Gossip Girl: Dare Devil (Episode 105)

The most titillating gossip from Gossip Girl may be happening off the set…is there romance in the air between a certain brown-haired, blue-eyed cutie patootie and a beautiful blonde country-singing sensation? Hubba hubba! Word of booth-canoodling at hotspot Marquee in NYC filtered across the pond from OK! Magazine, so take it for what it's worth, but if it's true, wow, that's a whole lotta pretty in one place.

"Spotted on the steps of the Palace: Cinderella stepping onto a pumpkin instead of her carriage. Lucky for Lonely Boy, there's more than one fable filling our in-box."

"IF IT'S A DAN HUMPHREY DATE YOU WANT, IT'S A DAN HUMPHREY DATE YOU'RE GONNA GET" -- Parallel romances bracket our main storyline (the 'Waldorf Soiree', aka Blair's notoriously decadent sleepover) as the stars finally align for the Humphrey men and the van der Woodsen women. Though the younger generation's meet and greet is carefully planned and their parents' is mostly a series of coincidences, there's no question that sparks are flying on both fronts. Not spotted in this episode are Chuck and Nate -- we're not specifically told where Chuck is, but odds are good he's with Nate, who's "closing up the family yacht for the season." Is that some kind of euphemism for a weekend on Fire Island?

Serena blows off Blair's sleepover (told you that truce wouldn't last long!) for her "unbreakable" date with Dan, saying she'll stop by later if she has time. "I'm not a stop along the way; I'm a destination," Blair snots, and crosses Serena off her list. Serena asks Jenny for advice on what to wear for the big date. Jenny says a t-shirt and jeans should be fine, since "the Humphrey men do Casual Friday every day." But no! Dan arrives at Serena's door in a jacket and tie, which almost make up for the god-awful shirt he's paired them with. Serena changes clothes so quickly she forgets half her dress; her hemline's perilously close to her hooha. She gets all giggly about the Vespa parked outside the Palace gates, then realizes Dan's hired a car and driver. Doesn't Dan know Serena's looking to slum it a little for change in her life? The fancy restaurant he takes her to seems to bore her as well, and her entrée alone costs so much that Dan opts for just an appetizer. I guess even the entire contents of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle piggy bank can't cover lobster bisque and duck. I've about decided to take Serena to task when she surreptitiously pays the bill and comes right out and tells Dan this isn't the kind of date she wants. Cue the pool game at the ratty bar, complete with lessons for Serena, or, as My Mister put it, "Let me get behind you with my big stick." The giggling and cue-fondling gets interrupted by a call from Rufus (more on that later), but all's well that ends well, and this chapter in Dan's fairy tale (or is it Serena's?) ends, as all good stories do, with a kiss.

"NONE OF MY PEOPLE KNOW YOUR PEOPLE" -- Rufus decides to hand-deliver a commission check to AWOLison up in Hudson. Wait, I thought Lily returned the art? Huh? Did it sell again? Am I over-thinking this when there's UST to discuss? Anyway, when Rufus calls AWOLison, a man answers the phone. A "friend," who says AWOLison is in the shower. Whoops! When AWOLison comes on the phone, Rufus hangs up on her. After Lily finds out that Eric is missing from the Ostroff Center (we're getting to that, cool your britches), she ends up at Rufus' door, looking for Dan's cell phone number, since Serena left her phone at the Palace. He ends up cooking pasta for her as they wander down memory lane. Lily's less biting than usual, and Rufus, who never really left the '90s, enjoys reliving their old combination of camaraderie and sass. Lily even tells him about Eric, and why he's at been staying at the Ostroff Center, and Rufus proves to be a great, sympathetic listener. Later, Lily answers Rufus' phone, thinking it will be Dan or Serena, but who's on the other end of the line? AWOLison, who completes the hang-up circle when Rufus takes the phone. I can't bring myself to give a shit about AWOLison, so there might have been a little high-five at our house when that happened. There's a sexy little lean between Rufus and Lily as they part, proving that even banked embers have some heat left in them. He's lonely, and she's not bad, she's just drawn that way. Stay tuned; this might turn out to be my favorite pairing of the whole bunch, and it's not just because they're both legal.

"Here's an inside tip, Little J: The faster you rise, the harder you fall. Hope that Hello Kitty sleeping bag doubles as a parachute."

"LET THE GAMES BEGIN" -- Little Jenny Humphrey gets Serena's spot at that night of nights, the Waldorf Soiree, a tradition since 2000. I can't decide if Blair's taking out her jealousy about Dan hoarding Serena on his little sister, or if she really is just that big a bitch, but she and her nasty little friends take bets on how long Jenny will last. Obviously, they've underestimated the depth of Jenny's hunger for the good life. "I'm up for anything," Jenny says, and damn if she doesn't back that up. Blair's sleepover set-up is amazing, from the silky pastel airbeds and pedicure kits to the glass jars filled with cookies, every detail held to her exacting standards. Just imagine what Blair Waldorf could accomplish if she decided to use her powers for good!

I kind of wave off Blair's behavior until she hard-balls Jenny into drinking martinis, and lots of them. I understand that Jenny's culpable here, too, but the ugly, spiteful look on Blair's face as she pushes the drink in Jenny's hand really bothered me. I know I promised not to climb up on my underage drinking soapbox, but Jenny's FOUR. TEEN. Jesus!

A game of Truth Or Dare turns malicious quickly enough, as Blair pushes Jenny to see how far she'll go. Pretty darn far, it turns out. Jenny's accustomed to dares like eating a whole bag of marshmallows, but Blair's dares run more toward girl-on-girl kissing and messing up people's lives just for the fun of it. Jenny holds her own surprisingly well, given Blair's comparative experience and epic bitchiness. After dressing each girl (Jenny ends up in a strapless gold minidress after trying on outfits Blair dismisses as, "Too Beyonce" and  "Too Mary Kate"), Blair takes her catty crew to a bar, where, on a dare from Jenny, she makes out with a guy who'd hit on her as they came in. Then she steals his phone and dares Jenny to call his girlfriend, which she does. OH! Wait, I forgot Eric. Remember Eric, Serena's little bro, who's supposed to be at the Ostroff Center? Well, he was really supposed to be on weekend leave at home, but Lily reneged at the last minute, so he's still there, waiting, when Blair and Jenny come to bust him out and take him with them to the bar. "It's perfect. You want in, he wants out," Blair says as she challenges Jenny to break Eric out of his jail. "What's it going to be? Do or die, Little J." So Eric's there, too, and then eventually Dan and Serena show up, after Rufus finally reaches him and they track down the wayward little siblings. And then the girlfriend Jenny called enters the fray, and it turns into one of those great scenes where everyone's talking all at once in a circle. Jenny proudly confesses to being the one who made the call, leading to the reveal about her age and Dan's wonderful line, "The only thing causing a problem is that cocktail napkin you're wearing." Hee!

Dan and Serena walk Eric back to the Ostroff Center (where Lily shows up to take him home -- one of the few aww moments in a pretty eww episode), while Jenny goes back to Blair and her bevy of bitches for one last dare: Jenny's to use Blair's keys to go into Bitchy's store and steal a jacket off a mannequin. Blair and her friends count to five, then run away as the alarm in the store goes off, locking Jenny in. Our queen bee in the making shows that she can think on her feet, manipulating the cops who arrive on the scene by telling them that she's Blair Waldorf, and her mother's out of reach in Paris, and she can prove who she is because she has the keys and can lock the store up again. And they fall for it. Of course. Jenny appears later in Blair's apartment wearing the jacket. "Looks like you came to play after all," Blair says with obvious admiration. Ugh. Jenny then becomes the first person ever to leave one of Blair's sleepovers, after telling Blair that she's keeping the jacket and that she expects to be part of the lunch crowd on Monday. "Done and done," Blair says, proud as punch of her little protege.

"Word is Jenny Humphrey killed at Blair's sleepover. It was a debut the likes of which haven't been seen since Blair herself."

When it comes to queen bees, I guess it takes one to know one.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Gossip Girl:

A Vespa totally trumps a limo.
Proper martinis are made with gin, not vodka.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
If you play wide-eyed and innocent well, you can get away with almost anything.