Gossip Girl Review: While You Weren't Sleeping

'While you weren't sleeping'
Plot holes, cutsey moments,
and man bangs gets lines!

So Gossip Girl is not proving to have much staying power at the moment - hence why this is quite a belated review. Here follows my musings and ramblings on the episode as I finally caught up on the goings on in the UES.

Ah Nate, you’ve been inactive so long you don’t even know how long you’ve been wearing the same sweater. It’s truly tragic. As is the fact that Chuck is only using you as a sex toy. Seriously, re-evaluate your life and friends – don’t you still go to college? Meet new people! Socialise! Get out the house and stop moping on your shrine of girlfriends past.

“New minion – ”
“My name is Emily.”
“She has no time to care.”

I am loving Blair’s dictator streak. It’s always been there, but it’s truly surfacing now – I don’t think she’s ever before reached the level where she didn’t have time to chastise minions for their incompetence.

“Not to worry, my new intern is already here.” Oh Dan, your worried face doesn’t even come remotely close to how afraid you should really be right now.

I’m in two minds about that slap from Lily. Half of me is doing a little dance and saying ‘yay, finally she actually gives Chuck what for.’ And the other half is going ‘oh god, we’re sliding further into soap land with every cliché.’ I can’t decide which I’d rather. A more indignant Lily, or more ridiculous plotlines… (on a side note, how did no one else in the restaurant notice that slap?! Does this sort of thing happen regularly on the UES?)

AHAHAHAHA. Sorry. Ahem. I may need a moment to recover. I love Daddy Thorpe appearing from behind a newspaper in the corner. WHERE IS HIS SLEUTHING HAT AND COAT?!

Oh Serena, your brother is sick on his birthday, so this is the perfect moment for you to spend more time with your bland pile of boyfriend! Seriously, you used to give a damn about Eric at the very least. I know he started hanging out with Damien, but can’t you see it’s a cry for help? Minus 20 sister points. Also, minus another 30 points for still going out with Bland Ben. He makes me want to throw things.

Ahhh, ok the soap opera acting makes sense. Schemes galore! Lily this doesn’t make you a better person though.

Serena, why are you preaching and giving Eric evils for telling Damien? You were planning on outing Lily TO THE PRESS a few weeks ago. Urgh. This whole scenario has too many plot holes, it’s giving me a headache. Just before I start ignoring it, why did they have this meeting in a public foyer where anyone could hear? Instead of, you know, upstairs in their private apartment. Oh you Van Der Woodsens and your complete lack of any brains.

Oh Ben, you made the fatal error of not agreeing with everything Serena says – I’d go pack your bag now.

“All you have to do, is admit you need me.” I am loving Dair more and more with each moment of witty banter.

Man Bangs – every word coming out of your mouth is boring me. I can see why you’ve had so little screen time recently.

Blair trying to drink from her pencil holder – highlight of the hour.
However Dan leaving her to it may have been the saddest moment. Yes Miss Waldorf I saw how you watched him walk out with those puppy dog eyes…
(Although the fact that he comes back makes me grin. These two!)

“As a friend and peer, not as an underling.”
“As a friend and *trails off to incoherent mumbling*”

Why is Blair taking orders from the girl who is wearing a dress so short you can see virtually everything? A fashion faux pas like that should never go un-scolded – seriously, she is off her game today.

Nate, whilst your acting skills have gotten even worse than they were previously, your scheming skills have apparently gone down the pan as well. Baby Thorpe is so work orientated, I seriously doubt she’d cancel a day to go ice skating. The plot holes are widening… Seriously this episode is hanging together by a very few threads, all of them Dair coloured.

Also, since when would Baby Thorpe go back to the Bass lair with Nate and wander round in a dressing gown? She’d be avoiding that place like the plague.
That last shot of Nate lighting up BT scares me. His eyes look dead on the inside.

Given the Serena posing as Lily shenanigans a few episodes ago, there’s something strangely charged happening between Lily and Chuck. I don’t know if I should be worried at this stage if incest curiosity runs in the family. After all we’ve had Dan and Serena, what other lines have Chuck/the writers left to cross, other than a Chuck and Lily pairing. *Shudder*

Vanessa? Get out.

Urgh. Tulips. Double crossing. Obscene amounts of money. I suppose it’s like most other episodes of Gossip Girl, but for some reason this one really isn’t doing it for me.

And Rufus’ lines are getting a little slurry. Has he turned into an alcoholic house husband whilst no one was paying him any attention?

Ok this is making up for it – stoned Man Bangs and BT are actually quite amusing. How long until they accidentally fall on top of each other from swaying back and forth so much?

Yay, one step closer to Ben finally leaving! He’s a control freak psychopath, and why is it taking Serena so long to see this?

This party is actually quite cool – there have been some boring ones this season, but I actually like what they’ve done for this one. It’s just a shame Eric isn’t enjoying any of it – aside from finding his new trust fund cheque book.

I’m going to gloss over most of this, because if I start ranting, my head may well explode from the improbability stakes being raised so high.

However, on the plus side, yay for Chuck finally getting somewhere. Boo for Blair being crushed by the evil woman. And yay for Rufus finally getting a little screen time (with lines!) although it scares me how quickly Daddy Thorpe pieces it all together. That man must have spies everywhere. Either that or he has no life and watches shows like this all day long, so he expects silly plot twists like this.

Vanessa? Get out.

LILY? PARENTING SKILLS? Someone get a bottle of champagne.

“I think you’ve actually gotten less smart since high school Humphrey – oh right, you go to NYU.” Don’t judge Blair, you went there for a while too! And he’s apologising, stop being so meeeean.

Oh Blair, your look of confusion means Dan did something nice for you when you weren’t looking. I love it. I love it. I love it. Seriously Blair and Dan are the only two decent things holding this show together. Serena has apparently let her hair/boobs do her thinking for her, Nate is too stoned to string a coherent sentence together, and Chuck has completely lost has Basstard streak. I mean c’mon, he used to be cool! And everyone else has just faded into mediocrity, so I’m glad these two are still awesome – even if it’s a shame it’s just the two of them now.

Uhho – Ben is lurking and there is mildly menacing music. I fear for Damien’s life!
Seriously he reacts to being pounced on like a girl. Sigh. Where are all the decent men in this town? Oh right, there’s just Humphrey left…

“I always knew you read too much Shakespeare to be sane.” Best line ever. Oh and finally, Ben stopped being bland and went back to being a psycho – excellent, things might get interesting now…

Oh Vanessa, why are you stood in the middle of the road? Is life really that bad? And really, you expect us to believe she heard that conversation all the way over there whilst dodging traffic?

The Van der Woodsen/Humphrey/Bass breakdown of the evening is possibly the best recap of a party ever.

The fact that Ben goes from psycho to sweetie in thirty seconds is a little alarming. It also doesn’t make me like him any more than I did.

I suppose it was too much to hope for that Daddy Thorpe and Damien would go jump off a cliff somewhere. The next logical step was for them to team up. This is not going to go well for anyone…

Eating pizza curled up in Brooklyn with a Humphrey? Blair Waldorf, are you coming down off you high horse to be with the masses? Hmm… This could be interesting.

So as ever, plot holes galore, wooden acting and uninspiring moments. As I said earlier, the only thing really keeping Gossip Girl together at the moment is Blair and Dan and their awesome banter/chemistry. So whilst I’m not holding my breath for this season to get any better, I will keep watching if only to see where these two go.