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“Vanessa From Queens

Honestly, she might not be from Queens at all, but how often can one tie in a Malkmus song to an episode of Gossip Girl? (Actually, I don’t know the answer to this either as I’ve never really thought much about linking the two. Perhaps its easier than imagined. This might make a fun game for those of you at home.) Either way, Vanessa is here and she’s intent on shaking things up in that quaint berg known as the UES — so long as the shake-ups don’t last for more than one hour (or 43 minutes after you account for commercials). More after the jump…

I think this is what you would call a low-stakes episode. There were conflicts. There was dancing. There were quips. It was all pretty straight forward, more or less predictable and easy to resolve without things getting too terribly messy. Hell, they even gave a few lines for Blair’s multicultural flacks to deliver. I’m torn because I quite liked the episode as a piece of mindless entertainment, but I always find this show far more interesting when there’s a bit more venom. Even Chuck, who is usually good for some prosecutable sexual harassment at the very least, fell for the ol’ wait for me on the roof without your pants routine — a move that has been around longer than Jenny Humphrey has been alive.

What I did enjoy was the actual Gossip Girl website playing a role in the narrative (Dan reads on the site about how Blair is scrambling to set up Serena with a date for the dance). One of the things the pilot did so well was capture the importance of technology in the lives of modern teenagers. Either via the blog or excessive text-messages, these kids are suppose to be completely plugged into the grid. Over the past few weeks the ever-present nature of this reality has ebbed to the point of distraction. The show is named after a gossip blog for crying out loud. This week things seemed more on track in the technology department, though like most things I wish they’d push it further. If there were ever a series that could capture how often kids text one another it would have the potential to come off as one of the most visually curious pieces of contemporary art in decades. Honestly, how could you convey the subtle art of texting on film without it coming off as cheesy? Perhaps this is a problem for a future generation.

Here’s a question: at what point does cool-dad turn into creepy-dad? Is it when said dad is having heart to hearts with his son’s ex-girlfriend? (Of course we learned later in the show that Venessa was Dan’s best friend, not ex-girlfriend, but still Rufus has been walking that fine line for weeks). I suppose this could raise several interesting questions about parenthood. For one, isn’t there an intrinsic problem in attempting to be the cool guy with the cool kids? How does youthful rebellion work when one is surrounded by such intense levels of cool (which can typically be measured by figuring the difference between the cool-dad’s goatee length and the tonal differences in his shirt/jacket combinations — it requires a graphing calculator)? I can’t say that the Rufus stuff is particularly interesting, but there is certainly something to be said for adults who act like teenagers who act like adults. If Rufus were an electric guitar he’d been feeding back like crazy.

Some questions to close:

• Why is Jenny so obsessed with joining Blairs band of merry fashionistas when she is so regularly treated like dirt? Granted, this isn’t much different than the typical frat/sorority pledge nonsense, but still.
• Serena’s a little needy, no? Granted, Dan did lie and was clearing with another girl, but c’mon they’ve been on two dates! It’s not like he left her on the aisle.
• Could Nate be any less interesting? Perhaps only if he weren’t on Gossip Girl, but instead on The Hills.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Gossip Girl, The CW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.