Welcome to the second Gossip Girl Round Table.

While fans of the show gather in the forums to discuss their favorite character and story line, our staff comes together every week to analyze the latest developments from the latest Gossip Girl episode.

Topics in this edition include: Vanessa vs. Serena; Blair and Nate’s sex life; and smooth Gossip Girl quotes. Let’s get to the Q&A…

Simply put: Vanessa or Serena?
DANdy: To take one of our favorite Joey Tribbiani quotes, when the Friends character was asked if he’d prefer the cute girl from the Xerox shop or a tub of jam: Put your hands together!

LovelyLively: Like the classic Summer-Anna debate from Season One of The OC, this Gossip Girl question for the ages requires a mere six-word answer: Serena is hot. Vanessa is not.

GossipGuy: Simply answered: Serena.

Will Blair and Nate ever have sex?
LovelyLively: No, at least not for a while. Blair’s as sexy as they come, but she also likes to string guys along, if you know what I mean. I mean she’s a damn tease, like Britney Spears, circa 1999. Blair knows what she’s after, that everyone wants her. Just pray Blair doesn’t get married twice, crank out two kids and start flashing her crotch constantly by age 25.

GossipGuy: Not at this rate. Nate, you need to stop professing your love and desire to masked women that may or may not be Serena. And really… telling her not to talk?

DANdy: No. Nate isn’t being fair to Blair and she’ll eventually dump his boring ass (and beautiful eyes). And we know who will be there to pick up the pieces, i.e. give Blair her first horizontal mambo lesson, right? Chuck.

Smoother Gossip Girl quote of the night: “You look ravishing. If I were your man, I wouldn’t need clues to find you.” (Chuck to Blair), or “I thought he should know how it feels to lose you. Cause, trust me, it’s not fun.” (Rufus to Lily)
GossipGuy: I’m going to have to give this one to Chuck. That man may be a creep, but he’s one smooth creep.

DANdy: Rufus is on the rebound. I didn’t feel the sincerity behind his words. But Chuck? He may be a dirt bag, but he can recognize hotness when he sees it. And that’s all he’s relaying to Blair here.

LovelyLively: I wouldn’t need clues to find you? Are you kidding? Unless you’re playing the board game Clue, that’s just stupid. Rufus gets full marks, however, for masking the blatant cheese factor of that quote with great timing and just enough sincerity.

Are Chuck and Jenny now even?
DANdy: Not by a long shot. Chuck probably enjoys being in his underwear. Jenny didn’t enjoy almost being violated.

LovelyLively: Chuck could be the bigger person and look at it that way, but it’s like I always tell people, “If you get locked outside in your underwear, never let it slide.” Little J will get hers and then some, mark my words.

GossipGuy: I think it’s going to take a few more practical jokes from Jenny for it to be truly even. I mean, Chuck did try to violate her. I Jenny needs to tie his underwear to the flagpole to even things out so this couple can get together and live happily ever after.

As always, last night’s Gossip Girl episode was full of catchy pop tunes. We’ve collected the lyrics to the following songs in our music section:

• Mika: Happy Ending
• Beck: Time Bomb
• Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs: Kiss, Kiss 

Confusion abounded during this episode of Gossip Girl.

By the end: Dan and Serena had kissed again, we met a new character, Nate was accused of taking drugs and Chuck was left pantless at the hands of Jenny.

Got all that? Wanna catch up with our episode guide? Read through it now and check out a slew of Gossip Girl quotes and pictures from the hour.

And don’t forget to talk about the series on our Gossip Girl forum. Enjoy - and thanks for reading!

How can Gossip Girl follow up on last week’s Dan and Serena kiss?

Tune in to “The Handmaiden’s Tale” tonight to find out.

We’ll recap the episode after it airs, like always, replete with Gossip Girl quotes and pictures. In the meantime, talk about the hour in our forums right now!

The following interview is courtesy of GossipGirlOnline.net…

Q: How are you and your character different in real life?
Taylor Momsen: She cares a lot about what people think of her obviously. She really cares what Blair wants. She really wants to be accepted in that crowd and be popular where as me as long as I have my good friends. I’m cool with that and I’m cool with myself so it’s like we’re different in that way but we have a lot of similarities too.

Q: Do you get along with the cast really well?
TM: I do. We’re like a big family. It’s so great. I love, love working on [Gossip Girl]. We’re like really a family. It’s like a family away from a family. (Laughs).

Q: Do you feel out of place being the youngest cast member?
TM: Not really. I’m use to being the baby except for my real family I’m the oldest. But I’ll tell you that I’ve always been the youngest in my class and the youngest on everything so you know it’s good, you know it’s fun. They look out for me.

Q: Do you like shooting in New York?
TM: I do. I love it. I’m so excited we got to film the show here you know oppose to LA because New York is the character and you can’t recreate that. It’s great

Q: How did you find out and get involve with Gossip Girl?
Penn Badgley: I actually worked with Stephanie Savage before who created the show with Josh Schwartz. I met Josh when they were trying to do a spin off with Willa Holland I think for the OC. I knew them both and I had a relationship with Stephanie and they sent me the script of Gossip Girl and they told me about the books. I knew nothing about them. It seemed like an amazing opportunity to work with them to be a part of something that could be big so I signed on.

Q: Do you get along with the cast really well?
PB: We actually get along incredibly well. We’re all great friends. I was actually just texting Blake. We’re really close. In fact, one of the things I’m most thankful for in this show, the whole experience has been the friendships. That’s no shit. That’s no lie. (Laughs).

Q: How do you relate to your character?
PB: I think everybody relates to Dan. He’s the most easily relatable because he’s the most real. He’s the most vulnerable. I think he’s the most teenager - like out of everyone because they all live such ridiculous privileged life styles and he’s from Brooklyn. He literally lives in a really incredible apartment even though he’s poor. He lives the most normal life. He’s the most regular.

Here’s a Gossip Girl spoiler, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly:

Gossip Girl will finally reveal the identity of Blair Waldorf’s (Leighton Meester) absentee father, who left her mommy for a male model: He’ll be played by John Shea, who’s best known for playing Lex Luthor on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Shea will appear in the episode entitled Roman Holiday on Nov. 21

It’s getting serious!

With Carrie Underwood in New York City to promote her new CD, Carnival Ride, look who she met for dinner earlier this week: Chace Crawford.

The burgeoning couple shared another romantic meal at upscale Italian restaurant “Destino” on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

This is hotter news than anything on Gossip Girl!

The only thing hotter than Dan and Serena’s first kiss last week?

The dress worn by Serena during their date. A few readers have asked us where it can be found, and we’ve come up with the answer:

Blake Lively is wearing the brand new Catherine Malandrino Studded Silk Dress (pictured).

You can purchase it here. For a cool $545. Good luck!

What makes Gossip Girl characters act so scandalous? You might not care, as long as it’s entertaining.

But here’s what Penn Badgley had to say on the topic:

“All these kids, excluding my character, have this pressure on them to become their parents and to uphold all this wealth and the whole image that comes with that.

It’s something kids shouldn’t have to deal with, and that’s why they are so conflicted and torn, and they’ve got really awful personal lives.

The ones that are having sex and doing the drugs and living the ‘glamorous’ lives will have to deal with the repercussions of that. The ones that have the most sex are the ones that feel the most empty.”

It’s hard to imagine Serena van der Woodsen, Blake Lively’s sophisticated, sexy, Upper East Side alter ego, batting a single perfect eyelash over something as trivial as a Broadway musical.

“I’m a huge Rent-head,” Lively told Vanity Fair for a recent feature. “I met Adam Pascal the other night and I got all goofy and weird.”

Goofy and weird don’t cut it in the Gossip Girl milieu. Based on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and executive-produced by The OC’s Josh Schwartz, the series dwells on a clique of unbelievably attractive Manhattan girls and boys, their rich-kid problems, and their too-rich parents.

It’s all a bit rich, but just try prying your daughter away.

It’s also a world away from Burbank, where Lively enjoyed a childhood that sounds disturbingly normal for someone with an actor dad, four siblings in the business, and a mom who managed child stars. Lively sang in the high-school choir and, on school-spirit days, dressed head to toe in Bulldog blue and white. She bakes.

She still says, “Oh my gosh.”

Her first professional acting job was playing the laser-guided soccer vixen Bridget in 2005’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The sequel is due out next summer.

So what’s her plan for not falling into the young-celebrity rabbit hole, the one monitored by TMZ and littered with undergarments, D.U.I.’s, and the residue from Wilmer Valderrama’s hair products?

“You just behave yourself. How about that?”