Serena enters Chez Waldorf to greetings from Dorota, who's sitting in the parlor with Blair. "Anybody notice the weather today? Take a look outside, B. my First Response would be that the sky is a...Clear Blue Easy." Blair rolls her eyes ferociously and dismisses Dorota. Serena worries at her about finally hooking up with Nate, and admits that she went to Chuck, to see if he could talk some sense into her. She's still shuddering about the whole Deal With The Devil vibe of that, and Blair just gets pissed that she went around her total oblivious denial like that. "I was trying to help you, B. I took a public bullet for you, let another rumor about me run rampant. The whole school heard!" She tears up: "Even Dan." Which caused problems so tangential to Blair's actual problems that Serena's not even about to address them right now. So again, you have somebody performing the behaviors of love and trying not to say it out loud, because the truest answer is the one that Blair would never buy: "You are hurting, which is hurting me, because I love you, so you have to fix this so we both stop hurting." So Serena has to just keep throwing random shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, because she loves her friend and still hasn't figured out a way around Blair's weird coping mechanisms.

Eleanor enters and Serena takes off, telling her to ask B what's going on, because her version of the story is always better. There's almost a kind of jealousy here, throughout, that's really fascinating: from both sides, they know that Serena doesn't have the option of denial anymore. She went into free-fall and realized that actual life is just like the burlesque that Blair's dancing now, only harder. You cannot talk someone into introspection, or self-reliance, because that shit doesn't sell -- so what do you do when somebody you love just turns off reality altogether? Irresistible Serena has reality and a complete lack of fear on her side, but immovable Blair has the strongest will we've ever seen. Eleanor and Blair smile: Blair's never been better, but Serena sure has. Eleanor perches and asks point-blank if they're fighting about Blair's illness, which she knows firsthand is back. "I'm very stressed. And with you and Serena down my throat," so to speak, "I can hardly think straight, never mind keep food down." Eleanor offers to send B on a mini-break to Lyon, to visit her father, and Blair's will towers, intensely: "Maybe this summer." Eleanor orders her daughter to finish her breakfast, and Blair reluctantly pops a grape in her mouth.