In the meantime I need some mean time
To break down the defenses of our enemies
One less person in dress rehearsal
One less hopeless dreamer

Serena explains to Dan that she's only being cool about the Georgina thing because dating Carter and seeing the way he's changed -- the way he keeps globe-hopping for her benefit, and treating her like a person and not a volatile chemical agent like everybody else -- has given her a new belief in folks. Dan says dating Carter is just dating Chuck without the nouveau riche part, and she laughs and punches his arm, then reminds him to check for ice picks and closet lurkers. "Piece of advice?" she says, and not for the last time, "You should make sure she knows that. Because if Georgina likes somebody, she will go from zero to crazy before you know it." And she should know. She wishes him luck and he floats away somewhere, and Carter bounds serendipitously onto the scene without so much as a courtesy cut.

Carter kisses Serena wonderfully and asks her to spend the weekend with him in the Downing: A "weekend of room service and white fluffy robes?" She reminds him that he's been cut off, and he grins. "Where there's a white fluffy robe, there's a way." She stutteringly makes the decision to step things up and invite him to do things with the whole crazy family, which we know from previous boyfriends is a really big deal for her, because her family is crazy and because she knows what being an outsider is like. And of course maybe Dan will pretend to be a cater-waiter and ruin a holiday or something.

Carter's happy to be asked, but before they can discuss it some girl jumps up out of nowhere, serendipitously onto the scene, and flirtily calls him the Carter Baizen she hooked up with at Brandy Library last month. He assures her that he is not "Carter Baizen who drinks his single malt with one ice cube and claimed to be leaving with the Peace Corps the next day," but allows as how the guy sounds charming. The girl Aubrey slaps him and runs away, SAG card now firmly in hand. Serena starts getting that sinking feeling she often feels, and asks if this is a case of mistaken identity. "Obviously. You know I take my scotch neat." Heh. Serena rolls her eyes and he promises it wasn't real, whatever it was. He tries to get her back on the invite train, because he really does want to do the meet the family thing, but she rolls her eyes all over the place and flounces off. He smolders manfully, as Carter usually does.