S4:E11 Because I’ve been traveling for work, I haven’t written a Gossip Girl recap in about two weeks. I apologize. (You can rest assured that during the ten hour flight to Alaska, I would have much rather watched an entire season of Gossip Girl rather than a documentary on tree frogs.) This means I’m going to have to pick up where I never left off, and that’s with Juliet drugging Serena. Apparently, Juliet dressed up as Serena and went out on the town. She did cocaine, some other drugs, and had sex with two guys. Then, Juliet drugged Serena and presented her with photographs that showed everything she was supposed to have done the night before. And since she couldn’t remember anything, Serena checked herself into a treatment center to deal with the issues that she suffered from that were in conjunction with wearing a tie to high school. Blair and Dan immediately realized that Juliet HAD to have planned the entire thing, and took it upon themselves to take Juliet down once and for all. And THAT is where we find ourselves now. Not in Africa with the tree frogs, thankfully.
So let’s begin! Dan and Blair headed over to the Ostroff center, where Serena was recovering, to see if they could get any information from her that could confirm their suspicions that Juliet was behind the entire thing. Once bounced by the receptionist at the treatment center, they hatched a plan to get back at Juliet, but they didn’t know where she was so they emailed Gossip Girl and asked her where she’d been hiding. Gossip Girl replied with an address in Connecticut, and Blair and Dan immediately drove up to a house party. They went in and they found Serena’s most favorite drug dealer, Damien, who was preying on high schoolers who wear bras instead of Saks bloomers under their clothes.
My favorite scene of last night’s episode was when Serena was talking to a therapist, and the therapist asked her if she was just upset that she did what she did with the cocaine and the jocks, or if she can’t remember it. She said both and neither, and then asked the therapist how she would feel if there were a photo of her doing cocaine on the internet, AND THE THERAPIST SAID SHE DIDN’T KNOW BECAUSE SHE WOULD NEVER DO THAT. Serena Van Der Woodsen should have wrapped her chunky pearl necklace in that bitch’s Marshall’s scarf and showed her what it’s like to take a beating that you can’t prove to anyone exists.
Lily and Chuck have once again united over business. The two were interviewed by a woman from the Post about Bass Industries, and Lily was asked when Chuck would take back his father’s company from Lily’s possession, which was given to her when Chuck was presumed dead in Paris. Alone, this is pointless. But you’ll see soon that Lily is slowly fucking everything up.
Blair and Dan talked to Damien and learned that Damien met Serena when she was at boarding school in Connecticut. He started out as just her tutor, but then she introduced him to the life of snorting and cutting and he quickly figured out he could make more money selling drugs than selling A+ term papers to girls. Blair and Dan asked him when the last time he saw Juliet was (she also attended Serena’s and Damien’s boarding school), and it was in the city when he sold her some drugs – the same ones that were used on Serena. So in order to find out the true reason behind Juliet’s plan to drug Serena, the three set out to find Juliet’s family home in Connecticut and ask her why she keeps getting pleasure from their pain, because in God’s eyes they’re all the same and someday they’ll all have perfect wings. (I KNEW those campfire songs would come in handy some day.)
Once they arrived, they came across a picture of Juliet and her brother Ben…the one who was serving a five-year sentence in prison. Juliet’s mother said she refused to believe he did anything wrong, and maintained he was a great teacher at “that school….” Damien took one look at “Mr. Donovan” and remembered that when Serena left to go back to the city, he was fired for sleeping with a student, and that everyone thought it was Serena because she has blonde hair and sex is as much of a ritual for her as stealing picnic baskets is for Yogi Bear.
We switched over to Serena in therapy, and she was remembering how Mr. Donovan was the only teacher who was ever really interested in her well being, as opposed to her looks. She recalled the time they crossed paths when she was (BELIEVABLY!) driving to the Vassar library for a book, and she got a flat tire. Mr. Donovan found her staring at it in the rain, and he drove her to a bed and breakfast hotel. Serena suggested they spend the night there, because after all the hours of talking about Sylvia Plath’s depression, she had forgotten what happiness was like and needed a severe reminder of it if she was going to do well on the final. Mr. Donovan declined the offer. So if he didn’t have sex with Serena, why was he in prison?
Juliet sneaked into Serena’s room at the treatment center and finally told her that she was responsible for putting her brother in prison because of the affidavit she had signed that said he had raped her. Serena said she never signed anything and never pressed charges against him because he was nothing but kind to her and her coked up mind. Serena suddenly knew who put Mr. Donovan in prison, and she headed home with Juliet in tow to straighten everything out and humiliate the chandelier earrings right off her mother.
When they arrived, they interrupted Lily giving a speech at a party that was to look like a fundraiser for Bass Industries. Serena walked up to the front of the room and announced that her mother was a liar and that nobody should trust her. After Lily finished going around to each individual and saying that Serena clearly had some resentment for not being allowed to use the family plane to go to Belize over Christmas, she asked Serena why she would say such a thing in front of so many potential business partners. Serena said she knew her mother was the one who filed the statutory rape charges against Mr. Donovan. Lily explained that when her private school in New York saw her transcript from her school in Connecticut, they didn’t want to take her back. This lead Lily to go to the boarding school to talk about her daughter’s options, where she heard a few girls gossiping about how Serena had slept with Mr. Donovan, and Lily used that information to her advantage and told the school that one of their teachers was having an inappropriate relationship with one of his students, which was why Serena’s grades were so poor. As a result, Serena was allowed back into her NYC private school, and Juliet’s brother was sent to prison because he had no proof he was innocent. Enraged by Lily’s actions, Rufus revealed to Chuck that Lily had that party so that she could see if anyone was interested in buying Bass Industries, which isn’t even really her company to sell.
The episode ends with Lily apologizing to Serena, and Serena saying she never has to do anything for her mother ever again. Then, Dan and Blair realize they’re going to be stuck together in the city over winter break, all by themselves. They are both, incidentally, single, and the only two unrelated people who haven’t hooked up yet.
