Deprived of its juicy beauties last week, we were served an extra heaping plate of Gossip Girl last night. But was it a meal worth eating, or did we spit it out in a napkin?

Mostly it was fine. I grumbled a bit, but I always grumble a bit.

The main cauldron-stirrer this week was Blair, who waged dubious war against the dopey and chirpy new teacher, Mrs. Chips. You see Mrs. Chips wasn't going to let second-semester-senior, Yale-bound Blair skate through on her little red coat to the end of the year. She wanted hard work, and a hard working-over. Enter Dan, pursued by bear Serena, who had a close relationship with Mrs. Chips. He even called her by her first name, which is Hyacinth. He and Hyacinth liked to go have coffee and talk about how Dan's writing is just so fucking good—he makes references to Cordelia, the most obvious and accessible character in all of... Buffy!—and then they do some eyeball tonsil hockey and then the bell rings and it's school time. For some reason Dan always has to wait to pay the check or finish writing something or just wants to stare out the window some more, basically he does anything but stand up when Mrs. Chips does. I wonder why?

Spurned by Mrs. Chips' banning of cell phones, Blair's friends (why oh why did they have to put Nelli Yuki in the yellow coat?) agreed to help with her take down. Dorota—who got two fine scenes last night, one involving trash picking that made me cackle, the other her little spy in sunglasses routine—sneaked some (pink!) cellphones to the goils in their posh school lavatory. Blair emerged into the hallway just in time to see Dan fumbling and mumbling about Hyacinth's ladytits and how they filled out her little sweaters so nice like. Blair knew that this was her chance, so she snapped a celly pic of them and sent a tip to Gossip Girl. Gossip Girl, who I've decided is probably Bart Bass, immediately posted something about the alleged affair and little Jenny Humphrey wrote it all on her arm, like that dude in Memento. When Serena found out about the rumor she was really sad and Serena-faced. She was jealous of all the attention that Dan's boners were devoting to Mrs. Chips. And she was jealous that Mrs. Chips wouldn't read her paper on King Lear with the same beady-eyed sexual magnetism as she had when she reread, for like the eighth time!, Dan's beautiful story about feeling alone, called "A Night Without Armor 2: High Noon at Mega Mountain."

Of course all the parents found out about the teacher diddling and all the dads were secretly like "awwww yeahhhhh boyeeee!" but on the outside were very grave and serious and grumbly chinned about the whole affair. On one side was Rufus, who was very sad that his son's good name was being besmirched, and on the other was Harvey Waldorf Banger, Blair's devoted French nanny/father. His sweater sets in a bunch, he wanted this lying, awful, boysex-that-he-was-secretly-jealous-of-having teacher outta there. HM Queller 2.0 mediated a summit in the secret boardroom the school operates underneath Mt. Rushmore. The lie was going to be revealed until Blair, who at this point had been expelled for her Gossip Girl abusery, broke into the room with a chainsaw and a mining cap, shrieking "give us free, give us free!" Or it was basically like that. See what had happened was, Serena had put on her rollerskates and was fart-propelling herself around town (that's what she does when she is sad), and she had gazed wistfully into a cafe. And who did she see? The dumbest teacher ever because honestly who goes to a cafe at night with the very student she's rumored to be diddling, Mrs. Chips, and Dan the Man Marino Humphrey. Dan was stroking her face and his Danboner was obvious even though you couldn't see it and Serena, because the show's writers have never bothered to try and create any sort of character consistency with her, snapped another celly pic and gave it to Blair.

So in burst Blair with the incriminating photo, Mrs. Chips was fired, Blair gloated, and her disapproving (sorta) papa overheard. Meanwhile, Headmistress Sarah Chalke was at Lily's pad saying "ohhh we can't fire her after all, because she looks vaguely like a Native American and I enjoy having a scalp, do you enjoy having a scalp Mr. Humphrey, plus I'm lazy and don't want to hire a new special ed teacher." BUT IT WAS TOO LATE. You see Dan had gone over to Hyacinth's house for one last apology boner, and she had pounced. They sucked mug and then undressed and fell onto the bed and for a brief moment Dan was like "whoa, am I actually in bed on a Tuesday night hoping Jenny doesn't hear me through the thin walls, or am I actually here?" You're actually there, you masturbating son of a bitch. You're actually there.

So that was super exciting! Teacher Sex is maybe the hottest sex after Lifeguard Sex and Boarding School Roommate Sex, so well done GG.

You know what was not exciting? The episode's B plotline. It was called The Detectives Nate and Vanessa In... Lord Chuckles Hookercandle's Badassssss Song. Basically Chuck got drunk or drugged or something and went to a secret Masons/Stonecutters/Skull & Bones/RNC meeting by mistake. You see a hooker named Bella, or whatever her name was, had sent him her hooker party invitation because she thought he was his dad. His dad is locked in a mausoleum somewhere, typing furiously about the goings on at Constance Billard, so Chuck received the card and went in his stead. Bella, who is now dead—she never got back to her nanny house!—warned Chuck that she had made a terrible mistake by letting an outsider into the crazy Bacchanal, and that this was a secret world-owning society of Illuminati and acolytes and all that kind of ominous stuff and that he was in great danger. Somewhere Dan Brown, who should marry Stephanie Meyer and then their wedding should be firebombed, clapped his hands and said "By jingo Gossip Girl, you're cookin' with gas now! This is some good writing!" While the rest of us slumped off of the couch and fell over dead because, reeeeeeeally?

In the C plotline Nate and Vanessa sent underwear to each other and then did a slow, sad waltz as they realized they were being written off the show. I hope their final scene is in some big Illuminati climax episode that has Chuck wielding the power of a magical skeleton or something and Nate and Vanessa are in big, furry, perfectly white winter adventure costumes and the villain, Lady Blairsdad von Buggery, grabs them and says "I'll gut them like beautiful, beautiful fish, I swear I will Bass!" And Chuck, mad with otherworldly power, replies "Go ahead, Mary. Do your worst." So Lady Blairsdad kills them both quickly and senselessly and it goes into slomo as Vanessa and Nate fall to the ground and join each other in a cold, glassy, eternal embrace.

Then Erik swoops in wearing a loincloth, feather boa, and an Indiana Jones hat and saves the day. Rufus, wearing a villainous eye patch, gets away on a snowmobile. But it's OK. Maybe they'll apprehend that fiend in their next adventure...

Stay tuned!