If my life were a country song, that would be the title.

Lily drops the important information that the Bass sale is in a very delicate stage and it's vital they all present a unified family front. I mean, we know that and it's always true, but it's cunning the way she says it, so that we keep thinking maybe Thorpe is the buyer, while simultaneously thinking B) You never have done that not once, and C) Yeah, sure hope Serena doesn't come stomping into that scenario like a pair of wrecking balls.

Anyway, Lily and Rufus glug some champers and take off, Rufus buttle-scuttling behind with Madame's jacket and huffing to himself at being ignored -- which I am not making up and which was a ranking high point in this very fine episode -- and then Eric takes a call from the concierge at the Palace, who has just found Judge John Stephens' cufflinks in his room, because see, Lily was hiding him there the whole time Serena was touring Virginia wine and horse country with Mario Batali, which even mean little Eric thought was beneath Lily.

Dumb Dorota ruins Blair's whole Indra Nooyi highjack in about three seconds of Eleanor pressure, so by the time Blair strong-arms the doorman into breaking down her hotel door, there's just a creepy note on a creepy black-matte mannequin in the creepy empty room that says, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID. MOM.

Isn't that so scary? So Dan has changed into his grandfather's tie -- which S immediately and cutely and apologetically notices, although here's hoping she doesn't figure out why -- but doesn't really want to talk about it, because he's got to do the sad-eyes thing of Why Do You Hurt Me. Serena tries to explain to him how there are infinite choices and glamorous careers in PR or government around every corner so don't stress about it, but then he says the most awful Humphrey thing of all the Humphrey Things he's ever said:

"James Franco's giving a reading of some of his short stories at Housing Works."

Although to be fair -- and possibly still riding a Blair-induced cleverness high -- he follows up with, "The Writers House agent is going to be there, so I'm going to go and try to woo him... The agent, not James Franco."

I just got the most smashing idea. Wait'll you hear it. Even Penn Badgley nearly cracks up at the cuteness of that line.