Later, after they've renewed their acquaintance and Dan's begged her to let him blow this assignment off, Eleanor tells him he's stuck. "Dorota has the weekend off, and I absolutely need two servers." (Which is interesting, because notice how easy it was for Dan Humphrey of all people to jump to the "Why can't Dorota do it?" place.) "Cyrus's mother's coming, and she hates me. I have never thrown a Seder before, I don't even know how to say half the words in this ... prayer book that's named for Lieberman's wife." Awkward, but funny, and allows Dan to explain (Hadassah/Haggadah), which allows Eleanor to point at him and say that's proof that she needs him. It's a nice little comedic domino effect, but it starts in an awkwardly worded place and I don't know how you could clean that up.

Dan comes clean that basically, though he respects and fears Eleanor mightily as the woman who nearly ate his sister whole, he's uncomfortable serving knishes to his frenemy Blair. "Blair won't be here. And you don't serve knishes at Passover!" Eleanor shouts triumphantly, before doubling both their pay. Corinne loudly, and hilariously, tells Dan she needs the money, and he cutely agrees. I swear he's got more chemistry with this girl than any other girl he's been in a scene with, but I don't know if she's weird looking enough to be on this show regularly. Meanwhile, Eleanor runs back out into the house yelling, "Cyrus, I think the brisket's burnin'!" Watching Eleanor break down is, in some ways, more fun than watching her daughter freak out, although points off for the predictable Jewish Mother thing, true or not.

Blair, just getting off the phone with the committee head and thus having gotten both of her Granderbilt demands met, swans into Nate's room as he's dressing for dinner. He's distracted and distant, and very insistent that he's going to Columbia. It's neat, because she's being very subtle, and I don't mean in a "for Blair" way, but his firmness is coming from the thing he learned today that we don't know yet -- about Granderbilt calling the SEC -- and yet has the same effect, paranoia and sneakiness, because of Blair's guilt at being in cahoots with Nate's van der Destiny as it would if that were the case. So it all comes out the same in the end, only once again Blair's in a drama of one and Nate's having problems he doesn't feel like talking about.