Wednesday 9 November 2011

Gossip Girl - S5 E6 - I Am Number Nine

Serena finds herself in deep water after pushing Dan to take a movie deal with her boss. Blair is holding tryouts for her bridesmaid position and Charlie aims to angle her way in. Chuck has a disturbing session with his therapist.


Spoilers after the jump.

I can't believe we're only six episodes in and so much weird crap has already happened. How are they gonna fill the whole rest of the season? It's too bad the movie is dead now. We could have had Hilary Duff back to play "Sabrina", boy that would've been awkward.

Serena's boss Jane asserts that Dan is a self-centred arrogant little boy, the Zuckerberg of the UES she puts it and really, he does nothing to prove her wrong in this episode. It's been a growing problem for a number of years now, mixing in the sort of society he has turned him from not just "inside", but one of those people period. He is played about perfectly by Jane and barely even realizes until it is all over. After a brief reconciliation with Serena, it appears they are back on a collision course over her scuppering the movie deal. He may question her motives but while she is guilty of many selfish acts, they're usually unconscious. When she goes out of her way in this fashion, Dan should know by now that she does so with good intentions. The longer it takes for him to comprehend this, the less salvageable he'll be, especially with the quick rate events are unfolding this year.

I had a bunch of searches leading to this page querying where Dr. Eliza Barnes is from. It turns out she is played by K.K. Moggie, a native Malaysian from Sarawak no less but sadly the Malay accent is gone, replaced by a very upper class trans-Atlantic tone. It appears her contact with Louis at the end of the last episode relates to him knowing Chuck was a prospective patient of her. How he knows this is unclear, and if it was explained I didn't really catch it but anyway, he attempts to bribe her to emotionally ruin Chuck forever and after making a really hammy attempt which doesn't really compare to anything Bart ever did, she remembers that this kind of thing is in fact ILLEGAL! Actually no, she merely remembers that she has a moral objection. It's not enough to prevent Chuck from finding out and then doing his best drunk Joey Quinn impression, or was Quinn (played by Desmond Harrington who also plays Chuck's uncle Jack) doing a drunk Chuck Bass impression? Either way the very public confrontation serves to embarass everyone involved, especially Louis.

He and Blair get into it, she is indignant at first but then he reveals he has found the paternity test letter, leaving them at stalemate in their latest fight. She had spent the day auditioning old friends for the role of her royal bridesmaid, which had apparently sufficiently annoyed Louis already. Le Misérable leaves to take care of official business rather than talk it out with her. Chuck meanwhile is left to wander the streets thinking about how much he really wants her in his life. Lets be real now - she has caused him nothing but trouble. She is a part of his old life - maybe it is time to find someone new and move on. Together they have often been cruel and condescending to others and personally I feel the way about this pairing the same way I do about Barney and Robin on How I Met Your Mother - one of the most overrated couples in all of television.

Onto the most disappointingly stupid section of the show - Nate and Diana's ill-fated romance. Am I really watching a love triangle between Charlie, Nate and a 40-year-old woman? Who does Nate think he is, Ashton Kutcher? What does Diana even see in him, besides a stupid kid who is easy to control and has plenty of stamina? I can't imagine they have much to talk about. One thing is clear at least - Diana is start raving mad. No two ways about it, she's off her rocker. We're talking dictator of a small country crazy. She pushes poor Charlie around as though she couldn't click her fingers together and conjure up a new gigolo on the double. While Charlie is looking up valuable leads for her rag, Diana dismisses them huffing and puffing with jealousy. Bart Bass she is not, though Chuck may certainly be on the verge of recognizing her relationship to him, whatever that might be.

So this episode was ok, nothing outstanding. Dan's novel failed spectacularly quickly, and there was a disappointing lack of Alessandra Steele to help guide him through the process and what not. Moving forward, I expect it'll be revived somehow but it seems like this would be a good opportunity to allow residual rancor from the launch to fade. Other than that, long term, it seems more like we'll be focussing on OTPs - Blair with Chuck, Serena with Dan and the leftover Nate with Ivy/Charlie - he's way too stupid to care about her double life as long as she remains pretty.


"Gossip Girl" airs Mondays on the CW at 8:00pm EST

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