Last Night's Gossip Girl, and How Things Should Proceed

Just some thoughts on last night’s Gossip Girl:

First things first—Dorota stole the show with her line about the “foot bothering.” I’m still giggling at that.

And now for our weekly dose of Dan being an assmunch. Listen up, dillweed: a sex tape is something you do with a Kardashian in a poorly lit room with shaky camerawork. It is NOT a scripted sex scene in a big Hollywood movie that has a script, director, and dozens of cameramen/production people swarming around the set. And Olivia? When your colossal ass of a boyfriend comes to you all “Your job makes you a big slut,” your response is not to start apologizing and making up stupid excuses—you poke him in the eye, punch him in the neck, and tell him to suck it for being such an insecure dickwad.

Aside: am I possibly overreacting to this, since the line in the actual episode went by so quickly and seemed sort of jokey? Dan’s so humorless that the possibility didn’t occur to me right away. At any rate, I saw the “sex tape” line so many times in the promos this week, I was already pissed off about it. And when in doubt, “Dan is a dumbfuck” is a fairly reliable rule of thumb.

In happier news. No Vanessa! No Georgina! No Scott! I realized about halfway through the episode that the majority of pointless characters were absent, and did a little happy dance. God bless you, Sara Goodman, for leaving them out and allowing me to focus my hating energy on Dan. (Yeah, I looked up the episode writer out of sheer giddiness and gratitude over not dealing with Fucking Vanessa Abrams.)

Speaking of absent characters, somebody finally remembered that Eric exists, which is nice. And his feud with Jenny has potential, if the writers know what to do with it. I do have one question about the yogurt fiasco, though. When Lily was being all sympathetic/understanding about how Eric put Jenny in an impossible situation by sitting higher than her on the stairs, she was being sarcastic, right? RIGHT? I assumed she was because there's no way a sane adult could hear the argument "He sat higher than me on the steps; I had to humiliate him!" and not incur permanent damage from rolling her eyes too hard. Awesome parenting, Lily: “You were a megabitch, but to ahead to the amazing party with all the liquor; just try to be nice if that’s not too much trouble.” Blair could come up with a better punishment in her sleep. Most likely something to do with foot bothering.

Which brings me to a few suggestions about how a few storylines should proceed. Instead of being such a goddamn sad sack with the quiet disappointment, Eric needs to team up with Blair to launch his own campaign of evil bitchery against Jenny. They’ve endured similar humiliations—remember this? Frankly, it’s about time Eric did something interesting, and his attempt to install himself as Queen Bee might just be what the show needs to get some of its edge back. Of course, this all depends on Connor Paolo demonstrating the ability to demonstrate an acting range beyond "physically present." About which I'm not so optimistic. Also, if he’s going to have a boyfriend, they need to act as if they actually like each other, and NO, sitting six inches apart on the steps of the Met does not count. Gossip Girl, you claim to be hot and edgy and controversial, but between last week’s barely-there kiss between Chuck and that guy, and Eric & Jonathan’s utterly chaste relationship, you’re about as scandalous as The Golden Girls.

One final storyline idea before I go, and this one’s for Nate. Who? Oh, that guy who supposedly goes to Columbia, shows up now and then to say four words, and basically has his own show about his family that’s totally disconnected from everything else that’s going on. Instead of sending him away for random political plots (Seriously, next week? Tripp’s election is the big focus? Do you think one person gives a flip?), make his going to Columbia mean something. Blair was obsessed with Yale for her whole life, she’s not coping with NYU, and her ex is living in the Ivy world she’d fantasized about for so long. I’m not suggesting anything that would break up Chuck & Blair, but why not give Nate a few friends from his own college? God knows he could use a break from Dan Humphrey, and if Nate’s bringing around Ivy Leaguers to hang out with Blair, it could easily set off all her insecurities and send her crazy scheming mode, which is always good for some entertainment. Come on, writers, this was an easy one—do I have to do all your work for you?