Last night, “Gossip Girl” was awesome fun! It was weirdly sentimental, and sweet, and No Doubt was there covering Adam and the Ants, and Brittany Snow actually charmed my dang pants off with her turn as Young Lily, and the ‘80s fashion was ADORBZ, and they played Men Without Hats, and there were actual nice parallels between the dual storylines! I feel like someone sat the writers down and gave them a talking-to.

“Gossip Girl” will give you a tempting taste of Lily van der Woodsen’s life in L.A.‘s fast lane when it flashes back to the ‘80s next Monday, but you’ll never be able to satisfy that craving because the show has been canceled. “Valley Girls” starred Brittany Snow as a young Lily, whose past will now remain a secret. I’m kind of bummed because I’ve liked Brittany Snow since she starred as Meg Pryor on NBC’s “American Dreams.” I guess I’ll have to catch her in “Black Water Transit,” a crime drama set to be released this year. [Celeb TV]

We kind of hate it when starlets decide they don’t want to limit themselves to acting. Being famous for one thing isn’t enough. Tthey have to be actresses-singers-songwriters-models-writers-producers. In addition to Ed Westwick, who has a band called The Filthy Youth, two more “Gossip Girl” cast members are adding “singer” to their resume. Leighton Meester and Taylor Momsen have signed record deals. A couple tracks Leighton has been working on have leaked, and a video of Taylor performing earlier this week hit YouTube. But are they any good?

OMFG this episode was actually F-U-N in spots! Can you believe it? Neither can I! Well, don’t worry. I’m sure next week’s episode will be supreme crossover lameness to pimp the new Lily-is-young-in-the-‘80s series. But today it’s still 2009, and I’m still basking in the afterglow of a sorta-good episode.

To review: Serena’s ugstown boyfriend Gabriel stole a bunch of money through a Ponzi scheme and disappeared. In this episode, Serena lures him in with a false pregnancy claim and then gets him to admit everything. He’s wearing softest powder blue and has a weird sudden fake tan. Because she’s stupid, she doesn’t involve the police but instead tries to play Encyclopedia Brown.

OMG! As we told you last week, for $40 dollars you can take a “Gossip Girl” tour of New York’s Upper East Side, the glitzy concrete playground of Blair, Serena, et al. Offered by On Location tours, purveyors of the mega-popular “Sex and the City” tour, this one will take you past the Palace Hotel, home to the Bass and Van der Woodsen clans, as well as other places you can’t afford, like Henri Bendel. [On Location Tours]

“Gossip Girl” joins Carrie & Co., “Seinfeld,” and “The Sopranos,” which have all inspired their own tour franchises. Here are five more TV tours we wish existed.

Last night paired up Blair and Chuck once again as a duo willing to stoop low to achieve a high goal: save their girl Serena from heartbreak at the hands of a sociopath. Only this time, their route actually finds them seeking help from last season’s worst character, Georgina. In fact, I was so enraged at Michelle Trachtenberg’s presence on the show that I coined the term “to Trachtenburgle,” i.e. to appear on a formerly great show and ruin it (by way of historical reference, see her performance as Dawn “The Key” Summers on “Buffy”). And I’ve held it against MT ever since. But this season, it looks like she gets to play Georgina for laughs, and oddly enough, she’s good at it.

It was only a matter of time before people started trying to make money off of “Gossip Girl.” A New York City company that hosts “Sex and the City” bus tours has added a “Gossip Girl” outing to its offerings. For $40, you can visit the Palace Hotel, see the mansion where Lily and Bart got married, shop at Bendel’s, and get “spotted by that most ubiquitous blogger.” A complete list of locations isn’t included, but it doesn’t look like the tour visits Rufus’s Williamsburg gallery or Vanessa’s coffee shop. Just like on the show, Brooklyn gets marginalized. How authentic! [via Cityfile]

After an excruciating hiatus, “Gossip Girl” is back! On last night’s episode, Passover was in the air, and Blair’s Jewish stepdad was back onscreen for Seder in the latest installment of your favorite meaningless teen dramedy. Also, other things happened.

A poster for the “Gossip Girl”-spinoff “Valley Girls” has been released, and it doesn’t make us at all excited for the show. Instead, it reinforces the poor casting of Brittany Snow as the young Lily van der Woodsen. [Videogum]

OMG! Spoiler alert, for those of you who have yet to review your DVR’d “Gossip Girl” from last night: this episode didn’t completely suck! I know, right? Amazing! Let’s dive right into it.

First up: did they or didn’t they? Meaning Blair and Nate, of course. Turns out they didn’t, although Blair has been bringing Nate breakfast at his manse on the windswept Upper East Side moors for the past week. Try telling that to Vanessa, though. After getting a friendly text from her estranged loverboy (or so she thinks!), Our Lady of Indeterminate Ethnicity catches sight of Blair leaving Nate’s abode before school one morning. Chuck rolls up in his limo and lets V know that it was in fact he, the dastardly Bassling, who sent the false text. For you see, Charles has been stalking Blair and is convinced that Nate has resumed sticking his Archibald in her Waldorf. Vanessa resists Chuckie’s attempt to draw her into his plans for revenge, but oh: the episode’s only just begun….

At this point, I love “Gossip Girl” the way I once loved a certain young lad back in my high school days. It’s almost like reliving that entire romance, in fact. Though I loved the show once with a passion beyond compare, it no longer satisfies me. I talk trash about it behind its back. But at the same time, I just can’t let go, because the good parts (the soundtrack, Ed Westwick’s face) are still so good. On some level, I’m still in love.

With that in mind, let’s enter the spectacular zone of white privilege and excess that is this thrice-baked trifle of a guilty pleasure…

Speaking of leztastic publicity stunts—“Gossip Girl”‘s Blake Lively and Leighton Meester are on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, sensually sharing an ice cream cone. Inside the magazine they also double-team a Twizzler and Meester gives her best blow job face (the rest of the cast is photographed as well). Obvi, photographer Terry Richardson’s intent was to be racy and suggestive and SCANDALOUS, but I can’t help but find it cheap and annoying. After all, if anyone was going to go gay, it would be Chuck and Nate, duh.

I have so many questions as I sit, rapt, through the intro to Monday’s night episode of “Gossip Girl”: Would Dan boink Ol’ Teachy McTeacherson again? Would Serena’s breasts push free of their restrictive corsetry and finally take over the entire screen with their golden magnificence? Would Chuck take his custom-made Saville Row pants off and dance for me and me alone?

• Michelle Obama graces another cover — this time, The New Yorker‘s style issue. The mag pokes fun at the kerfluffle surrounding Michelle’s bare arms with three doodles of Michelle strutting down a runway, arms covered up! [Mrs. O]
• PETA strikes again! The animal rights group ripped a sleeve on the Balenciaga gown worn by French Vogue editor, Carine Roitfeld, while aiming for her goat fur coat. I don’t condone assaulting people in public, but if you are going to go after someone, ruin the correct couture, at least. [Style.com]
• Eighties-inspired two tone lipstick, yay or nay? [Refinery29]

Soft-core porn used to be reserved for pay-per-view channels like Skin-imax, but now it’s all over the boob tube!  And it’s not Lifetime movie-esque storylines with wives in floral print dresses waiting for their husbands to feel them up so, so gently you can hardly tell what they’re doing is a sex act. Lucky for me and all you pervs out there, TV has gotten so meaty. Yeah, baby, we like it raw! Here are the top shows to watch, if you want to see some gratuitous soft-core sex scenes…

Taylor Momsen may play a weak 15 year old, who let her one-of-a-kind designs get burned in a trash can, but in real life, she’s totally kick ass. She slides down a banister, swings from a pipe and scales a wall to escape the ravenous paparazzi, all with the help of Nike.