Gossip Girl: Lost in the Valley

To commemorate the season finale of Lost, this week’s Gossip Girl borrows a page from their mode of storytelling.  We get a Lily-centric episode with flashbacks to her days in the Valley for glimpses of why she’s been struggling so much with Serena this week and last.  And as an added Lost connection, Cynthia Watros (a/k/a Libby) plays the part of Lily’s mother CeCe in the flashbacks/backdoor pilot for the Gossip Girl spin-off.

We begin the first half of our story in the present.  The gang is still at the precinct station, wondering why Lily had Serena arrested.  Lily arrives to claim her and ignores the scorns from everyone.  Serena is furious and reminds Lily of how lousy of a mother she’s been.  And then Lily’s mother comes in–she was Serena’s one phone call.  And through all of this we’re getting snippets of Lily’s teenage years, again underscoring the Lost storytelling pattern of mind reading through flashbacks.

Back at the apartment, Lily and CeCe bicker over CeCe telling Rufus about the love child.  And Serena is still in jail because she refused help.  Umm, yeah, I don’t think you can voluntarily stay in jail when there are no charges pending against you.  It’s not like a Best Western.  Anyway, Blair thinks it’s silly and she needs to get ready for prom even though her dress was ruined by the dry cleaners.  (Dorota is on the case and put the dress in a body bag.)

Nate and Chuck again discuss whether Chuck is trying to sabotage Nate and Blair.  He’s not, as we’ll eventually learn.  And Lily is done with CeCe’s meddling and wants her out.

Lily goes back to claim Serena from jail but Serena is gone.  Dan picked her up with a Jenny-original dress and they’re off to the prom.  Lily goes to Rufus and wonders what became of her parenting skills, namely how she’s turned into her mother.  She also calls Rufus on his non-proposal, but Rufus wants her to take time to figure herself out and to put away the demons with her mother so she can save her relationship with Serena.

At prom, Blair scorns the suggestion that she and Nate would be nominated for prom king and queen, particularly since these positions are only done in suburban schools and teen comedies set in similar schools.  Blair changes her mind when she learns there’s a tiara at stake.  But Penelope wants to rig the ballots so Nelly Yuki will win.

After some fancy dance moves, Blair and Nate are declared king and queen of prom.  Chuck countered the pro-Nelly Yuki contingent and stuffed the ballot with votes for Blair.  Chuck, playing the part of fairy godmother, also secretly gave her keys to a hotel suite and arranged for her to get the new dress she wanted.  Oh Chuck, will Blair ever know what she wants and will you ever tell her or are we doomed to a Tony/Angela-like tension until the very end?  To speed things along, though, Blair dumps Nate during a final slow dance, accomplishing her dream of going to her high school prom with her high school boyfriend.

Lily returns in time to catch CeCe before she leaves.  They talk of destiny and Lily’s fear of losing her.  She asks her to stay and gives a reluctantly reciprocated hug.  Screw the planned spin-off!  These two need their own show but for now, I’ll settle for their younger counterparts getting a spin-off.

And with that, let’s time warp back to Malibu, California, 1983.  Lily Rhodes is driving down the Pacific Coast Highway and stops to call her record producer father.  He’s brushing her off and she’s hiding the fact that she’s been expelled.

Lily and her father (Richard) meet for lunch.  (And I promise now that I will keep the Mannequin jokes to a minimum.)  Lily’s been having trouble adjusting to her parents’ divorce and move to California.  And then Lily’s mother (CeCe) strolls in and orders a gin and tonic, hold the tonic.  (Atta girl!)  Anyway, Richard gets Lily back into school because he doesn’t have time for her and she doesn’t want to stay with her mother.  So she does what every disobedient teenager does . . . runs away!

Young Lily goes looking for her sister, Carol.  Anyway she rambles on to Owen, who works in a diner and knows Carol, about how she may have to become a prostitute but doesn’t know whether she should emphasize the small talk or the BJs.  My guess is people aren’t hiring prostitutes for their conversation skills, no matter what we learned in Pretty Woman.  Now let’s pause for an 80s fashion montage!  Young Lily is dressing up for something while “Dancing With [Her]self.”

She heads out with Owen to some concert, where she runs into her sister Carol.  Lily learns that Carol’s been living out of her car or something equally lesser than Lily’s accustomed ways.  The other fun part is Carol’s posing as a poor person, which doesn’t suit Lily.  Carol just thinks Lily sounds like their mother.

Carol, Lily, Owen, and that dude from Party Down break into a producer’s place because he owes Carol money or something.  I’m not sure.  The flipping storyline is more confusing than that one episode of Lost where every scene flashed forward, backward, and even sideways.  Hold on, I think my nose is hemorrhaging.  So just listen to the “Safety Dance” and watch someone with a popped collar do some blow, i.e., Keith van der Woodsen, the music video director who ripped off Carol.  Lily’s pissed and wants to get even, but Keith called the cops.  And then a fight breaks out!

So Lily, like her pre-conceived daughter Serena, winds up in jail and must confront an over-judgmental mother.  Sensing trouble, Carol grabs the phone and tells CeCe to cool it.  We end with scene wipes to and from 1983 and 2009 showing the bonds of friendship: Lily and Carol versus Serena and Blair.

Next week: The Gossip Girl Season Finale, wherein someone drops a gossip bomb and our gang graduates.

Season 2, Episode 24: Valley Girls (originally aired May 11, 2009)

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Photographs courtesy of The CW, Michael Desmond, Giovanni Rufino