This one had it all: fascinators, froof, a terrible Marilyn spoof… and as icing on the cake, a true sartorial slow-clap in the form of Georgina Sparks rolling back into town looking like a deranged fox-hunting widow. Bless this girl. She may yet save this old dinosaur.
Plotwise: Lots. Blair is being a martyr, like EVERYONE ELSE on this show (Chuck decides about twice a week that he’s going to quit the Blair hunt because he loves her, Blair is avoiding Chuck because she loves him and won’t tell him, Dan is tailing around doing Blair’s bidding because he loves her but won’t tell her, Nate pals around with everyone because he is willing to love any of them if they would just love him back and yet he won’t tell them that; etc). So she decides to go through with the wedding — even when her OWN MOTHER hauls Chuck TO THE CHURCH and basically tells him to wang his magic on Blair. It doesn’t work; she blah-blahs about how she can’t be with him because she loves him, for the eightieth time. Meanwhile, Georgina wants to ruin Blair’s wedding to Louiiiiiiis because, well, she hates Blair for getting her “remanded to rehab, booted out of Bible Camp,” and then something else. Possibly foiling her plan to pass off her Russian baby as Dan’s. Who knows. Anyway, she decides to team up with the Evil Priest to seduce Louiiiiiiis and record it, then show it to Blair. This never happens, because Rufus and Lily ruin everyone’s fun always, so they bust Georgina. So she switches course and videos Blair, in her wedding finery, telling Chuck she still loves him and always will. Then, right as Chuck takes ten breaths at the foot of the altar during the “speak now or forever hold their peace” part of the ceremony and then stupidly (and yet freaking typically, lately, because New Chuck sucks) decides to hold his peace, someone sends Gossip Girl the video Georgina shot. And these high society assholes check their phones IN THE MIDDLE OF A WEDDING, all at once, and start peas-and-carrots-ing about the scoop. Blair runs off in tears. Chuck catches her and confesses that Serena told him about Blair’s pledge to God for Chuck’s life in exchange for their love (which they seriously only had her do off-camera so we could have a fake-out where S tells Dan, “I did something…” and we think maybe she sent in the video). Blair weeps that Chuck doesn’t realize how dead he was until she made that vow, and he rightly tells her to knock it off, but she STILL runs back to Louiiiiiiis AGAIN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE, and they finish getting married. Seriously, is her crotch made of unicorns? Why does this lispy accented heir even want her at this point? It’s like the tenth time he’s been publicly reminded that she’s not that into him.
Serena finally confesses to Dan that she actually loves him, and he responds with a classically uncomfortable “Ohhhh…. dear” face, possibly because he has seen his hair and he therefore knows her affection cannot be sincere. Nate wooes a catering waitress who, unbeknownst to him but knownst to us, is The Real Charlie Rhodes (and not Fauxlie Rhodes, who disappeared before the hiatus but has red hair now in real life, so I wonder if she’s going to resurface In Disguise somehow). And then. THEN. Blair and Louiiiiis share their marital dance, and right as she moistly tells him she will be a devoted wife, he hisses through clenched teeth that he and his mother decided to go through with the wedding to save face, but that she is otherwise dead to them, they will have nothing to do with her except when publicly required to, and that they will force her to live out the sham of a marriage for as long as they feel like it. This is completely irrational, obviously — the People of Monaco would more likely cheer Louiiiiis for having a spine and dumping Blair at the altar at this point, so this plot development makes as much sense as a dog in a hat. But it’s also deliciously cold and schemey and delivered with Machiavellian relish by the otherwise wussy Louiiiiis, so I enjoyed it. Blair’s response is to call for her knight in shining armor. Cut to Blair outside, hopping in a car she summoned… that Dan is driving. He ganked the Just Married mobile — it was the only one with keys, which makes sense, because there’s no way Dan Humphrey knows how to hot wire a car — and the two of them drive off into the night together. SNAP. Your move, Monaco.
Oh, and by the way? They reveal Georgina Sparks is Gossip Girl. Has she always been, or is she just the new Gossip Girl (as this episode heralds her return after Serena’s brief attempt to destroy her)? Time will tell.
