Jacob Clifton Gossip Girl Recap Quotes
Jan. 2nd, 2013 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babydracoMy favorite quotes from Jacob Clifton's time recapping Gossip Girl, which is now over forever.
From “Pilot”
"Anyway, he looks like my best friend's cousin Jake, but since I'm the only person who doesn't know who the hell this person is, that doesn't really help either of us: he looks like Penn Badgley, who like almost every person on this show has a name only slightly more ridiculous in real life than that of the character he plays. page 2
Okay, this marks me as a VM fanboy, and I'm really...not, but Kristin Bell has managed to take her most hilarious line reading ever ("Such gentle, yet elusive creatures") and make that the entire job. Awesome. You could say any old shit in that voice and it would be funny and fake-scandalous. Check it. Imagine Gossip Girl explaining the current bullshitty loophole in the tax on the kind of accumulation of wealth that makes these lifestyles possible:
There is no federal estate tax if someone dies in 2010, but a "sunset" provision of the Tax Act basically repeals all its provisions after the end of 2010. As a result, the federal estate tax will be back with a top marginal rate of 55 percent and an exemption equivalent amount of $1 million in 2011. You know you love me! XOXO! page 3
Serena hops sweetly out of her cab downstairs while Blair and Nate are declaring their undying love for each other; JT's "What Goes Around" plays and Serena enters the apartment. Because she went around to Connecticut, and now she's coming all the way back around to Manhattan, see, but also because she dogged her girl, and the consequences are about to holler back. I don't fully understand these terms I'm throwing around. page 5
(Kelly Rutherford, my favorite actor besides Calabro from the entire Melrose ensemble, a woman so beautiful not even her chronic upper-lip melasma can even approach tainting her beauty, a woman of such clarity of mind and softness of heart that, were my insane bald wife to finally succumb to cancer after a weeks-long battle moments after informing me that she'd found the perfect prostitute to be my replacement wife, I would totally be up for it, if that woman were Kelly Rutherford) is being all sassy party mom: "...So I told him forget it. I don't care if it's Murakami, it clashes with my sofa." What this tells us is that Lily has very awesome and progressive tastes: Takashi Murakami is the fine art expression of harajuku, or maybe he's the fin de siècle Japanese version of Andy Warhol; he's awesome. All about blending high and low culture and commercializing art products and artifying commercial products. page 6
She pronounces the word croissant perfectly, exactly like somebody hauling the name Lily van der Woodsen around the Upper East Side would say it. Awesome. page 8
"Diamond Hipster Boy" by Washington Social Club plays at the Humphreys' West Side apartment. You can tell they're totally poor by how their house is nicer than an award-winning castle from the pages of Castle Architecture Digest. page 8
They explain the Ski Trip Conundrum to him (why don't parents ever understand this?), which basically goes: if I have to rub shoulders with people who have way more money than I do, I'm at a disadvantage socially, because I can't do the actual things, logistically, that they can do. It's the same reason you only talk to five people you knew in college: some went up, some went down, everybody is vacationing in different spots and drinking wine from different years, and when you can't get around that -- and honestly sometimes you just can't -- it's painfully weird, and weirdly painful. Rufus still isn't convinced, because he lives in a misty socialist twilight and doesn't understand class distinctions -- and why should he? He's a gallery owner who lives on the Upper West Side -page 9
(Vivaldi's Concerto In G is playing, and the only reason I know that, even though I am a Vivaldi fan, is that the same song was in Marie Antoinette, which is another story about how even if you're nice, maybe a little careless, people will find a reason to hate you, if you were born well-off, a quality over which you have no control. And which is another roman à clef by somebody who grew up that way, and has been paying for it ever since.) page 11
but first they have a brief and awkward talk about how Dan's mom's a "free spirit" which is why Rufus fell in love with her, which also is meaningless because it's not like we've never seen this character before: Rufus doesn't love free spirits, he loves uptight WASPs. Obviously. This isn't my first Aging Rocker Still Holding Onto His Ideals And Childlike Spirit In The Face Of Crippling Disappointment & Adult Responsibilities rodeo. http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/gossip-girl/pilot-29.php?page=12
Chuck offers either Viagra or Paxil, or both, and notes that "Nathaniel" is acting like he's headed to his execution. See? This is all very Mystery, you know? From that other show where the ugly homosexual teaches other ugly homosexuals to abuse women, while wearing a succession of ridiculous hats. Only here, it's scarves. page 14
Serena finally says something along the lines of how Chuck shouldn't rape Jenny henceforth, but Chuck's all, "Your life is over, slut! Don't forget, I know everything!" Which...congratulations, Gossip Girl, the "everything" that you know is the same "everything" that everybody else now knows, so good luck blackmailing her for no real reason except that you're a six-foot gay pink sabretooth tiger, wearing a detachable collar and stripper cuffs, going "Heavens to Murgatroyd! Exit stage left!" Page 25
Jenny's recovering from the experience, and Serena and Dan climb into a cab to take her home. That Angels & Airwaves song plays again, only this time it's about protecting Jenny and not Eric, but also about Dan's huge crush on Serena blooming full, which is kind of nice if you think about it, because what you've got are two freshman types whose innocence is endangered by these shitty people's shitty lives in the most graphic ways, and you've got our two kids, basically in loco parentis, bonding over protecting that innocence, while trying to maintain/recover their own. All linked by this song. It's interesting that beyond some yogurt jokes and the occasional thrown platter, the only people who pay for anything in this entire episode are the two people whose only crimes were to themselves, because they didn't know any better. I wasn't buying Serena-as-hero through most of it, because I am in love with Blair Waldorf, but thematically I think it's so, so awesome that she's part of the only actively protective duo in the whole place. Saving Jenny, she saves herself, and by saving Eric, she saves her family, which is inextricably tied to Dan's in all kinds of interesting ways. Anyway, neat song. Blair's not impressed by any of this." page 26
From “Pilot”
"Anyway, he looks like my best friend's cousin Jake, but since I'm the only person who doesn't know who the hell this person is, that doesn't really help either of us: he looks like Penn Badgley, who like almost every person on this show has a name only slightly more ridiculous in real life than that of the character he plays. page 2
Okay, this marks me as a VM fanboy, and I'm really...not, but Kristin Bell has managed to take her most hilarious line reading ever ("Such gentle, yet elusive creatures") and make that the entire job. Awesome. You could say any old shit in that voice and it would be funny and fake-scandalous. Check it. Imagine Gossip Girl explaining the current bullshitty loophole in the tax on the kind of accumulation of wealth that makes these lifestyles possible:
There is no federal estate tax if someone dies in 2010, but a "sunset" provision of the Tax Act basically repeals all its provisions after the end of 2010. As a result, the federal estate tax will be back with a top marginal rate of 55 percent and an exemption equivalent amount of $1 million in 2011. You know you love me! XOXO! page 3
Serena hops sweetly out of her cab downstairs while Blair and Nate are declaring their undying love for each other; JT's "What Goes Around" plays and Serena enters the apartment. Because she went around to Connecticut, and now she's coming all the way back around to Manhattan, see, but also because she dogged her girl, and the consequences are about to holler back. I don't fully understand these terms I'm throwing around. page 5
(Kelly Rutherford, my favorite actor besides Calabro from the entire Melrose ensemble, a woman so beautiful not even her chronic upper-lip melasma can even approach tainting her beauty, a woman of such clarity of mind and softness of heart that, were my insane bald wife to finally succumb to cancer after a weeks-long battle moments after informing me that she'd found the perfect prostitute to be my replacement wife, I would totally be up for it, if that woman were Kelly Rutherford) is being all sassy party mom: "...So I told him forget it. I don't care if it's Murakami, it clashes with my sofa." What this tells us is that Lily has very awesome and progressive tastes: Takashi Murakami is the fine art expression of harajuku, or maybe he's the fin de siècle Japanese version of Andy Warhol; he's awesome. All about blending high and low culture and commercializing art products and artifying commercial products. page 6
She pronounces the word croissant perfectly, exactly like somebody hauling the name Lily van der Woodsen around the Upper East Side would say it. Awesome. page 8
"Diamond Hipster Boy" by Washington Social Club plays at the Humphreys' West Side apartment. You can tell they're totally poor by how their house is nicer than an award-winning castle from the pages of Castle Architecture Digest. page 8
They explain the Ski Trip Conundrum to him (why don't parents ever understand this?), which basically goes: if I have to rub shoulders with people who have way more money than I do, I'm at a disadvantage socially, because I can't do the actual things, logistically, that they can do. It's the same reason you only talk to five people you knew in college: some went up, some went down, everybody is vacationing in different spots and drinking wine from different years, and when you can't get around that -- and honestly sometimes you just can't -- it's painfully weird, and weirdly painful. Rufus still isn't convinced, because he lives in a misty socialist twilight and doesn't understand class distinctions -- and why should he? He's a gallery owner who lives on the Upper West Side -page 9
(Vivaldi's Concerto In G is playing, and the only reason I know that, even though I am a Vivaldi fan, is that the same song was in Marie Antoinette, which is another story about how even if you're nice, maybe a little careless, people will find a reason to hate you, if you were born well-off, a quality over which you have no control. And which is another roman à clef by somebody who grew up that way, and has been paying for it ever since.) page 11
but first they have a brief and awkward talk about how Dan's mom's a "free spirit" which is why Rufus fell in love with her, which also is meaningless because it's not like we've never seen this character before: Rufus doesn't love free spirits, he loves uptight WASPs. Obviously. This isn't my first Aging Rocker Still Holding Onto His Ideals And Childlike Spirit In The Face Of Crippling Disappointment & Adult Responsibilities rodeo. http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show/gossip-girl/pilot-29.php?page=12
Chuck offers either Viagra or Paxil, or both, and notes that "Nathaniel" is acting like he's headed to his execution. See? This is all very Mystery, you know? From that other show where the ugly homosexual teaches other ugly homosexuals to abuse women, while wearing a succession of ridiculous hats. Only here, it's scarves. page 14
Serena finally says something along the lines of how Chuck shouldn't rape Jenny henceforth, but Chuck's all, "Your life is over, slut! Don't forget, I know everything!" Which...congratulations, Gossip Girl, the "everything" that you know is the same "everything" that everybody else now knows, so good luck blackmailing her for no real reason except that you're a six-foot gay pink sabretooth tiger, wearing a detachable collar and stripper cuffs, going "Heavens to Murgatroyd! Exit stage left!" Page 25
Jenny's recovering from the experience, and Serena and Dan climb into a cab to take her home. That Angels & Airwaves song plays again, only this time it's about protecting Jenny and not Eric, but also about Dan's huge crush on Serena blooming full, which is kind of nice if you think about it, because what you've got are two freshman types whose innocence is endangered by these shitty people's shitty lives in the most graphic ways, and you've got our two kids, basically in loco parentis, bonding over protecting that innocence, while trying to maintain/recover their own. All linked by this song. It's interesting that beyond some yogurt jokes and the occasional thrown platter, the only people who pay for anything in this entire episode are the two people whose only crimes were to themselves, because they didn't know any better. I wasn't buying Serena-as-hero through most of it, because I am in love with Blair Waldorf, but thematically I think it's so, so awesome that she's part of the only actively protective duo in the whole place. Saving Jenny, she saves herself, and by saving Eric, she saves her family, which is inextricably tied to Dan's in all kinds of interesting ways. Anyway, neat song. Blair's not impressed by any of this." page 26
