And. We're. Back. Wow. Last night's episode of Gossip Girl was like going to the bathroom after a long road trip — an almost excruciating relief. We've gone a full sixteen weeks without the Greatest Show of Our Time. Can you believe it? And yet now that it's back, it feels like summer break never even happened! Our unsatisfied feeling probably stems from the fact that this episode was all about exposition — since we were mostly learning what everyone had been up to this summer, there wasn't a ton of action — either that or Gossip Girl has developed the plotline equivalent of a UTI. But let's assume it will be cleared up next week and move on! Even though we couldn't see them, everyone was very busy this summer, especially Nate, who took up with Shelly from Twin Peaks (now married to a way wealthier guy than Leo) and Dan, who thought with his little brain so much, he forgot how to use his big brain and got fired from his internship with Jay McInerney, a.k.a. Jeremiah Harris. Meanwhile, Chuck and Blair had mutually unsatisfactory alone time; Vanessa was so disgusted by Dan acting like a man whore that she decamped to Vermont, and Serena moped around, in a satin muumuu and with terrible hair, looking like a skinnier version of Elizabeth Taylor in a dark period. Grandma Rhodes, who apparently had actual cancer and was not just faking for the debutante ball, got over it with her hair intact and strangely glowing skin (health care is SO much better for the rich). Jenny slaved for Eleanor Waldorf, Eric went brunette, and Rufus stayed in the exact same position on his tour bus he was in the last time we saw him.

And from the absurdly mischaracterized White Party to the bizarrely smooth acting skills of Jay McInerney, there was a lot of material in this episode. So onward, with our first season-two reality index.

Well. It's been a tumultuous week here at Daily Intel. Between the excitement surrounding the Democratic National Convention, our feverish, near-erotic anticipation of the new season of Gossip Girl, and the multitude of tequila shots we had to do to kill the pain over the departure of Vulture's wonderful editor Dan "Crazylegs" Kois, we are practically on the verge of expiring. But we'll need all the power in our hearts for Monday night's return of the BEST SHOW EVER, which is why we're taking off a little bit early today and will remain in repose through Labor Day. We'll be back on Tuesday with our usual juvenile jokes, lopsided rants, and, of course, The Recap. In the meantime, here's a hilarious, Intel-comment-inspired picture from the Weekly World News, above.

See you next Tuesday! (Heh heh).

We spotted Matt Lauer and exec producer of Today Jim Bell waiting for a car at the Ritz to take them back to New York tonight, causing them to miss the Obama speech. What gives? "I'd love to be standing there watching it, but that way I wouldn't get back to the show tomorrow," Lauer explained. We then asked him if he has been steering clear of the madness at his sister channel, MSNBC:

Lauer: [With laughter] What madness are you talking about?

Bell: Is that Bravo, Telemundo, or CNBC?

Above, for your viewing ecstasy, is the first five minutes of the season premiere of Gossip Girl, which doesn't really tell you much about the episode (except that, ironically, everyone but Serena is a slut) but will certainly build up your enthusiasm. Can you believe we've waited an entire summer for this? The anticipation has been unbearable. If you've ever given up sex, you know what the feeling is like. You start seeing it everywhere you look, even at the most inappropriate times, like at church, or while Ted Kennedy is speaking at the Democratic National Convention. Hell, when Estelle Getty died last month, we found ourselves randomly thinking, "Hey, do you think Grandma Rhodes will be back on Gossip Girl next season?" And don't even get us started on what we were imagining while Kelly Ripa was looking for the genitalia of the 44-pound cat on Live. Monday can't come soon enough.

For the Relief of 'Gossip Girl' Labor Day Pains [Radar]

Earlier, we read about Rockefeller Auguste, an architectural designer from Brooklyn who was arrested in front of his midtown office yesterday for attempting to hire a hit man to kill his wife and cut off her hand with a samurai sword. We were intrigued — a samurai sword! — and so, like the crackerjack crime reporters we are, we called Captain James Coan of the organized crime unit to find out more. "Give it to us straight, Jimbo," we said, "What are we lookin' at here?" (Kidding — we didn't say that. We just asked what the deal was with the sword.) "Basically, he has this sword, which he has some type of affinity to," Coan explained patiently. "It's like a classical-looking Japanese sword. He's had it a long time. Apparently he travels with it to and from work." Whoa. His co-workers must have been weirded out by that. Or not? "They were shocked when we took him out yesterday," Coan said. He couldn't recall the name of the firm, which was on Eighth Avenue. A cop had posed as the hit man, and when Auguste gave him the sword with which he was meant to do the deed, they arrested him. After that, they called his wife to let her know he had planned to eliminate her. Was she, um, surprised? we asked. Coan thought this was hi-larious.

Has Ed Westwick, like the Olsen twins, gotten into the habit of presenting the same face on the red carpet? The Observer thinks so: Today they sneer at the "calculated way in which Mr. Westwick prepared for each photographer's flash," alleging that he consistently affects the same Chuck Bass–like expression. We respectfully disagree! Ed Westwick has many faces, as any respectable Gossip Girl fan with 476 images of him at her disposal would know. To prove it, we have compiled a gallery of our favorite looks.

You know how there are roughly ten southern schools that refer to themselves as "The Harvard of the South"? It's because Harvard (finally back on top in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this year) is anecdotally regarded as the premier school in the nation, and for some reason people in America have this idea that schools in the Northeast somehow originated the notion of "college." This reasoning is bolstered by the continued existence of the Ivy League, which is widely regarded as a collection of the top eight schools in the country (for anyone who still believes that, you obviously don't know anybody who went to Brown*).

Well, this year the U.S. News rankings placed Columbia, New York's own Ivy, in a tie with Duke and the University of Chicago. And it made us realize: Duke and Columbia are kind of the same, but opposite. They cost about the same, they are roughly the same size, and of course they are close in terms of academic reputation. Except Duke students have a lovely grass-filled campus upon which to wander around, in beautiful weather. And they have fantastic athletic teams to cheer for. Columbia students have the greatest city in the world at their feet, and who needs college basketball when you have the Knicks? (Er, maybe football would have been a better example. You know what we mean.)

StreetWars — the semi-infamous citywide version of the game Assassin, in which participants stalk randomly assigned targets with squirt guns — returns to the city on September 8 (the sign-up deadline is August 29). An equities lawyer named Franz Aliquo introduced the game in 2006, and immediately had critics wondering whether having crazed pedestrians dashing down sidewalks holding gun-shaped objects was the best idea. But Aliquo assures us the worst thing to happen in one of his nine far-flung StreetWars events (he’s run contests in places like San Francisco, London, and Paris) is a sprained ankle. Last go-round, Mayor Bloomberg told the Sun that the 33-year-old Aliquo “could probably use psychiatric help.” (Asked about that comment, a City Hall spokesman confirmed “our position has not changed.”) Aliquo put down his planning clipboard long enough to speak with us.

Doesn’t this game favor people who don’t have a damn job?
Well, half of the game is hunting other people, but the other half is not getting killed yourself, and I’ve found that a lot of times people that don’t have a job end up getting lazy. When you have a job, [you remember] every time you step out of your house or step out of work you’re in potential danger.

The cornucopia of fine-dining options at JetBlue's soon-to-open JFK terminal isn't for everyone — some of us are fine subsisting on $8 trail mix from the Grove and a pouch of Terra Blue chips, thank you. But the affable David Rockwell and architecture super-firm Gensler recently gave a hard-hat tour that proved $743 million can buy a little something exciting for everyone. Starting October 1, JFK's landmark Terminal 5 (originally designed by Eero Saarinen) will no longer stand abandoned beside the AirTrain — it will be alive with JetBlue passengers. Among the highlights:

• Playgroundlike springy rubber floors specially designed for post-security bare feet.
• A marketplace (ahem, retail and concessions) with grandstand-style seating and JetBlue-sanctioned buskers (Rockwell cites Union Square as his inspiration).
• Four words: Ron Jon Surf Shop.
• Twice the number of required toilets, including an extra-large WC labeled "Family Bathroom," which may deter awkward foot-tapping incidents.
• A handy time-warp passage. As soon as the last speck of asbestos is wiped clean from Saarinen's 1962 terminal, passengers can be dropped curbside to reenact their own TWA-era farewells, and then proceed through the restored "flight tubes" to the new terminal.

To prevent a total meltdown on October 1 (à la London Heathrow's Terminal 5 debacle), the airline is staging a mock opening day on Saturday. More than 1,000 frequent flyers, plus crew, family, and friends, will show up, be handed empty suitcases and script, and embark upon a simulated journey — sans planes. Let's hope no one else ever has to wait around for a flight to nowhere.

High Five for T5 [JetBlue]

It's too bad there's not more of Chace Crawford in the above trailer for the film The Haunting of Molly Hartley. But the bits we do see are enough to show us that Chace will be playing a sexy, slightly dim, and sweet-natured Nate Archibald all over again. We choose to believe that it's because there are just so many opportunities to use this character (and hairdo) in various settings and won't accuse Chace of being a one-trick Gossip Girl pony. (He is ponylike, though.) Anyway, if you watch the whole trailer above, you'll see that it's not all Nate Archibald. There's definitely a hint of Tyler Simms, Chace's character from the teen-witch flick The Covenant, at the end there. See? He can play at least two characters. That's one more than Cher, and she has an Oscar!