Gossip Girl

[Hamatron]

I like Dan and Blair too. But man, this season has been a trainwreck of badness. The royal storyline is awful. Blair has been in a completely unnecessary love/relationship quadrangle for most of the season. I refuse to watch the episode where Blair makes a deal with God. I mean, seriously writers? How embarrassing for you.

[huntergrayson]

This was kind of...not as awful as I expected?

It might have been going through a glass of champagne or two during the recap but nothing made me want to throw things at the screen (which I have wanted to MANY times this season) - between Bell's 4th-wall breaking DIRECT WINK at the screen, Lily saying "we can just do the same [funeral] we did the last time Bart died" and incorporating "3 words, 8 letters" into Chair's vows, Rachel Bilson's cameo, it felt VERY longtime fan-servicey.

Also? The blue piping on Chuck's tux matching Blair's dress? Well-played, Eric Daman. Well-played.

Plus, no awful Barry Watson! Sage was on-screen briefly and was useful! Chivy fucking got PLAYED by Daddy Van Der Woodsen! Eric's back from his awful townie plotline on Revenge! Mayor Bloomberg cameo!

ETA: HOLY CATS, Jessica Pressler of NY Mag/Vulture alerted me via Twitter that wasn't some random actress, that was LISA FUCKING LOEB with Rufus in the flashforward epilogue. That is just...perfect for his fate.

[Deleted]

I didn't watch the finale because I stopped watching a few seasons ago. So Dan is Gossip Girl? How does that even make sense? If they had to have a reveal at the end (which I never thought they should have), it should NOT have been one of the core characters.

[bitca]

Dec 18, 2012 6:20:10 GMT -4 @huntergrayson said:

This was kind of...not as awful as I expected?

It might have been going through a glass of champagne or two during the recap but nothing made me want to throw things at the screen (which I have wanted to MANY times this season) - between Bell's 4th-wall breaking DIRECT WINK at the screen, Lily saying "we can just do the same [funeral] we did the last time Bart died" and incorporating "3 words, 8 letters" into Chair's vows, Rachel Bilson's cameo, it felt VERY longtime fan-servicey.

I floved it. For real. I squeed when Bell finally came on the scene. I, literally, watched the last ten minutes twice. haha.

One thing, though. I was like, "Wait. Hasn't Dan been around when the GG 'blasts' were sent?" Like, y'know, standing around The Met when they've gone out, or whatever? He'd have to at least press a button on his phone to do that. He couldn't be constantly checking his email and drafting blast posts out of thin air. But the reasoning behind it made sense even if the technology didn't.

The bwahaha towards Blair. "All this time, I had more power than you."

I texted one of my friends, "Ermahgerd, why is Lisa Loeb there?!" "Why not?" "Touche."

Also loved the "I thought it was Dorota!"

There's a great comment on TV Guide. "The author of that 'love letter' is a sociopath." Hee.

[prada]

I thought it was awful. Mind you, I'm an avid Dan/Blair fan so the fact that she ended up with the guy who tried to sexually assault her best friend and her ex's little sister, plus pimped her out for a hotel, I can't. Not only that, Dan/Serena?!? They were cute in S1-S2, but after that they worked better as friends. I would've rather have Serena/Nate as endgame. And no Lilly/Rufus?!? Not even that?!? Awful. Thankfully I stopped watching after last season's horrible finale where they managed to destroy Blair's character growth and Dan/Blair, so. And let's not even get started on the suspense of belief to even entertain Dan as GG.

[huntergrayson]

Some of Dan's comments indicated that he and Jenny were running Gossip Girl in cahoots for a while. And then there was the whole hacking/stopping/S was Gossip Girl thing.

The NY Mag Reality/Vulture Index is up (I Haven't seen the episode this season where Jess & Chris cameoed) - the comment thread is putting forth the "this is kinda brilliant because it recasts/retcons one of our core characters into a SOCIOPATH" theory.

More importantly? OF COURSE someone as self-centered and shallow and damaged as Serena would be willing to overlook that IMMEDIATELY for the "oh my god, I'm his muse! He love/hates/obsesses over me enough to write two novels about me, countless blog posts, a movie from the novel..."

It's attention. S has never been too concerned about where it comes from, as long as she's the center of it.

I thought Chair was twisted but, man, having the show end with, as one of the commenters put it, Lindsay Lohan marrying Perez Hilton? Who was also kinda her stepbrother via marriage for a while? Because, whatever, he's a writing genius and she's his muse? That is really really dark and fucked up when you think about it.

Also, more props to Daman for not including white in S's wedding dress. No one would have bought it.

[Deleted]

Agreed huntergrayson. I lthought having Serena end up married to Gossip Girl was pretty twisty and funny at the end of the day.

Picking Dan to be Gossip Girl has lots of plotholes to it but I like how it turns the entire show on it's head and re-frames pretty much every single one of his relationships in a new light. Just the "You know you love me" tagline alone is hilarious when you think he was creepily stalking Serena the entire series.

I'm completely biased because I'm a fan of twisted Chuck and Blair* but I also love how the writers took them from dramatic, dysfunctional love-hate Bonnie and Clyde/ Wuthering Heights relationship to conventional, domestic bliss endgame with child.
Realistic? Hell no. But I loved it nonetheless.

Rufus & Lisa Loeb and Jack & Georgina are both fitting but Lily with fake cancer doctor just makes me shake my head. :lol:

[Hamatron]

I thought it was hilariously awful.

So, Chuck and Blair literally got away with murder? They really are the 1%, hah. They also sucked as a couple. I am glad they are off my screen. I was really gunning to Chuck dying in the final episode, like he does every season finale. The part of the internet who write about their relationship being pure and beautiful and healthy creep me out (no offense to the people who enjoy them for their train wreck soap love/hate dysfunction).

There are so many plotholes with Dan being Gossip Girl, but they are all freakin' hilarious. Like, remember the time GG released that pic of him with his school teacher and he almost got expelled? Yeah. Oh, or back when GG was shipping Nate and Serena, but Dan had no idea and was shocked when he saw them together? I found some tumblrs of some brave souls who are watching and screen capping all the things that are wrong with that revelation and they are awesome. There's probably a hole each episode. Also, Dan writes just like "A" on Pretty Little Liars.

Oh, and on the thread I was hanging out on for the series finale I had to explain to posters who Lisa Loeb was. Damn. I am an old.

ETA: I loved that the actors who play Jenny and Eric could barely bother to appear like they care. And that Serena and Dan got married in a tiny family room like it was no big thing. I guess Chair already set the bar for rushed and weird small weddings...

[huntergrayson]

Not extending a hand to help someone who is dangling from a ledge would be, at most, involutary manslaughter or failing to comply with good samatarian laws (a really really good lawyer could even argue that Chuck was acting in self-defense after the "accidents" Bart made happen and the plane explosion/crash attempt on Chuck). It's not so much "getting away with murder" as "killing someone indirectly via neglect." Which Bart had done to Chuck metaphorically for years. It's "killing somebody" in the sense that S was like "I killed somebody!" in S1 and that dark secret was actually that some rando ODed on the blow S & Georgina had around and therefore S "killed somebody" just like she shoved a knife in their heart.

I dunno, I am awfully forgiving of Big Series Finales if they work on a thematic/metaphoric level, not so much a "we are answering everything and everything will be tied up with no plotholes whatsoever." I actually feel somewhat bad for folks who will go back and obsessively Tumblr why Dan CAN'T be gossip girl or how in S1 of Lost, the polar bear meant THIS but when it appeared again, the color of the fur was TOTALLY different or why this that or the other wasn't "realistic" in Battlestar Galactica, a show about killer robots in outer space. Dan as GG? Made sense to me on some level. It might have been retconned, it might have not been planned until this season, it might be weird. But it feels oddly satisfying.

Then again, one of my favorite directors of all time is David Lynch and thus Twin Peaks one of my favorite TV shows, so I know I may not be an authority or good judge of things needing to make narrative logical sense.

Plus, Dan/Lonelyboy/His Wounded Literary Genius persona had become BEYOND annoying and pretentious and famehungry and asshole-ish in recent seasons. I would have been hurt if B or S or Nate or Chuck had been Gossip Girl, as I found (parts of their) characters still somewhat likeable. For the show to take annoying writer Dan one step further and make him the ULTIMATE mean girl, the bitch to be all bitches? Kinda awesome. Farming it out to a secondary character like Dorota or Jack Bass or even Georgina wouldn't have had the same impact to me.

[Hamatron]

Yeah, but Gossip Girl is not directed by David Lynch. And I like me some David Lynch as well. In terms of quality, the writing on that show is about on the level of a C- fan fiction writer. It's a big stupid night time soap that lived about 4 years longer than it really should have.

I enjoyed watching the finale because it was so stupid it made me laugh. I think that's the main motivation behind the tumblrs making fun of Dan being GG, too. It's hilarious because it totally doesn't work (no one would have worked, really), and adds even more humor to what was a shit-tastic show.

And, I get the manslaughter thing, and that we're watching a soap opera, but watching and doing nothing as someone hangs onto life and begs for help before falling to their death is pretty messed up. Even if he did have a death vendetta against Chuck (LOL, thank you GG for bringing me to type this).