Does anyone remember 16 Candles? The John Hughes’ classic in which a 15-year-old gal (Molly Ringwald), who has a crush on the most popular boy in school, also has to fend off the class geek, who has a crush on her. Sprinkle in some embarrassing grandparents, a forgotten birthday and a foreign exchange student named Long Duc Dong (“no more yanky my wanky, the Donger is tired!”) and it’s a heartwarming tale for the whole family.
Gossip Girl’s episode “Seventeen Candles,” on the other hand, is not.
Instead, it’s the next installment of the sordid saga of Upper East Side rich kids with too much time and too little imagination to do anything but screw, snort and smoke the evening away. Certainly, there’s no danger of anyone forgetting Blair’s 17th birthday because, well, Blair would throw a hissy fit the likes of which Manhattan has never seen.
But yeah, there’s some pathos involved.
In this episode, Blair is bummed that she had sex with Chunk, and more bummed that she’s done having sex with Nate. Meanwhile, Dan is dumb enough to bring Vanessa (who he used to want to hook up with) to a birthday party so she can hang out with Serena (who he is currently hooking up with). Not to mention Jenny, who brings her mom (the gal who once hooked up with Rufus) home for a visit, but Rufus (who may or may not be hooking up with Lily again) isn’t interested in playing nice.
And then there’s some business about Nate–who’s role in life it is to get hook up right, left and sideways by every member of his “seriously in need of psychiatric care” family–being asked to make some sort of gargantuan sacrifice to save his coke-addled father’s business.
Hey Nate, just say no.
