Gossip Girl Recap: New Haven Can Wait
The Upper East Side was missing more than a few of its finest on this week's episode of Gossip Girl. Our favorite students of Constance Billard and St. Jude's made their way to Yale's New Haven, Connecticut campus. As per usual, nothing is ordinary when this group come to town.
The Blair/Serena feud is alive and well. It is made abundantly clear that it has been Blair's dream to go to Yale since she was a little girl; Serena's plans were to head to Lily's alma mater - Brown. This all changes when Blair offends Serena's intelligence insisting she couldn't get into Yale. Blair of course doesn't know that the higher-ups have been wooing her to join their Ivy League hallways. She got a hand-written letter, "in cursive", asking her to consider - which she does as soon as Blair opens her mouth.
We thought Dan was all about going to Dartmouth, but as luck would have it, he's now interested in Yale's English program. Too bad he didn't spend his summer actually writing anything - he probably would have had the all-important second letter of recommendation that he needed. Thus begins the Dan Humphrey race to find a recommendation from a complete stranger.
Chuck isn't interested in the academia, just the Skull and Bones secret society. Since he's Chuck Bass, he lets the school come to him, not the other way around. Nate uses his time to do what he does best - sit there and look pretty. As soon as they get on campus a horny coed catches his eye and they make some small talk. Apparently Nate's presence on campus is widely known and many of the students aren't exactly thrilled with the son of the man who lost their trust funds. The quick-thinker that he is, Nate decides to use Dan Humphrey's name instead of his own in order to get in the girl's pants.
Back in Brooklyn, Jenny and Vanessa are trying to convince Rufus to allow Jenny to follow her dreams. They have a plan worked out where Jenny would be home-schooled like Vanessa and still do the fashion thing, but Rufus wasn't biting. Plan B is to take Rufus to Eleanor's office so he can watch her at work. We wanted to smack him when he told Eleanor to fire her - especially when he went and pursued his dreams of being a rock and roll star at a young age. By the end of the day, Rufus still wasn't budging and for once Jenny didn't act like a brat. Jenny gives up but needs to run one more errand over to Lily's house. Rufus comes with and as soon as he sees Lily in a Jenny Humphrey original, everything shifts. Rufus and Lily are back to their inappropriate but perfect flirting and Lily convinces Rufus to let Jenny pursue her dreams just like he did. Aw, precious moments.
Once on campus, Serena and Blair duke it out for the Dean's attention. We're not sure if Blair's inability to think on her toes (all of a sudden) made her a less-desirable candidate than Serena or if she was screwed from the start. It turns out Blair was right about the Dean being more interested in Serena's cover girl image than her intelligence. Blair must do what she does best and scheme her way into the Dean's party.
Chuck gets taken by the Yale secret society and needs to prove himself to his new friends. Of course, he plans a party complete with "favors" - but that isn't enough to satisfy his captors. They want Chuck to bring Nate to them so they can humiliate and punish him for the Captain's misdeeds. They don't know who they're messing with: Chuck sets up not only Dan but also the members of the society. When they eventually find out he has lied to them, they try to threaten him. Of course, he has plenty of dirt on all of them, including photos of the party he threw with the girls earlier.
Meanwhile, at the Dean's house, Serena and Blair are still trying to find ways to one-up each other. It appears as though Serena has won when she steals Blair's answer to the Dean's ever-important question of who she would most like to have dinner and conversation with - dead or alive. Not so fast: Blair is a force to be reckoned with. She changes Serena's answer to the name of the boy who died during their drug binge. This throws Serena off and she and Blair end up pulling each other's hair in the other room while the party goes on in the main room. Everyone loves a good cat fight! By the end of the night Serena and Blair decide to call their friendship quits.
The next morning when they've collected themselves, both of the girls decide to tell the Dean to allow the other girl into Yale, even though (in our opinion) Serena doesn't deserve it at all. They chalk their fight up to not wanting to be away from each other when they go to college the following year. Um, did they get brainwashed at some point and we missed it? That fight had nothing to do with not wanting to be away from each other and everything to do with the fact that there is only room for one Queen in the hive. When Serena gets the call from the Dean saying he wants her at Yale, it looks like she is still on top no matter how reluctant she is to admit it. It looks like the girls can still remain friends for the time being though.
The boys' relationship looks a little more questionable. Nate is mad at Chuck for using Dan as a punching bag, even though Chuck was trying to save Nate. It looks like Archibald and Humphrey are moving more towards the buddy category, which leaves Chuck all alone in the backseat of his limo.
What did you think of last night's episode? Who do you think was more out of line, Serena or Blair? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
serena was out of line trying to go to yale just because she wanted to annoy blair. in doing these college apps (which i am currently going through), it is important to go to a school for yourself and not to spite or please anyone else. what serena did hit close to home for me.
but i'm so confused at some points. at the beginning it looks like serena was trying to resurrect her broken friendship with blair. its hard to believe that she would after saying 'i'm tired of holding myself back so i don't outshine you.' yeah well i'm confused on how the writers of gossip girl wanted to portray that. and i'd be careful about writing blair's lines when she talks about other schools. i have a friend who goes to brown and when she watched that scene where blair was saying brown was etcetc, she totally flipped out. i'm also sure she's not the only one who was outraged at how yale is portrayed sooooo highly up there and every other ivy league is not.
as a last comment for the last scene... dot dot dot. yale does not only have one spot for incoming undergrads and even if serena said she'd give up her spot for blair (and i agree with u guys. no she doesn't deserve it) doesn't mean that blair will get accepted. gossip girl needs to get a few more facts straight. being accepted is not transferable no matter how close you and your friend are.
overall...okay episode besides holes in their story (cough* like the SAT one too... if they couldn't take it in the end of their junior year, they still have the beginning of senior year to get it done. so as for blair screwing over nelly yuki doesn't really work), i thought it was okay.
but another question too - how can those guys not know what nate archibald looks like? he's like in the newspapers with blair and his family when the captain was arrested. those guys are so dumb, they should at least do some research as to what he looks like.
Posted by: cerina | October 14, 2008 5:52 PM