Lust Is All Around: The Most Scandalous Hookups of 'Gossip Girl'

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A SHOW CALLED "Gossip Girl" had better boast some salacious tales, and the show's second season, out now on DVD, delivers in excess.

With storylines including step-incest, teacher-student sex and Ivy League orgies, it will be nearly impossible to up the ante when the show returns for season three on Sept. 14. A word of advice to the producers: Skip the obvious Jenny-dates-her- mystery-half-brother plot and engineer a Dorota/Chuck coupling for some real intrigue.

Until then, here's a look at the most scandalous hook-ups of last season.

» Duchess Catherine Beaton and Anyone
The Duchess, Catherine to her intimates, clearly has a taste for the perverse. In her all too brief guest stint, Madchen Amick's character manages more than her share of improper relations. Her initial extramarital affair with high school student Nate seems tame when you consider that she also converted him into her own personal gigolo, blackmailed his high school love interest to keep him loyal and simultaneously carried on with her stepson, Lord Marcus (Patrick Heusinger). It's an impressive tally for four episodes.

» Blair Waldorf and Jack Bass
It's a challenge being the true love of a cad like Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), and Blair (Leighton Meester) was bound to get fed up and do something indiscreet eventually. Even so, a New Year's Eve tryst with Chuck's even sleazier uncle Jack (Desmond Harrington) was poor form. Their night of passion remains a secret until the season finale, but Chuck, who at least is not a hypocrite, is able to move on and start over with Blair.

» Chuck Bass and Vanessa Abrams
Not much about Chuck Bass's sex life still has the potential to shock. After all, his first season exploits included repeated attempted acquaintance rapes, as well as dalliances with a number of exotically accented professionals. His one surprising conquest this season was Brooklyn denizen Vanessa (Jessica Szohr). For all of his international intrigues, Chuck Bass does not typically recruit from boroughs other than Manhattan, so his seemingly heartfelt romance with Vanessa, however short-lived, was far more surprising than his more sordid encounters.

The unbecoming taint of wholesomeness is slightly reduced by the fact that the two initially bond while conspiring to punish Nate and Blair for renewing their relationship, but this coupling was still harder to fathom than, say, Chuck's erotic obsession with a mysterious masked sex club worker.

» Serena van der Woodsen and Gabriel Edwards
Maybe first season Serena (Blake Lively) could have gotten away with allowing her con artist boyfriend to bilk her mother's wealthy friends out of investment funds, but this is the post-Madoff era and the economic climate has changed. Gabriel (Armie Hammer) turns out to be a bit of a dupe himself, playing a role for socialite scammer Poppy Lifton (Tamara Feldman). Serena's mother Lily (Kelly Rutherford) punishes Serena more severely for inadvertently threatening her social and business connections than for any of her bratty or malicious behavior.

» Dan Humphrey and Rachel Carr
You can call her Ms. Carr if you're nasty ... or in her English class. Dan (Penn Badgley) and Rachel (Laura Breckenridge) manage to keep it clean, if inappropriately flirtatious, until after the emergency school board meeting called when Blair claimed the pair had already done the deed. They hadn't, but apparently it sounded like a good idea.

Just as the Constance Billiard headmistress is reappointing Rachel to her teaching position, she's committing the alleged offense that got her fired. It's a shame that by the next episode Dan has concluded that he's too mature for Ms. Carr and convinced her to leave New York, because she could have delivered a heartfelt lecture on irony.

» Yale Underclassmen and Chuck Bass's International Hooker Coalition
While his fellow characters blithely commit indiscretions despite the existence of a gossip blog dedicated to documenting their every mishap, Chuck Bass has learned how to play the system. He accompanies his classmates on their visit to Yale, but not in order to explore potential opportunities in higher education. Instead, Chuck befriends, and quickly betrays, the members of Skull & Bones. He deploys his crack team of lipstick camera-equipped European prostitutes, they capture incriminating footage and Chuck informs the future leaders of America that they are now under his control, indefinitely.

Written by Express contributor Meg Zamula