Gossip Girl: Season 2, Episode 4

Blake Lively as Serena, Leighton Meester as Blair, Amanda Setton as Penelope, Nicole Fiscella as Isabel, and Laura-Leigh as Amanda star in Gossip Girl on The CW.

Honestly, ladies, I love me some Gossip Girl. And now, by popular demand, you’re going to have a weekly recap from none other than, uh, me!

This week finds Serena, not-so-lonely-boy Dan, Chuck “I’m Chuck Bass” Bass, and Queen B (oh, and cougar-humping gigolo Nate, whose name on the show I had to Google, despite having seen every episode of the series at least once. He’s that boring) returning for their senior year of Upper East Side quasi-high school. Oh, and Lil’ J and Eric probably go back to school too, but their story arcs are going nowhere at the moment (although I really want Eric to have a cute little boyfriend!). As always, the good stuff (and spoilers) are after the jump.

If you happen to download any Gossip Girl episodes or catch a rerun, I propose a really inexpensive drinking game: drink every time Chace Crawford’s character Nate changes the look on his face to anything other than slightly irritated bewilderment. Why’s the game so cheap? Because he never does. They should just lock him, shirtless, in a go-go dancing cage and use him as a cut between scenes, because eye candy is just about all he’s good for. And we’ll get to the cougar-humping later.

Dan with new girl Amanda and Chuck snapping a photo

So, like I said, first day of school. Everyone is nervous to see what’s going on with the other side of their ex-liaisons, and the news is good for, uh, precisely no one. Well, except maybe for preening idiot Dan, who has somehow managed to find the single new girl, who looks like a poor man’s Drew Barrymore with some seriously mangy hair. That, after Serena Van der Woodsen? Downgrade.

Blair thinks things are going swimmingly with Little Lord Fauntleroy or whatever his name is since he punched Chuck in the face post-blackout (and post-blackout make-out session), but we all guessed, she’s wrong. Chuck doesn’t know this immediately, however, which results in lots of his signature lurking and glaring, and that’s something he does like no other.

But all is not well with Blair, the Lord, Nate, and his sexual employer the Duchess. Or Vanessa, who is kind of a weird 3rd party to all of this. I have been waiting for something so juicy ALL SEASON - the Duchess, who is blackmailing Nate into sexual servitude because his dad/the Captain is hiding from financial and legal ruin in Dominica and SHE KNOWS, is actually also schtupping her stepson, the Lord, who is Blair’s boyfriend.

Nate is Blair’s ex and is adored by Vanessa, Dan’s Brooklyn-dwelling annoyance of a best friend. The Duchess tries to buy Vanessa off for a paltry $5,000 (maybe that goes further in Brooklyn than in Manhattan?) so that she stays away from Nate, but when Vanessa returns to shove it back in her face, she catches the Lord and his mum (err, step-mum) in the act (or the pre-act). Naturally, she grabs the check and snaps a cell phone pic of them pawing each other before running straight to Blair with the evidence. Because no one in this show does or sees anything without taking a cell phone picture.

Blair confronts the gruesome twosome and they agree to get the heck out of Dodge and pay off Nate’s dad’s restitution. They’re thwarted by Vanessa’s complete and utter idiocy, however; she gets all self-righteous and goes to the Duke with the photos, screwing up the whole thing for everyone, including herself. Nate gets mad at her because she didn’t come to him with his concerns, which I don’t buy at all - Nate doesn’t have enough brain cells swimming around in his head to conjure up that thought.

Serena wearing a Herve Leger Bandage Dress. Buy through Net A Porter

All is not well when it comes to Dan and Serena either, who broke up for the 800th time last episode after boinking each others’ brains out (including one particularly nasty incident on the Hamptons Jitney, eww), and now are trying to out-hurt each other in a spectacular show of ineptitude that makes you wonder why Blair even gives them the time of day. I mean, this is stuff I can (and, uh, have) pull off - first, Serena follows Blair’s lead and tries to ban the girl (whose name is Amanda, which makes me like her even less) from dating Dan by inducting her into their circle of friends. Serena bails at the last second, but Dan is an a-hole, as always, and shows up at a bar in front of all of Serena’s friends with the same girl. So, back in The Land of People Who Know How to Handle These Things, Chuck and Serena’s friends make a lovely Nair-tini and dump it on the back of the girl’s head - hilarity ensues and her nasty hair falls out. Dan, having the awareness of a 6-week-old puppy, automatically blames Serena for the whole thing, despite the fact that she never showed the aptitude for such awesomeness when they were dating.

And then, something beautiful happens - we find out that Chuck is the mastermind of the whole thing. He hired the girl to be interested in Dan so that Serena would become a jealous monster (which she does) and go back to running the school, relegating Blair to second-in-command to spite her for not taking him as he is. Brilliant. And that, folks is why HE IS CHUCK BASS and we are not. This new, far superior incarnation of Serena succeeds in swiftly dispatching Dan back to his original status of Lonely Boy, exactly where he should suffer for the rest of the season and hopefully never speak another word on the show again. He should know better than to try and beat these people at their own game.

I’m looking forward to a major Blair-Serena showdown coming verrrrrry soon - probably next episode, from the looks of the previews. Plus, it’s fashion week in the show! That means lots of gorgy clothes for us to ogle and lots of fabulous parties for the characters to attend, despite their underage status (this phenomenon of teenagers in bars mystified my roommate’s boyfriend for the entire episode). Things appear to be getting juicy this season - is it next Monday yet?

Gossip Girl: Season 2, Episode 4 Style

Lily - Van Cleef and Arpels necklace, inquire online. Hermes Kelly, inquire through Hermes.

Serena - Herve Leger Bandage Tank Dress, $1250 via Net A Porter.

Vanessa - Rebecca Minkoff Tie-Dye clutch, buy RM at Shop Bop.

Images via CW