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Hello friends! It has tragically been much too long since I have done one of these, my apologies. This is the first episode I will be recapping using that CB fan's subtitles, and I've heard there is occasionally snarky commentary from them, which I am greatly looking forward to.
We left Jenny trapped in the Fuenmayor boutique and arrive to Lily sweet-talking the police to get her out of trouble. Everyone looks disappointed by this entire to-do except Sofia, who makes lowkey hilarious faces the entire time like she's vaguely delighted by Jenny's burgeoning trouble-making. Which, Serena would be. Rufus and Lily are super mad and pretend to be disciplinarians but Sofia is like: you know you're terrible parents, right?
Even Gossip Girl says they suck via voiceover.
The next morning, Rufus (his name is actually Marcelo here, I think) wakes Jenny at dawn! Because she's punished and must WORK! Jenny is unimpressed in that specifically teenage girl way. She sits her father down and attempts to explain peer pressure, poverty, and being fresh meat in a rich girl school but Rufus is willfully obtuse about it. Of course he is.
Daniel is not disappointed in Jenny, just worried. It's pretty darling/hot. He's worried little Jenny is being bullied but Jenny is more concerned that people are talking shit about her on the internet. Daniel tells her to find friends who respect her. Bless.
Instead of doing that, Jenny dresses herself up in what is, I think, supposed to be a killer look but instead is a kind of weirdly styled mess in a super questionable color scheme. It's up there at the top of the page. Nice sunglasses? I had shoes like that once expect mine were cuter. Jenny says a big fuck you to being grounded and bounces.
Nico is practically 100% naked on Max's couch, not even one foot from where practically 100% naked Max is in a pile with two practically 100% naked girls. This is even more ridiculous than Chuck and Nate and I love it. Max actually has a nice body so he's not wearing absurd striped silk pajamas, and these girls are not in their full maid's uniforms so maybe he doesn't coerce his employees into sex! I can hope, right?
Half-awake Max lets Acapulco Ann into his den of iniquity so she can rouse her naked probably bisexual son. She seems vaguely scandalized though not enough imo; then again, she does still think he's a crackhead. Nico could care less and barely even worries about buttoning up his top. Dude, your mom can see your dick right now. I know because I can almost see your dick right now.
The morning after the (lesbian) sleepover, Blair is gloating during a breakfast of pink pastries and pink smoothies that no one is actually touching but that I want to eat. Jenny prances in with cupcakes in a show of mean girl dominance and doesn't even take off her shades the entire time she's emotionally belittling these girls. She calls them "darlings" in English and gives them her handcuffs before declining to stay to eat. Then in the pièce de résistance, she whips the stolen dress out of her purse and says she's keeping it. Jenny Parra out, bitches!
Barbie pretends to feel bad about being mean to Jenny and treats herself to a single bite of food.
Back at the Parra Poverty Bed and Breakfast, Dan is half-naked helping his father do manual labor. Nothing of value happens in this scene, I'm just bringing it up because this is an especially naked episode. It hasn't even been ten minutes and I've seen like twenty abs.
The main plot of this episode is Eleanor's photoshoot, with the resultant Blair-Serena modeling switcheroo. But it's done somewhat differently here, with some tweaking and readjusting of scenes, and it's to the episode's detriment. It's nowhere near as emotionally impactful or satisfying. There's also no Dan/Blair bonding. 1x04 and 1x09 are the episodes that made me care about this dumbfuck show in the first place but this episode just packs none of the punch. Remember Leighton's tentative and vulnerable rawring! Remember Blake's tender concern and legitimately more charismatic photo-taking! Remember!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Terrifying Acapulco Eleanor (Leonora) is talking about finding a new face for her line now that it's been picked up in Barney's in New York and Somewhere Fancy in Paris. Aww, New York reference! As Leonora is listing all of the qualities she wants the model to embody, little Barbie arrives looking like an adorable personification of all those things. She tries to eat a cookie but Leonora physically takes it out of her hands; Barbie says she lost two pounds and isn't that great, but her mom is like that's no reason to eat a cookie, Barbie, you should eat fruit if you absolutely must eat at all. Barbie insists she's skinny and fools around with one of Leonora's dresses to prove she's thin enough to fit into a sample size. Leonora has a wonderful, awful idea.
Barbie is so happy I love her and I'm so sad! I'm of two minds about the slight difference in the Eleanor/Blair relationship in this show. Leonora is so flat-out cold and terrible that it does something interesting for Barbie's characterization, makes her preening more desperate and the criticism she receives much harsher. Margaret Colin was a much warmer actress, so it brought an interesting edge to her relationship with Blair, a push-pull of love and judgment that felt very real in an awful way. But I think the affection the writers had for Colin made them soften her too much as time went on, and it lost the very thing that defined it in the first place. If all of that makes sense.
We know how the photoshoot goes: Barbie sucks, Sofia coaches her, Sofia steals the show. But there are some changes. First of all Barbie's dress is TERRIBLE. I don't even think they'd sell that in Forever 21, let alone Barney's. Try again, Leonora.
They sort of combine all the photoshoot scenes into one, so Sofia helps Barbie out a few different times to similarly faily results. She tells Barbie, in English, that she's the "top model," which is cute; they do some rawr-ing but cannot top the original; they do sad puppy faces that are also cute. Nico visits to vent about his family to Sofia but seeing them together distracts Barbie so much that she fucks up even more. He instructs Sofia not to tell Barbie anything and leaves without even saying hi to his girlfriend. Barbie gets to accuse Sofia of being an untrustworthy flirt like fifty more times. It's all sort of unnecessarily repetitive? For some reason an assistant makes Sofia try on the exact same ugly dress as Barbie but in another color so…that she can upstage B further, I guess? It doesn't really look like she's doing a better job, lol, but the fashion people are vibing it, I guess. It was a pitch-perfect scene in the original (you know, for Gossip Girl) but it just kind of rings hollow and convoluted to me here.
Some Bart, Lily, Eric shit has been going on throughout the episode but I don't feel the need to report on it because it's boring.
The fashion people tell Leonora that Barbie sucks but Sofia is great and Leonora feels zero guilt at all about switching, like, sis does not even blink. The show hides the fact that the replacement is Sofia, though, for now.
Barbie meets with Nico for lunch. He cannot work up even the tiniest amount of fake interest in her; in her overeager way, she instructs him to smile and all he can do is give her the most pained expression I have seen on this show so far. Leonora and El Capitán appear out of nowhere to set the stage for selling Nico's ass to the Fuenmayors for business reasons later on. They set up a dinner, but Barbie interrupts to be like IDK IF I WILL HAVE TIME FOR FAMILY DINNERS, I AM A BIG BUSY MODEL NOW AND I MIGHT HAVE A PHOTOSHOOT. Leonora is like, "I doubt it, sweetie." Those are her actual words.
Daniel is finally free from anger management but for some reason he needs his course completion form to be signed off on by Max. I feel like that is not how these things work. Why would one 18 year old sign off on another 18 year old's paperwork? How is the instructor not enough?
Sofia is waiting for him outside and catcalls him adorably while he pretends not to know who she's talking to. They hug like eight times. I love these dumb idiot kids. Sofia tells Dan to punch Max if he doesn't sign the paper, which is not the point but I like how she thinks. Dan's shirt is barely even buttoned at all. What a great show.
Suddenly it's nighttime and the Lopez-Haro-Zagas are having dinner with Daniel included. Lily drops the bomb that she's fucking Max's dad and the kids seem a little taken aback even though…why else would she have invited them to dinner? Max's response to the announcement is basically to be like "great, I needed incest to complete my bingo card." Eric is also down with the incest from the way he's eyeballing Max while talking about how he always wanted an ~older brother. Sofia is less enthused and storms off before giving Lily a piece of her mind. Her hair does not look cute. That's not important, but I felt you guys should know.
Sofia demands Max sign off on Dan's paperwork. Max says no just to be a controlling asshole. Bart (Emiliano, actually) is having fucking none of it and makes him sign the papers, because Bart was always a tough but not straight-up horrible dad who just didn't want his garbage son to be garbage – whatever the show decided of him later. Daniel is polite and lovely and excuses himself from the dinner so nicely that Bart wonders why he couldn't get that for a son instead of the petty assface he ended up with.
Secretly I always got a kick out of Bart blatantly preferring Dan to Chuck. Dan was totally Chuck's Serena. He took everything!!!!!!
Sofia leads Daniel to some cheap-looking vista. They complain about Max (the translation reveals this amazing thing Dan says, which is: "Sometimes I want to grab [Max's] head and dunk it so far into a vat of gel that he stops breathing." Us too, bro. Us too.) and then sweet talk each other until they finally give it up and kiss. It was a long time coming but it nevertheless feels like an odd moment to me? Sometimes that happens with soaps. They build and push moments for so long that by the time shit happens you're like "eh."
P.S. The game Daniel lays on Sofia is apparently this: "I adore you. You awaken all of my senses. You drive me crazy."
I mean, it'd work on me if a guy that hot was saying it.
Morning! Barbie's tits are CRAZY at breakfast with her mom. I mean her boobs are amazing at all times, this girl is nothing but boobs and legs, but maybe it's the flesh-toned pink top, I was startled. Barbs also has an adorable fox sleeping mask perched at a jaunty angle on her head. I love her.
Leonora fans herself dramatically while telling Barbie that she's not a model, her photos were terrible, and they're using someone else. Then she gives Barbie a brand new car to cheer her up. Well, that's one way to raise a kid. After that, Leonora is like, "Totally unrelated, but I need to talk to Sofia RIGHT NOW so bring her to my office later, k?"
Barbie looks at her shiny new car with much less enthusiasm.
Meanwhile Daniel is a new man thanks to that halfhearted smooch! He woke up early and ran six miles! Because of LOVE. He slides into the kitchen singing. (The CBer's caption reads "sings about how this love isn't an illusion, unlike the original D -- sorry I'll stop." I cannot wait to hear the rest of this person's opinions, I am being very honest.) Jenny teases Dan about how no one has ever loved him before now and how Sofia never knew he existed before but he pined for her, etc, etc.
To which I say this: the Parras have JUST moved to Acapulco, so I assumed we were supposed to take Daniel seeing Sofia at the airport in the pilot as the first time he saw her EVER. Which means he has not been pining for years a la our Dan? And also Vanessa is Dan's ex-girlfriend in this and she's majorly on his D, so it seems fair to say someone did love Dan and it's implied that he is not a virgin either. He also had those friends on the beach! This Daniel is not quite our virginal little knight errant loner boy so it's odd that now they're trying to act like he is. He even seemed to have friends at school!
This episode is a bit off, honestly, and it's not quite as fun, despite all the abs and boobs.
Anyway, Jenny gives Dan an adorable hug for finally getting his mack on with Sofia, and says her heart is going to explode. She's so pleased her sibling is getting to be just as good at social-climbing as she is.
Acapulco Anne bugs Nico about his drug addiction, so he finally tells her that he was just covering for his shit father. Nico says his entire life is a lie! Even Barbie! Everything is bullshit! It's so hard to be him!!!! Little Nate always trying so hard not to be like everyone else in his family always got me, I won't lie. You fight against the ties that bind, kiddo!
Sofia shows up at Barbie's first so they can go to Leonora's workplace together, which, again, feels unnecessary. Are they just trying to fill time this episode? What is up with these little pointless scenes and the terrible pacing? They get to Leonora's, where she asks Sofia to be her model right in front of Barbie. Barbie leaves in an angry huff. Sofia goes after her. Leonora is like: "Whatever. Sofia's super hot, right?"
Another vista! Another heart to heart with matchy outfits! Sofia's pants are the ugliest things I have ever seen, even including that Forever 21 dress from before. They have the same fight these girls aways have, which is: Sofia is an untrustworthy tramp, blah blah, you take everything. Meanwhile Sofia is always asserting her innocence, now even going so far as to swear she'd sue Leonora before ever letting her use Sofia's image. They make up YET AGAIN and it's fine, but it just has no weight. Everything got dragged out too much and the constant fighting-and-making-up-next-to-vistas is exhausting. Or maybe I'm just moody today? It's possible.
Gossip Girl drops some voiceover platitudes. The end of the episode is nigh, friends.
Dan rips off his shirt to clean the pool because…reasons? I ain't complaining. But guess who arrives in the nick of time to catch him naked and afraid! If you guessed Vanessa, you get a cookie. This will be a pattern with her – just wait until she jumps Dan in the shower.
They hug while Dan looks slightly terrified. As he should, honestly. I've always had somewhat complicated feelings about Our Vanessa. I think the writing did her majorly dirty and I also think I got sucked into some peer pressure/internalized misogyny regarding my early feelings of grave dislike for her. But at the same time I don't…really…care for Jessica's acting or lack thereof. I don't know, you guys. I'm still trying to figure my shit out about it to this day. I feel deep guilt specifically when I don't like lady characters but…you can't like everyone, right? Then again, I think I probably would love Vanessa if the writing for her had been different. I loved Vanessa in the manga, though I never read the books.
But that is all besides the point. Because this girl? This girl is the worst.
