"Exactly! I love that, who said that?"

Which: Don't ever do that. This is why writer characters are a bad idea, because at some point somebody you wrote is going to compliment somebody else you wrote on what you wrote for them to say or write. West Wing has exactly two flaws, and that is one of them, and it skrrks the record so fucking hard it doesn't even matter: Could be brilliant, could be stupid, either way you're still laughing at your own joke.

Distracting. Which is a bummer here, because the next part is a major -- and majorly sweet and touching -- thing for the show, which is when asked who said that about her, B smiles demurely and just says, "A friend of mine..."

Awww. So Eleanor hops up and -- to the Dig's "For All Your Sins," which is also brilliant -- grabs a stack of fashion magazines, plopping them down on the table, because this is Blair's Powerful Womanhood, right here: Fashion Editrix. "So we'll strategize in the morning?" Eleanor says, and heads to bed. It's so, so great and so, so satisfying that you could almost miss the way they lanterned and loopholed the fact that Blair has barely mentioned fashion since like Season One.

It's like one of those Family Circus maps of Billy's dotted-line perambulations: First you have Eleanor bring it up, then Penelope to bring the friction/Jenny references, then Dan to go on and on about it and provide the typical unquestionable fatherly input (bleh), and finally we full-circle back to Eleanor. A whole journey specifically to bring us back to this place, and more importantly make us think we were here the whole time. And that is some elegant storytelling. I really do love this episode so! Never mind the complaints.

Dan heads over to drop off Serena's useless affidavit and Serena's like, "I would say I'm sorry about today, but in my head that just sounds inadequate." So nuts to ya. Dan's magnanimous in the most fucking brutally Humphrey way -- literally he goes, "It's not your fault that I seem to drop everything just to make myself available to you" -- and so of course she pretends that it's her fault she takes him for granted, and furthermore that maybe she's testing him to see where he will give. Never. The answer is never, because boys are awfully idiotic for smelling so good.