It was thievery most foul on The City last night. Of ideas and of increasingly-less-attractive Australian boyfriends. The Wicked Witch of the Upper East (Who Lives on the Lower West) and Jay were the culprits.

It's good to dispense with useless, youthful frippery so we'll cover Erin and Girl Model's bit first. Basically they had one scene where Girl Model was upset about leaving her cheating, lying, thumb-lipped boyfriend, Male Model, to live alone in their gauzy loft. She hoped that it didn't hurt the relationship, the fact that she'd just up and left their domicile after only a few short weeks. I'm sure it won't! Everything will be fine! You'll meet cute in some modely way, like on a catwalk ("You're here? Omigod." "Wait, you're here?? Too weird.") or while sleeping in one of Marc Jacobs' hermetically sealed model drawers ("Wait, you're here?? Too weird." "You're here? Omigod.") Then the clank clank clank of their metal joints will resound through the night as they creak and brittle their way into primary sex position and the hum of their dual HVAC systems becomes a booty holler of this new binary future.

Meanwhile, a mile underground, our noble Eloi Whitney was being held captive by the ravenous Morlocks that live below the 34th Street F stop. Unsure what to do, she began singing her show's themesong, "I Wanna Be Rich, Famous and Stupid, Ooo Girl Don't You Want that Too?" Horrified by this piercing, guttural trill, the terrified Morlocks cast her back up to the the above world, where she came belching out of one of those orange-and-white steam tubes. Luckily she was just in time for a fashions appointment with Olivia and work. Their mission, should they choose to accept it, was to make failed actress Jessica Alba somehow look pretty on the cover of Elle magazine. All they had at their disposal was rack after rack of Diane von Furstenberg garments ("premium, grade A shit" as Diane calls it). Most of us, faced with this impossible task, would have yelled to the high heavens and either blinded ourselves with safety pins or performed ritual harakiri right there on Diane's lacquered floor. But no, these two brave cosmonauts soldiered on.

Whitney, being a barn swallow freshly released from its cage, was attracted to a shiny floral dress/jacket/skirt/pantaloons thing. Olivia sneered at it and said it was too matchy-matchy. (Ironically, there was a Decepticons logo next to her head when she said it.) But they put it on their "maybe" rack anyway and pressed on, their fingers bleeding, black soot coughing out of their lungs, their eyes gone bloodshot and yellowy. It was three hard days later when they finally arrived at an outfit, basically the bright floral one Whitney had originally swooped over and pecked at.

Then Whitney went to dinner with Jaybird and they chatted about things like What Do You think About Things and Are Our Feet Ugly? Also Whitney pressured Jay El to leave her apartment because they weren't ready to live together and she didn't want him to resent her. There you go ladies. There's your lesson. If you want independence from your man and want him out your damn house, tell him that you don't want him to hate you. Not that you are worried you might hate him. No, that would just get your petticoats and fancy handbags in a snarl. No, let him make the decision not to hate you. It's the best gift you can give him.

Back at Fashion Emergencies HQ, Whitney and Olivia, bandaged and slowly healing from their ordeal, were summoned by the fashion industry's typical "our hair is the same color as our skin" group of DVF higher ups. There was good news. J'Alba had selected their outfit for the cover and here it was. "Now, who pulled the winning outfit?" asked one of the Skintone Rangers. "MEEEE!! IT WAS ALL MEEEEEE!!!!" shrieked Olivia as she stabbed Whitney with a brooch. Well, actually, she just took credit for the jacket and gave Whitney the shirt. Which is completely NOT how it went down. So Whitney made her surprised cow eyes and stared hard at Olivia, but Olivia didn't notice or pretended not to and the episode stammered on.

Jay is gross and likes to go to clubs with Thumblips. All of their favorite clubs are loud and lit like a Joel Schumacher movie, which to me is a version of hell. Anyway, Thumblips just gazed at the girls walkin' by while Jay sidled up to his ex-girlfriend. This ex-girlfriend just has this amazing knack for popping up everywhere! It's so incredible! The world is so tiny and strange and mysterious. I went to an election night party in Oakland back in November. And I'd never been there before. And I shit you not, there were three different people there who I'd known at various stages in my life. One I'd gone to grammar school with for two years. Another I'd done a summer theatre program with when I was 15. And another I'd met once, a friend of a friend, at a party in college. It was so bizarre. And this, Jay constantly running into this ex-girlfriend, is exactly like that! Except I'm pretty sure there wasn't a camera crew at Betty Sue's Oakland Election Night party. Pretty sure.

Anyway. Jay walked up to her and yelled: "You wanna get outta here?" Yes, was her answer.

Whitney meanwhile was having dinner with her ladygals, that trio of Girl Model and Emily and the other one who no one can keep track of, what with her brown hair and unremarkable everything. So Whitney bitched about Olivia the credit-poacher and the ladies advised that she get down and roll in the mud with her. Your boyfriend, sitting next to you half-asleep while watching this, suddenly perked up and said "Wait... whut?" But then you patted his knee and said "No, no honey. Not that." And he drifted back to farty, Sports Night snoozery.

Then there was a party for the magazine cover, featuring Elle stylist Joe Zee and his myriad pussycats. Diane was there too, milling around the buffet table as old people are wont to do, yammering on about Lord knows what. Olivia kept saying "I pulled that look!" and it was soooo annoying and Whitney just cow eyed at her and sparks started flying from the merry-go-round in her head and flames... flames... on the side of her face. But, you know, she didn't do nothin'. Because we're just setting the stage for the inevitable Whitney vs. Olivia finale main event, when Cousin Jub-Jub is finally neutralized by one of Emily's Grand Suplexes and the waterfall at Rosa Mexicana runs red with socialite blood. I can't wait.

After the annoying party, and after a romantic Chinatown dinner with Jay where he yawned and said he was tired (from all of his ex-girlfriend sex making!), Whitney rambled off to see Girl Model at a cake store. There they sat and Girl Model told Whitney that she'd heard from Thumblips that the ex-girlfriend was intertwined with Jay last night. Whitney said "I knew he was tired, he could barely form a proper sentence." Which was wonderful and hilarious, given what show we're talking about. Anyway, she was upset and several realistic-looking tears dribbled down her face and Girl Model looked at her longingly and said "I have seven programming functions for 'Kill'. But none... for 'Love.' End communication." As Girl Model powered down and Whitney began to disassemble her, she cried even more and the cameras swooped up past all the busy stories of all the gray buildings and up into the wintry sky. And from that distance, we were reminded of a few things.

Jay will soon be leaving, and really wasn't there that long anyway. And the magazine cover? Turns out that they didn't use "Olivia's outfit" anyway. So what was all the fuss about, really. The world is tiny, yes, but it's also huge. And the world is strange and mysterious, sure, but it's also wonderful, and open, and readable. Like a book. Like an Elle magazine.

Like a reality show script that says, in simple black letters, "Enter, swathed in wicked green light, the Ex-Girlfriend."