Desperate to have someone to talk to that wasn't homeschooled, Nate enters the lair of the cougar and immediately starts having emo feelings on the couch. Catherine's like, "I know it's weird that your ex is dating my kid, but what's really bothering you?" I love how much she actually just honestly likes and gets him, even though if the genders were reversed that would so be the creepiest part. He says the sad thing is that now that the summer's over, she's not even going to pretend to be interested in him as a person, because nobody ever, ever is. "But when the best version of the situation Is that I'm gonna become Blair's father-in-law? I think it's just time to move on, Catherine." She shifts effortlessly into "I really do give a damn" mode, and whether or not she means it, I don't really care, because I believe firmly that people should, as a rule, be nicer to Nate. That's all I ask.

DUMBO. Rufus enters quietly and checks the answering machine, which is Jenny saying hello and that Dan will pick her up at the train station since their whole childhoods have been about surviving with no parenting whatsoever, while having a water fight with Eric. He goes into her room and remembers that she exists and that he kind of likes her, even though the eggplant colors of her hideous homemade fashions give him a migraine, and then flips through Dan's stupid notebook on the dining room table without reading a word, and then looks at an enormous corkboard covered in summer memories that don't include him. And I know we're supposed to think it's Jenny's, this collage, because: teenage girl, I think it's funnier to imagine that the person who spent all summer perfecting this collage -- random words cut out of magazines, people grinning -- was actually Dan, because: teenage girl. Something about these objects and images cuts through his self-indulgent ADD and he remembers reality for one second and calls Tanya Donnelly to tell her Lincoln Hawk won't be touring with her, but probably she could call Deep Blue Something's agent.