...very next scene! "Hey, Mercedes," Lauren opens, approaching the target of her attentions in the school library, "can I have your shoes? I promise to give you a dirty pair of my flip-flops in return." Mercedes, not getting Lauren's point, tosses back some halfhearted sass about the difficulty she experienced in securing a pair of high-top yellow patent leather sneakers for herself, so Lauren's forced to roll her eyes and sigh, "I'm surprised you didn't just give them to me, considering how little you think of yourself." Mercedes frowns at this, all, "The hell are you talking about?" so Lauren points out (correctly, I think, though to be perfectly honest with you, I really don't care) that Mercedes is "constantly taking the back seat to everyone," and she suggests it's long past time for Mercedes to throw around a little diva attitude of her own, as "respect isn't something you can ask for." "You have to demand it," Lauren insists, like "Aretha and J.Lo and Mariah," the latter of whom in particular has been rumored to turn up for 9 AM appointments at four o'clock in the afternoon, simply because she knows that people will wait for her. "Those kinds of demands are ridiculous," Mercedes counters, taking the words right out of my mouth and delivering them to the audience at large. Well, she took a bunch of words out of my mouth that pretty much mean the same thing, cleaned them up considerably to ensure Glee would not be fined by the FCC this week, and then delivered them to the audience at large, but whatever. Lauren refuses to be swayed, and she argues that Mercedes will know she's achieved the respect she craves only after she sees exactly how far a bunch of hapless saps will bend over backwards for her. Lauren volunteers to act on Mercedes's behalf as her manager, the better to secure for herself "ten percent of whatever we can come up with to ask for," and as understanding finally breaks across Mercedes's face, the Diva To Be shakes Lauren's hand and smiles, "Sister, you got yourself a deal." Commercials.

Will enters the faculty lounge to find Emma scouring the countertops with an electric toothbrush, and as I care nothing at all about this subplot this evening, I'll simply note we learn that Hot Carl is finally divorcing Emma's insane ass, which means these two will probably be sucking face with each other before the season's over, especially because Gwyneth just happens to catch a tender moment between the two of them as she passes by the lounge windows. Are we done here? Good. Next!