'Gossip Girl' season 6 premiere recap: A fresh start

With age comes wisdom? Whoever said that should have passed the memo to the Gossip Girl gang, because after six seasons, they’re still as clueless as ever. Of course, with only ten episodes of joy this season, I would ask for nothing else. If this season began with anything other than their normal ridiculousness, I would have cried foul.

Instead, this final season of kicked off in fine form, with a hot Chuck and Blair hotel room romp, one very confusing pairing, Serena overdosing on a train (stay classy), and enough one-liners to fill every last crystal bowl in Lily’s Upper East Side mausoleum.

Most of the episode centered on the gang reconvening from their summer adventures to find their loose cannon friend Serena. Minus the cannon. Her mom came home from traveling with Bart only to realize that Serena had not been seen in months. (“How could I have thought it was okay to go all summer without actually talking to my own daughter?” Lily later asked. To which we say, because you’re a horrible mother.)

So of course the gang dropped what they were doing to look for the group flake. Nate had been very busy flirting with a fetus and a carrying around sheets of paper, Blair was flirting with Frenchmen who know her flight preferences, Dan was getting bossed around by a giant GeorGINA, and Chuck was channeling his daddy issues into business.

After the hot and heavy scene between Chuck and Blair early in the episode, I was a little confused about their seemingly distant status until they explained a deal they had made. They planned to finish their ongoing projects before making their relationship official again. As Blair explained, “We had to come to some kind of agreement or else we never would have left that hotel room in Monte Carlo….like I said in the casino, I’m all in.” Lovely.

As you may have guessed, the gang did find Serena eventually, but only after Nate traded a huge story (that would have possibly revealed identity of Gossip Girl) in exchange for info on Serena’s whereabouts.

It turns out she had cleverly changed her name to Sabrina after starting a new, clean life with Steven (Barry Watson). (Yes, people — as if she needed to drive her point home even more, she settled down with someone from 7th Heaven.) She just wanted a fresh start, and who can blame her? Everyone deserves a ninth chance — even when you’re from Wisconsin! And if you can do it without joining a cult, awesome. (I have to admit, I had my money on cult.)

Alas, after Serena had a blow-up (/break-up) with Blair and the gang realized that they were crashing a happy gay couples wedding, they all headed back to NY without Serena in tow. But it didn’t stay that way. She came back on her own — with Steven — by the end of the episode. Ah, how nice it is to have everyone back in the city. Well, unless you’re Dan, who came home to find his dad in bed with Poison Ivy. Ugh, Nightmare on Water Street.

So what did you think of the premiere, gang? Did you enjoy this group caper as much as I did? Does Dan have a point when it comes to Chuck and Blair? Is anyone else totally grossed out by what happened between Ivy and Rufus? Will Nate be the one to unmask Gossip Girl? Did you simultaneously love and hate Dan and Georgina hanging out together? And did you like seeing Blair and Chuck in a limo for old times sake?

Quoteables

“You shouldn’t be creating in a workshop, you’re not an elf.” — Georgina

“She never kept a day planner?” — Nate, who mentally resides in 1993

“We raise good girls.” — Rufus. (What? No one else laughed?)

Dan: You can at least pretend you’re relieved that Serena wasn’t institutionalized.

Georgina: Any disappointment you’re sensing is not because the mental hospital was a dead end. It stems from the fact that you ad I missed out on a real opportunity — empty hospital bed, four-point restraints

Dan: Stop right there before I start chugging this premium unleaded.

“Crashing parties is one of our favorite past times.” — Chuck

“Wisconsin? Seriously? Do you even know where that is on a map?” — Dan to Serena

Blair: The only thing you were supposed to be doing is getting between that man and his cloth.

Georgina: He’s Protestant. I do my best work with Catholics.

Chuck: Thank God I’m an atheist.

“You think you two have an epic love, but all you have is excuses.” Dan to Blair. (But what do you really think, Dan?!)

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