Gossip Girl has apparently been bitten by a Love Bug, its poison ratcheting up her Mad Hattery to an entirely new level. Last night she spoke only in song lyrics. I counted “The Rose,” “Laughter in the Rain,” “Love is a Battlefield,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Silly Love Song,” “Secret You Keep,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Love Lift Us Up,” “Ooh Child” and “Love is All Around,” which was probably a callback to The Torggs, but I’m going to count it as a shout to Billy Mack’s Christmas Number One and leave it at that.
Just listen: “Some say love is a river, some say love is a silly song, some say love is all around us – it lifts us up where we belong. Some say love is hearing laughter in the rain. But on the Upper East side, we all know: Love is pain.”
The Linster and I were talking yesterday about the merit of studying a god who doesn’t redeem, and I think it’s totally worth it for soliloquies like that one. I would worship Gossip Girl. I kind of do.
Anyway, Rufus is asleep on the couch at the Palace because Lily is still pissed at him for not slipping a burlap sack over Serena’s head in the night and dragging her off to Brown, like CeCe taught Lily to do years ago when she got pregnant with Rufus’ child. They break up and go to their own homes, where they moon over and caress photos of one another and it’s probably sweet, but all I can think about is that time Helen Stewart did the same to Nikki’s tiny mug shot when she shipped her off to another prison on Bad Girls, and this doesn’t really compare.
Rufus and Lily make up over the photos and break up again over wedding plans, and then the van der Humph kids Parent Trap them and Rufus tells Lily they should just leap and get married at the end of the episode, because: a) This thing has dragged on long enough, and b) How else will there be any calamity or story resolution if there isn’t a fourth act party?
And speaking of calamity and parties, Georgina is back from Boston and she’s drilling Vanessa about why Dan won’t return her calls/emails/texts/sparkly Twilight e-cards, and, because she was raised in Brooklyn and lacks the Upper East Side skill of tactfully weaving a paralyzing web of lies, Vanessa goes, “You are a full-on crazy person.”
Georgina sighs, and straps a detonator to V’s wrist, all, “Help me get Dan back or I will blow up the Humphries with this Scott-shaped missile.”
What follows are two of the most hilarious, brilliantly-acted scenes in GG history, both of which make me think that Jessica Szhor is the prettiest face and the best actress on this show.
In Vanessa’s dorm room, Georgina holds up a cue card that reads:
Not a stupid movie star
New York
History
On the phone with Dan, Vanessa improvs that Olivia is cheating with Orlando Bloom and that Dan would be better off with someone who lives in New York – which Olivia does, in Vanessa’s very room – and someone with whom he has history. Dan thinks she’s been eating hash brownies and hangs up on her because he has to go set the Parent Trap.
Jenny and Eric convince Dan that Vanessa is in love with him, which only takes about four seconds on account of LonelyBoy’s bizarrely-inflated ego. He goes to V’s dorm room to explain that they’re just friends and finds her Photoshopping an image of Olivia and Orlando Bloom together, in wedding duds. They both start talking over one another until Vanessa awesomely shouts, “I’m not in love with you, you moron!”
Then she tells Dan the truth about Scott, which, again, is just awesome! Vanessa is to Gossip Girl what Twitter is to celebrity gossip rags – she takes away the power!
Dan agrees to pretend to be into Georgina for one more day, so she doesn’t aim the Scott-shaped missile at Lily and Rufus’ wedding, but Georgina sees through his scheme when he doesn’t properly grope her in the park.
Elsewhere, Carter keeps turning down Serena’s invitations to socialize and Blair decides to ostracize Bree Buckley because – ZZzzzz. Oh, look: wedding planning! Jenny makes Lily’s dress while Blair sorts out the venue and Serena bosses around the new Mean Girls. The only problem is that Lily photocopied her vows from her wedding with one of the Klaus/Clauses and plans to recycle them on Rufus.
Several significant things happen at the wedding: Georgina does, in fact, fire the Scott-shaped missile; Carter shows up, even though that means Bree’s family is going to kidnap/kill him; Nate finds out that he has, once again, become an unwitting prostitute. And zaniest of all: Darota shows off more cleavage than Serena.
Rufus and Lily get in another argument as the wedding march begins to play. Scott overhears, and Lily understandably snaps at him for being a creep and he runs off with his tail between his legs. Georgina wanders up, all, “That was your love child! Congratulations, it’s a boy!” And Lily is bereft. If she’d known Scott was her kid, she would have covered his face with a burlap sack before shouting at him.
Lily and Rufus chase Scott to Chinatown and Lily awkwardly says some vows from her heart, and then the three of them awkwardly hug, and then Rufus and Lily get awkwardly married by Sonic Youth in the Humphrey’s Brooklyn loft. But none of that matters, because Georgina leaves for Belarus with a “prince” and I can’t live if living is without her.
Next week Serena is going to win back Carter in a poker game, and Chuck is going to kiss a dude that isn’t Nate. Is it genuine gay love or just exploitation?
Answer: exploitation. The genuine gay love story can’t happen until Serena and Blair are ready.
What did you think of Rufus Getting Married?
