Gossip Girl: Is there an opposite of XOXO?

Just a few weeks ago I got my first taste of a show that I didn’t know a thing about. It was The Vampire Diaries and after only two, random and out of order episodes it more or less won me over. Granted, that particular series is only seven episodes old so I wasn’t dramatically behind, but what would happen if I tried out a series that is currently in its third season? That’s exactly what I did this Monday night with a little show called Gossip Girl and the results were not positive.

Going in I knew very little about the show other than that it was about a bunch of hot, young people living in New York and saying bitchy things. As it turns out I was pretty much right on the money. Before the first commercial break, Blair, portrayed by Leighton Meester, utters the line, “Please, I’m not friends with staff!” She follows this with an exaggerated expression of disgust and in her next scene we see her dismiss a “friend” from a gathering for a minor slip of the tongue and then seek out a new friend based only on the stranger’s Gucci purse. One could write this off as just a character trait of a less than savory person, but it’s more than that. It’s lazy writing backed up by lazy acting that seeks to tell us something about the character of Blair in the most simplistic and unrealistic way possible. Unfortunately this weakness isn’t limited to the character of Blair alone.

Monday night’s episode, “The Grandfather: Part II” takes place on election night as Tripp Vanderbilt (Aaron Tveit) finds out if he will be the next United States congressman from Manhattan. The campaign run by Tripp’s cousin and series regular Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford) and their scheming grandfather William (James Naughton) hits a boost and then a quick snag when Tripp saves a man from drowning in the Hudson River only to discover that it was set up intentionally to bring in last minute voters. The identity of whoever actually initiated the ploy remains a mystery as they try to decide if he should drop out or not but the drama doesn’t stop there. At the election night party Blair and Serena (Blake Lively) compound what appears to be an already strained relationship when Serena finds out that Blair’s new friend is a call girl. When confronted, Blair replies by calling Serena a hooker too. One of them then ends up face down in a cake. Yep, it’s that catty. Throw in some shoulder pads and Joan Collins hairstyles and this is about as close as you can get to a remake of Dynasty.

And although he played a very small part in this episode I must take a moment to mention Ed Westwick as hotel owner and boyfriend of Blair, Chuck Bass. He starts the episode by showing off the hotel’s amenities in the most stuffy and ridiculous tone of voice I have ever heard. I thought for a moment he was being funny or sarcastic but no, his character really does talk like that and it is horribly obnoxious and distracting. No one actually talks like that and it further convinces me that no one who writes or acts on this show has actually met real human beings.

The only potentially likeable character was Dan Humphrey portrayed by Penn Badgley but he’s dating someone played by Hilary Duff (who still can’t act) so I don’t hold out a lot of hope for him either. Maybe this episode was way out of sync with the rest of the series but I’m a bit amazed that it has any following at all if this is a good example of what to expect. The dialogue is wretched, the acting is barely any better, and more importantly there isn’t a truly interesting or enjoyable character in the whole cast. Maybe I ask for too much when I devote an hour of my time to something, but maybe the rest of America should too.

For another take on this episode, check out They Grow Up So Fast by Trisha Huntsman.

Season 3, Episode 8: The Grandfather: Part II (originally aired November 2, 2009)

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Mondays at 8/7C, The CW

Photographs courtesy of The CW, Giovanni Rufino