Last night on Gossip Girl, Dan (Penn Badgley) turned all Pacey Witter and gained himself some carnal knowledge with Serena’s Shakespeare-obsessed mentor, Miss Carr, the only 25-year-old Teach For America alum in the world that can afford a huge Manhattan apartment with a queen bed and dining room table, and is still allowed to be VP of the Dan Humphrey Poor Self-Pitying Writers Guild. And that little socio-economic unreality is just the tip of the hypocrisy iceberg that finally sank any legit claim Dan Humphrey had to his titanic superiority complex.
First of all, let me get it out in the open: I couldn’t be happier with Dan’s trip to the dark side. Dan’s M.O. has always been gazing at the rich and powerful Upper East Siders through his poetic telescope in Manhattan, hating them for their egos, senses of entitlement, and their tiny rich-people cell phones. All the while, he’s loudly proclaiming his working class right to bitch and secretly wishing he were one of them.
But that is certainly not to say that Dan is a bad person. He’s not. He’s just a hypocrite. Dan has good intentions. He stands up for the people he cares about, and defends the innocent. But Dan has lied to Serena more times than I can count, while holding her to a standard of honesty and openness he can’t achieve himself. He’d do anything to protect his family, and he’s a sensitive boyfriend. But he’s been harsh with Jenny, denounced Nate, and defied Rufus over and over. Oh yeah, and he also hooked up with Georgina Sparks.
So the fact that Dan has played the part of the moral compass on Gossip Girl has pretty much always been a joke. From the beginning, he’s been a hypocrite of sorts.
And it really doesn’t help that he’s a writer. Often his open love for literature simply makes Dan look like a pompous ass. Dan’s been caught many times bringing up Faulkner during casual conversation in the courtyard. Last night he threw a Cordelia reference into a short story that made Miss Carr swoon with academic adoration. Or how about using A Clockwork Orange to give relationship advice to Nate? For somebody who hates so much on class inequality, Dan loves to use his mad English Lit. cred to make himself feel better than everybody else. Which is why it tasted sour when he made Chuck Bass (a.k.a. Charlie Trout) his muse and guide to Manhattan lavishness, and turned him into a one-dimensional playboy in a short story turned moral treatis denouncing excess.
Dan is a pretty good guy. But he’s also a rather boring and annoying guy, and Gossip Girl viewers aren’t quiet about the fact that they’d much rather do the horizontal tango with Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) or Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), who have longer rap sheets and more slippery morals than Dan, but are infinitely hotter and more interesting for it.
Dan’s not perfect, and it’s time he stopped acting as though he is. This affair with the teacher, which started, oh—ten seconds after he and Serena broke up, means he’s not so different from the rich boys. This is no little mistake. This time, Dan tossed both morals and consequences to the wind, and it will launch him into a higher category of hypocrite if he doesn’t finally own up to his actions.
Even though I don’t like Miss Carr, and I feel kind of evil myself for saying it… if Dan getting on Miss Carr means he finally gets off his high horse, I’m all for it. Join the bad boys of Gossip Girl, Dan Hump-hrey. It will make you much more interesting. Maybe even more likable. And definitely hotter.
Best in Show:
Best Quotes (a.k.a. Best of Blair):
“I made friends with a family of squirrels and had lots of time to think.” -Blair
“Thank you, Jesus!” -Hazel
“No, thank you Blair. And thank you, Dorota.” -Blair
“Give Handsome to a homeless man. Make sure he has kind eyes. I’m not going to Yale. I don’t deserve you.” -Blair
“I believe its called exculpatory evidence. I love Damages.” – Blair
Best Scene: For me, just for the sheer stupidity of it, Dan and Miss Carr meeting for a candlelit coffee after she’s been wrongfully accused of doinking him. I was laughing and screaming at my TV, “What kind of teacher are you?!” So ridiculous. Runner-up: Black Ops Dorota, whose disguise still includes her maid cap.
Best User Comment: “As if looking slightly dorky and being poor wasnt bad enough now hes sleeping with a teacher/ex-teacher!!! WTF! I knew that miss carr was a boyfriend stealing, student sleeping b***h!” –Jordyne‘s take on Dan and Miss Carr. I couldn’t agree more!
Miss last night’s Gossip Girl? Check out our Gossip Girl Recap: Episode 2.17 “Carnal Knowledge”!
-Meghan Carlson, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Image courtesy of the CW
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
Meghan hails from Walla Walla, WA, the proud home of the world’s best sweet onions and Adam West, the original Batman. An avid grammarian and over-analyzer, you can usually find her thinking too hard about plot devices in favorites like The Office, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and How I Met Your Mother. In her spare time, Meghan enjoys drawing, shopping, trying to be funny (and often failing), and not understanding the whole Twilight thing. She’s got a BA in English and Studio Art from Whitman College, which makes her a professional arguer, daydreamer, and doodler.
