This episode could be reduced to a few simple questions like, “Where’s Blair?”  Or, “Have you seen Blair?” Or, “If you don’t tell me where Blair is, I’ll do something terrible to you.” Other than that, nothing happened. Nothing. When the reruns air, I’d change this episode’s title to: “Dan and Blair Sit Around in an Airport and then a Hotel While Other People Wonder Where They Are.” See, you read that and you don’t even need to watch. I just saved America 42 minutes. I hope that time’s used well. With that in mind, here’s this week’s power ranking for 5×14:

Related posts:

• Conspiracy Theory: Georgina Sparks Is A Gossip Girl, But Not The Gossip Girl
• Gossip Girl Power Ranking: ‘G.G.’
• Gossip Girl Power Ranking: ‘Father And The Bride’
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: ‘The End Of The Affair?’
• Questionable Choices: Blake Lively Was Basically Naked At Gossip Girl‘s 100th Episode Party

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Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared last Thursday “Gossip Girl Day” in honor of the show’s 100th episode. In celebration, I posted all my friend’s most embarrassing secrets on my blog and then slept with three of them in consecutive days. This is going to be the best new holiday since Thanksgiving! But let’s talk about another national event: Blair’s wedding to Louis, and the fact that the bride did not leave with the groom. Here’s this week’s power ranking:

Related posts:

• Gossip Girl Power Ranking: ‘Father And The Bride’
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: ‘The End Of The Affair?’
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Riding in Town Cars with Boys
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Rhodes to Perdition
• Penn Badgley Wore An Occupy Wall Street Shirt To Meet NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

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Yesterday, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg joined the cast of Gossip Girl on set to celebrate the series’ 100th episode “G.G.,” airing next Monday. Everyone got all dressed up while Bloomberg held up a proclamation declaring it “Gossip Girl Day” (aww, but what?) and a commemorative T-shirt.

I was ready for that to be the story, but there’s another T-shirt worth noting. BuzzFeed commenter Ashley Baccarn pointed out that Penn Badgley is wearing a “We Are the 99%” tee while he lounges next to the man who gave the order to break up the Occupiers in Zuccotti Park back in November 2011. Penn was one of the first celebrities to make an appearance, even holding up a sign that read Bring back the Glass-Steagall act! No to corporate greed! Awkward.

Also, where were Chace Crawford and Leighton Meester?

Related posts:

• Video: Penn Badgley’s First TV Role Was On Will And Grace
• Gallery: 25 Photos Of Penn Badgley On His 25th Birthday
• Penn Badgley Knows Nothing About How Gossip Girl Works Because He Thinks Blair And Dan Are Soulmates
• Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley Joins Occupy Wall Street
• Gossip Girl Power Ranking: ‘Father And The Bride’

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We’ve made some changes to our Gossip Girl recaps: Joshua Friesen will still be asking why there are so many parties and ragging on Penn Badgley in the way that made his “30 Year-Old-Man’s Guide to Gossip Girl” posts so funny. But now he’s adding in sports-inspired power rankings to keep you abreast of all the social intrigue on the show.

I love sports. I guess that’s no big surprise; I am a man in his (early) thirties, after all. Inspired by that love, I’ve adapted a common sports writing tool that allows me to bring a bit of quantitative analysis to the teen drama game: The power ranking. If you’re not familiar with the concept of a power ranking, it’s generally used to rank sports teams or athletes, how their performance rises and falls over time, and the reasons for any change.

Each week I’ll rank all the major characters and any minor characters that played an important role in the episode. With that out of the way, here’s the very first Gossip Girl Power Ranking:

Judging by the preview, it looks like next week is D-Day for Blair and Louis. Maybe we’ll see The Graduate all over again: Chuck banging on the church window, he and Blair making their escape on a passing bus, sitting in silence together as the full weight of their decision comes crashing down… Probably not. Knowing this show, they’ll just drag the wedding out over the next seven episodes. I guess we’ll see.

Related posts:

• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: ‘The End Of The Affair?’
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Riding in Town Cars with Boys
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Rhodes to Perdition
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: All The Pretty Sources

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It’s good to be back! It feels like it’s been a thousand years since the last new episode. How was everyone’s holiday? Are you keeping your resolutions? No, you’re right. We should catch up later. There’s business to get to.

I try hard to be evenhanded about this show. I recognize it will never win an Emmy, and it’s not even really trying. It’s a frivolous soap opera that I enjoy dissecting, so when there’s a ridiculous plot turn, I try to take it in stride and not make a big deal about it, because in the end, this isn’t Shakespeare. That being said, this episode was terrible, easily the worst of the season. It was so awful, I don’t know where to start. I guess for clarity’s sake we’ll begin from the top.

Six weeks ago, we were left with Chuck lying in a hospital bed, at death’s door. As this episode opens, we see a healthy Chuck walking his dog in the rain, and before we’re able to process exactly what’s happening, he meets Louis and we learn Blair lost her baby (which I predicted several episodes back. I’m not bragging, except that I am), she and Louis have reunited, their wedding is back on, and she’s completely frozen Chuck out of her life. I feel robbed.

Basic television rules are being ignored here. When one of your principle characters is unconscious for any length of time (excluding sleep, of course), you’re required to reveal his inner turmoil and secret truths in the form of a coma dream. Usually these are thin allegories. Sometimes they’re more literal. If you’re The Sopranos, coma dreams become Finnegan’s Wake. Any one of these options is acceptable, but you don’t just skip months ahead. That’s not allowed.

Related posts:

• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Riding in Town Cars with Boys
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Rhodes to Perdition
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: All The Pretty Sources
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: The Big Sleep No More
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: I Am Number 9

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Birthday boy Penn Dayton Badgley has been acting since he was a kid. Perhaps in honor of his special day, the Gossip Girl fans at HuffPo have unearthed a clip from his very first credited TV role, and I’m very glad they did. In this short appearance (can’t really call it a cameo, as he wasn’t famous yet), Badgley plays “Boy #1,” a sexually insecure youngster who gets off on bullying kids he thinks might be gay. (At least that’s what I took from it.) Luckily, good old Jack was there to save the day.

The musicality with which he sang “nah nah nah nah nah” may have presaged his casting in Greetings From Tim Buckley, but who could have predicted that chunky little kid would grow up into the chiseled Dan Humphrey we know and love today? This just adds more ammunition to my theory that people who are hot as sexually mature adults were often weird-looking as kids or teens, and vice versa. Case in point: every child actor ever.

(Via HuffPo)

Related posts:

• Gallery: 25 Photos Of Penn Badgley On His 25th Birthday
• Penn Badgley Knows Nothing About How Gossip Girl Works Because He Thinks Blair And Dan Are Soulmates
• Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley Joins Occupy Wall Street
• New Couple Alert: Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley Is Dating Zoe Kravitz

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Happy 25th birthday to Penn Badgley and his cheekbones! Guess what I learned today? Penn’s middle name is Dayton. Penn Dayton Badgley — is that not the fanciest damn name you’ve ever heard? Anyway, here are 25 photos of the Gossip Girl star to print out and celebrate with.

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• Jennifer Aniston isn’t pregnant or getting married. (Have U Heard)

• Katie Holmes looking hot in red. (Hollywood Hiccups)

• Amy Winehouse way over the legal limit of blood alcohol when she died.  (Celeb Dirty Laundry)

• Jessica Simpson now 6 months pregnant? (Have U Heard)

• Penn Badgley and Blake Lively spotted on set. (Lainey Gossip)

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His titles thus far: Yes, Then Zero, Beauty and the Feast, The Jewel of Denial, and Memoirs of an Invisible Dan. Each title a delicious pun, each title encapsulating an entire episode in less than five words. In homage to you, mysterious sir, I’ve created my own alternative title to this week’s episode. I’ll call it, Bonfire of the Danitites. Awesome, right? Right? I hate myself…

After careening at breakneck speed for the last month, events slow in week four and focus on Dan as he attempts to come to terms with his newfound literary acclaim and the collateral damage it creates in his social circle. This was a sad episode in many ways. The characters seem to be drifting away from each other as they grow in their new lives and that was highlighted this week as each character experienced loneliness and solitude in different ways. I promise that’s as serious as these recaps will ever get. Now let’s get snarky!

• Tate Donovan directed this week’s episode! For those who don’t know, he played Marissa Cooper’s hapless father on The OC. I always had a soft spot for that guy. He might be the biggest loser in the history of television.

• I don’t know if I can handle all this genius talk surrounding Dan and his novel. By the end of the episode his book is number four on Amazon’s pre-order list, and he’s being hailed as the voice of his generation by the New York press. If that’s the case, his generation’s voice is going to be oddly deep for its body type.

• Gossip Girl pulled a Law and Order with a phone hacking plotline ripped from the headlines. What’s next? Will the gang stage a sympathy protest for the kids down on Wall Street and #occupybergdorfs?

• I don’t know what kind of accent Louis has, but it isn’t French. It sounds like he’s speaking through a mouth full of marshmallows.

• How far along is Blair, anyway? They revealed her positive pregnancy test at the end of season four, and a summer passed before season five picked up. Simple math says that Blair is at least three months along, maybe as many as four. So unless she’s pulling a Beyonce and faking her pregnancy, she should be showing by now. Hold on… IS BLAIR FAKING HER PREGNANCY?

• Am I really expected to believe Daniel Day-Lewis would pass on a movie because a fictionalized version of Serena drank too much and slept around in some book? The Daniel Day-Lewis I envision reads only The Master and Margarita in its original Russian and cares not for the dealings of petty little girls.

• In case you’re wondering, Sloane Crosby is a real writer and so is her book I Was Told There’d be Cake (I had to Google this). Sorry CBS/Warner Brothers, despite your best efforts at subtle product placement, I will not be reading Ms. Crosby’s book. I will be eating cake, however. So, well done there.

• Louis continues to show up at precisely the right moment to hear key pieces of information meant to be secret, and he always manages to explain why he’s someplace he isn’t supposed to be. This show is thorough.

• Elizabeth Hurley hires Charlie/Ivy to work at her gossip rag. This will play out in one of two ways: Hurley will blackmail Charlie/Ivy into spying on her friends and gathering dirt for publication, or Hurley is jealous of Charlie/Ivy’s growing relationship with Nate and she’s setting her up for a fall. Either way, I hope Charlie/Ivy will be exposed and ruined. Max, I’ve got your back, brother.

• Rufus eviscerates Dan at the end of this episode. He’s always been portrayed as a loving father, but no loving father would say those terrible things to his own son, especially in the moment of his greatest triumph. Character assassination in the name of plot is the most heinous crime of the hack writer. I should know; I recognize my own kind.

• Serena’s charged with obtaining the movie right to Dan’s novel, which is another not-so-subtle attempt to liken Dan to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Remember at the start of the season, they were producing a film version of Fitzgerald’s novel The Beautiful and the Damned. Maybe David O. Russell will be attached to direct Inside.

Well, that wraps the major events of week four. Two predictions for week five: after alienating his friends and family, Dan turns to the arms of his agent, Alessandra Steele (by the way, only porn stars have the last name Steele. It’s a documented fact), and Elizabeth Hurley reveals herself to be Shiva the destroyer god of Hindu theology. I’d lay odds on the first prediction.

Related posts:

• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: The Jewel of Denial
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Beauty and the Feast
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: Yes, Then Zero

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Blair, actually. Definitely. I think Blair is Dan’s soul mate. I don’t know if they’re ever going to get together, but I’ll tell you that I’ve never enjoyed any scenes on the show as much as those scenes with Leighton Meester, on a strictly intellectually as an actor. There’s a whole other thing—like everything that happened early on in the show, like the obvious Dan and Serena stuff, that moved me in a different way for obvious reasons, but strictly as an actor, those scenes with Blair are the best.

Wrong! Wrong wrong wrong.

Let me get up on my purist soapbox for a minute. Dan/Blair, or “Dair,” is not actually a thing because it never happened in Cecily von Ziegesar‘s books. Early in the first or second season of The CW’s Gossip Girl show, it became clear that the writers were deviating from the books and would have to come up with flashier, sexier plotlines. But this was the last piece of sacred ground left unclaimed!

A big part of this was that in the books, Dan was a creep. He’s skinny, perpetually wired on caffeine and smoking a cigarette, and prone to delusions of grandeur. He stalks more than goes out with girls and is always sabotaging his relationships of any kind. He and Blair almost never cross paths except when he very briefly dates Serena — yep, it’s not a seasons-long drama like on the show — and so she doesn’t think much of him. The TV show’s choice to have Blair actively look down her nose at Dan and snark about his poorness was a hilarious addition, but that’s where their interactions should have stopped.

Now they’re kissing, and they probably had sex… It just mocks Blair’s character. It was OK for Blake Lively to get swept up in young love with Dan because Serena is stupid and will entertain any guy who falls in love with her for a little while. On the other hand, Blair is unapologetically conceited and upper-class.

In the books, Blair does end up “slumming it” with a Brooklynite… but that’s Vanessa, who briefly becomes Blair’s roommate. Their tenuous friendship is really fun to read because it seemed like a natural progression in the books (it comes in the last third of the series), and not a desperate, last-ditch pairing like on the TV show.

The main difference here is that a lot of the romance’s development is based on the actors’ chemistry. The Gossip Girl producers have said that they first noticed Dan and Blair’s chemistry in a season 1 episode. Furthermore, Leighton agrees with Penn that their characters fit well together: “I like that friendship… I think they’re good for each other in a lot of ways, in a way that Chuck and Blair aren’t.”

Still, you have to respect the story above which actors happen to look pretty together.

Then again, I just discovered that the ninth, tenth, and eleventh (last) books were ghostwritten, so that just stabbed my faith in Cecily’s vision for the series. But I still believe!

Related posts:

• Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley Joins Occupy Wall Street
• New Couple Alert: Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley Is Dating Zoe Kravitz
• Photos of Penn Badgley as Jeff Buckley Are Released, We Just See Hungover Dan Humphrey
• The 30-Year-Old Man’s Guide To Gossip Girl: The Jewel of Denial
• Sorry Mom, I Can’t Sue Cecily von Ziegesar For ‘Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer’

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