It’s Zoya Lott’s 15th birthday, but she’s not in the mood to celebrate. Indeed, she’s never in the mood to celebrate, at least not on …
It’s Zoya Lott’s 15th birthday, but she’s not in the mood to celebrate. Indeed, she’s never in the mood to celebrate, at least not on her birthdate itself. In this revelatory, if kind of herky-jerky, episode of Gossip Girl, we learn that her mother—who was also Julien’s mother and who jilted Julien and her dad for Zoya’s father—died in childbirth. Her boyfriend Obie and her half-sister Julien take a while to catch on, but Zoya’s view of her own birthday is forever morbid. But because of the machinations of Julien’s henchwomen/enablers/handlers/personal devils-on-the-shoulder Luna and Monet—who in a throwaway storyline conspire to have Zoya and her dad evicted from her grandma’s apartment (!)—Zoya winds up deciding to throw a party anyway. It’s her way to counterprogram the one that the minions have egged Julien into throwing. The tit-for-tat goes on from there, in large part thanks to a surprising new character: Milo Sparks, the 10-year-old prodigy/espionage-expert offspring of the original Gossip Girl ‘s archvillain Georgina Sparks. Milo digs into Julien’s old posts in an attempt to get her canceled. Julien counters by proclaiming that her party is a now a charity fundraiser. When their dads force the girls to throw a joint party, Milo doses the cupcakes that Julien’s been eating; Julien, who very nearly lost the booking of her special guest Princess Nokia thanks to Milo’s meddling, prepares to go nuclear by playing a video that reveals exactly why Zoya left her old hometown of Buffalo, provided to her by Monet and Luna. Only the video is far worse than she imagined. It starts off innocently enough, with Zoya spraypainting “FUCK SCHOOL” in her old school’s hallway at the instigation of other kids. But then those kids turn on her, locking her in a classroom and triggering a panic attack that ends with her literally lighting the room on fire. (Hence the episode’s title, “Fire Walk with Z,” which doubles as a homage to the ep’s director, Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David.) Julien is so taken aback by the footage, which she hadn’t seen, that she winds up declaring herself a bully in front of the entire party (and anyone watching along at home via social media).
