So it's Dan on the phone talking about whatever the fuck, Godard or Godot, asking why Rufus is getting dividends, and Lily says she took care of it so quit, and he's like, "Then what is Serena still 'taking care of' at the Russian Tea Room right now?" Because every episode's gotta have a Vanessa, I guess. I never thought I'd miss her quite this bad. Come back, Vanessa! (OW! I just got smacked by myself of the past!)

Once again, like getting off the elevator for the twentieth time today, we cut to Serena answering the phone all "WHAT?" Lily tells her to stop whatever she's doing immediately, but Serena just can't do that. "You can smile at Poppy all you want, Mom, but I'm not like that. It's not right." Lily tells her to shove "right" and "wrong" because Lily's in charge and this is not Serena's call, which I can't entirely disagree with again except for the actual morality and the fact that it's happening, and then just so Serena understands this isn't one of those "bendy world" times, tells her it's "nonnegotiable" just as Serena spots Poppy arriving, and hangs up.

Meanwhile, Rufus is lighting his stupid candles for his stupid drama event that nobody cares about, because God forbid Rufus ever just come across and say something without setting the scene, it's sort of one of the things I love best about him, and Lily makes a secretive phone call to hopefully fuck up whatever Serena's probably pulling off, while Rufus jerks open a random drawer looking for silverware and finds a random folder that just happens to contain the details of his separate $5K/mo payout for being a male prostitute of Lily. This is exactly why Bart had a vault; now we know.

"They say that numbers don't lie, and money talks..." GG says, and Sherilyn sits down with Poppy as the plan is go, and a crafty smile meets a sneaky crazy one: "But can G still speak P's language?" Commercial, and then Sherilyn's sipping Russian tea and gushing wide-eyed and asking Poppy if she's a Carrie, because she herself is a Charlotte -- I'll spare you the Jungian essay on why that's not only relevant but completely true, because I've talked about it before -- and Poppy nods uncomprehendingly, as though she's been so busy learning to be a cat burglar supermodel socialite that she managed not to see that show, and Serena watches them.