Gossip Girl Roundtable: 5×18 ‘Con Heir’

Well, I completely forgot about the roundtable this week… so it’s a bit late. Previously on Gossip Girl: Blair and Dan did the deed, Chuck found out his mom/not really/maybe/yes is the one who donated the blood for his transfusion, and Lily and her family were at war against Ivy Dickens.

Let’s get to it! The general question after all of these is “What are your thoughts?”

1. Dan and Blair happened… and happened again… and again…

Monika | It’s weird. I feel like I was more excited about Dair before Dair actually happened. Now that they’re together, all the fun banter and snarky comments are gone and it’s actually kind of weird seeing them together. Does anyone else feel like that? It’s like some sort of buyer’s remorse. Now that I have it, I’m kinda like meh.

Samantha | I kind of agree with Monika. Dan/Blair wasn’t as repulsive as I thought, but it was just weird. Also, I didn’t like that they interacted with absolutely NO ONE else. Are they going to be isolated together from the other characters for their whole relationship? I hope not.

Camila | Well, it’s ok. I mean, I don’t like it, but it’s ok. The bad sex was funny, the good elevator sex I didn’t watch because my live stream frozed so… I just don’t like what it’s done to Blair. She was completely out of character by going to Queens, drinking vodka, going to bars and having sex in the street (the last one has happened before so I don’t know…).

Michael | Well, I will say this: it was a tad unromantic for them to want to sort of just get it out of the way. That said, they had been trying for a month and were annoyed already. But I don’t think it was out of character for either of them. They’ve grown to like each other; it is what it is. Blair drinking vodka is supposed to be one of those moments where she’s out of her element because of the circumstance. Her sleeping with Dan in public is nothing her character hasn’t done before, to be quite honest. And after they spent almost a year with the unrequited in-love story, it was only natural that the episode after they get together would be all about them having sex. That’s like the TV story trope. As for having to be drunk to get through it, that depends on the next episode. It wasn’t exactly clear (rather, they didn’t drive the point home) if what happened was they were thinking too much and needed to relax or…

2. Okay, what’s up with Ivy and her war against the van der Woodsens?

Monika | I’m not sure why Ivy thought this party plan was a good idea. It’s so sad that she’s still so desperate to go back to the family dynamic that she had with Lily, Serena, Rufus, etc. but she needs to realize there is no way that can happen now. Girl should have sold everything and taken the money and just left. It’ll be interesting to see if she ends up losing everything Cece left her now. I will cry if she does. She was the one who really deserved that inheritance.

Samantha | To be honest, I couldn’t care less about the whole Van Der Woodsen storyline.

Camila | It’s fun! Seriously, I think it’s fun to see someone win over Lily because she always gets away with everything, lol. I’m just worried about Ivy. She’s slipping too much. I think it’s like the second time they played her since they found out who she was. Come back to being a super BAMF, please, Ivy. Without old Blair, we only have yooou! Serena was super dumb. Didn’t she realized that Ivy stealing money was a pot of gold? William sucks by plotting against Ivy and Lola sucks for not sticking with her. It’s her family, but come on! And that whole Lola being William’s daughter thing will be… interesting.

Michael | It’s no secret that Ivy is my favorite character this season because of her previous BAMFness. But they completely ruined her character when she did that ridiculous 180 in the previous episode. Why the hell did she kick them out of their home? And why did she think that inviting them to their own home was a good idea? Do the writers plan on answering these questions, like, at all? Anyway, I actually think this is one of the only schemes this season that makes any sense at all. William constructed a pretty good plan, one without any holes, that would have a desired outcome. That’s rare for season 5. I kind of wished he was giving in to the Carol blackmail though. Seems he’s en route to telling Lola he’s her dad. (Which… whatever.) I’m enjoying the Ivy versus Lily story.

3. Are there cracks in the Lily/Rufus relationship?

Monika | The cracks in the Rufus/Lily relationship are really interesting and were by far the most intriguing aspect of the episode for me! I think this would be a great opportunity for the show to do the following: a) bring drama to Rufus and Lily’s relationship, especially since neither of them have been interesting since they got married (especially Rufus, who Dan rightly called out as a trophy husband in his book) b) finally take a hard look at the upper class snobbery on the part of many GG characters that has so far been mostly glossed over with jokes (“hahah you’re from Brookyln, you’re poor”) c) create a parallel to Dan and Blair’s relationship at the same time since Blair has never dated anyone with as little in the bank as Dan. However, this is the CW and we’re talking about GG here, which has never exactly been known for its thematic depth. I don’t know if they’ll actually decide to explore a hard hitting issue like socioeconomic class tensions.

Samantha | I absolutely LOVE the Lily being depressed and bitter in Brooklyn storyline. Her hate for the place is written all over her face and Rufus is completely oblivious. It is eternally hilarious to me.

Camila | I find it hilarious how Lily can’t stand living in Brooklyn and how Rufus reacts to it. It’s making them interesting again. And like Monika said, it’s a great opportunity to explore the money complex of the show.

Michael | Oooh, Monika! I didn’t think of a parallel idea. Insofar, I like that they’re at least giving Lily and Rufus a storyline here — or attempting one. That said, I won’t exactly buy Rufus not wanting to move back to Manhattan at some point. His son is there all the time, anyway. And his daughter is off somewhere else. In the end, this better not split them up or something. But I’m cool with the dramatic tension it may become.

4. Serena gets the Gossip Girl laptop… and sucks at it.

Monika | Good god, Serena. I feel like she just consistently fails at everything she tries to do. Were any of us really surprised that she screwed up within half a second of getting the laptop?

Samantha | I thought Serena was better at being Gossip Girl than Georgina (shocking, I know), but let’s just give it back to Kristen Bell. No one does it like her.

Camila | Serena is even worse than Georgina. She’s at the same level as Phillip  and that’s the guy who kept Chuck’s e-mail while uploading a blast. Like I’ve said before, that blast was a pot of gold against Ivy.

Michael | Ahahahaa!!! She’s female Philip, yes! Oh, goodness. Serena, just… I don’t know, stand there and look pretty. I hope she makes better use of it next week.

5. Chuck and Jack Bass, plus the Mother storyline

Monika | I can’t even. God. Why? WHY AGAIN? This is a storyline that does not need to be dragged back up simply because Blair is no longer in Chuck’s life. Couldn’t the writers think of anything else? After all, Chuck runs a company doesn’t he? How about a cool corporate espionage storyline with a rival company? That would be awesome and new and not involve his issues with women. Honestly, I feel like the mother storyline happened SO long ago. The viewers have forgotten about it by now. It should have been resolved ages ago and now it’s just too late. We just don’t care anymore.

Samantha | We already did this storyline once. It was dumb then, it is dumb now. Unless Diana is Bart, I don’t care about her and her possible relation to Chuck. That being said, Jack Bass is a hilarious BAMF and I wish he had a bigger role on the show. Every scene he was in this week brought me more joy than the previous 17 episodes of this season combined.

Camila | I hope this year it’s better, seriously. You know, Diana is coming back to reveal herself as Bart Bass and then Elizabeth may be there (or not) and things will get weird and Chuck will begin to see ghosts again. I’m kidding. But I’m really happy that Chuck’s gonna do something besides drinking alone with Monkey while staring at the moon. Even if it’s the mom storyline, which could be really good if they knew how to do it. Oh, well…

Michael | I feel like they need to do this towards the end of every season and it’s just… ugh. I hope that if Diana is related to Chuck, that it’s actually shocking. Because technically, why should we care? She ain’t nobody in the show. But I’ll wait to see how this goes. (Even if it starts the same every season — oh, look, Chuck dialing a PI.) However, the scenes with Chuck and Jack added much needed fun to the series. Chuck’s scheme was one of those useless season 5 schemes, though.

6. Overall thoughts of the episode and anything left out:

Monika | I think compared to the mess that this season has been, this was a relatively good episode. I didn’t cringe at any of the dialogue and besides, it’s just nice to have GG back. The show’s been a part of my life for the past five years, and despite what it has become over time, I still miss it when it’s gone.

Samantha |  Lola, what is her point? Why is Nate an expert on… anything, really? When is Dan going to cut his mop?

Camila | Nate with no money for the Spectator was kind of predictable. Being Natefused like he is, I don’t think he’d know how to handle a newspaper. But I can’t blame him for that. It was Serena who posted the blast, after all.

Michael | Samantha, Lola has no point. Camila, well apparently he’s quite the good businessman. The problem was that he couldn’t keep exclusivity of the story. I couldn’t care less about Lola finding out who her father is. The writers don’t seem to care to focus on what that means to Serena even the slightest bit. Eh, whatever. Also, why can’t Lily and Rufus stay at the Empire? And lastly, this episode was written by the writers’ assistant, so congratulations to her!

7. What grade would you give this episode?

Monika | I would give it a solid B. Maybe even a B+ if we grade it on a curve compared to the rest of the season.

Samantha | I’d give it a B. But only because of Jack. He is perfect.

Camila | B. It was a fun episode, Ivy’s storyline is interesting and Chuck has a storyline, so I think it deserves a B.

Michael | I’d probably give this episode a C. On the season 5 scale, that would probably bump up to a B+. Weirdly, the only storyline that kind of set up what it’s going to be for the remainder of the season was Ivy vs Lily.