So, after last week’s steamy, scream-at-the-tv episode, it’s only fair to give the GG writers a break this week. Sure, tonight’s ep was full of underage drinking, fights, and Rufus trying to send Little J to jail, but it wasn’t as nail-biting as some of its predecessors. Of course, this only means that tonight’s episode was a vehicle to set up some MAJOR dramz next week and the week after.

Blair is still hell-bent on going to Yale, even though her little tiff with S. a couple of weeks ago may have maimed her chances. The solution? Serena gets Blair to babysit the Dean’s niece to earn brownie points. Only problem (and who didn’t see this one coming?) is that little Emma is on a mission to lose her virginity.

Gossip Girl put it quite poetically: Lady B…outsoxed by a young fox. Because, of course, if there’s a young, horny virgin on the prowl, she’s bound to get intercepted by the one and only Chuck Bass.

Favorite line of the night, courtesy of Mr. Bass: “The only thing I like aged is my scotch.” LOVE it.

However, Mr. Bass laments to Blair that he holds very few things sacred, and one of those things is humping in the back of a limo. How sweet, in a pervy Chuck Bass kind of way. Needless to say, the jailbait bounced and hit up a club in search of Mr. Right Now.

Meanwhile, Little J. is planning her big, risque fashion debut… at a charity gala being thrown in honor of Lily and Bart. Like that doesn’t have “disaster” written all over it. She pulls the “Do you care about me?” card with Nate…isn’t it a little early to try to whip your new boy toy, Little J.? Nonetheless, Nate takes the bait and the next thing we know, GG is loading Jenny and Nate’s second kiss into an RSS feed. Read More »

Woah. Woah. Woah. What did everyone think of Little J’s new look tonight? It’s sexy. It’s rocker-chic. It’s a cross between Ashlee Simpson and Hannah Montana. But way cooler.

Early in the episode, Blair commented to Dan, “Look who finally got a little interesting.” Meh. Dan’s still boring old foot-in-his mouth Lonely Boy to me, but Jenny! Jenny is the Humphrey who finally kicked it up a notch tonight.

Tonight was one of those nights where I screamed at my TV like a maniac. We got new characters, tons of partial nudity, and two fabulous lust stories unfolding, all in approximately 42 minutes of screen time. Chuck and Blair are still playing games, and daring each other to say the infamous “Three Words.” And you know what? I want them to freaking say it already!

Blair is so desperate, she’s taken to Lonely Boy for advice. And he delivers: “Keep your pride and get nothing, or take a risk, and maybe…maybe have everything.” Of course, Dan can’t walk away when he’s on top, so he sabotages Blair after Debbie-Downer Vanessa tattles on Blair and Chuck’s love games that she got served last week. Dammit, Dan!

Meanwhile, Jenny’s been hanging out with one of Eleanor’s models, Agnes, who keeps pointing out that Eleanor is just using Jenny. Agnes has the perfect solution: let a 15-year-old high school dropout start her own fashion line! Not that that would be the most ridiculous storyline that GG has offered us. So Jenny decides to go Brooke-Davis, swipes her designs from Eleanor, and jets off to take her top off with Agnes and her sexy photog friend. Because what would GG be without some gratuitous baring of flesh? Read More »

Everyone was playing games in last night’s Gossip Girl episode, and the ending was juicier than a game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer of the NCAA tournament. I was jumping out of my seat!

Bart and Lily decide to play a little role-playing game and make the Bass-Van der Woodsen clan more akin to the Brady Bunch than the Kardashians. Curfews? Family dinners? You know that’s not going to last long.

Vanessa’s trying to raise some money to save a bar from being demolished, and decides to play the Game of Blair. That is, she threatens to blackmail B with a saucy photo of Duke Marcus and his skanky stepmom (remember them? Has it been so long since they fled already?), which brings me to the first red-hot GG quote of the night:

Blackmailing seems to work for you, so I thought I’d give it a try. Now that we’ve established that I own you, you have 6 hours to get 1,000 signatures.

Oh, Vanessa; you can pass “GO” and collect two million dollars for that move.

In Humphrey news, Dan literally starts playing a new game: soccer. If you missed last night’s episode, you missed Lonely Boy begin his transformation into Jock Boy, the ever-faithful sidekick of sexy Nate Archibald. But yes, Dan made the soccer team, and yes, it gives him more excuses to play with his new mancrush, Nate.

Of course, the best game of the night is Blair’s Cruel Intentions-style bet with Chuck that he can’t seduce Vanessa…and then leave her behind, humiliated, of course. But, of course, if you’ve seen any teen movie involving bets, wagers, and the “cool” guy hanging out with the “loser” girl, you know the outcome. Although, these movies usually involved Freddie Prinze, Jr. and NOT Chuck Bass. Read More »

When last night’s episode of Gossip Girl opened with a spoofy Eliza Doolittle dream sequence, I wanted to throw up in my mouth. However, what unraveled over the next 42 minutes (not including commercial breaks) was one of the juiciest, drama-filled, completely-untrue-to-high-school-life episodes of the season.

I freaking loved it.

All of our favorite Upper East Siders are getting ready for college. Which makes me think: my alcoholism peaked in college in a Keystone-Dubra-Keg Party blur. These “high schoolers” drink martinis for breakfast. What will happen to them after graduation?

So, obviously the GG writers have to come up with an elaborate scheme to get everyone to Yale for College Admissions Day. What better way to do so than by having Blair slam Serena, and Serena fight back by flaunting her hot Blake Lively self for the Dean of Admissions? You know something’s gonna go down when the kids’ Headmaster advises them to “present yourselves in the best possible light.” Yeah, right.

To put it in a nutshell: Chuck wants to join a secret society. Nate’s dad has a bad rap at Yale, so Nate pretends to be none other than Dan Humphrey in order to shack up with a collegiate hottie (Ladies– would you EVER shack up with a high school boy on a school tour? To answer my own question, I guess I’ve never seen a minor who looks like Chace Crawford…). Oh, and did I mention that Yale has decided to change it’s “stuffy” image, hence the interest in Socialite Serena? More on what I DID NOT find believable later.

In typical Chuck Bass fashion, blindfolded, non-English-speaking prostitutes show up in threes to *cough* impress the members of the secret society Chuckie so desperately wants to join, but what these guys really want is a piece of Nate Archibald. Hmmm. So Chuck sets up poor Lonely Boy to get beaten and tied, half-naked, to a gazebo. (Editor’s Note: Is tying a skinny kid in his boxers to a statue really the best a secret society can do?) Where was this when I was scoping out potential unis? Read More »

I have a confession. When Joey Potter chose Pacey Witter over Dawson Leary, I was pissed. I mean, the show was “Dawson’s Creek,” not “Pacey’s Creek.”

That said, Gossip Girl seems to be taking a similar turn this season, as the supporting characters are totally stealing the spotlight. How ironic, considering that last night’s episode was all about Blair’s insecurity and the dark shadow that Serena casts on her. Let’s just get right down to business and discuss.

This week’s GG lesson? Your whole life is fulfilled when your photo appears in US Weekly, apparently. And if you aren’t photographed by the paparazzi at the age of sixteen, apparently all of your conniving plans to take charge of your mom’s fashion show and upstage your (former) bff will blow up in your face and bring great success to everyone else. Read More »

Only two episodes deep into Gossip Girl’s sophomore season, and already the plot is taking more twists and turns than my wine corkscrew on a nightly basis.

Who would have thought that Nate’s mistress from last week, Catherine, could also be the stepmother of Blair’s new man, Marcus “Suprise! I’m not boring, I’m a British Lord” Beaton? If you missed last night’s GG episode, yes, you read that correctly. Catherine is Marcus’ stepmother. And she’s still jonesing for some young Archibald lovin’.

Am I getting ahead of myself? I’m sorry, but so far this season I feel like the Serena/Dan drama takes a backseat to the follies of the other socialites. Last week, we left Serena and Dan in the middle of a romantic cliche - beach, bonfire, fireworks, everything that will never happen when I’m alone with a dude - and this week, Serena wakes up on the beach and tells Dan that they can’t just jump back into their relationship. Umm, why not? No matter, this is Serena Van der Woodsen we’re talking about, and two minutes later she’s boning Dan in the bathroom of the NYC-bound bus. Read More »

The time has come for someone to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs, “America, stop being disgusting and sexualizing 15-year-old girls!!” and I’m not afraid to be that someone. Because the media can longer be counted on to have a brain, because adult celebrity bloggers see it fit to go after girls who can’t even drive yet, and because we as a nation are still. fixated. with. high. school, the cloud of obsession seems to have blinded everyone to the fact that there is something inherently wrong with stalking little girls.

Because these ARE little girls we’re talking about. Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Taylor Momsen. When we’re not urging them to slather on the eyeliner and hike up their skirts, we’re glamorizing their world, turning high school into a multi-million dollar soap opera where everyone is scheming or talking like 30 Somethings or having sex with anything that purses it’s lips. For those of us who remember high school without the Hollywood Glasses, you’ll recall that no matter where you went, it was decidedly unglamorous. It was boring, sometimes lonely, a lot awkward, and stuffed to the brim with tests, feeble attempts to fit in, and college application essays.

Ask any mother today who isn’t on crack if she’d be happy with her 15-year-old having sex, and she’d blurt the word no faster than you could think it. When Ms. Cyrus’s cellphone is hacked into and her frighteningly-too-old half naked poses are stuffed onto the world wide web, we’re “horrified”. But when she walks around with a full face of makeup, hair extensions, high heels, and revealing clothing, she’s just being a “teen star”. The Lolita posing is too overtly sexual; while the “Disney Vamp” is just subtle enough to keep us from feeling guilty. Read More »

If we decided, ‘Hey, I’m wearing what Blake Lively wore in the Gossip Girl re-run last nigh,” we may not make it through the day without our little sister, boyfriend or lab partner giving us a look and asking, “WTF?” It’s hard to make your own what a stylist can do on television, but we want to, damn it!

The good news is: it’s possible. If you do it right. So, take away the cameras and lets make that TV fashion work.

Gossip Girl:
On GG, Blake and Leighton often rock different patterns and colors and pull together a look that is personally unique. You can do this too. First, think of your own fashion staple. Leighton often wears head bands or scarves. Do you have a favorite belt or bunch of bracelets that you wear regularly? Wear them with each outfit, soon they’ll become YOUR signature.

Also don’t be afraid to mix stripes with checks, or even polka dots; just stay within the same color range. And if you choose to wear a multitude of colors, don’t mix different patterns.

Finally, feel to take some fashion risks… the most attractive accessories these girls have is confidence. Read More »