Gossip Girl Ep. 24: Return of the Ring

May 14th, 2012

In the Season 5 finale of Gossip Girl, the residents of the Upper East Side make life-changing decisions that will affect the lives of those around them. Some people choose love, some choose money, and some even choose to resort to their old, destructive ways. Find out who broke up, who made up and who is on a dangerous train to relapsing.

Read the Gossip Girl Season 5 finale recap under the jump!

Serena stole Blair’s diary and photocopied it when she was mad at Blair for dating Dan, planning on using it in the future during her reign of terror as Gossip Girl. Blair tells Serena to make the diary blasts stop while she and Dorota attempt to go through all of Blair’s diaries and head off all the people she insulted. Expect a phone call, world.

Dan calls Serena on behalf of his dad, who’s trying to find Lily, but instead of providing Dan with Lily’s whereabouts, Serena blurts out that Blair’s diary is on Gossip Girl. She does so after Blair explicitly tells Serena that she hasn’t told Dan about the diary fiasco. Shady. Moving on, Rufus contacted his lawyer when he found out that Bart was still alive and is told that since Lily never divorced Bart, one of her marriages has to be annulled.

Meanwhile, Bart pays his wife a visit and calls her out on getting ready to leave him for Rufus before Bart disappeared. Fair enough.

Blair and her minions are doing their best to apologize to everyone Blair has offended when Gossip Girl sends a devastating blast.

It’s another page from Blair’s diary and in this entry, Blair admits that being with Dan is fun, but she doesn’t know whether she’ll ever love anyone as much as Chuck.

Blair fires back by sending Gossip Girl a made up page from her diary, which gets Serena fired from a summer job on a movie set she had been hired to work on.

When the two best friends face off, Blair tells Serena to pack her things and leave for good.

Blair heads to Dan’s apartment to try to explain that she wrote that diary entry early on in their relationship, but Dan points out that Blair also didn’t respond when Dan told her he loved her. Dan gives Blair an ultimatum and tells her that she has to decide whom she wants and has to decide that night.

When has an ultimatum ever worked on this show? When? Never, that’s when. Apparently Humphrey hasn’t been re-watching Gossip Girl episodes online like the rest of us.

Lola gets an acting job for the summer on the set of Wicked, which means she’ll be gone for the next four months, interfering with Nate’s plan to invite her to move in with him.

William Van Der Woodsen visits Lola at Nate’s apartment and has arranged for Carol’s half of Cece’s estate to be transferred to Lola. With Lola no longer needing to tour with Wicked to make ends meet (am I the only one that thinks touring with Wicked is wicked?), Nate suggests she move in with him, but Lola wants to talk to her mom first. You know, her mom that hired someone to impersonate Lola so that Carol could get her daughter’s money. Ya, definitely wanna talk to her first before making any life decisions.

Rufus goes to Bart with annulment papers for his marriage to Lily, but Bart won’t sign them without knowing that Lily is truly happy being married to Rufus.

Meanwhile, Bart spends about five minutes actually acting like a normal human being and encouraging Chuck to try to make things work with Blair. He even gets the ring Chuck bought for Blair out of the vault, telling his son to give things with his true love another shot.

Speaking of shots – through the heart – at the press conference welcoming Bart back to Bass Empires, the mogul makes the announcement that he is taking over the company and removing Chuck. From everything.

When Lola pays her aunt a visit, Lily at the same time receives signed annulment papers from Bart. Seeing that the papers are from the same law firm representing her mother and thinking that Lily is interfering with Carol’s chance to get out of jail, Lola decides that it’s time to go after Auntie Lily. Wasn’t Lily having Carol thrown in jail enough of a reason for Lola to go after her in the first place?

After being broken up with by her bestie and thrown out of her home, Serena decides to play dirty and go to war against Blair. She recruits Penelope, Blair’s head minion, and tasks her Constance school mate with keeping Blair home from the Sheppard Divorce party everyone was planning on attending that night.

Waiting for Blair to show up with her answer, Dan finds himself instead face to face with Serena, who proceeds to get him drunk and then spill a drink on him, all the while filling Dan’s head with thoughts of Blair cheating on him.

When Serena shows Dan to another room where they can let their clothes dry the scene suddenly becomes very familiar. If you’ll remember, this is the room where Serena had sex with Blair’s then-boyfriend Nate, back during a season where Gossip Girl plots still made sense.

Serena proceeds to give us déjà vu and somehow convinces Dan to have sex with her. Or better yet, she looks past his hair and has sex with him. What is with that hair?! No one that good looking should hide away from mirrors and a brush.

After their romp on the bar, Dan notices that Serena’s phone was pointing at them and recording the event. He also sees a text from Penelope and realizes that Serena had a plan all along to break Dan and Blair up. Serena tells Dan that she loves him and wants to be with him, but Dan doesn’t want to her it.

Back at the Waldorf’s, Eleanor gives Blair the good news that she wants her daughter to take over the family business. Free clothes for life!

Chuck finally gets some alone time with his dad and learns that because he’s put the company in jeopardy so many times over Blair, Bart doesn’t want Chuck to have anything to do with Bass Industries.

Right on cue, Blair arrives to tell Chuck that she loves him and wants to be with him, not Dan. Unfortunately for her, Bart’s words cut deep and Chuck no longer wants to be with Blair. Also, dink move Chuck. Your dad is obviously a nut.

It’s the end of Season 5 and that means everyone has their own plans for the summer. Lily has decided to divorce Rufus and stay married to Bart, proving that she has completely lost her mind this season and gone to the dark side.

Nate, who is staying in Manhattan to run The Spectator, gets a surveillance video from Diana Payne, showing Gossip Girl stealing Serena’s laptop at the brothel.Unfortunately, the person is completely unrecognizable.

Lola has told Nate that she’s donating her mother’s money to a charity, when in reality she’s giving the millions to Ivy to use against Lily, taking her down once and for all.

Dan is still heading to Rome for the summer, but he’s taking Georgina Sparks and her photographic memory for all things damaging with him, planning on using her to write the book about the Upper East Side he should have written with Inside. In other words, Lonely Boy isn’t taking any prisoners.

Serena is on a train (in coach!), leaving town after being brutally rebuffed by Dan and her proclamation of love for her former step-brother.

She’s met on the train by ~~Gabe from Cobra Starship~~ some guy named Zeke, who has drugs and a willing sexual participant in Serena. Her summer plans scare me the most.

Meanwhile, Chuck is in Paris with his Uncle Jack, and the two Bass men are working on increasing their fortune to a number that will rival Bart’s billions.

Blair is nearby with her mother, ready to learn the business. But a call from Jack sends Blair running to Chuck, ready to fight for the man who has spent years fighting for her.