And you know, it's not that they're the Ryan and Marissa so much as -- stay with me -- the anti-Seth and Summer. Who, memorably, were "together even when they weren't together"; fuckin' Dan and Serena are broken up even when they're together. I can't even keep track of whether or not they're together, and it's my fucking job. I don't buy it, I don't like it, I refuse to acknowledge it. Which means no matter how many times Dan gets dewy and goes, "Wow, it's really over, isn't it?" -- which he does every fucking third episode, if she's not the one that gets to say it -- I don't believe it. They are a cat in a box that is neither alive nor dead, but partaking horrifically of qualities of both.

Rufus puts down his goddamn coffee when Dan comes home and, having taken his Paxil, is like, "Lily told me about you and Serena. Are you okay?" WHAT? Like Serena and Lily ran home to compare notes on the Humphreys and Serena was like, "We broke up," and instead of going "What? You were back together?" Lily went, "I gotta call Rufus and tell him." Dan explains that he is okay about the breakup, because he's no more invested in that relationship than Serena -- or us -- but really wants to know what happened with Rachel in the meeting. Rufus explains that, sex or not, Rachel was meeting a hot young student (whom she didn't even teach) off-campus, after hours. And that this is gross.

Dan throws a huge fit, realizing that Rufus voted to fire her, and then stomps around and puts a jacket over the ladies' rollneck cardigan he clearly borrowed from his father, and -- as he's leaving the house -- bitches, "I should be punished! Not her!" Rufus... Watches him leave. Where the eff does he think he's going? Meanwhile, Serena brings the datebook back to Rachel and dumbly explains that she took the photo because she was jealous because she loves Rachel, and Rachel repays her with yet more bitchface and telling Serena to go fuck herself. Because any of this is her fault.

Blair says goodbye to Handsome, because in the fucking stupidest contrived retarded line yet, Harold goes, "How was I to know when I asked your mother if we could get you a bulldog that she assumed we meant a stuffed animal?" How were you -- or any of us, really -- to know the difference between a goddamn living creature and a stuffed animal? Oh, I don't know, maybe the fact that never in a fucking million years would anyone call his ex-wife FROM FRANCE to ask if he could buy his daughter a STUFFED TOY. Somebody got paid thousands of fucking dollars for this crap. Think about that. Thousands of dollars into somebody's bank account, unearned, for pulling this shit on our beloved show. It makes me want to join the Hell's Angels, honestly.