And then too you've got Jenny, who from the first episode has always existed in a heightened reality (from that knee-socked "Glamorous" to group dancing and masked balls to punk guerilla branding exercises to that insanely stylized Cotillion) that's pretty ecumenical, in its postmodern way, at plucking signifiers from everything, greedy and spectacular at once. Very American, very next-gen Serena. Which makes Dan... What's horrible? Buchowski. And Vanessa Abrams -- Suzuki Beane herself, in living color -- is the offspring of a Diane di Prima poem and Gwyneth Paltrow's best intentions. Either way, it's a brilliant structure: You get kids running around acting like adults, which is the strength of the show, but through a self-knowing lens that makes sure we know they're just trying on the grownup clothes and, like actual adults, have no fucking clue what they're doing.)

Maureen immediately appears like a gothic mystery ghost and Serena tells her to get the fuck out. "You have no reason to be here!" she yells, because there is nothing ironic about Serena and she can't understand that of the two of them, she's the one that doesn't belong there. Maureen explains how Serena is going to be the Marilyn to her Jackie, and that she's agreeing to this because Trip cares about her, but all Serena can hear is that her truly fantastical imaginary life of "starting over" with a disgraced Congressman at eighteen years of age, which will never happen, might not happen.

Maureen assures S that Trip is on board with the plan, and then seals the deal by producing THE LETTER. If S doesn't go along with it, Rufus will find out that Lily spent the night in Keith's hotel room at the end of the summer. And though THE LETTER is vague as to what happened that night, nobody's really considering alternate possibilities: "Knowing Lily, I think we can assume the worst. I'm pretty sure Rufus will." Serena does so as well, is sickened and can't speak, so Maureen gives her a bright and shiny goodbye and flies off through the night in a chariot made of Executive Realness. Empire state is where Maureen lives.