Lincoln Hawk Fan Club: s01e12, "School Lies"
On Rich Kid Privilege
Hello, and welcome back to Lincoln Hawk Fan Club, my GOSSIP GIRL recap newsletter. Some housekeeping before we go!
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The holidays are officially over, and for most of us, it’s time to get back to reality. Of course, “reality” for rich teens looks a little different than it does for us normal folks.
While GOSSIP GIRL is certainly a work of fiction, and aspects of rich teen privilege are exaggerated for dramatic effect, much of it isn’t too far off base. In “School Lies,” the group breaks into the school pool to throw a party where a fellow student gets hurt. Unfortunately for them, there’s a new headmistress in town who thinks she can be a hardass with these kids. Reality check!
One of the very real privileges of wealth, as Chuck will point out to Dan in this episode, is that money absolutely can buy your way out of trouble. The only two people in this episode actually concerned about getting caught are Dan, a scholarship student, and Serena, who has fucked up most of her freebies thus far. The rest of them? They all know that even if someone does get caught, there will be no real consequences: Their parents barely care enough to discipline them (the headmistress can’t even get in touch with some of them) and the school needs their money too much to throw them out for real.
In the world of GOSSIP GIRL, adversaries and newbies often think they can screw over these rich kids somehow, that they’ll finally face real consequences. But that’s not how being rich works most of the time! Most of the time, rich teens end up being sentenced to 25 hours of community service that they likely would have done anyway because they’re on the committee. And when it happens, they truly don’t believe they’re getting preferential treatment.
Must be nice!
Best Lines of the Episode:
Blair: “Isn’t there someone else you could torture?”
Chuck: “Probably. But I choose you.”
Blair: “So we all know how this works.”
Chuck: “If no one talks, no one gets into trouble.”
Nate: “Who did break in, anyway?”
Chuck: “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about Nate cracking under pressure.”
Blair: “I’m innocent. Well, except for a crime of passion. I did something stupid with someone, and even worse than doing that stupid thing, I did the same stupid thing with someone else and pretended I had never done that stupid thing before. You look confused. Should I walk you through it?”
Headmistress Queller: “Let’s stay on point. I reviewed your record. It’s pristine. If Constance has a shining star, it’s Blair Waldorf. I never would have expected this from you.”
Blair: “I know. I’m the perfect one.”
Dan: “Chuck. You need to tell the truth.”
Chuck: “Whatever happened to ‘don’t speak until spoken to.’”
Dan: “I just saw you with that key, I know you had it at the party.”
Chuck: “Poor little Humphrey dumpty. Look, let me clarify something for you. Regardless of who you’re currently sleeping with, you and I come from different worlds. In my world, if I’m suspended or expelled, a wing is donated in the Bass name.”
Dan: “That sounds like quite a world.”
Chuck: “Well, it’s not perfect, I’ll admit. But one thing it does offer in spades is security. My family can take care of me. What do the Humphreys have to offer? Used metrocards? Your dad’s cassingle? And in case you were wondering, you narc, I only took the key from the party to hide it so we didn’t all get blamed. Including you.”
Blair: “I’ll be brief.”
Vanessa: “And I’ll be not interested.”
Blair: “Is that how you speak to the person who just paid your rent for a year?”
Vanessa: “What did you just say?”
Blair: “Congratulations, Vanessa! You just won 365 more days in your Ikea-furnished closet.”
Vanessa: “You went to my building? You talked to my landlord?”
Blair: “No, I don’t speak Ukrainian, but I do speak envelope of cash, and he understood me perfectly.”
Vanessa: “I don’t believe you.”
Blair: “Blair Waldorf is not indebted to anyone – no matter how much I appreciate what you did.”
Vanessa: “You’re welcome, I guess?”
Blair: “Good! Now this transaction is finished and I’m free to return to disliking you.”
Vanessa: “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Blair: “Oh, and one more thing: If you didn’t pay your rent with it, what did you do with Chuck’s money?”
Vanessa: “I may have created a medical grant for teens with genital herpes. In his name.”
My Favorite Outfit of the Episode:
I know you’re expecting me to say Blair, and really, I almost did choose this Catherine Holstein dress, but something about B’s hair is very overwrought this episode, which tips the balance towards Serena’s studded DVF dress. I love the gray Rebecca Taylor coat and the t-strap platforms; it’s all very pretty together.
Final Stray Observations:
I simply love the decision to make the key to the pool this old-timey-ass skeleton key because it’s way more dramatic than the run-of-the-mill key that would be more realistic, or, worse, a keycard.
Poolside glass is especially stupid, but they’re teens, so I’ll give them a pass.
Kati and Iz are both wearing bathing caps, but decoratively, so they do literally nothing to keep their hair dry. Obsessed.
You know, it’s partially self-preservation, but I always forget that Chuck continues to be a mega-creep to Serena throughout most of this season, even after hooking up with Blair.
Serena rattles off the address of the school to Dan and he recognizes it instantly, which, what teenager knows the address of their school?
It is so, SO important to me that if you are under the age of, like, 20, and reading this newsletter that you understand cell phone photos were NOT this high quality in 2007. They blew those suckers up on the TV and they were CRISPY CLEAR! They had a flash. The iPhone didn’t even have a flash until the iPhone 4. It bothered me then and it really bothers me now!!!! Okay, cell phone rant over.
Assigning a ten thousand word essay to high schoolers is objectively deranged. That’s two solid chapters of a novel.
Sorry, Nate, but I’m with Chuck on this one: A heartfelt letter? Gag.
I love that Rufus finally points out how absurd it is for Lily to travel all the way to Brooklyn to have conversations instead of just using the phone.
Lily proceeds to call Rufus’s gut-spilling voicemail “endearing” and I’d walk into traffic if anyone did that to me.
It is very, very funny to me, considering all the kerfuffle that happens later on in the series about how the show “refused” to play Taylor Momsen’s music when they played Leighton Meester’s, that right here in the first season, they use a song from Ed Westwick’s band The Filthy Youth.
Dan reminds Chuck that he still owes him another black eye, which is true!!!
Headmistress Queller tells Nate that he “always seems to be toeing the line of mediocrity,” which, BRUTAL!
Chuck gives Vanessa $10k, and says that, to Blair, that money is a couple pairs of Manolos and a Chanel bag. But back in 2007 (and I’m sorry, this is going to hurt some feelings) a Chanel bag was still going for around $2500, and even expensive Manolos were clocking in under a grand, so that’s just bad fashion math.
This is so not important, but the show makes choices like this all the time that I wish I could understand: Why does Lily tell Rufus to meet her at 90th and 5th when the Palace is down at 53rd and Madison, and he’s coming from Williamsburg?
When Blair figures out that Nate sacrificed himself to save her, she tells him it’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for her, and bestie, we gotta raise the stakes here.
Oh, now Lily decides to base her love life around what Serena wants?! Her whole life it’s been “fuck these kids, I do what I want” and when she has a shot at being actually happy it’s like, damn, my teenage daughter thinks her high school boyfriend is a forever thing, better step aside.
“I would rather be Chuck’s stepsister than Dan’s” Serena what if I told you that you could have both?
Headmistress Queller notes that Dan is running with a new circle now that he’s dating Serena van der Woodsen, to which he responds, “Is that in my file?” If it was, he’d probably steal it and frame it.
The timing of the driver showing up right as Serena is claiming her life is completely normal is very funny, as is Dan asking, “You going to Brooklyn?”
Rufus’s little convertible bug is very cute, but it’s winter, why is the top down?
Blair quite coyly tells Nate that “a lot of mistakes have been made” when getting back together, which I suppose she thinks is a sufficient enough confession, but BAD NEWS is coming on that front.
lol of course Bart paid Serena’s way out of trouble.
Speaking of, though, why does he just sit there grinning while Chuck is being a slimeball to her? He chuckles about having their hands full with the two of them like it’s funny when most of the time he seems like he low key kind of hates his own son.
I personally think it’s a little cruel of Serena to ask Rufus why he’s packing up his music when she knows how she screwed him over!!
And Now, Your 'Dan Is a Psycho for This' Moment of the Episode:
Another day, another series of arguments about how Dan comes from a different world than Serena. A tired record, Danny boy! Surprised he hasn’t dislocated his shoulder from carrying that chip around.
When Serena finally confesses that it was her who unlocked the pool – which, no duh, Dan – she says she wasn’t honest with him sooner because she didn’t want him to judge her, to which he responds, “Aren’t we beyond that?” in the most judgmental tone possible. Just a few sentences later, Serena has to say, “I thought we were beyond this” to his judgy ass. There is no one on this show with a poorer understanding of who they really are than Dan Humphrey.
But what really, really got me is that when Serena crashes Dan’s meeting with the headmistress to confess, Queller starts in on her by saying, “Your file reads more like a rap sheet: You cut more sophomore classes than you attended, cheated on tests, talked back to teachers,” and Dan shoots Serena this look out of the corner of his eye which is one of the most punchable things I’ve seen him do so far.
Earlier, Serena also tells Dan that he didn’t know her before she went away, which, not only did he know her and know all the details Headmistress Queller rattles off, he ran a blog detailing all of her illicit activities during this time.
Psycho!
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