Spotted: Recap Girl leaving her local pharmacy with a bag full of migraine remedies.  Looks like the recent news of an upcoming threesome for Manhattan's Elite was just too much for her to handle.  Poor RG.  After tonight, her dance card's so full that it might be days before that recap comes out. 

Keep your eyes on this space, Upper East Siders. Something just might happen between now and Wednesday afternoon.

xoxo
Gossip Girl


...tap..tap...

Sorry for the delay.  Noise was making it hard to see last night, so there was no way I was getting through a viewing, much less a recap.  All better now (more or less) so here you go!


"Rufus Getting Married"

The morning montage features cutesy-lovey moments from all the current couples, save for one couch-sleeping Rufus and a cranky Lily.  That should make the switch to early-wedding a bit of a whiplasher.  Why are they fighting again? Is it because Rufus doesn't hate Serena for not going to college?

All this serenity is boring, so Serena starts the day by asking Carter to go hang with her pals and Bree, who Knows Something about him.  What that is, we don't know yet (do you think we'll find out before the halfway mark?).  Also a mystery is why Serena would pass up Dim Sum, even if it is with Chair and Brate. (see what i did there? works better than Bluck and Nee) 

After setting up a few more serenity-breakers (Hilary Duff is in Asia, Georgina is a crazy person, and Scott never called Vanessa), it's off to said Dim Sum brunch, where it's just Chair and Brate.  I missed the reason why Blair doesn't like Bree.  Is it just because she's dating Nate and it's an excuse to give Leighton a reason to be bitchy on screen?  Seems like an odd choice, since Bree hasn't shown any claws (yet).  Even when Bree's having a bit of a confrontation with Chuck in the kitchen (because that's where you go to make private phone calls, right?) she's still sweet as sugar.

Back in the honeymoon suite, Lily reflects on her past marriages and pouts about how much Rufus sucks.  Serena is confused and Jenny and Eric stop by to pick up their paychecks and let her know that things are Very Bad between their parents.  Rufus hits home to drop the bomb on Dan, too.  It's time for Dan and Serena to plan a patch up!

And in the weirdest plot twist, even for this show, Georgina's plan to get Dan back is to get Vanessa to break up Dan and Hilary Duff by blackmailing Vanessa with Scott's secret, because it would look really bad if all the Humphreys found out that Vanessa was keeping it from them forever. (Or for the last two weeks, maybe. It's hard to tell how time passes on this show.  I can say there's only been one episode between Scott lying and now).  Regardless, the fact that Dan's been using Vanessa's IM screen name to talk to She-Not-Appearing-In-This-Episode, will suddenly come in handy.

(Did you know that Penn Badgley is starring in a horror movie that's coming out this weekend? If not, every commercial break will tell you...at least once)

Oh, it looks like Georgie does know that her competition is a famous person.  Sadly Dan doesn't have time for her via-Vanessa shenanigans.  He brushes off the weird phone call because he's got a parental relationship to patch up.

Conflict in the Chair household!  Chuck doesn't understand why Blair doesn't have a problem with Carter (who, by the by is now staying at Blair's mom's house...with Serena.  Do what now?) and Blair refuses to give an inch on her hatred of Bree.  Everyone seems to be cool with her blatant jealously of Nate's new girl.  Suddenly, a Blair/Bree/ChuckorNate future threesome looks possible.  But is this show really capable of projecting a plot line this far in advance?

After a parent-trap-esque switch up at brunch to get their parents talking, Dan decides to get some crappy advice from his little siblings.  J and E suggest that Vanessa's got the hots for him (again).  Dan goes off to tell Vanessa how much he cares about SNAITE, which will likely only result in more anguish for Vanessa. 

Before I even have time to question why they're suddenly all romantical again, Rufus and Lily start fighting again.  He wants to celebrate they way they are when she's not all "but I'm a van der Woodsen" and she thinks he won't compromise or understand that she's "a van der Woodsen".  This is illogical and we're getting too close to wedding time for this to resolve with anything but a Deus ex Machina.  Good thing this show has bought stock in DeX Inc.

Even more illogical is Dan discovering Vanessa trying to photoshop SNAITE's head onto a picture of Orlando Bloom.  He must have seen that on the dailies since there's no way he caught that from across the room.  Before you can say "I'm not in love with you, Georgina's been blackmailing me for 3 hours", Vanessa spills her guts to Dan.  Including the Big Secret that Scott's been hiding.  Too bad the screen name never got used.

It's about time to establish this episodes Art Gallery/Movie Premiere location (I'm sure there's a television lingo term that means "the location where all the plot lines merge so we can address them all at once and save on set decoration" --what is it?).  It's safe to assume it's The Wedding for this episode, but in order to get there soon, Lily and Rufus need to patch things up right about now.  Good thing they're both very sorry and have copies of the same photograph.  She runs to the loft. He runs to the hotel.  Via phone conversation, they decide to get married tomorrow!  Whoo hoo!!  I just hope Dan and Vanessa can fetch Scott in time for the big day!

(Promising to see the horror movie if they'll just stop talking about it will not prevent these "exclusive sneak preview" commercials from happening. Just saying.)

How do you throw a New York wedding inside of 24 hours?  You put the big day in the capable hands of college and high school kids, naturally.  To be fair, they're champs at manipulating their parents, so as long they've got favors to call in, you're set.  And they do, naturally.  I suppose it helps if one of your daughters is a famous designer, too.  All Lily has to worry about is writing her own vows for the first time in her life.  Sigh. That setup is so tired I can't even be bothered to care.

Because nothing can ever take the easy sensational route, Dan decides to fake wanting to get back together with Georgina to keep Scott's secret from "ruining" Lily and Rufus's wedding.  Right. Nothing ruins your wedding like "hey, that child you know you had together twenty years ago but you recently learned is dead is actually that kid you met three weeks ago that you think is totally cool."  Anyway, since Dan didn't grab Georgina's butt after she launched herself at him and didn't invite her to be his date at the wedding, she saw through his ruse. Now we know how both Scott and Georgie will show up in the wedding scene: They'll crash it.

In case that wasn't enough drama for the wedding (and since this is Gossip Girl, it isn't), Chuck tells Carter to skip town before the wedding, since everyone who hates him is going to be there.  Either Chuck knows Bree's Big Secret or he's bluffing.  Is this related to the prostitute/sex slave thing? Am I going to care?

(No movie pitch this commercial break, or it was short enough that my 30-second-skip missed it. le sigh.)

I love that it was raining just long enough for Scott to get off the bus and Georgina to mention crashing the wedding.  Although it wouldn't surprise me that it was just an unfortunate scene schedule, nothing says "wedding ruiner" like rain.

It's back to sunny skies at the actual wedding site, a garden that looks suspiciously like Central Park, but I'm not a native, so what do I know.   Sonic Youth hasn't shown up (an opportunity for Rufus's band to reuinte?), and neither has Carter.  Bree's on the lookout for him, after sharing an across-the-garden look at Chuck.  Chuck can't help but gloat to Blair, who insists that Carter's true love for Serena will trump whatever dirty secret he's hiding.

(Side note: Did we just forget about Serena's attempt to be a bad girl until her father notices story line? I was really looking forward to that)

(my living room)
KELLY: Really, Vanessa? A T-Shirt dress to a wedding?  The one time you decide to dress "in character" for your class/income level is today?

A-hem.

After one more vow-issue tease, we're back to the guests.  Carter shows up to tell Serena that his "Big Secret" was ditching a girl he didn't love at the altar after her family paid his gambling debts.  She sensibly misses the point and assumes that he's using her to (for what, I'm not sure) and skips off to the sound of cello music. 

The wedding is about to start, but not before Georgina shows up to say something cryptic about a wedding present, which arrives just in time to overhear his mother tell his father that she can't marry him after all.  Because she can't come up with vows, you see.  She snaps at the "stranger" and tells him to mind his own business.  Scott walks off and before Rufus can explain who he erroneously thinks Scott is.  Georgina spills the beans for him, and unless I'm mistaken, Lily gets the impression that Rufus knew Scott was their son just as the commercial hits.

(No movie clip this commercial break either.  Either I was too harsh, or they only sponsored the first half, or my local affiliate preempted it with some amateurish local commercials. It happens.)

Back in the park, Dan breaks the official news to the group, with support from Vanessa and they are instantly believed because it's just easier that way.  Rufus and Lily behave like the actual adults they are and run to catch him before he takes the bus back to Boston.

Back at the now cancelled wedding, Carter tells Serena that he cares about her and she's nothing like this other girl.  That's the point.  She runs off just as he's confronted by Bree and her linebacker cousins (the brother's of Carter's jilted bride).  He requests that they not make a scene at the wedding and everyone cautiously agrees while a pensive Chuck looks on. Is he thinking that maybe Blair was right and Carter's making a valiant effort to change? WIl he neatly resolve the issue by paying off Carter's debt to the Buckley's with embarrassment-covering-interest?  Will Serena wonder why she hadn't heard of his engagement/wedding if the Buckleys travel in the same social circles?

Just in case you didn't think Georgina was a Class-A bitch, Dan and Blair confront her while she's chowing down on wedding cake.  They're so flabbergasted at her audacity that they just walk away.  Why they were walking together to begin with is one of the unanswered mysteries of this show. I guess everyone else at the wedding was busy having scenes that mattered.

Lily and Rufus somehow manage to get to the bus stop before their runaway son so they can have another argument and Rufus can deliver a yawn-worthy "you love me and that's why you're such a bitch" speech.  Seriously, those only work when the bitch is the one delivering it after a moment of self-awareness.  Oh wait. It doesn't work when she delivers it moments later, either, this time in front of their son.  Maybe it's just the writing?  Big hugs all around, despite how wooden the scene felt, and it's time for the commercial. 

When we return, it's time for the really-real wedding, this time set in their loft with an absurd amount of christmas lights to soften the place to near unrecognizable-ness.  Lily delivers perfectly poignant vows (naturally) and they're married.  The only things left to resolve this episode are Carter-related, which means he'll be back, right?

Lily and Serena reconcile and Scott's "new" siblings start fighting over who he favors more.  It's a quick way to let everyone know that we're going to be moving onto more interesting issues very soon...i mean, that he's accepted into his family with no hangups.  Poor Scott, the show has no use for you now that you're related to half the cast and they know it, so you're heading back to Boston.

Sonic Youth (I'm assuming--which also explains why the camera paid so much attention to the out-of-place minister that married Rufus and Lily) plays us into the final bit of wrap up/set up.  Serena and Chuck share a moment (seriously, can they be part of the threesome?) and Serena changes her mind again about Carter after Chuck displays a bit of chivalry on Carter's behalf. I kind of melt when he does that, especially when he's not (directly) making a play for sex.  Nate meanwhile discovers that Bree used his friends to get to Carter.  She's always going to be a Buckley before she's anything else and Nate can't handle it.  Way to earn that paycheck, Nate!  Serena leaves Carter a message that he doesn't get because he's in the back of a limo with the Buckley Boys.  Finally, because cake-eating has consequences, Georgina is seduced by Blair's Bellhop in disguise as Doroda looks on.  I think this would be funnier if I'd watched any of the Doroda/Bellhop webisodes, but I haven't so it's mostly odd.

Also odd is the last moment of the episode.  Everyone at the wedding is happy and dancing, except Nate and Serena who are pouty and pensive in their respective corners as GG says something cryptic about music reminding you of the place you first heard it.  Are we in for a rekindling on that front? 

Maybe it's the headache meds, but I was hoping for something more.  Normally, a wedding episode is exciting because it means that the wardrobe, the antics, and the emotional potency of a show have been stepped up to complement the big event.  I guess on Gossip Girl, weddings are just another event, like Southeby's Auctions and movie premieres. 

xoxo
Recap Girl

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