Gossip Girl: Bad Romance.

Heaven help me, but I like that damn Lady Gaga song [Though I don't quite understand why she's wearing a latex Max from Where The Wild Things Are outfit in the video. Maybe its because her new EP is called The Fame Monster, so now she's all about running with the wild things? Whatev, I don't want to think about it that hard]. Of course now this blog will pop up on Perez Hilton's Google Alerts since I managed to say something positive about Lady Gaga and he will read it and get all misty eyed and preachy about her "art" and continue to live vicariously through her since she has the discernible talent to become more famous than he ever will. Even if that talent is doing the Twist in a latex Where The Wild Things Are Halloween costume. For real. Watch the video.

Anyway, it was appropriate that Lady Gaga -somewhat inexplicably - showed up to lip-synch her newest single as "Bad Romance" really was the theme of this episode. Dan and Vanessa? Say it isn't so!! A Tripp/Serena/Nate triangle? Suck on that Parents Television Council - that threeway would involve cousins!! Jenny and a Belgian drug dealer? Hahahahahaha I'm laughing at her melodramatic downward spiral already.

This episode opened with a James Frey quotation in the voice over [?!?!!], which makes me believe more and more that all I need to do to get famous is to write some crackpot book full of lies to get on Oprah and even more importantly, on Gossip Girl. Sigh. But the point of this strangeness was to illustrate that the truth, especially as we remember it, is actually all relative - wait? is that a theme verging on Mad Men territory!? - and that all threesomes don't take place in porn slow motion with wind machines for the girls' hair, even though Dan Humphrey's hormonal brain would like to believe as much. His Big Man On Campus attitude following his dual lady conquest was quickly stifled by Nate, who rather hilariously and therefore uncharacteristically, chided Dan that the third person is always supposed to be a stranger [Chuck Bass is his best friend, he knows things]. Good advice Nate!

Too bad Dan got that advice too late, as things between him, Vanessa and Olivia was awwwwwwkward. Dan remembered their threesome as his crowning glory, Olivia remembered it as a Dan/Vanessa twosome she happened to witness and Vanessa remembered it as....? Did they ever show a Vanessa flashback? [They might have and I missed it, as I tend to block anything pertaining to V out] But the incident that Dan thought upped his stud quotient actually left him sad and alone - Olivia didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore, and Vanessa didn't really want to be friends. Olivia thought the deep-seated feelings between Dan and Vanessa finally came out and alas, we all knew this would eventually happen. So let's just get this thing over with as soon as possible, so everything can end up like it does in the books with Dan being gay and Vanessa being bald. Dan tried to repair his friendship with V by suggesting they attend a Morrissey concert together, with apparently is something they started doing together when they were 7. At first I thought what kind of 7 year old goes to a Morrissey concert, but then I realized that yeah, if there was any 7 year old who sat in his room and wept to William It Was Really Nothing it was probably Dan Humphrey.

But Olivia put the lid on those sweet vegetarian emo dreams for D and V, and enlisted Dan to write the script for a cabaret performance she was attending. Dan of course had to agree because he was thinking of applying for the play writing program at Tisch and writing this play for other theater kids would give him a leg up. Or something. Blair was also involved, as she is desperate to be accepted by anyone and the theater kids were the next group she tried to infiltrate. GG has done this Shakespearean show within a show conceit before and Blair always shines, so girl needs to get herself into Tisch. If Lady Gaga can do it, I think Blair Waldorf could too! So Dan wrote a Snow White musical using the songs of Lady Gaga to illustrate our culture's obsession with fame. Or something. Its seems pretty ludicrous that Dan could successfully find a way to utilize Love Game and the phrase "disco stick" considering a few weeks ago he was all like "I have no idea who that Olivia chick is! Even though she's in the biggest movie franchise ever!" But I'll let it slide because it gave Blair the chance to act like the Evil Queen she is without pretense and Dan the context to kiss Vanessa on a Betty Draper-esque fainting couch.

But it was all for naught, as Olivia left to go work on some terrible sounding movie, graciously stepping aside so Dan could get it on with her former roommate. Though she left with the menacing promise to "be back next fall," so see you soon Hilary Duff! Nevertheless, Vanessa claimed she didn't have feelings anymore for Dan [FALSE.] and left to be with some theater dude who was obviously gay. So yeah, if this show follows the books' trajectory I guess that's the same thing as being with Dan anyway.

While one threesome was falling apart, another one was shaping up across town - Serena! Nate! Tripp! It was pretty great when Nate called Serena out on her slutty ways, bringing up the fact that she's running after a married Congressman when she was just all up in Carter Bazen's business a hot second ago. The fact that Serena shows up to work for a Congressman in an outfit that has both shoulder pads and a hemline only 1 inch south of her crotch is ridiculous, so someone had to try and set her straight. Nate and Serena have been on the outs lately, so he was surprised that she showed up asking for advice, but I mean hello, what other one of her friends has already had an affair with a married person?!

Nate's adorable little tactics to keep Serena away from Tripp until he left for DC - ice cream in Central Park and a drunken bender - of course backfired in the end. Several shots in Nate revealed he still had feelings for Serena, which I believe because he doesn't have enough thoughts in that pretty head of his to drive them away, and they almost made out. Until -gasp! - Tripp walked in! Nate's mother had revealed it was actually his own wife who almost ruined his campaign and, wtf how does Nate's mother of all people know this?! I hope in upcoming episodes that little piece of info is revealed to us, because it really, really doesn't make sense. Kind of like how Nate is now suddenly living in Chuck's hotel. He goes to school right? Or was that all some sort of ruse?!

But let's get back to this love game [Lady Gaga hahahaha]. As soon as Tripp revealed his marriage was on the rocks Serena was more than ready to hit that. Which, sigh. Get it together girl! Sleeping around your little Upper East Side circle is one thing, sleeping with a married Congressman is another. I am at least comforted by the fact that the political scandal which is about to break will probably be awesome with Serena all over the news and tabloids. Maybe her dad will finally appear then! Whatever, so long as she gets rid of that weird Princess Leia braid she's been sporting lately.

And lastly, let us discuss Little J and what appears to be her upcoming transformation into a druggie at the hands of some dashing European dude! I am split on this development: we already had the whole "Wild Jenny" story arc before but it was really her just acting immature about wanting to drop out of Constance, while if she actually does develop a drug habit it could be serious business. I would say good thing she has a former rock star dad to help her through this, but he didn't know what gonorrhea of the throat was, so maybe he won't be so helpful after all.

I kind of love when Chuck Bass tries to actually be a good brother, like when he attempted to rescue Jenny from the clutches of European Dude and his blue pills. I mostly loved his appearance though for his brilliant quip: "Dude, I’m Chuck Bass. Even Europeans must know what that means." [Heart.] But no matter what Chuck says, Jenny is clearly enamored with The European and his whole bad boy image. She's obviously just a lonely teenager who has alienated her only real friends, Eric and Jonathan, and thinks that dressing like Courtney Love and dumping yogurt over people will earn her acceptance. Obviously, its going to be hard for her to resist the thrills of The European and his sneaky toy boat maneuvers. Look out Little J!

I'm going to allow the development of this Jenny storyline for one reason, and one reason only. I'm banking on the fact that it's going to yield a hilarious and classic scene like this:



Actually, I think Jessie Spano pretty accurately sums up how I feel about this whole new Jenny scenario: "I'm soo excited....I'm sooo excited...I'm sooo...scared!!!"