Nate silently leaves with Chuck, and Blair is bummed, and then I guess she leaves or something, so now it's just Dan and Serena in Chuck's bedroom. She wants him to come with on the road trip, she really does, but he's all, "I have to write" and she's all, "But I'm going to be having sex with you obviously" and Dan goes, "It feels like this trip is something you might need to do on your own." Out of nowhere Serena goes, "I've been trying so hard to prove to the world that I've changed, but I think the person that doubted the most was me. I'm gonna work on that." Dan wishes her luck and kisses her and they are very sweet and she's disappointed but on some kind of Eat Pray Love journey upstate so she'll forget about it soon enough.

While Diddy sings that song about how his illegitimate children sometimes make him feel sorry for himself and isn't that a fucking pickle, Nate calls the Captain to say that he will not be going to any halfway house but in fact will be living at the Empire, he's already told the parole board the address and he's currently buying his dad clothes. It's very sweet and the Captain cries so manfully, but that's another shitstorm I can't wait to see. So hmm, you've got Rufus and Lily in an uproar, Chuck facing off against Jack again, and the Captain living in Nate's house. I wonder if it's going to be a boy-heavy back half of the season? Daddy issues and such for the boys for once? Usually it swings back and forth between Blair and Serena, but that's more dads than have ever been involved. Maybe Jules has a brother named Jim and he'll be out for vengeance.

Blair comes back to the Empire, where Dan is now completely alone, just tooling around in this house he's never been inside before, doing dishes and feeling lonely and I presume creepy. They discuss how they'll be spending the holiday break together -- Nate's going to be with Grandfather, Eric in Gstaad with Elliot -- and make a movie date despite discussing not spending any time together at all. Then they do the dishes, which Blair washes in L'Occitane shampoo, because she is a lunatic. Shit gets major cute.

And then, as GG says goodbye for the holidays, and Nate tries to live his last December of being welcome in the Vanderbilt house to the fullest, and Blair and Dan get a sudden strange feeling like a rollercoaster dropping out from under them, and Chuck goes off to do the worst thing he can think of, and Juliet Sharp returns to the wheezy garrets and derivative architecture of the only home she'll ever deserve, and Jenny sews dollies of all her friends and then takes them apart again, and Vanessa swings softly back and forth from the highest rafter of the communal barn, and Georgina Sparks tries to find a buyer for her next baby, and Rufus scowls all the way across our great nation, and Lily and CeCe drink all the wine and CeCe welcomes her at last into the dark Rhodes sisterhood, Serena heads to Staten Island in her sparkliest dress and three best sweaters and jackets, with just one thing on her agenda: Turning the first guy who ever said no into just another one of the ones who said yes... And maybe lived to tell the tale, but probably not. XOXO.