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Gossip Girl Report 3.17: Birthday Backstabbing

Tuesday, April 06, 2010 02:10 PM

tags: Gossip Girl Report, Lydia Rendon, Stevie Guide

Lydia Rendon, Gossip Girl diehard, encourages us to try hard to stay awake during this season's episodes. Not easy, so we're always glad to have her next-day stellar synopses to fire our frayed synapses. Like she does in this latest recap:

A lot went down last night in the Gossip Girl world. Sabotage and manipulation were on everyone's agenda for the night. It's Nate's birthday and Serena decides to throw a surprise party for him revolving around his favorite game, Assassin. Surprise parties in general are usually never a good idea, but when Serena is the brains behind the operation, expect trouble. She pretends to forget Nate's birthday and sends him off to have lunch with his grandfather, only that's not where he ended up. Seizing her opportunity to get Nate alone, Jenny gets him to ditch Gramps and spend the afternoon with her. Looks like Little J is stepping up her game to get Nate away from Serena, and the only one who figures it out is – wait for it – our long lost Eric! Yes, the other Van Der Woodsen sibling who has been MIA for months has returned. Seems Eric has been in Japan. Yes 'away in Japan' is the best the writers could come up with.

Anyway, after Nate fails to show up for his own surprise party, Eric quickly figures out that Jenny once again has a thing for him. In Serena's little game of Assassin, Eric tracks down Jenny and calls her out on it. Of course, Little J doesn't admit it and luckily Eric gets distracted by some random new hot guy in the building. For a moment S suspects there might be something between Nate and Jenny, but Nate quickly reassures her it's only because Jenny got roofied and almost date-raped last week. Yeah, sure, Nate. By the end of the game, the two people left standing are Jenny and Nate. She chases him down into a supply room and in order to distract him and win the game, plants a kiss on him. Nice move. Nate is caught off guard, but Jenny plays it off like she could care less; again, nice move, J. The Serena-and-Nate relationship is about to implode. Let's face it, S can't hold on to a guy. The time she has been with Nate is probably her longest relationship. A least it wasn't as annoying as when she was with Dan.

Speaking of whom... Since Dan and Vanessa already have the title of Most Boring Couple Ever, they are now going for Most Overanalyzing. Someone please shut these two up. If Eric can disappear to "Japan" for months, I see no reason why Dan and Vanessa can't as well. All they did was go back and forth about the difference between how they treated each other as friends and how they should now treat each other as a couple. Vanessa wrote a screenplay; Dan wrote a one-act play. Dan loves Vanessa's work, Vanessa hates Dan's work, but after hearing how much he loves hers, decides to lie to him. Inevitably, he finds out and they argue about it for about five seconds until they decide their relationship matters so much more. Ugh, make me gag. One little secret Vanessa is keeping from Dan, however, is that she has applied for the same writing program he has, possibly taking his spot. Their relationship drama is fighting over a writing program. Moving on......

Two people with real relationship drama are Chuck and Blair, and drama drama drama it is. Jack is still in control of Chuck's hotel and tells him he has one chance of getting it back. Chuck needs to decide between giving up the hotel or letting Jack sleep with Blair. How very Indecent Proposal. After their meeting, Jack runs into Blair and tells her his proposition, saying Chuck said no to letting Jack have her. As the day goes on, Chuck's depression grows over losing the hotel and Blair starts to consider Jack's offer. She even asks Serena for her opinion, and surprisingly S for once says it might not be the best idea. After Chuck snaps at her and says he's exactly the failure his father predicted he would be, she decides to take one for the team. Agreeing to keep it a secret from Chuck, B explains to Jack that she is only sleeping with him for Chuck and in true Bass fashion, right when the moment arrives, Jack gives Blair the cold shoulder. He smugly tells her that Chuck knew about everything from the start, playing on his depression to Blair, having chosen the hotel over her. Real relationship drama. B and C have it out. There are tears, there is blame, there is a slap in the face and there is a breakup. So sad. Chuck, you're an idiot. I can't decide whether or not I'm surprised at what he did to Blair, but I am that he thought she would forgive him.