Everything new is old again… or vice versa. Serena jumps back into her old habits when the times they get tough. Lying, getting sloppy drunk, and going home with random guys. Well who doesn’t turn to alcohol in times of turmoil? And once the alcohol starts flowing judgement apparently goes out the window. On the plus side, the old Serena brought the gang back together again, Chuck, Nathan and Blair to the rescue! And what about Dan, well once he was able to confront our little S she fessed up to cheating on him. Not true but anything was better to say than the truth she thought.

And the truth? Well before S split town, partner in crime little miss Georgina tried to catch S with a nice little sex tape. But the guy who was the intended costar did one line too many… so G convinced S to leave the scene of the supposed crime. Of course S stuck around long enough to see his dead body hauled out, so she split to boarding school. And we all thought her sleeping with B’s boring boyfriend Nate was her worst crime. Ok we didn’t, but I could still use a few more skeletons in the closet.

So Serena’s crime was finally outed and with the help of mom she approached the parents of cokehead. She thought she could go back and pick up the pieces with Dan but alas, Georgina pretending to be Sarah had other plans. Dan didn’t sleep with her, ‘but he might as well have.’ And though Serena was willing to forgive if not forget, but Dan just couldn’t manage it. It wasn’t what she did, it was all the lying.

S wasn’t the only one lying. B got Dan in on the act setting up G for a little family reunion of her own. Apparently this caper was the latest in a long and tawdry line of mistakes… selling her champion horse for coke among others. Off to some sort of boot camp for her, thanks to B doing a little research on the ‘best’ place for her.

Oh and the eldest Humphrey Rufus is heating things up between he and the eldest Vanderwoodsen, soon to be Mrs. Bass. When she ran into Rufus she let a kiss turn into a night. But she was ready to get married and she and Rufus seem to have agreed that if they hadn’t made it work yet she wasn’t willing to bet on a longshot. So down the aisle she went. And how romantic the wedding was, enough so that Chuck pledged his love to Blair and she agreed to give it a go.

So what’s old is new again for summer. Jenny’s back to sewing, and will be trying to be into good graces with the Waldorfs, except this time it’s an internship with Blair’s mom. Blair is jetting off to Europe with members of the Bass staff, but being stood up by Chuck, who is choosing to keep to his bad boy ways. Dan is hanging out with Vanessa in Brooklyn, though neither of them wants to talk about their splits with Serena or Boring B, who just so happen to be being alone together for the summer. And Rufus is touring with his 90s band.

I can only hope they continue to come up with good stuff to gossip about next season. One thing I like about this show is how fast they keep the dirt coming, but that usually works best for the first season. So until next year I can always revel in the start of it all with the replay of the pilot tonight.

Ah we always love the bad girl action on a soapy show and there has been plenty to go around. Serena was greeted by the return of former wild child partner in crime Georgina, with the guest appearance and rumored new cast member come fall, Michelle Trachtenberg (formerly Dawn from Buffy). Serena’s vilification of Chuck, as he took up stead as her step brother to be, ended with her leaning on his shoulder for help with the Georgina situation. But Serena made problems worse lying to Dan trying to keep the awful truth hidden. Well we all know the awful truth always comes out.

Serena tried to make nice but when she tried to stop her partying ways, after Georgina drugged her for a night out before the SATs, G moved to blackmail. G’s got a hidden video of the real reason S left town, apparently they ‘killed someone.’ Georgina isn’t just messing with Serena, she’s lying to Dan pretending to be normal gal Sarah to gain his trust and secrets. And she’s spreading the secrets wherever she can, outing S’s brother Eric to the family.

Turns out Eric didn’t have a crush on the littlest Humphrey, Jenny, he had a crush on her boyfriend. Apparently they’d been involved since rehab and were caught kissing on the street. So when gay boyfriend tried to up the ante on using Jenny as his beard she caved to the reality and made a pact to their mutual benefit, she’d fess up to doing the deed and he’d let the status-less gal lean on his pedigree. As we recall the Humphreys are on scholarship to the exclusive private school and are forced to bring things like a sack lunch from their tragically poor Brooklyn.

Jenny just couldn’t keep up with the Joneses, or the Waldorfs as the case may be. Since Jenny was so busy shoving Blair down to claw her way to the top, B couldn’t let things lie. After arranging for the gals to show up at Jenny’s house just in time to catch her in her ‘borrowed’ dress from one of the gal pals moms she arranged a full outing of Jenny’s new beau at the latest social event. Now Blair wasn’t going to out Eric, she does have her standards, but once the cat was out of the bag for Eric he was happy to call a gay a gay.

Something tells me more trouble is a brewing, so stay tuned tonight as Serena starts to return to her wild girl ways.

Well we saw the end of the episodes that they were able to wrap up before the strike and as much as I can’t say it’s a quality show, I’ll miss this guilty pleasure in my schedule. So what’s been going on? Well we’ve come back to a theme. We started the show with former queen bee Serena returning from boarding school after fleeing her sexual indiscretions. And we end the season (or the seasonette at least) with current bee Blair heading off to school in France slinking away in shame after losing it all. What led to this fall from Grace?

Well Chuck was keeping Blair away from Boring B with threats of exposing their tryst. But Boring B kept trying to woo her back. After they all got caught at an illegal on school pool party, Boring B even turned himself in facing expulsion since he thought Blair let them all in. Blair decided that they could forgive each other,

And Dan was caught up in the cast of characters illegally partying at the school pool. The new head mistress planned to expel the culprit who broke them in, or without a person to pin it on the whole gang would get the heave ho. And of course Dan the charity case (aka scholarship candidate) couldn’t afford to lose his future. This was made all the more difficult when it turns out Serena was the culprit, so she turned herself in to save dear old Dan.

And as Dan’s former flame followed him around with a camera (still pining for him much?) she caught Chuck and Blair arguing about his fessing up. Apparently Blair’s plan to call Chuck a liar won’t work if she’s filmed planning it… But little miss filmster had enough scruples to handover the tape to Blair. Not before Chuck offered her some cash which she traded for the tape that happened to be in the camera. So to balance out the evil she handed off the cash to some sort of herpes fund in Chuck’s name.

So video wasn’t the only problem, camera snapped photos circulated about Serena buying a pregnancy test… of course Dan would be there for her. He loved her and she even eventually admitted that she loved him. Now we all know from the previews that it’s really Blair who might be pregnant. What we don’t know is whether the father is Boring B or What up Chuck. Alas no father at all, though not pregnant Blair’s walls still came tumbling down.

When Chuck got dissed he risked it all to ruin things by emailing GGirl. Oh right that’s the premise of the show, there’s a Gossip Girl who posts all the dirt. So when the school started talking about Blair, her pregnancy, and her two fellas… Boring B checked in with the Littlest Humphrey. Though she’s been laying low these two eps she stepped in just in time. Blair kept her at arm’s length a little too long and after she overheard Serena telling Dan the sordid details she confirmed the Chuckness to Boring B.

So after some public fisticuffs Chuck and Boring B are friends no more. Boring B gave Blair the heave ho. And then Blair called Serena a ho yet again, apparently there are two sets of standards, and Blair blamed her for letting it slip to Little Humphrey. Serena and Dan just escaped a fight about whether he told Little H. And when Blair showed up to school she got dissed by her former snooty posse. Even a final threat to Little H rang hollow. And the snooty mcsnooterson gals adopted Little H back in and hired on a new lackey to treat like crap. So to whom does Blair turn in desperation? She admitted that he won but would you think Chuck would welcome her with open arms? He is a man who’s never seen a high road he didn’t pass up.

Chuck’s now busy hitting on his sister to be. Chuck’s dad won the fight, unbeknownst to him, for Serena’s mom. Serena’s mom was about to run off with the elder Humphrey but Serena pushed the issue… she’d rather be part of Chuck’s family than part of Dan’s because Dan was the most important person to her. Was Dan’s dad the most important thing to mom? Clearly we gathered that Serena was the most important thing to her as she accepted the Chuck family engagement and let Rufus go. This chapter may be closed but we haven’t seen the last of that age old romance.

And Chuck’s dad welcomed Serena to the fold by buying her out of her got-the-key-to-the-pool fiasco, community service in place of expulsion. And I was misleading… Serena who of course believes in second chances, or third, or fourth, talked Blair out of heading to France at the last minute. Wanna bet if Blair’s gonna come back, she’s gonna come back swinging? I wouldn’t bet against me on that. Though we’ll have to wait a while to see…

And for an honorary show close:

– xoxo gossip girl