SoulHonky

Upon looking over some more episodes, one thing that became glaringly obvious was that, while Blake Lively became the breakout star of the show, the show's Queen is B. Blair holds the show together and her storylines are usually the anchor.

- Episodes 1 - 4 focused on Blair and Serena's relationship.
- Episode 5 was pretty much a standalone aside from the introduction of Jenny onto the socialite scene.
- Episode 6 - 10 focused on the Blair, Chuck, Nate love triangle (with episode 9 being a bit of a break for Thanksgiving).
- Episode 11 was another Blair-centric standalone, this time focusing on Christmas (and her Dad and his lover).
- Episode 12 was pretty much a group standalone, School Ties.
- Episodes 13 - 16 focused on Blair & Jenny 

To me, the show started to come apart in Episode 15 because a second A-story was introduced and the show seemed to lose focus. The show's formula didn't really work with the Georgina stoy fighting for time alongside Jenny v. Blair. Because of this, moments that probably should have been stronger, such as Blair discovering that Eric is gay or Asher's character as a whole, were lost and treated almost as throwaways. Even worse, the two A-stories didn't mesh. Dan outs Asher to Gossip Girl/the Upper East side and it's no big deal but Georgina outing Eric to his own mother is somehow pure evil.

But the most problematic piece was that the battle was one-sided. Serena is an almost completely reactive character. She is almost never proactive in any situation (would Blair have let Jenny toss yogurt at her and not have, at least, tried to talk to her?) Even when Chuck was at his worst, Blair had some fight in her. Serena basically lets Georgina slap her around and then whines about not being able to whine to anyone about it. (And hell, she didn't even kill someone. She just didn't call because Georgina told her not to).

The season finale will hopefully tie up the loose ends of the Serena A-story and next season can start with the deflowered and single Blair looking to get her party on in the Hamptons. That way she could possibly be the devil on Serena's shoulder as opposed to Dan's Angel. And perhaps the writers could even let Blair be right a couple of times so that wet blanket Dan isn't always smugly judgemental.

There's hope yet for Gossip Girl but the Georgina/Murder folly is something that should be dealt with, pushed aside, and ignored in the future. Blake can be the star but Blair needs to drive the story.