What the Yale?: A Review of October 13, 2008’s Episode of Gossip Girl, “New Haven Can Wait”

I wonder what Yale did to the CW television network. It must have been something awful. First, Privileged made one of their graduates a failed tabloid reporter turned nanny/tutor. Then the university became the object of desire for Gossip Girls gone wild. At least Serena (Blake Lively) acknowledges that “Yale is for overachieving bookworms.” Not that you’d know it from the way the university is portrayed in October 13’s “New Haven Can Wait.” Of course, as those of us from other pretentious, ivy-covered universities will quickly tell you, the episode was clearly filmed at Columbia.

Apparently, in Gossip Girl logic, a couple of photos on Page Six and walking in a fashion show on a whim can overcome a C average and almost being expelled from your fancy Manhattan prep school twice (in one season). You could almost hear the phones of Yale’s PR army ringing at 9:01 ET—the university sought out every media outlet that would listen to deny the show’s representation of their ivory tower.

To make things worse, yet again the narrative induced the strange sensation of feeling really bad for Blair (Leighton Meester): the straight A student the Dean finds too boring for his special get-together. But don’t get used to the feeling, the sympathy is dialed back a bit when B blackmails the dean’s assistant, crashes the gathering, and exposes Serena’s role in the accidental overdose of a would-be one night stand (“boring” is measured on a whole different scale on this show). Despite all this scheming, poor B still isn’t offered early admission because she’s not hip enough to turn around Yale’s stuffy image and the show ends with the now familiar, contrived “frenemy” moment between B and S that’s really starting to grate on this season. And, curiously, the show itself seemed to point out this decline: if Blair already feels like "Darth Vader next to Sunshine Barbie" when she’s with Serena, where can it possibly go from here?

Gossip Girl airs on the CW network Mondays at 8 pm.