Monsters of Television

“Old Chuck, new Chuck. Bad Chuck, good Chuck.”

Everyone on Gossip Girl is a horrible person.

We love to watch the fights and the breakups and the schemes but when a real person, a legitimately good person is thrown into the lions den that is the Upper East Side it becomes very clear that the characters we love really are a bunch of vicious animals. Poor Eva. All the twists and turns of the episode tried just as hard to wreck her image as Blair was. But she really was an angel. And now she’s gone, leaving nothing but destruction and heartache in her wake.

Let’s start with Blair. Her sole purpose this episode was to find dirt on Eva and bring her down. Ok, that’s pretty bad, but somewhat understandable after going through such a tumultuous breakup with Chuck. But she didn’t do all of this because she still loves Chuck, she admitted to that. She did it cause she’s a bitch. Plain and simple.

Just as easily as her entrance transformed Chuck into a caring and loving philanthropist, Eva’s departure has reawakened the sleeping beast we haven’t really seen since season 1. Sure Chuck has still been a dick and done some pretty terrible things, but a lot of them have centered around Blair and come from being hurt like in the case of his mother. Now he has declared war on Blair. Eva leaving has created a tabula rasa for Chuck and Blair as individuals and as a twosome (I’m avoiding the word couple because the possibility of that ever happening again seems dead now).

The return to the Chuck of old is bittersweet. He’s made a lot of strides in becoming a better person and has proven to be one of the most dynamic characters on the show. His growth is all directly connected to falling in love with a woman (Blair and Eva). It would seem there really is a great woman behind every great man. Hmm. Makes me wish I was back in school so I could write a paper on it. Just kidding. But it is interesting to think about. Now with that ripped away from him, Chuck is back to square one. Sad for the character, potentially glorious for the audience. I’ve enjoyed Chuck through and through, but having the old evil, conniving, smirking bastard back is going to be fun.

Now let’s move on to Dan cause the good ol’ boy has become more and more of a douche with every season. A show-wide commentary on how money and status change people? Quite possibly. Another interesting topic were I still a student.

With Milo gone, Dan is going to live his life while Vanessa and his parents sit at home and worry about him. He runs to the one person he knows he can escape with: Serena. Bad move, bro. Don’t run to the ex-girlfriend. Dan has had one foot out of the door with Vanessa for a while now and he’s gonna keep pushing the limits with Serena to see if there’s still something there. If not, oh well, he still has Vanessa waiting back at home for him. Deplorable.

Vanessa comes off as a victim in this situation, which she certainly is, but it’s her willingness to forgive and forget so quickly that makes her a bad person. More specifically a weak person. She knows Dan is lying and confronts him about it. She moved in to help him take care of a child that isn’t either of theirs. But she loves him so much she’ll let him use his puppy dog eyes black magic to make it all better again. Some may say that’s the power of true love. Some may say she’s a fucking idiot.

Is there even a point in talking about Serena? She’s trying to decide between two boys and will go with whichever gives her the time of day. Forget the fact tat they’re both in relationships. She could care less because she’s a horrible, horrible person and I hate her.

Is Nate the only one coming out of this episode not looking like a tool/bitch/idiot? Well he comes off a little like an idiot. He is still dating Juliet, the devil to Eva’s angel, but he doesn’t know that. Only the audience is privy to the fact that she’s planning the downfall of our Upper East Siders in some sort of revenge scheme. That or she’s trying to figure out the cause of the global blackout in Flash Forward. I guess time will tell.

I’m sure if you were to do an analysis on the main characters of a lot of television shows you would come to find that there are close to no saints. Everyone has flaws, less than desirable traits that make them interesting and relatable. Maybe that’s the point. As much as we want to see the parties and the limos and everything else we don’t have in our own lives, those material things don’t make them any different than us. We’re all terrible people. How cynical of me. Hmm. Another paper topic. Ok I have to stop now.

Final Thoughts:

• I miss Eva already.
• The soundtrack this season has been amazing.
• This live video feed thing Gossip Girl has been using lately is very Big Brother. Can’t wait for facebook to implement this so I can stalk all my friends in real time.
• Speaking of which, Gossip Girl is becoming far more integrated into the revealing of information and progression of story than ever before.
• Rufus makes a great meta point about kids being attached to cell phones and yet are horrendous at communication.