Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl

Episode 5: Monstrous Ball

By: Carlos Uribe

Gossip Girl is a show about some wealthy people in New York City.

Spoiler Alert!

Gossip Girl is halfway over through it's final season. It's like the series suddenly remembered that it was ending and it needed to prepare for the endgame. Monstrous Ball was a fun episode that set the pieces for the rest of the season. The first thing it did is presumably remove Stephen and Sage from the board. It all begins when Serena and Sage discover that Stephen is planning to propose. Serena is very excited about the idea of marrying Stephen but Sage is horrified. Sage decides that she'll destroy any chance of Serena becoming her step-mother by going to Blair. Blair only agrees to help Sage because she needs somebody to wear her provocative dress. According to Dan, there's nothing like making a sixteen year-old wear a sexual dress to her cotillion to kickstart a career. When the plan seems to be failing, Sage decides to take matters into her own hands and release that sex video to the public once she steals it from Georgina. The sex video of Serena sleeping with Dan while he was still technically with Blair. This works at destroying Serena's relationship with Stephen. Stephen decides that he doesn't want to be involved with a girl who has sex tapes because he's a father. He can't be with someone who has a million secrets and is constantly scheming all the time. This break-up was a bit sudden but at least it was competently handled. The entire episode had built up to it and it was a focus of the episode. Stephen leaves the show by breaking up with Serena but there is still Sage. She's dating Nate. When Nate realizes that Sage released the video, Nate breaks up with her because it's too high school. It was really abrupt and hilarious. It's as if Nate's relationship with her was remembered last minute by the writers and they just threw it into the episode.

That video does quite a bit of damage to Dan as well. He's been living with Blair and refusing to give Georgina the chapter on her. This is because he's been trying to get back together with her. He still loves her and thinks he still has a shot. He decides to try and convince Blair that Chuck's battles with his father will never end. Since the battle is part of the reason that Blair and Chuck refuse to get together, it's like stating that the two will never be together. He doesn't seem to realize that while Blair will always care for him, Chuck has taken over her heart completely. He has no chance. He loses any shot at being happy when the video is released. Blair thinks this is the worst thing that anybody has done with her. It's even worse than the time that Jenny slept with Chuck because Dan acted like he was the better man when he didn't even have the courtesy to allow Blair to properly break up with him before sleeping with Serena. This crumbles the friendship the two have and Dan is properly kicked out of her place. He seems to turn in the piece on Blair over to Georgina before inviting Serena over for hamburgers and a lot of pies. Serena orders so many pies that I wonder if she's developed Blair's eating problem or the series is starting an arc that makes her fat. The two are friends again which hints that the two will be reuniting. At least Dan seems to be off his war path in destroying every relationship he has on the show.

Is there anything else? Oh yeah, there's Ivy. Ivy is doing her best to destroy Lily's life but she's no Emily Thorne. She decides that since she doesn't have any more evidence in Rufus' boxes since they got destroyed, that she'll follow Lily around to try and get something. That's when she sees Chuck and realizes she has an opening. She offers to team up with him and the best part of the episode happens: Chuck looks at her, smirks at her, and walks away. He doesn't take her seriously and it is pretty much what made this episode pretty great. Ivy isn't discouraged and convinces him to make it seem like he's been in contact with Lily. This communication will hurt their marriage and maybe force Rufus to do something silly. Ivy seems to succeed at first but then fails when Lily realizes what Ivy is trying to do. This annoys Chuck and he accuses his father of being a criminal. When Lily confronts Rufus about this later on, he trusts her with the knowledge that he violated the Sudanese embargo. Lily doesn't think that's a big deal because nobody got hurt. The entire Sudanese embargo plot is very boring, because who cares? Nobody but Chuck. Ivy does tell Chuck about an envelope. She also has to deal with Rufus who discovers she's wealthy. She kisses him and makes him think that's not important whatsoever. She claims that the money is not going to get in the way of their relationship. I imagine her using Rufus will.

Gossip Girl is halfway over the season and it has finally gotten rid of Stephen and Sage. Dan and Serena are friends again, Blair and Chuck remain where they are, and Ivy continues to plot Lily's downfall without much success. The remaining five episodes will hopefully start to pick up the pace of the plot because it really hasn't been moving as fast as it should. Monstrous Ball was a pretty fun episode that had some great moments. It was an episode that's largely spent on setting up the characters and their relationships for this second half of the last season.