Gossip Girl: It's a Hard Knock Life.

Gossip Girl has returned my friends! And Serena is still slutty, Blair is still scheming, Dan is still lovesick, Nate is still a pretty-boy airhead, Chuck is still rocking purple Willy Wonka suits, Jenny is still sewing ugly clothing, and Rufus and Lily are still arguing about something dumb. In other words, even though the earth is basically shaking itself apart with earthquakes, some things are still right in the world.

It was indeed comforting to hear the dulcet tones of Gossip Girl herself again after what seemed like a far too long hiatus, and she welcomed us back into the fold with some of her classiest narration yet, opening the episode by quoting Dickens [this is a lot classier than that time she opened an episode by quoting James Frey].

It was an appropriate beginning of course, because Chuck Bass' life has suddenly been transformed into every Victorian novel ever: Rich orphans! Lockets! Long lost mothers! Long lost mothers who are whores! Paging Oliver Twist/ David Cooperfield/ Cosette/ Jane Eyre/ Eliza Doolittle/ the Slumdog Millionaire!

The difference obviously is that in the Victorian trope, the orphans usually come into a vast fortune as a reward for their virtue and innocence, but Chuck Bass is well...Chuck Bass. Though he's been strangely good lately, hasn't he? Well I mean he does have a gf who is willing to dress like a slutty Anna Karenina for him [Whoa, weirdly literary episode, huh?], but he's not scamming anyone, calling up hookers or doing blow anymore, so we'll say he's shaping up.

And of course Elizabeth is actually Chuck's mother, and of course she's lying about it, and of course Blair can see through that noise, and of course we know she's lying because she has the other half of the locket!! Obviously, the whole "A locket is all I have left from my dead parents!" plotline is the basically the plot of Annie, so I am holding out hope that by the end of this season Chuck will break into a Glee style rendition of Tomorrow. I would settle for him actually saying "Leapin' Lizards!" too.

But in the meantime, Chuck is going to go off and sulk about the fact that he feels like he lost his mother twice even though he you know, never actually lost her once. And Blair is going to whine about getting into secret French societies that don't sound nearly as cool as the Skull & Bones, and no one will care.

Speaking of whiny people, Jenny was in the episode! A whole lot! And now that she's an international drug dealer, she's suddenly strangely not annoying. I think that's because Jenny was most irritating when she was a little brat trying to be Queen of Constance, and that whole storyline was pretty played out, but GG has essentially decided as of late that to make things easier its just going to dispense with the idea that these people actually go to any kind of school at all.

Which makes sense, because come on, there was no way Nate could get into Columbia in real life.

And now that Jenny is a high roller selling drugs with Damien to the elite of New York [and French ambassadors' daughters], she won't need school either because if she keeps it up she'll make enough cash to be richer than Lily in about 3 weeks. But there is a 400% chance the gig will be up soon, because Jenny is stupid, as made obvious by the fact that she decided to smuggle drugs into a state dinner by sewing them into some hideous sweater which she made overnight. Did she knit the sweater herself? Or just buy a sweater shrug from the thrift store and glue the drug buttons on herself? How did pills fit into those little bedazzler do-hickeys?! And wouldn't Serena notice her sweater was heavy because it was filled with pills?! So many unimportant questions about an unimportant TV show.

Normally I also would have said that the idea of foppish Little J and Second Coming of Nate Damien smuggling drugs into a state dinner would be completely ludicrous, but then this happened:




















So obviously Jenny and Damien are going to hook up next week and I want to smack some sense into that girl, because with a name like Damien he has to be bad. I mean, have you seen any horror movies Little J?! Maybe, I don't know, The Omen?!

Since Damien is a bad boy himself it was only a matter of time before it was revealed that he knew Serena from her bad girl days at boarding school, even though Serena claims she's "changed. And that's a good thing." Ahahahahahaha that's funny Serena because you totally did it with Nate on Eleanor Waldorf's floor!

Like...I don't even understand. Why was Serena at Eleanor's? Why was Nate there? Why wasn't Blair there? Would it kill you to keep it in your pants for once Serena? At least until you get to a more appropriate place, like say, a coat check room? And where, oh where is Dorota so she can reign these people in again?!

I don't really have much to say about this Serena/Nate romance except that its already nauseating, and I can't wait for its inevitable end. Serena and Nate are the most vacuous and vapid purrrrtty people on this show, so putting them together is sort of like saying "Hey viewer! Tonight's Gossip Girl has been replaced by footage of a Barbie doll and GI Joe doll sitting there in their boxes! Enjoy!"

Actually do they make Zac Efron High School Musical dolls? Because that really would be the better choice to play Nate.

I KNEW IT. They do! Thanks Google Images:



















Whatever, Nate is still better than Aaron Rose.

Anyway, the only thing more nauseating than Serena/Nate is going to be Dan and Vanessa and considering both of them were conspicuously absent this episode, we'll probably get a heavy dose of them next week. Even though Dan was only in this episode for a hot second, he had the audacity to tell Rufus to make his own waffles, which is the bitchiest thing to ever cross his lips. And it was awesome. Someone has been taking lessons from Blair!

Lastly, I suppose I should discuss Rufus and Lily but....their argument is so stupid I don't even have the energy. Lily kissed her ex husband so Rufus is going to bang their neighbor? Yeah, that will help the situation!

The Baldwin that isn't Alec or Stephen is supposed to be appearing soon as said ex, so at least that should be entertaining. And I hope then more is revealed about Lily's "secret" because this is just lame. Once you already have a secret love child plot line, its sort of hard to top that, so I am not even really sure what the writers are trying to accomplish with this story.

But that's the hard knock life, right? Instead of getting treated you get tricked! Like into thinking that this show might actually make sense every once in a while!