For a fleeting moment tonight, it looked like after six months of raspy-voiced lies, ulterior motives, convoluted story lines and plot twists, Ivy's deception would finally reach critical mass on Gossip Girl.

Not the case.

Instead of being exposed for the WT wannabe impostor she is, Charlie/Ivy (known to some TV Fanatic staffers as Chivy) somehow slithered out of her biggest jam yet, and came out smelling like roses. Ugh.

It's never a good sign when you find yourself cracking a smile at a scene meant to be deathly serious, but that's where I found myself as she defended herself against Max's "lies" with Carol's help.

I could spend hours ranting about the screen time Chivy takes up with relatively little advancement of the storyline, and surely some of you will in the comments. So I'll try to focus on the positives:

"Rhodes to Perdition" is the night she became a Rhodes, because all the poor girl wants is a family. Sucks that she got paid to act like a member of this dysfunctional crew, but they're better than nothing.

It's hard not to feel a little bad for Chivy after what Max revealed, and so callously at that. Sure, she's a manipulative liar leading a double life and probably guilty of fraud, but she just wants to be loved!

If nothing else, all this set up the vengeance of Max, who is now infuriated and off the rails. Surely he'll be coming after Chivy again, no matter how "untouchable" she feels she is with her new surname.

No last name stops a bus from running you over, Chives. Just saying.

More significantly, there's a mystery surrounding the real Charlie Rhodes, and apparently Carol wants to keep that under wraps. So look for that character to be cast sometime this spring most likely.

All in all, not a great use of the episode's primary storyline, even if the Studio 54 theme did lead to the return of Serena's cleavage after an absence of several weeks. There's always a silver lining, right?

What also stood out about "Rhodes to Perdition", besides the fact that the bulk of the past hour was spent building up to a major confrontation that fizzled out, were the distinct B, C and D storylines.

I actually didn't mean the characters' initials, but if you read it that way, there was an N story too, and an intriguing one, as ol' Man Bangs slicked back his hair and rolled up his sleeves as Editor-in-Chief.

Whether you'd call him naive or virtuous, or something in between, Nate is a man who stays true to his convictions. He never tipped off Gossip Girl and he wouldn't bite at the first hint of a big scandal.

He has no interest in running a celebrity gossip site (his loss). Salacious stories are all well and good, as long as they're legit. Give the newly-appointed honcho credit for not being played by Trip's wife.

Unless he still is, and doesn't even know the extent of it yet.

Was the Grandfather behind it as part of his plan to rebuild Nate's reputation? What will become of the cheating scandal that wasn't? Will Maureen still try to plant the story elsewhere? This can't be over.

Regardless of what lies ahead, it was fun to see Nate at the helm and handling his role with aplomb. If only he didn't have to balance classes at Columbia with this job! Oh, wait, Gossip Girl dropped that.

While Nathaniel was digging for answers at the Spectator, Blair was doing some searching of her own. Convinced that Chuck held the key to turning Louis around, she accompanied her ex to therapy.

That led to easily the most noteworthy exchange of the entire night, as a depressed B openly wondered if she was in fact the reason Chuck - and now Louis - plunged into seemingly eternal darkness.

Chuck insists she wasn't, and he's correct. His self-destructive tendencies were caused by a fear of losing her, and only he is to blame. But their connection is one that clearly provokes intense passion.

[SIDE NOTE: What the heck happened after the closing scene last week? That was shaping up to be a pretty major Chair moment, no? Then it's just completely forgotten about ... major pet peeve.]

Together, Chair can be very combustible. We've seen them at their best and, individually, at moments they would rather forget. Now the question is whether by letting her go, Chuck lost her for good.

I'm betting not. With Louis out of the picture for two episodes and the (former?) Basshole's stock rising by the hour, there's no way she's marrying the prince. The Chuck-Blair tension will soon boil over.

Just pray that the playoff is worth it ... and don't ask me where Dan fits in.

Don't expect Humphrey to let his feelings for her go easily, based on what's been teased so far. Think there's any chance she'll reciprocate his feelings, or will she spurn him in favor of her dark knight?

One person who's been down on Dan in a different way turned out to be his agent, Alessandra, although she was only trying to help his book by generating social media buzz under a nom de plume.

This was pretty much filler, although I like that the show hasn't simply abandoned Dan's writing aspirations like they have other things ... such as the fact that the characters were in college once.

Maybe Rufus' words and Alessandra's clandestine mission will give Dan the gumption to go after what he wants in life, and I don't mean literary success. Well, I don't mean only literary success.

I'm talking about Blair, people. Don't count Humphrey out yet.

Also, give the show credit for creating a real ihatehumphrey Twitter account (and HumphreyLove ... although I don't expect Katy Perry will be re-Tweeting either to her 12,505,321 followers tonight).

Kind of a slow episode overall, but not altogether bad, and hopefully, next week will make up for it. From the looks of the promos for "Riding in Town Cars With Boys," 2011 will go out with a bang.

One that may hint at the fate of Blair's baby ...

What did you think of this week's Gossip Girl? Looking ahead to next week, will Dan and/or Chuck confess their feelings for Blair? Will she call off the wedding? Comment below!

Steve Marsi is the Managing Editor of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Google+ or email him here.