The departed starts with a crash and ends with a bang. Serena and Tripp are driving in the car, an icy distance between them that wasn’t present when we last saw our beloved S and the young congressman. The car soon skids out of control and the story cuts back to the events leading up to it starting twelve hours earlier. Serena and Tripp are enjoying their country getaway when he slinks of under false pretences to talk with his wife Maureen and Serena must rely on Nate for help turning on the heat and scoring pot alone in the cottage.

Meanwhile back at the Lily and Rufus’s place Lily con’s him into attending a meeting for their co-op. The meeting turns out to be some sort of ladies who luncheon event where hints are dropped that those in attendance are the trophy wives and leads to some insecurity in Rufus. It feels a little too sudden to be plotting out the demise of the Lily/Rufus marriage, but the only thing this show loves more than break-neck speed plots in red herrings so we’ll have to give this one a bit more time before any real judgments are made.

Eric is foolishly continuing his path to take on Jenny, and still aided by Homely Girl from the cotillion, which is still the most annoying plot. Eric has nothing to gain from taking down Jenny and Homely girl doesn’t really have a reason to be against Jenny either, since there is no way either one of them are next in line to be the Queen B I don’t really see why they keep bothering with this. I did love Jenny’s power move of gifting the coveted bags that Eric tried to have the little Vanessa look-a-like wear to one-up her. Even more brilliant is the revelation that she is getting the money for the designer goods by working for the Ambassador’s drug dealing son. I can’t wait to see where this ends up.

The other main plot of this week was Chuck trying to out do his father while having emotionally draining talks with his ghost. I must admit, I did think during the first segment that Bart had maybe faked his death and that this wasn’t in Chuck head….but it does seem that one Bass at least faked death as Laura (Mulholland Drive) Harrington shows up at the end to leave Chuck’s mom’s favorite flowers on his dad’s grave. You don’t cast an actress her caliber in a role if you don’t intend it to be a back from the grave new character. Sidebar, isn’t it funny how different things ended up for Laura Harrington vs. Naomi Watts? I remember back when Mulholland Drive came out, they were both poised to go onto bigger and better things but now eight years later one is an A list actress and the other a CW guest star.

As the past meets up with the present Serena has been offered the role of Tripp’s mistress by the crafty Maureen, only to reject it and demand he take her home thus causing the pre-credits car wreck. It was touching, if not over-kill that every character decided to go to the hospital that wasn’t even in their own county let alone still in the city limits. Personally if I get in an accident one friend and one former boyfriend is all I want on the scene, but Serena never does anything small and that’s why he love her (that and boobs of course). Nate is now finally getting his chance to be with Serena and I’ve wanted that coupling for quite some time.

And also, Dan almost hooked up with an actress friend of Vanessa’s but then didn’t but then did tell Vanessa he loved her. I do at least liked that she seamed to care as much about his declaration as I did…yawn.

A Lady Gaga cameo and Hillary Duff leaving, is this the best episode of Gossip Girl ever?!?!  Actually no, it was an average episode, but there was a lot of good stuff and bad outfits in it and I’ll take Gossip Girl’s average over other shows’ best any day.  “The Last Days of Disco Stick” brings us a sublimely ridiculous play, a creepy drug dealing boy to entertain Little J., and some skank on congressman action. 

The C plot this week was Jenny taking out Damian a creepy, supposedly Belgian, diplomat’s son to show him around town as a favor to Chuck.   Initially Jenny is mortified to think that this eerie Zac Effron looking live ventriloquist dummy would play with motorized sailboats in the park.  However, once she realizes this was all a ruse to do an ecstasy deal she’s totally on board with hanging out with him, because Jenny makes poor life choices.  Chuck busts Damian in the end and throws him out of the hotel, warning Jenny that he’s bad news…so of course Jenny immediately texts him she’d like to hang out again, genius move Little J.  [sidebar: yeah Damian was really familiar looking and not just because of said Effron resemblance.  I realized halfway through the episode that he’s totally the dude from Transamerica.  When I looked him up I found that he’s Kevin Zegers and also in Dawn of the Dead, and the seminal classic Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.]

In the meatier plots this week we have Serena wearing not-appropriate-for-the-office open-backed, too short mini-dresses and blatantly flirting with her married boss.  She does have the good sense to come to Nate about it and he cautions her to stay away.  Actually, he gets her drunk and confesses that he used to love her, which we all know if TV speak for “I love you”.  I was getting excited that they may be heading in this direction, because Serena is one of the few characters that the often boring Nate actually has chemistry with.  And also, if Tripp is supposedly a US Congressman than he should be leaving New York soon for D.C anyways.  But no, Tripp finds out about his wife’s subterfuge in staging his heroic rescue of a drowning victim and decides that if his wife lies to him than as a Congressman it is his duty to go hit on a drunken 18-year-old who works in his office.  I can suspend my disbelief pretty far, but COME ON! How could anybody ever be that stupid?

But the bulk of this episode was about the Dan/Vanessa/Olivia threesome of gross and their getting wrapped up in producing a terrible play to really let the tension sink in.  I don’t really know what to make of the whole Tisch School of the Arts thing. I get that it is a really prestigious school inside NYU, but does Blair really have to suck up to theater kids, even if they are really elite ones?  I’d call shenanigans but it all seemed to be setup for real-life former Tisch student Lady Gaga to appear so I’ll just call it awesome!  The play itself is god-awful hilariously bad.  Dan Humphrey writes a play based on Snow White with Lady Gaga music in a plot that is completely ripped off from a Saved by the Bell episode, right down to the part where Dan has to kiss his best friend Jessie Spanno, I mean Vanessa, on stage.   I love you Gossip Girl but Dan Humphrey’s play would be something morose and Salinger-esque, not a hip-hop fairytale. 

But the play was just there as an excuse to get Dan, Vanessa and Olivia all working together so the girls could be petty and we could see hilarious flashbacks to their tryst.  The tension between Olivia and Vanessa was pretty funny, but not as funny as Blair using her physic ability to find sexual tension to realize what they’d done, then blackmailing them with it.  Last week my BFF said to me, “You know I hate Samantha from Sex and the City, but she was right that you should always be the guest star in a threesome”.  A variation of that was used this week with every character who finds out reacting, “the third person should always be a stranger”.  Personally I think Samantha is more correct, if you’re going to screw up a relationship do it to somebody else’s not your own.  Of course in this case there were three relationships to screw up: Dan and Olivia dating, Olivia and Vanessa as roommates and Vanessa and Dan as best friends.  Olivia decides to take the next train out of Akwardville and breaks up with Dan to skip town for a movie.  And thus ends Hillary Duff’s reign of terror!  Just kidding, in the end I didn’t hate her nearly as much as I thought I would, but she’s still no Georgina!  Now we’re left to wonder, with Olivia out of the picture will Dan and Vanessa finally turn that won’t they into a will they?

And also, Lady Gaga was freaking awesome!  30 foot red dress, a ladder for no apparent reason, her new song “Bad Romance”!  I only wish we could have seen more of the performance, I mean seriously WTF were those kids doing having deep relationship talks during her one-song performance.  Gaga is in the house bitches, respect!

Little J. has finally made her official society debut and of course she does it with a bang, but as always getting there is never easy. And of course there was the heavily hyped threesome in this episode as well. Opening with Jenny looking better than she has in a while, some (slightly) better extensions and a pound less eyeliner, she is soon confronted with the Queens of the other prep schools in town and realizes she needs to step up her game before the cotillion by landing the best date, Graham.

Serena, true to form, has too much game and after accepting Tripp’s offer for a PR job on his staff they start to get too close for comfort. Even her first day on the job the two are starting to get dirty looks from others staff members, who know all too well how these things go in politics. Tripp’s wife didn’t appear this week, but from what we learned last week she is not somebody to be messed with and Serena had better watch herself.

Back at NYU Dan, Vanessa and Olivia are chilling around campus when the rumor mill starts to generate buzz of another fake Twilight movie for Olivia. I really liked the nerd troika that followed them around this week, reminded me of the hilarious nerd villains of the often maligned Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6. Dan and Vanessa read an article of 15 quintessential college experiences and decide the best way to get Olivia to stay is to let her experience as many as possible. This leads to many presumed off camera antics, fountain yoga, keg stands and the like, personally I can’t imagine any of them being fun with a wet blanket like Vanessa around but it’s TV I give them a pass. Eventually they’ve knocked out 14 of 15 and the only one left…threesome. As soon as she reads it Olivia throws back another shot and proceeds to kiss Dan then Vanessa…cut to the three of them in bed at the end of the episode. After all the promotion for this I thought they found the worst possible permutation for a threesome on the show, but it was still a bit of naughty fun.

As the big debutante cotillion approaches Jenny still cannot secure her date, mainly because of Eric’s petty sabotage. A new homely Constance girl tries to suck up to Jenny by securing her Graham as a date, but Eric would rather Jenny go with his boyfriend, Jonathan. Eric’s motivation in all of this is questionable at best, he claims to be doing it to save Jenny from herself and the mean girls, but really I think he just likes the scheming as much as anybody else in this show. Jenny manages to piss off Blair who ends up helping Eric get Graham to escort Homely Girl leaving Jenny stranded and alone…luckily it is Nate to the rescue and Little J ends up with a hot, well bred college escort and secures herself the position as the Queen of Queens of the Upper East Side. Honestly, I always sort of root for Jenny in these situations and with Eric backstabbing her for not so clear reasons I was happy to see her triumph. But Eric has vowed to take her down once and for all and now has the help of Homely Girl, still my money is on Little J.

Yeah, and also that Anya Marina cover of “Whatever You Like” was freaking awesome:

The Grandfather: Part II really drove home what I think has been one of the most interesting points of the whole season: that the grown up world is just as petty and full of backstabbing as high school. Throughout the episode we see that reflected in the various worlds our characters now occupy. The politics of Nate’s family, and the celebrity world that Serena and Olivia inhabit is just as shallow and artificial as any of the rules about where to sit on the Met steps.

Nate’s cousin Trip is running for congress in a mid-term election and is just shy of being in the lead. Conveniently when Nate and Trip are out and Vanessa is hanging around filming them somebody falls into the river and is rescued by Tripp. This casts Trip in the role of hero and gives his campaign the boost that it needs, but Nate and Vanessa are both uneasy about the events and the election is later that night. Everybody is going to Trip’s party at Chuck’s hotel to watch the election results.

Serena is going to the party as part of her continuing fake relationship with Patrick, the Robert Pattison stand-in who is also Olivia’s ex. Patrick is up for a role in a political thriller and Serena’s boss things it would be good for him to experience some politics first hand. Blair is also going to the party, but since Chuck has hosting duties she will be left all alone and goes on a mission to find a new friend to show-up Serena. Blair’s exhaustive search lasts all of two seconds because immediately a gorgeous, stylish, quick-witted psych major walks in with a designer purse.

Right before the party Vanessa goes over her footage more in-depth and finds out that the man Tripp saved very clearly enters the water on purpose and fakes the drowning. She tells Nate right away and he tries to convince her to keep it hush-hush. Vanessa instead decides to sell the footage to a television station, I’m sorry I mean racked with guilt her only option is to get the real truth out into the public!!! The story breaks while everybody is at the party, Trip honorably says that he is going to withdraw from the race, which is really sweet and endearing. Before he gets the chance Nate steps up and takes the fall for it, which is one of those endearing Gossip Girl moves that in reality wouldn’t change anything the correct thing to do would still be to resign.

The party is eventful for more than just politics though as both Blair’s and Serena’s dates cause some major trouble. As it turns out Blair’s new friend is totally a student by day, hooker by night walking Lifetime movie (sidebar, they really should make that Lifetime movie). And Patrick is more interested in getting wasted than researching his role. Serena bounce’s Blair’s friend, and Blair gets Patrick sent to a suit to sleep it off. The two confront each other and end up in a major bitch fest that ends with Serena shoving Blair face-first into an America flag cake. Serena realizes her job has taken a toll on her friendships (the job she’s had for like 3 days) so she quits her job then apologizes to Blair. Instead of accepting Blair confesses that she’s really mad at Serena’s poor life choices lately and says their friendship is over for good. That seemed a little out of the blue, it’s like Blair was being possessed by Lilly. Serena and Blair have been through so much together you know that they have to make up after this.

Yeah, and also the Humphrey’s were in this episode too! Jenny is sick and appeared briefly to play scrabble with Dan, Olivia, Lilly and Rufus (Eric was notably absent). Dan and Olivia were there playing scrabble because Olivia had told a hilarious and embarrassing story about Dan on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. As it turns out the story isn’t really embarrassing or hilarious or even mildly interesting, but she makes up for it by going on Late Night again the next day and giving Dan a shout-out. Hillary Duff + Jimmy Fallon should not = Gossip Girl plots, I’m ready for Olivia to get her but out of the Upper East Side and back to horse teeth land in LA.

It is Halloween on the Upper East Side and a cauldron of trouble is starting to brew.  Rufus is the one most intent on celebrating Halloween, carving pumpkins to look like the members of Kiss and planning on dressing the family as the Ramones.  Lilly on the other hand is more preoccupied with Jenny’s closet, in one of the strangest scenes of the season.  Lilly asks Jenny to get ride of old clothes asking if some even fit her anymore, I REALLY don’t know what to make of this scene, perhaps they’re implying Lilly is trying to turn Jenny into her mini-mi since she failed at getting Serena to follow in her footsteps. 
 
Unfortunately, Jenny has problems of her own ruling over court at the Met steps.  I’m enjoying that Jenny finally has legit plots of her own again, after the fashion fiasco last year she didn’t really do anything for the back half of the season.  Now that Little J is the Queen Bee she has got to defend her turf, and that means getting frozen yogurt dumped all over Eric when he dares to sit above her on the steps.  This was one of those difficult fights where you don’t know who to side with; I think I’m on team Jenny though because she explained to Eric that she didn’t want to enforce the rules but had to for the greater good.  He really did just sit up there to taunt her, and really when you’re that rich who cares if one bad outfit is ruined by fro-yo.  The two didn’t really do much in the rest of the episode, but by the end Eric has now disavowed his friendship with Jenny completely. 
 
The hotel Chuck bought has already opened and not doing well, Chuck thinks a big prohibition themed party for the club opening will be just the trick to bring in business.  Conveniently Serena became a publicist last week so he seeks her help and makes a point of asking her not to tell Blair.  The backstabbing and double crossing on this plot got too complicated, and I think even the writers got lost in what happens.  Serena decided to plan the event without telling her boss, who finds out but is cool with it if the party will get Olivia and fake Robert Pattison back together.  Blair tries to find the sneakiest way possible to stick her nose into Chuck’s business, and when she learns the club is still awaiting a liquor license she calls Chuck’s evil uncle Jack for help.
 
Dan Humphrey is fretting about the fact that his girlfriend stared in the Gossip Girl world’s version of Twilight with her ex-boyfriend.  I enjoy the Nate and Dan friendship, I don’t know why but the two just seem to have a hilarious chemistry and play well off one another.  Nate gives Dan the DVD’s of Olivia’s movies so they can check out the love scenes, which are rumored to be more of an actual sex tape than acting.  And of course, thanks to Serena the ex-boyfriend in question is now going to Chuck’s party as Olivia’s date.
 
As is the case in most Gossip Girl episodes, for the final act all the characters are assembled at a party.  Of course the liquor license from Jack turns out to be falsified, and the party gets busted, though they sort of implied that was Chuck’s plan all along so why they had to involve Jack at all doesn’t really make sense (hence my saying that plot makes no sense).  Olivia and Dan got caught making out and Olivia’s ex is left dateless, so Serena swoops in and lays a big kiss on him thus changing her job from PR girl to escort for the PR service.  The ending felt dramatic, but retrospectively I can’t really tell why because nothing really happened and status quo was pretty much maintained.  I liked this episode while I was watching it, but in the end it was pretty uneventful, other than the Eric and Jenny battle.  And also, was Vanessa even in this episode?  I honestly don’t remember.

Enough about Eve opens with a lovely homage to All About Eve and Blair waking up screaming to the notion of being the Betty Davis to Vanessa’s Anne Baxter. It seems there is an all important parents dinner at NYU and B. wants to be the one to give the speech, but Vanessa is the activist du jour on campus and stealing her spotlight. Of course her focus on Vanessa distracts Blair from her biggest threat: Olivia (Hillary Duff) the hot starlet that the college would love to use for publicity.

Vanessa initially believes she is going to be chosen to give the speech and goes so far as to invite her absentee parents to the shindig. Dan has asked Olivia to go with him as his date and meet his parents, which she is really excited about. So taking a page from Blair’s book the always perfect, moral and decent Vanessa convinces Dan to stay in and cook for Olivia instead. She also convinces Olivia that Dan’s parents think ill of the Hollywood set. I really can’t believe the writers of this show continue to suggest Vanessa has any sort of morals when here she lies to her best friend and her roommate in order to give a speech.

Meanwhile, Nate and Serena team up to try and get Carter out of his debt to the Buckley’s in a plot that made me remember that when she puts her mind to it NOBODY bests Serena (well accept maybe at poker). Nate plays Serena by getting her to bet Carter’s debt against photographic evidence of his cousin, the congressional hopeful, Trip with a bong. For maybe the first time ever I found myself saying “well played Nate” when it was revealed that the photo was faked. Serena realizes she’s been Nate’s pawn in the Archibald vs. Buckley battle and takes maters into her own hands by tipping off the Buckley family to the faked photo and settling Carter’s debt. Sadly, Carter doesn’t want her charity and coldly leaves her.

Vanessa’s mom show’s up and she’s totally played by the kickass Gina Torres of Angel and Firefly fame. Too bad she is such a raging PC hippie bitch that I could have almost felt sorry for Vanessa had she not been at her most evil this entire episode. Mrs. Abrhams is judgmental about everything, which explains where Vanessa gets it from. I found the ongoing criticism that education should be free and Vanessa shouldn’t be at a private school beyond infuriating, which was of course the point. This is Gossip Girl, somebody who rejects materialism must be painted as a villain somehow.

Blair managed to finally scheme her way into giving the speech by having Chuck seduce the guy deciding the speaker. I’m not a 100% clear on what exactly happened there, I think the guy had his own reasons for needing to kiss Chuck other than being attracted to him, but it either wasn’t explained well or I wasn’t paying attention. The main point of it was the Blair played Chuck, her supposed one true love and he won’t be forgiving or forgetting any time soon. Of course before Blair can give her speech Vanessa tricks her with the old get your rival to reveal their inner evil with a hidden microphone trick. Blair makes a major fool of herself at the event by giving everybody and earful of what a spoiled, self-centered brat she really is. In the end it is Olivia who gets to give the speech after all.

Rufus Getting Married was a surprising and twisty episode that managed to wrap up some plotlines in a satisfying way. Starting off on a lovey dovey note we see a montage of how into each other all our young couples are: Serena and Carter have breakfast, Chuck and Blaire make out, Nate and Bree try to look interesting and Dan Humphrey texts or twitters or something with Hillary Duff. It’s just poor Rufus and Lilly that aren’t feeling the love yet, but this is the Upper East Side and things never stay the same for long.

Georgina, somewhat inadvertently, drives a good chunk of the plot this week. After returning home from Boston with the truth about Scott, Georgina uses the secret to blackmail Vanessa into getting Dan Humphrey to dump his new love interest and come back to her. I didn’t really buy this part of the story, I love Georgina and liked her with Dan Humphrey but having her go this nuts over him so soon is a little silly. Georgina may be many things, but I don’t think a girl who is hung up on Dan Humphrey would ever be one of them. Of course Vanessa’s morals can never be compromised, so she only tries to get Dan Humphrey to dump Hillary Duff for a while before she tells him Scott’s secret she promised to keep.

After some back and fourth, some angry words and nights spent on the couch Rufus asks Lilly to marry him the next day. Of course she accepts and soon Serena, Jenny and Blair are spearheading the attempt to pull off the perfect wedding in less than a day. This leads to some good stuff with Little J finally ruling the way Blair wants her to by commanding the minions and dismissing the poor. And of course it creates the wedding will serve as a great setting for big confrontations and drama.

Bree meanwhile uses Chuck’s rivalry with Carter to get revenge for her family. Chuck lets on that Carter needs to prove his devotion to Serena by attending the wedding. Bree invites her stereotypical, football playing cousins from Texas to get some “Southern Justice”. Carter confesses to Serena that her promised to marry Bree’s cousin, but ran off after the Buckley family paid off his debts. And because this is Gossip Girl, this is a conversation he decides to show up at the wedding to have as opposed to using one of the cell phones they’re never without. Well, have fun with those Buckley boys Carter, hopefully you live to see future episodes!

When it is time for the wedding to start Lilly has a case of cold feet (I guess Rufus won the coin toss in the writers room this week). Georgina plays her master-stroke by inviting Scott along when she crashes the wedding. Right after Lilly acts like a grade A bitch to Scott, Georgina reveals that he is the not so dead Rufus/Lilly love child. Scott has already taken off and Lilly and Rufus set off to find him, reaffirming their love in the process. This was a bit schmaltzy but I was surprisingly happy to have them actually go through with the wedding in the end. Even if it was bizarrely officiated by Sonic Youth in a cameo I wouldn’t have noticed had we not be informed of their presence several times throughout the episode.

And that’s the way they be came the Rufus Bunch! I seriously hope they start putting all the Humphrey/van der Woodsen/Bass/Ronsson family in a grid at the beginning of the show. Georgina’s warped plan for revenge ended up bringing everybody together, instead of driving them apart. It is pretty hilarious how many people are now related thanks to Lilly and Rufus finally getting married. Dan Humphrey and Jenny, half & half brother Scott, Serena and Eric and sometimes step-brother Chuck, hypothetically throw in cliché baby (you know it’ll come in a season or two) and it’s one big happy family. I’m not sure how I feel about the implications of this yet, it all seems sort of creepy and incestuous, Dan Humphrey and Serena dated multiple times, and Chuck once tried to force himself on Jenny, that whole aspect is pretty icky. And also, did Blaire just sell Georgina into white slavery?

Hilary Duff isn’t the only celebrity guest, also preposterously playing a serious actress is Tyra Banks. After Lily finally returns. Serena is determined to get her approval on her decision to find herself instead of going to Brown, so she sets out to find a job. After a brief montage Serena manages to snag herself a publicists job after impressing Olivia’s rep at a restaurant. Soon she is tending to the diva ways of an emotional actress played by Tyra, somehow though Tyra just doesn’t pull off being a diva when she’s acting, ah sweet irony. Serena’s PR job get really ridiculous really fast and I found it pretty hilarious. Being a publicist means being able to have a slumber party one night, and then make tough ethical decisions the next, it’s a really good fit for Serena who likes talking about trying to do better more than actually working at it. Serena manages to loose the job by being too ethical but Tyra gets it back for her because they forged such a strong bond in those two crazy days.

Little J and Blaire both also struggle with their identity this week as one queen bee fades away and another starts to rise. Jenny and Eric finally go back to school and are shocked to find a bunch of raccoon eyed Jenny wannabes with punked up uniforms (though none as punk as Jenny who has a skirt about an inch long and leather vest over a wife-beater and tie! LOL). Blair still can’t win over NYU so she decides to meddle in high school business again, I’m glad Chuck agreed with me that this was really pathetic on her part. Chuck pulls off a mini-coup, taking Jenny to Olivia’s movie premier and getting Blair good and pissed off. I was really happy to see this wind up so well with Blair starting up a new monarchy of her own, NYU is a huge school she just had to look harder for her followers. Jenny didn’t fare as well as the raccoon pack was back, but at least they’re not wearing headbands! Like Serena last week Chuck really shines with very little screen time. He manages to light a fire under Blair and Jenny’s asses and get them to take back what’s theirs. Bonus points for his hilarious Dumbo metaphor.

And also, Scott makes an appearance at the end talking to Vanessa on the phone when he gets an incoming call…from Georgina. Dun dun dun!

The biggest storyline of The Lost Boy is Vanessa finding out the truth about Scott, the Single White Humphrey, previously revealed to be the (presumed dead) love-child of Rufus and Lilly. [sidebar, I’ve missed Lilly so far this season] Vanessa grew suspicious of Scott after his purported class schedule didn’t match actual courses, so she Nancy Drewed out the truth that Scott isn’t even enrolled at NYU and confronts him. Scott is surprisingly forthcoming about the whole thing and admits that he is Dan and Serena’s half brother, he asks her sincerely to give him a day to talk to Rufus about it first. In true Vanessa form she immediately calls Dan to discuss what she just promised not to tell anyone for one whole day. However, Vanessa misses her chance to go back on her promise when Georgia shows up at the coffee shop where she met Dan. I was a little annoyed, I thought Vanessa was the one who was supposed to actually be giving Georgina a chance, but then again they also imply Vanessa has morals which she generally proves she doesn’t.

Why exactly is Georgina there? Because she’s fallen crazy in love with Dan Humphrey of course! I am actually really enjoying the Dan/Georgina casual dating/hooking up/maybe I’m crazy in love with your plotline. And I don’t think its just because I have loved Michelle Trachtenberg since Pete and Pete and all through Buffy (I know, not hating Dawn is Whendonverse blasphemy, by I thought she served her purpose well). To me this plot just seems like your typical college fling with all the uncomfortable and too comfortable moments that happen in dorm life. It is one of the most relatable plotlines of the season, regardless if you’re rich or poor, Ivy League or Jr. State, any time you get a bunch of college kids living together this type of thing happens. And it’s even juicier when you add in Georgina’s plot to take down Blaire. And also, it’s nice to see that Dan Humphrey seems like much less of a tool in a college setting than in high school, he was way too pretentious for high school, but just about freshman average at college.

This week Chuck and Blaire’s games center around a struggle to obtain a photograph from a famous artist (an imitation Helmut Newton, I was pretty ticked that they dissed Newton while so blatantly ripping him off). Blaire needs the painting to get an invite to Thee Elite Table (but in French), a secret society of to best the best, upper class academic women the Ivy league has to offer. Chuck needs it because of his on-going, boring, goal of wanting to open a club. They weren’t too remarkable this week in any of their games, but currently they’re sort of like a sitcom that is in a really good stride, so I don’t think they need to rush this plot it‘s still pretty fun. Serena and Carter are really just on the outskirts of this plot, Serena is suspicious and untrusting of Carter who is being framed by Chuck and Blaire who just don’t like him. Serena was good tonight though, given how little screen time she actually had. She out-bid both Chuck and Blaire for the photograph, and was the one to realize that both Blaire’s invitation and Chuck’’s business contact were fabricated by Georgina. I was impressed with Serena, but even more with Georgia!

Other people in small roles were Nathan and Bree, who now only talk to each other outside of a hotel toom. I do like Joanna Garcia, but this is trying my patience, hopefully the surprise ending of her being related to Carter gives her character the spark that it needs. Jenny and Eric were on screen, like seriously I’m about 95% sure they were there. Aren’t they in school yet? High school usually starts earlier in the year that college. Rufus attends the same Sotheby’s auction at the end and is almost told the truth by Scott. who ends up copping out and says he is the brother of Rufus’s son. This leads Vanessa to dump him because she can’t keep a secret this big, but apparently she will if he is gone because lying is OK if you don’t have to be reminded about it too often, good call Vanessa. Georgina manages to eavesdrop the truth about Scott, because Vanessa talks on her cell phones with the door to her dorm open. So it does seem to only be a mater of time before the whole truth is revealed to everybody. Yeah and also, I’m glad somebody finally went all Mean Girls and told Nate, “you look sexy with your hair pushed back”.