Oh goodness! Welcome to Intrigue University, population: The cast of Gossip Girl! So much happened last night on America's Next Worst Dance Crew that it's hard to even comprehend. Seriously, so little of it made any sense.

So, OK. Everyone's in college, right? Dan goes to Columbia NYU! Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!. And Serena, she too goes to Columbia. Blair, you remember Blair. She goes to... Columbia. And Nate, well, see, Nate, he... goes... to... Columbia. So basically the only people who DON'T go to Columbia are Vanessa, who is a hobo cavewoman and can't read, Chuck, who's far too busy blowing dudes to get a college education, Jenny, who nobody likes, and Erik, who is dead. Everyone else goes to Columbia. Even Rufus pedaled by on campus, wearing a mortarboard and gown, a weeping Mr. Chips. Columbia is the hot new place to go to school!

Since everyone goes there, a lot of intrigue happens on campus. So much! The Intrigue Levels are so high that even the professors are involved. And they're not just any old professors, they're respected actors like Marlyne Barrett and the Jayne Atkinson. Isn't that something! So what was all this dramz, all this intreegz? Well.

Remember how someone at Gossip's Creek decided to go ahead and cast Katie Cassidy, America's most dynamic actress? Well, I understand that you don't remember, but it did happen. Katie Cassidy, the most compelling performer working on screen today, is on the show and she is playing a mean nasty witch named Juliet, who does mean nasty things, all in the service of... a mysterious purpose. She has a brother who is in jail, apparently? When did that happen, guys? Was it in that episode that I missed when I guzzling Malbec in Buenos Aires? Perhaps. Or perhaps the Gossip Gringos writers just threw the prison brother in like it wasn't no thang last night. Perhaps that is what they did. Whatever the reason, there he was, all squirrel-faced and telling Katie Cassidy to DESTROY SERENA'S LIFE. Why? Well, we don't know the why yet, because sometimes motive is the murkiest thing. We just know that Katie Cassidy has but one mission: Destroy the van der Snoodsen.

Or is that her only mission? Is another, secret, private mission to bed the seximatronic sexbot known to his friends and creators as Nate? I think it might be. Obviously Nate began as just a mark, but it seems that Katie Cassidy, as is written all over her expressive actorly face, is sincerely falling for Nate. Which makes sense. I mean, Nate is just so multifaceted and interesting, so witty and dynamic. Nate is the kind of person you'd want to bring as a date to your dinner with Wallace Shawn. I mean, fucker can hold forth, y'know? He's a raconteur of the highest order. So it's only natural that Katie Cassidy, herself a shining beacon of style and depth, would fall for him. Brotherdear there in Attica suspects that this is happening, but she denies it. She denies it and proceeds with their nefarious plans.

The plans last night got supesah-dupesah nefarious. Remember Serena? She's the blonde fart machine that everyone thinks is cool? Well she's really trying to make her way, be a good girl, at Colermbria, so it's Katie Cassidy's mission to make sure she fails. Now, as any adult will tell you, the best way to ruin someone's academic career is to start a rumor on a high school gossip blog that they have an STD. Makes sense. The minute that college-types totally click on that high school gossip blog that has nothing to do with them and read that a student they don't know might have an STD, that's it for that person. It is dunzo. So that's exactly what Katherine Cassidy did! She sent a rumor-blast to Gossip Gunk, saying that Serena had come down with a terrible case of AIDS.

Oh god. No. It wasn't AIDS. Imagine if it was? Imagine if we were that far away from that crisis that a show like Gossip Hounds could be like "Ha ha, AIDS." We are not there yet! So I assume it was something less serious, like syphilis. I'm assuming that the rumor was that Serena had contracted "Capone's Consternation" and would soon be a gelatinous heap of raving mad, blind sex-goo. (That is syphilis right there.) So Serena has the syph, and now Dan and Nate, who totally made love to her, are maybe a liiiiittle worried that they too will die of the Sailor's Plague. And this was Katie Cassidy's intention! To make the boys in Serena's life not trust her, because blah blah who the hell knows. If you wanted to take me down and ruin my life, a faster way to do that than making my ex-boyfriends (of which I have none) hate me would be to run me over with a car. "Hm. Let's see. I could spend whole elaborate months playing a weird and vague game of social chess, or I could just run that fool over with this car. I think I'll do that." It's just so much quicker! Someone should hand Katie Cassidy the keys to an old Chevy Cavalier. Either she runs Serena over or she drives off a cliff. Either way, that's an outcome I can get behind.

Anyway, K. Cass is doing this STD thing and Serena is all "[mumble]". Like she does. (Did anyone see The Town? What the hell did Blake Lively do, take that Stella Adler Stage Mumbling class? Muttering incoherently is not acting, young lady!) She has problems other than Nate and Dan running off to Columbia's famed Sex Test Building to get their dicks chopped off, for health reasons. Oh she has way bigger problems. You know Joan's husband from Mad Men? He's also a lawyer that seduced Kelsey Grammer's daughter on Greek? Well, he's apparently in New York now, living next to Serena and making her late every morning. Why is she late every morning? Because every morning she runs outside, dressed in her best school outfit — sixteen-inch stilettos, miniskirt, poet's tube top — and tries, tries, to get in a cab, but there Joan's husband is, stealing a cab for whatever girl is leaving his apartment that morning. Can you believe how relatable that is? "Oh, gosh. Remember those good old college days, when we took cabs every morning except were always late to school because that playboy in a suit kept stealing our cabs? Oh, college." So that's Serena's dilemma. Her English professor is really mad at her for being late all the time, everyone thinks she has an STD, and she can't stop mumbling.

What else is going on. Oh, Vanessa the cavewoman is all ooka-booka-ing about Dan getting tested for Penis Pox, because she suspects that Dan and Serena totally rubbed bones while Dan was dating Vanessa. Which, he would never! Dan is an upstanding young gentleman who would never scrape pelvises with someone who wasn't his girlfriend. But Vanessa is inclined to suspect something anyway, so she spent a lot of this episode wandering the campus of a school she doesn't go to, looking constipated. Katie Cassidy watched from distance and said "Excellent...."

Meanwhile Blair is having her period about something new. It's always something with this one, isn't it. One week it's her gay boyfriend was shot in Prague, another week it's her gay boyfriend is totally sabotaging her chances of taking a class with a fancy professor. Oh yesssss. You cut to the quick, Chuckles! Clearly the surest way to disappoint and outrage a 20-year-old girl is to be all meddling with her class schedule. Seriously, have none of you ever heard of running someone over with a car? It's so quick and effective, honestly! But, no. You're right. Start high school blog rumors and, like, I don't know, steal a professor away from someone. That'll... yeah, that'll... show 'em.

Oh who the hell knows. I'm not even going to talk about the rest of Blair's stupid plotline for stupid people because it was so stupid. A professor got her non-lesbian feelings hurt. Chuck smiled and blew a dude. Blair frowned. End of story.

There was a big party, OBVIOUSLY, and Katie Cassidy decided to ruin Serena's life a little more at the party. This is because she had been talking to prison brother and he was all "Ruin her life in a general way!" So Katie Cassidy obliged. The trick was this: Remember how Serena had been late to class all the time? Well it was becoming a serious problem with the Dean of Classes, you know, that person who pays full attention to what individual students out of a class of 1,800 are doing day to day. You know. The Dean of Tardiness that Serena was in big trouble with. So she was going to talk to her English professor and the Dean at the party and that was going to sort everything out. "Hey guys, I'm so sorry I'm late to everything. Now let's party!!!!" Right? That's a good strategy. "I'm so sorry I'm cheating on you, baby. Now let me finish blowing this dude." — Chuck Bass.

So what Katie Cassidy did to muck this all up was she had Vanessa steal Serena's phone to check for emails between Dan and Serena about the syphilis. Of course there was a nice email from Dan that was like "Hey Serena, clearly we didn't rattle joints together last season, so no one has syphilis and Vanessa has no reason to be upset." So Vanessa was happy. But Katie Cassidy was not! She snatched the phone from Vanessa and sent an email to her English professor saying "I will totally do sex with you if you give me an A+, please." Which is a terrible email to send to a college professor! The Dean of Reading Emails came over to Serena and said "Young lady, ya burnt. Ya clipped. Expelled." But Serena protested enough, saying that her phone was stolen (true!) and that she'd never sleep with a professor for grades (maybe?) and the Dean of Inexplicably Tolerating Bullshit was like "You may have a point." So there was this whole foofaraw and finally Katie Cassidy put Serena's phone in Vanessa's bag and then was like "Whoever stole your phone might still have it" and so she called it and it was in Vanessa's bag so now everyone thinks that Vanessa was the bad emailer. So Serena was exonerated but even still the Dean was like "You just bring a lot of drama." Hahahahahaha. Yes. At an Ivy League school, that's what a Dean says to a random sophomore. "I might have to reconsider your going here, based on all the drama." Classy, everyone. Real classy.

So that was a plot and Serena is upset and Vanessa is going to go live on her family's upstate kibbutz for a while. Which, OK. I would have rather just run her over with my car, but whatever gets her off the show. Katie Cassidy feels good that she was mean to Serena, but she feels bad because she is maybe falling for the dashing, roguish Nate. She seduced him with an old-timey bra and garter ensemble and champagne, and he was all "Oh yeah. I love making love to women. This is so fun. I do not miss Charles Bass in any way. Let's... Hey c'mon, let's put our penises inside each other. I mean, just mine. In your girl area. You are a girl. This is so much fun. Yeah." It was really, really romantic.

Um... Oh, Blair and Chuck killed each other. Whatever. No one cares. Rufus took a bunch of sleeping pills and wandered out onto the veranda, mascara running, and said "The whole world's full of nothing, isn't it, Bobo?" And Bobo, a new character, nodded and sipped his Champagne Coolatta and I think they're in love, so that's good. Serena went to have a drink with Joan's husband, some thick tomatoy gross thing that they sucked down, guffawing at each other, red rings around their mouths.

Remember when Rufus was like "Oh, no, Lily's not here. She and Erik are looking at colleges"? Remember that part!! That was so funny. Are you like me and you pictured that episode of The Sopranos, and Lily strangling someone in a field? That would be so great. PLEEEEEASE, Gossip Girl writers. We have given you so much of our time. Couldn't you please, in return, give us just a Lily 'n' Erik out on the road episode? Oh GOD wouldn't that be a good hour of television? "How did you like Vassar?" "It was great. Lots of, um... like-minded people there." "Oh, Erik, you old queen." "Mo-oooom!" It would win so very many Emmys.

For now, though: dirt. Muck. Rubbish. Rot. Columbia is apparently a school for social nincompoops and deans with obvious emotional problems. Serena is dying of syphilis. Nate and Dan and Chuck can't express their passion in the way they truly want to. Vanessa is getting switched out for Jenny next week, which, like... swap meet from hell! No!! We don't want that trade! We want both off! We want Vanessa traded for... I dunno, Erik maybe? Or even Dorota's husband? Someone! Anyone! Just not Jenny. And her return has something to do with the Chuck story, which makes it even worse. Jenny. Pirate Jenny.

Anyway. I hope Erik had a good trip. I hope he was driving down small roads in Vermont or Maine, somewhere between Bowdoin and some place else, and he looked out at the leaves turning, saw the quiet way the sun could be, the way it can rest on open land, and he realized what a silly, dull world it is back here in Gossip Growl's New York. What a fitful, dopey place it is. I hope he made Lily stop the car and get out and that they sat on the hood and watched the sun set behind some yellowing hill and they could fill their lungs with cool, honest air and they were happy to be out and about together. Happy to be away from all the dumb business. Happy to barely even remember what a Katie Cassidy — a cat? a car? a dish at some restaurant? — is at all.