I knew Graham was dating Julien for her daddy!
After her paramour takes too long pussyfooting around to go public, Julien brings in the big guns: Luna La. Luna spots Graham greeting a pregnant woman and whispering into her pregnant belly, which is enough evidence for her to report back to Julien, who, by the way, got semi-outed by Gossip Girl as dating a married man. Julien is convinced that this gossip is what pulled her partnership with LVMH. Please, Julien. Be serious! LVMH is international, and having a belle de jour is far too puritanical a reason to end a major deal. If this was an American brand, maybe, but I guarantee the French don’t give a fuck about who you’re fucking.
Julien convinces Graham to accompany her to Max’s dads’ vow renewal, where she plans to “stop the story†live. The pregnant woman, also known as Graham’s sister, stops the actual story, and boy is she bothered by her brother’s antics. She reveals to Julien that she had wanted to file suit against Daddy Davis but couldn’t cover legal fees. Graham was dating Julien to avenge his sister before he realized that Julien had been wronged too. We don’t find out who the sister’s baby daddy is, though, and I am praying that Julien and Zoya aren’t about to inherit another half-sister because I cannot keep going with Graham. Let this be the end of all lines: Davis’s and the story’s. Oh, and also, it turns out that Julien’s partnership was pulled because her income goes straight to a trust under her dad’s name and LVMH didn’t want any ties back to Davis. Girl, just open an HYSA at Capital One! This problem has a straightforward solution.
Now that that’s out of the way, time for the main course of tonight’s episode. Welcome back to our very own Georgia Sparks and Nelly Yuki! God, Georgina is good. I should have known she was behind the blackmailing. After all, she’s been tormenting Dan and Serena for years! She kidnaps Kate (while she’s on the phone with Jordan, who’s confessing his love to her), drugs her in the Humphrey-Van der Woodsen residence, and announces the new world order. The first order of business is to sabotage Gideon and Roy’s vow renewal for unknown reasons and enlist Kate to do all her dirty work. It seems like there’s a new crazy bitch around here after all, and I wonder how much screen time she’ll be getting amid Jordan’s rather sudden resignation.
Meanwhile, Georgina’s protégé, I mean son, Milo, is helping Zoya track down her one-night stand from Philly after she discovers a sex tape starring her (under her Philly alias, Monet de Haan) is circulating. As if securing Plan B wasn’t bad enough! Give this girl a break! Zoya invites Drew (I think that’s his name) to the vow renewal under the promise that poet Amanda Gorman is performing. She snatches his phone and hands it off to a spy who searches it for the sex tape only to find that the phone is completely clean. Drew discovers them sleuthing and owns up to the tape, offering up some sob story about schoolboys that bully him because he’s a virgin … so he thought that taping his and Zoya’s hookup was a solution that made sense. He claims to have deleted all copies, but that doesn’t change the fact that he literally produced illegal child porn! Zoya tells him off, but I find myself yearning for more. There’s no way that Drew can get away with this! And that’s when Monet swoops in, letting little Z know that she’s taken care of it, de Haan style. It looks like Drew’s school isn’t too pleased to hear about his extracurricular activities and the boy has been expelled!
Nelly shows up as New York Magazine’s youngest deputy editor and is ready to make a name for herself with Obie’s big exposé on his family. He tells her that the Bergmanns knowingly broke ground on apartment buildings that have started sinking in the soil much too fast and his mom paid someone to doctor the reports. Too bad Obie is an amateur compared to Mommie Dearest and strikes too late. He’s playing checkers; she’s playing 3-D chess. The fact that the Bergmanns cut Obie off just makes him look more thirsty for blood. He’s just a brat going after the Bergmanns because he no longer has a black card. Daniela takes the fall for the Bergmanns, which kills Obie’s chances of ever bringing the scandal to light, and then kills herself after going public. Très dark!
On a lighter note, this episode gives me my favorite dynamic: Max and Audrey planning, scheming, and problem-solving. I’m not kidding. I love these two together. Their chemistry and chaos remind me of early Chuck and Blair, who I’m missing more than ever amid Georgina’s resurgence. After a last-minute venue cancellation, the pair are off to the races and manage to book the Brooklyn Academy of Music. One question: How much money did big BAM pay HBO Max? It’s all Graham can talk about, and now Roy and Gideon are holding their vow renewal there? Not for long, though! Thanks to Georgina and her severe hairstyles, the ceremony is sabotaged. Kiki’s designs are duped with Macy’s replacements, NYPD floods the place, and sitting front row are Roy’s ghosts from Grindr. Good thing true love isn’t about pomp and circumstance! Roy and Gideon haul their wilted chuppah home and have an intimate ceremony in front of their nearest and dearest! Love wins, as they say!
XOXO
• Spotted: Joshua Safran and Stephanie Savage listed in Zoya’s contacts, a meta moment.
• How much money does Aki’s dad really have? “Bezos once asked them for a loan,†he tells Obie.