Oh my, its senior year already for the boys and girls of Gossip Girl; that might not be the best thing since ratings for teen shows always go straight down hill once the cast hits the college years. This year isn't looking too promising either, though. Serena (Blake Lively) and Dan (Penn Badgley) can't seem to have a civil conversation…and neither can Chuck (Ed Westwick) and Blair (Leighton Meester).

Blair, of course, is too busy dissecting through this years' set of underclassmen to bother with Chuck. Serena, on the other hand, doesn't want any part of Blair's rule as "Queen B" of the school because she is just too upset about her and Dan's third-time-around breakup. Chuck has his mind set on total social disorder and he feels that his newly established kinship with Serena (Chuck became Serena's step-brother when last season's finale wedding united his dad to her mom) is Blair's weakest link to losing everything she loves and treasures so much.

All of Blair's scrutinizing leads to two conclusions. One, Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) will no longer be sitting on the steps of the Met for lunch (and not just because they are under construction); instead she will be shunned and ridiculed publicly by Blair's little puppets. And two, new girl in town Amanda seems to take a liking to Dan and all his adorable bookish qualities ignoring the social hierarchy Blair throws in her face. Blair practically assaults Amanda when she discovers her and Dan are on to sit together at lunch. She and her minions are decked out in sweatbands (oooh, scary!) and tell her she will be joining them for lunch instead. Who knew lunch time could cause so much drama? Irregardless, Blair's interfering does no good when Serena steps in and tells her to drop it and be nice. I don't think nice is a word that is in Blair's vocabulary.

Serena tries to play nice by insisting that her, Dan and Amanda all go out together to some fancy place that apparently serves every minor living in the Upper East Side. This outing obviously doesn't go well. Serena brings over some dumb jock to make Dan jealous. Chuck shows up, wearing another hideously flashy suit, and brings out some blue goo. Blair's puppets throw this goo into Amanda's hair, which in turn makes her hair start falling out. Chuck seems abnormally pleased with himself because this causes another useless fight between Dan and Serena about how she never owns up to anything. Why Dan never suspects Chuck is beyond me; Chuck truly is the root of all Gossip Girl evil. Later, after all the events have taken place and everyone is rightfully pissed at their respective party it is discovered that Chuck hired Amanda, if that's even her real name, to pretend to be interested in Dan to make Serena jealous. Chuck somehow knew that Serena's jealousy would lead to her being the new queen bee and deplete Blair of her title. Perhaps Chuck thinks this will lead Blair back into his arms? Who knows, and quite frankly, who cares?

Chuck isn't the only one with a secret agenda. Catherine (Madchen Amick) is caught having another affair - with Blair's Lord and boyfriend Marcus (Patrick Heusinger) who also just happens to be her step-son. Now that's just creepy and incestuous. Perhaps these two love birds would not have been discovered had it not been for Catherine's $5,000 bribe to Vanessa (Jessica Szohr) for keeping quiet to Nate (Chace Crawford) about why she's staying out of his life. Vanessa came to the Duke and Duchess' place to return the check and caught the two red-handed. Lucky for her she had her camera phone to snap a picture for proof.

Vanessa didn't know what to do, so like every smart character does on Gossip Girl, she turned to Blair for help. Blair, brought to tears at the thought of her boyfriend's infidelity, tells her to keep her mouth shut and let her deal with this. But, Vanessa doesn't keep her mouth shut when she thinks she spots Blair and Marcus on a romantic lunch date. Again, I have to ask, what's with the significant lunch occurrences?? Vanessa goes straight to the Duke and shows him what's going on. Little did she know, Blair had Marcus and Catherine on a plane back to London, ready to pay off Nate's dad's debt entirely. Oops. Guess this is a lose-lose situation. Blair loses her boy-toy. Catherine loses her husband, her money and Nate. And Nate loses Catherine and, by choice, Vanessa. He wasn't upset about the scandal; he was just upset that she lied to him about why she wasn't speaking to him.

And if all of this drama just isn't enough to quench your thirst, there's also Rufus Humphrey (Matthew Settle) and Lily van der Woodsen-Bass (Kelly Rutherford) who seem to be throwing relationships in each others' faces, just as bad as their kids are. Nobody gets off easy on the Upper East Side, that's for sure.

Story by Beth Wickman

Starpulse contributing writer