Does anyone even watch this Gossip Girl show anymore?  This show is getting harder to follow than Queen Mum after a few drinks (that was funny, right?)!

Let’s break it down by character; otherwise, this shizz is way too hard to follow:

Dan Humphrey and Olivia Burke
Olivia for some reason doesn’t want to show bf Dan her appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  She goes to great lengths to keep footage of the show from him, but he eventually comes across the clip.  It seems Olivia told Jimmy Fallon the story of her first date with Dan, in which he emerged from the bathroom with his shirt on inside-out.  Fallon starts calling him “Bathroom Boy,” it’s hilarious blah blah blah.  Dan ends up not really caring, just being bummed he forgot their one-month anniversary, yadda yadda all is right with the world.

Nate Archibald, Vanessa Abrams, and the Congressional Campaign
Nate’s cousin Trip van der Bilt is running for Congress.  Nate’s helping out while Vanessa documents the whole process for one of her snoozy short films.  She gets footage of Trip saving a drowning man in the Hudson River, but when reviewing the tape before selling it off to a local news station, learns that the whole thing was set up to make Trip look like a hero.  She warns Nate ahead of time so Trip can plan his PR plan of attack ahead of time.  What ends up happening instead is Nate tricking Vanessa into forking the footage over by sending a fake journalist to purchase the tape.  Vanessa later figures it out and gives him one of her b.s. moral authority speeches about how he isn’t the Nate Archibald she once knew.  Nate redeems himself later by taking credit for the whole set up, even though he had nothing to do with it.

BONUS: We all thought it was Grandfather William van der Bilt (p.s. love it how they all call him “Grandfather”), but it turns out to be Trip’s sneaky wife Maureen who was behind the whole shebang.  She confesses this to Grandfather with a shizz-eating grin on her face, because she knows he’s underestimated her in the past.  Grandfather responds that he actually doesn’t think about her much at all.  Disssssss!

Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen
The girls are still pissed at each other over last week’s snafu with Chuck Bass’s Gimlet bar opening and whatnot.  Blair finds herself a new best friend in the form of some babe named Brandeis whose got a penchant for designer clothes.  Blair takes Brandeis to Trip van der Bilt’s election party at Chuck’s Empire Hotel, where Serena is attending with her new fake boyfriend actor Patrick Roberts, who she is dating only to keep her job as a publicist.  Patrick gets mondo drunk at the party and lets our friends know that Blair’s buddy Brandeis is not only a psych major at NYU, but a high-class call girl - she’s at the party looking for new clients!  Things get crazy, Blair gets drunk-as-a-skunk Patrick kicked out of the party, Serena tells Blair about her new friend’s actual calling in life, Blair gives her one of those takes-one-to-know-one lines, and S pushes B’s face into a cake.

Whew! Serena ends up feeling like a whore after all, quitting her job, and trying to make up with Blair - but Blair won’t have it.  Blair’s got a real life now, with school and a real relationship, while Serena’s floundering through life, alienating her family and friends.  Blair wants no part of it.  Could this be the end of Serena and Blair?!?!?!?

The episode ends with Blair crawling into bed with Chuck - she’s got no friends, but at least she has him, she says - and Serena running into newly-elected Trip at a bar and him joining her for a chat.  Both these scenes seemed foreshadowing to me.  Will Blair lose Chuck too?  Will something happen between Serena and Trip?  I certainly hope both of those questions are answered with a big fat NO.

Next week?  It’s supposed to be the big threesome episode we’ve been hearing buzz about (OM3!).  Who do you think it’ll be?  I’m half-assuming it’ll involve Olivia (you know how loose those Hollywood types are!), but I’m hoping Vanessa will be involved because maybe THEN she’d shut up.  Serena would be too obvious, no?

Maybe our girl Gossip will show up.  xoxo!

And it’s out the gates with a whimper!  Gossip Girl’s Season 3 premiere last night proved to be somewhat of a disappointment - too much build up, not enough substance.  But don’t fret!  They’re just getting us warmed up…

Serena van der Woodsen returns from getting crazy abroad with Carter Basin. The paparazzi are right behind her the whole time, catching shots of her dancing on a table, doing shots with Prince Harry, gettin’ topless, etc. Serena sibs Jenny Humphrey and Eric van der Woodsen attempt to hide the news from Rufus and Dan Humphrey, our two moral authorities, with no luck.  You can’t hide that mob following S around everywhere.

Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf are back from summer with a romance in full bloom. We see Chuck being uncharacteristically sweet, tender, understanding… all that mushy stuff (”I’m not Chuck Bass without you”?  Puh-LEASE). They’ve stayed together since we last saw them and are apparently playing games to keep the spice up.  It seems Chuck gets the attention of an attractive woman, and just as the gal’s about to put out, Blair jumps in and screams at her, stopping the event.  It’s satisfying for both of them - however, Blair starts having her doubts and wonders whether they could exist without the games.  By the end of the ep, they decide to put an end to it, and role play instead - pervy Chuck-as-waiter / Blair-as-dissatisfied customer stuff. Will it last?  Do we want it to?

Li’l J and Dan are having a great time being rich, which BFF Vanessa Abrams notices immediately and is annoyingly unhappy with.  Homegirl throws a hissy after seeing Dan get in a limo after he’d told her he’d be taking the subway - which I can understand on his part, cuz you KNOW he’d never sneak by without a sassy comment had he told the truth.  Vanessa wants some time to talk to Dan, so she weasels an invite to the Vanderbilt polo match, which the van der Woodsen / Humphreys will be attending, at her new boyfriend Scott’s suggestion.

SCOTT, btw, is exactly who we think it is: Lily and Rufus’s lovechild!  He’s totes using Vanessa to get to his parents.  Why else would anyone date her?

But back to business!  At the polo match, Serena engages in another publicity stunt, jumping on a horse and riding off into the woods.  Travel buddy Carter Basin follows her, and we find out the pair are somewhat of a secret item - though she’s been telling everyone he’s been stalking her.  Carter asks her to tell everyone the truth.

Nate Archibald has also returned from his European extravaganza with a new lady - who turns out to be Bree Buckley (JoAnn Garcia from Privileged!), part of a family of Archibald rivals.  He takes her to the polo match to piss off Grandfather Vanderbilt, which rightly upsets her.  Nate apologizes, because he actually likes the girl.  Grandfather Vanderbilt, however, thought acting like a sweetheart, sees their romance as an opportunity to get the best of the Buckley family.  Mwahaha!

Vanessa and Dan, meanwhile, have a bit of an altercation, in which she accuses him of not acting like himself.  BORING!  Scott takes this opportunity to tell Rufus how much he loves his band Lincoln Hawk.  KISSASS!

But back to Serena, scandal monger.  In the end, Rufus, steps in for an oddly absent Lily van der Woodsen (supposedly tending to a sick granny), pays off all the paparazzi to stop following Serena… all but one, that is.

Serena’s got that last pap locked down!  It turns out that, as hinted at in the Season 2 finale, Serena has been on the hunt for her father this whole time, by way of a unique method: to garner as much bad press as possible.  She’s been acting out purposefully, to get daddy’s attention.  Will it work?

Exciting to get an all-new episode, isn’t it?  Can’t wait to see how Season 3 plays out…

So remember on Beverly Hills, 90210 how Donna Martin had like the WORST mother ever who totally acted like a moral authority on every matter even though she totally had an affair and also sucked otherwise?  Well, it turns out Tori Spelling’s actual mom is even worse!

Mommie dearest!  Check out what good ole Candy Spelling had to say about Tori on 94.7 WMAS-FM in Massachusetts today while promoting her book, Stories From Candyland:

“My daughter one day decided that she wasn’t speaking to my husband, myself and my son, and that’s how it’s continued for the last, oh gosh, four or five years. And it was sad, that’s what killed my husband, actually. He just didn’t want to live after that. He had just done everything he could possibly do for his daughter, and she wanted no part of him once he couldn’t do anything for her.”

Yeah, and she’s really gonna want to talk to you after saying something like that, Candster.  Weepsauce!  Give it a rest, woman.

BUZZKILL!