Gossip Girl: My Tulip Feet

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!)

The episode opens with Dan walking out of his bedroom, and finding Ben and Slutina getting cozy over a cup of coffee on the couch. It seems she came over last night for a sexy game of … Scrabble … and accidentally fell asleep. “Since when do you like Scrabble?” Dan asks. Translation: “Since when can you spell out basic words like ‘cat’? Or ‘dog’? Or ‘whore’?”

Don’t look so shocked, sweetie. You know it’s true.

Ben adds insult to injury by telling Dan her coffee sucks. LOL. Dan leaves, Slutina slobbers on Ben, and then tells him she’s forged a peace treaty with her mother in order to help co-plan Eric’s faboosh eighteenth birthday soiree. (Always a party!) Ben declines the invitation to come, since he still can’t forgive Lily for ruining the last four years of his life. Understandable.

Lily pretends to be a good mother for all of two seconds by tending to Eric, who’s sick on the couch. (Sick of being a whiny twink!) Lily dashes out for an important meeting. Translation: she’s late for a blow out at Bergdorf’s.

Slutina is horrified to come home to find roomie Blair has reached new heights of workaholism / laziness: she no longer dresses herself, but has Dorota do it while she reads and texts! Damn, I wish I had a Dorota! Natch, Dorota gets her revenge by zipping a little close to the skin! Ha. Blair is then horrified herself to read on Gossip Girl that Raina beat her out as the new face of Anne Archibald’s Girls Inc. LOL.

Be thankful the zipper’s in the back! Yee-ouch!

Lame duck Nate FINALLY gets a storyline, when Upchuck asks him to chum up to Raina and distract her for a day by listing off all of Upchuck’s charming qualities. (All two of them?)

Blair skypes her minions from W, and tasks them with various errands in order to help her achieve total Waldorf domination: gift buying, shmoozing, and test taking.

These girls’ outfits just keep getting worse and worse!

Blair is then informed by Annoying Girl at W that she no longer has any interns left – they all filed for transfers because Blair is such a C-U-Next-Tuesday to work for. Ha! Enter Dan, who Blair pawns off as her brand new intern. Aww! Thrust together again!

Lily meets Upchuck at some swanky bar where the two ending up getting into a very heated and nasty spat. Lily tells him that she is done trying to help him, and he basically calls her a slut. Lily responds by slapping the shit out of Upchuck’s face! Yes! Even better is when the camera pans past Chuck to reveal that Russell Thorpe was secretly watching the whole fight go down.

Ta-dow! Don’t mess with Mama Van der Woodsen!

Better still – is the realization that the whole fight was STAGED to look real, when in truth Lily and Upchuck are back in cahoots in order to stop Thorpe Enterprises from taking over Bass Industries. They hope their little stunt will convince Russell that his plan is working perfectly so far…

Surprise!! It was all an act! But you know she got some good ole’ aggression out with that bitch slap!

Slutina is shocked to discover that Eric isn’t really sick at all – he was feigning illness because he has been tasked by Damien Dalgaard to be his drug mule and go pick up a cocaine shipment at the flower mart which is being smuggled in the fertilizer packs of 100 pink tulips. (Note to self: clever!) Slutina is even more shocked to find out that Eric is going along with this scheme because Damien is blackmailing him with the truth about Lily committing perjury against Ben.

“And I thought I was a ditz!”

Slutina tells Eric not to cancel his party, and not to worry – she will figure a way out of this family mess. Ben doesn’t want her to get involved with the drug deal; he argues that the worst that could happen is that Lily actually PAYS for her crime for once. Ha! Slutina acts pissy and defensive.

With assignments mounting, and phones ringing off the hook, Blair is in over her head at work at W – let alone her school studies! She offers Dan a job as an intern, which he flat out refuses, but he does offer to help her out – provided that she admit she needs his help. Natch, Blair is too consumed with pride to admit she needs anyone’s help – and it’s HIGH-larious to watch her continue to drown professionally.

Sending out an S.O.S.!

Nate uses Gossip Girl to stalk, er, track down Raina at Bergdorf’s. With her driver “mysteriously” absent, Nate offers to escort her by foot (gasp!) through the park.

When Russell calls Lily and asks her to meet for drinks “for old time’s sake,” Lily and Upchuck snicker gleefully that their plan is working out perfectly. She will distract Russell, while Nate keeps Raina occupied, so that Upchuck can sneak into Russell’s office and find info on his financial backer.

Blair is so sleep-deprived at work that she mistakes a pen holder for her cup of coffee. Ha! Dan notices that she is also woefully behind on her blog, “The Blair Necessities.” Clever title! Dan muses that if she takes on one more task, she’s explode. Enter Slutina and Eric in need of scheming aid. Dan: “I’m out! This just went from Woman on the Verge to Saw II, and I don’t like gore porn.” LOL.

“I’ll have the Venti nonfat, no foam, soy stapler. Thanks.”

Nate and Raina enjoy a leisure stroll through Central Park, while she reminisces about all of the normal, human experiences that being rich has not allowed her to have: trips to the park, Tai Chi, and ice skating. Ever the gentleman, Nate suggests they grab a pair of ice skates so he can give her a lesson!

“You one crazy honkey!”

Blair phones Penelope, and tells her to pick up an urgent “tulip” order asap. The details are on a purple sticky note on her computer. (Ha! I love that she’s willing to let Penelope get arrested should there be a drug bust!) Dan comes back so that Blair can eat crow and admit she needs his help. Dan basks in the glory just long enough before Blair is pulled into a meeting. She tells him to dive into her assignments, which are all on stickies on her computer. Unfortch, Dan grabs the purple one by mistake!!

Dun dun dun!!!

The next time we see Raina, she’s in a robe at Nate’s! It seems “clumsy” Nate spilled cider all over her. Raina is enjoying this “day of firsts” to bother noticing she is being shamelessly distracted. She finds a yummy joint in the robe’s pocket, and giddily suggests they continue her day of firsts… Oh, my!

Lily flirts her ass off with Russell over a bottle of wine, while Upchuck bribes his way into Russell’s office and uses Captain ArchiBALD’s passwords to hack the computer. Lily intimates to Russell that her marriage to RUDEfus is all for show, and that she is sexually unhappy, and Russell eats it up with a spoon. When Upchuck finds a contact listing for Bradley Kidd in Atlanta, Georgia (vaguely racist of the writers to pick Hotlanta…) he calls Lily with the good news, and she just as quickly turns off the charm.

Lily is all too happy for a scheme that involves booze.  Glug, glug, glug!

When Penelope arrives at W with birthday gifts for Eric instead of 100 pink tulips, Blair freaks out and realizes that Dan snagged the purple sticky note instead.

Dan gets a call from roomie Ben, saying that Manessa is back in town looking for him, but Dan asks him to relay a message back to her: EFF OFF!

Eww! Of course, Manessa returns to town the same way she left: in a big, hideous, unflattering coat.

Eric and Slutina are so confused when Dan arrives at their manse with the tulip delivery. They’re even more confused when it turns out he has 100 PURPLE tulips with regular fertilizer packets, instead of the 100 PINK tulips with the smuggled cocaine in them. (Damn those non-English speaking vendors at the flower mart!)

Later that night, Eric’s rainbow-hued fiesta is in full swing. Blair struts in and is accosted by Dan, who thinks she only asked for his help to make him a drug mule. (I also love how “drug mule” has been uttered like 400 times this season. It’s the new “fetch.”) Blair scoffs that the assignment was meant for Penelope – and if she got caught, the time behind bars might improve her attitude. LOL. Turns out that Blair’s sleep deprivation bungled the whole drug scheme when she wrote PURPLE instead of PINK on the sticky note. Classic mistake! PS, who has time to think up these overly-elaborate and far-fetched storylines?!

Piñatas and Prada on the Upper East Side? Now I’ve seen everything!

Eric has bad news – Damien pre-sold the coke and is now coming to the party to collect the $100,000 that he claims Eric owes him now. Dan thinks that is INSANE, but leave it to those Van der Woodsen kids to have a spare Rhodes scholarship trust fund to dip into for that kind of chump change. LOL.

Upchuck informs Lily and RUDEfus that he has invited investor Bradley Kidd to the party that night in order to convince him that it would be more profitable to keep Bass Industries intact rather than sell it for parts.

Nate continues to distract Raina with Ke$ha‘s “Tik Tok” and Xbox‘s Dance Central. Yawn / lame product placement. Suffering from reefer madness, Raina introduces Nate to the epic deliciousness that is potato chips dipped in chocolate ice cream. Crackers and chocolate?! No racial undertones there! Nate thinks they should sell the idea to Ben & Jerry, but Raina thinks they should start their own business. Perhaps they could call it…

Ebony & Ivory?

The following is a transcription of the next scene, where Lily walks in and finds Eric and Slutina tearing open his gifts:

Slutina: “Ugh! I hate professional gift wrapping!”
Lily: “What are you doing?! Do you realize how gauche it is to open gifts at a party? Before dessert?!”
Eric: “I was just so excited to have a new addition to my stock portfolio!”

Talk about White People’s Problems!!!

When Eric thanks Blair for the Baccarat glassware, (a nice little nod to the company for letting them film at their restaurant in Paris) she realizes that Penelope got the gift assignment all mixed up, too!

Upchuck gasps in horror when he sees Russell enter the party with a gift in tow. Slutina groans when she sees Damien arrive at the party, too. She finds Ben sulking downstairs, and they get into an argument about sacrificing her friends to protect her mother.

Lily freaks when she runs into Russell at the party. He seems hellbent on seducing her with flattery, but she warns him that RUDEfus is there, so they should be cautious. Just then, RUDEfus flies off the handle at how chummy the ex-lovers seem, and Russell takes that as his cue to leave the party. Turns out the whole Roofus-jealousy-scene was just another act to help get rid of Russell before Bradley Kidd showed up. Lily and RUDEfus should really look into some sexy role-play games.

Cockward!!

Blair catches up with Bryn Howard, some fashion maven she’s been trying to suck up to for her blog, and does some mayjah ass-kissing. But when Bryn points out that Blair is wearing mismatched heels (again, due to lack of sleep) the introduction is cut short, and Blair wants to die from shame and embarrassment.

Fashion faux pas!!

Russell is JUST about to leave the party when – oops! He bumps into Bradley Kidd at the front door, who’s there to meet with Upchuck. Suddenly, Russell’s not so keen on leaving after all. He and Chuck have it out, and in the end, Mr. Kidd decides to stay and hear what Upchuck has to say after all. Kidd: “The only thing I hate worse than being lied to is being cheated.” Russell warns him that he’s making a big mistake, and turns on his heel.

Eric is just about to hand a check for $100,000 over to Damien when Lily swoops in and demands an explanation.

Manessa crashes the party and tries to apologize to Dan, but he still can’t forgive her for being a part of Juliet’s scheme to drug and destroy Slutina, and then pointing the finger at Little J. Manessa runs off crying.

Once an outside, always an outsider, ya fugly bitch!

Lily finally cops to forging Slutina’s name on the affidavit, which earns her brownie points with both her children.

Blair is her typical rude self to Dan, just before one of her minions arrives to swap out the Baccarat gift and inform her that she failed a test due to another minion confusing History with Art History. On the plus side though, Blair’s blog turned out to be a hit! Blair is confused, until she realizes that Dan came to her rescue and wrote an article under her name about how friends are the fashion fundamentals. Aww!

Blair suddenly feels like a total heel. A mismatched heel, to boot! LOL. (Oh, shoe puns!)

Damien is smirking over his $100,000 check – this time cut from Lily’s checkbook – when Ben pops out of the shadows and scares the shiz out of him. Ben warns Damien not to flap his trap about Lily EVER – or he will have Damien KILLED! He points out that the thugs he hired to beat up Nate’s dad in prison only stopped after 10 minutes cuz he told them to. Killing a man would take even less time. Damien tries to put up a strong front, but instead hands over the check and runs terrified down the street. And in an amazing twist, the camera pans over to reveal that Manessa was privy to their entire conversation!! And now that she knows Ben’s secret, you KNOW she is going to exploit it in order to scheme her way back into the gang!! SO GOOD!

Peek-a-boo!

Upchuck calls Nate for a status report, and is informed that Raina saw through the whole distraction, and that perhaps it’s time to move on. Nate hangs up, and then does a little flirting with Raina, who CLEARLY wants to get some of his cream up in her coffee!!

Upchuck joins RUDEfus, Lily, Eric, and Slutina for some post-party cake and kibbutz, and they laugh about Russell, and Blair’s shoes. Ben shows up and returns Lily’s check, saying that he made it clear to Damien that he wouldn’t cooperate. Lily is touched by his kind act, and Slutina is equally impressed.

The family that schemes together…

Blair treks all the way out to Brooklyn to apologize to Dan and thank him for his help, despite the fact that she quit / was fired. She thought becoming the woman she wanted to be would help her win Chuck back, but ultimately she failed. Dan is such a good friend, he invites Blair to stay over for dinner and a movie.

Love this!!

Slutina rewards Ben with a night of saucy love-making. Unfortch, Slutina’s wearing so many damned silver sequins on every article of clothing, that it looks like Ben’s humping a disco ball!

Enough with the sequins already!

And just when everything is coming up roses and Russell is sulking into his whiskey high ball, Damien drops in for a social visit. He introduces himself as a fellow victim of the Bass – Van der Woodsen – Humphrey clan, and offers to sell Russell a tasty little secret about Lily for the cool price of $100,000… ACK!! I feared this day would come – when the two big villains of the season would team up! Better watch your backs, Upper East Siders!!

Partners in crime!

I enjoyed this week’s episode a lot. What did you all think? What did you think of the new evil partnership between Damien and Russell? Will Chuck blow his lid if Raina falls for Nate? Will Dan and Blair ever get it on? And what does Manessa have up her sleeves? As always, leave your questions and comments! You know you love me, -Gossip Slife