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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Gossip Girl: Dan is pining for Blair now! Yes! (My thoughts on episode 5x01 Yes, Then Zero)


Let me start off by apologizing for not having written any thoughts posts for season five of Gossip Girl yet. My schoolwork really has been keeping me rather busy lately, but I’m on fall break, so hopefully I’ll be able to get closer to being caught up on writing my Gossip Girl thoughts post by next Wednesday. That being said, here are my thoughts on the season five premiere.

All in all, I have to say that I absolutely loved the season premiere. I think this episode did a really great job of setting up each of the characters’ storylines for the season. I thought that this episode as a whole was pretty light and fun, which I really liked. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dramatic element of Gossip Girl, after all this is a teen drama, but one thing that I’ve always loved about the show is its tendency to have very witty and funny dialogue at times. I’ve definitely had a lot of issues with the writing for the show, especially when it comes to Chuck, Serena and Nate’s storyline throughout the course the series, but I’ve always loved the dialogue for the show.

The thing that surprised me the most about this episode was how much I loved Chuck and Serena’s storylines in this episode. It’s been a really, really, really long time since I truly enjoyed their storylines. The reason why I enjoyed Chuck and Serena’s storylines is that they are very different from most of the storylines that they’ve had pretty much since season two. It’s great to see Chuck have a storyline that didn’t involve his aspirations to be a successful businessman like his father was for once. I find the whole thing with him saying “Yes.” to anything, even if it’s something potentially dangerous, rather interesting. He’s clearly become an adrenaline junky as a way of dealing with his emotional pain of losing Blair to Louis.

I have to say that I thought it was rather bizarre how Chuck jumped off of the fire escape of a building and onto a big, inflatable cushion that they use for stunts in movies and on TV and then started to walk off like it was no big deal. After he did that Zoë Bell who was working on the stunt crew walked up to him and told him that he was going to be in a lot of trouble. He asked her out on a date, and later on they went for a drive on two motorcycles. Once they were out riding he intentionally ignored Zoë’s warnings to be careful and began to drive recklessly and ended up crashing the bike.

He had obviously hurt himself, but he insisted that he was fine. Toward the end of the episode, they showed Chuck looking at big bruise by his rib cage, so he obviously injured himself a lot worse than he let on. I’m really interested to see where this whole storyline with Chuck becoming an adrenaline junky goes. Like I said, I loved this storyline because it didn’t have anything to do with business ventures or anything else like that. I get that he’s hurting emotionally over losing Blair, but I don’t really feel sorry for him at all. After all, he’s constantly treated her like shit ever since he pimped her out to his uncle in order to get his hotel back in season three. It’s really hard for me to have very much sympathy for Chuck given his actions in the last two seasons.

Serena had apparently spent her summer working as an assistant at a movie studio during the filming of a movie adaption of the book The Beautiful and Damned where she was having to deal with this guy named Marshall that she was working with being jealous of the fact that his boss really liked her and was giving Serena jobs to do that were things that he was supposed to do. To get back at Serena, Marshall gave her the list of things that he was supposed to do by the next day, but added to the list that she was supposed to get medicinal marijuana for the star of the movie. Apparently, the star of the movie, Patrick, had a history with drug abuse and he has a “minder” to keep him out of trouble, because if he got caught using drugs he would be fired and the movie would be shut down.

Serena managed to get everything on her boss’, Jane, list in time for a party she, Chuck and Nate were all going to with the people working on the movie with Nate’s help since he had a car to drive in L.A. He also helped her pick what marijuana to buy for Patrick, which she gave to him, unaware of his drug problem. Luckily, his “minder” was able to get the pot from him before he smoked it and got in trouble. Serena was going to quit once she found out that Patrick wasn’t supposed to do drugs and that it was very important for him to stay out of trouble, but Marshall confessed to what he had done and Jane ended up offering Serena a job to work on another movie, which she accepted taking Chuck’s advice about saying “Yes.” to new opportunities.

I have to say that I find this storyline with Serena very refreshing, I hate the fact that pretty much all of the storylines that Serena has had for the past few seasons have revolved around her love life. I’m not sure what to think of that guy she works with. On the one hand, I’m glad that he called her out on the fact that things seem to come too easily to her, which I think is very true and is something that has always annoyed me. On the other hand, I thought it was wrong for him to try and get her fired just because their boss really likes her.

Nate’s storyline was another one of the highlights of the episode for me. Serena tricked Nate into auditioning for a part in the movie, which we didn’t actually see him do, but based on what Nate told Serena about his audition, it sounds like they told him that he would be the perfect person to play a character that has a lot of issues with his family. He also told him that he had a lot of time to think over the summer and had realized that he felt really burnt out from everything that’s happened with his family, Vanessa, Serena, Raina and Juliet over the past few years and that he didn’t really know who he was anymore.

Serena encouraged him to use his time in L.A. as a chance to reinvent himself, and when he was at the party with Serena later several girls came up to him asking him for his autograph, thinking that he was an actor from a movie that they had seen. He told them he was and he was soon approached by a woman named Diana Payne (Elizabeth Hurley’s character) who asked him if the mansion that they were at was his. Continuing to take Chuck’s advice, he said it was and they went on a tour of the house. When they found one of the bedrooms in the house, Diana asked Nate if it was the master bedroom and he said it was. They ended up having sex in there and when Nate tried to tell her to leave afterwards, he was surprised to find out that the house was actually hers’ and that the bedroom was the guest bedroom, not the master bedroom.

It sounds like Diana has some kind of mysterious agenda that involves Nate, because they showed her talking to someone on the phone about how she hadn’t expected to meet Nate until she was in New York and she also told the person that she was talking to that he had just showed up at her place. He came to get his cell phone, which he had forgotten at the party earlier, and to apologize for lying to her.

While I hate it that almost all of Serena’s storylines usually revolve around her love life, it doesn’t bother me nearly as much that the writers often do the same thing with Nate and his storylines. I say that because usually the storylines involving his love life frequently in involve a twist of some kind, such as the fact that the older woman he had a fling with in season two was also the stepmother of the guy Blair was dating or how Juliet was also trying to carry out a mysterious plan to get revenge on Serena in season four. I still like it the best when Nate’s storylines focus on his family, but I’m anxious to see where this storyline with Diana goes.

Blair spent the summer in Monaco with Louis and was just returning to the Upper East Side and is now having to deal with Louis’ mother high jacking their wedding plans. It really bugged me that Louis wasn’t standing up to his mother when he saw how frustrated Blair was with his mother for not letting her carry a bouquet of her favorite flower at their wedding He also almost ended up breaking a promise he made to her about letting her go to his uncle’s speech at the royal assembly since the rules dictated that she couldn’t go to royal assemblies until after they were married, but later agreed to break the rule and let her go with him anyway.

While I hate how boring Louis is and how spineless he was when it came to dealing with his mother in this episode, I definitely like him more than I like Blair being with Chuck. I really want Dan and Blair to get together though. I’m glad that he finally stood up to his mother at the end of the episode and told her that Blair should be allowed to carry a bouquet of her favorite flower at their wedding and that they needed to discuss a few other things.

Speaking of Dan, he found out that Vanessa had stolen the copy of his book Inside, which she had stolen in the season four finale, and that a chapter of his book was going to be published in Vanity Fair magazine. Dan spent the episode trying to stop it from being published, because he knew that if it were published Blair would end up being embarrassed since the chapter that was gong to be published in Vanity Fair was about her. Dan ended up going to Louis to ask him for help with stopping the chapter from being published so that Blair wouldn’t be embarrassed by the story, which he agreed to do. However, when Blair called him to see why he hadn’t arrived at her place to take her to the royal assembly, he acted very vague and secretive so Blair went to Dan and told him that she was planning to call off her engagement to Louis and wanted to get away from the city for a few days with him. Dan of course said he would leave New York with her. However, Louis showed up at Dan’s loft minutes later to let Dan know that he had convinced Vanity Fair to not publish the chapter from his book. When Blair confronted him about why he would write about her in his book, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he loved her and ended up coming across as kind of being the bad guy in the situation.

Dan’s storyline was definitely another one of the main highlights of the episode for me person, especially since I’ve become such a huge fan of the Dan and Blair pairing, A.K.A. Dair. While I do think it was kind of wrong of Dan to take advantage of the situation with Blair being mad at Louis to use as an excuse to be able to run off with her, at least he was trying to protect her from being embarrassed by his book. Also, unlike Chuck, Dan hasn’t constantly been trying to get in the way of Blair’s relationships with other man and is being noble enough to let Blair be happy, even if it means that she’s not with him. I really want Dan and Blair to get together though.

I have to say that I think it’s really great to see Dan pining for Blair now and not Serena for once in his life. I just don’t get why he was so infatuated with Serena for so long. Serena doesn’t really have a lot going for her, while Blair does, if you ask me.

As far as who’s pregnant, it turns out that both Dorota and Blair are pregnant. Blair’s mother, Eleanor, found a copy of the book What To Expect When You’re Expecting in the kitchen pantry and thought it was Blair’s, but Dorota told Eleanor that it was hers’ because she’s expecting her second child, and they were of course thrilled for her. That was the news that Dorota had been trying to tell Blair at the beginning of the episode when she was busy dealing with Louis.

They revealed that Blair was pregnant toward the end of the episode when the wedding dress designer was making adjustments to Sophie’s wedding dress so it would fit Blair. The wedding dress designer told her that it looks like she’s about six week’s pregnant, but Blair insisted that she wasn’t pregnant. However, the designer told her that everyone would know that she’s pregnant by the time she’s supposed to get married to Louis.

Unless the writers are expecting the viewers to overlook the fact that Chuck and Blair haven’t had sex with each other in over two months, I’m guessing this means that Louis is the father of Blair’s baby. Besides, I can’t really see the writers having Blair actually having the baby, so I’m guessing she’ll have a miscarriage, even if Chuck turns out to be the father. I also don’t think that Blair and Louis will actually end up getting married since Hugo Becker is only a guest star.

At the very end of the episode, they showed Ivy at a restaurant in L.A. that she works at with her boyfriend, Max. They apparently moved to L.A. about a month ago, and it sounds like she lied to him about where she got the money Carol had given her to impersonate Charlie. Just as Ivy was getting to start her shift, Serena came into the restaurant and spotted her. Ivy’s manager kept telling her to get to work and of course calling her Ivy, so she walked out of the restaurant with Serena acting like she didn’t know why her manager kept calling her Ivy.

I have to say that I was surprised by how they brought Ivy/Charlie back into the fold. I was expecting Carol to hire Ivy to return to the Upper East Side to impersonate Charlie again for some reason. I wasn’t expecting any of the characters to just run into her in L.A. Although, I did keep wondering when Ivy/Charlie would be showing up when I was watching this episode for the first time. I can’t wait to see where things go with Ivy/Charlie now that Kaylee DeFer is a series regular.

All in all, I have to say that I absolutely loved this episode. It’s great to see Chuck have a storyline that doesn’t involve business for once. I also found it very refreshing for Serena to have a storyline that doesn’t involve her love life, and I can’t wait to see where it goes. Even though I don’t always like it when Nate’s storylines focus mainly on his love life, I’m really excited to see where his storyline with Diana goes. It was also great to see Dan and Blair interact with each other in this episode.

All things considered, I give this episode a rating of an A+.

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