Gossip Girl is back and better than ever. I agree with my fellow BuddyTV staffer Don Williams that there is no sophomore slump in sight. Blair (Leighton Meester) was at her bitchy best last night, delivering one liner after one liner with perfect contempt. The way that she went from being dismissive of “James” to being sycophantic of “m'Lord” to being heartbroken when Chuck couldn't say those three little words was just brilliant. Of course, that Basstard, the Mother Chucker himself, was in rare form as well. How is it that Ed Westwick can woo me so easily with his skeaziness?

However, there's one thing that I would like changed, please. The only thing that would make Gossip Girl better would be if they re-vamped Dan Humphrey's character.

Sure, the WB and now the CW has been pimping Penn Badgley as the next big thing, and yes, he is easy on the eyes, for sure (especially when he's wearing that white wifebeater while scribbling out his unfinished short story by the fire on the beach), but he is still the same self-righteous pinhead that he was all last season.

I am prepared to take a lot of flak for this opinion, but I'm sticking to my guns here. I'm not faulting Dan one iota for playing the field and man-whoring it up all summer. That's the kind of behavior that sometimes you have to engage in after a big, painful breakup. Believe me, I've been there. I'm not even faulting him for being unable to write his damn story and letting bigshot auther Jay Mcinerny down. Writing about something as painful as losing the love of your life sometimes requires years and years of therapy.

But what really annoys me about Dan is his self-righteousness. When he caught Serena (Blake Lively) making out with Nate (Chace Crawford) at the White Party, he immediately jumped to conclusions—the wrong conclusion, I might add—and didn't want to hear any of Serena's explanation. But excuse me, does she even owe him an explanation? The last I heard, Dan was the one who wouldn't take Serena back in last season's finale of Gossip Girl. As far as I am concerned, that gives Serena the right to kiss whomever she wants, even her old flame Nate.

I'm glad that at the end of last night's episode, Dan decided to own up to his hypocrisy and got back together with Serena. Now, if only we can give Serena more of a backbone, and I'll be perfectly happy.



-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)