Gossip Girl Episode Recap S2Ep4: The Ex-Files

Gossip Girl Episode Recaps

The Ex-Files. No comment on the title.

(Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers. You are duly warned!)

Gossip Girl Season 2 Episode 4 Recap
The Ex-Files

Welcome back Gossip Girl fans, sorry for the impromptu hiatus from the gossip girl episode recaps, but I’m back now with a vengeance!

Things are a little out of sorts for our favorite Upper East Side friends, and it’s about to get deliciously worse.

We finally get our first glimpse on Lily Van Der Woodsen back from her honeymoon! It’s the first day of classes, and she’s bestowing her children with tales of Bart Bass’ fascination with flip-flops. I kid you not. Chuck comes in and drops the bomb on Lily that Dan and Serena broke up. Chuck is convinced that Dan was simply holding Serena back from the wild, party, school queen that she was meant to be. But Serena is convinced that it’s Blair’s scene, and not hers.

Cut over to the Humphrey home, some family bonding over breakfast that I don’t really care much about. Rufus is apparently steadily dating a girl named Clare. Dan is being sarcastic. And Jenny is understandably dreading school, thanks to the wreck that she made that was the whole of last year.

Meanwhile, Blair and her band of Blair-ites are drafting fresh students into two categories: projects and victims. Funny little snippet if not totally cheesy. Leighton Meester’s facial expressions? Definitely worth a few ha-ha’s.

We see Nate and Vanessa having a little chat about their non-relationship. And, okay, just how clueless can someone be? Vanessa wants you to break it off with Catherine. You see Vanessa leave a room where Catherine is in. Vanessa wants you to stay with Catherine. Shouldn’t that ring humungous bells of suspicion already? Come on, Nate, wake up and smell the foul play!

The Humphrey siblings bond over their pathetic-ness. Slightly kind of cute. Kind of. Slightly.

Dan ends up accidentally assaulting a new student. A new girl student. And we all know just how experienced Dan is with girls. Meanwhile, our favorite besties are talking about Serena’s phobia of an encounter with Dan. Blair is convinced that whoever dates first wins the whole getting-over-you-before-you-get-over-me game. Just when Serena has decided to grow some sense, the besties see Dan happily talking to the new student. And let the games begin.

Vanessa gets an unexpected visitor during her work. Catherine, the wicked duchess of the Upper East Side, came to offer Vanessa a whopping $5000 to stay away from Nate. But before she could return the check the duchess has already left the building, in a creepy disappearing act kind of way.

D and S finally bump into each other. Things were going boringly well until the new girl, Amanda, decides to jump in. Serena’s plan of a friendly lunch is shot to pieces thanks to Dan already asking Amanda. And Chuck, is a little too interested in this awkward encounter.

Rufus gets a surprise visitor in his gallery, Lily. They easily fall back into the charming mild flirting they’re so good at, and decide to go to Repo Man. No clue who or what that is, but Rufus wants to marry Harry Dean Stanton.

Thanks to Gossip Girl, Blair and her posse hear about Dan and Amanda. They ambush Amanda and invite her to lunch, forcibly initiating her into their group. Of course, being part of the group means that you don’t go out with your friends ex-boyfriends. But Serena is not happy about bullying Amanda.

Vanessa goes to the Royal manor of Catherine to return the check. Hearing some scandalous noises, and possibly suspecting it to be Nate, she sneaks in and peeks through a door. What she sees is Oh-My-Effing-God worthy. And then some.

Seems that the wicked Duchess Catherine not only likes bankrupt, emotionally unstable, little boys, but she also likes forbidden, royal, stepsons. As in Marcus. As in Blair’s Marcus. As in the Duchess’ mistress’ ex-girlfriend’s royally, bumbling boyfriend.

Chuck sees Dan waiting for his new girl friend, emphasis on the space there, and decides to rain on his parade by telling him about Blair’s friendly initiation. Dan immediately says that Serena wouldn’t do anything to Amanda.

After consoling Vanessa, Dan confronts Serena. Here, we can see just how fed up Serena is about always being the ‘bad girl’ that Dan accuses her of being. We also see how scarily good at b*itchiness Serena can be.

Vanessa goes to Blair with some photographic evidence of Marcus and Catherine’s forbidden tryst. Obviously not happy, Blair tells Vanessa that she’ll take matters into her own hands.

Over at the Humphrey Home, little sister Jenny tries to talk some sense into her idiotic big brother.

Dan approaches Serena for a sensible talk, and Serena decides that the only way to salvage their friendship is if the air is cleared by means of a date. Together. With Amanda.

Vanessa anxiously looks for Blair for any news about the Marcus-Catherine problem, and she sees the Queen B with her royal boyfriend, seemingly still happy on a date. Vanessa leaves before she can see Blair happily dumping her boyfriend, and blackmailing both him and his stepmother for Nate’s sake. Why in the world couldn’t Vanessa wait a few more seconds before speeding off to go do stupid things?

On to the three-way date, lots of meaningless things happen, but the bottom line is:
Serena is jealous because Dan and Amanda get along well with their geekiness.
Serena tries to make Dan jealous by using some good looking, but stupid, jock.
Serena is drinking a little too much.
Dan still can’t understand girl’s feelings.

Over on to Queen B. Blair is happily relaying some good news to Nate, but before she finishes, she gets news that Vanessa has spilled the beans to the Duke. Which makes all of Nate’s good news turn into moot. So close Nate, so close.

Meawhile, on to our favorite non-couple. Lily needs a friend. But Rufus can’t be her friend. Because she has Bart and Rufus has Clare. Aw.

Blair is royally pissed by Vanessa’s interference with her plan. And Vanessa learns why Blair really is Queen B.

Serena’s three-way date just got worse. Thanks to Blair’s posse and nair-martini, Amanda is humiliated in front of the whole crowd. Angry, drunk, and fed up, Serena turns to Blair’s posse, and we all see Queen S being born again. What she doesn’t know, is that the whole Amanda drama was actually Chuck’s masterful idea. Amanda is only as friendly and sweet as Chuck pays her to be.

Vanessa tries to apologize to Nate, but he’s hurt that she blatantly lied to him and reminds her that they were never really friends. Jenny however, doesn’t seem to be invisible anymore, and the torture starts with handbags being thrown around. Unwilling to take any more abuse from school queens, she heads off back to intern for Eleanor.

At school, it seems that Blair is a little confused by the subtle power play that Serena is showing. Our Queen B quietly excuses herself from her (Serena’s?) posse, only to be cornered by Chuck’s cryptic taunts of dethroned queens and the masterminds behind it.

And finally, Dan gets a cruel taste of Queen S’s social power.

The End.

More episode recaps next week from your non-Gossip Girl gossip girl.