recap: gossip girl acapulco, 1x06

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It has been TOO LONG. I hope to never be away from Gossip Girl Acapulco this long again.

Let's dive right into this bad boy. Last episode, Barbie disappointed all of us (and herself) by fucking Max, so in this episode opener she puts on her frilliest feathered hat to attend church and confess her sins. Voiceover Gossip Girl tells us Barbie does this for an hour EVERY DAY. This show really took religious!Blair and ran with it.








Also it's an OUTDOOR CONFESSIONAL, because of course. When are these people ever inside? Now, I don't live in Acapulco and I am not a Catholic, so I cannot speak to the veracity of such a thing, but it seems to me that an outdoor confessional defeats the very purpose of confession. Literally anyone could hear or see!

It's all very familiar: Barbie bemoans her bad decisions, we get flashbacks to a metric ton of fucking set to some scratchy pop song, and also some classic Blair dialogue absurdity – she says she "joined in carnal pleasure with a being so disgusting that God himself would reject him as a son."

Man, this show does such a great job of shitting on Chuck.

Barbie asks for her chastity back but unfortunately there's a no return policy on that. The priest looks deeply pained by all of this and tells her to do some charity work as penance, then advises her not to fuck Max again, which she swears she won't do as she intends to never see him ever again. Guess how long that lasts.

Barbie goes to the church proper to pray when ominous organ music kicks in (I'm not kidding) and Max makes his appearance like a literal devil on her shoulder, throwing in a couple of Bible-themed sex puns. They joke about how he should be burning on holy ground, etc. Max is like YOU'LL BE GOING TO CONFESSION A LOT TO CONFESS ALL THE BONING WE'RE GONNA BE DOING but Barbie shuts him down right quick. Break the cycle, Barbarita!

She also drops the news that it's her and Nico's ENGAGEMENT DINNER tonight. That is another thing. Instead of just awkwardly making Blair try on the Vanderbilt diamond, Nico and Barbie get ACTUAL ENGAGED. Also, Barb, honey – you have caught Nico cheating on you at least twice. Maybe take the hint?

All-around thirst trap Acapulco Dan is a huffy little darling as he has breakfast, still smarting over the fact that Sofia and Vanessa ripped him several new assholes at the ball. This makes Rufus realize that he probably shouldn't have asked his son's ex-girlfriend to move in with them. You fucking THINK, Rufus? But Daniel brushes that off, saying it's his fault because he should have talked to Vanessa about everything. Except…he did? He didn't lie to Vanessa about anything except going to the ball, and I figured that was because she didn't ~approve of such a bourgeois event (unless Jenny was the one going, of course). It's not like she didn't know Sofia existed or that Dan wanted to be with her. Plus Vanessa cheated and ditched him! I have decided that Sofia is the only person allowed to be mad in this situation.

Rufus also takes a moment to be all: hey maybe you should break up with Sofia so I can date her mother? Haha what who said that?

Vanessa shows up as Dan is leaving and he casually forehead kisses her goodbye. Wait. Are y'all fighting or not? Last time they spoke onscreen, she was confessing her love??








Nico goes to find Jenny and give her a big fancy box of "don't tell my girlfriend that I'm in love with Sofia." He was drunk! He wasn't thinking! He is definitely not in love with anybody at all! Except Barbie, hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

Jenny is surprised that Nico got her favorite sweets (something delicious-sounding called alfajores) and he says he did his research, which Jenny totally falls for. They make cute faces at each other, Jenny all knowing and smirky and Nico all faux-bashful Archibald charm. Goddammit I ship it. Nico reiterates that Jenny shouldn't tell anyone just as Barbie appears (sans dramatic organ music, sadly), suspicious as usual. Nico totally gives away Jenny's alfajores like a JERK and Barbie's like, gross, who wants delicious sandwich cookies filled with dulce de leche? Jenny's poor present is totally going to end up in the trash.

Barb is running in full Waldorf mode right now. She's passive aggressive to Jenny, dismissing her while simultaneously ordering her to do something, and in straight-up denial about Nico even though last episode she rightfully (if drunkenly) told him off. She tells him that she has decided what happened isn't his fault. It was THE DRUGS making him ADDICTED TO WOMEN. Amazing. Continue to lie to yourself, sister girl, you do it so well.

Nico does not even bother to conceal how much he does not care for absolutely any facet of his life. Nate and Blair act like they have been married for thirty years and are just staying together for the kids at this point.

Onto Daniel and Sofia! He is trying to explain himself to her but she says he doesn't need to; he's free to do whatever with whomever, no big deal, tralalala. It's so fake cool on her part that I want to pat her on the head. (People have left me comments about how Sofia is not pretty, so maybe you just have to experience her in motion or maybe I just love Serena an overwhelming amount, because I adore this chica.) Daniel says nothing happened, Vanessa is just a friend (I do not get the lines the Parras have made in regards to this relationship), and he is head over heels for Sofia. She is full swooning by the end of it so they make out against the wall.

Acapulco Dan is smooth as fuck.








Back at the Hotel Boca Chica, Rufus is grilling up burgers in the middle of the living room. Normally I would not bother to tell you all such a minor detail that has no bearing on anything, but this is weird as fuck. The one time it would make sense for these people to be outdoors, they're inside! What the hell. I think there's an implied balcony but I still think it's dumb.

Jenny and Dan do some cute squealing about how his and Sofia's makeout is on GG. Vanessa snidely informs Dan that she is totally fine with this, she is fine with everything, her only concern is his potential absorption into the Second Estate (I had to google so I could make that reference). Now he's even checking Gossip Gal (!), she says, in English, and Daniel corrects her with the most over-pronounced "Gossip Guuuuurrrrrlllll" I have ever heard. My pretentious darling.

Daniel insists that he is the same guy as before. Vanessa just needs to get to know Sofia! Vanessa suggests they bring Sofia surfing! YES LET'S.

Also, Vanessa is rocking an outfit I actually think is hella cute? It's a french braid with a gray tank top and camo shorts with a gigantic necklace. I'd wear that? Well, okay, not the necklace. I have some lines.








But before the surfing can commence, Barbie and Sofia have breakfast. Is it just me or do people only ever seem to eat breakfast on this show (on the original too, come to think)? Barbie arrives fresh from the convent where she was being TRULY SELFLESS and helping unwed single mothers. Sofia is like, haha funny joke. But Barbie insists, claiming she's learning not to judge people by their actions. Sofia makes a face that was impossible to capture in a screen cap, but it was hilarious, and it is the face you yourself would probably make if you heard a girl like Blair Waldorf was helping out single mothers at a convent.

(Meanwhile Barbie is looking hella adorable in a little leopard dress. Now that it's summer here I'm starting to vibe all these wardrobe choices.)

They move on to discussing Vanessa and Barb lays down two rules: 1, never trust an ex-girlfriend and 2, that bitch needs to leave Acapulco NOW (it's ironic when you remember who she's saying this to). Sofia gives Daniel a call and he's obviously with Vanessa, who tells him to invite Sofia to the beach now. Vanessa will teach her how to surf! Let me tell you, that is a plot I wish we had in the original. HOW FUCKING CUTE WOULD THAT BE. However, Vanessa has no plans to actually do that, she just wants to be a raging bitch to Sofia in person.

Eric gives Jenny a pair of Gucci shoes as a thank-you and a friendship incentive. Jenny says she couldn't possibly accept them but she is basically having an orgasm so Eric insists. Jenny says it might be the best day of her life! Bless this angel. One of the things I love about this Jenny – and I think it's something specific to this actress' portrayal, actually – is how joyful she is. Sis gets knocked down and pops right back up again. It's almost like all the bullshit just rolls off her back. And there was definitely a component of that to Taylor's Jenny too, but this girl is just so infectiously happy.








Onto surfing! Daniel is smooth some more and then he and Sofia make out while Vanessa looks disgruntled. Sofia tries to get out of surfing by pretending to forget her wetsuit (she has a wetsuit on hand?) but Vanessa has a spare! Vanessa sends Dan away so she and Sofia can practice in private but really it's so Vanessa can be a jerk without an audience. She hands Sofia a bag and Sofia points out that the "wetsuit" Vanessa gave her is actually just a pair of shorts. Vanessa is all "whoops! I definitely absolutely had no idea! I'd lend you the one I'm wearing but it's already all wet! Hahaha make do I guess!!!!!"

Surfing montage! Sofia is cute as hell as she wipes out again and again. She is terrible but because she's Serena she keeps trying anyway. She even loses her bikini top at one point which leads to Dan hilariously trying to mime TITS at her.

Engagement party time! But first Barbie summons Jenny and brushes her hair threateningly in the mirror while smiling at Jenny like she's about to shank her. It only takes about seven seconds of menacing before Jenny totally narcs on Nico. Shouldn't have taken her candy away, dude.








Nico and Max arrive just in time for this, because in Soap Opera Land you always arrive mere seconds after someone was talking about you (and/or you catch the person you love kissing someone else by staring at them sadly through a window). Little Jenny is crying by now and, job done, Blair orders her out. Nico goes after Jenny but it's just so Max and Barbie can Chuck-and-Blair at each other some more. Max smarms about how Nico will react upon finding out his "present" is a "hand-me-down"? Um, fuck you, Max. The offensive shit that continually comes out of this boy's mouth, I swear to god. I think in the early days off GG, I liked Chuck/Blair at least in part because he confirmed and supported Blair's grody worldviews and I loved Blair so I wanted her to have that even though it was gross. Also I was seventeen. I only bring it up because now (in my mid-20s) it is one of the things I find the most off-putting about their relationship. Blair (and by extension, Barbie) has so much internalized horrible stuff that she spews out at the world at large and Chuck just sits there like: yep, all of your creepy gender notions and misogyny and self-hate are totally the right things to believe and feel. And he just feeds it and cultivates it. They really are poison.

Aaaaaaanyway.

Max grossly kisses a resisting Barbie on the cheek, and I left in the subtitles from our friend the CB Subtitler just so…you all…could see. Like, Barbie straight up looks like she wants to cry when he touches her, what the fuck is this ship. I GET So Wrong It's Right ships but I'm sorry, I can never get down with stuff like this. Now that he's sexually assaulted a girl, Max doesn't feel the need to stay for the rest of the party, so he bounces.








Nico, of course, just misses the kiss. He was too busy looking perplexed about Jenny, like he sort of felt bad for her but was too confused to know for sure. Nicolas, you are dead useless but your sweater vest is adorable so I guess we can call it even.

Engagement dinner! Leonora is scary! El Capitán is on coke! Acapulco Anne has nothing on Real Housewife of NYC Anne. Everyone kisses each other and says hello for eighteen years. Then everyone talks about how Nico and Barbie are perfect together and how beautiful their kids will be and how Nico is totally going to law school and becoming a politician. Everyone looks acutely miserable. Fun!

El Capitán forces Nico to propose to Barbie RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW even though everyone is so deeply uncomfortable, myself included. Someone pour me a glass of wine.

Super tense music plays as Nico gets down on one knee and slides a gigantic rock onto Barbie's finger. He wants to actually crawl right out of his skin. But poor sweet Barbie can't help cracking an excited little smile, bless her broken heart.








Now some other things happen in almost confusingly quick succession. El Capitán is a relentless dick to his wife until she leaves the room and he follows, physically assaulting her offscreen. It happens very rapidly, and the visual framing is kind of evasive, like the show wants to get it over with as quickly as possible – not that I blame them for that. It's interesting that the shift of storyline makes Anne the victim of the Captain's physical abuse instead of Nate; the outcome is much the same either way, but I think it's a change that bears some analyzing.

I don't remember if El Capitán ends up assaulting Nico too, down the line; I wouldn't be surprised. He is a lot more obviously villainous and Anne is a lot more obviously sympathetic, but Nico is also much more active within his own storyline than Nate was. Things happened to Nate and he just sort of looked sad and pretty and helpless about them. I always think of Nate as someone who really wants to be the kind of person who fixes things but has no tools with which to do this, so he just tries to quietly minimize damage and come out of things with some of his pride intact. Nico is somewhat less passive. And later when his family has lost all their money and he has nowhere to go, there is no Humphrey adoption or manipulative Duchess; Nico marches himself over to Catherine with the intention of trading his body for money.

But back to the matter at hand. Nico punches his dad in the face and tells him never to touch Anne again! Anne tries to say she just fell but no one is buying it and Nico leaves even though Barbie tries to stop him. This episode is like a mishmash of 1x07 and 1x08, except CB already fucked and it's not Blair's birthday because it was her birthday in the pilot. Sheesh. Plot whiplash.

Onto the club! Sofia gets Daniel and Vanessa in instantly even though Vanessa was going on and on about how no one gets into this club, ever, no way no how. Sofia looks hot – or "bitchin'" as one of the minions puts it, because she is obviously confused about what year it is. Barbie shows off her ring to everyone like it's normal and nothing is wrong at all why would you even suggest that, but she also makes time to be a bitch to Vanessa. She practically pees in a territorial circle around Sofia, and there's also this: "I don't know if you've looked in a mirror lately, Vanessa, but you look………………so……………….pretty!!!!"

There are a lot of subtle, lolzy, little bitchy touches between Sofia and Vanessa and Barbie during this half of the episode. It's super cute. Like Barbie will look triumphant any time she thinks Sofia is "winning" or Vanessa and Sofia will be teeth-grittingly polite to each other until they turn away and can safely roll their eyes. Also Vanessa over-dramatically clutches her ~surfing injury~ every time Sofia really annoys her.

Lots of club dancing. All of the girls are standing on their seats and dancing in unison like they did the last time they were here, the only club set the budget would allow for (presumably). Max and Barbie have that entire butterfly conversation, it's pretty much exactly the same straight down to murdering the mariposas. Max tells her that Nico having second thoughts would be the best possible thing that could happen, and he kind of has a point, if only because Barb would never be the one to break it off. But he's also so incredibly rude and gross about everything that who even cares what points he's making.

Barbie shuts him down ONCE AGAIN and he counters that she wasn't that good in bed anyway. What a prince.








Vanessa tries to start a deep conversation about cinema with Daniel in this extremely loud and busy club, but Sofia is having cheer sex with him from one of the benches so he isn't paying attention. Sofia pulls Vanessa up onto the bench to dance with all the other girls. Vanessa looks like she would rather drink poison. Then Sofia leaves her there to bust some moves with Daniel, and they only shoot her from the neck up so you can't tell that she has no rhythm.

Barbie takes this moment to "insult" Vanessa by calling her pretty again; she doesn't seem to understand how insulting people works. She does say that Vanessa could never win against Sofia. Apparently having done her research, Vanessa's like I HEARD YOU CAN'T EITHER which is a low blow but also a sick burn so I respect it. Barbie is probably so turned on by Vanessa's combination of meanness and superiority, not that she would ever say as much.

Max, having seen all this go down, decides to pour salt in Barbie's very obvious wounds by telling her that Nico is standing her up and he's only with her because his family is bankrupt. Max relishes departing this information. Poor Barbie spends 90% of this episode two seconds away from crying.

Max says if Nico does come, he'll leave her alone. If not, sex is on. This is just as gross as it ever was.








Nico sees Jenny outside trying to get into the club and decides to hang out with her instead of his fiancée. Jenny is SO DOWN. "[Shipping it like Fedex.]" says the Subtitler and truly I agree.

They go down to the beach where they sit and chat. Nico confesses that he and Bárbara are together for the wrong reasons. Their parents put too much pressure on them and he's not even sure he loves her anymore. Jenny says, "No one should tell you how to live your life," which is like the magic spell to unlocking Nate's chastity belt. Tell the least independent boy on earth that he should be independent and he will drop trou like THAT.

Sadly he does not do so quite yet. He just pops a little boner in his heart for our Jen and then compliments her on how wise she is for a fifteen year old. Until this moment I did not realize Jenny was only supposed to be fifteen. She says she's an old soul. I say you're eighteen years old, Nicolas, so back the fuck off this child. Before he can back on or off, Jenny has to rush to meet curfew so they hug in a friendly way, only of course it ends up on Gossip Girl. Everyone at the club sees and starting whispering very obviously about Barbie. :(

Sofia is heartbroken for her but Barbie rushes off, resisting any comfort Sofia might offer and leaving a spot open for Max to ooze right in. Poor Barbie is finally sobbing in a weirdly little rocky crevice in the club. Max is not gross for two entire seconds of his life. Then they start making out.

Dan and Vanessa leave (Vanessa: I'll take care of him, don't worry! Sofia: this bitch) so Sofia finally goes after her gal pal only to find her balls deep in the worst mistake of 2007 come to haunt us for all eternity.








You would think the episode was over now, based on how they usually go – big shocker, no resolution, classic soap – but surprisingly it is not. Instead we move along to the next day.

Nico tells his parents he's calling off the wedding and when El Capitán protests, Nico is like: whatever, you are a straight up abusive piece of shit. Nico out! Go, baby!

Barb and Sof have ANOTHER breakfast but Sofia is really just there to talk about the Max reveal. Barbie has a cute leopard print sleeping mask because she is the cutest person on earth, and I guess leopard was the theme for breakfast in this episode. She admits it and says it's gross but she can't stop herself! Sofia makes a face like: we've all been there, girlfriend, except not with Max because he's the walking plague. She thought Barbie wanted to wait for someone special and Barbie gets in a dig about how Sofia is a slut AGAIN. OH MY GOD ENOUGH. All the leopard sleeping masks in the world cannot erase all this unnecessary shaming of your perfectly cute friend.








Then Barbie makes a bid to out-gross Max with this little chestnut: Sofia is jealous because Max "prefers virgins to sluts." That may be among the grossest sentences I have ever heard. Someone who would ever even think a thing like that let alone voice it is the fucking garbage king of garbage island (and I mean Barbie as much as Max). Sofia tells Barbie one day she won't have any friends left. Sofia out!

Nico is relaxing nude on Max's couch again while Max brings them each a cocktail, dressed in a silky robe. We all know the joke, right? I'm not going to make it because we all know it and it's so obvious that it's almost too cheap. Max is trying to ascertain if his boyfriend likes his girlfriend and probably doing the math in his head to figure out how likely a threesome is. He does encourage Nico to break up with Barbie and gives that whole Chuck Nate "I only care about three things" speech which, whatever, their friendship never did anything for me even when I still liked Chuck.

Nico goes to find Barbie to do just that but she beats him to the punch. She is adorably golfing in an adorable golf outfit. She reminds Nico of all his cheating (I had forgotten how much soaps like to remind you of plot points ad naseum, so you can check in at any time and get caught up) and then tells him he should focus on his family because they need him and she doesn't. Then she hands back the ring and sashays away. GOOD FOR YOU. Nico looks extremely confused and also like the act of Barbie breaking up with him has made him suddenly fall in love with her again. So, classic Nate.

These episodes do like to end on a ~reveal~ and here's today's: Allison's back! No explanation! No buildup! No Jenny going to get her! Well, it's possible there was some kind of hint in a Rufus/Lily scene that I chose not to pay attention to. Anyway, Mom's back!








Please get better at your surprise endings, GGA, they are always weird.

Until next time! Which is THE FLASHBACK EPISODE, one of my favorites in any incarnation of this show. Can't wait!