Byron Montgomery shows up, to Ella's wary smiling surprise, and she explains the rules of the danceathon to him while Ian's announcing the beginning of the contest. Ella is, of course, in charge of like half the things going on. Including not giving him a fucking inch, thank God, and in her usual classy way. Ella being the one person who has solved the self-contradicting binomial Teen Girl equation, which is how to be sexy enough to get what you want but not so sexy that you're indicted for a crime nobody's ever actually committed.

Simone shows up and Aria -- who is requesting the Rescues from the DJ on a signup sheet, although how great would it have been if she'd requested the Ella/Byron song? -- starts getting weird about it. Apparently she and Ezra had a fabulous coffee date, talking about world events and classic literature and, I don't know, Iron & Wine or dumpster pools or whatever old people think is hip. The Cobrasnake. "They did not have English teachers like that when I was here," Simone gushes, and Aria digs her nails into her palms like a tiny big-eyed stigmatic.

Spencer splits to get the key, and Hanna notes poor Lucas in the corner before meeting up with Caleb and Emily to complete the phreak transaction. Once Emily's got the phone in her mitt she runs off like Gollum and Hanna sticks around to yell at Caleb for charging her double. Hanna's all about money but especially right now: "Considering you charged her three times the normal amount that phone should answer itself and have a built-in lipstick!" Hanna's a good friend, in the oddest ways. He tells her to call customer service with her black-market complaints and she calls him an ass, and then they have the coolest microconversation:

Hanna: "Always working an angle, aren't you?"
Caleb: "Like you're not?"
Hanna: "You don't know the first thing about me!"
Caleb: "No, you don't know the first thing about you."

Caleb! The pith is strong in this one. He's like the Greek chorus of Girl World. I don't even know what he means exactly but it's a strong indication that we need to pay attention to the stuff he says. If Toby were capable of expressing himself I think he's say the same stuff, essentially, but since he's hamstrung by being looney-tunes, and Mona's hamstrung by being an insane bitch, it's nice to have somebody around telling the true things. (Well, about people other than Sean, Lucas.)

And speaking of Lucas, the fix is in: $200 in tax-free A money for every dance. Oh, that's good. That's even better than the cupcakes, actually.