Serena comes sweeping into Eric's hospital room. Is she wearing a scarf? Surprisingly, no. I forgot to tell you: anytime there's a sentence with a subject and a predicate, go ahead and impute a scarf or two in there. The scarf madness on this show, I am telling you. And it's only a plot point once! So many scarves, doing so little. Although I guess all a scarf has to do is be lovely. Not so Serena: she also has to kidnap! Whom? Eric. Why? Because she had a bad day and needs Bendel's therapy. Eric -- who I thought was young furniture until the premiere, when Connor Paolo offered to punch Zac Efron in the face, earning my eternal devotion -- points out that as the self-harming victim of their class, he has also had a day. They gave him pills, Rorschach tests, and green Jell-O. Serena giggles and makes a funny face: "Mmm! Why didn't you save me any?" She starts getting him together for the getaway, defusing the suicide bummer part and commencing the heist with a very fun, breezy, conspiratorial air that made me very homesick for my siblings. Did you know I have five brothers and three sisters? You'd never tell, because I'm as self-obsessed and control-freaky as any only child, but it's true. Serena and Eric bounce.

Dan arrives at Bendel's in response to the emergency text from his sister, but the emergency in question is fashion-related. He complains about how he's been to a big dance zero times more than her zero times, but it's awesome: "Yeah, but Mom's gone, and Dad's allergic to department stores." Hee! "So basically, you're like the only mother I have left. You're my mother with a Justin Timberlake haircut. You're my TimberMommy." He tells her she looks good, and she does look good, and she's fourteen in real life, because everybody is really close to their actor ages on this show. "Too bad it's more than our rent, but I think I can sew something like it," she says, all full of bullshit. Your rent is thousands of dollars, Jenny. Please get real and stop showing off. Jenny spots Serena and squeals like a golden retriever on six espressos, and Serena and Eric come on over. Dan vanishes immediately, because of true love. Eric, because being called Serena's "brother" would be too embarrassing, introduces himself instead as her "stylist and personal shopper." Do they even have gay in New York? I was given to understand that it was an epidemic. But then why... Maybe it's the East Coast version of how everybody is getting their faces fucked with to look like Ally McBeal, even though that's so scary? Maybe it's a new way of playing hard-to-get, like, if Jenny thinks that Eric is gay, she will pursue him, and then...I don't know what, they're little kids. He's got highlights. Maybe that's why every dude on this show acts so gay all the time: to get chicks. Maybe they let Mystery at them. Anyway, Jenny gives Serena another invitation to Kiss On The Lips, which she made during free period, and Serena's touched, so she offers the fashion advice that TimberMommy cannot: "That dress would look even better in black." Check. Serena does grateful and affectionate really well. I like it, even though in the books she was just this careless monster who destroyed people without even trying. Could still be, I guess. I like both. The books aren't known for their, like, nuanced characters.