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Thursday, March 10, 2011

Gossip Girl-Dair to Dream (My thoughts on episode 4.17 Empire of the Son)


Until recently, I’ve only been watching Gossip Girl when Lie To Me wasn’t airing a new episode this season, but now that Lie To Me’s third season is over and I’ve bought an iTunes season pass for the fourth season of Gossip Girl, I figured that I would start blogging about my thoughts on the episodes. 

That being said, here are my thoughts on the episode “Empire of the Son”. I love how the episode started out with everyone at the party and then went back in time twelve hours that led up to that moment. Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters are two other shows that I watch that have done that a lot over the years, and at first it was kind of fun and cool that they did that, but now it has become redundant and feels anticlimactic when they do it. I would love it if the writers for Gossip Girl use this storytelling device in more episodes in the future as long as they don’t overuse that writing technique like the writers for Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters have.

I’m not going to comment too much on the whole Serena and Ben debacle with the affidavit that Lily forged Serena’s signature on that sent Ben to prison because I’ve pretty much always hated Serena’s storylines, especially now that the show is in it’s fourth season. Serena’s storylines have almost always revolved around her relationship with some guy. Those storylines pretty much became extremely redundant by the end of the second season for me, so ever expect me to spend too much time commenting on Serena's storylines in the episodes. If the writers ever decide to write Serena off the show, I would beyond happy, because she’s my least favorite character and I absolutely hate her. I hate her even more than I hate Jenny and Jenny has frequently annoyed the hell out of me over the years. I also can’t stand Blake Lively as an actress. I just think she’s extremely overrated as an actress. Plus, I hate how Blake has an extremely monotone way of delivering all of her lines. The delivery of her line pretty much always sounds the same to me regardless of whether Serena is supposed to be happy, sad or angry. Blake Lively seriously needs to take some acting lessons.

After the affidavit was stolen, Lily decided to turn herself into the police so that no one else, namely Russell Thorpe, Ben and Ben’s wife, would be able to hold that against them anymore. The only thing that I’ve liked about this whole ongoing arc about the affidavit that Lily forged, sending Ben to prison, is the interactions between Chuck and Lily about the whole situation. I like how she told Chuck that it was time for him to create his own legacy, outside of Bass Industries. One thing I’ve always hated about their scenes together is how she refers to Chuck as Charles. I get that his first name is technically Charles and that it’s the upper-class thing to do for people to refer to each other by their proper name, but she’s pretty much the only character on the show that calls Chuck, Charles, which is why that bugs me so much. When she did that, she agreed to turn herself in on the condition that Ben’s criminal record would be expunged. She’s now facing jail time and explained to her lawyer after he told her that he has a baby that’s a little over a year old that she did it because her children haven’t smiled at her or been happy with her for a very long time and that she would do anything for them to be happy with her again someday.

Vanessa was basically the one who told Lily about what Serena did with the affidavit. Other than that, she wasn’t really in the episode. I have to say that I really like the idea of Vanessa being a villain of sorts on the show. I hope the writers continue to explore this idea with Vanessa.

I found the whole thing about Nate and Raina being a couple pretty idiotic, because it wasn’t too long ago that Chuck and Raina was an item. Talk about hopping from one bed to the next!
Blair’s storyline in this episode was basically her continuing her secret friendship with Dan. They continue to spend time together, but Blair is insisting that they keep it a secret, while Dan doesn’t understand why that’s necessary. Regardless, Blair told him that they should arrive at the party for an art exhibit separately so people wouldn’t suspect that that they’ve become friends. This was definitely my favorite storyline of the episode since I’ve always loved the interactions between Dan and Blair and their witty comebacks they throw out at each other.

Dan confided in Rufus about what he thought Dan should do about his friendship with Blair, but he didn’t tell Rufus that he was talking about Blair at first. Rufus told Dan that he first started hanging out with Lily as friends and now they are married. Dan initially vehemently insisted that he and Blair wouldn’t ever become anything more than friends. Dorota found Dan’s copy of The New Yorker in Blair’s room and immediately believed that Dan and Blair were having an affair. Dorota confronted her about her theory, and Blair told her that she and Dan weren’t having an affair. She also insisted that despite the fact that she had spent time with Dan over the holidays, it didn’t mean that they were friends. After Dan talked to Rufus and Blair talked to Dorota, they both decided to stand the other one up, but they realized that they were both going to stand the other up after Blair runs into Dan as he’s walking out of a coffee shop.

Both Blair and Dan decided that Blair should send a made up scandal to Gossip Girl, so everyone would be so focused on that then they wouldn’t make a big deal about Blair and Dan being friends. After Rufus sees Dan talking to Blair, he told Dan that he hoped his secret friendship wasn’t with someone like Blair. I found this very hypocritical of him given the fact that he’s married to Lily and they (Blair and Lily) are both members of upper class families. At the end of the episode, Dan and Blair said that they were too different from each other for them to ever be friends and that they are just two separate entities and playfully said that it was nice “not being friends” with each other. I loved this exchange between them. I thought it was both sweet and funny at the same time.

Serena and Eric’s father, William, showed up at the end of the episode when Rufus sees him in the front hall of his and Lily’s penthouse. Uh, oh! William returning won’t end well. I can already tell.

Despite Dan and Blair agreeing to end their blossoming friendship earlier in the episode, Dan showed up at Blair’s penthouse at the end of the episode, telling her that he had been walking all over the city thinking about their friendship. He told that he thought that maybe they were so reluctant to be friends with each other, because they are afraid that they could be more than friends. Blair and Dan decided to kiss just once to see if there was anything between them romantically, and the episode ended with them kissing.

I have to say that I’m totally onboard with a Dair romance, because I’ve always loved the banter between them. While Dan and Serena’s relationship was never able to truly work given Serena’s elite social status, I think that a romantic relationship between Dan and Blair could potentially work since despite what they might say, Dan and Blair have a lot in common with each other. They definitely have a lot more in common than Dan and Serena did. Plus, Dan and Blair are also on the same intellectual level and Dan can definitely be quite the schemer at times like Blair constantly is. Dan was basically obsessed with Serena before he even met. That’s not the foundation of a healthy relationship. I used to be a hardcore Chair fan, but I’m totally onboard with a Dair romance. I’m pretty much over the Chuck and Blair pairing now, especially since Chuck has constantly treated Blair rather poorly.

All in all, I would rate this episode an A-, because the whole thing with the Dan and Blair friendship really helps make up for all of the stupid stuff with Serena and Ben, as well as the ridiculous and sloppily written Chuck/Raina/Nate love triangle. April 18th can’t come fast enough for my taste.

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