Chuck apologizes to his stepmother for the time he fucked her stepdaughter, pointing out that he was in a downward spiral, too -- it's just that hers was so visible, so "me-me-me," and his was so... Much like most other days when you're Chuck Bass. Lily takes full responsibility for not seeing the distinction, but best of all it got scowling crappy Jenny out of her hair, so she high-fives her favorite child and asks him not to skip out again or rape anybody else. He tells her about Ivva, since it's the only thing she doesn't know about his summer after Serena joined Scotland Yard and busted his case wide open.

Once, twice, three times Chuck tries to make Lily say that the rest of the family will welcome him as carelessly/hilariously as she has, but she puts him off each and every time in a loving -- and yet so Lily, so "plausible deniability," so "please don't make me say anything unpleasant, even if it leads to a suicide attempt" -- way, until finally he's backed her sense of etiquette into such a corner that -- Notable: "I'm not going to lie," she says. People rarely say that on this show, because nobody ever means it, but in this case it's interesting -- the only choices she has are: 1) Haul off and slap him and then take a pill or 2) Invite him to Fashion's Night Out just hoping Rufus won't make a pissy scene in public. Lily, Lily, Lily. Option #1 is so much less drama.

Blair chases Serena out of Hamhocks into the street and lies at length about how she'd be totally chill with just giving up and not being in Hamilton House because they are stupidheads and whatever. Serena points out that yes, they are stupidheads, but also she's not a total social climber like Blair and could give a shit about Hamilton House, which has only bitches in it from what she can tell. Or, in her words: "It's much more Right Bank." Blair kisses her full on the mouth, grabs a piece of thigh, and says they'll hit Sorella for first-day dinner, as a sort of last-ditch stab at respectability for turning her back so very obviously on her BFF. She nearly trips on the steps getting that ass back inside for some good old-fashioned hazing. Such is her velocity.

Desperate for friends, Serena calls Dan but he's running up his phone bill trying to find Georgina by calling each and every spoiled people spa in the West Indies one by one. She runs into Nate, but he's pissy and man-bangy in every sense of the word, and doesn't want to talk to her or start a pretend club with her or anything. He salts the wound by heading into Hamhocks, where he's apparently the sole male member? (There's a story there but who's got the time and anyway, you can fill in the blanks.) What will Serena do without her friends? Her three friends?