SPOILER WARNING–DON’T LET ME RUIN THE SHOW’S ELABORATE MYTHOLOGY FOR YOU
* Weaksauce. That episode felt like a contest to see which storyline could be the most boring.
* First of all, you return from this ungodly long hiatus, and your first episode back is the school play episode? Besides feeling ridiculous in that every character is required to perform in the school play, I just sort of liked it better when they did Hair on Head of the Class.
* Age of Innocence, yes, we get it.
* I don’t care if the pretentious artsy-fartsy director character was intended as the show’s self-parody of the pretentious artsy-fartsy visual artist from earlier in the season, he was still intolerable. During that conversation at lunch I actually had a Dr. Cox from Scrubs moment where I burst out yelling “OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE MOST BORING SCENE IN THE HISTORY OF RECORDED MEDIA.” The Missus turned to me and said, “Oh, I haven’t even been paying attention. Too long; didn’t read.”
* Also, you could see the stupid drama critic misinterpreting the crash-and-burning of the show, and the annoying director guy claiming it was deliberate, a MILE away.
* I did kind of like the nervous lesbian stage manager, though.
* When it finally cut over to Chuck I said “Meanwhile, on a better show…” but I’d forgotten that he was in the middle of a student production of his own, Eyes Wide Shut Jr., which ended as randomly and pointlessly and unimaginatively as it began.
* Was it me or did they keep on implying Dorota was leaking to Gossip Girl? Was that just a red herring? They seemed to resolve all that stuff by pinning it on Rachel. (I still think Dorota IS Gossip Girl.)
* Speaking of Rachel, the one bright spot in the show was the hotness of the Hot for Teacher storyline. Something about the girl they cast in that role is really realistically adorable, which makes it even hotter. I totally called “they’re gonna do it in the costume closet,” btw. Of course they then had to go and write her out of the show, when they easily could have begun a Blair/Rachel romance, goddamn them.
* Seeing the teaser for next week’s episode, I’m starting to wonder whether the show’s rapid cycling and recycling through all the possible main-cast pairings is actually the major structural problem we’ve all kind of joked that it might be. The more you mix and match Dan, Serena, Chuck, Blair, Nate, and Vanessa, and sometimes Jenny, the less rewarding it gets. (Unless you did something nutso like Chuck/Serena or Dan/Blair, which I would support fully and which I assume we’ll get to eventually.) Meanwhile, the show’s attempts to bring aboard outside love interests have been three-eps-and-done affairs from the get-go, whether lame (that horrible artist guy) or kinda awesome (Madchen Amick, Hot for Teacher). The outsiders can’t bring the weight that the main cast does, but the main cast can’t sustain the novelty that the outsiders bring, and around and around we go.
It feels like the writers are making two big whiffs on the show in general these days:
1 – They assume that slight variations on the villains they’ve had in the past will continue to entice if set into another direction/against another cast member. But really, the whole “Here’s a kid who’s bad and used to go here but then went to Europe and is now back to mess with ‘Insert Cast Member Here'” just doesn’t work more than like three times. Plus, this new guy will never deliver a storyline as satisfying as Serena’s coked out killing of a man alongside Michelle Trachtenberg’s ultra evil foil. I don’t care who he’s dating in real life.
2 – They also assume that in the end, people want to see us go back to the core cast and brush them up against each other, which you already pointed out. But what’s really tough about this move is that they keep abandoning people who have long term potential in the show because of it. Beyond the teacher this time out, I still think the decision to take Chuck’s uncle from suave, snarky villain to psycho public rapist in the span of 20 minutes was a major blunder on their part.
Also, what kind of cloak and dagger sex club for the ultra rich wouldn’t want Chuck Bass as a member? Those old dudes would love that kid!
Also also, I missed a few episodes. Have we yet met Rufus and Lily’s kid? THAT is a character I want in the show long term.
“SPOILER WARNING–DON’T LET ME RUIN THE SHOW’S ELABORATE MYTHOLOGY FOR YOU”
Heh.