Back by popular demand! SPOILERS for Monday’s season finale, so watch out.
* I stopped writing about Gossip Girl after it returned for its third season’s back half because, frankly, I was a lot less entertained by it. First off, I hate to be one of those people who turns against a show when it’s not even on, but I think that endless hiatus between the two halves of the season really hurt the show’s momentum in and hold on my mind, if not the larger pop-cultural hivemind too. The thing about Gossip Girl is that it works in, what, three-episode arcs? So unless you’re super-invested in whatever cliffhangers you have before a hiatus, it’s not like there’s some over-arching narrative that will pull you back in when it comes back.
* My biggest problem with this season is easy to pinpoint: The constant, purposeless lying by everyone to everyone about everything. Who slept where, who’s going to what party, who’s applying to what school, who’s sick, who’s healthy, who’s having an affair, who’s in town, who’s out of town, who’s a long-lost parent, everything, all the time. And since every lie is inevitably exposed within two episodes of its initial utterance, it’s all so pointless! I joked to a friend that you could replace pretty much every script this season with the sentence “Look, I was gonna tell you…” It’s simply impossible to get very invested in characters who lie all the time, to the people they love, about things they easily could have–and ought to have–told the truth, with ultimately no payoff for having lied.
* It didn’t help that in service to this constant-lying pattern, Serena and Jenny in particular became almost unwatchable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two of them were put in more and more revealing clothing as the season went on: Without Blake Lively’s thighs and Taylor Momsen’s jailbait cleavage, I think most viewers would have just checked their email every time those two amoral idiots were on screen. It’s not so much the amoral part that irks–on a show starring Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf, how could it be–it’s the idiocy. The dopey duo’s backing of Serena’s evil deadbeat dad’s play to break up Lily and Rufus was the icing on the cake of a season’s worth of moronic decisions that constantly hurt the people they cared about for no good reason.
* A related problem is how repetitive the show got. When your M.O. is “Have Character A lie to their significant other Character B about Life-Goal X,” that’s bound to happen. But even in terms of the specifics, this season saw two long-lost parents return to the lives of two characters, only for them to discover they had ulterior motives, only for us to discover these people had hearts of gold way down deep anyway, only for them to leave Manhattan. That’s an awfully weird well to draw from twice in one season.
* But I have to give the finale props, since it basically dropped a neutron bomb on the unsatisfactory status quo. Serena breaks up with Nate, and good riddance because she doesn’t deserve him. (Look at that guy, he’s a god walking among mortals.) Jenny’s reign of dumb terror is over and she’s off to the sticks, Serena’s sophomore year style. Dan’s ready to ditch the insufferable Vanessa and their joyless relationship, which started in a threesome with a movie star and quickly devolved into constant attempts to undermine one another’s college career, for another shot at being Serena’s human legwarmer. Nate’s playing Dick Grayson to Chuck’s time-lost Bruce Wayne, inheriting the Mantle of the Bass. Blair and Serena are off in Paris, mutually free of commitments for the first time, which really is just as cool as they seem to think it is. Lily and Rufus seem okay, and I’m glad because enough drama between those two already. Georgina and her amazing changing haircolor are pregnant, probably not with Dan’s lovechild but whatever, we can play along for the episode and a half tops it’ll take them to reveal he’s not the daddy. Chuck gets gunned down in Crime Alley, surely soon to be born again as the billionaire crimefighter he already more or less became this episode. Eric remains adorable and decent, and because he’s a young gay man he’s never going to get any on-screen action.
* So, I guess the whole sexual-assault thing is forgiven and forgotten, huh, Jenny? I’m actually a little disappointed in Chuck’s deflowering of Jenny. I know they were both supposed to be totally depressed and miserable at the time, but it would have been extra-delightfully perverse if they’d, you know, enjoyed it.
* That and the bogus gunshot/pregnancy cliffhanger’s aside, it was a fine clearing of the decks, with some fun, intense, ultra-dramatic confrontations and hook-ups and break-ups. It’s sort of like Gossip Girl Season Three Part Two was “Dark Reign,” the finale was Siege (with better fight choreography), and now hopefully Season Four will be the Heroic Age.
I love you. I haven’t even read this yet (I came to check the Lost discussion), but I love you.
I love you too.
Wow did I miss your (totally warranted) crush on Nate and Chuck-Batman comparisons! And that metaphor about the two of them–amazing!
Not too much to add about your assessment of the season since I agree most of that is pretty spot-on. I’d add the fact that Nate-Serena and Dan-Vanessa being far and away the two least interesting pairings contributed to the downfall as well.
I know I’m pretty lonely in my affection for the Dan character, but I’m standing by that and am also all for the return of his poor guy-rich girl thing with Serena which lest we forget was the driving point of the show to begin with and the most tolerable she’s ever been.
Nate needs to just settle into a parade of guest-starring hotties, as he’s too much for any of the regulars to handle. Something with Georgina could be interesting though.
General thoughts aside, it was a great finale and did really seem to herald better times to come, though. However, just as in seasons past, though, it does amuse me that the big crucial storylines for Gossip Girl always resolve in the penultimate episode and then the finale goes in a whole other direction.
I did appreciate the “full circle” of Chuck being the one to deflower Jenny and being such a gentleman about it to boot, but you’re right, it would have been better if they dug it.
High hopes for next season. Would love to see some new blood to replace Jenny and Vanessa in the form of folks who are actually entertaining.
And don’t stop believin’ on that Eric subplot–some day.
They had so many chances to zig where they predictably zagged this season. It was a real shame. I remember at one point in the “former Mrs. Bass” cycle of stories where I thought for sure Chuck was just going to say, “I’m Chuck Bass and I don’t need to have a mother” and fuck over everyone in his path, but then it devolved into another “kids need love from their parents” plotline.
I think the show should embrace the fact that its main characters are practically untouchable superheroes and let them do more shit that would literally never happen in real life to up the stakes.
God, I hate Jenny so, so, so, so, so, so, SO fucking much. Every year I hope that they introduce some new, fun, fucked up cast members to become permanent fixtures in the show, but then after three episodes they’re written off so Jenny and Vanessa can earn their paychecks. At least in Georgina we get a recurring villains who’s somewhat worth her salt.
At the end of the episode, Jami kept going, “Why is Nate getting it on with such ugly girls?” and I concur.
Indeed, those skanks were way below Nate’s pay grade. But every hero’s journey must begin somewhere…