Gossip Girl Review: The Thin Line Between Good and Bad

 

Trepidation almost made me put off watching Gossip Girl in real time, because after the previews from last week I feared we were in for a week of Chuck’s continued downward spiral. It certainly looked that way from the beginning, when Nate chooses Raina over him, Blair makes it clear she still plans to marry the prince, and Jack Bass shows back up in town. We all know from experience the only thing Jack Bass has on his mind is ruining Chuck (Ed Westwick) in order to take over the business.

Right?

We’ll get back to that. First, Blair (Leighton Meester), whom I love dearly, is throwing an engagement party with her mother (Margaret Colin) and stepfather (Wallace Shawn) in attendance.

Aside: Did you catch the “princess bride” reference from everyone’s favorite Sicilian?

Blair’s plans include winning over the princess so that Prince Louis can regain his title (and she can be a true princess in waiting). Before the party, however, Louis’ mother informs him Blair went to see Chuck right after she agreed to marry him and later, as he follows her himself, Blair ends up at Chuck’s side again (this time to warn him of Jack’s appearance in NYC). The prince certainly doesn’t seem to trust the woman he claims to love, and as Chuck tells him later, if he can’t trust Blair then he has bigger problems than her complicated relationship with Chuck. Truth.

Blair has a great one-liner at S, one of those perfect Blair moments that make me chuckle and remember why she’s always been the girl we love to hate. Serena (Blake Lively) tries to apologize for sending the Gossip Girl intel to the princess, but Blair shoots her down with a great insult that I just forgot. Serena, for her part, is still dealing with her feelings on the whole Charlie/Dan budding relationship. Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) calls again, this time tattling on Charlie for turning Dan (Penn Badgley) against her (again). Serena stands up for her cousin but later changes her mind when Charlie (Kaylee DeFer) arrives for a formal date with Dan dressed exactly like Serena. If you think that’s creepy, wait until they start to get it on later and she asks him to call her Serena.

Yeah. That’s strange enough to make even Dan zip up and run for cover.

Charlie also dumped out her pills for the mystery illness that makes her go some sort of crazy. She’s not too bright, obviously, because she dumped them in the living room trash where Rufus (Matthew Settle) discovers them about five minutes later. I’m guessing we’re going to discover just what brand of nuts this girl sooner than later.

Back to my man Chuck. We get some unexpected resolution in the Thorpe vs. Bass battle this week as relationships charter new territory. Raina (Tika Sumpter) calls Jack (Desmond Harrington) and asks for his help bringing down Chuck in exchange for Bass Enterprises. Then we see Jack go to Russell Thorpe (Michael Boatman) and claim he wants him involved because the kids plans seem to be a little “messy.” Russell agrees on one condition – he wants the box of his wife’s letters that Chuck is keeping at the hotel.

Then Jack shows up to find a stumbling Chuck and goads him into punching him in the face. Nate (Chace Crawford) arrives and helps Jack drag Chuck off the rehab under the guise of being a good friend. (Chuck may actually need some sort of therapy, but that’s neither here nor there for tonight’s episode). When Russell gets into the box of Bart Bass’ things, though, Chuck, Nate, and Jack walk in together and confront him.

Wait, what? Chuck and Jack on the same side?

This is explained rather haphazardly by Jack claiming he doesn’t “want anyone else using his punching bag” and that he doesn’t have any interest in the company now that Chuck has gone soft. Whatever.

The important thing is, Chuck seems to have picked up the pieces of his shattered confidence and taped them back together. Not only that, they find out that Bart and Raina’s mother were in love and when Russell found out she was going to leave him, he’s the one who started the fire that killed his wife. He claims he didn’t mean to, that he thought Bart was in the building, but that’s really just semantics. He still tried to kill someone and he’s still covered it up all these years. He begs Chuck not to tell Raina, and in exchange he’ll give him anything he wants. Chuck agrees, banishing him from NYC.

Chuck and Jack have a little heart-to-heart and Chuck takes off to go get Blair back “before the good guy actually wins.”

Meanwhile, Blair receives a text message stating Chuck is getting ready to leap to his death and he’s asking for her. As she leaves the party to rush to his side, he shows up looking for her. There’s still the prince wandering around somewhere, who knows where he’s got off to at this point. He and Blair had a chat earlier in which he confronted her about Chuck and told her the only way they would work out is if she’s willing to show him all of herself. She’s worried the only person who could ever love those dark, twisty parts of her is Chuck, but it seems like she’s willing to give the prince a chance to understand.

The night ends with Blair on the roof of the hotel, where she’s confronted by Russell. See, Nate couldn’t have Raina hating Chuck (because Nate just wants everyone to get along) so he told her the truth about what her father had done. Raina called Russell, told him he was dead to her, which led Russell here – to the one person that it might literally kill Chuck to lose. He’s holding Blair hostage, and next week looks like another doozy.

What do you think? Will the prince change his mind if he knows the whole Blair? Will Chuck be able to let her go? Who will she choose?

Any bets on what’s going to go down with Charlie?

We’ll just have to wait and see. XOXO.

Season 4, Episode 21 “Shattered Bass” (original air date May 9, 2011)

Gossip Girl airs Monday nights at 9/8c on the CW.

Photos Courtesy of Giovanni Rufino and The CW