I Am Chuck Bass

Discussed: Isherwood and a January 16th 2005 Article, OK Things Come To Those Who Wait, For All Those In Love With Chick-fil-A, Emerging Craving Honey, Stockholm Syndrome, Idolizing Ike, When A Hiatus Is No Longer A Hiatus, Lesbian TV Overlords, Aaron Rose Wasn’t The Worst, Inadvertently Pitching Horror Franchises, Debilitating Physical Affects Of Teen Betrayal And Love, Constance Must Pay Faculty In Gold Bricks, We’ll Take Steve Martin, We Want To See Darota’s Spinoff (But Keep Our T-Mobile/AT&T Phones)

AT VERY, VERY, VERY, UNBEARABLY LONG LAST

Sweet Jesus, battered and served fried on a buttered roll. The double unthinkable happened; Gossip Girl managed to somehow get an episode together for air, and we simultaneously, not quite coincidentally, came out of hibernation. So what’s the view like emerging from the dank depths of a GG-less life? Wowsers, well…

We must admit a fairly sizable creeping disinterest in the continued emotional abuse dished out by the cruel hands of the CW. I mean, we’re not Rhianna (P.S. fuck you Chris Brown), you can’t go away for six fucking weeks and not say a thing about it anywhere and then just expect us to come right back lovingly to you. But isn’t that just what happened?

We were worried we wouldn’t be able to remember what the hell was going on in the world of GG, but thank goodness for this blog - we quickly, and wittily, brought ourselves up to speed.

No matter, with nary a care for its history, we were catapulted right into yet another Constance Billiard exercise in extreme absurdity, this round, their mandatory senior class school play, naturally doused in whole mess of sticky ridiculousness: Nelly in a fat suit looking somehow not unlike Oprah, Chuck not in the production on account of a hypertension doctors note, Dan of course taking everything waaaaay too seriously in a classic play chosen for its play-within-a-playness and directed by an inconceivably douchey guy raising the already heady apexes of just how douchey men can get on this show. Thankfully this resulted in a real star turn for New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood.

Speaking of douchey men, Carter Bason III: The Revenge (This Time It’s Personal) happened. As if he weren’t creepy enough in his two prior appearances, he’s starting to look like a cyborg cross between Chuck, Nate and Dan, at times so indistinguishable between the others, our optic nerves became sore from not knowing where to focus, too much “good looking hunk” on the screen. What else to say, but that last scene with him and Blair literally sent chills throughout our bodies and sent C sliding off the couch onto his knees, mouth agape in utter disbelief.

Ms. Carr promptly fell apart - we didn’t expect her to go down, so to speak, quite so hard so quickly. Sex in the closet was a nice touch though. Rufus the Righteous intercepted a note to Dan with a key to her house and went right over in what could have been a very h-o-t encounter. Instead, in a shock to no one, he just unsexily held forth from his high horse. And even managed to refrain from asking how a former Teach for America and current teacher affords her posh digs and $1K Bose Acoustic Wave Music System.

The whole ‘Cyrano’ storyline is almost too stupid to go into here, expect for the fact that it made for some very sweet moments between what is turning out to be the anchor of relationship normality, Nate and Vanessa. But wait! Next week’s preview saw the GG writers doing what they, and evidently us, love best - bringing together to only tear apart couples we love to have together, so these precious Nate and Vanessa moments appear to be numbered.

Oh, and Chuck got rolled by his dream lover from the ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ club. While this was merely marginally interesting, the fact that it sent Chuck to the shocked face of Darota and lair of Blair is the real prize. 

So, all in all, not a bad Monday nite, AKA - good to have ‘em back.
That said, we’re unclear how tenuous this having them back is, and how many more willy nilly hiatuses we can handle.
At least it looks like we’re on for next week.
Woo-hoo!

XOXO.

Discussed: Mike Nichols and Jules Feiffer You Are Not, Newly Required Immunizations For Visiting America, Beelzebub Curated Cross Promotion, Applied Idiom Usage, Return Of The Prodigal Yuki, Arthur Schnitzler Would Have Approved, Heart Shaped Heart, Lazy Lists, George Lucas: Master Of CGI Racism, Get Nick Cave On Here, Wink Winking Through The Television, Addictive Nature Of Hiatuses

YALE FEVER - VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN AGAINST THE SCOURGE OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE

Wow. I mean, wow. We’re a bit speechless. Well, I’m personally speechless and C was left hopping and hollering around the room like a ten gallon hat wearing, drunk-on-moonshine stereotype of a Texan gone mad with Oil Fever, but instead of Oil Fever, it was hot hot Verboten Teacher Sex Fever. The neighbors upstairs could even have mistaken him for a hopped-up-on-Ritalin tween shrieking in transcendentally ecstatic lust for the Jonas Brothers. (Shark Jumping Alert: thank god the brothers Jonas are guesting/shark jumping on 90210 and not GG)

So, yeah, with the good comes the bad. We unfortunately were on the receiving end of Blairzilla wreaking lame ass havoc; even her minions are sick of this shtick, with turncoat Nellie Yuki finally coming full circle and returning (sorta) to her stellar Season One roots. Bring back softy Blair the Bridezilla!

While this provided some annoying moments, it was all interwoven with so, so much good. Chuck bathing in his billions, going crazier by the second and being ushered into a secret sex society? With the “Eyes WIde Shut’-ness of it all even being called out? Murder most foul? YES!

But maybe even better than this, or equally as good, was Nate and Vanessa, after Chuck confided in them about it, jokingly playing with the absurdity of the concept and making googly in love eyes at one another; pretty refreshing to see a (thus-far) drama free normal relationship.

Reviewing the relationships:

1.) R.I.P. Dan and Serena. FINALLY. Though we wish it didn’t have to go down in that annoying overlapping perfectly in agreement finishing each others sentence dialogue that the writers tend to favor. Who does that? Oh, that’s right - soft focus Hallmark Movie Specials from the 80s do that.

2.) Blair’s annoying dog went the way of Jar Jar Binks, registered as a massive mistake and banished from the show hopefully for good.

3.) What more will it take for Blair’s dad to realize she’s the Bad Seed? His faux gravitas in discovering this was a bit strained.

4.) Now that Rufus is flush with Bass cash, that is sure some froo froo haircut Lily bought him. Where’s his matching Prada jacket and sunglasses?

5.) Darota, clearly energized by the Verizon produced online spin-off show she’ll head, has become awfully sassy in the background shots with Blair. Take her down!

And, we like to think we have a special relationship with the writers of the show, as after weeks of harping on LIttle J’s absurd raccoon eye make-up here on this very website, Judgemental-tron 3000 Dan Humphrey himself called his sister out on that make up faux pas, almost directly quoting us. Here’s looking to you guys!

Now, not to break up the love fest here - but how on God’s green Earth, does a woman of Mrs Carr’s lowly teacherly income afford the apartment/den of iniquity that she calls home? And how does everyone know where she lives?

In summation, we don’t know what your broadcast ended with, but we suspiciously had , instead burning our eyes with a lead in teaser for the preposterous ‘One Tree Hill’ evidently guest directed by Abercrombie & FItch tonite. Does this mean they’ve really gotten a taste for hiatuses? Well, if the returning shows are anything as good as tonite was, we’ll take it…

XOXO.

Discussed: One Of Us Actually Hates Sports (And All According Terminology), Neil Tennant - Poet, Cruelty Of Scheduling, Jockular Terminology I Actually Quite Like, Nemesis Of Flash Gordon, When Hubris Attacks, Possible College Course Of The Future: Bass-ian Intimacy In The 21st Century, Laziness As A Contagious Disease, Ned Ryerson, Hoping For A REALLY Busy Schedule Of Conflicts For Michelle Trachtenberghora

WHAT HAVE WE, WHAT HAVE WE, WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?

It is as if the producers exist in some weird wide reaching world of Opposite Day, a crazy mixed up land where our relentless urgently heartfelt pleas of LESS two week hiatuses can only be met with one jubilant response from the cruel unfeeling programming cogs in the GG machine: MORE HIATUSES!

Well, as this last, and frankly most momentum-cock-blocking of GG hiatuses mercifully draws to a close, we felt this was as good a time as any to reflect on where we are, how we got here and what the view looks like.

Most episodic television would be winding down to a close at this point, but not the critically lauded and hype loving Gossip Girl - they ordered more episodes this season; so now what?

The CHAIR tension that fuels thousands of lusty daydreams week after week and distorts tween notions of normalcy and courtship in sensual/sexual relations has been played, if not into the ground, alarmingly close to the well fertilized topsoil. No complaints here, we got the human ipecac that was Jack Bass, taken down by Team Newly Reunited Chuck and Lily plus Chuck in Blair’s elevator with refused flowers.

The trend that we most fear though, is the return to old habits. In the rush to produce more episodes, we fear a spate of laziness as evidenced in the “I’m a bitch again” Blair storyline, Dan and Serena’s incestuous march towards infinite boredom plus the nearly theatrical reduction of locations. Is Little J’s fashion career totally vanished into thin air? Where, the fucking fuck, is Wallace Shawn? (and how can we get Stephen Tobolowsky in on this?)

Ok. So that’s basically it. Let’s withhold full and complete judgement until tonite’s Mrs Robinson Sex-a-thon. All available appendages are crossed hoping Georgina doesn’t reappear.

XOXO.

Discussed: ‘Joe Versus The Volcano’ Excluded, Film Characters The Japanese May Have Already Made, Italian Lesson: Schifoso, When Acid House Ruled The Earth, Being Hot Helps Land Hot Jobs, Jumping The Dog, IMAX Stole His Soul, Wee Dragon Bargain, Sesame Makes Everything Better

WHEN YOU’VE RUN OUT OF CINEMA CLASSICS TO HOMAGE, THERE’S THE SPECTRE OF MEDIOCRITY: TOM HANKS

Well well well; what a surprise last nite was. After last week’s mega intensity was followed with a stomping tantrum in tights preview of a rampaging Blairzilla, expectations for this week were, to say the least, low. But even though Blair failing to learn her manipulative she-devil steamrolling lesson YET AGAIN, tediously subplotted its way through this episode, the weaving Indra’s Net leading to the opera, the delicate fugue of characters the show does so well made this an awesome follow up.

Continuing in GG’s long lineage of introducing truly deplorable characters, Jack Bass perhaps outdid them all with an avalanche of skeeviness that made Dick Cheney seem like a MDMA fueled Santa Claus in Ibiza circa ‘89. That said, without Jack Bass, we would have been deprived one of the more interesting power pairings this season, a mother/son take down of Jack teaming Chuck and Lily. This made for some classic biting Bass lines sugarcoated with some borderline Hallmark motherly moments from Lily. Then there was of course the attempted rape culminating in one of the most palpably cathartic punches thrown on the show, though a little blood from the nose of Jack or on Chuck’s knuckles could have added to this atavistic joy.

And what of Teach For America’s Role Model Recruitment Vixen? Wow. Wow. Sure she, yawn, stood up to Blair, but the fireworks are clearly being purchased in advance of the scandalous coupling of her and Dan. This, we can’t wait for. And from what we hear, there’s a whole lot more of Rachel to come.

So, for the less salacious tidbits, Yale, Yale, Yale. Serena again took forever to figure out what she wanted, martyring her self left right and center to any passing person and annoying the fuck out of us in the process. Puh-lease - isn’t it time we had new character traits for these people? Getting o-l-d, though her breasts managed to still inspire awe.

Blair got a dog? Really? No comment here. Even Darota seemed to think this portends bad things.

Eric Van der Woodsen was given some of the best lines of the show in reference to the banging-like-bunny rabbits Lily and Rufus. While this should be gross, it is in fact awesome.

And then of course Nate was back romancing the stone that is Vanessa, providing some light hearted, drama free sane romance to the usually psychotically absurd proceedings.

Still unanswered: if Blair did in fact dance horizontally with the Devil (Jack). We’re pretty sure once Chuck and Blair get back together, this information will be learned and then they’ll separate again, sending shockwaves of tears and heartbreak amongst the devoted CHAIR nation.

Oh, and amazing shout-out to Angelica Kitchen, one of New York’s oldest and most delicious spots. Though C’s a lightweight, has a delicate tummy and hates vegans, so take this endorsement with a grain of gomasio.

XOXO.

Discussed: Gaynderson Cooper’s Auspicious Beginnings, Reflecting Pools Of Life, Deregulating Deregulation, When You Think You’re Burt Lancaster With Jules Dassin Looking On Approvingly, Still Made In China, Antonio Gramsci, Engineering Empathy, Even Forbes Says It Can’t, Appetite For Law Distortion, The Red Road Continues

REFLECTIONS ON CLASS: ‘Gone With The Will’ Episode Recap Bonus Materials

From the limited research we’ve done online and from the on-set moles that faithfully report to us, it seems that Gossip Girl has a relatively short lead time for each episode, so it should come as little surprise the disillusionment and collapse of our heretofore unfettered Free Market Theocracy currently crippling the nation should permeate the tone of GG. Or, barring this, perhaps it’s against this dismally stark backdrop that ‘Gone With The Will’s class-conscious episode was so particularly poignant.

While C was a tad more brutishly unforgiving in his JA Henckels butcher knife-wielding analysis of all things Chuck, I would like to posit that the narrative, and communistically subversive feat the creative team was able pull off was truly remarkable.

With few exceptions, Chucks role as the lightening rod of this season is well documented on these hallowed pages; ‘Gone With The Will’ functioned as the culmination of the extensive groundwork laid to this point. In addition to a season of death and frustrated love, they threw a billion dollar inheritance at him, gave him Bass industries and Blair’s undying support, which he almost entirely tragically and heart rendingly screwed up. And yet, we still felt sympathy for the boy who has it all, for whom money can not in fact buy it all.

Then of course there were the shrewdly manipulative adoptive parents of Rufus and Lilys Chosen child, driven to chicanery and Guiding Light style lying in the face of Lily’s fortune and her water-into-wine power yielding army of Richie Ratfink lawyers; the message being: the rich get what they want, and when they don’t, they litigate their way to their Promised Land, thereby justifying actions taken against them by the noble lesser classes.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this line of narrative framing, either just another diversion in the Longest Season Ever, or, a taste of things to come…

XOXO.
B

Discussed: Financial Services Commercial Production, Prisoners Need Strip Malls Too, Everything I Know I Learned From Hov, Coming To Terms With Her, A Missed Opportunity For Another V-Cast Series & Product Placement – Wolf Pack Attack, The Bangs Are Back In Town

C here. B usually handles these recaps but due to overly ambitious work schedules and emotional injuries that may or may not have occurred in a three week GG-less stretch, I’m taking over this week. And I apologize in advance, that my kid gloves are not nearly as thick as his…

Who the fuck does Jack Bass think he is? He thinks he can just show up – after being absent for an entire season – with only one previous mention, “save chuck’s life” in Thailand, claim to be the head of a Bass Industries Australian subsidiary, and wrangle control of the empire through a torrid, Amin-worthy coup?

And who does Chuck Bass think he is? GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! No one likes to see you this way, least of all your audience. You with your women & your pills & your stupid little girly martini drinks, smothering your already nonexistent self-confidence into some semblance of a mask. You just inherited one billion dollars, and for a fleeting moment, control of a world-wide real-estate empire. And as much as I hate this Jack(ass), you deserved to have your position stripped of you.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I think Mr. Chuck Bass could take a cue or two from the words of Mr. Lil’ Wayne in his treatise “Do’s & Don’ts of Young Money” from the third part of his “Dedication” lecture series: “Don’t f**king do one f**king song on the motherf**king album, get one motherf**king check, and go f**king crazy, and then get dropped from the motherf**king label.

Hmm Chuck – you listening? Straighten up your tie, comb your damn hair, kick the chick habit, settle down with wifey, grow up to some Scotch and start handling your business. Remember what Jay said – you’re not a businessman, you’re a business, man. So handle your business…damn!

The same could be said for what has become an ever-so-slightly less whiney Dan Humphrey. I get that he’s been put in some pretty over the top situations in his personal life, but last time I checked that man was in serious need of a solid college decision. When was the last time he wrote? And face it, as long as Serena is in your life, your life is going to suck. I had to come to this realization in my own life twice recently – so give me a ring, we’ll go for a drink and straighten your shit out.

This episode witnessed the return of the wolf-pack (the three lower-classmates of Dan & Serena who seem to thrive on a Gossip Girl I.V. and a V-Cast powered Derena GPS). These girls were long overdue for a second appearance and we pray that it won’t be long before a third, forth, etc.

What’s the full story on Jack & Blair? And what happens now – Lily & Rufus get married? Why is Eric back with Jonathan? It’s good to see Little J back, but is her fashion career absolutely obliterated at this point? And where the hell did Nate come from as they walked into the Bass Industries building? I mean, we all wish we had magically appearing friends in times of need, but that was a BIT far fetched…we’re supposed to believe he’d just been posted up at the Bedford Street Gallery, not going to school and kicking it with Vanessa? Lots of questions here…

Having said that, yours truly are not completely foreign to the idea of disappearing when we fall for girls, so we can’t be too harsh on the kid. Plus, he is an Archibald…men of mystery…

You Know You Love Me,
XOXO,
C

Discussed: The Chuck Bass of Rap, Snoozing & Losing, If You Want Loyalty Get a Dog

As it turns out, month long Johnny Walker-fueled Thai-hooker-focused jet sets don’t bode as well for your personal relationship with the love of your life as you’d think. Not much to say other than that.

This episode of GG will begin it’s cross country sweep in about five minutes – the eastern seaboard better lock up it’s daughters (or maybe uncles…?)

Discussed: Terrence McKenna’s ‘Food Of The Gods’, Heart Attack On A Plate, Franchised Frozen Drinks Taste Better, Verbal Prowess Of The Chinook Indians, Wisely Using The Unabbreviated Name, Nielsen Schmielsen, Thompson Twins: Trailblazers, Drunk On Deified Politicians, They Never Get Taken Home To Meet Mom, Overrated Documentaries

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?

Perhaps the CW was getting too greedy with their breakfast of hype smoothie, lunch of grilled critical buzz sandwich and dinner of fettuccine with drizzled delusions of ever expanding viewership.

But the release of Monday’s ratings came served as a 64oz Big Gulp of Ipecac for those same muckety mucks at the CW.

As the Huffington Post reported:

ABC Family’s “Secret Life of the American Teenager” smashed network rating records with its season premiere Monday night — and in the process, beat the CW’s similarly targeted “Gossip Girl” head to head at 8PM.

Last August, “Secret Life” topped ratings for the first season of “Gossip Girl,” but its impressive ratings victory Monday evening suggests trouble for the CW hit, which is heavily buzzed-about but has never been a breakout ratings hit.

Really? “Secret Life of the American Teenager”?! This surely must be a sign of the apocalypse, as the preview we saw for that show looked horrendous and hilarious, the latter ever unintentionally so. Are these dreamy days of Obama optimism so filled with radiant do goodery that Gossip GIrl has lost it’s bad boy/girl charm? Or is it simply a saturation of the GG market with episode after episode - a virtual never ending season peppered with willy nilly scattershot hiatuses complicating its formal narrative consumption? You be the judge; talk amongst yourselves, but these are dark days indeed.

XOXO

Discussed: When The Gossiping Gets Tough, Work Schedules We’d All Like To Have, Without The Internet - Who Can Hear You Scream, The Return Of Security Blankets, Chuck Close - Enviable Best Friend, Art Vs Commerce, Asking If Ok Is Enough, Delineating Drug Differences, How Lonely The Real Aaron Rose Must Now Be - Left With No Fervently Texting Friends, A Remarkably Close Shave - Even Without Product Placement, The Haunting Of Molly Hartley 2, Getting Your Groove Back

CLIFFHANGER: WILL THE BACKSTABBING SECRETS EVER CEASE?

Oh, CW, you’re really making it hard for us. In deference to your lackadaisical holiday programming schedule for GG, we too engaged in a full blown lackadaisical du force, with week upon sorry week of no IACB posts here, no Mixtapes, no Elements of Style - how on Earth did Alexandra know what to think of contemporary music and the screaming markdown of the Phillip Glass box set online?

Alas, we digress, and must admit, while the arriving prospect of a January 5th return of GG to our life managed to maintain its usual exhilarating thrill, in the end, what we were given was a wee difficult to muster the same level of excitement for. “In The Realm Of The Basses” was an all together fine installment, but seems to be indicating what may prove to be a sophomore slump for Gossip Girl. For any other show, the Season 2 we’ve been given thus far would luminously suffice, but on account of the heady apexes of Season 1s refined artfulness, this just does not compare.

Admittedly, perhaps we’re harshing a mellow here. But…

Read the rest of this entry »

Discussed: Two Thousand Mine, Parisian Hotels with Game Changing Butter, It Gets This Good, Hangover Got You Down?, We’re Probably The Smartest Person I Know, Piles and Piles of Photo Magazines Circa ‘76

So here we are. January 1st, 2009. The beginning of the end. With the season finale (I can’t believe I just typed those horrendous words) of the best show on television fast approaching – three episodes left – there are a lot of questions being blasted out of our purse-lipped face cannons these days. Rather than densely articulate all of this in a 2,000+ word post, as ONE of my esteemed colleagues has been known to do, I’m going to simply lay out a couple predictions – nay, snacks for thought…

• Chuck inherits control of his father’s multi-billion dollar real estate company
• Dan and Serena have not one, but TWO on screen kisses
• Chuck bleaches his hair platinum blonde
• Nate gets arrested…for the Little J thing.
• There’s a “Little J Thing”.
• Aaron Rose is finally clinically diagnosed with narcolepsy
• There’s a half assed suicide attempt, not sure who…
• Dan develops a stress induced face-twitch/lip-quiver and it’s nothing other than hilarious

Talk amongst yourselves…

p.s. I leave you with this – as a sympathy gift on National Hangover Day, for anyone who has fallen pray in the last 24 hours to an untimely lapse in consciousness – as Katt Williams says “never pass out around your white friends” – clearly Katt knows Mr. Westwick.

Two guys (B & C) blindsided by their love of Gossip Girl, bring you a slightly more masculine take on the Best Show On Television.