TV Review: Gossip Girl 6×08 – “It’s Really Complicated”

Gossip Girl Episode 6×08 – “It’s Really Complicated” – Aired December 3, 2012

Tonight was the overdue Thanksgiving episode for this season. I always liked how the whole idea of Thanksgiving juxtaposed the scheming and lying going on as our favorite Upper East Siders celebrated the holiday. It shouldn’t be surprising that my favorite episode is Season 3’s Thanksgiving episode and that I was hoping this one would be as good or even better. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good, but it wasn’t terrible. Yet, with two more episodes left after this, well… it sure doesn’t look all that promising.

“It’s Really Complicated” started off with Serena and Dan planning a Thanksgiving dinner for their family and friends. Serena enlists the help of Blair to get her Thanksgiving party going, but of course, Blair creates her own agenda. Because of her strong dislike of Dan, Blair wants to get Serena back together with Steven (guest star Barry Watson). Therefore, she makes a deal with Sage (guest star Zoe Aggeliki) to get her dad to come to Serena and Dan’s dinner. On to her next scheme, Blair finally gets Chuck out of his funk and convinces him to come to the dinner with her, by posing as a stripper version of Pocahontas. It’s there that she tells Chuck of a way to convince Lily about Bart’s evil ways. They’re successful, and the two make a charming toast to going to war together. How very Chair.

Back to Dan, he’s battling the decision to publish one of two chapters about Serena, one spins her in a good light, the other bad. When he sees that Serena invited Steven to dinner, he gets annoyed and insecure about his place in the Upper East Side world. So he decides to give the go-ahead for the “mean” chapter, which at dinner, Georgina makes sure to announce to everyone. Dan tells Serena how he feels about her and her world and basically everything he’s always felt bitter and resentful when it comes to the Upper East Side. It ends with Dan getting punched by Nate, striking a possible partnership with Bart Bass and telling Rufus that he has a plan and it’s all working out for him.

There were elements of this episode that I did enjoy. Chuck and Blair scheming away are always entertaining to watch, and I’m glad their break-up didn’t last long enough to break Chair-shippers hearts.

In my review of last week’s episode, I was very harsh on Dan, and after this one, you’d think I’d continue to feel that way. Maybe right after last night’s episode, I did. But now, I just feel bad for him because as much as he tries, he can’t ever shake off “Lonely Boy.” Dan thinks that by hurting his friends in order to advance as a prominent writer, it will help him. In ways, it has, but in the long run, he’s hurting himself more than anyone else. He still loves Serena. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have felt the need to protect himself by publishing the bad chapter about her. Hell! If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have struggled so much about which chapter to publish. Dan was always about helping others, just like his dad. And now, he’s trying so hard to think only of himself, and that goes against his very nature. Dan will never be absolutely part of the NJBC’s (Non-Judging-Breakfast-Club) world. He wasn’t born into it, but he can still be a part of it, contribute and be appreciated by that society.

With only two episodes left, it’s not hard to see where this is going. Dan will finally see reason, and his new alliance with Bart Bass will end up helping Chuck nail down Bart once and for all. Of course, it will all be packed with drama and minor subplots. (Next week’s episode looks positively melodramatic.) By the end, it’ll probably fast-forward a few years so that we are reassured that our favorite characters are happily riding off into the Manhattan sunset. The real only question now is… Who is Gossip Girl? I predicted that it would be Bart Bass or have something to do with him. I’m starting to waver on that, but I’ll stick by it until I see what happens next week.

Rating: 6/10 stars

Gossip Girl airs Mondays at 9/8c on The CW.

Watch the preview for next week’s episode here:

Gabrielle Bondi

Gabrielle founded The Young Folks in 2010 with Luciana Villalba. Since then, she has served as editor-in-chief and oversees the staff and editorial content on The Young Folks. She recently graduated from Northwestern University and is now working on her master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism.