The Shipping News: Nate and Vanessa

Oh, show. Why are you equally amazing and frustrating?

I agree that the plot of the "The Grandfather" was mostly flawed (really, Serena? you haven’t talked to Dan in a week? Don’t you have school with him? Why is Dan even hanging out with Nate and Vanessa? And Chuck, remember when you used to try to rape people and now you’re too in love to have Blair “that way”? PLEASE.), but I have to say that everything V said and did (minus the “I guess we’re broken up”—jeez, the people on this show need to actually BREAK UP, not suggest it through ambiguous stares) made sense.

Vanessa was actually an incredibly supportive girlfriend in this episode. Unlike Dan and Serena who are constantly ripped apart by class issues, Vanessa is able to take it in stride. She wants Nate to be happy. That means encouraging him to be with his family instead of her on their pierogi date, or, heck, convincing him to forgive his grandfather in the first place. At the beginning of the episode, she reminds Nate how important his family is to him. It’s a small but very clear glimpse into Nate and Vanessa’s relationship, especially compared to his with Blair: Nate feels comfortable opening up to Vanessa in a way that we don’t see with any other character, except perhaps Chuck. (But not really because when was the last time we had a Chuck/Nate scene?)

And when it comes to the internship, obviously she has selfish motives when it comes to her not wanting him to take it. But she’s also afraid that he’ll become something he’s not. In an episode about reminiscencing about what should have been, Vanessa is trying to tell him that he can pick his own path. With Nate and Vanessa, it’s all about opening the road that the other person wouldn’t travel in order to make him/her consider his/her options: Nate convinces V to take the SATs even though her family doesn’t go to college and V convinces Nate that there are more things in life than becoming a Vanderbilt. I truly believe that if Vanessa felt that Nate really wanted the internship (let’s face it: Nate did a pretty piss-poor job of convincing her by NOT TELLING HER), she would support him whole-heartedly.

The show has established that Nate and Vanessa are able to work through their issues if they get enough time and distance; also, if Nate picked Vanessa over Duchess Cougar and Raccoon-Eyed Jenny, I’ve gotta think that what he feels for her is incredibly strong. If the show wasn’t so keen on pushing Blair/Nate for the extra drama, I would have no doubt that after this episode, Vanessa would go to Nate and apologize for the way she acted, the same way she did in the previous episode. She’s passionate and she says the wrong thing sometimes without thinking, but unlike Dan, she knows when she did something wrong.

I mean, let’s be frank. Vanessa and Nate are the most functional couple the show has shown us. No secret children (Rufus/Lily), cheating (Everyone), or chastising (Dan/Serena). They have the SEX! the show requires (the only good part of the secret society storyline was Nate and Vanessa’s later role play), but also the heart and the common sense. (Ignore the Jenny stuff, which was ridiculous from the start.) All Nate wants is to be loved, and Vanessa gives that to him with a proper amount of sass, which Nate gives back in return. She’s a thinking girlfriend who knows what she wants from the relationship and thinks about what’s best for herself AND Nate (how novel, compared to Nate’s other conquests). She doesn’t want Nathaniel Archibald, Vanderbilt but Nate Archibald, ESPN lover. And Nate doesn’t need a society girl for a good wife or an activist to show his political interests. All he needs is someone willing to listen to him and help him out through quite frankenly some of the crappiest crap that any of the characters have to deal with, the majority of which is not his fault. Vanessa gives good Nate a kind ear and, when needed, a supportive intervention.

What frustrates me is that the entirety of Gossip Girl shows that the showrunners do not think ahead when they plot the show. I feel that a lot of this Chuck/Blair/Nate/Vanessa drama would have been so much better with the appropriate build (uh, maybe by dropping that horrible secret society storyline that Chuck had?). Le sigh.

TO CONCLUDE. Nate/Vanessa = <3. Showrunners = Suck. Hopefully, Nate and Vanessa will get back together at some point. Otherwise, we’re pretty much assured Dan/Vanessa and then I truly won’t care if we ever go to Brooklyn.

(P.S. Fic Rec: This Won’t Be a Sad Song, the best Nate/Vanessa fic I have read thus far.)