Mason jars. Pork buns. Pickling festivals. Spirit animals. This week’s Gossip Girl out-Brooklyned even upstart Girls as Dan and Blair made an ill-fated attempt to create a new life for themselves far away from the Upper East Side. But as Rufus also found, mere accessories do change who people are, and soon enough the UES came crashing into Dair’s Bohemian idyll. “It wasn’t uptown, and it wasn’t downtown,†Blair sniffed in the aftermath. “It was just a bloody mess.â€
As usual, we sort through it in our weekly Reality Index!
More Real Than the Horrible BlackBerry Buzzing Sound That Wakes Up Nate
• “Just because you’re cousins doesn’t mean you have to be best friends,†Nate tells Lola. “My cousin tried to kill me.†Plus 1. Foreshadowing!
• We scoffed when we read last month that gorgeous French actress Mélanie Laurent approached Rufus at a party and confessed her “obsession†with him. Rufus? We thought to ourselves. But he’s ridiculous. A waffle-making eunuch. But Mélanie Laurent, it seems, saw something that we did not. During his stay in Brooklyn over the past two weeks, Rufus has awoken from his stupor like Edna Pontellier in the Gulf of Mexico. He has become fully himself. He is no longer taking anyone’s crap. He will do what he believes is right. Rufus will persevere! We ask you: Has this show ever had a more poignant image than Rufus strumming his guitar, alone? Mélanie Laurent knows what we’re talking about. Plus 10
• Dan likes jam with four fruits. Plus 1
• Blair works out with Gwyneth and Madonna’s trainer-goddess Tracy Anderson. Plus 2
• If you don’t believe that a Danish director like Lars von Trier would hire or fire an actress based on what he learns from New York gossip blogs, then we ask you this: Why has Lindsay Lohan never appeared in a Dogme 95 movie?  Plus 2
• Of course Lola finally figured out Serena was Gossip Girl, girl made it as plain as the boobs on her chest. “You seem so confident,†she tells Lola. “Nothing could make you cry today. Even if it should.†And later: “Guess Gossip Girl isn’t so irrelevant now, is she?†Plus 3 for Serena being unable to contain herself, literally and figuratively.
• Serena is mindlessly eating while blogging. Plus 3. We just ate six raspberries while typing that sentence.
• Lily wants to show Rufus she loves him, so she brings him … a green salad. Plus 2
• Dan and Blair go to the Roebling Tea Room, “because my friend Alexis is covering it tree-planting at the community garden next door for McSweeney’s and said she wanted to grab a photo of us going green.†Plus 10 for references (even though there is no community garden next door to the Roebling Tea Room and McSweeney’s wouldn’t cover a tree-planting event, much less with socialites), but especially because both Dan and Blair’s social climbing caused them to completely forget said event. Poor Alexis. Did she even get invited to the salon?
 • “Not to brag,†says Julian Tepper, who along with Jenna Gibbon runs real-life salonfest at the Oracle Club in Long Island City, “but people fight for invitations.â€
“Agnyess Dean and and Sarah Sophie Flicker came to the last one,†adds Jenna “and Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone did the menu and then we screened My Man Godfrey.†Plus 10 for a spectacular amount of name-dropping, and Plus another 5 because “not to brag†is the best thing people say before they brag.
• And hey, there’s Spotted Pig and John Dory wonderchef April Bloomfield, looking understandably confused and slightly mortified! Plus 5
• “Carole Lombard is my spirit animal!†Blair exclaims. Plus 2
• Jenna and Julian don’t think Dair will last either. Plus 2
• “Nate, at a salon?†Blair exclaims disbelievingly. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.†Plus 2.
• Blair: “What kind of glasses should we use?†Dan: “Mason jars.†Plus only one for the rest of the Brooklyn jokes, because by the time they got to “pickling festival†we started to tire.
• “Miss Serena hiding in room all day long like Blond Unabomber,†Dorota tells Lola  Plus 2
• Lola knows to call Dan “Lonely Boy†when writing a tip from Dorota to Gossip Girl.  Plus 1
• Vanya and Rufus bond over Magnetic Fields. No points, because it would never happen, but it is adorable.
• “You’ve been in New York for months, inviting me to parties, hiring my friends, hanging out in my apartment in your underwear? Banging my best friend? Did it never occur to you to mention you were my mother?†Plus 20 for possibly the best Chuck Bass lines ever spoken.
• “You’re the only It Girl that matters anyway,†Lola says to Serena. “You said so yourself.†BURN. Plus 10.
Total: 95
Faker Than a Brooklyn Bartender Acting Like a Declined Debit Card Is Unusual
• “Last thing I’m worried about is some pathetic blogger in a dark room, tethered to a computer,†says Lola. Ha, people always say this, but it’s so silly. Bloggers work in the light, of course. They’re not vampires. But Minus only 1, because the part about the tether is true.
• Wait, no. Brangelina is “the Brangelina of the Five Boroughs.†Minus 5
• Lily can’t sell the apartment! It’s at the center of a godforsaken inheritance dispute! Minus only 2, because of course she would consider that dispute already won.
• Couldn’t Lola have just shown Nate the app? And presumably Serena’s e-mail full of tips? We know, it led to an important plot point, but still: Minus 2
• WHY CAN LIZ HURLEY JUST WALK INTO SERENA’S LIVING ROOM? Minus 2
• We haven’t asked all of them, but we feel fairly confident saying that no New York hotel employee would accidentally tell a guy’s wife about the young woman he’s putting up in a hotel.  Minus 5
• Wait, also, not putting Ivy “on the streets†equals putting her in the Soho Grand? No points, because Rufus has apparently become accustomed to a certain kind of lifestyle. Minus 5
• “Do you recognize this woman?†A blonde, possibly insane person demands of a random nurse, holding up an iPhone picture of what looks like a Warrant album cover circa 1989. “Yes,†the nurse immediately responds. “She was here the night of the accident. She donated blood and left quickly before Mr. Bass regained consciousness.†Whoa! What happened to discretion, here? Didn’t these same people just refuse to tell Chuck whose blood he got? Minus 15
• Minus 20 for Blair caring more about her party getting screwed up than Elizabeth Fucking Hurley being Chuck’s real mom.
• Wait, Elizabeth faked her death to get out of raising her adopted son Chuck? What, was he like, the kid from The Omen? Minus 2
• “Haven’t you caused enough trouble for one night?†Serena demands when Lola shows up to return her dress, completely forgetting that Lola saved her ass moments ago. Minus 2
• “You know where to find me,†Diana tells Chuck. Yes, how could he miss her. She’s the one always strutting around in snug, bright, attention-getting outfits, yelling things like, “Don’t tell anyone my TERRIBLE SECRET,†into the phone in a distinctive British accent. Minus 4
Total: 44
Name-dropping and Brooklynisms balanced out the insane revelation that Chuck Bass is the spawn of Elizabeth Hurley. Next week: Will it turn out that his father is Jack Bass? Or, more realistically, Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery?