Brick Killed a Guy: Gossip Girl Recapped

This wasn't a great episode of Gossip Girl. It just wasn't. They dragged out the big reveal that Serena "killed someone," almost inexplicably, since we already KNEW she killed someone at the end of the last episode. And then, she didn't really kill anyone, she just gave the almost-date-rapist dude (is there any other kind of dude in the Gossip Girl universe?) his last line of coke. Which, in turn, lead to the hilarious and tearful line of dialogue from Serena: "Mom, I gave him the line that killed him!!!!!!!"

I don't know, I loved this episode, but I didn't. It was kinda boring, kinda slow and then almost irrationally fast. In fact, watching the penultimate episode, I finally realized the difference between Gossip Girl and the creatively superior The O.C.


(Yes, I just wrote that The O.C. was "creatively superior" to something -- do something.)

The Twitter version of things is this: on The O.C., I actually cared about the characters.

I really liked Seth and Ryan and Sandy and Kirsten. I rooted for them. I laughed with them. And yeah I'll say it, I cried with them too.

With Gossip Girl it's totally different. When you get right down to it: Dan's a total idiot, Serena a self-involved flake, Vanessa a total bitch, Jenny a total bitch, and on and on. Outside of Rufus and Lily (who, let's be honest, pale in comparison to Sandy and Kirsten) and Blair and Chuck (who I love because they are just so awful), the characters are just fodder. I can't even imagine a scenario where I'd cry watching an episode of Gossip Girl.

I mean, come on! What do you take me for? (Don't answer that.)

Now this doesn't mean the show isn't amazing. It is the Greatest Show Ever (TM, NY Mag), after all. It's just very disposable. Gossip Girl is like listening to Z100. And I love listening to Z100. But is there really anything behind that new Duffy song, other than an awesome hook?

It's because of that disposable nature though, that Gossip Girl is a trailblazing television series. It has managed to capture the frivolity of reality television and put it inside the narrative world. Josh Schwartz really has learned from the mistakes he made with The O.C. It's not just the way he's expanded the universe of Gossip Girl to levels that The O.C. only dreamed of. It's that by excising all of the emotional stuff, all of the real touching moments that were the hallmark of every O.C. episode, he's created a slim, lean and mean variation on the teen genre that has captured the zeitgeist. This is reality television, with prettier actors and better scripts.

Sure the ratings suck, but has any show received more ink during this television season? Not even close. And I think in the end, whereas The O.C. saw it's ratings tumble after the first season, Gossip Girl will see a steady rise. I think it'll be like The Hills. When that show started, it was like, "hey, that's a Laguna Beach spin-off, right?" Now, it's getting higher ratings than anything else on MTV and John McCain is name dropping it on campaign stops. The very fact that it is effortless and fluffy will draw more people in.

Anyway, next week brings us the season finale of Gossip Girl, the last chance to see our favorite UES coke users until August. Some things to look forward to on the finale:

1.) Lily is totally marrying Bart Bass. If you think she's going to end up with Rufus, you clearly have never watched television.

2.) Dan is an idiot. And while I'm sure he'll get hip to the whole "Georgina/Sarah is really a psycho bitch" thing, it's not going to save his relationship with Serena. I'm sure they'll go into the summer hiatus broken up, just like I'm sure Dan will pull a Seth (minus all the charm) and stand on a coffee cart in the middle of school to get her back.

3.) My friend told me that she heard someone OD's in the finale. I'm guessing it's Jenny. Sure she had her little meltdown already, but she seems ripe for some kind of drug use. And since they had a bunch of 16-year-olds ripping lines in this past episode, why not have a 14-year-old doing it in the finale. Up your game, guys!

4.) Nate and Vanessa will continue to date, but Blair will totally make out with Nate before the end of the season finale. And Vanessa will probably see it. Area code: PISSED off.

5.) Some character--Serena's brother?--will go away for the summer, setting up their "Kaitlin Cooper" like return next fall. "Next week on a very special Gossip Girl, you'll never believe who comes back to cause some trouble!"