Gossip Girl: The Complete Second Season

Season Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B+

Overall Grade: B

For two years now, non-Gossip Girl aficionados have wondered what all the fuss is about: why are tweens, teens, and twenty-something's obsessed with a show about bratty, ignorant Upper East Siders who consider Brooklyn as foreign as Columbia and the New York subway system a germ-ridden last resort? As someone addicted to this show from day one, even I can attest that many of the criticisms lobbed at it are valid. Often, the plot is ridiculous, the characters obnoxious and narcissistic, and the dialogue mind-bogglingly ditzy ("I like ESPN and you like"¦ books and movies.").

That said, what the show does offer is a seductive, if not always accurate look at the lifestyle of New York's most privileged. Half the reason we watch is to see what ostentatious shenanigans, Serena, Blair and company encounter next; and also deep down, we wish we could have that life. (As a red-blooded American who currently works at a fashion magazine, I'm naturally materialistic. Sue me.) So with regards to dangling this urban lifestyle of the rich and famous in front of us and whetting our appetite for more of it, Gossip Girl succeeds really well.

Where Season One did a bang-up job of setting the scene, Season 2's mission seemed to be simpler: deliver more drama. Entering their senior year, the kids have to deal with getting into the college of their choice, which for some random reason, ends up being Yale over Harvard and Princeton. (It's never really explained why, just that Blair's entire purpose in life is so that she could attend the third-best Ivy League in America.) So, there's that to contend with, Nate's family being bankrupt thanks to the shady financial dealings of his fugitive father, Serena falling for a con artist who steals her mother and all her socialite friends' money, the repeated breaking up and getting back together of Dan and Serena as well as Blair with Chuck and Nate, the brief return of arch-enemy Georgina and swindling socialite Poppy Lipton, and the meteoric rise and fall of Jenny, or "Little J," who becomes a star at her fashion internship with Blair's mom, loses that internship, quits school, and tries to start her own fashion line. And somewhere in all that confusing story-telling muck, Dan gets it on with Serena and Blair's teacher, Ms. Carr, a cherubic, naïve young gal from the Midwest who gets chewed up and spat out by Blair's deviousness in the end. (The moral of that story arc is that you never mess with Blair unless you have a social death wish.)

The two most notable episodes of the season aired later on. In episode 18, "The Age of Dissonance," the seniors are obligated to act in a play, an ambitious take on Edith Wharton's “The Age of Innocence."

Serena, who has a thing for the director, Julian, gets Vanessa, a theater buff, to help her catch the guy’s attention; Dan and Ms. Carr cave to their attractions and shag in the costume closet. And Blair, whose admittance to Yale was revoked due to Ms. Carr's meddling, exacts her final revenge, which results in the teacher fleeing back to the Midwest in shame. While it's one of the most ludicrous episodes of the show to date, it's also one of the most satisfying. Watching the ostentatious production go up in flames as a scene in Act 2 quickly unravels is comical.

"Valley Girls" is the other episode, though it's more memorable for being poorly executed. In the same way that Shonda Rhimes wove the introduction to Private Practice into an episode of Grey's Anatomy, the Gossip Girl writers tried to incorporate a segue to the proposed Gossip Girl spin-off about Serena's mom in this episode by juxtaposing Serena's arrest with scenes detailing Lily's adolescent trip to"”and brief jail time in"”L.A. The episode fails spectacularly, but it's pretty fun to watch. First, you'd think that Serena and company's prom, obviously the highlight of their senior year, would get its own proper episode, but instead, it's relegated to a brief scene or two. But more importantly, watching this, you'll know why the CW nixed the spin-off series: poor execution. The dialogue is laughable ("Is this the moment where you fall in love with me?"), as is the casting. Actor Shiloh Fernandez, with his permanent sneer and slicked up-do, acts like a retro, poor-man's Chuck. Believability is also a serious problem, as the make-up department didn't even bother to change Brittany Murphy's eye color to match Kelly Rutherford's, and No Doubt, which saw its hey-day in the mid-to-late 90s, performs too, making the 1980s premise even more confusing. So to say the flashbacks are half-baked is being kind.

Included in the DVD extras are the six "Chasing Dorota" episodes that the CW aired exclusively online. Running maybe four to five minutes each, they flesh out the character of Dorota, Blair's maid. While it's obvious they didn't have a big budget, the performances and plot is charming enough for vignettes. "5th Ave Meets Gossip Girl" is a virtual map of the shooting locations used for the show, from the sets for the Waldorf apartment, to the New York bars and hotels featured in various episodes. "Faces Behind the Design" reveals the "ghost designers" responsible for the fashion in the show"”now you know who to laud or blame for Little J's wannabe punk rock look"”and if you load the DVD onto your computer, you'll have access to an audiobook version of the Gossip Girl novel, You Know You Love Me, read by Christina Ricci.

While not as strong, Gossip Girl's second year proves to be almost as entertaining as the first. At

times, the lazy writing will frustrate you"”Blair and Serena's random feuds and Serena and Dan's mercurial relationship make about as much sense as extreme right-wing attendees at a town hall meeting"”but it's also part of the reason viewers come back for more. We're not looking for realism"”we want fantastical escapism. And in that respect, Gossip Girl, just like the fictional narrator and her rumor-mongering, always delivers.

Season Grade: B

DVD Features Grade: B+

Overall Grade: B