So then everybody's trying to justify that travesty to Julian, including the point that Nate had already ruined the entire play before they all jumped in, and Penelope yells that she stayed in character the whole time, and Julian is screaming at them so loud when Isherwood walks up and things get all fucking awkward again. But yeah, the hoary thing where maybe it's postmodern happens, and it's a disruptive moment in high school stagecraft and Julian's a genius and whatever. Which is funny obviously because this show demonstrates that it's possible to revitalize romantic lit while telling a compelling story without resorting to that kind of lit-wank pomo art performance shit is so totally '80s, but whatever, that's awesome and anyway, you can't have artists without art school... Oh wait.

So Julian's like, "all that raw, adolescent emotion, I knew I had to use it, harness it, spin it into gold!" which is exactly the right response, and just got him a career, but of course Bastion Of Dignity Vanessa Abrams is like, "That was a whole new level of fake" (Yaaah! I'm seeing things that aren't there! Fake it so real it is beyond fake, like May and Serena! The Age of Innocence is the Age of Artifice! There is always another level of fake! Find it and eventually we will reach heaven on an Aztec stepping-stone temple of fake! Adam Lambert is your God now! You thing rike jellyfish pretty soon now! Behold the birth of a new aeon!) and Serena's all, "I can't believe I had a crush on you," and he looks at her like she's slow and fires the gay gun right between her eyes.