Gossip Girl: The Truthiness About Charlie

Gossip Slife here. Your one and only source for hilarious recaps of The CW’s trashy teen soap, Gossip Girl. After last week’s amazeballs episode, I didn’t exactly have high hopes going into the penultimate episode of the season. And I must say, the first twenty minutes or so still managed to prove pretty underwhelming. But then, something miraculous happened. The episode got good. Like, RILLY good! The writers turned up the volume, and this episode went to ELEVEN! So, without further adieu, let’s cut through the crap so we can get to the good stuff!

The episode opens with a mega lame B&W dream sequence (B&W stands for Boring and Waste of Time) wherein Blair imagines herself as some sort of Audrey Hepburn from Roman Holiday or something. She’s riding on the back of a Vespa with her charming Prince Louis, who then morphs into a sinister Chuck and drives recklessly until they crash and she awakes with a start. Why do they always give HER the cheesy retro movies to reenact?! Oh, well. Brownie points for consistency atleast.

Upchuck, now sporting a bandaged hand after smashing it through plate glass last week, wants his buddy Nate to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony at his new hotel project in Brooklyn called Charles Place. Hmm, sounds more like a Monopoly property, rather than a bona fide venture. Nate’s all pissy tho, and turns his back on his ex-bestie. Lamest dialogue of the ep: Nate: “Don’t worry. I’m already gone.” Groan.

You and me could write a bad bromance!

Slutina’s morning is ruined by a call from Manessa, who didn’t appreciate cousin Char Char’s dirty little scheme last week to make Manessa look like a crazy, jealous bitch. LOL. Natch, Slutina doesn’t believe a word out of Manessa’s mouth and promptly hangs up.

Shameless plug for (delicious) Dylan’s Candy Bar as Charlie treats Dan to a candy breakfast. She then confesses that her face book growing up was Flowers in the Attic?! OMG! Someone has a blatant incest fetish!! Worse still – Dan seems oddly aroused! He then invites Char Char to be his date to some alumni gala fundraiser at St. Jude’s. The lame hospital with the Marlo Thomas commercials?! OH! The gang’s high school… DUH. And of course, there’s our party for the ep! But wait! There’s more! He tells Char Char to meet him at Blair’s engagement party first! OMG! Two parties?! I’m kvelling!

Candy necklace? Someone’s ROLLING in the dEEp!

Blair laments to her mom and stepdad (Wallace “Inconceivable!” Shawn) that by marrying her, Louis is giving up his right of succession. Eleanor is too busy to care, because she is helping Joe Zee to judge some WRETCHED Vitamin Water design competish. Most shameless product placement of the season! (Even worse than Bing and GILT.com combined!)

You’ve got to be shitting me!

Eleanor invites skankasaurus Slutina to Blair’s engagement party later, but Blair rescinds the offer immediately, since the two besties are still on the outs.

Raina meets with Upchuck’s evil Uncle Jack, and is immediately repulsed by his Bass charm. She tries to get him to help her destroy Chuck for hiding evidence that his dad killed her mom. Nate walks in and nearly vomits on himself when he sees the two of them in cahoots.

Partners in crime.

Doofus, ever the buzzkill, tells Char Char that she forgot to pick up her crazy pills at the pharmacy, so he got them for her. He reminds her (and us) that last time she went off of them, things went from well – to hell. Char Char bats her pretty little eyes and promises Uncky Roo Roo that she’ll take her meeds like a good little gurl. Only you know that bitch is gonna go flush them down the toilet instead!

On a leisure stroll through NYC with Louis and his uptight mother, Blair spots Uncle Jack getting in his limo, and she makes up some lame excuse for why she has to bolt down the street in the opposite direction. Sophie then tells Louis that Blair is the world’s worst liar, and that the first place she went after Louis proposed to her was Chuck’s! Louis looks both angry and constipated.

Char Char asks big cuz Slutina if it’s okay that she’s going to the St. Jude’s fundraiser as Dan’s date. Slutina looks like she just bit into a lemon, but pretends she’s not jelly like a donut. When Char Char bemoans not having enough funds to buy a new dress, Slutina becomes outraged that she hasn’t gained access to her Van der Woodsen trust fund money yet, and calls Gammy Cici immediately to correct the sitch.

She may looks all sweet and innocent…

Over in Brooklyn…

Oh, god! Chuck’s pretending to be an adult again.

Blair scurries to the roof of Upchuck’s new hotel project to warn him that Uncle Jack is in town and likely has a new scheme brewing. Chuck tries to act cute, but Blair just leaves. Unfortch, Louis and his super stealth limo have followed her, and the prince is none too pleased to see that she’s still speaking with her ex.

Peek a BOO, you whore!

Uncle Jack meets with Russell Thorpe, and tells him that Raina’s revenge plot suits him fine, but is still rather “messy” and “juvenile.” When it comes to messing with Upchuck, he’d much rather do biz with her papa, and the two men form their own alliance – provided that Uncle Jack can retrieve the box from Chuck’s home that has the surveillance tape in it.

New partners in crime.

Char Char doesn’t even wait for her trust fund money to come in before going on a shopping spree at Nina Ricci. She’s in high spirits until a phone call from her mom sends her over the edge (I feel her pain!) and she whips out her pills… and pours them out into the trash can! Um, hello, STUPID!! You can’t leave pills in an open trash can where anyone can see that you haven’t taken them! Worse still, she throws the bottle out, too, rather than tossing it out in some random dumpster to properly hide the evidence. Is this her first time at the rodeo, or what?!

A tablet a day keeps the voices in your head away!

At the engagement party…

“Welcome, Princess Sophie. I, too, am a midget. And this here is Blair’s mother, the giantess from Harry Potter.”

Prince Louis is noticeably late to the party, because he is at Charles Place, having “words” with Upchuck. The two get in a prissy little pissing contest over Blair.

Doofus acts like a good parent for all of two seconds when he tells Slutina to see past Blair’s tough exterior and know that obvi her bestie wants her at her engagement party. Slutina runs upstairs to fetch a dress, and gives anxiety-ridden Char Char some sound advice on how to dress, do her hair, and woo Dan. But one long gaze at a photo of Dan and Slutina at Cotillion (where Slutina was in a gold dress with her hair up) has Char Char rethinking her whole look…

Someone is ditching her crazy meds and diving head first into a big pile of cray cray!

Luckily for Blair, Princess Sophie is quite taken by stepdad Cyrus’ charms, and agrees to speak to the royal court about reconsidering Louis’ rights of succession after he marries Blair. Princess Sophie is feeling SO generous that she even allows Blair and Louis to make their first public appearance as an engaged couple at St. Jude’s later that night.

Blair looks just as confused by her hideous dress as I am.

Upchuck’s boozing it up when Uncle Jack arrives with barbed jabs and two orderlies from the nut house! Upchuck gets a good punch in at Uncle Jack’s chiseled jaw before Nate steps in and convinces Upchuck this is all for the best. WTF?! Upchuck gets hauled off to the looney bin, while Uncle Jack swipes his hotel card, and then gives a little winky face to Russell who’s been spying on the whole scene from up in the rafters. It’s all so ridiculous that I’m starting to love it.

Chuck wanted to be committed…to Blair, not the nut house!

Slutina shows up at Blair’s (in an equally hideous, salmon-colored Grecian gown) and the two pals kiss and make up. Dan walks in, and Slutina snarfs to him about how everyone in her world is moving on with their lives except for her. Um, DUH, sweetie! You’re not in high school anymore. The world no longer revolves around you. Try moving on yourself.

Louis arrives just in time for Cyrus’ cheeseball toast, and then pulls Blair aside for a private chat, where he blasts her for seeing Upchuck TWICE. He also figured out from Upchuck’s bandaged hand and Blair’s cut cheek that something ugly went down, and he’s not a fan of her lies or her twisted dark side. Blair sulks, and Louis asks her to just be open and honest with him from now on. He tells her that if she’s serious about him, to meet him at St. Jude’s later tonight, or else he will leave town with his mother! Ultimatums already??

Not a flattering angle for someone with no defined chin and neck.

Russell finds the tape in Upchuck’s home and is about to leave when… in walks Jack, Nate… and Upchuck! WHAT?! The three amigos tell Russell’s he’s basically been punk’d so they could find out what Russell was really up to. They pop in the surveillance tape – which reveals that it was really Russell who set the fire which killed Raina’s mom! Not Bart! OH SNAP!

The Empire (Hotel) strikes back.

Dan’s looking for Char Char – and speak of the devil! She arrives at the engagement party looking like the spitting image of Slutina at Cotillion. “That’s my dress!” Slutina hisses, turning a bright shade of green. She lays into Charlie for being a dress thief and a total copycat, and demands that Charlie take off the dress right now in the middle of the party! HA! Charlie makes Slutina look like she’s bitter about Dan (which she IS) and Dan is forced to step in and escort Char Char to safety (which is exactly what she wanted!)

It’s MY turn now!!

Russell explains that the fire was an accident. He knew that Bart was planning a fire anyways, so he wanted to turn the tables and kill Bart, and ended up killing Raina’s mom instead. While Uncle Jack makes for pleasant comic relief, Russell offers up Thorpe Enterprises – anything to Chuck, provided that Raina NEVER find out the truth. In a rare act of compassion, Upchuck lets Russell off the hook easy – and simply tells him never to show his face in NYC ever again.

Cyrus is shocked when Blair of all people turns down a blintz and says she has lost her appetite.  Yeah, right, chunky! You’re fooling NO ONE! He then calls her a “princess bride” which was an adorable reference to, well, The Princess Bride! A few more kind words of encouragement and Blair is miraculously eating again.

‘Atta girl, Bessie!

Raina bitches to Nate that Jack suddenly backed out of his deal with her. She can’t figure out why no one wants to help her destroy Upchuck! And not five minutes after Russell just BEGGED them to never tell Raina the truth, Nate decides to spill the beans!

Meanwhile, Doofus just happens to look inside the trash can and finds Char Char’s empty pill bottle. He’s obvi pissed. Not smart, girlie! Doofus calls Char Char, but she ignores his call and struts her ass into the alumni gala with Dan on her arm.

Upchuck thanks Uncle Jack for using her evil powers for good for a change. Uncle Jack then gives his nephew the ol’ “Go get her!” speech about Blair, and how he’s rooting for them to end up together. WTF?! It’s cute, so I’ll let it slide.

Russell’s limo is cruising out of town when he gets a call from daughter Raina, who just happens to be in HER limo! She tells him that she knows EVERYTHING now, and that as far as she’s concerned, he’s as dead to her as her mother. Natch, Russell thinks that Upchuck ratted him out, not knowing that it was loose lips Nate Archibald, who’s happy to play the strong, silent shoulder for Raina to cry on. And understandably, Russell starts to seethe with uncontrollable rage.

NOT a cute cry baby!

Manessa arrives at Slutina’s, basically expecting an apology, and is shocked to learn that they have an enemy in common – Charlie! Seems the lil newbie is a grade A schemer, and it’s time she’s put in her place! Just then, Doofus comes downstairs, asking if either of them has seen Char Char… Now it looks like all three of them will be ganging up on her!

Who’d have ever thought Charlie could unite these two?!

Dan and Charlie make their way through the gala event, past faces old and new…

Love the high school cameos…even if they only lasted 3 seconds…

Or appeared in sign form!

Char Char is determined to bring out the inner bad boy in Dan, so they sneak into Headmistress Queller’s office, where Dan makes a sly reference to the season 1 swimming pool episode! Loves! Char Chr’s a filthy lil minx and slips right out of her gold dress and up onto Queller’s desk wearing only lingerie, stalkings, and heels! She unleashes her inner porn star and pulls Dan into a sexy embrace! WOWZERS! It literally ranks as one of the hottest GG scenes I’ve ever watched!! And then Charlie utters the hottest, dirtiest, line EVER: “Call me Serena.” OMG!! Dan senses that her vegenicals are about to chomp his weener off, so he bolts for the door.

HAWT!

Char Char would be feeling hurt and rejected, but she gets a text from her bank (at this hour?!) that her Rhodes Trust Fund has just been activated. Uh oh!

Blair is looking for Louis at the gala when she receives a mysterious phone call, and has to flee – but not before she asks Char Char to find Louis and not let him leave until she gets back from helping Chuck…

Doofus warns Slutina and Manessa that this isn’t the first time Charlie’s gone off her meds, and last time… it wasn’t so pretty!

Strangely, Upchuck arrives at the gala looking for Blair, but can’t seem to find her among the throngs of bitchy little Blair wannabes.

That’s because Blair is on the rooftop of Charles Place, where a mysterious caller warned her that Chuck was threatening to jump and was calling her name. Blair is confused, until out from the shadows steps… RUSSELL THORPE! He’s hellbent on seeking revenge against Chuck, and even in the dark of night, Blair can see a murderous glint in his eye…!!!!

Oh, shizz!

Molly, you in danger, girl!

SO?! Chills!  Was that not one of the BEST cliffhangers in all of GG history?! It took forever, but it was awesome to see the many storylines of the seasons finally start to weave together. And it’s all building to an even more delish season finale! Will history repeat itself with Russell mixing love and betrayal with arson? Will there be a showdown between Slutina and her cousin over Dan? And would any season finale be complete without a cameo from Whorgina Sparks?? I can’t wait! Leave your questions and comments as always! You know you love me! Xoxo, Gossip Slife