Sunday morning dawns over the Brooklyn Bridge. It is the morning after the dramatic Kiss on the Lips party. As the omniscient Gossip Girl explains to us, Upper East Siders don’t do lazy Sundays. Lazy Sundays are for for po’ people. That’s why they’re po’ in the first place, because they are so darn lazy. Denizens of the Upper East Side do brunch on Sundays, and on this particular day, Chuck Bass’s silver fox father is hosting a brunch for his foundation at the Palace. Everybody who’s anybody is invited, which means, of course, that the Humphreys are decidedly not.
Everyone is recovering from the fallout from last night’s Kiss on the Lips party. Dan and Jenny, whose bedrooms are separated by a wall that can be rolled up or down, check in with each other. We find out that they live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a far cry from the rarified air of the Upper East Side, or so Gossip Girl would like us to believe. Dan is still reeling from his date with Serena. After saving Jenny from Chuck, Dan, Jenny and Serena all shared a cab home. They dropped off Serena at the Palace first, where, instead of walking her to the door, he just awkwardly waved and left. He is convinced that Serena thinks that he doesn’t like her. Naturally, at the same moment, Serena is confiding in little brother Eric that Dan’s wave is proof positive that he isn’t interested in her.
Nate and Chuck wake up in Chuck’s suite at the Palace. No, not like that. Nate is on the couch and Chuck is in bed with two lovely female hotel employees. Clearly hungover, the two rehash their night. Nate mocks Chuck for wearing a scarf; Chuck merely responds that the scarf is his signature. He’s such a badass, that one.
Serena goes over to Blair’s, bringing two bone-dry caps and Breakfast at Tiffany’s in accordance with their old Sunday morning ritual, but Blair is not interested in hearing anything that her former best friend has to say. She lays into Serena that she found out from him that Serena had sex with him a year ago. She says to Serena, “I always knew you were a whore. I never took you for a liar too.” She tells Serena to stay away from her and her boyfriend and her friends.
The Humphrey kids cross the East River, Dan to visit Serena at the Palace, and Jenny to pay a visit to Blair. Blair immediately knows that Jenny has come to see her to find out if Chuck is saying anything about her. Blair lets her stay for a while and help her get ready for the brunch. Jenny is so grateful for the attention that she just chatters away about how her brother and Serena went out on a date last night. Blair realizes that she may have some use for Jenny after all, and gives her a dress that her mother designed and that Jenny was admiring.
Meanwhile, Dan, having just missed Serena, instead finds Nate waiting for her at the Palace as well. Then Chuck arrives. In a city of eight million people, they sure do keep running into the same people, don’t they? Chuck and Dan exchange harsh words and are about to fight again, but they can’t because they are neither dressed up nor at a fancy party, and thus, are limited only to verbal blows.
Serena, having been rebuffed by her best friend, comes home to find Dan still there. If this guy is willing to wait hours for this girl, instead of just picking up the phone and calling her, then I think he absolutely deserves to get his heart dragged through the dirt, which she surely will do to him. I have no sympathy for him. He apologizes for his lame wave and asks her to eat. She eagerly accepts, only to be thwarted by Lily who arrives just in time to kill their buzz. She reminds her daughter that she has to go to the brunch, but Serena says that she will only go if she can bring Dan as well. Neither of them is very popular with the brunch attendees, so the event promises to be loads of good fun.
Finally, it is time for the brunch. Everyone is dressed in stuffy formal daywear. Blair and Chuck are particularly fugly, she with a ridiculous blue bow in her hair like she’s eleven, and he in a white tux with a green bowtie. Chuck’s father scolds him for having a black eye and drinking scotch, when he should really be scolding him about the hideousness of his outfit. These Upper East Siders and their misplaced priorities!
Serena and Dan arrive, and almost immediately, Serena excuses herself to go find Nate. Nate wants to talk to her in private, where Blair cannot see them, so he gives her a key to Chuck’s suite and tells her to meet him there in ten minutes. Meanwhile, Blair is livid that Serena had the gall to show up to the brunch. Chuck suggests to her that she better take Nate and go up to his suite and finally give it up if she wants a chance of holding Nate’s interest. I think I might have an idea where this is going. So, Blair grabs Nate and pulls him up to the suite, ready to rip off her clothes and finally give in to the pressure to do the dirty deed, when who happens to be up there already but Serena van der Woodsen? Blair is furious and runs downstairs to tell Dan about Seren’s whoring ways.
While this is going on, Dan witnesses Lily and Bart Bass flirting. They are secretly sleeping together, and Lily doesn’t like the idea of Bart bedding 25-year-old floozies while she is too. Lily asks Dan to keep her secret, especially from Serena.
The party up in Chuck’s suite has broken up and they are all down in the middle of the brunch. Chuck, Nate, Serena and Blair stand in an angry circle, when Dan joins them. Chuck spills that Serena slept with her best friend’s boyfriend, Blair pipes in that she ran away afterwards and lied about. Chuck also sneers that he has some unfinished business with Jenny. All of this is enough to provoke Dan to shove Chuck into a nearby table. Fight at a fancy party? Check! Dan then storms out, rebuffing Serena’s offer to go with him.
The scene was awesome enough as it was, but Kristen Bell as Gossip Girl manages to take it up a notch or three by saying, “Some might call this a fuster cluck, but on the Upper East Side, it’s just Sunday brunch.” Fuster cluck is my new favorite word, and Gossip Girl is my new favorite show!
Serena runs after Dan and apologizes. She explains that her world is crazy. He’s disappointed because he thought she was different. She tells him that what happened is in the past and all she can do is try to change. If he can’t accept that, than he’s not who she thought he was. She turns to leave. On any other show, the guy would immediately soften and run back to her. But on Gossip Girl, dude holds his ground and keeps walking.
At the end of the episode, Blair and Nate make a shaky reconciliation. Jenny contemplates becoming one of Blair’s foot soldiers—the dress she gave her is an Eleanor original, which is the uniform of Blair’s multicultural posse. Dan, having had his fifteen minutes in the spotlight, slides back into anonymity. And finally, Serena is friendless and humiliated. She stares at pictures of her with Blair on her camera phone as she walks down the street, and then, without thinking twice, tosses the phone into the trash.
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of The CW)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
