Gossip Girl 2.06 "New Haven Can Wait" Recap: The frenemies go to war!

Gossip Girl 2.06 “New Haven Can Wait” Recap

We’ve waited two weeks since the last Gossip Girl “XOXO,” and it was definitely worth the wait.

Kicking off College Week, Blair (Leighton Meester) wakes up from a nightmare where she dreams about a scene from “My Fair Lady” with her as the frumpy Eliza Doolittle character played by Audrey Hepburn in the movie and Serena as the high-class society lady who has it all together.

This is all brought on by Blair’s anger over Serena (Blake Lively) making headlines at her mother’s fashion show. They haven’t talked in a week.

Waking up, Blair tries to push her bad thoughts away, telling the housekeeper Derota how excited she is to finally walk through the gates of Yale — to be around people more like her. B is sure she will impress the Dean of Admissions at her interview and will be a shoe-in for the private reception which will get her admitted early into Yale.

Of course, she can’t escape Serena. Derota tells her Marc Jacobs has named a purse after Serena and flashes a newspaper photograph of Serena on the society page.

Serena and mom Lily (Kelly Rutherford) plan for Serena to visit Brown, even though Serena received a handwritten invitation to visit Yale. Two dresses arrive from Eleanor Waldorf Designs. The hot black one that Lily is immediately drawn to has Serena’s name on it, with her name on the less attractive dress. Lily seems a little sad. But hey, they are both designer dresses! Jenny designed the black one, but I’m not sure if she designed the other one.

Rufus (Matthew Settle) gives Dan (Penn Badgley) a pep talk for his upcoming trip to Yale. Dan is ready to impress the Yale English department.

Nate (Chace Crawford) and Chuck (Ed Westwick) are looking forward to the Yale visit for different reasons. Nate thinks Yale might be a better place for him than what his family wants. Chuck wants to get in with the elite secret society the Skull and Bones. Nate asks how he plans to get their attention. “By showing up,” Chuck says.

At school, Chuck reminds Dan that he isn’t happy with him since their little jail incident and makes a joke about how Dan will be arriving in a bus to Yale (as compared to Chuck’s limo).

Serena, who is all prepared to head to Brown, meets up with Blair at school, not realizing that Blair has a major chip on her shoulder since the fashion show last week. When Blair makes fun of Brown and the fact that’s it’s not a real Ivy League school, she pushes Serena’s buttons. Not everyone wants to go to Yale and not everyone wants to be Blair Waldorf, Serena tells her with a smirk on her face. “Not everyone can be,” Blair responds, telling Serena that because they are no longer friends she can tell her like it is: Serena’s not that smart, and in the real world, knowledge is power. She tells Serena she wouldn’t make it through the first rounds at Yale no matter how hard she tried.

Serena calls her mom: Tell the driver they are going to Yale. Game on!

Rufus and Jenny (Taylor Momsen) discuss school with Jenny still not wanting to return as she’s considered a real asset at Eleanor Waldorf Designs and for her own fashions that are making waves. Jenny suggests homeschooling (because Vanessa does), but Rufus isn’t interested. He thinks she can make her own decisions when she’s 18. Jenny begs him to spend a day with her at work to see a different perspective and he agrees to give it a shot.

Dan’s interview with the dean is ruined because he only has one letter of recommendation. The dean tells him the only way his application is going to stand out is if he gets one of the professors on campus to read his work and give a recommendation.

Nate and Chuck lounge around the Yale campus with Chuck hoping to be seen by the Skull and Bones group. Nate runs off when he catches the eye of a coed.

As Chuck walks around campus, he’s kidnapped by a few Skull and Bones members who throw a bag over his head and take him somewhere. They tell him he’s a prime future candidate but they want to know if he’s as good as advertised. Chuck promises them a private party to kick things off.

Blair is all ready for her interview until she hears the dean laughing from inside the office with the prior candidate —Serena, of course.

Blair, flustered by Serena and her interview which appears to gone over well, can’t concentrate. Serena tells her “looks like he’s ready for you.”

Nate and the coed hang out with a few other Yale students. When he mentions he’s from St. Jude’s, they want to know if Nate Archibald is on campus. A couple of them have lost their trust funds thanks to his father. Nate tells them his name is… Dan Humphrey (I was thinking he was going to say Chuck Bass).

Blair completely blows her interview with the dean when he asks her to tell him something that’s not in her packet. When he tells her the last girl (Serena) told him about the fashion show she was in, Blair goes a little wacko about how she doesn’t have the easy grace as some do and her “hair may not sparkle when it catches the light.” Um, Blair, not a good idea!

To top it off, as she exits the dean’s office, she kisses the dean on the cheek in front of the secretary, and it totally freaks them out. There’s no invitation for the private reception for B.

And what could hurt worse except to walk out of the building to see S basking in the sun talking to Yale students. Serena gets a call from the secretary telling her she’s been invited to the reception. She tells Blair she might want to make different plans (knowing it was her dream to go).

Blair warns Serena not to take Yale away from her — telling her she already took away Nate, her mother and the girls at school.

“If you did (take this away from me), I would take you down,” Blair says.

Serena says she’d like to see her try.

At Eleanor Waldorf Designs, Rufus is impressed with Jenny but he’s still not convinced that quitting school is what she should do. He asks Eleanor to fire her, but she refuses. Eleanor asks him how he would feel if all of his dreams came true at her age, and someone told him he had to wait.

Chuck runs into Serena, surprised that she’s not at Brown. She’s getting ready for the dean’s reception, and Chuck tells her to be prepared to answer the dean’s question about who you would most love to have dinner with live or dead. According to rumor, if your answer impresses the dean, you get on the short list for early admission. Serena has a little regret about hurting Blair and thinks that maybe she should offer her spot to Blair. Chuck is surprised that Serena is even alive since Blair didn’t get invited. Chuck (with a little devil on his shoulder) gives her Blair’s answer to the dean’s question.

Nate and the coed make out in her dorm with Nate doing a bad job of pretending to be Dan as he knows next to nothing about literature. As luck would have it, Dan knocks on the door as he is looking for help on getting a professor to look at his writing. Nate tries to motion not to say anything, but Dan can’t read his mind and slips out Nate’s name out of surprise. Nate is forced to fess up that he’s actually Nate, and the coed throws a book at him. Dan isn’t thrilled that Nate used his name as he is making it even harder for him to get into Yale. Nate throws in a comment about how Dan has a chip on his shoulder, no wonder Serena dumped him.

Now, we knew that Blair wouldn’t give up on getting in to the dean’s reception. She hits up the dean’s secretary Shirley with an offer she can’t resist: her favorite collectible from the 18^th Century. As Gossip Girl says, B’s rules are “don’t get mad, get in.”

Rufus admits he’s impressed with Jenny and her work but thinks she still needs to go back to school. Jenny agrees a little too fast, which throws Rufus off a little, expecting a fight. She has one more errand to run, she tells him.

At the reception, Serena is surprised to see B there. They are both on their “A” game trying to out-trump the other. Blair thinks she’s going to win because she knows about the dean’s question and has the perfect answer. When Serena reveals she knows the author’s name, Blair is ticked that Serena is cheating to get in (and taking her answer). Alphabetically, Serena’s answer will be before Blair’s.

Blair looks at the glass bowl where the prospective students’ answers are sitting.

Chuck shows the Skull and Bones members just how powerful he is — providing three girls each for the guys’ private party. They say that’s not enough: He needs to prove his loyalty. They want him to bring in Nate so they can take him down.

Feeling out of place, Nate is ready to go home and calls Chuck, who tells him to hang tight at the off-campus bar.

Blair and Serena continue to try to out do the other. Blair says her back-up answer is “going to kill.”

Poor Lonely Boy is kidnapped on campus by the Skull and Bones. It appears they think he’s Nate Archibald.

The dean begins to read the students’ answers. When he gets to Serena, he calls out the answer written on the paper, “Pete Fairman.” And since the dean has no idea who that is, Blair is “nice” enough to tell him that he is the man Serena killed.

Serena tries to clear it up but is clearly taken off guard that her answer would get switched and be such a personal name. Both S and B come off looking badly.

Serena tells the dean that she and Blair will step outside to work it out privately.

Yelling and screaming at each other, Blair tells Serena she crossed the line taking “her school.”

When Blair throws something at Serena’s head, they end up in a catfight that will go down in the history books with Serena yanking out Blair’s “stupid headband!”

Rufus and Jenny stop by Lily’s place to drop off something, but end up running into Lily who wasn’t expected to be there. Lily had just tried on the black dress and looks breathtaking. Jenny tells her she looks awesome and Rufus is clearly enjoying the view. When Jenny goes to get her shoes to match, Rufus and Lily catch up. Bart’s out of town, and so are Chuck and Serena. Eric has a new friend. Lily tells Rufus how talented Jenny is (the black dress is her design) and how lucky he is to have such a talented daughter at such a young age. Of course, she says, he’s talented too. Rufus tells her she looks fantastic, no matter what she wears. When Jenny comes back, Lily says she’ll save the ensemble for Serena.

When a couple of the Skull and Bones members come into the bar where Nate is bragging that they just left Nate Archibald half-naked and tied to a statue, Nate tells him he’s Nate and plans to kick their ass next year, and starts fighting them. Afterwards, he finds Dan tied up in only his boxers and tries to undo the ropes. Dan is regretting his boxer choice. Nate tells him it’s his fault, as they thought Dan was Nate and were mad that their trust funds were taken. The coed comes up to help as Nate can’t seem to untie the rope.

With the catfight over and their hair and clothes all messed up (OMG!), Serena says she can’t do it anymore. She doesn’t want to fight Blair and she doesn’t want to worry about betrayal or “landmines” everywhere she goes.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be friends,” she tells Blair, who turns away from her.

“You live your life, and I’ll live mine,” Serena says, noting that they were going to go their own separate ways after high school anyway.

Rufus has thought about it and after talking to Vanessa, thinks it’s possible for Jenny to try homeschooling, though he will want to reevaluate after Christmas.

Just when you thought Blair and Serena were over for good, it seems that their friendship can’t die just yet.

They run into each other by the dean’s office. Serena says she was coming to fix things with the dean for Blair. B says she just did the same thing for Serena.

S remembers the first time the two were at Yale during a game and knows how much it means to B.

“I don’t want to not know you,” she says.

They hold hands and Serena tells her to wait for her: They will ride home together.

The coed tells Nate she would have liked him regardless of what his name was, and next time to be his self. She promises to help Dan get a letter of recommendation.

Nate and Dan seem to bond. Dan says Nate did a better job of being “Dan Humphrey” than he could do.

The Skull and Bones members aren’t happy that Chuck didn’t bring them the real Nate Archibald. Good thing Chuck took pictures of the members with the girls. He says he “owns” them.

Preparing to leave Yale, Chuck and Nate run into each other as Chuck is waiting for him to ride home in the limo. Nate’s ticked that Chuck didn’t show up at the bar. Of course, in Chuck’s defense, he was doing that to save Nate. But Nate tells him he likes Dan and doesn’t think it was right what Chuck did to him (like Chuck cares). Nate says he’ll take the train (with Dan) instead of riding with Chuck.

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Looks like the Chuck-Nate friendship isn’t going too well. With Chuck pissed off at Dan, I don’t see Chuck liking the situation of losing his best friend to someone else.

Serena and Blair are together when S gets a call from the dean who says he remains most impressed by her. She lets Blair hear the conversation, thinking she’s helping. S asks about B, hoping her talk with the dean helped, but the dean says with Blair’s qualifications that she will have to wait her fate like the others in the spring. He wants to put out a press release that Serena visited Yale. Serena tells him she can’t talk and hangs up. Knowing Blair is disappointed, she promises they will figure out something together, but Blair doesn’t think it’s something they can “share.” Blair doesn’t seem mad at Serena at this point, though she’s disappointed, but I’m sure this will come back up to haunt Serena in the future.

Gossip Girl episodes air at 7 p.m. CST on Monday on The CW.