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Gossip Girl: The Magnificent Archibalds

By fred | November 18, 2008

(S02E11) With so many characters and so much going on in everyone’s lives, it’s not uncommon for a story to pop up one week only to be forgotten for a few weeks, if not disappear into the abysses never to come back again. This week it was Thanksgiving on the Upper East Side, and that allowed for many things to come to some kind of resolution. And of course, because you always need more drama, we also had lots of new doors opening to future complications.

If at first I liked Jenny when she tried to live her dream and make it on her own, if I was on her side when Rufus wasn’t willing to let her try, last week things changed as Jenny clearly took a wrong turn and went to the dark side. This wasn’t pretty, and it looked like it wasn’t going to be any prettier any time soon, as Jenny wanted to “divorce” her parents.

And I just loved that she was surprised to find out that - who would have guessed? - they have to be made aware of it! Anyways, I’m glad Jenny returned to her true self and decided not to go with it, because Bad Jenny wasn’t someone we wanted to see around, seeing the way she treated everyone. But, with a little help of Lily and, in the most surprising turn of events, Blair herself, Jenny went back home and told her father she loved him, too. Aww.

Now all was perfect and fine because it was the holiday and it was a time to be happy, and finally everyone could, but Jenny still has a lot on her plate. Because she’ll have to talk with Rufus about what to do next, about her clothing business, about school, everything. And of course there’s the love life, because for now both she and Nate think that things are over as they haven’t heard of each other in weeks, but that’s only because Jenny wasn’t home for all that time.

So she didn’t get the letter Nate sent her, most likely a love letter, as indicated by the last words we got to see - “Now that your bother knows about us I have to stay away from you. But I don’t want to. I really care about you. I just don’t know what to do.” - when Vanessa opened it. For now Vanessa is keeping the letter, and maybe she’ll destroy it, maybe not, either way she seems determined to get into their way because she still has feelings for Nate, as she almost admitted.

But now that Nate is staying in town, he and Jenny are doomed to bump into each other and talk, and talk about that letter she never got. I’m sure drama will ensure, and soon enough when Vanessa’s role will be uncovered we can expect a lot more drama — isn’t it fun? I can’t wait to see how things will turn out, and at this point I’m not even sure who I’m rooting for, Vanessa or Jenny ?

Because Nate’s situation is all better, he patched things up with both Vanessa and Chuck, as both helped him when his dad showed up, again. He said he wanted to live with Nate and his mother, away, be a family, but all he really meant was to kidnap them and ask Nate’s grandparents for money to get them back. Clearly the guy hasn’t changed, or maybe he has. Because when Nate gave him a choice, he chose not to run, an went away with the FBI. I think this puts an end to this whole mess, and Nate can finally have his life back.

Some stories came to an end, others weren’t mentioned (like Chuck willing to save the building Vanessa introduced him to, or that whole fire secret in Bart’s past that Dan “uncovered”), and others just didn’t really go anywhere. My God could that Aaron be any more boring ?? I just hated this whole thing, and he might have decided to be a one-woman guy and not read Serena’s file, but I still don’t like him, and find them utterly boring together. I’m sure some big, dark secret will be revealed about him soon, but I don’t think I care, they should just get ride of him I say.

But everyone was happy, for once. Even Blair managed to find peace with her new family ! (Side note: how did her mother go from such a manipulative bitch to care so much for Jenny ?? I know she’s only 15, but that hasn’t stopped Eleanor in the past for using and abusing her talent… Thanksgiving miracle I guess.) Everyone? No, not everyone was happy.

Because Bart really wants family, maybe not so much because he cares and loves her, but because he needs one, it’s better for business. And things aren’t looking up, as everyone found out about his secret files and Lily just took her kids and rushed to spend the night over at Rufus ! Now that’s not good for Bart’s business, and apparently the big secret he found out some time ago, was that Lily, at age 19, went though a similar experience as Eric did not long ago, and was institutionalized.

I didn’t really see that coming, and I am guilty of being curious indeed as to why she ended up there, but I have a feeling curiosity might not really be Bart’s motives when he decided to find out more about it. We all know how he works, through blackmail and threats…

All in all this was a good episode, many stories came to a satisfying resolution while other new exciting ones were set in motion, and yet I still feel like it wasn’t as good an episode as we’ve been getting from Gossip Girl recently.

What did you think ? Was this episode good ? Was it as good as the ones we’ve been having lately ? And who do you think Nate should end up with : Vanessa, or Jenny ?

Posted in Reviews
Shows: Gossip Girl