It’s been a long and lonely winter without new Gossip Girl to keep warm the cockles of our wicked hearts but tonight’s the night! It’s finally back everyone’s favorite fictional snobs, snakes, and celebutantes are back tonight.
Let’s refresh what last we saw on the Upper East Side: Dan Hump-rhey and Serena’s ment-whore were hooking up, Chuck was on a hunt to find his mysterious escort dream-girl, and Blair got herself in and out of trouble with Miss Carr, but in the end her acceptance to Yale appeared safe. Tonight, Gossip Girl welcomes us with some Shakespeare: ‘All the world’s a stage’ on the Upper East Side, she says, and this week it’s quite literal, since the seniors are putting on their (mandatory) class play, “The Age of Innocence”.
The sly Chuck Bass (of course) managed to bribe a doctor into diagnosing him with “acute stagefright,” so he’ll be off on his own dramatic adventures tonight. Blair is playing Lady Oleska, the “stronger, more emotionally complex” female lead (her description), while Serena will grace the stage as “pretty” (but clearly simple-headed) May. Before rehearsal, Blair and Serena chat about Dan and Serena’s new crush on their director Julien.
In the background, Dorota sees how she’d look with some curly extensions (Fierce, Dorota!). Blair reminds Serena for us that she should be sick of brooding artists by now, but S is clearly addicted. Then bad news strikes: it seems Nelly Yuki got direct word from the Dean she’s been accepted early to Yale. But only one Constance girl per year gets that spot, and it was Blair. Which means… Oh yeah, and Penelope is the maid in the play, and she gets caught standing next to Dorota backstage in her matching apron. Hilarious!
Out front, Jenny complains about volunteering to do costumes, and Dan sees Miss Carr walk into the theater. The other teachers gossip like “grown up Mean Girls” (Jenny’s words) as she walks by. We then find out that Vanessa is filming a “documentary” about the production of the play with her camcorder. She explains to Nate how awesome her film is going to be because of the irony and bad acting, and they make out. Blah blah.
Meanwhile, Chuck, who apparently doesn’t go to class anymore ever, walks into a restaurant and sees his father’s friend Mr. Campbell, who apologizes for missing the funeral. He then sees, at a different table, Carter Baizen (Ooh, Sebastian Stan, how I love your wicked ways! Any Stan-fans out there, be sure to catch him on Kings!) is back in town, and who else would be sitting with him, but Elle, the mystery masked woman Chuck thinks he is in love with. Oops, Miss Horrible Actress says, she’s not Elle, she’s Hailey. Chuck’s not buying it (duh), and she excuses herself to the ladies’ room, but actually ducks out the kitchen.
Carter explains to Chuck that he’s been in Singapore and picked her up when he landed back in America. As soon as Carter leaves, Campbell gets up and follows. Cut back to Dan studying his lines as Archer, May’s fiancé. But he’s distracted thinking about poor Miss Carr being shunned by her co-workers, and he asks Jenny to deliver a note to Rachel. Jenny’s worried about Queller finding out, but Dan insists, and Little J manages to slyly drop off the correspondence. Dan writes that he wants to see her. The ment-whore writes back, gives it to Jenny, and then gets up and leaves.
Blair finds Headmistress Queller, who was on her way to tell Blair that Yale rescinded her acceptance because an anonymous caller told Yale why Blair received detention. The Dean called Queller to confirm the details, and even though HM Q explained that Blair made amends, Yale still apparently considers it a serious offense when you bad-mouth a teacher and get her fired (even if it’s true). “It’s over, you will not be attending Yale,” Queller says. Blair is in shock, but has to go on stage. She enters on cue, still clearly stunned and furious.
S and D are playing a couple on stage, which is both hilarious and awkward. Rufus enters rehearsal and sits next to Jenny, and as soon as he does, he finds the note meant for Dan. Inside there’s a key to Carr’s apartment (Ooh, girl!) and it tells Dan to meet at her place that night. But before that message can fully shock us, here comes Nelly Yuki in a fat suit, and Blair accusing Nelly of ratting her out to Yale out of jealousy. Nelly gets two wins in one day when she finally tells Blair, “People aren’t jealous of you. They hate you!” She didn’t rat out Blair, but a thousand people could have.
Everyone then gets a text from GG dragging up that whole fiasco with the Lord and his cougar mother shacking up while he was with Blair (and… she knew). It’s such old news, but it still stings, and Blair realizes that someone is out to get her. She knows it’s Vanessa, since she’s the only one who knew about the Lord and his mother dearest’s secret love.
Vanessa interviews Serena about her role, but Serena is more focused on director Julien. She hatches a plan, asking Julien to tell Vanessa his insights about the play over dinner (with Nate and Serena in tow). Blair walks up to them and threatens Vanessa’s life, but V finally gets the right idea and just walks away, shaking her head. Blair asks for Serena’s support, but S takes Vanessa’s side, and Blair threatens to take down Serena.
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Gossip Girl fans: be sure to check here every week for the latest GG spoilers for all of Season 3! 
Whoo boy, last episode of Gossip Girl was full of some real “ripped from the headlines” intrigue. Rufus can’t sell the gallery because of that whole big fustercluck we’re calling the American real estate market. Serena’s new boyfriend went all Bernie Madoff on Lily’s co-op friends, and they invested in his clearly brilliant scheme to install Blueray players in African villages, because smarmy older guys who date your high school daughter are always geniuses who will triple all your money in three months, no proof or research necessary.
Short of Dan and Little J, Chuck Bass and V are the least two people on Gossip Girl who are possible to ever hook up. Right?
Welcome back to the Gossip grind, everyone, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Too bad some luck o’ the Irish couldn’t rub off on Blair this week… and that her downward spiral of depressive doom happened to occur out on stage in front of all her Constance peers, parents, and professors. As GG herself reminded us last night during “The Age of Dissonance,” all the Upper East Side is a stage already, so it is only fitting that the Constance and St. Jude’s seniors put on as their senior play a high-society Wharton drama with plenty of romance and revenge. But they couldn’t pretend to live in “The Age of Innocence” for long, and without instilling some of their own drama, so the play soon because a means for Nate, Blair, and Serena to air out their modern teenage angst all over the Victorian era. Backstage, affairs were even more outrageously theatrical, with Chuck chasing down his dream-nanny turned runaway, and Dan getting even hotter for teacher. Nate got jealous, Serena was crush-struck, and Blair took refuge in the arms of a rat.
