It may not have been entirely intentional, but that was one of the funniest episodes this show's ever done. Kudos to everybody for getting through it with a mostly straight face. And hurrah for the return of Lily, who says nothing better than anybody I can think of.

Dan, attempting to find and quash his book's secret publisher, accidentally prods his old mentor Noah Shapiro into outing him through a patently ridiculous scheme involving plagiarism, dinner parties, and an agent with unbelievable amounts of free time on her hands. Once the jig is up and he gets an advance copy, though, he starts getting into it.

Otherwise, Dan is up everybody's ass as usual: He won't leave Blair alone about finding out who her babydaddy is, and he won't stop trying to make Chuck feel things. He buys him a puppy and pretty much offers him a blowjob for some reason, making Nate jealous, but in the end when Blair reveals the royal father of her baby -- or is he? -- Chuck finally breaks down in tears, cuddling his puppy in bed. It is bonkers. The dog's name is Monkey, which is a treat for people who have suffered through the books, but the sheer bullshittiness of the moment is a treat for everybody.

Really, though, Dan should have been all up in Nate's Koolaid this week, of all weeks, because without Dan's obsessive micromanaging of everybody's life, Nate ends up in some sort of muckraking social networking sex cult with Elizabeth Hurley where he does gotcha WASPing and steals people's phones and who knows what all. As far as ludicrous plotlines go, this would normally come out on top, but honestly with this episode it's all equal amounts of crazy and nonsensical.

Serena, not satisfied with having kidnapped the fake Cousin Charlie back to the UES, tempts her with various Serena Machinations -- a dress, some champagne -- into living in the now-freed Lily's house... But not before some second-guessing puts Max back on Ivy's trail. Going off the bounced check from last week, Aunt Carol flies up to get rid of her faux daughter, but a well-meaning pep talk from Blair gets Ivy to turn the tables on Carol with lines like, "Everything sparkles here!" Anyway, she's inherited the Serena-Jenny-Serena bedroom at PRADA, and Aunt Carol skulks off into the darkness with or without trust fund access reinstated. It's pretty bananas.

On the good side, though, you have Louis's joy at his impending fatherhood, and a pretty solid and sweet, sad scene between Chuck and Blair when she gives him the news. Excellent acting all around, as usual, and a pretty complicated situation that gets the best out of both players. But in an hour of violently wheeling, bizarre motivations and witty-sounding non sequiturs at every turn, it shines even more beautifully.

Next week: Dan's book comes out, causing everybody to go wildly insane. Oh, and of course he made Nate gay in the book and implied that he had sex with Blair the night of their big kiss. Of course Dan did that.