Blair grumps and grumbles some more, and Vanessa explains her totally believable and not at all retarded plan of getting -- not a distribution deal, you see -- "just a local arts grant," so she can pay her rent. Go to high school and graduate from high school and stop being a freak! Have some parents! Stop creeping around the entire world at your leisure! Why is she like this forty-five-year-old homeless woman in crazy person clothes that runs around constantly serving coffee and spying and breaking into things and coming up with plans and filming people at weird times and "paying rent" and...how old is she, in all actuality? I realize this show plays ever so fast and loose with the time/space continuum, but it's like Vanessa is the embodiment of that. Like she could also be in another scene at this exact same time, in DUMBO, taping Dan at home and being greasy with him like always, and then the screen would split and the two Vanessas would wave at each other and then turn to the screen and wink at us through the fourth wall like some kind of Patty Duke nightmare scenario and then all the clocks would start turning backwards and water would flow uphill and she'd just be there, grinning with her crazy-lady eyes, and the last thing you would see is a kaleidoscope of infinite Vanessas like at the end of The Manchurian Candidate and then they put you in the Ostroff Center and it's all Vanessa, all the time.

Which is kind of like what happens, because B takes off smiling creepily and then all of a sudden Chuck steps up to try and get the tape away from Vanessa too. He flashes a mega-giant wad of cash at her -- "What's that, your stripper money?" -- and he explains to her the thing I can't even bother to try to explain to Dan anymore: "I know girls like you. You act like money's not important, but the truth is, money's important to everyone." And simultaneously not important at all, which is why the Abrams/Humphrey Coalition Against "Things" is so goddamn insufferable. Vanessa says, "And I thought Blair was manipulative," as though that speech was manipulative at all, and he claims that B's an amateur: "She thinks you're just like her. To Blair, this money is a couple pairs of Manolos and a Chanel bag. But I know that this much cash can make a real difference in your life." Which he learned from his dad, who grew up poor, which is why Chuck's the only person who ever sees both sides, even though his response is to be incredibly nasty about it most of the time. She pops out the tape from her camera and calls him sick, he pronounces her "welcome." Um, like she was taping over the tape she was keeping secret and it just happened to be the one and she just happened to have it right there. Chuck, you effer, she obviously just played you. GG points out that, in addition to sucking in most ways, Vanessa Abrams is a total hypocrite. Word.