"Gossip Girl"'s big gay episode: "All About My Brother"

I'm sure you're familiar with the TV junkie's version of Murphy's Law, where you finally get your friends to check out that show you love only to see the worst episode to air. Last night's Gossip Girl disappointed me that way. Where many of us became addicted to the CW's soap opera about absurdly precocious teens because of the inner demons that drive these characters, the last few episodes have traded pathos for cattiness and bon mots ... including in how the show revealed its gay character.

Find out who the gay Gossip guy is and the circumstances surrounding his multiple outings after the break...

The episode, cleverly titled "All About My Brother" (a play on gay director Pedro Almodóvar's Oscar-winning All About My Mother) gets to the gay scandal right out of the gate when Dan (Penn Badgley) spots his sister Jenny (Taylor Momsen)'s boyfriend, Asher (Jesse Swenson), kissing another guy ... though he can't see with whom Asher is locking lips. (Giving Gossip Girl an excuse to film a male kiss as steamy as Matt Fielding's first kiss on Melrose Place. Clever...) Dan kicks in to protective brother mode as he tries to figure out if Asher is using Jenny as closet cover and tries to stop her from selling her soul to gain acceptance in Upper East Side society.

It should have been pretty obvious to viewers who Asher's mysterious boyfriend is since we saw Eric (Connor Paolo) trying to warn Jenny away from Asher at the beginning of the episode. While Dan is playing interference in his younger sister's life, Eric doesn't get half as much sibling attention as his older sister Serena (Blake Lively) is too busy trying to deal with an unwelcome, old friend, Georgina (Michelle Trachtenberg, bringing tons of crazy-eyed hoyay to Gossip Girl) ... that is, until Georgina outs him to their family over dinner, seemingly to prove to Serena that she's more aware of what's going on in Serena's life than Serena herself.

Serena is quick to reach out to comfort Eric after being outed, while their mother Lily (Kelly Rutherford) reacts coldly, first denying that her son could be gay, quickly hitting the acceptance stage and then cursing herself for not being more involved in her son's life. However, words of support from Serena and an off-screen Chuck give Eric the confidence to go and confront Asher. After all, isn't publicly outing your boyfriend a part of the coming out process?

One thing I find interesting about Asher, however, is how quickly he switches from well mannered society guy to foul-mouthed homophobic jerk to people who try to push him out of the closet. When Dan confronts him about using his sister, Asher asserts his heterosexuality by taunting Dan with a promise to pop Jenny's cherry. When Eric outs Asher at his own party, Asher is quick to throw the f-word at him; is this supposed tell us that Asher is deeply self-loathing? Is there something else going on? Since it doesn't look likely that we'll see Asher again, I guess we'll never know.

If "All About My Brother" came from a different show, I would have been very happy with it. I liked that the scandal wasn't so much about Asher being gay as much as Jenny's relationship with him being revealed as a sham. There's also plenty to like about how Eric is treated in this episode: he and his relationship with Asher play a key role in all of the episode's stories, and are not a "very special" storyline sitting on the sidelines, waiting to impart an important social message before fading back into the background.

While he's uncomfortable discussing the topic with his family, Eric's not portrayed as struggling with being gay and in the course of the episode he gets the nerve to stand up for himself (instead of waiting for one of the straight characters to do that job for him and prove how accepting they are). His closing scene with his mother is also encouraging, in that she accepts him entirely and unconditionally, with her sole concerns being his happiness and her hopes for him to experience true love. Not bad for an otherwise tawdry episode.

But I know Gossip Girl can do more with its characters than what we saw on "All About My Brother". Hence, it's frustrating to see Eric mostly sit on the sidelines in a story where he's so central. We never get much of a feel for what drove Eric and Asher's relationship, aside from meeting in the clinic where Eric was in treatment after his suicide attempt. Why did Eric come back to kiss Asher after seeing him with Jenny? Why did he need to out Asher - was it revenge, an attempt to protect Jenny or what? I'll hold out some hope that Eric won't be forgotten after this episode.

I'd like to see Gossip Girl explore the circumstances behind his suicide attempt ... while I'm sure struggling with his sexuality was a big part of it, this episode got me thinking about how very lonely his family must make Eric feel, as both Serena and Lily are usually too wrapped up in their own lives to notice what Eric is going through. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we get to see more of Eric in the future and that we'll get to discover his many layers, like we have with Gossip Girl's other characters.