#inconsequentially

[davidhailthings-blog]

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[cbessays]

4.21 & 4.22 - Spot the Dissonance

4.21 and 4.22 were crucial episodes for Chuck, Blair, and Chuck/Blair. It seemed like Gossip Girl’s supercouple were actually, finally, getting closure. In their last scene together there was no hint in their dialogue or behaviour that either was holding out hope. But there were also a wealth of contradictory details that made it clear that the CB story was far from over, even without the possible pregnancy. The surface of the episode might have said “Chuck and Blair have closure”, but to paraphrase Mr Bass, it was doing that thing where its eyes didn’t match its mouth.

In 4.21 Chuck talked to Jack about needing to see Blair “before the good guy” did. When Blair needed saving in 4.22, Chuck did get to her before any of the “good guys” (Louis, Nate, Dan). The Prince didn’t save the Princess - Chuck did. Doesn’t that make him kind of “the good guy”?

By getting to Blair before Louis did, Chuck could have had her - she made it clear that she loved him more than Louis. But Chuck put Blair’s happiness first and let “the good guy” have her, again kind of making him the “good guy”! In the most frustrating of all the many incredibly frustrating Chuck/Blair plots ever, letting Blair go meant that Chuck was finally on the way to deserving her.

In 4.21 Blair said that Chuck loved the dark parts of her, but couldn’t see the rest. In 4.22 Chuck told Nate that he loved Blair’s lightness and happiness the most. Yet again, Chuck said the right thing to the wrong person. Chuck told Nate he loved Blair in 1.18, but didn’t tell Blair that for another year - is it too much to hope that Chuck will eventually tell Blair, not Nate, that he loves her lightness? 

At the Bar Mitzvah Chuck and Blair were all lightness and fun and joy, which totally contradicted what Blair said later about their relationship being all about darkness. That scene was there for a reason. CB can be happy, even happiest, together, even if they don’t realise it yet. In 4.22 Chuck said that Louis made Blair light up - well, Chuck, Louis wasn’t at the Bar Mitzvah, when Blair was positively glowing. You were.

Louis waited all night for Blair in 4.22 when Chuck didn’t in 3.22. Chuck seemed to take this as proof that Louis was somehow the better man, but surely the difference between Louis and Chuck is actually about the extent to which they feel worthy of love. Chuck didn’t give up in 3.22 because he didn’t love Blair, he gave up because he was always looking for signs that she didn’t love him. Louis stayed in 4.22 because he loved Blair, but also because he believed that she loved him and would choose him.

But Louis and Chuck were both wrong. Chuck should have waited all night at the Empire State Building, because Blair did come for him. Louis was wrong to wait all night, because Blair only went back to him after Chuck intervened. If Chuck had too little faith in Blair’s love for him, does Louis have too much? Louis obviously suspected that something had happened between Chuck and Blair in 4.22 - Blair’s fairytale was beginning to fall apart even as she fully committed herself to it.

The extent to which Chuck and Blair still fail to fully understand how they work and what they see in each other showed us that their love story wasn’t over. Chuck doing the unselfish, “good guy” thing showed us that he might make a prince of himself yet. When Blair thinks of love in French, or love in Paris, she doesn’t think of her Monegasque fiance. She thinks of the man she still matches outfits with. And there were enough discordant moments within the episode’s supposed “closure” to make it clear that we should keep asking ourselves whether Chuck + Blair can only = “l’amour fou”.

Essay by inconsequentially. Thank you!

[cbessays]

Chuck, Blair & Fate

Chuck and Blair weren’t “meant to be”. Blair was supposed to marry Nate and feel second-best for ever. Chuck was supposed to grow into Jack Bass, a soulless, coke-snorting playboy.

That Chuck and Blair fell passionately in love was an impossibly beautiful mistake. Victrola in 1.07 was a gift from fate. Neither of them, especially Chuck, have got to grips with it yet.  Nothing in their childhoods or early teens prepared them for it, and they keep running and failing and screwing it up. 

They still haven’t forgotten what they were supposed to be. Look at them in 4.09, with Blair trying to win over Nate’s mother (of all people) with her supposed saintliness, and Chuck’s career inseparable from his bad boy reputation. And in that episode, a slip and a kiss reminded us of the first time the thunderbolt hit them.

Fate hasn’t been kind to Chuck and Blair, but the one time it delivered - in 1.07, with a minion’s disclosure, a ring, an arrest, a limo and a stage - it really delivered. And I want to keep watching, because if the fates ever start working in CB’s favour, then by God, you can bet your life the film will be melting off the projector all over again.

Essay by inconsequentially. Thank you!