El Capitan has never been healthier, and his son's a total pothead getting on in years, so it makes sense that he is Vanderbilt-hale on mile nine of their jog, while Nate is gasping like a gunshot victim. (Needless to say, neither of them are even slightly sweaty, but Nate does a good job of pretending to be winded for the purposes of this scene.) Nate's still nattering on about getting a job as ordered by the parole officer, and Captain's still not that interested, but then Nate mentions how he's Chuck's date to Thorpapalooza, and maybe meeting up after to celebrate the job the Captain's apparently gonna get today. The Captain's tail starts wagging the second Nate mentions Russell Thorpe, but red flags are not Nate's specialty, and anyway the Captain just ran off in the middle of this sentence to find a lady jogger to bone.

Dan shows up Chez Waldorf for the meetup with Serena that we all know will never happen, and B assumes he's there to pitch woo, but when he mentions Serena she just starts laughing in his face: "Well, she's not here to see you. Shocker. She's off scheming with Chuck. Disguises are involved, it can't end well."

Blair, come on. Serena + Disguises = 100% Magic Guaranteed. The very concept of Schemes was invented so we can watch Serena do them. But because the writers know we need maximum snarky cute banter to buy this storyline, the conversation between Dan and Blair -- like all conversations between them -- crackles with validly awesome, verbal swordplay.

"You do know that 'Powerful Woman' is not actually a career, right?" Neither is Serena van der Woodsen, but ten bucks says that you'll miss your interview waiting for her. Yet again. "Ten bucks whatever harebrained scheme you're cooking up blows up in your face, as per usual." Loitering lounge is upstairs. "Already there, sister." Git.

Way to allocate resources! I mean, if you could ever possibly believe that excellence is a finite resource, it would be best to put it right here, where you put it.

Eleanor walks in bitching at Laurel on the phone, possibly verbatim from the last scene, possibly the same footage for all I know, and Blair apologizes to her for demonstrating disrespect to Waldorf, with an eye toward starting her internship by dressing Indra Nooyi. Eleanor laughs in her face and fully hands her a gown meant for... Patti Blagojevich! (The relevance! Well. At least it wasn't that poor old Madoff beast.) "And you can style her, God knows she needs it." As a frequent punchline myself, I can tell you that this kind of thing hurts. Anyway, Eleanor's very pleased that Blair has deigned, and of course the second she's gone Blair starts moving Eleanor's schedule around so she can get Indra Nooyi naked and alone.