Gossip Girl

Chuck got a puppy! First he wasn’t sure about the puppy, then he took good care of the puppy, then he loved the puppy and named it Monkey and snuggled it in his bed. Good night!

OK, fine, some other stuff happened too. Although honestly none of it was nearly as important. Anyway, Blair (Leighton Meester) got a paternity test, but now she’s back in denial and refusing to open the envelope. Instead she’s like, “Oh! I have to go shopping. No time to find out who the father of my child is.” Dorota, aghast that Blair is not only a hussy but a flaky hussy at that, enlists Dan (Penn Badgley) to get her to face up to the truth. He puts on his Good Guy jacket and rides to her rescue — which he gets extra points for, since he’s got a bit of a paternity problem of his own on his hands.

They say success has a thousand fathers. In the case of Dan’s book, it’s got at least two. Chuck sleeps with an editorial assistant to find out who has Dan’s book. Dan gets him a puppy to thank him (!!!). After Dan confides in his old mentor Noah to ask for help blocking the book’s publication, Noah takes a two pronged approach: A. Calling Dan a coward; and B. claiming credit for the book himself. Hey, which does Dan fear more: Getting the cold shoulder from his society friends, or having his genius go unheralded? He and his ego have a tough choice to make.

Diana Payne (Elizabeth Hurley) starts Nate (Chace Crawford)’s internship with a bang. Well, several. One when she fires the entire staff, and another a few minutes later, on top of her desk. Nate worries that she just wants him for sex (which, aww. Most guys would love to be a gorgeous woman’s sex toy, but poor Nate really does get objectified a lot), but when Diana does give him some responsibility, it’s even worse, as she feeds him some info that makes him unwittingly destroy a senator’s marriage. Turns out Diana doesn’t exactly want to build a paragon of journalistic integrity — she wants the Spectator to be a scandalous gossip rag, and to that end she needs a story that no one else has. Cue the Jenny Packham fashion show, the fancy party du jour, where Diana has persuaded the organizers to make all the guests surrender their phones at the door so she can get one juicy, Gossip-Girl-proof scoop.

As promised, Serena (Blake Lively) drags Charlie/Ivy back to Manhattan for shopping, fancy parties, and crippling fear of exposure. Ivy knows she doesn’t have long before her “mom” finds out she’s trying to use her checkbook again, and sure enough, Carol soon comes storming up to Manhattan. Ivy freaks, almost running back to poor chef Max, who should probably start blocking her calls. But then, with a little unwitting help from Blair, she realizes the obvious: Carol used Ivy to perpetrate a fraud and steal from her own daughter, so how exactly is she going to get rid of her without winding up in an ankle bracelet to match her sister’s? So Ivy gets to stay! At least until the real Charlie digs her way out of whatever basement Carol’s got her locked in.

Speaking of the Felonious Sisters Rhodes, Lily is finally free! Maybe that means she and Rufus can have a plotline again. Not this week though.

Nate gets on board with Diana’s dirt-digging ways, and they steal all the phones from the Packham party’s rich, powerful attendees to dig through their secrets. Phone hacking! Topical. Nate protects Dan and Blair, but unwittingly steals Ivy’s phone. How long will it be til he figures her secret out? Knowing Nate, it could take years.

Dan avoids his own dilemma by badgering Blair to deal with hers. After ditching him, insulting his hair, and pushing him into a waiter, she finally relents and opens the envelope. Dan does a little sacking up himself and goes to confront Noah, demanding credit for his book. Which, of course, is what Noah was after all along. Looks like Dan’s about to be a published, totally nonymous author.

Enough about Dan’s authorial ditherings and Connivy Ivy. Who’s the gosh-darn father? Blair goes to Chuck’s place to break the news — that it’s Louis’ child she’s carrying. Chuck finally feels something at hearing this, and climbs into bed to snuggle his dog Monkey and cry, which we swear actually happened on the show and we did not just make up. It is both painfully adorable and like something out of an alternate universe.

Blair tells Louis he’s going to be a father, and he’s overjoyed. Whew! That’s all settled then. Oh, except Blair very shadily hides the test results. She totally lied. Chuck’s totally the real father. Good thing he’s got Monkey to practice his parenting skills on.

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