It is never dull moment on Gossip Girl. As fall descends upon the city, we find our favorite New Yorkers in the middle of a new election season. It is judgment day for Nate’s cousin Tripp, and Chuck is throwing a party to celebrate (no matter if he wins or loses, it is an excuse to live lavishly!). Nate’s grandfather seems to think that Tripp may lose and believes that they “need a miracle” to clench the seat in Congress. As luck would have it, there is someone drowning in the Hudson River at the exact same time Tripp and Nate are taking a leisurely stroll. Tripp sees the man in danger and quickly jumps in the water to save him (didn’t see that one coming, right?). Vanessa, who is filming Tripp’s’ campaign, gets all the footage of the save and decides to sell it to NY 1. As she is reviewing the footage, she sees the “victim” jump into the water and then proceed to “drown”.  Being the self-righteous saint that she is, V confronts Nate and tells her that the drowning was staged but she is still going to sell her footage (guess her self-righteousness has its limits). Nate is pretty upset by this but instead of sulking, he quickly takes action. Without missing a beat, he calls NY 1 and tells them that V has decided to sell her footage to another network.

Eventually, Vanessa finds this out and she corrects the problem herself; she sells the footage to NY 1 and they feature it once the polls are closed.  Tripp blames his grandfather for the set up but he insists that it was not him. Nate then takes the blame for the incident in order to protect Tripp’s reputation (what a hero!). We soon find out that it was not the grandfather or Nate- it was Tripp’s beloved wife (seriously – completely unexpected!). Poor Nate takes all the credit but doesn’t get the benefit of being the Congressman’s wife. Maybe next time you’ll get it right, N.

Meanwhile, Dan and Olivia have a lovers quarrel – but not with each other, with Jimmy Fallon. Olivia appears on his show and reveals an “intimate” story about how Dan went to the bathroom on their first date and came back with his shirt inside out (suggesting he did a #2 and didn’t want to muss his ensemble). Fallon makes fun of the story by calling Dan “bathroom boy” (really? That is the best you could come up with?) and the clip of the show is one of the most popular videos on the internet (again – really?). Olivia attempts to distract Dan in order to prevent him from seeing the clip. She is successful until he needs to look up a word for an intense game of Scrabble (how many points is “deceit” worth?) and it just so happens that the video is on the screen when he opens up the computer. Eventually, Olivia apologizes to Dan but he shrugs the incident off and says that he left because he forgot it was their one-month anniversary (one month! Congrats, that’s like, a whole season in TV time!). They kiss and make up (why do I feel like that is basically their story line every show?) and Dan admits that the reason why his shirt was inside out was because he was sweating so much. Uh, yeah right, Bathroom Boy.

Unfortunately for Blair and Serena, their fairy tale is more like a saga than a love story. S is still mad at B because B is mad at her for no reason (that makes sense). S swindles an invite to the Vanderbilt election party in order to be photographed with her “boyfriend”, Patrick. Pat gets completely trashed at the party (to the point where he pees in a bush and then gets half-naked on the balcony- not a party ‘til that happens) and makes a fool of himself. Blair quarantines Patrick in a suit in order to “protect Tripp and Chuck’s image” (and thinks she’s awesome for doing so). S, on the other hand, finds out that Blair’s new bestie Brandeis is a hooker (who apparently enjoys working with politicians; this sounds like a story I heard once before…) and has her escorted out of the building to protect Tripp and Chuck (nothing like friendly competition). B says that S is the only hooker in the room (hey, one gals dirty job is another gals dream job). S pushes B into a cake and after a weak attempt to apologize, B decides that it is time to move on from S since she has completely forgotten the “old her”. As a result, Serena quits her job and Blair tells Chuck that it is OK that she “broke up” with her because she “still has him” (that is until he dumps her for being a liar!). Things are looking up (for most) of your favorite Upper East Siders. Tune in next week to see which friend Serena looses next (and what cute fight Olivia and Dan will get into!).

— By Stephanie Vacchio