Blair reaches the ballroom, jerking her head all over the place looking for Dan. She finally spots him and heads over, smoothing her dress down and getting that scary smile again. They shake hands and she introduces herself as "Blair Waldorf, Serena's friend." He asks if she's seen her, and Blair lights up like a Christmas tree. "Yeah, actually." Blair's hilarious this whole part, because honestly all she wants in this whole world is to stir shit and tell Dan what's going on, and things keep happening and she keeps getting interrupted, so then she just waits her turn to speak, and starts trying to tell him again. And people keep running up and complicating the issue, but she's not going to speak until she has the floor and the perfect opportunity, so every time the brass ring comes around she tries to grab it and create maximum drama, and every time she misses it she just grins and waits for it to come around again. Her appetite for destruction is truly awesome. You know, probably my most favorite thing about Kaitlin Cooper was her love of train wrecks and freakshows like Taylor and Bullitt, and that same joy and adoration for disaster is all over Blair's face this entire time. It's like her condescension and excitement with the...personification of desperation that Jenny is becoming, times a hundred. I love a girl who loves a spectacle.

Anyway, imagine this complicated engine with lots of moving parts and gears and blades, and everything's spinning: that's brunch right now. S and N come running up just as D's paying attention to B, who explains that S has been in the Upchuck Suite waiting for B's boyfriend, and of course S and N protest and N tries to explain once again the whole "talk about not talking" thing, which B again pronounces stupid, and then D asks if this has to do with N showing up in the Palace lobby this morning, which causes B to briefly lose composure, and then Chuck walks up smarming irrelevantly, which causes D to combust irrelevantly, as designed, and then ask once again what's really going on, giving B her fourth opening to spit it out, but S starts making that crying face and begs her to stop, so B gives the fake smile and offers S the chance to tell the story herself, but Chuck offers to do it for her, so then everybody yells because how did Chuck know, and all he will say is "I know everything," because he is a lurker and a pervo, and Dan's like, "And apparently I know nothing," which causes everybody to be like "duh," and then S starts trying to explain and apologize about how it was a long time ago and whatever, and Chuck reframes this as equivocation and speaks with the voice of fate: "Look, Serena, stop trying to pretend you're a good girl. So you slept with your best friend's boyfriend! I kind of admire you for it." Because he's the voice of grossness, but also -- I think we can agree -- because if you sleep with Nate, you're Chuck's hero, because I don't know if you get this yet, but Chuck's kind of a homo about Nate. Sorry, "Nathaniel."