What rhymes with Sonic Youth and is also music to our ears? Truth, friends. And that was what we heard a lot of on last night’s Gossip Girl. Vanessa finally told Dan the truth about Scott. Carter came clean to Serena about a really revolting thing he did to his ex-girlfriend. Lily revealed that beneath her porcelain veneer and mannered comments about the Bolognese she’s just a lady full of wonderful, complicated, runny-nosed feelings. And Dorota revealed her stunning, creamy décolletage.
Onward, to our patented reality index!
Realer Than the Poor Kid From Boston Taking the Chinatown Bus
• Vanessa’s IM name is “Docugrl191” and Olivia Burke’s is “Olivia.” Plus 2, not because it’s particularly easier for famous people to get normal IM names, but because it should be.
• Jenny and Eric now go everywhere together, like one unit. Plus 2, because we suspect they’re paving the way for a spinoff that is quasi-based on Tales of the City, in which Eric gallivants in the Castro while Jenny potters around tending marijuana plants in her Stevie Nicks costume. (Seriously, what happened to her clothes this episode?)
• Dan: “The toilets in Tokyo talk!” Really, Dan? Do they speak homosexual? Plus 2.
• Georgina has weird tribal music accompanying her. Plus 2, because if you were in a police lineup trying to identify her after she drugged you and nearly sex-murdered your best friend, you’d only really be able to pick her out based on the African drumbeat that emanates from her pores. But it would work!
• The dim-sum place they go to looks accurate, even though we’re skeptical that Bree and Blair would eat so many fried carbs on purpose. Plus only 1 because it wasn’t Jin Fong or Golden Unicorn. Plus 3.
• Blair: “Trust me, Nate, I know women, and none of us are that nice.” Plus 2.
• Aw, Chuck in a restaurant kitchen. This is our favorite date-rape memory of all time. Plus 1.
• Georgina: “Why won’t he respond to any of my calls or my texts or my animated e-cards?”
Vanessa: “Are you serious?”
Georgina: “The last one I sent him was this adorable singing dog.”
Vanessa: “Okay. Dan didn’t write you back because (a) he broke up with you, (b) he’s seeing someone else, and (c) even though I tried to defend you, you’re a full-on crazy person.
Georgina: “Wait, can we go back to (b) for a second?” Plus 3.
• Georgina: “That was pathetic. Haven’t you ever tried to get somebody to dump a celebrity before?”
Vanessa: “No.”
Plus 1
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• Georgina served Scott “several glasses of wine slightly enhanced.” Plus 2 for the way she just slipped that in there, like it was something only vaguely shameful, like Chardonnay with ice cubes in it.
• Plus 3 for when Georgina asks Vanessa, “Who are you going to hang out with when all the Humphreys hate you?” Her greatest weakness!
• Even though we thought Georgina would clearly have a much better plan than holding up a cue card for Vanessa and making her have a completely unrealistic phone conversation, we did like Vanessa’s helplessness. Plus only 1, because this is the girl who knows how to get someone deported. (Meanwhile, plus 1 for finally revealing what happened to Poppy Lifton, by the way. We thought for sure she was folded up in a storage locker under Grand Central.)
• Dan: “Look, I don’t know if you’re joking or if Lenny made brownies from your floor again … ” Plus 2, one point for pot brownies, and one point for people on this show for once seeing through laughably thin deceptions.
• Rufus: “I knew I let you kids watch The Parent Trap too many times.” Yes. Eric and Jenny would LOVE The Parent Trap. Hopefully the original and the Lindsay Lohan version. Plus 1.
• Lily loves the Bolognese at Tony’s? Okay, we’ll buy it.
• As awesome as this moment was for us Project Runway gays and gals, it still only earns a plus 1: Lily’s previous wedding picture doesn’t even include her husband’s face. “That was by far your best wedding.” Serena tells her. “Who would have guessed nine months later Klaus would have Auf’ed?”
• A southern friend points out: “Bree was wearing a crucifix when she was being a coldhearted backstabber. That is very much in the ‘real’ column.” Sounds believable to us! Texas is terrifying! Plus 3.
• Lily always wears chandelier earrings, frequently turquoise. Plus only 1, because they are mitigated by Vanessa’s matching ridiculous turquoise cocktail rings. What, is the costume designer on the mailing list at www.navajonightmares.com?
• Rufus and Dan wear matching outfits even if they’re not wearing plaid. Plus 5, with an additional plus 2 for the Ikea Gilbert chairs in the Dumbo loft, because that is real real.
• When, after several agonizing seconds, Vanessa actually told Dan the truth about Scott instead of keeping Georgina’s stupid scheme going for the entire episode, Jessica’s husband actually jumped up, did a fist pump — with both hands, and goes, “YES!” the way a normal man might do with sports. Plus 5, because that really was such a huge relief, and made up for the fact that this episode contained yet another “Big Event” that brings everyone together.
• “Buntautuk. I learned it from a master in Chiang Mai.” Plus 1, if not for realism, for reminding us of Chuck’s hilarious lost weekend in Thailand from last season.
• When Serena was brooding in the study, her boobs looked like they were made of actual wax. No points, just an observation.
• Wait, Lily and Rufus have a shared memory of drinking wine out of Welcome Back Kotter mugs? Rufus drinks his coffee out of one of those every morning! Plus 4, for touching continuity, or a weird Kotter obsession in the writer’s room.
• Blair: “The only no I want to hear is if Ruth Madoff asks for an invite.” Plus 1.
• Constance Girl 3: “My family’s in investment banking; we’re all broke.”
Jenny: “Then you can go.” Plus 2.
• Plus 5 for the fact that Georgina figures out that Dan is lying to her not by the stilted way he talks to her or his awkward facial expressions but because he doesn’t grab her ass when she kisses him. Too true. A dead giveaway, like the back-pat or the kiss on the forehead. Plus an additional 2 for the fact that Dan thinks he did an “amazing” acting job. [See also: ads for The Stepfather]
• Lily’s first reaction to Georgina’s dramatic reveal of Scott’s parentage is to look all annoyed, like “Oh, GREAT. And now he’s walked away. Do I have to do EVERYTHING? THANKS, everyone. For NOTHING.” Plus 1.
• Kim Gordon got officiated to perform weddings on the Internet, just like everyone else in the nineties. (Incidentally, so did Intel Jessica, who will perform your wedding for a flat fee, no questions asked or eyebrows raised.)
• Is the thing with Olivia/Hilary Duff going to be that we never ever see her because she’s always in Japan promoting a movie or “on location” somewhere, and Dan will stay home for years penning artsy brooding screenplays that will be financed because she agrees to star in them? Because if so, that would be very realistic. For now, Plus 3.
• Serena calls Blair’s new NYU friends “new Mean Girls.” Plus 1.
• Do Lily and Rufus have no adult friends to invite to their wedding? Plus 1, because really, we’ve seen no evidence of that before.
• Lily’s hug with Scott, her long-lost son, was so uncomfortable. Plus 5 because she’s a Wasp, and they were in Chinatown.
• Dorota took down Georgina! Plus 20 for the best Gossip Girl plot twist ever!!
More Fake Than College Students Using a Verizon-Branded IM Service and Not Gchat:
• Not only would Dan not have a mini-PC, but he also wouldn’t type on it on the street like a blind person. Seriously, him at that laptop is like an original Star Trek outtake. Minus 2.
• Dan says that he can’t sign on to IM under his screen name because Georgina jumps on him, but please, he would know how to make himself invisible. WE know how to make ourselves invisible, and we are practically grandma Cece’s age. Minus 3. Speaking of which, we thought she was all better now. Why wasn’t she at the wedding? Minus 1.
• Rufus is sleeping on the couch? Really? There’s no guest room? In that palatial apartment? Minus 3, because architects for the rich, white, and famous clearly have the sexile in mind when they do floor layouts.
• Vanessa wouldn’t go along with Georgina’s scheme to get Dan to dump Olivia for even one second. Why would she be mean to her friend of all of life to protect a guy she knew for five minutes from a secret he doesn’t need to keep? Minus only 1, because she eventually does tell him with only a minimal amount of biting of lip and casting about of eyes.
• We’re confused by the way Serena fled her home to hide. She went to Blair’s? Where the hell is Eleanor Waldorf? And why is it sexy that Carter made toaster strudels for Serena when Dorota could have whipped up an egg-white omelette? Minus only 1, because we’d take a Pop-Tart over egg whites any day.
• Vanessa looks pretty this episode. Her dress isn’t as tie-dye terrible as, say, Jenny’s, nor are her hair extensions (for once). And that gold collar she’s wearing is kinda fetch — but not in the “I’m a scholarship kid from Brooklyn” way, unfortunately. So, yeah, minus 1.
• “The Bleecker”! Aha! At last, the name of their fictional coffee shop. Minus 1, because, yeah, it’s still fictional.
• What gives? Eric is wearing a TERRIBLE beige-and-black short-sleeved button-down shirt for half the episode. Beige on black is like blood on the dance floor — only okay if it’s really dark and everyone’s drunk. Minus 3. And minus 1 for the fact that his hair keeps getting darker and darker. He wouldn’t quit the highlights until at least college, if Intel Chris’s yearbook pictures are anything to go by.
• Blair hates Bree so much she calls her mother a “NASCAR mom.” She’s watched Nate fall in love with other people; why does she care so much this time? Minus only 1, because we do believe in irrational bitch-on-bitch hatred.
• It’s not permits that prevent you from getting married at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It’s that it’s booked for weddings two years in advance. Minus 2.
• If Carter Baizen, whom we are meant to believe is a prominent member of Upper East Side society, was engaged to be married to a Buckley, another prominent member of Upper East Side society, wouldn’t Serena have known? Minus 7, because even if she was on her deathbed, Grandma Cece would have sent her the engagement announcement, with the names highlighted and a little note about how she’d better not let the next one get away.
• “Looks like this wedding song just became ‘Stormy Weather,’” Gossip Girl says at one point. “But don’t worry, ‘Here Comes the Sun.’” And later, after Georgina’s dramatic reveal of Scott’s parentage, Gossip Girl says: “Ooh, ooh ‘Love Child.’ Things didn’t get any easier. Guess we might want to move the honeymoon suite to the ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’” What? No. This song-title theme is not working for us. It sounds like Gossip Girl has been co-opted by the people behind that annoying search-optimization ad.
• Georgina asks the hot-dog guy what it means when someone used to grab your ass but now doesn’t. Minus 1, because she would never talk to a hot-dog guy. She would EAT a hot-dog guy.
• Scott says that he could have dealt with the fact that Rufus and Lily gave him up because they weren’t ready, but not the fact that they didn’t love each other. What? This strikes us as unrealistic. One of our best friends was conceived on a Softee machine, and she assures us that actually it’s the “giving up” that hurts, it doesn’t really matter what kind of mood you’re in. Minus 2
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• Gossip Girl says: “There are songs that make us want to dance, songs that make us want to sing along.” To which we would add: And then there are songs by Sonic Youth, which make you want to do neither of those things. Minus 5 for Sonic Youth’s whole appearance, because as much as we love Kim and Thurston, and do believe that they would come in from Northampton to officiate at and perform a wedding for their billionaire friends, those friends would not be Rufus and Lily, who have 18- year-olds, because it simply doesn’t make chronological sense.
Reality points total: 88 90
Fake points total: 35
This episode was real because, well, people finally acted like they had brains, and several important plot points were wrapped up. Which would have us worried for the next episode, but we saw the trailer. You all know what’s coming! As always, put your tallies in the comments!
Amazing update: In a moment unprecedented in the entire history of the Gossip Girl recaps, today a location manager for the show e-mailed us in response to our tally. Turns out, the dim-sum scene WAS filmed at Golden Unicorn. This is all Intel Chris’s fault, because he was just at the place last month for a lovely post-wedding brunch, at which he was apparently so hung-over he doesn’t even remember what it looked like. Still, we have never been more happy to award two extra reality points! Keep reading, you guys!
