'Gossip Girl' Goes To Yale, Hilarity Ensues

How good was Gossip Girl last night? It was THIIISSS good (imagine me spreading my arms out as widely as possible). After a fairly silly episode featuring the ups and downs of Eleanor Waldorf’s fashion show, Gossip Girl rebounded with an installment so chock-full of great one liners that it instantly deserves classic status. The My Fair Lady opening alone was worth tuning in for, thanks mostly to Leighton Meester who continues to steal every scene she’s in (Blake Lively, sadly, is not a master of British accents. Same goes for French too, but Blair thankfully cut her down to size on that point). I’m still torn about my favorite line of the episode — all the Brown bashing or merely just the Lauren Conrad reference — but I think I have to go for Chuck Bass’s announcement that he was evaluating colleges based on the merit of their secret societies. Say what you will about teen soaps, this show has some of the sharpest writing on TV.
Of course, it also has some wildly uneven writing too, as evidenced in the entire Jenny Humphrey storyline, which continues to pale next to everything else on the show. This week, Little J tried to convince Dad that a career in Eleanor Waldorf’s sweatshop was more worthwhile than completing a high school education. Annoyingly backing her up was Vanessa, whose awfulness seems to know no bounds. Smiling obnoxiously like some transplant from a squeaky clean Disney show, Vanessa would appear at random intervals to support Jenny and boast the merits of homeschooling. Just exactly who homeschools Vanessa is still a mystery, and why Rufus treats her like an equal is simply bizarre. She needs to be run over by a bus, STAT. Luckily, it looks like next week she’ll be the butt of some fantastic Chuck Bass prank.

Speaking of Chuck Bass pranks, I was more than delighted to see those impressionable Skull & Bones kids mistakenly abduct Dan Humphrey and tie him to a statue. The kid deserves it, and not only for being an asshole yet again (this time to Nate), but also for being entirely too flippant and rude with the Dean of Yale. Somebody’s gotta slap him upside the head, and failing that, getting bound to a statue in his polka-dotted undies is a fine alternative. Luckily for him, Nate and his knot-proficient Eli fling came by to save poor Humphrey, and somehow the experience made all three best buds. I don’t know why at the end of the episode Nate got all high and mighty and declared Dan a pretty cool guy, but I’m hoping this sudden fondness of his Brooklyn buddy fades rapidly. We tune in for the blue bloods, not the poors.
Sadly, the world of Gossip Girl’s rich and famous became a little duller by the end of the episode when Serena and Blair buried the hatchet after a fantastic feud that culminated in not just a cat fight, but some hostile words directed at Blair’s headband. The horror! It’s nice when Blair Bear and Serena get along, but it’s even better when they’re fighting. I was really hoping we’d get two or three more episodes of fuming pettiness.
Nevertheless, it appears as though our favorite teens emerged from Yale happily, which is amazing considering they had just spent the weekend in New Haven. I’m shocked no one got murdered during an off campus stroll. Personally, I think it’s time the kids took a trip up to Dartmouth, which we all remember was the trendy college of last season. Beer pong + Blair Bear sound like a match made in heaven.
What did you think about the episode? Did you enjoy it? What was your favorite part?