Doorman: Sorry, but you’re not on the list.
Blair: Of course I am. This is my dream!
Doorman: Not anymore.
Gossip Girl: Hey, Upper East Siders, there’s nothing Gossip Girl likes more than a surprise. And we hear Blair Waldorf’s got a two-for-one special. Her mom, Eleanor, who just returned from Paris, and Serena van der Woodsen, lunch buddies.
Eleanor (Margaret Colin): Before you tuck into that, you might find a lowfat yogurt more appealing.
Gossip Girl: Serena and Blair might have plans for the day, but Nate and Chuck are fully booked for the weekend. If they survive it.
Chuck: You’ve lived through Ivy Week and hopefully gained entry into the college of your choice. Now, let’s ruin those chances. Let me remind you of the rules. As of this moment there is no outside world that I do not show you. You eat what I provide, practice what I preach. Until I say so, the only girls you talk to are the ones I’ve paid for. Let the lost weekend commence.
Chuck: Who brought the sasquatch?
Nate: Isn’t that Carter Baizen? I haven’t seen him since he was a senior and we were in the eighth grade. He looks intense.
Chuck: Are you high? He looks like Matthew McConaughey between movies. The guy’s a loser. Look, anyone who trades their trust fund for a fanny pack flies in the face of all that is holy to Chuck Bass.
Carter Baizen (Sebastian Stan): Nate Archibald, is that you?
Nate: Baizen, my man. I heard you went rogue.
Carter: And lived to tell about it.
Gossip Girl: Seems like someone’s itinerary didn’t leave room for interlopers. Doesn’t Chuck know a party isn’t a party until someone crashes?
Serena: This is what I love about this city. You’re always bumping into people. What are you doing here?
Dan: I’m just on my way back from my mom’s, dropping Jenny off in Hudson. I took a couple of Cubans for me and my dad. Sandwiches, not cigars.
Serena: Hey, remember when you said we should get together some time and not talk? I was just wondering, is it sometime yet?
Blair: That was disgusting. The DOH should shut them down.
Serena: The bathroom?
Blair: No, the people. It’s called Nolita not No Showers. {to Dan} What are you doing here? Do I smell pork? And… cheese? {to Serena} Okay, well when you’re done with your charity work why don’t you come find me. I’ll be at Tory Burch looking at ponchos.
Dan: Isn’t that the girl who told the entire school and, oh, several colleges that you had a drug problem?
Serena: Yeah, but Blair can be a little… Blair. We’re actually trying to work things out. Today is our first day hanging out together, alone.
Chuck: You’re the guy who gave us our first joint, snuck us into our first club. And you’re going to tell me the life of a YouTube filmmaker is better than this? You invented the lost weekend.
Nate: Who cares about a party when you can travel the world.
Carter: Exactly.
Chuck: As much as I love the speech about not needing material things from a guy who has that much product in his hair, this party is about excess. Not exposition. Stop talking. Start partying. {two girls sidle up beside him} Now here is something that doesn’t need material. As a matter of fact it’s about to come off. Who’s with me?
Nate: I think I’m just gonna hang here for a bit.
Chuck: Fine. I’d hate to break up a matched set anyway.
Eleanor: If this person is supposed to represent Waldorf Designs we have to find someone… worthy of the clothes. Someone like me. Someone like… my daughter.
Laurel (Michelle Hurd): Well, why not her? You want your line to represent the Waldorf lifestyle. Who better to represent you than one of your own family?
Eleanor: She was my first dressform.
Gossip Girl: Is that a smile we see on B’s lips? The spotlight’s on her for once and S actually helped her get it. I guess miracles can happen.
Kati: I think this is my best pose.
Iz: That’s because you can’t see what you look like. You’re just a hand model and that’s it.
Dan: Look, can I just please talk to Serena?
Blair: Apparently you can, Cabbage Patch.
Bex Simon (Jill Flint): I’ve heard a lot about your gallery. I wasn’t expecting a piece like this from a former rock star.
Rufus: I prefer “one-hit wonder.”
Bex: What turned you gallerist?
Rufus: I’ve always had artist pursuits.
Bex: We have something in common. I always pursue artists.
Chuck: What is Carter still doing here?
Nate: I invited him.
Chuck: Or he invited himself. That is his style. Begging us to break free of our prisons while stuffing his face with free food and draining our booze. He’s a deadbeat and a hypocrite.
Chuck: This is the lost weekend for juniors, not senior citizens. Go jump into a volcano.
Serena: Let’s do something crazy, like Britney with the umbrella, okay? Britney with the umbrella. Go! {Blair starts wailing on her} I’m the car! I’m the car!
Serena: Posh Spice in America. Ready go!
Blair: That’s Cyborg Spice to you.
Chuck: Phase Three: Pub Crawl. Five burroughs. Five hundred chances to get laid. And remember, don’t dip your shalaly in the wrong pot o’ gold.
Chuck: Let’s go, you can think about your boyfriend inside.
Nate: I’m not coming.
Chuck: Seriously, Carter Baizen sucks. I don’t know what spell he’s put you under but he’s not your friend. He can’t be trusted.
Nate: And why’s that? Because he doesn’t believe what you believe in? It’s exactly what he said: the money, the drugs, the privileges. They’re just keeping us numb so we don’t notice it’s better out there in the real world.
Chuck: The real world? Everyone out there wants to be us. We are what to aspire to, not run away from.
Dan: I don’t know about Serena, Dad. I can’t tell if she’s worth it.
Rufus: What do you mean?
Dan: Well, ah, she’s best friends with this girl, Blair Waldorf. Who is basically everything I hate about the Upper East Side distilled into one 95-pound, doe-eyed, bon mot tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil.
Rufus: No one’s that bad.
Dan: She is. I would barely be exaggerating if I told you Medusa wants her withering glare back.
Rufus: I dated a girl like Serena once—actually a lot like Serena. And girls like that are challenging, it’s true. They’re complicated and… enigmatic. But usually worth it. And the only way you’ll know for sure is to jump in with both feet.
Dan: What happened with you?
Rufus: I swam for awhile. Until I drowned.
Dan: Oh. Well thanks, that’s a great story, Dad.
Blair: You haven’t done this since I was little.
Eleanor: You haven’t been in bed by ten since you were little. You looked beautiful tonight, you know?
Blair: Really?
Serena: I’m calling you with make-up plan.
Dan: Oh, are you now?
Serena: I am. How would you like to see what really happens at a fashion shoot?
Dan: I’m sorry, this is Dan Humphrey. Are you sure you’re not trying to reach my sister?
Serena: I know it’s a girly offer, but chew on this: I’ll be there.
Dan: Can I bet on that? Because Law of Averages says I lose my shirt.
Serena: Okay, what if I buy you anything you want from craft service?
Dan: I thought craft service was free.
Terry: Your girl is rigid like a twig. You know, she’s afraid to let you in. So your works of art—and she—fail to achieve… what’s the word?
Eleanor: Symbiosis. But what can be done at this stage?
Terry: Your daughter is beautiful, yes. But this girl—this girl—has it. She is warm like sunshine, she has fun. She will make your clients think if they buy these clothes then they will have fun too.
Laurel: But this is your line, Eleanor. It’s completely your choice.
Gossip Girl: The rules for a model the day of a photo shoot are similar to those of a patient pre-surgery. No food or drink twelve hours prior, wear comfortable clothing, and make sure your affairs are in order. You never know what could go wrong in a flash.
Blair leaving a message: Hey S. Alright, hope you’re not already over there because, as it turns out, my modelling career’s over faster than Jessica Simpson’s acting one. Now that I think about it, maybe we should crash the shoot anyway. See who they replaced me with. Make fun of the skinny bitch?
Lily: How could you?
Rufus: Actually I like this here.
Lily: This is no joke, Humphrey.
Rufus: What are you doing with that?
Lily: The questions is, what are you doing selling it to me?
Rufus: You. Your Bex’s client.
Lily: Oh, and you didn’t know?
Rufus: I’m just surprised you hired someone with taste.
Lily: Your wife despises me.
Rufus: I wouldn’t… say that.
Lily: Well she did. I mean she may have been wearing a slip dress and Doc Martens at the time, but she definitely meant it.
Rufus: So what’d you think of it?
Lily: I thought… it was extraordinary.
Serena: Blair wait. Why are you so mad?
Blair: Why am I so mad? You mean why aren’t I furious! I can’t believe for one second I thought that it would be different this time!
Serena: You thought what would be different?
Blair: You couldn’t deal with the spotlight shining on me for once, could you?
Serena: What are you talking about? I was told we were doing this together. What, did you not get my message?
Blair: What about this morning then? When you glanced at the callsheet did you not see my name on it? When I wasn’t in hair and makeup, didn’t that seem strange? When the dressingroom had only your name on the door did you think they just forgot?
Serena: I was told you were running late and they asked me to do some test shots first. Blair, they told me you wanted me here.
Blair: And you believed them?
Serena: Look, Blair. I encouraged you to do this. Why would I try to steal something from you that I pushed you to do?
Blair: Because you take everything from me—Nate, my mom! You can’t even help it. It’s who you are. I just thought maybe this time it’d be different. I should have known I’d be wrong.
Gossip Girl: Spotted: Lonely Boy’s rude awakening. Upper East Side queens aren’t born at the top. They climb their way up in heels, no matter who they have to tread on to do it.
Eleanor Waldorf: Who are you? What are you doing here?
Dan: I have no idea, actually.
Dan: I thought you wanted to be on the sidelines here. I thought you wanted to be here for your friend, Blair. You know, we were going to get craft service and I’d have your full attention.
Serena: Say it.
Dan: I don’t think I have to.
Serena: So my best friend doesn’t believe me. And neither does the guy I like. Look Dan, Blair’s mom basically tricked me into coming here because she didn’t want Blair. How do you tell your best friend something like that?
Blair: Serena send you here to talk to me?
Dan: No, believe it or not I actually came here myself.
Blair: Normally I wouldn’t be this close to you without a tetanus shot.
Dan: My, ah, my mom kind of left us a couple months ago. Only my dad and my sister don’t really see that, because she told us she had to go away for the summer to, ah, to follow her dream to be an artist. But it’s, it’s not summer anymore. And she’s still up there. And that’s all she seems to care about right now. Everytime I go to see her I tell myself this time I’m going to tell her what I think. This time I’m going to look her in the eye and say, “Either come home or leave for good.” And so there I was, just the other day, sitting across the table from her—looking her straight in the eye. And I didn’t say anything.
Blair: Why not?
Dan: Ah… I don’t know. But I wish I had. Because even if it didn’t change anything, she’d know how I felt.
Chuck: Look, you’ve got my watch and my ball. You keep them. Take care of these guys. I don’t call the cops. And we walk out.
Blair: Did you choose Serena over me? You could have picked a stranger. You didn’t have to choose my best friend. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?
Eleanor: I was going to tell you tonight, over dinner.
Eleanor: You’ve always been my biggest supporter, my biggest fan.
Blair: I’m your daughter.
Eleanor: And as my daughter I knew that you would forgive me, in time. But if my company had lost this deal because of you I’d never forgive myself.
Blair: I hope you never do.
Gossip Girl: You didn’t hear it from us, but in every girl’s life there comes a moment when she realizes that her mother just might be more messed up than she is.
Serena: Hey, how about you ask me out again?
Dan: How about you actually show up?
Serena: Okay. No drama, no disruptions. I promise.
Dan: You promise? Oh no! That means it’s never going to happen now!
Serena: Okay, quick, I take it back! I un-promise.
Dan: Friday. Eight o’clock.
Blair: I think we can agree to those terms. But you can’t wear those shoes. Mm. Or that hair.
Gossip Girl: This just in: S and B committing a crime of fashion. Who doesn’t love a five-finger discount. Especially if one of those fingers is the middle one.
Eleanor: Where are my clothes?!
Gossip Girl: Everyone knows you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. And in a world ruled by bloodlines and bank accounts, it pays to have a pal. As much as a BFF can make you go, “WTF,” there’s no denying we’d all be a little less rich without them. And Serena and Blair? They do besties better than anyone. No, that’s not a tear in my eye, it’s just allergies. Without you, I’m nothing. —Gossip Girl.