“We’re doing comfort food: nobody is comforted by a tuna tower.”
Wow, so that was fast. I guess we all kind of knew that Bart was dead, but they didn’t even drag it out a little bit. Instead, we open at Bart’s funeral. Lily is dealing with her husband’s death in a particularly WASPy fashion, by making lists, yelling at people and having clandestine meetings with her lover in Central Park.
It’s Christmas time, so that must mean that it’s time for Lily and Rufus to attempt to run away together. Even though they keep telling each other that nothing is going to stand in their way this time, I wouldn’t put money on them living happily ever after. Especially since Lily’s big secret about her hospitalization in France is still on the table.
Chuck, who blames Lily for his father’s death, meets with the PI to find out what Lily’s deep dark secret is. After paying a hefty fee to learn it, he has second thoughts about using it against her. Unfortunately for Lily, her mother has no such compunction, and tells Rufus the big secret before he’s set to meet Lily for the holidays.
Now, before we get to the big secret, I just want to point out something that’s not a secret: Lily is kind of a crappy mom. Since Dan and Jenny are spending Christmas with their mother in Hudson and Serena is going to Buenos Aires with her rat-faced boyfriend, Lily thinks that that makes both her and Rufus free to go away together, which is all well and good, except, what about Eric? I don’t recall him having any Christmas plans. Is she just ditching her suicidal son after his family fell apart yet again?
So Lily’s lackluster parenting skills have been an issue for years. I kind of called this, but it sounds like Lily’s hospitalization in France wasn’t because she was depressed, it was because she was pregnant. It seems as though the child was probably Rufus’s, and he is understandably pissed about the fact that she has never mentioned this. It sounds like we’re going to have a new character soon!
“Are you sure it’s your family you don’t want to leave, or someone else?”
Ugh. Even though Serena isn’t sleeping with her rat-faced boyfriend, their relationship is still going strong. Well, I don’t know if “strong” is actually the right word, since she still obviously has feelings for Dan and he’s trying to make her love him with trips to Buenos Aires.
Serena goes to Dan to try and get him to talk her out of going to Buenos Aires, but he initially refuses to play her ridiculous games. When he tells this to Jenny, she points out that if he plays the games, he’ll end up with Serena in the end, which is what he wants anyway. He takes this advice to heart, but it’s too late. He missed his chance and Serena is too weirded out by the fact that she thinks their parents are going to be doing it soon.
“Whatever you’re going through, I want to be there for you.”
Love is in the air at the Waldorf house. Eleanor and Cyrus realize that life is short and decide to get married the day after Bart’s funeral. They have a simple ceremony with just family at the apartment. It’s nice to see how Blair is really warming to Cyrus and is actually looking at him like a father figure. She even asks his advice about Chuck.
Chuck was obviously a drunken mess at the funeral, and she did her best to help him through it. When nothing worked and he seemed more depressed than ever, Blair finally did the thing that they’ve been trying to do all season long: she tells him that she loves him. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work and Chuck takes off. It’s seriously one of the best scenes in this show’s history.
Although he tells her it’s too bad she loves him and leaves, Chuck shows up at her apartment right after the wedding. Neither of them says a word; she just embraces him and they fall asleep together in all of their clothes and shoes. Blair awakens the next morning to find that Chuck is gone, and in his place is a note telling her that she deserves better and shouldn’t come looking for him.
In the promos for the next episode on January 5th, it looks as though Chuck continues on his self-destructive path, which is good, because it means lots of Chuck and Blair scenes. I kind of hate the fact that Lily and Rufus appear to have a child out there somewhere. This storyline has already been done to death, and we already have one Jenny Humphrey. We certainly do not need another.
With that said, I really enjoyed this episode. I really can’t stand Serena and Aaron, but Chuck and Blair, and even Blair and Cyrus, more than made up for his rodent-like features and boring personality.
