Gossip Girl Review: Petty In Pink

'Petty In Pink'
Where everyone is lame apart from Dan and Blair...

Previously on Gossip Girl: Dan continued his incestuous relationships, trouble in the form of new cousin Charlie wants to stay and wreak havoc, Vanessa tried to make people like her, Bass senior was a bad man and apparently killed Mommy Thorpe in a fire, Raina continues to be clueless, Lily finally acted like a human and turned herself in, Chuck screwed up with Blair again, and Prince Louis returned to sweep Blair off into her fairytale.

Yay! Blair deserves a little happiness after all the poo Chuck has thrown at her the past couple of seasons.  And the ritual dressing has just become that much harder – how does one dress for a Prince?
Speaking of dressing, it’s fitting that at the point that Lily is under house arrest, she most needs to go shopping to cover up her tag. And really? House arrest? That was all she got? Eesh. I wanted to see how she’d look in an orange jumpsuit – at least for a couple of episodes.

Ha, I love Eric on five espressos. He should be permanently high on coffee. And at least one of these people has a vague recollection of what the UES do when there’s a scandal – they stop being friends with you.

Oh Rufus – how the mighty have fallen. Where are the morals of season one where you would never have been ok with Dan effectively stalking a Prince for a story?!
Urgh when is Rufus going to realize he is the only one who still wants Vanessa around? Stop fighting the inevitable and drop her already.

Squee! I’m having a moment over how cute Blair and Louis are. Although this is kind of ruined by the fact that they have to keep it a secret. Subterfuge is normally Blair’s thing, but not when she wants to rub it in Bass’ face that she’s traded him in for a better model.

“So we’re going to search the Gossip Girl archive for evidence of Dan and Blair sneaking around? I’m sorry, I’m new at this, how is that better than asking them?” Whilst I’m still not fussed on Charlie, I do love how the writers are using her to show how ridiculous the world and some of the plot lines are.

“Oh that means nothing, they went to Cornwall to try and find Julia, because she drugged me and tried to convince everyone I was crazy.”
“Sure. Because that happens.” LOVE IT.

Oh god, Charlie your innocence is being stolen. “First I need to teach you how to use the gossip girl spotter map.” Yes, because every girl has to be inducted into the ways of Gossip Girl before she can be a true upper east sider. We’ve heard Rufus spends his evenings browsing gossip girl to find out what his kids are doing.

And so the hijinks begin… Charlie is tailing Dan, who’s tailing Louis, who is trying to have a romantic date with Blair. Eesh.

Since when do you use limos when you’re trying to be sneaky?

Oh right, it’s the upper east side… The best thing they do for sneaky is wear a beret…

Oh Charlie, never turn away from your post at crucial points! It means S has to come down and do dirty work herself, and we all know when Serena tries to do things, it never ends well…

Ah yes, the next S move – pretend the person who was supposed to be spying for you got it wrong and is thus crazy.

Also, Charlie scares me with her ability to turn into a scary ass stalker in a matter of hours. Surely they should give these girls tests and stuff before letting them onto the streets to stalk at will?...

And we’re back to the Bass house of subterfuge… This storyline just bores me, so until something exciting happens in it, or Man Bangs does a strip tease, I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist.

“Single malt for breakfast?”
“Takes the edge off the coke.”
Oh Chuck, getting stoned and high is never going to help you win Blair back, I mean she’s dating a Prince now! But it’s nice to see him go back to what he’s good at when he’s miserable and thwarted.

Urgh. Dan stop trying to salvage your friendship with Vanessa. Learn when something should DIE.
Although at least Dan still has the Humphrey moral compass that Rufus appears to have lost.

Ah, there we go, UES hate social pariahs. Although I love how Mrs Archibald doesn’t even acknowledge Rufus when he comes in.

Loving the sad music that seems to follow Chuck around the apartment. Also, I’d forgotten how sexy his voice gets when he’s depressed and drunk. Sigh. Back to the good old days. Well, the next best thing, because nothing can replace the schemes of series one.

Blair a commoner? Good lord no – just wait until they see her and her scheming ways. 

“Meet me in half an hour, you know why and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I always find out.”
I love that there’s no BS between these two, that’s one of the things that makes them so interesting to watch. Also, what kind of idiot did Dan take Blair to be to think that she wouldn’t know EVERYTHING.

“You should have been suspicious the minute someone wanted to pay you for your writing.” I love her.
Actually I love all of this scene, but I’d just end up copying all of the dialogue into this, so I’m just going to do a blanket, I love Dan and Blair together – they’re brilliant.

Urgh. Rufus, you’re just being lame. And your character has changed so much since season one that I barely even recognise you. Also, how is this going to make Lily feel better? A load of people who don’t want anything to do with her ogling her like she’s in the zoo? Yeah Rufus, great plan.

Chuck? Showing humanity? What the what?

“You’re a cater waiter, you know exactly what a butler’s pantry is.” Love them love them love them. I want to know if the kiss is going to be another cop out or whether we’re actually going to get to see something this time…

Urgh this whole party and Serena’s whining is just grating. I haven’t been this bored watching an episode in a while.

Although the sight of Chuck in a diner has just made it better…

“As far as I’m concerned my mother is dead.” Yes, now if only she knew how true her words were… Then maybe we could ship her off to Daddy and be rid of this whole storyline.

“There’s not a woman in this room who didn’t take some pleasure in your downfall.” Finally Lily is getting some comeuppance for being such a bitch. Although I’m still reeling over this whole ridiculous house arrest thing.

Urgh – we didn’t see the kiss AGAIN? Gossip Girl writer’s you blatantly hate the Dair fans out there.
And seeing it on a blurry cell phone recording so does not count.

Although did Blair just slap Dan on the ass?...

Urgh Serena stop with the histrionics. I have no patience for these Van Der Woodsen women this evening. Dan and Blair have explained and yeah possibly not their best move keeping it a secret, but that’s no need for Serena to go ‘well you’ve lost me.’ Not everything is about you woman.
“The only appeal he’s ever had to you is that he was mine.”
Facepalm.

Underdog Blair has her day! If you can even call her an underdog…

Ha! Although Lily gets points for her awesome way of clearing out the UES bitches.

I actually kind of like Lily again after this. Wow, did not think I’d go back to Team Lily again.

Charlie and Dan, sitting in a tree… Oh wait, we’re not quite there yet.
Ha, although thank god Vanessa is going to have that little plan blow up in her face thanks to Charlie and her honesty policy.
Really Dan, when are you going to learn that there are other women that you’re not related to?...

Oh thank God, I was worried that Serena had messed things up with Blair and Louis.  He’s far too nice.

Awwww slow mo fairy tale kiss!

Urgh, what is Serena going to do to screw things up for Blair this time? That girl has a serious inferiority complex.

Ha in your face Vanessa! Does this mean we don’t have to put up with her anymore or is that wishful thinking? Although come on, you don’t leave a message like that if you’re worried about a friend – that’s the sort of message you leave when you’re trying to piss a lot of people off.

And Chuck has confirmation Daddy Thorpe was telling the truth.

So all in all a bit of a lame episode.

Whilst it finally got things out in the open about Blair and Dan, and it was great to see Prince Louis, that was about all that was accomplished this episode.

Hopefully this was just some setting up for the next few episodes, which will pick up the pace and bring back some of the gossip girl we love.

What did you make of the episode? Love it or hate it, weigh in on the comments below.