Gossip Girl Review: Damien Darko

'Damien Darko'
Amusing banter is the only highlight...


So ‘Damien Darko’ aired in the US last night, and I have to say, I really wasn’t impressed.
There was scheming, come hither eye making and general idiocy – here’s a character breakdown of the episode.

Blair and Dan, where was your amusing banter? The fabulousness that was set up for this week. I have no idea, because it sure as hell wasn’t here. The one plus side to this is that Dan finally got it drilled into his head that whilst most of the UES have Mommy and Daddy to pave the way for them, Blair Waldorf works for it. She may have minions, she may have Dorota, but all that scheming and planning is hers – and she deserves some recognition sometimes. So good on him for sorting out the mess, and if she doesn’t call him up soon she’s going to get the evil eyes… However, there were some highly entertaining moments, Dan proving he learnt more than sex from Serena when Blair tried to trick him was one of the few high points. 

Yes Serena, men do sometimes notice when you’re giving them the ‘I want you’ eyes. And not all of them want you back… Well in this case Ben is just denying his baser urges, but really woman, can you not control yourself around men at all? And when are you going to learn that nothing good can ever come from ignoring your brother?

Man bangs. You didn’t really do anything, but I just felt like mentioning you. Also, your father. Get rid of him, and trade him in for someone cooler. Although at least you’re finally catching on to his evil scheming ways.

Lily – you’re a freakin’ billionaire, for god’s sake use some of that money for some ACTING CLASSES. ‘Oh my, this suspicious envelope, I shall open it later when none of you can see what is in it! No? Oh, in which case I have no idea what is in it, or who it is from, and I shall continue to say this EVEN THOUGH MY NAME IS PRINTED ON THE TOP OF THE COMPLIMENTS SLIP. MY LIES ARE FOOL PROOF.’

Rufus you will cease to exist to me now until you actually stand up to Lily in some sort of real way that doesn’t include offering a room to the guy she had locked up. Seriously, ring Cece, she could come kick some serious butt, and I think Lily needs that, she’s getting too full of her own importance and infallibility.

Chuck, baby, please tell me you have some sort of super duper scheme you’re about to implement, because otherwise you’re just being ridiculously dense and letting your man parts lead you to no good. If you’re going to let them do that, at least them lead you to Blair – she can do dress up no-good, which is way more fun.

Eric – I guess if someone gave you a hug you’d stop acting all Jenny Humphrey huh? Seriously, all that girl needed was some serious TLC, but now thanks to Rufus and Lily’s combined awful parenting, Gothic Barbie has no hope of redemption. Eric on the other hand, is salvageable. And they need to do something soon, else he’s going to start wearing eye make up and end up in the Ostroff centre again.

His whole plot just seemed too contrived and an easy way to bring Damien back in – because hell, there’s no one else causing trouble at the moment so we may as well get in the crazy drug dealer who will most likely end up trying to sleep with Eric. If the writer’s actually did something half way serious with Eric about the isolation that we saw at the start of series one, that would actually be a really good plot, and show that no matter what happens, the same cycles keep repeating on the upper east side – you know, other cycles that don’t involve sleeping with people or blackmail. As it is, they’re just kind of throwing it in as a half arsed attempt and making it seem rubbish.

I really wish the writers would stop doing this ‘oh no! This character is secretly evil even though they were good just a minute ago’ because it is not sneaky or clever. It is just inconsistent at this point, and it ends up looking ridiculous. Case in point, Ben. Evil and psychotic for several episodes, then as soon as Juliet was taking things a bit too far he turned into a pussy followed by a quick sashay into Mr Nice Guy who has actually been pretty wronged and was allowed to be pissed. But now we’re to believe that he’s actually evil and psychotic?? Which was actually a little alarming by the way. And yes Damien was being a prick, but there was no need to choke him against a wall now was there Ben?

In fact, the writers seem to have lost the plot a little with GG since the hiatus. We had some really good episodes leading up to it, but everything since is just flat. Who’s even writing this now? Oh, still Josh Schwartz, who seems to be using twitter to promote his other show Chuck more than Gossip Girl. A sign of where his attention actually lies?

It’s just very frustrating – we know Gossip Girl can be awesome, it has moments of genius, but more and more we have dud episodes that are full of awful plots and bad writing. Come on writers pull it together and get this show back to peak condition – you know we love it…