Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) attempts to ruin Blair by airing out every scandal she can draw out and Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) slowly devolves into a downward spiral by investigating the disappearance of Avery Thorpe.

Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr) befriends Charlie Rhodes (Kaylee DeFer) for reasons that revolve around Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley).

[3][4] Chuck (Ed Westwick) informing his P.I that he doesn't believe his father is responsible for the murder of Avery Thorpe - Raina's mother - and for him to drop the case.

Whalley was rumoured to play an adversarial role to Kelly Rutherford's Lily van der Woodsen but turned out to be that of Princess Sophie, Louis Grimaldi's mother.

[6] "The Princesses and the Frog" was watched by 1.27 million live viewers and achieved a 1.5 rating in The CW's target audience of Women 18-34[7] and received mixed to negative reviews.

The episode received negative remarks following a controversial scene of Chuck Bass subjecting what many perceived to be domestic violence to Blair Waldorf.

The Los Angeles Times' Judy Berman praised the direction of the episode, ""Gossip Girl" is finally fun to watch again.

[3] New York Magazine hailed the return of Nate and Chuck's "bromance", praised the change of direction for the character of Charlie, and Blair dating prince but generally panned the episode for its shortcomings and the closing scene.

"[6] Berman noticed her abrupt change in character, stating "It's a pretty evil, slightly out-of-character move, and S spends most of the episode looking conflicted over what she's done.

He knows it and she knows it, and I feel it's very important to know that she is not scared—if anything, she is scared for Chuck—and what he might do to himself, but she is never afraid of what he might do to her.In response to these comments, Carina MacKenzie of Zap2it stated, "We're left wondering if Safran missed the part where she went home bleeding because Chuck was using physical intimidation to release his own emotions.

"[4] MacKenzie concluded that Chuck's behavior throughout Season 4 fit the signs of an abusive relationship, citing examples from HelpGuide.org, a non-profit health resource.

She went on to state, "We have no right to expect Gossip Girl to be a paragon of morality, or even realism, but the idea that true love requires taking a shard of glass to the face is disturbing even in this alternate, soap-opera dimension.