Obsessed with getting back into the Rhodes' Women's good graces, Ivy takes William van der Woodsen at his word: Throw a benefit in CeCe's honor and her former relatives will be obliged to attend. Of course, he offers this at a price -- which is the part of the conversation Lola hears, which information she relays to Nate, who through this game of Blonde People Telephone ends up telling Serena that Ivy is somehow bribing William, which is a legal no-no since he's the executor of the estate and can't benefit from it in any way. (Or so we understand from Nate, who is apparently a legal database at certain times of day.)

Since the will's airtight, proving some kind of criminal misconduct on Ivy's part is the only way to get the will thrown out... Something that Lily's obsessed with doing, not because she has any lack of money but because she hates DUMBO and all its constant reminders of the filth from which her useless trophy husband sprang in the first place. Rufus is aware enough of his surroundings to understand her concerns, but not sharp enough to realize what a bitch she's being, which reflects more poorly on him than it does her. Of course.

Also interested in getting the Bumphreys out of DUMBO are the gruesome twosome themselves, Blair and Dan, whose last month has been a neverending cavalcade of missed sexual opportunities: Everybody from Dorota's temporary replacement to Rufus and Lily (twice) and Serena (thrice) has interrupted them, as well as fate in a hundred other guises. But when they finally do it, it's totally gross and bad, which causes them to run -- Blair to Queens, Dan to Nate -- and get drunk while asking for advice about the sex problem. The obvious answers -- A) Stop being huge liars and B) If you're not old enough to talk about it, you're not old enough to be doing it -- never really sinks in, but they do show up for Ivy's party blasted and end up fucking in the elevator, which was pretty awesome. In fact, they are both awesome the entire episode, although that may be due in large part to the fact that Leighton Meester is the most adorable drunk-actor on the planet.

While all of this is going on, Chuck is having his own storyline, which is about trying to thank Jack for his blood transfusion after the accident, but after some dots not connecting he does a bit of research and realizes that Uncle Jack caught Hep C from Pamela Anderson and thus wouldn't have been allowed to donate. Chuck traps Jack in a tremendously baroque game of cat-and-mouse that ends up involving child actors and blood drives and this whole thing, but in the end Jack comes clean: The blood was donated by somebody else. Chuck assumes it was Elizabeth Fischer, his last possible mom, but it seems clear that Diana Payne is the one we're going to end up focusing on.

Anyway, Nate tells Serena he's going to write the Ivy Dickens exposé himself, since she's so intense about it all the time, which causes her to take advantage of the Gossip Girl laptop, setting a trap of her own since she doesn't know that Lily and Rufus are actually in on the "Bribing William" scheme to bring Ivy down. She sets the blast to upload about half an hour into the party, but then gets waylaid by derpy Lola and Dick Cavett just long enough that she manages to ruin everybody's hard work and stomp out the last of Ivy's goodwill.

While Blair and Dan are fucking in the elevator, the Rhodes Women including Rufus take the time to have yet another bitchy standoff with Lola, whom -- after Ivy makes yet another perfectly valid point about how monstrous they're all being -- finally sides with the Rhodeses, promising to testify that she overheard Ivy bribing William. Downstairs, they have a quick talk about how her mysterious probably feels about her, and it is a very ooky vibe down there. But I think William is running a much bigger game, considering he is a creep and is still being blackmailed by Aunt Carol: After all, once the truth about Lola gets out there, Serena and Eric will probably realize once again what an ass he is, and abandon him for the fifth or so time, and he just can't take it.

In any case, once everybody's gone and Ivy's funds are frozen by this latest suit, the bill comes due for her benefit party that went so wrong: $30K she no longer has. Nate fires Serena for endangering the Spectator's funding by using GG to undercut his paper's exclusivity, and then fields a call from a new investor: Miss Diana Payne, of course (who needs to come back to deal with Chuck anyway, I think). Jobless and grumpy, Serena tosses herself into being Gossip Girl... But has made such a failure of herself on her very first day that Gossip Girl herself is offended, and demands the keys back.

Next Week: Lola goes as crazy about Diana's return as the women Nate dates inevitably go, Lily continues to chafe under the horrors of DUMBO loft life, and Blair continues to be so effortlessly wonderful, I hope.