B strides four feet to a table and bitches at her Plastics, who are not interested in getting into even further trouble by continuing to fuck with Rachel. She claps her hands loudly and explains: "Do you need a refresher? I say, you do." Which is... not how you get or keep "minions." Or "friends." Or "from being slapped to death." If this were honestly how B behaved, historically, she wouldn't be Queen B of anything except having every meal or drink that ever went in her mouth tainted with pee. Who wants to be queen of that? Then stupid music swells and she gives some stupid speech about how their legacy depends on not letting "Cornflower Mary" decide their fates. The score in this episode is beyond the fucking pale, by the way, between this dumbass scene and the Eyes Wide Shut crap with Chuck.

The speech is interminable, and not clever, but just like this floating idea of "it would be funny if B gave a big speech with swelling music" that doesn't fulfill the back end this show usually does of also being enjoyable in the execution of the funny idea. Then that goddamn fake Queller woman starts collecting everybody's cell phones, and of course Rachel is at the root of this evil, and Nelly Yuki actually goes, "Who could be behind such pure evil?" And there's a dreadfully long scene of them getting closer and closer and finally, there's Rachel, putting the phones into individual blue velvet bags, and the girls are back at B's side ready to do her bidding.

The thing about this show, and The O.C., was that you had the funny "guess what happened on that show last night?" thing, but also the real-life backup reality that made it not stupid. The problem with this episode, and pretty much the show since Jack showed up, is that there's no second layer: just "look at me, I'm so fucked up" without actually being interesting, or all that fucked up. Like the thing with the speech and the cell phones, and this stupid scene coming up: not realistic. It's not realistic that Hazel would be in withdrawal from not checking Gossip Girl, or phantom-texting, or saying shit like "Is a scandal still a scandal if you can't text about it?"