OPINION: GOSSIP GIRL Season 5 Premiere: Welcome Back Upper Eastsiders

Welcome back Uppereastsiders… except we aren’t on the upper east side just yet. We join our favorite New York City troublemakers wrapping up their summers somewhere other then New York. Serena, Nate, and Chuck are soaking up the sun in LA while Blair and Louis return to New York after a summer in Monaco. Dan was in the Hamptons. The rule is that Dan's summer has to be at least ten times less exciting than any other character on the show(and that includes Eric and Jenny who are thankfully firmly entrenched off screen in London hopefully never to be heard from again)

Brace yourself for what I’m about to say because it may be an unpopular opinion:
Chuck and Nate are the least interesting characters on the show. For a hot second, I jumped on the Chuck and Blair coupling bandwagon(anything was better than Blair and Nate), but I realized the only thing that romance did was wash away the yawn that Nate Archibald got all over Blair. I digress. What was going on with these two walking Ambien pills you ask? Nate had his umpteenth roll in the hay with an older woman, who just so happens to be played by Elizabeth Hurley hiding an agenda underneath that “I am going to eat you alive Nate Archibald” look. Chuck meanwhile is gallivanting around having adventures during his summer of “yes”.  That glimpse at Chuck’s  disgusting bruise(gotten from a motorcycle accident) at the end of the episode could have been meant to signify the summer of yes needed to come to an end OR that he has internal injuries. I’m hoping for internal injuries. I’d be happy if Chuck Bass went the way of Jenny and Vanessa…off the show. Nate is boring but at least he’s pretty.

Serena was off in her production assistant world. It was nice to see her doing SOMETHING other than pouting or chasing after some boy, however, Serena can only be in LA for so long. I’m perfectly happy watching it play out, but if after three episodes she decides she misses NY and Blair and just comes home I will be annoyed. I could get behind a tragedy befalling the Upper East Side (say Chuck succumbing to his internal injuries) forcing Serena to head back to New York and leave her LA life behind.  More likely is that Serena’s return to New York is going to be connected to Ivy…who Serena actually thinks is her cousin Charlie. I bet Ivy is really glad she ran into Serena in LA. 

What I LOVED about this episode was everything having to do with Dan and Blair(with one exception that I’ll rant about it below). For most of the prior seasons, Dan pretended to have a life but he was really just waiting for Serena to decide it was his week to get her attention.  Then BAM! the writers WISELY decided to play the Dan/Blair chemistry and he became part of the hottest non couple on TV. In Blair's time of need, the first person that she ran to (ok Dan was Blair's only friend in the city but still) was Dan. Blair was upset that Louis wasn't supporting her having a voice in the wedding planning. Then he had the audacity to stand her up and not tell her where he was. I get why she was upset but Blair was over reacting. I understand why she wanted Louis to stand up to his mother, but this is a royal wedding. She wasn’t marrying some business tycoon’s son. ROYAL. Blair runs to Dan to have him whisk her to the Hamptons so she can break up with Louis over the phone. Really?  And then Louis appears. I LOVE that Louis was killing Dan’s short story(at Dan's request) that was to appear in Vanity Fair because it was about Blair. Blair was furious that Dan didn't tell her what Louis was doing, but the whole reason Louis was doing that was because Dan loves Blair and that story would have confirmed it. This is a deliciously twisted triangle! I hope that there is lots more Dan and Blair throughout this season. My dream would be a last ditch confession of love to Blair from Dan right before she walks down the aisle only to have her leave Louis and run into Dan’s arms. That's never going to happen

Oh yeah…and Blair and Dorota are pregnant. Why? Why? Why? Blair pregnant is not the kind of conflict I want to see. The drama of the many men of Blair Waldorf is ENOUGH! We don’t need babies. She has Louis, the man she should marry, Chuck, the man she can’t stay away from, and Dan(in my opinion), the man she actually loves. Do we really need a pregnancy throw into that? And who’s the father? Chuck?  Can we not go down this road? Instead, let's have Blair find Dan's novel and be the only one on the upper east side that supports him. Let's pretend the pregnancy was a really bad dream. Shall we? 

Brian Hewson contributes primetime reviews for We Love Soaps.