Nate gets attacked by a cougar? Chuck finds Buddha? And where to begin with Blair? Just another year on the Upper East Side...

Written By Adam A. Donaldson

As per usual, things have been pretty hit and miss this season on Gossip Girl.

HIT: No more misguided machinations by either Jenny Humphry or Vanessa Abrams.

MISS: The new machinations of Charlie, AKA: Ivy, AKA: Fake Charlie, AKA: Chivy.

HIT: Chuck working on his inner man and coming out better because of it.

MISS: Serena and Nate working at jobs their woefully under-qualified for; her helping to broker power deals as the assistant of a big Hollywood producer, him as the editor of a newspaper.

HIT: Dan’s diary book, which induced a variety of rage amongst his friends and family.

MISS: His de-evolution back to Lonely Boy sad sack was a little too quick, and a little too sad.

MISS: Seeing Blair’s fiancé Prince Louis slum in the mind games and double-crosses of the Upper East Side’s intra-class warfare.

MISS: Nate’s sad cougar fixation, which along with Blair’s romance with a royal seems so 2008.

MISS: Does anyone go to school anymore? I mean, four of the characters are still supposed to be going to college, right?

Granted I don’t tune in to Gossip Girl for Sorkin-esque dialogue, or Abrams-style plot twists or Weiner-like drama. What I expect – Nay. Demand! – is nothing less than entertainment at the expense of shallow rich people and the petty rivalries and differences they war over like medieval crusaders. Now is that so much to ask? Apparently.

I don’t really expect Gossip Girl to do reality very well either, but when you know and accept that going in, and you’re still guffawing at new developments, then I think we might have cause for concern here. Let’s start with the fact that season five has been rehashing a lot that was already done in season two: Nate gets down and dirty with a cougar. Check. Blair has a volatile relationship with a royal seemingly built solely on the notion that he’s a royal. Check. Blair and Chuck continue to circle each other’s orbits despite their constant instance that they’re “done.” Check. Dan stuck on the outside looking in due to his own judgmental machinations. Double check.

Let’s start dissecting, beginning with the season’s biggest ongoing storyline: Blair’s pending nuptials to Prince Louis of Monaco. Of course, he might as well be Prince Arthur of Camelot for the way people talk about him, but sadly for Blair, and if you’ve already seen Merlin’s fourth season till the end, Arthur is already spoken for. The problem with Blair’s relationship to Louis isn’t that she’s again trying to fulfill her princess dreams, or even the brief question of fatherhood concerning her unborn child, but the fact that Louis has swung wildly from thoroughly boring to wildly vindictive. Paying off Chuck’s therapist to make him a monster had potential, but when Louis posted a list of all Gossip Girl’s sources to prove a point he went from royal schemer to royal dick.

Speaking of the purple man, Chuck’s arc this season has been most compelling. Stuck with the knowledge that sometimes love doesn’t keep you together, at least when it comes to Blair Waldorf, Chuck sinks into a state of emotional neutrality. Unable to feel anything, Chuck determines to rebuild himself a better man through therapy, meditation, and the love of a good dog named Monkey. It was an interesting notion to pair Chuck’s transformation into a better man with Louis’ descent into the same Upper East Side pettiness he claims to despise, but I don’t think the writers pushed that notion far enough.

On other matters, I think the writers could also use a good dose of reality because no matter the fact that your grandpa owns the paper you work, or how often you’ve schtupped the boss (even if she does look like Elizabeth Hurley), there’s no way that our simple friend Nate Archibald gets to run a major New York newspaper. At least not without so much as a single high school newspaper article’s worth of journalistic ambition. While Nate seriously needed some direction, there isn’t a single moment of the whole Spectator subplot, or the desire by Hurley’s Diane character to usurp Gossip Girl’s place as Manhattan’s rumour mill, that I believed. The only potentially interesting direction is Diane’s mysterious connection to Chuck, which, of course, wasn’t dealt with until the fall finale’s final moment.

Also dealing with an odd disparity of job to experience ratio is Serena, who works for a major Hollywood producer one day and manages to snag a meeting with none other than Daniel Day Lewis because of her never before demonstrated attention to detail. What was demonstrated though was Serena’s complete lack of judgment when it comes to men. Getting sucked into not-cousin Charlie’s drama by dating Charlie’s boyfriend from a past life Max, who’s really dating Serena as a way to extort money from Charlie for keeping mum about her not being Charlie. Phew. I never thought I’d say this, but can Jenny and Vanessa come back now?

Which brings us to Dan Humphrey, the literary man of the hour whose first published novel, Inside, made him a scorn to his friends only to have them realize later that he pegged them pretty good, and that spurned change in them all. (At least according to Serena.) Seemingly at a loss to do something with Dan, Lonely Boy’s activities have tipped the scales as either fun (like hanging out with Chuck, getting high and watching The Matrix), or depressingly sad (starting a Twitter war to keep interest in Inside). But all this is really just prologue, isn’t it? Exaggeratedly unnecessary build up to the ultimate question of our time: Chair or Dair?

If there’s one thing that shippers from both camps can agree on it’s that Louis has to go. The mere fact that he spends half his time gone, and the other half running hot and cold on his relationship with Blair is proof of that, but the writers seem quite content with drawing this out for as long as possible. Why? I have no idea. The fall finale ended with Blair seemingly going back to Chuck, but if you follow along with the spoilers, you know that Blair’s still suiting up in a wedding dress in the not to distant future. So unless Chuck subs in for the groom, which let’s be honest, is a little much in spite of his new attitude, it’s still the Blair and Louis nuptials.

But I can’t help but feel bored by all the Blair and Chuck tension. So many times this season has there been some scene or storyline that comes down to either Blair or Chuck trying to prove to themselves or somebody else that it’s now – Officially! Finally! Forever! – done between the two of them. Honestly, if it got any more done between the two of them they’d have to forget each other’s very existence. Which is what makes the finale a conundrum: all of the sudden Blair has complete and total doubts about her marriage to Louis that it drives her right back to a full-fledged commitment to Chuck? But wait a second, it’s not Chuck that she’s driven to first…

Of course, before deciding on the direction of her life, and the man she should end up being with, Blair turns to Dan for advice and a convenient Brooklyn hiding place. The quipping back and forth is still great between the two as Dan suggests making a list of pros and cons for both Chuck and Louis. Lists are for choosing bridesmaids, not the person you’ll spend the rest of your life with, Blair retorts. Fair enough, but when Dan gets the answer right the first time on whether raising the child of another man would matter to him, you have to start wondering, how much longer are the writers going to draw out this Dan/Blair romance potential if there’s really no sign at all that they’re moving forward with it?

This is usually the point where the Chair shippers get fuming about how Dair shippers are delusional and Dan is pathetic, and how the whole idea of Dan and Blair as a couple can never happen because Blair and Chuck are meant to be. Perhaps, but why is it then that when Blair needs serious advice, it’s Dan she talks to? And when Blair was reading the part of Dan’s book where imaginary Dan and imaginary Blair have an imaginary romantic moment, why did it look like she was more than mildly intrigued by the idea? There’s been more than enough little hints and quirks to prove that this is a possibility (both Leighton Meeser and Penn Bagley have said that they’d like to see it happen) then why on Earth is a Blair and Dan romantic match been something the writers have thrown every wrench into preventing?

Of course, after the Chair mutual declaration of love, and Blair’s marriage to Louis still seemingly on despite it, long suffering Dair fans may probably have to wait until the end of the season for any real progress to be made. In the meantime, Nate’s winning doing his JFK Junior impression, Serena’s come around that Dan’s the only man of quality she’s ever dated, ChIvy’s come to the conclusion that going to great lengths to embed yourself in a family that’s not your own is a bad idea, and Lily and Rufus do… something. Just another day in the life of the Upper East Side.

Written by :

Adam