TV Recap: Gossip Girl - There Might Be Blood

“After tonight, you’ll be so famous, you’ll have 10 Nate Archibalds.”

Tonight was a very Jenny-centric episode, which I’m not a fan of, as it has the unfortunate side effect of relegating Chuck Bass to a background player. Anyway, Agnes has convinced Little J that she needs to put on a guerrilla fashion show so she can get her name out there and become richer and more famous than Eleanor Waldorf.

They’re about to leave, when Dan comes home and completely freaks out on her. I’m really confused as to why, since he didn’t even know what a guerilla fashion show meant. It seems like he’s completely overreacting to the situation in order to drive a dramatic narrative arc for the episode. Weird.

It turns out that Jenny is planning on crashing a party in order to show her clothes. Since this is Manhattan, a city in which everybody knows your name, the party is of course, in honor of Chuck and Lily Bass. Jenny has some second thoughts, but ultimately goes through with the show in which wine bottles are kicked to death and Polaroids of what looks like the Avril Lavigne couture line are thrown about.

All of the rich, stuffy people are utterly charmed by this young blond imp coming in and shaking up their dull, jewel-encrusted lives; none moreso than the guest of honor herself, Lily. This is especially fortunate for Jenny, as her dad is super-pissed about her little stunt and tries to get her arrested. Luckily, Lily tells the cop that she and Bart aren’t planning on pressing charges.

Jenny gets away with her fashion show, but that’s not all she gets. After not saying two words to her since their terrifying kiss last week, Nate decides that talk is cheap anyway, and totally makes out with her more. Of course, this time everything goes to hell. Not only is Vanessa there to see it, but she told Dan about Nate’s short-lived stint as a gigolo. So when Dan sees a picture on Gossip Girl of Nate and Jenny kissing, Dan kicks Nate out of the loft.

“I want Bacardi and a boy. This body’s open for business.”

Serena is still trying to get Blair into Yale, but all everyone is interested in are the famous people Serena knows. She tries to get a friend of the dean interested in Blair by volunteering Ms. Waldorf for babysitting duty, but it turns into quite the awkward situation.

While the girls mom may believe that her main interests are based on Harry Potter and frozen treats, Blair quickly finds out that Emma has a different agenda—namely to lose her virginity before some girl named Muffy does.

It’s funny to see how horrified Blair is by this entire situation, considering that she’s the girl who put on her best Agent Provocateur lingerie and tried to seduce Chuck Bass in her best friend’s bedroom. But seriously, this is a pretty horrifying situation, so I don’t blame her. Not only is Emma trying to lose her virginity in a race, but she’ll settle for any random dude. Enter Chuck Bass.

Blair and Serena hatch a plan to take Emma to the party honoring Lily as a way of keeping her out of trouble, but Chuck intercepts Emma first. However, Chuck chooses not to take things to their logical conclusion, despite Emma’s willingness. The problem is, they were in a limo and Chuck considers the back of a limo to be a sacred place, which is a nice moment between him and the obviously flattered Blair.

After putting out a Gossip Girl APB for Emma, they catch up with her at some club where she’s about to go home with some Eurotrash she just met. Interestingly enough, in addition to Manhattan being the kind of city in which everybody knows your name, it also has only one club. Case in point, Emma’s mother happens to be there making out with a man who is not Emma’s father. Blair obviously sees this as her golden ticket into Yale, so she files it away for future use.

In the end, Blair and Chuck work together to post an update on Gossip Girl that made Emma think she had already lost, so she didn’t lose it to the Eurotrash dude. It turns out that Emma is just acting out because her mother doesn’t pay attention to her. Blair can relate, so they have a lovely little bonding moment, and Blair decides not to blackmail Emma’s mother. Instead she just tells her to spend more time with her daughter before it’s too late.

Even though Blair is convinced she’s blown her chance to get into Yale, she gets a call from the dean the next morning. Apparently he heard from Emma who told him Blair Waldorf was the person she would most like to have dinner with, living or dead. Aw, Blair did the right thing and it turned out well for her.

Let’s hope it never happens again.

Some other notes:

• I was really squicked out by the whole Nate/Jenny kiss last week, but after I thought about it, I realized there was nothing weird about a sophomore dating a senior. But then I remembered that even though Taylor Momsen is playing her age, Chace Crawford isn’t. Dude’s 23. That ain’t right.

• How funny was it when Chuck helped get Emma out of Eurotrash’s apartment? The look on his face when he saw what was presumably a naked dude in bed was priceless. It was the first genuine chuckle I think we’ve ever seen from Chuck Bass.

• They’re still giving us this Aaron/Serena storyline, but it’s so boring it’s barely worth mentioning. Tales of summer camp or boring and I certainly do not need two episodes in which we discuss licorice rings to such an extent. The basic jist of the situation is that Aaron is a man whore who has a constant stream of ladies coming and going out of his apartment, but he has apparently been in love with Serena since they were 8.

• Next week seems to revolve around Dan’s decision to actually write the Chuck Bass story he was doing “field research” for a couple of episodes back. Dan wants to get into Yale, but Chuck vows to destroy him. I think I’m okay with this.

• Oh, and after watching this episode and understanding the subject matter, how gross is this week’s episode title: “There Might be Blood”? Aack!

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