Was at the Hanson concert Monday, so I had to wait until last night to catch up on the return episode of CW's fab new teen soaper, "Gossip Girl." (Yes, apparently I am a 13-year-old girl.) I gave up on the show in the fall after being initially unimpressed by the first two episodes, but my friends recently forced me to watch the entire first half of season 1 through totally legal electronic downloads *cough cough*. I discovered that this show is like impossibly well-dressed crack. So I was desperate to get my fix of B, S, N, C, V, Lonely Boy, and Little J.

Monday's episode didn't disappoint. The bitchery! The drama! The amazing clothes! (Well, except for that Pilgrim's Promise-looking frock Blair wore during her walk of shame into the quad; for wearing that I'd have dumped yogurt on her head too, social pariah or not.)

Brief recap: Blair Waldorf was the Queen Bee of the Upper East Side high school elite, but she fell from grace after gossip spread that she'd been sleeping around with two guys at once. Social-climbing Jenny Humphrey is a middle-class Brooklynite who's at the posh school on scholarship, and had been sucking up to B and her clique for months in order to fit in. Blair's BFF, Serena, was chagrined to find out that her mother is engaged to the father of Chuck, the school's creepy drug fiend/pervert/evil genius. And we're off!

I'd been looking forward to the sparring between Blair -- a glorious bitch, the true heir to Alexis Carrington's tiara -- and Jenny, who has shown herself to be quite the gifted student of the arts of lying, backstabbing, and delicious bons mot. Now that Blair has been de-throned, Jenny seems poised to take her place. Last night was the first round of the title bout, and both women made brilliant moves. Jenny offeried up hope of reconciliation and a return to social standing before kicking Blair while she was down. Blair humiliated Jenny in the worst possible way (Rice Crispy treats! You devil!), and inadvertently revealed her to be a high-fashion thief. And just when things looked like they would all be resolved, with Blair back on top, along came Jenny with a brilliant masterstroke that assured that this storyline isn't going anywhere soon.

On the S and C tip, Serena kept getting all sorts of mysterious presents throughout he episode -- porn, cases of champage, cocaine, etc. -- which she assumed was a prank by her disgusting soon-to-be-step-brother. S succeeded in getting Chuck kicked out of their gorgeous penthouse suite, but ultimately discovered that the "gifts" were form someone altogether different: "G," identified in the previews for next week as Georgina, the new character played by "Buffy" alum Michelle Trachtenberg, who is apparently a psycho bitch determined to bring down reformed Serena's perfect world. Awesome.

Aside from the fantastic writing, acting, and costuming, I'm struck by how fast this show moves. Your average nighttime soap develops at a snail's pace (I'm currently working through "Melrose Place" Season 4 on DVD, and the arcs on that show can take up to six or eight episodes, at least). I expected Blair's social destruction to last at least the rest of the season, but now I'm not so sure. With Georgina on the way and Jenny already getting her comeuppance (at least partially), could she already be back on top? I guess you really can't keep a bad girl down.