Because think about Damien Dalgaard for one second. Retroactively inserting him into the boarding school backstory was a genius move and made him amazing, but if you remember last year at all, he basically started out as a Jenny plotpoint. He was notorious and all that, but it was still about resolving her issues with the aristocracy. Remember? She was all, "I'm going to be the Rebel Queen and there will be no rules!" and then before you knew it, she was awful, and that was Eric's last big story too. But now this year, it's actually way different, because we know he was in some kind of love with Serena, which means dating her little sister and brother was always about her, even though originally it wasn't.

So the timeline now is very different, because it goes: Georgina has the Fever. Serena kills a guy and runs off to boarding school to get rid of the Fever, and accidentally gives it to nerdy Damien, who eventually returns to the UES and gives it to Jenny, which is how she's finally able to break out of the prison of governance and leave town altogether. (The Fever is not a bad thing, it's just a thing.) And but now Damien's still got the Fever, and accidentally gave it to Juliet a little bit, and while everybody else is changing and benefitting from it, he's still stuck in this horrible loop where Ben is back and once again cock-blocking him with Serena, so who's going to get the Fever now? Little Eric, who always carries everybody on his back anyway. Those Rhodes genes: Ripe for the Fever, always. (Aunt Carol had the Fever, and gave it to Lily; the Fever started long ago.)

Which I think means this story is going to end up being about saving Damien, somehow -- if Ben does not kill him first -- because if he's lost he's well and truly lost and then the Fever will become everybody's problem again. And I do think that ultimately Ben will pay the price for that, but I'm not sure how any of this will actually go down. I just think Damien's tragic in a way we haven't figured out yet, but has somehow to do with the radioactivity of contact with Serena that transformed him from School Damien to our Damien. He was willing to do anything for her, including evils, which eventually will rebound back on her because it always does. The wolves and all.