Dan nods at her reference to "the recent not-fun event, uh, also known as the You Two Share A Brother Oh Wait No You Don't rollercoaster," which she links also to the Tiltawhirl called "Discovering This Fact Has Only Served To Bring Rufus And Lily Closer Than Ever." Dan thinks that Yale will somehow change their lives and he will be reinventing himself into somebody who's not... Who knows what he thinks. Nobody has realistic ideas about college in high school, especially not the Dans of the world. Then Lily and Rufus come sneaking down the stairs, and it squicks everybody out for some reason, and they get all nervous and Serena spends the rest of the scene staring at the kitchen island, and Lily goes, awesomely, "Well, now that this is all out in the open, maybe we can stop sneaking around. I mean, we've had the awkward run-in, and it isn't so bad. I don't know why we thought this would be so weird!" Which is exactly what I like to do when things are weird. But not because it makes things better.

Rufus and Lily, they would like the empty kitchen to know, are having the sex. And tonight, they will be having the charity gala at the opera. Rufus is trepidatious about it, because it is going to suck, and because he's so sweetly Brooklyn earnest that he thinks people who go to these things actually enjoy them. Whenever I think about this, like how the Goonies called money "rich people stuff," I always think about how it's like, "What happens when I marry the millionaire, actually?" and the best thing Kit De Luca can come up with is, you buy some horses and like a diamond. So whatever, they make out some more, and Eric comes stalking in and hisses, "I would say get a room, but yours is right above mine. Please try to remember that." They laugh and kiss and are secretly horrified. I like any old Eric, of course, but "bitchy opera queer" Eric is a whole new thing. It's sort of thrilling, but also kind of boring. Regular Eric is good too.

Chuck's ordering mysterious under-18s, imported: "I want them young and unstable." Scary, like how if you never know what the monster looks like it's twice as scary as if you did know. Jack laughs and says to cancel the order ("I already ate," he says, which is also mysteriously chilling), and they talk about how Chuck's been doing childish things to get him fired, like "having the freshman class of Brearley hold their annual sleepover" in his hotel room. They discuss how Jack's transition to leader might involve a dip in Bass stock, and Chuck tells him to go to hell, and they bitch at each other for awhile, and let us know they'll both be at the opera. Because what if every single character on this show were not somehow in attendance at the big Fourth Act event, no matter how twisted the narrative explanation, and the world therefore ended? Best to eliminate that suspense right up front: they're going to be at the opera. And in the spirit of this kindness: every single character on the show, just like the last 34 episodes of this show, is also going to be there.