Everybody's so excited about the first day of school! Except for Blair, who doesn't know why she should even bother if Gossip Girl's offline. Eric, on the other hand, has a feeling it's because she has something especially awful in store for Serena, and possibly everybody. Guess who's right? Guess who's always right? (...Well, not this time, exactly.)

First day of school means fresh new secret societies! Like Hamilton House, where Penelope (hi!) and Juliet (yay!) are legacies. I still have no idea how old Juliet's supposed to be. Anyway, it turns out that Blair gets into the club and Serena doesn't, but S knows damn well that Juliet's up to something, so it becomes this weird conspiracy that makes S look paranoid and almost causes Blair and Serena to split up, before they realize they are grown-ass women now and can actually talk about things.

Juliet's duplicity is revealed and, with Lily's help, she's ousted from Hamilton House and must console herself with Nate, who after three and a half months has finally noticed that he's angry at Serena for kissing Dan that time. Wait until he finds out Juliet's actually willing to sleep with him just to do some kind of bizarre conspiracy.

But really, none of this matters and was never the point because Juliet's deal is much weirder, obviously, and involves separating Serena from everybody in the NJBC, even Dan. Maybe they think she actually lives on popularity and will waste away. Maybe that's true, actually. But hey, if you're thinking Juliet's secret avengee is somebody we know, think again: It's her hot boyfriend, in white-collar jail, that we've never seen before.

(Carter Baizen victim? Somebody else from boarding school, as my bud Sophie suggested? He's about that age. Oh, did Serena accidentally rig a Ponzi scheme while she was in boarding school -- between all those "hot chocolate drinking" contests -- and this guy took the fall? Or is he somehow part of the Gabriel/Poppy story? It's so exciting! Pete Fairman was into drugs, but Juliet mentioned him tonight, so maybe that factors in. I would love it if somehow Georgina were still to blame for everything...)

Speaking of, these dumbos in DUMBO finally notice that Georgina never came back from the spa when Gossip Girl shows pictures of her sunning in St. Bart's. Vanessa and Dan decide to move in together to raise the baby like any good pair of Brooklyn idiots, even after Rufus's extensive medical knowledge proves that it's not their baby. Then Georgina comes home just rife with lies and crazy stories and takes off with the baby again, so now Dan has to live with Vanessa for no reason.

Apparently Eric has revised his entire opinion about Jenny and Chuck since last year and has turned into one of those overinvested hysterics who remembers a rape happening that never happened, so he runs to Rufus and infects him with four years' worth of self-righteous idiocy. Of course this comes prêt-à-porter in Rufus's favorite color, so no problem. It's not like Jenny's opinion about any of this matters.

There's a bunch of fooferaw and mess at FNO but everything works out okay in the end. Eva's totally fine with her boyfriend's rich history of raping, Eric and Rufus decide to show a modicum of fucking respect for Jenny's ownership of her own sexuality finally, and Lily... Well, you know Lily could give a shit, she just loves Chuck. So that's fine.

And finally -- after staging a fake fight for some reason that Gossip Girl reroutes to fuck with Juliet, who is stealing her thunder -- Blair and Serena realize that they really can have it all: Dorota's been abusing decorators all week to get Serena's new bedroom in Blair's house (Eleanor's house?) all fixed up. Which means everybody has moved in with each other except for Nate, who is somehow okay with Eva being the third wheel Chez Bass... for now.

What a fun outing! Stylish, clever, quick-moving and twisty. Next week: More. XOXO.