About Last Night: Tuesday

Mini caps of Gossip Girl, Skins, Hawaii Five-O, The Bachelor, Salon Takeover, and Pretty Little Liars

Gossip Girl: SlifeGoesOn

Gossip Slife here. Your one and only source for hilarious recaps of The CW’s trashy teen soap, Gossip Girl. Set against the brightly-colored piñatas hanging at Eric’s fab eighteenth birthday party, last night’s episode was a fun and wild romp, complete with blackmail, seduction, sabotage, drug deals, and double crosses. (Much like my own eighteenth birthday!)

Eric didn’t feel much like celebrating, what with Damien Dalgaard hovering like a vulture and threatening to expose his mother Lily for committing perjury against Ben. Damien agreed to keep quiet if Eric took on the role of his “drug mule” previously played by Little J. Slutina was incensed when she found out, and turned to Blair for help.

Blair started to show some real signs of fatigue from being overworked to death by her ridiculous job at W. Natch, she had too much pride to ask for help from Dan, and ended up biting off more than she could chew. Blair wound up bungling the tulip-fronted drug smuggling scheme and embarrassing herself in front of a client by wearing mismatching heels!

Nate FINALLY got a storyline, when Upchuck asked him to keep Raina occupied by talking up his “charming” qualities. The half-baked plot went to pot, as Nate and Raina ended up spending a chill day inside smoking a joint, playing video games, eating ice cream, and getting cozy together.

Meanwhile, Russell was convinced that he had successfully driven a wedge between Chuck and Lily when he spied her slapping the shit out of him. But it turned out to just be a total rouse so Chuck and Lily could scheme their way into Thorpe Enterprises and regain control of Bass Industries.

And just when everything was coming up roses, Manessa reared her ugly head, and overheard Ben confessing a deep, dark secret while threatening Damien to stay away from the Van der Woodsens! And to make matters worse, the double-crossed duo of Damien and Russell decided to team up in order to take down all our favorite Upper East Siders!! OMG!! Stay tuned for the full recap!

The Bachelor: IceQueen

Last night on The Bachelor, Brad visited exotic locales like Madawaska, ME and Chico, CA so that he could meet the families of the final four women who are vying for his affections. First stop was Seattle, WA to visit Chantal O. She lives in a really nice home with her two cats and a Gremlin wearing a t-shirt. She claimed the Gremlin was her dog, but dogs aren’t supposed to look like stuffed teddy bears wearing t-shirts, so I didn’t really believe her. Anyway, the “dog” really “liked” Brad, which Chantal didn’t expect, so it must be a sign, right? Later, they go visit her parents who live a few blocks away in a ginormous house. They’ve filled the home with giant furniture that makes all of them look tiny. Later, Chantal’s dad takes Brad outside to show him a giant, terrifying sculpture of a man carving himself out of rock. Initially, I thought this was some sort of rich people’s scare tactic (“Look at my giant sculpture. Break my daughter’s heart and I will pay some giant Russians to snap your neck.”), but it led to a conversation about pulling oneself up by one’s boot straps and everyone ended up getting along really well.

Next, Brad headed to the aforementioned Madawaska, ME, hometown of Ashley. In the past couple of episodes, Ashley’s energy and enthusiasm had taken a serious nose dive, but she’s back to her true form, bouncing around like a lunatic the moment Brad arrives. She calms down long enough for them to sit in a restaurant, order some poutin, and she watches as Brad speaks in Spanish to the French-speaking waitress. Later, they pick up lobsters and head to Ashley’s parents’ home. It is immediately apparent where Ashley gets her energy. Her family is like a litter of giant puppies. They’re climbing all over one another, jumping up and down, panting and making excited noises. Towards the end of the evening, Brad has a serious talk with Ashley’s dad about Ashley’s career, where it’s headed, and what kind of support she might need. They wonder if Ashley is ready to settle down and have a family.

Back across the country to Chico, where Brad arrives at the Newton Bracewell Funeral Home where Shawntel N. is wandering around, communing with the dead. She takes Brad on a tour, questions him about whether he’d prefer to be cremated or buried, and then has him lie on a prep table while she shows him — in great detail — how she embalms someone. Brad clearly checks out halfway through the date. Shawntel’s family seems to like Brad until Shawntel mentions that, should Brad propose, she’ll be moving to Austin. Needle scratch. Daddy apparently didn’t know this and he is not happy. He had planned for Shawntel to take over the family business. The community of Chico needs her frowning face to comfort them when a loved one dies and then gouge them out of their savings when it’s time to plan the funeral!

The final date is the big one we’ve been waiting for: Brad goes to visit Emily and her daughter in Charlotte, NC. Now the commercials for this episode led us to believe that Emily’s daughter would totally reject Brad, implying that his relationship with Emily would be on the rocks. But those promo producers are some sneaky, sneaky people. Though shy at first, “Little Ricki” (as Brad insisted on calling her) eventually warmed up to him and they flew kites and drew pictures and had a very suburban afternoon. The problem arose (or *didn’t* arise) after Little Ricki went to bed — Brad was uncomfortable putting the moves on Mama Emily when her daughter was right upstairs. Emily pointed out that if they continued the relationship, Ricki would always be right upstairs, so he may as well get used to it. Eventually she convinced him that it would be OK to have a little good night smooch as he walked out, and Brad was happy that he did. Too bad Ricki didn’t walk down the stairs at that moment and hurl herself at Brad while screaming: “quit chokin’ my mama!” Brad has a tendency to wrap his fingers around the throat of the woman he’s kissing.

Finally, Chris Harrison drags himself onto the show to tell Brad it’s rose ceremony time. Long story short, Shawntel N. gets cut. It was probably a bad move to have Brad lie on a table and stand over him with a scalpel pointed at his chest on their hometown date. But hey, now she knows. She gives a sad exit interview and implies that she’s been treated pretty poorly by her past loves. She hopes she finds someone who will treat her like a princess soon. Coming up in the full recap: more about the disappointingly normal families… handicapping the finalists… and what, exactly, poutin is.

Salon Takeover: Medusa

Last night on the “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” finale she revisits some of her more deluded and confrontational salon owners of years past. She stopped into Tantrum Salon where owner Robert had once made excuses for his cockroach-infested salon. More famously, Robert is the owner that called Tabatha a bitch while she was within earshot — and survived to tell the tale, although his tighty whiteys did not. She also visits Chicago Male, where owner Dudley Do-Right was driving his business into the ground with a piss poor business plan — and barely bothered to put in any face time at the salon. Which was probably for the best, since he has a chin implant that could take out an eye.

She also visited Miriam of the Silver Lake salon, Refuge. The formerly Amish — currently hipster, single mom has finally put an end to her staff’s misery and has turned her attention to reviving the lost fashion-sense of Bananarama instead. (You’ll want to check back just for these screen shots, folks.) Finally, she visited one of her most successful takeovers, Martino Cartier in Sewell, NJ. This salon was before my TVgasm-time, but it seems Martino aspired to be a salon owner like Jonathan Antin, with the style of Richie Sambora and the mommy issues of Norman Bates. I’ll be reading up on J-Mo’s first season coverage, (http://www.tvgasm.com/recaps/shear_genius/salon_takeover_2/) to properly gauge how far he’s come…

Skins: LadyStardust

This weeks episode is centered around Abbud. Ughhhhhh. Words cannot express how annoyed I am already and I haven’t even gotten through five minutes of the show. I also see that MTV is continuing with their promise of branching out beyond stealing direct plot lines from the UK show. Just kidding, this is pretty much exactly like the UK kid’s school trip to Russia.

The kids are going on a field trip to Canada. It’s actually kind of funny because aren’t all the actors Canadian anyways? And filming in Canada? Anyways, they’re going camping out in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Is there a reason they couldn’t just go camping in the woods in Maryland?

Abbud is a virgin and Chris is trying to help him get laid. Except Abbud has a thing for Tea, but she’s still flirting with Closet Lesbian. Oh and Tony’s still into her too. Since Abbud is an idiot, he actually tries to kiss Tea. Yeah, because if anyone could turn a lesbian straight, it would totally not be Abbud. But apparently it could be Tony, because he sleeps with Tea again. I don’t get all the Tea infatuation.

So, Stanley is still a dumbs who does whatever Tony asks. This time, Tony has him shove drugs up his ass to smuggle across the border. He has some problems removing them for some reason, so he goes out with the rest of the guys to find some mushrooms in the woods. Um…that’s probably not the best idea. You’re much more likely to die than get high. The dumbasses are so desperate to get high, they try to smoke tree moss and do something that involves licking a toad. Dear lord. They can’t go two fucking days without drugs? That’s just sad. It’s not like they’re on heroin or anything.

Chris is still trying to get into his teacher Tina’s pants but she’s stuck rooming (or tenting I guess) with the ultra-creepy male teacher. They still sneak around behind his back though. I still see zero chemistry between Chris and Tina.

Oh and there’s some stupid subplot involving Abbud thinking he sees some guy with an ax and/or chainsaw in the woods. It’s as stupid as it sounds.

Check back later in the week for a full recap!

Hawaii Five-O: Dangerously

Alright, so last night on Hawaii Five-0, we had to suffer through Dane Cook. I’m gonna lay off him here so I can really trash him in the recap. Also, there was one of those super original call-the-loved-one-of-your-soon-to-be-victims-right-before-you-kill-them killers. Also, a major lack of epic takedowns, and too many shirts.

So, to begin things, a judge and his daughter are doing one of those amazing epic ziplines through the rainforest of Hawaii, and his phone rings! Welp, you know what comes next…and, in case you don’t, well, the zipline snaps. Our heroes spring into action, and ask the DA who could’ve done this. The DA gives them a lead, who turns out to be the wrong guy, and in return, the killer kills the DA’s son with a car bomb!!

Dane Cook drops in to Hawaii under the guise of “just wanting to see his big brother,” but it turns out he’s in a bit of trouble. See, the FBI is following him because he’s being accused of stealing from his hedge fund clients. Well, he was always a douchebag, right? So Danno does some digging, trying to figure out whether his kid bro could’ve screwed up like this without doing something illegal like obstructing the case.

The overall idea of this episode is that 2 parallel stories do not strengthen Hawaii Five-0. The sum of the parts was actually weaker than just the Danno and Dane Cook storyline, sadly.

Pretty Little Liars: Virginia Apple

Well, it’s time for the school play, and for some reason all four of the girls decide to get involved. I think it’s because Fitzy is directing and they’ve decided they should spend time with Fitzy and Angstia “as a couple?” Apparently they’ve decided to treat this like any ol’ high school relationship, because that’s logical. Anyway, Spencer and Hanna are cast in the play, Emily takes the week off from swimming to handle the props, and Angstia begs Fitzy to let her be stage manager, AKA his shadow. If you’ve ever seen a television show in your entire life (and based on the fact that you’re reading the ‘Gasm, I’m guessing you have), you know this backfired, mainly because she called him “Ezra” in front of everyone, including bitchy Mona. Also, Fitzy bonds with Byron over that beer and it’s exactly as weird as we all knew it would be. But more on that clusterfuck in the full recap.

In other news, Emily and Toby make amends, which is quite sweet. Spencer and Toby also grow closer as they steal Jenna’s phone so Hanna can have Caleb hack into it and look for clues. However, it turns out that blind people have crazy/complicated/futuristic phones, and even everyone’s favorite shaggy-haired slacker/hacker can’t figure it out.

Speaking of Caleb, Hanna’s mother awesomely refers to him as “the cat in the hat” when Hanna tries to do the honorable thing and ask if Caleb can stay in the guest room instead of continuing to sneak him into and out of the basement. Through your usual television contrivances, this leads to Hanna having to hop into the shower with him in order to avoid said mother, and of course she totally checks him out. After a day or two of awkwardness, she plants one on him, but I think she’s afraid of his cootie germs or something because her mouth is shut tighter than her virgin legs.

And in more exciting news, the girls find what they think is the weapon that killed Ali. They immediately turn it in to the cops this time, before they can be thwarted, but for some reason the cops yell at them for this. That’s another thing to be sorted out in the full recap. Come back soon so we can discuss everything in detail, including the creepiest cliffhanger they’ve given us in quite a while!