TeenDramaWhore

We’re days away from Gossip Girl’s season 3 premiere!

Here’s what you need to know about last season:

After a summer apart, Serena and Dan rekindle their romance but it doesn’t last and Serena begins dating Aaron.  Throughout the relationship, the bond she shares with Dan remains strong and she ends things with Aaron.  Dan and Serena *again* get back together and *again* split up, allowing Dan to have a fling with one of the teachers at Constance and Serena to briefly date the scheming Gabriel.  Dan and Serena attend prom together just as friends.

Serena’s friendship with Blair is off-and-on as well, with Blair jealous as Serena becomes an Upper East Side socialite and gets in to Yale.  The season ends with them reaffirming their bond as best friends (or is it frenemies?).

Serena and her mother Lily have a similar trajectory: their relationship is drama-free periodically but when it’s bad, it’s really bad with Lily purposefully having Serena arrested and Lily slowly owning up to her own wild past.

Lily’s past comes back to haunt her in more ways than one.  Despite being married to Bart Bass, she can’t hide her feelings with Rufus.  Bart unexpectedly dies, clearing the way for a Lily-Rufus reunion.  The joy is shortlived, however, when Rufus finds out they had a child years ago who Lily gave up for adoption.  Rufus, feeling betrayed, refuses to be with her and instead tries to track the boy down.  With Lily’s help, they find his family but are saddened to find out he died years earlier.  Lily and Rufus slowly find their way back together, with Rufus ready to propose.  The plans come to a halt, however, when Rufus finds out Lily was secretly funneling money into his account to help with Dan’s tuition.  Again feeling betrayed, Rufus ends things.  In the season finale, however, they both put their pride aside and get engaged.

Rufus spends a lot of the season struggling with daughter Jenny, who rebels against not only her family but also Constance and her friends.  She moves out of the Humphrey loft, has a fling with Nate, makes a questionable friend in Agnes (The O.C.’s Willa Ford) and faces off against Blair’s minions.  Blair hands down her Queen B title to Jenny, putting her in a position of power she never had before.

Chuck is surprisingly devastated when Bart dies, feeling abandoned by everyone.  His downward spiral includes plenty of girls, drugs and tears.  He inherits his father’s fortune which he briefly has to wrestle away from his uncle Jack.  He later finds both a mother figure and a business partner in Lily.

Blair comes back from her summer in Europe with a new boyfriend–Lord Marcus–but still nursing her broken heart from Chuck’s abandonment.  The two dance around their feelings all season, with Blair willing to say those three little words but Chuck refusing to.  In fact, Chuck insists his flirtation is just a game, devastating Blair.  But she doesn’t mope for too long, briefly getting back together with Nate.  She soon realizes that Nate is her “high school” boyfriend and she needs to move on.  Around this time, Chuck realizes he needs to admit his feelings or he’ll lose her forever–and he does.  The two finally exchange those three little words.

Nate starts off the season dating a married woman (who happens to be Lord Marcus’ step-mother and sometimes lover!) but the fling soon ends and Nate is left to tackle family problems.  He finds himself homeless after the government seizes his family’s assets since his father remains on the run from the first season.  When his father returns, Nate refuses to run away with him and instead convinces him to turn himself in to the FBI.  During the trying time, Vanessa’s there to help and the two end up getting back together.  The differences in their lifestyle become glaringly obvious when Nate’s grandfather exerts his influence over him, and things end between them, allowing him to briefly get back together with Blair (as mentioned above).  Nate and Vanessa salvage their friendship, agreeing to backpack across Europe together–but not before briefly meeting someone who happens to be Rufus and Lily’s long-lost son.

Everyone’s thrown for a loop when Georgina returns to the fold as a Born Again Christian.  She seeks forgiveness for her past transgressions but soon the evilness that lies within her is brought to the surface again.  She enrolls in NYU, where Blair and Dan will be going in the fall, and requests to be Blair’s roommate.

Serena, instead of preparing to go to Brown, takes off with Carter on a search for her father.

Does Serena find him?  Will Georgina and Blair end up as roommates?  Will Chuck and Blair last? And will Rufus and Lily find out their son is alive?

Come back tomorrow at 9pm eastern for my live-blog of the season 3 premiere!