They say you don’t get something for nothing, and as a new soul was brought into the Gossip Girl world, another was set to depart, in what was an explosive and unpredictable season finale.   

Blair misses out on her Empire date (Photo: J Lipman)

XOXO season three, bring on season four.     

 First up, the new arrival, as Dorota has her baby girl and Eleanor fawns over showing the maternal urges she never showed her own daughter.  

It was perhaps a less glamorous occasion than the usual soiree to unite our little cast, but it did the job, with the maternity ward the scene for more than a few showdowns.   

 As you’ll remember from last week, Jenny has disowned her Barbie dream house lifestyle and run away, although not too far, as she ended up crashing at Nate’s. Nothing happened – with them. It was apparently a less innocent affair for (still sort-of siblings) Serena and Dan, who woke up hungover and in denial about the somewhat amorous night before.   

 “It meant nothing” they protest to each other, Ophelia style.   

Well, whether it did or didn’t (and the longing glances and near-miss kisses of the rest of the episode suggest the former) it makes little difference, because Jenny helpfully papped them and sent Gossip Girl the incriminating evidence.   

 Cue Nate and Serena break-up. Sob. It had to happen, because it is a well worn TV rule that a happy relationship does not good ratings maketh.   

Plus, their pairing was never that great. The whole ‘he’d been in love with her since ever’ thing sprung up out of the blue, and given their collective IQ barely reached my age, their dialogue was never particularly engrossing.   

 Besides, judging by how well-thumbed Chuck’s Black Book of random dial-a-skank girls looked, Nate will get over it.  

Which is more than you can say for Blair and Chuck, whose relationship has finally died (and is possibly not the only one).  

 Blair pretended she wasn’t going to the Empire State Building for a glorious reunion with Chuck, but we all knew she was. But, darn it, Dorota’s waters broke, so she got held up.  

Leaving Chuck feeling like, well, he’d just been stood up at the Empire State building.  

 Add a glass of liqueur and that’s everything you need for a true Chuck Bass self destruction. Which he did with absolute aplomb, taking little J down with him.   

Ooh, how adorably fitting that she lost it to the guy who tried to date rape her when she was 14.   

 Hence, his subsequent reunion with Blair was doomed, with Dan defending his sisters honour (as if she has any left) with a right hook, just as Chuck pulled out a diamond (engagement?!) ring.   

 It looks like that relationship is over, with Blair trotting off to Paris for singledom, shopping and Serena time. If only we could all indulge in that particular form of therapy.   

 As for the corrupted-innocent Jenny and her little dreadlocks too; it’s been well-publicised that Taylor Momsen is leaving the show at least temporarily, to pursue her singing career. Just as Jen Lindley was once shipped off to Capeside to stay with Grams, Little J has been shipped off to Hudson to stay with her mother, complete with perfectly colour-coordinated group hug at the station.   

 One imagines there will be guest appearances, but given she’s managed to destroy the relationships of every main character on the show, maybe the writers have just run out of storylines.   

 Only Eric seems upset about her departure – despite, earlier in the show calling her ‘crazy’. Which has to hurt, coming from the kid who tried to off himself before the show even started.   

 In other news, Vanessa and Dan are kaput. She’s in Haiti, being holier-than-thou, so hasn’t got access to Gossip Girl. But Nate, always the good Samaritan, fills her in on the Serena and Dan situation, and she stops returning his calls.   

Which is obviously preposterous. As if Vanessa would go to a country where she couldn’t check Gossip Girl.   

  A full show, you’d agree, and a more-than-acceptable season finale. But wait; there was more. Two twists at the end, and top marks to anyone who saw them coming. Is the end nigh for Chuck Bass? As he lay in a pool of blood, shot by the Czech muggers who tried to steal the engagement ring, you wonder if he was thinking of his contract.   

 And the best ‘what-the’ moment? We’d had Georgina (the original she-devil) popping in throughout the episode, but I just thought that was about observing tradition – wouldn’t be the end of a season without her.   

 Turns out no, and there was even a reason for her sporting the disturbing Russian get-up including fur coat and oligarch-wag hair-do. Remember early on in the series? When she was a student at NYU?   

 Go on, think back, I know it’s been a long year and a million Gossip Girl relationships have been and gone. Think.   

 It was about nine months ago…