For a season finale, this episode was pretty disappointing. Sure, there were some nice moments at the end, but overall? It was a big tease. I don't know about all of you, but I don't really care who Gossip Girl is. I don't look at her as a real person at all-- just a plot device. So the fact that they spent half of the finale searching for Gossip Girl and making the audience think we would find out her true identity, only to say “nope, ha ha! Sorry, suckers!” was pointless and annoying.
The big deal about this episode, besides not finding out who Gossip Girl is, was graduation. Yep, Serena, Dan, Blair, Nate, and even Chuck all graduated from Constance this week. What struck me as kind of hilarious was how it was such a non-event. During the ceremony, there was some awkwardness when Gossip Girl sent out an email blast labeling Serena as “irrelevant,” Dan as “the ultimate insider,” Nate as a “giant whore,” Blair as “weak,” and Chuck as “a coward.” But as far as nostalgia or treating it as a big event? There was pretty much nothing.
Of course, there was still a little bit of high school-related drama. Not everybody graduated, after all. Jenny and Eric are still going to be attending Constance, so they still have to deal with all of the crap. Number one on the agenda is the fact that a new Queen needs to be anointed. Jenny is first in line for the job, but there's some new girl in the mix as well. The mean girls have decreed that the person who brings them the juiciest gossip by midnight will win.
Turns out that Jonathan and Eric hacked into Gossip Girl's computer, so Jenny finds out everybody's dirty laundry. She's going to use the fact that Blair hooked up with Jack Bass on New Year's against her, but before she gets the chance, Gossip Girl sends out all of the info herself. Everyone finds out about Dan sleeping with his teacher, Chuck sleeping with Vanessa, and of course, Blair and Jack.
This Chuck/Vanessa Blair/Jack news comes out at an inopportune time: Blair, upon hearing that Chuck told Serena that he loved Blair, has once again told Chuck that she loves him. Once again, however, he has blown her off, leaving her heartbroken.
Also heartbroken are Lily and Rufus, but luckily, they don't stay that way for long. After Lily brings a six pack of beer and “something she found in Chuck's room” to Brooklyn, she and Rufus decide that they have too much history together to throw it all away. He returned his original engagement ring, but uses an old club wristband to propose to Lily. She accepts, and the Humphrey's immediately move their waffle iron to the Upper East Side.
Lily and Rufus's engagement has an unexpected side-effect for Jenny. Blair has decided that even though she's not queen anymore, she's still going to pass on the title to Jenny. Plus, now that Jenny is richer than all of the mean girls combined, it kind of works out. Jenny says that she just wants to be queen so she can disassemble the hierarchy, but somehow I doubt that's what will actually happen.
Other romance news comes in the form of Chuck and Blair. Even though it seemed like they were down for the count, especially with Chuck taking off to Europe, it appears that they're going to end up together after all. Chuck, as it turns out, only went to Europe so he could get a few of Blair's favorite things, including stockings and macaroons. He comes back to deliver the presents and tell her that he loves her, over and over again. It's a sweet scene, and I'm looking forward to how the show decides to handle a real, honest-to-goodness Chuck and Blair relationship next year.
The episode also possibly rekindled another romance, when Nate ditches his internship and decides to go backpacking across Europe with Vanessa. Granted, they're going to just go as friends, but come on. Another interesting development comes out of this scene: it turns out that Dan's supposedly dead half-brother is in town, and he's searching for the Humprhreys and Van der Woodsens, without, it should be noted, his parents' knowledge. Dun, dun, DUN!
Next year: Gossip Girl: NYU
