Seeing that reality has no greater hold on the Humphreys than ever, he turns to Asher: "I'm gay. And so are you." Asher screams, again with that nervous tickle in the throat: "Get this faggot out of here!" Blair jumps back, stricken at the word. (She's thought it; she'd never say it out loud, but it's one of the ways she got back at her father. She's ashamed of that.) But what it does right here is seal the deal: Not to Eric, and not in front of Blair. Ever.

"Go ahead and do it," Eric says, finished with the whole mess, and Blair sends the entirety of Asher's texts and emails to Gossip Girl. "What did you just do?" She smiles, and gives Jenny one of a series of looks that tells her she's been served worse than she's ever been served before. "You'll see," she smiles, and hands him the phone, and makes her way back out of the crowd.

Lily sips her tea at home, freaking out over what she did at dinner. "What kind of mother does not know that her son is gay?" (Zero. Zero kinds. Come on.) Rufus admits that the people you know best are generally the ones that surprise you most (and if you're a Humphrey, no doubt that is true), and she complains: "The things that I said, the way I acted..." Not only was it, in her words, not her finest maternal moment, but -- with Rufus, who knows the whole story, who was the only person he told about the scary stuff -- the real question is: can Eric weather this? Did she do it again? Will he try again? Did she just kill her son? It feels like it. Tonight, it feels like it.

"I know how much you love him, so does he. You just need to remind him of that." And if that's not enough? "Most of the time, it's all we've got." She asks what he's going to do, about his blonde child who is also dating Asher Hornsby, and he sighs. "I'm gonna wait for my daughter to come to me, and then I'm gonna ground her until she's 25." They laugh, and Lily jokes ruefully, and honestly, about what a team they make. "Always did," he says, and she's had such a night it's no wonder that nearly breaks her. She doesn't speak, lets the phone drop away from her mouth, and he realizes he's pushed it too far again; he needs to put the walls back in place or else he won't even have that much of her. "...Good luck, Lil. With everything. I'm sure you'll make a beautiful bride." He only ever had her when he was a fever; now they drink wine and their tea goes cold. "...Thank you," she says sadly, and honestly. "Good night, Rufus." But even after they hang up, the conversation's not really over.