Right then, Amalia appears and smiles, looking myopic and tragic, and Serena's smile says it all: "Okay," as in um ok lol, and "Well, I can't wait to meet them tonight." The whole time she's flicking her gaze at Amalia and her headband, just rubbing it in like dirt, and it's amazing. She finally leaves, about ten feet taller than her usual ten feet, and Blair realizes that it is motherfucking on. Amalia points out that she's Blair's friend, on which Blair chokes before reminding the poor girl that she's actually staff.

Right around the corner in the hall, S desperately calls Nate for the millionth time, but he's too busy walking along the Hudson with Tripp and hating the shit out of Serena to answer. Vanessa is nearby, filming them and asking random lonely New Yorkers who they're voting for, but the awesome thing is that while this scene -- which is mostly Nate feeling Tripp out about how maybe some last-minute help from Grandfather would not be entirely evil, because of the guilting he got earlier about the Poker Affair -- is going on, you can totally see this guy sitting on the edge of the pier and getting ready to jump in, but you would never notice it, so a second later when a guy starts flopping around in the river, and Tripp jumps in like his perfect ass would, and Vanessa films the whole thing, maybe you get fooled. I have to say, having watched this one several times the weaknesses have become apparent, but on Monday night I was like totally amazed by everything, shouting OH GIRL every five seconds and scaring the step-dog, so remember that.

So yeah, Tripp saved the guy and in so doing became a hottie for the rest of the episode somehow, and the real lady from the real NY1HD -- my friend Lily goes, "Where'd they dig her up?" -- tells us all about it, and the goober tells his side of the story about how he "lost his balance," and then Grandfather struts around their suite at the Empire while Nate and Tripp worry about the king-sized, obviously staged coincidence: "Let's seize the day, gentlemen! Where are we with media? Time to call Couric, she owes me a favor! Anytime someone mentions the name Tripp van der Bilt it should be followed by the word HERO!" Nate pulls Grandfather aside and points out how unrealistic this storyline is -- which is always a bad sign when your characters have to do that, but especially tragic when it's fucking Nate -- and Grandfather awesomely and spookily goes, "Our family is really blessed. So is that man who almost died." But Nate and his bangs, who knows what they are thinking now?