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RUMOR: This year Gossip Girl will be a smorgasbord of raunchy sex, male prostitution, and lots of rich people doing very bad things.
REALITY: Um...actually, that's true.

Season 2 of Gossip Girl should be subtitled Teen Sex and the City, as evidenced by the first few episodes. (Spoiler-phobes, stop reading now.) The network's new tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign — featuring the stars in various states of undress and critical jabs from the press like ''Every parent's nightmare'' — seeks to position Girl as forbidden fruit to hormonal teens. Even more shocking? The first three episodes are Girl's best so far. Nate will be part of the juiciest story line of the first half of the season, when he enters into an American Gigolo-style relationship with a rich married woman (played by Twin Peaks' Mädchen Amick, who appears in the first four episodes before heading to NBC's My Own Worst Enemy). ''I'm more enthusiastic about these new [episodes], because I feel like this is a little more fun for me,'' says Crawford, 23. But Nate will also continue to explore his feelings for Vanessa (Jessica Szohr), creating a teen-teen-cougar love triangle. Says Szohr, 23: ''There's definitely a couple of scenes where Mädchen's character and I get into it.''

Lovebirds Serena and Dan will make another go at their relationship, but the reunion will not be as smooth as the end of Monday's season premiere made it out to be. Badgley, 21, a proponent of Dan getting a little edgier, is grateful for this development: ''As much as I liked Dan and Serena together, it's really great for all of us to be moving on to new relationships in the show.'' This opens the door for Serena to date a new man, Aaron Rose (still not cast), and to begin hanging with a more celebri-friendly crowd, including a budding socialite named Poppy Lifton (Tamara Feldman). Says Savage, ''She's like the ghost of Serena's future, what Serena could become.'' Serena's new high-profile social life will also cause tension with Blair over control of the school. ''She was in love and enjoyed laying low,'' says Lively. ''And now that she doesn't have Dan, it's natural for her to rise to the top of the food chain. One throne is not big enough for two queens.'' But Blair also has her hands full with her European summer fling, Lord Marcus (Patrick Heusinger). ''I'm just using him to get back at Chuck,'' says Meester, 22, ''and he sees right through that.'' Chuck and Blair's love/hate relationship will become an even bigger presence this year (says Westwick, ''Chuck's universe and his priorities and his focus are all Blair''), and the duo will share the series' most erotic moment so far — all while fully dressed — in the third episode, set during a citywide blackout.

Dan will attempt to take his own walk on the wild side when he shadows Chuck in an effort to spice up his writing. The pair embark on a debaucherous evening that lands them in jail. In what Savage calls ''one of the best scenes we've ever shot,'' the jailhouse bonding will cause Chuck to open up to Dan and reveal a secret about the never-before-seen Mother Bass. In the younger-sibling department, Serena's brother Eric (Connor Paolo) will get a fella of his own in episode 7 and Jenny will spar with father Rufus (Matthew Settle) over her demanding internship for Eleanor Waldorf (Margaret Colin). Little J will also befriend Agnes, a model who attempts to corrupt the wannabe designer (think threesomes and stripteases); The O.C.'s Willa Holland is in negotiations for the three-episode role. Lily (Kelly Rutherford) will return from vacation with new hubby Bart (Robert John Burke), only to find out that he uncovered a secret from her past that will be a major thread for the season's second half.

With sexed-up story lines and attention-grabbing ad campaigns, Gossip Girl seems to be doing its damnedest to keep the hype going. But aren't they slightly worried about losing their throne to a fresher face, like, say, 90210? ''Call me cocky, but no,'' says Lively, 21. ''I think we really set the platform for what The CW wants their network to be. There aren't really many shows like ours — unless it's reality or it's about 40-year-olds.'' Schwartz, meanwhile, is focusing on longevity. Citing his other teen creation, The O.C., he explains, ''In the New Year's Eve episode, someone said something to Summer about Seth and she's like, 'Seth Cohen is so 2003.' Hopefully, Gossip Girl will feel so 2008...slash 2009, 2010.''

Additional reporting by Jennifer Armstrong, Lindsay Soll, and Tanner Stransky

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