of S's would-be charms, but she just.can’t.get.it. She's despy! And why? Because her BFF is getting married… and because, for as many years as they’ve pretended to be good friends, we’ve never actually seen them consistently behaving as friends — please, name an example — and she's just totally jealous. So even though Serena knows Dan is in love with Blair, she’s all, "Full steam ahead, cap’n!" on the good ship Oblivion. We'd feel bad for her, but we're just so annoyed.

ALSO this week, though? We were able to finally connect with a storyline outside of the royal wedding goings-on! NATE’S STORYLINE WAS TOTALLY COMPELLING! Too bad they only let it last, like, 1.25 episodes, right?

After deleting the Spectator website to appease Gossip Girl, Nate (Chace Crawford) gets a photo from her showing Charlie's ex, Max. Suspicions are heightened, there's a faux-firing staged and Serena appears to go tell Trip all about Nate's suspicions — but really it's just them smoking out the evil-doer. In the end, it was TRIP (that jerkwad!) who sabotaged Nate’s car, and therebyyy it is he who is responsible for the death of Blair’s baby (and our month-long worry over the C-Bass, TOO!). That means TROUBLE for Tripper, right? Public scandal, public divorce... baaad election results.

(And, by the way, apparently Trip reads Gossip Girl?! Maybe that's his first problem.)

Gossip Girl’s connection to all of it was marvelously played, and in a different season this storyline could have been serious dynamo! Seriously, poor Nate. We spent an entireee season getting to the bottom of that Juliet/Ben situation last year, and poor Nate’s NEAR-DEATH is a quick lil’ side story? Just goes to show ya who ranks higher...

Best line of the night — when the lady outside the bar asked Blair, "Do you have a match?" and she responded, "Two! And that’s the problem!" Good one, Drunk Blair!

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