Welcome to the first of an indeterminate number of recaps (how long do we think I'll be able to keep this up?)! Also welcome to the world of Gossip Girl: Acapulco, where everyone has their dramatic showdowns in bikinis while standing next to killer views and the boys hardly bother putting on clothes at all. Strangely, it often makes more sense than the original. Welcome: you're safe here.
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I'm going to refer to the characters by their names in this show because it's easier to differentiate from the original and because…those are their names. It's not that hard to keep track but juuuust in case any little angels get confused, I made a little key. Look at those delightful faces. You'll notice the poor people pretty much got to keep their names. This is truly Bizarro Gossip Girl; like, the people they cast are so within the same genre as the original actors that it's a little weird. It's probably the kind of thing you have to be watching to notice. I don't know. Sofia serves some weird as hell Blake realness sometimes.
We open on Gossip Girl blathering to a catchy theme song (side note: I was always kind of bitter GG hit in the era when longer intros were passé. Let's pretend we lived in a world where Frank Ocean was around in 2007 and "Super Rich Kids" was the theme song of that show.) and our first glimpse of Sofia's sadfaced return home! Unlike our Serena and her sad train, Sofia is drinking sad champagne in a private jet. So, this should give you a hint of how things are different over here in Acapulco. She also checks Gossip Girl, which on this show is a Twitter feed, which makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE OH GOD, bless emerging technology (sometimes).
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Sofia emerges at Not-Grand Central where someone still snaps her picture and Daniel still gets all flustered eyeballing her. However, unlike the Humphreys of Brooklyn, the Parras are of Buenos Aires and (I think) have just moved here to Acapulco so Dan hasn't been stalking her from afar for years and years. Also, he's a surfer, not a writer. Yes, that's right. No hints in the entire 25 episodes that he would ever even want to be a writer. Bro surfs. He's also like eight feet tall and wicked hot.
The party at Blair's house from the pilot is now a pool party full of naked teens. ACAPULCO. Bárbara, also adorably called Barbie, trots around in her leopard bikini making sad faces about Sofia's return. Chuck-Max creeps on her, because of course, and then creeps on Sofia by proxy, because of course. Barbie goes to find Nate-Nico to drag him off to fool around but they stop to have a conversation with their parents, which I find extra hilarious because all these dumb teens are half-naked.
Eleanor is Leonora, and also about six times more terrifying than the original; sis has got robot eyes. The Captain, or El Capitán, is also about six times worse, befitting someone called El Capitán. He sleazes all over Barbie and calls her Barbarita and Princess and he's so gross, you guys, just wait until I bother to include him in a screencap.
In Barb's room, Nico is all YOU ARE SUCH A TEASE and MY DICK IS IN PHYSICAL PAIN and IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS, CAN'T WE PLEASE HAVE SEX. Poor Barbie wants to wait until MARRIAGE because she's vaguely more into God from the start here. While she blueballs him some more, Sofia arrives and her mother and Leonora immediately sends her off to change from her pants and long-sleeved shirt into a monokini. What were you THINKING, Sofia? You can't face your best friend for the first time in a year in NOT a bathing suit. God.
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(Hilarious-horribly, Leonora is all "I have a bathing suit that looked TERRIBLE on Barbie, but it'll look so great on YOU!")
Same shit different day: Nico gets wind of Sofia's return and all but throws Barbie off the bed to run to her. Real smooth, Not-Nate. Everyone gets their first look at each other: Barbie glares, Sofia makes Blake-lite confused-sad faces, and Nico just sort of stands there perplexed while his shirt billows open attractively. Never, ever change, show.
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The Humphreys-Parras own a hotel; that's their thing here. Little angelic Jenny is busy making invitations for Barbie's 18th birthday party, which is the party of the episode. Everyone is slightly older here and it's their last year at school, because the first season of this show combines s1 and s2 of ours, which is partially why stuff flows better. (Forever bitter there will never be a s2.) Also I find myself immensely more charmed by Jenny on the first go around than I was originally. I grew to like Jenny but I'd been indifferent to her at first – and tbh as much as I like Taylor in the role, I think it was sort of a mistake for Jenny to be visibly so much younger than everyone else. It kind of isolated her storylines and made it weirder/creepier when she'd try to have romances with the mains. This Jenny doesn't come off quite so young but I also just think the actress is kind of delightful.
Dan and Jenny are very cute and siblingsy. No one cares about Rufus ever. I did not bother to learn Rufus' Acapulco name.
The school they all attend is called Harold's. Sofia and Nico have that same conversation Nate and Serena had in the pilot but with the ocean in the background. Nico's thirst is a visible thing. Max creeps around and drops that still-repulsive line about Sofia's ~perfection needing to be ~violated. Nico tells him he has issues and Max's response to this is to go on about Barbie's flower and getting into her garden and other garbage.
Jenny impresses Barbie and the Budget Mean Girls with her Photoshop invite skillz. Sofia tries to get her ass invited to the party but Barbie is all "no one knew where the hell you even were, for all we knew you were in rehab" except she says rehab in English and makes an adorably snide face worthy of Le Meester in her heyday. Other great mean shit Barbie says: "We didn't count you in for the liquor and it'd be a big difference." SNAP.
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S and B have their semi-making-up chat not at a bar but next to the ocean in bikinis as has become tradition on this show in such a short time. Glorious. All awkward convos should be had by sexy girls in bikinis. Sofia wants to make up. Barbie is still mad and accuses Sofia of always wanting Nico (it should be noted that at this point B does not know NS happened). To distract her, Sofia points to the hottest and tallest guy at the beach and is all DON'T WORRY I'M TAPPING THAT.
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Luckily for her and for us, it is Surfer Dan. He knows an opportunity when he sees one so goes along with it, smooches both of them on the cheek like fifty times, and also gets Sofia's number (on his surf board, with lipstick, why not). He's a charmer, Acapulco Dan. He loses her number because it was written with makeup on an item that goes in water and they meet-cute yet another time later on so he can get it again. It's kind of pointless but they're cute, so. Sofia calls him "surfer" and I think later he calls her "blondie" and I cry a little, honestly.
Sofia checks on Eric in rehab; Lily is terrible; no1currs, but Lily especially does not care.
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Barbie has a legit montage of making pseudo-sexy lingerie faces in the mirror while her maid looks on in growing horror (she even does a precious little rawr which I assume is an homage to the most precious little rawr of all time). Dora the maid says the lingerie is "of the devil" and Barbie mentions wanting to wait for marriage again but says God will forgive her because this is a sex emergency. She also calls her priest on speed dial (!!) and says Dora has been having sex thoughts and asks if it's really a mortal sin. Honey. Honey, really.
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Max is helping Nico find a birthday gift for Barbie and he does this by arranging actual living breathing human women in a pool in bikinis and using them as necklace displays. He tells two of them to trade necklaces "slowly." It's a weirdly specific fetish, I guess. Nico storms off before Max can molest him, so Max finds Sofia to harass instead. While Max is creeping on her, Barbie is laying in wait for Nico in her sexy lingerie. Despite the fact that he'd been bugging her for sex earlier in this same episode, Nico decides to choose this exact moment to tell her he fucked her best friend. Happy birthday!
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Max sleazes about how he watched Sofia and Nico fucking and also took video of it to crysterbate to later, because it's not 2007 and he has an iPhone instead of a fuckin' Sidekick or whatever the fuck. The scenes are intercut like in our pilot buuuut there are some differences:
• Sofia and Nico champagne-fuck in a pool instead. I'm sure you are all sensing a theme by now.
• Nico and Barbie have a full conversation about it instead of it being a montage, which is honestly a nice touch.
• Max does not assault Sofia. He just says pervy things and she throws her drink at him. This will also be a trend with Max: they soften the character a fair amount. He's still sleazy but less of a serial rapist and when they get the hotel-selling storyline out of the way later in the season, he's pretty much absolved of his responsibility in it. Despite all these changes to make him less of a creep, I remember ChucknBlair fans disliking Max and Barbie, so. That tells you all you need to know about why they like that garbage.
After that's done, Barbie throws herself and her devil lingerie and her hooker pumps onto her bed and cries. Poor Barbarita.
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Dan gets ready for his date with Sofia (another change: their first date is pushed up to the first episode). It goes pretty much how Dan and Serena's 1x05 date goes. He embarrasses himself and she's not into it, so they decide to leave and have actual fun. Daniel leads her to the top of some very large cliffs with the ocean in the distance even though the poor thing can barely walk in her heels. He tells her how he was obsessed with the idea of jumping off the cliffs into the water and one day he finally did it. She does not believe him so he immediately starts taking off all his clothes (so suave, Acapulco Dan) and dives into the ocean basically naked. I mean, those briefs leave little to the imagination. He makes some metaphorical allusions to how he is still diving in ~even though he could get hurt, like with Sofia. She says YOU'RE CRAZY. He says YES, BECAUSE OF YOU. She's aroused. He jumps.
But now the poor girl is stuck alone on top of a mountain.
(Side note: I think we can all agree that the most important facet of a Serena is a sick weave, and our Sofia certainly serves Blake teas with that one. ALSO, I wasn't sure where to fit this into the recap but it's so hilarious I had to squeeze it in somewhere: I was stalking Acapulco Dan's actor a bit because he's hot and I discovered A BUNCH OF MUSIC VIDEOS. He is a SINGER, you guys. What is it about the role of Dan Humphrey causes young men to grow out their hair and start belting out tunes? But the real question is: are his moves better than Pfunk's? (No, they could never be.))
Lily and Rufus have a scene, but no one cares. Nico and El Capitán have a run on the beach (of course) and Nico is topless (of course). El Capitán is like PLEASE FUCK YOUR GIRLFRIEND OUR FAMILY DEPENDS ON IT while Nico makes a sad, confused face. Ah, Nate Archibald, you are the same in any language.
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At Barbie's waterfront (of course) party, she is super duper sad but trying to act not sad. Max perves on little Jenny from a distance. But then! Out of the darkness! Emerges Nico on a motherfucking BOAT with an armful of flowers and a man serenading and also jewels and fireworks. Brother went IN, I'm telling you. Knowing little Blairbarita as we do, we know she is powerless in the face of such romanticism. It's truly unfair. But a lot better than having sad sushi and staring up at her mournfully through your bangs, cough cough, Nate.
Max calls Jenny "Nenny" while trying to seduce her because he's a fucking idiot. But even this is slightly less overtly rapey. It's still an assault, don't get me wrong, but it's a LOT less explicit. Anyway, her texting interrupts Sofia and Daniel before they can smooch – though, very cutely, he fakes seeing an eyelash on her cheek so he could go in for the kiss and Sofia was too overcome with adorable giggles to follow through on the kiss anyway. It was really cute, guys. Anyway, they rush off to save Jenny from Max!
The party resolves. Nico kisses Barbie and feels dead inside. Barbie thinks her life is not shit for one moment, but she is wrong. Daniel punches Max in the stomach, then in the face, which sends him CAREENING over the railing and INTO THE SEA. Dan punches Max INTO THE OCEAN. And there the episode ends, beautifully, on Max's pissy baby face while he bobs around like beach trash.
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I hope you enjoyed a glimpse at this marvelous monokini extravaganza! If y'all think this is lolzy I will happily continue with them.
I'm going to refer to the characters by their names in this show because it's easier to differentiate from the original and because…those are their names. It's not that hard to keep track but juuuust in case any little angels get confused, I made a little key. Look at those delightful faces. You'll notice the poor people pretty much got to keep their names. This is truly Bizarro Gossip Girl; like, the people they cast are so within the same genre as the original actors that it's a little weird. It's probably the kind of thing you have to be watching to notice. I don't know. Sofia serves some weird as hell Blake realness sometimes.
We open on Gossip Girl blathering to a catchy theme song (side note: I was always kind of bitter GG hit in the era when longer intros were passé. Let's pretend we lived in a world where Frank Ocean was around in 2007 and "Super Rich Kids" was the theme song of that show.) and our first glimpse of Sofia's sadfaced return home! Unlike our Serena and her sad train, Sofia is drinking sad champagne in a private jet. So, this should give you a hint of how things are different over here in Acapulco. She also checks Gossip Girl, which on this show is a Twitter feed, which makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE OH GOD, bless emerging technology (sometimes).
Sofia emerges at Not-Grand Central where someone still snaps her picture and Daniel still gets all flustered eyeballing her. However, unlike the Humphreys of Brooklyn, the Parras are of Buenos Aires and (I think) have just moved here to Acapulco so Dan hasn't been stalking her from afar for years and years. Also, he's a surfer, not a writer. Yes, that's right. No hints in the entire 25 episodes that he would ever even want to be a writer. Bro surfs. He's also like eight feet tall and wicked hot.
The party at Blair's house from the pilot is now a pool party full of naked teens. ACAPULCO. Bárbara, also adorably called Barbie, trots around in her leopard bikini making sad faces about Sofia's return. Chuck-Max creeps on her, because of course, and then creeps on Sofia by proxy, because of course. Barbie goes to find Nate-Nico to drag him off to fool around but they stop to have a conversation with their parents, which I find extra hilarious because all these dumb teens are half-naked.
Eleanor is Leonora, and also about six times more terrifying than the original; sis has got robot eyes. The Captain, or El Capitán, is also about six times worse, befitting someone called El Capitán. He sleazes all over Barbie and calls her Barbarita and Princess and he's so gross, you guys, just wait until I bother to include him in a screencap.
In Barb's room, Nico is all YOU ARE SUCH A TEASE and MY DICK IS IN PHYSICAL PAIN and IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS, CAN'T WE PLEASE HAVE SEX. Poor Barbie wants to wait until MARRIAGE because she's vaguely more into God from the start here. While she blueballs him some more, Sofia arrives and her mother and Leonora immediately sends her off to change from her pants and long-sleeved shirt into a monokini. What were you THINKING, Sofia? You can't face your best friend for the first time in a year in NOT a bathing suit. God.
(Hilarious-horribly, Leonora is all "I have a bathing suit that looked TERRIBLE on Barbie, but it'll look so great on YOU!")
Same shit different day: Nico gets wind of Sofia's return and all but throws Barbie off the bed to run to her. Real smooth, Not-Nate. Everyone gets their first look at each other: Barbie glares, Sofia makes Blake-lite confused-sad faces, and Nico just sort of stands there perplexed while his shirt billows open attractively. Never, ever change, show.
The Humphreys-Parras own a hotel; that's their thing here. Little angelic Jenny is busy making invitations for Barbie's 18th birthday party, which is the party of the episode. Everyone is slightly older here and it's their last year at school, because the first season of this show combines s1 and s2 of ours, which is partially why stuff flows better. (Forever bitter there will never be a s2.) Also I find myself immensely more charmed by Jenny on the first go around than I was originally. I grew to like Jenny but I'd been indifferent to her at first – and tbh as much as I like Taylor in the role, I think it was sort of a mistake for Jenny to be visibly so much younger than everyone else. It kind of isolated her storylines and made it weirder/creepier when she'd try to have romances with the mains. This Jenny doesn't come off quite so young but I also just think the actress is kind of delightful.
Dan and Jenny are very cute and siblingsy. No one cares about Rufus ever. I did not bother to learn Rufus' Acapulco name.
The school they all attend is called Harold's. Sofia and Nico have that same conversation Nate and Serena had in the pilot but with the ocean in the background. Nico's thirst is a visible thing. Max creeps around and drops that still-repulsive line about Sofia's ~perfection needing to be ~violated. Nico tells him he has issues and Max's response to this is to go on about Barbie's flower and getting into her garden and other garbage.
Jenny impresses Barbie and the Budget Mean Girls with her Photoshop invite skillz. Sofia tries to get her ass invited to the party but Barbie is all "no one knew where the hell you even were, for all we knew you were in rehab" except she says rehab in English and makes an adorably snide face worthy of Le Meester in her heyday. Other great mean shit Barbie says: "We didn't count you in for the liquor and it'd be a big difference." SNAP.
S and B have their semi-making-up chat not at a bar but next to the ocean in bikinis as has become tradition on this show in such a short time. Glorious. All awkward convos should be had by sexy girls in bikinis. Sofia wants to make up. Barbie is still mad and accuses Sofia of always wanting Nico (it should be noted that at this point B does not know NS happened). To distract her, Sofia points to the hottest and tallest guy at the beach and is all DON'T WORRY I'M TAPPING THAT.
Sofia checks on Eric in rehab; Lily is terrible; no1currs, but Lily especially does not care.
Barbie has a legit montage of making pseudo-sexy lingerie faces in the mirror while her maid looks on in growing horror (she even does a precious little rawr which I assume is an homage to the most precious little rawr of all time). Dora the maid says the lingerie is "of the devil" and Barbie mentions wanting to wait for marriage again but says God will forgive her because this is a sex emergency. She also calls her priest on speed dial (!!) and says Dora has been having sex thoughts and asks if it's really a mortal sin. Honey. Honey, really.
Max is helping Nico find a birthday gift for Barbie and he does this by arranging actual living breathing human women in a pool in bikinis and using them as necklace displays. He tells two of them to trade necklaces "slowly." It's a weirdly specific fetish, I guess. Nico storms off before Max can molest him, so Max finds Sofia to harass instead. While Max is creeping on her, Barbie is laying in wait for Nico in her sexy lingerie. Despite the fact that he'd been bugging her for sex earlier in this same episode, Nico decides to choose this exact moment to tell her he fucked her best friend. Happy birthday!
Max sleazes about how he watched Sofia and Nico fucking and also took video of it to crysterbate to later, because it's not 2007 and he has an iPhone instead of a fuckin' Sidekick or whatever the fuck. The scenes are intercut like in our pilot buuuut there are some differences:
• Sofia and Nico champagne-fuck in a pool instead. I'm sure you are all sensing a theme by now.
• Nico and Barbie have a full conversation about it instead of it being a montage, which is honestly a nice touch.
• Max does not assault Sofia. He just says pervy things and she throws her drink at him. This will also be a trend with Max: they soften the character a fair amount. He's still sleazy but less of a serial rapist and when they get the hotel-selling storyline out of the way later in the season, he's pretty much absolved of his responsibility in it. Despite all these changes to make him less of a creep, I remember ChucknBlair fans disliking Max and Barbie, so. That tells you all you need to know about why they like that garbage.
After that's done, Barbie throws herself and her devil lingerie and her hooker pumps onto her bed and cries. Poor Barbarita.
Dan gets ready for his date with Sofia (another change: their first date is pushed up to the first episode). It goes pretty much how Dan and Serena's 1x05 date goes. He embarrasses himself and she's not into it, so they decide to leave and have actual fun. Daniel leads her to the top of some very large cliffs with the ocean in the distance even though the poor thing can barely walk in her heels. He tells her how he was obsessed with the idea of jumping off the cliffs into the water and one day he finally did it. She does not believe him so he immediately starts taking off all his clothes (so suave, Acapulco Dan) and dives into the ocean basically naked. I mean, those briefs leave little to the imagination. He makes some metaphorical allusions to how he is still diving in ~even though he could get hurt, like with Sofia. She says YOU'RE CRAZY. He says YES, BECAUSE OF YOU. She's aroused. He jumps.
But now the poor girl is stuck alone on top of a mountain.
(Side note: I think we can all agree that the most important facet of a Serena is a sick weave, and our Sofia certainly serves Blake teas with that one. ALSO, I wasn't sure where to fit this into the recap but it's so hilarious I had to squeeze it in somewhere: I was stalking Acapulco Dan's actor a bit because he's hot and I discovered A BUNCH OF MUSIC VIDEOS. He is a SINGER, you guys. What is it about the role of Dan Humphrey causes young men to grow out their hair and start belting out tunes? But the real question is: are his moves better than Pfunk's? (No, they could never be.))
Lily and Rufus have a scene, but no one cares. Nico and El Capitán have a run on the beach (of course) and Nico is topless (of course). El Capitán is like PLEASE FUCK YOUR GIRLFRIEND OUR FAMILY DEPENDS ON IT while Nico makes a sad, confused face. Ah, Nate Archibald, you are the same in any language.
At Barbie's waterfront (of course) party, she is super duper sad but trying to act not sad. Max perves on little Jenny from a distance. But then! Out of the darkness! Emerges Nico on a motherfucking BOAT with an armful of flowers and a man serenading and also jewels and fireworks. Brother went IN, I'm telling you. Knowing little Blairbarita as we do, we know she is powerless in the face of such romanticism. It's truly unfair. But a lot better than having sad sushi and staring up at her mournfully through your bangs, cough cough, Nate.
Max calls Jenny "Nenny" while trying to seduce her because he's a fucking idiot. But even this is slightly less overtly rapey. It's still an assault, don't get me wrong, but it's a LOT less explicit. Anyway, her texting interrupts Sofia and Daniel before they can smooch – though, very cutely, he fakes seeing an eyelash on her cheek so he could go in for the kiss and Sofia was too overcome with adorable giggles to follow through on the kiss anyway. It was really cute, guys. Anyway, they rush off to save Jenny from Max!
The party resolves. Nico kisses Barbie and feels dead inside. Barbie thinks her life is not shit for one moment, but she is wrong. Daniel punches Max in the stomach, then in the face, which sends him CAREENING over the railing and INTO THE SEA. Dan punches Max INTO THE OCEAN. And there the episode ends, beautifully, on Max's pissy baby face while he bobs around like beach trash.
I hope you enjoyed a glimpse at this marvelous monokini extravaganza! If y'all think this is lolzy I will happily continue with them.