Even though poor Nate (Chace Crawford)'s storyline about his car accident-plotting foe(s) is gettin' a little sidelined by the rest of Gossip Girl's drama ― just a little thing called a royal wedding and a LOVE SQUARE, no big! ― we are pretty caught up in it... especially after this week's big reveal that Gossip Girl herself is in the loop and playing defense!

Plus, you know, it's NATE ARCHIBALD! The dude's a sweetheart! Who would want to harm a hair on his pretty lil' head?!

All we can figure? Total friggin' jerks, that's who! And we've got a few in mind...

William Van der Bilt
When there's drama in an old-money clan like the vdBs, many-a soap opera has taught us that the first place to look for the culprit is WITHIN. It wasrecently teased that the person responsible for the accident would be found "close to home,” which leads us straight to those infamous Bilts. But while William is hellasketchy and mean-spirited (not to mention allll wrapped up in Nate's current rise to fame), we've never seen him act out against his grandson, have we? And why would he BUY the freakin' Spectator to hand to Nate, if he was just gonna kill him off later? We have some unanswered queries about William's involvement with Diana Payne ― like, you know, WHUH? ― but we have a hard time believing that g-pa would go after his own flesh and blood (...at least when it comes to murdering them).

Trip Van der Bilt
Big scuzzin Trip showed up in eps 9 and 10 to a) beg Nate to bury the story about the fake affair, b) be jealous of Nate’s new favored position with g-pa (remember, the Camp Allen invite?) and c) lash out at William over his lack of support in the campaign. Desperation can lead to bad behavior, and we all know Trip was pretty bummed about being excluded ― but we've never been convinced that Trip is anything but a lil' twerp (coward! weasel!) under the thumb of his ladder-climbing wife. And for all his faults, we've always kinda, somehow, liked Trip, so we'd prefer not to think him capable of this. (If you DO, however, want to go there... Maybe Trip was sending Nate’s car on a “re-route” so that he could intercept William at the airport and go in his cousin’s place?)

Maureen van der Bilt
Then again, all roads may lead to THIS LADY. Let’s face it, of the van der Bilt clan, Mo seems the most likely to be capable of this kind of act. She's proven in the past that she has ZERO qualms with taking part in questionable cover-ups, AND she's willing to do most anything to elevate the status of her husband's political aspirations (or should we say her societal aspirations?). Nate's got info that can hurt Maureen. There's the fake affair, but there's also the car accident (Serena’s, that is). Maybe she's decided it's time to bury (no pun intended...) the stories once and for all?

Max
Or maybe the political duo buddied-up with Ivy's sad-sack ex Max to carry out the dreadful deed? Don’t forget, Max approached Trip on the street in ep 10 hoping to work together, and though we're not sure Max has any sorta axe to grind against Nate (though he is HELL-BENT on Ivy’s destruction), we wouldn't put it past Trip and Cruella de Maureen to manipulate the poor fish-outta-water.

Jack Bass
We're throwin' this out there just because we have no idea how and why the mid-season finale ended like it did. Diana resurfaced ― having found out about the accident from WHO exactly? ― and her first call was to Jack. We think their storyline might have more to do with Diana's connection to the Bass family than the accident, but still, we've a lingering feeling that the convo wasn't totally on the up-and-up... (though we know Diana is, apparently, not involved in the accident).