'Gossip Girl': Vanessa pulls a Blair, and Chuck kisses a boy

Tonight on "Gossip Girl," Vanessa got in touch with her inner Blair -- and Olivia got caught in the crossfire of an inexplicable battle over a toast at the freshman dinner. Serena played -- and lost -- a high-stakes poker game. And Chuck kissed a guy. Rock on.

When Vanessa turns up as the subject of a puff piece on the front page of the NYU newspaper, it's clear she's in the running for the honor of giving the toast at the freshman dinner during parents' weekend. It's between her and another girl, which we're led to believe is Blair but really turns out to be Olivia (Hilary Duff) -- which Vanessa doesn't know until after she's encouraged Dan to bring her to the dinner to meet his parents.

With me so far? Still care? OK. So Blair starts in with her normal nonsense about how she's more entitled to give the toast than Vanessa, and when the alumni liaison turns her down she immediately hatches an evil plan against him -- enlisting Chuck to help her get what's coming to her. Oh, if only she'd actually get what's coming to her. They're going to resume their "other girl" game from the summer, except that the alumni liaison is Chuck's target now -- and Blair uses the kiss to force the guy into giving her the speech.

Hands down the best part of the entire exchange is Chuck jumping right in. Which brings me to the part where I once again sing Chuck's praises. Seriously, can we dump the rest of these doinks and just have a Chuck Bass show? Who wouldn't want that?

Vanessa invites her disapproving mother (Gina Torres) to come and see her give the speech -- and we have to hear a whole bunch of malarkey about how her father was too busy installing solar panels on the chicken coop to come, and how they've been just swamped organizing the union for the Burlington cheesemakers (Burlington Cheesemakers -- a great band name if ever there was one). V's mother also uses only agave sweetener in her homemade jam, doesn't worship at the altar of shallow Hollywood celebrity, and disapproves of Vanessa attending a private school, because knowledge should not be for sale. As if public universities don't charge tuition.

The speech means a lot to Vanessa, to the point where she lets Blair get under her skin and sells bogus stories to both Dan and Olivia in an attempt to get them not to come. Hijinks ensue, including Vanessa getting Blair to explain at length exactly why she's better than everyone else, while she has an open mic in her purse that broadcasts the festival of obnoxia to the crowd at large. It's all out of character for Vanessa, though I like the fact that she's grown some claws, her necklace is spectacular, and someone seems to have fixed her hair weave. But she predictably goes back to the high road and is nice to Blair in the end.

Blair's minion-leading, dynasty protecting attitude of entitlement is so old -- it's insanely boring, and if I were Leighton Meester I'd be asking why everyone but me seems to be able to have some kind of character arc or development. Even Chuck shouldn't be able to stand this girl.

On to Serena and Nate, a.k.a. Dumb and Dumber. Nate's working on his cousin Tripp's congressional campaign and trying to fight off the attack ads that the Buckley family has bought against him. He's also hatched a plan to try to get Carter out of what amounts to his restitution to the Buckley family -- working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico -- which Serena vows she will not let happen. Right. Because an actual day's work would just be tragic -- the equivalent of a Guantanamo sentence at least. Please.

So Nate stakes Serena in a high falutin' poker game run by Bree's cousin P.J. to settle Carter's debt and essentially buy his freedom -- and he's convinced it's the right thing to do because Bree told him all of P.J.'s tells. After Serena loses not one but two $25,000 buy-ins, Nate raises the stakes with a photo of Tripp with a great big bong at his bachelor party -- a death knell for his political career for sure (seriously?).  

Serena loses, and later finds out that the photo was fake -- Nate was setting up the Buckleys. Sure it's a stupid plan, but Nate does get to utter more than three sentences, so it's a victory for him. Puffed up with moral outrage, Serena tells P.J. what's up, and the Buckley family, grateful to avoid such scandal, lets Carter off the hook. But someone seems to have slipped Carter an integrity pill, because he refuses her help and wants to take responsibility for his actions -- even if it means (gasp!) manual labor.


Some other thoughts:

• "You really think I've never kissed a guy before?" Chuck Bass = brilliant. But couldn't it have been a better kiss? Chuck deserves more than this.
  
• Serena: They're called pants. Look into them. Please.
• A follow-up on last week's conversation between Bree and Blair about "the South": Texans don't refer to their general geographical area as "the South." It's Texas. Best not try that "South" business on Coach Taylor -- I'm just sayin'.
  
• "All About Eve" is one of my favorite movies of all time -- one of the cinematic greats. But talk about a reference that's 30,000 feet above this show's target demographic. What are the odds that the average "Gossip Girl" viewer even knows who Bette Davis is?

What did you think? Were you surprised to see Vanessa stooping to Blair's level? Do you think Chuck will forgive Blair? Will the snow need to fly before Serena wears sleeves and anything longer than five inches above her knees?