Gossip Girl: Slow Starting

When we last left off, Chuck ran away from his feelings, Serena wanted to be a part of B.A. (Buenos Aires, Big Apple), Rufus and Lily have a love child, and Nate and Vanessa are notably absent from this episode.  What a way to start a new year!  Everyone returns after winter recess and try to go back to life as they want it to be: Blair wants to join up with the Colony Club ladies, Jenny’s going back to school, and Chuck is getting high with a Thai hooker named Bo–at least until Uncle Jack (no, not him) brings him back to New York.  And in Brooklyn, Rufus is lying to Dan about where he’s been: knocking on adoption agency doors in Boston looking for his child.

While Jenny and Eric flit about the Upper East Side trying to put the kibosh on Penelope & Co. tormenting Nelly Yuki, Serena tells Dan she dumped Aaron (thank you!) and now she and Dan are back together.  Per Gossip Girl, this is the third time for them, and I’m hopeful this will last as the characters are more enjoyable when they’re not being weird about how weird it is not to be together.

And speaking of being weird together, Blair still cares for Chuck but he’s too high to care.  So high that Headmistress Queller catches Chuck rocking the ganja in the hallway.  Chuck explains that it’s only hash (which is legal, right?) but Blair and Jack have to bail Chuck out of trouble.  Chuck thanks them all by going for lap dances at Victrola and throwing a party to celebrate being the dirt bag his late father said he was.  When Blair challenges him, he tells her to lose her delusions about him; she leaves to win the hearts and judgmental stares of the Colony ladies, but with Dorota’s menacing glare, Blair realizes she shouldn’t throw Chuck, Serena, and Lily under the bus and runs over the Colony ladies on her way back to see Chuck.

In the adult section of the show, Rufus and Lily bicker over her unwillingness to help Rufus locate their child.  She drops that Chuck knows about the child (a boy) but that he will keep her secret safe.  (Uh huh.)  In Rufus’s frustration, he is not pleased that Dan and Serena are back together and he all but throws Serena out of the loft.  This only raises the suspicions of Dan who searches the loft and finds a Boston map with adoption agency numbers on it.  He confronts Rufus and Rufus shows he’s a bad liar.

Our stories converge at Victrola where, after Chuck and Eric share a moment of step-brotherly kinship, Chuck tells Dan about Rufus’s love child with Lily.  Dan takes Serena outside to tell her about their half-brother.  Blair arrives in time to realize Chuck went up to the roof to drink and dance dangerously on the edge.  She and Jack run up to the roof to stop Chuck from jumping/falling.  (Query: Is this the first time Chuck has been on a roof when he didn’t try to sexually assault someone?)  They talk him down as Jack takes custody of Chuck and asks Blair to trust him.  Blair does but drops a cryptic note that Chuck can’t know about New Years . . . whatever that means.

Rufus goes to see Lily and she agrees to join Rufus on the quest to find their child.  After a quick call from Rufus stops Dan from spoiling the surprise, Lily and Dan drive off, or rather they watch her driver do it.

So what a slow episode this week!  Although, we saw this earlier this season as the show got back in the swing of things.  It recovered from the slow start in East Hampton and I’m sure we’ll get the same here, especially when next week’s show features the reading of Bart’s will.  Will our dramatic Chuck Bass return?  Let’s hope.

Season 2, Episode 14: In the Realm of Basses (originally aired January 5, 2009)

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