This week's episode saw a fancy fashion show, a drugged young thing in serious need of help, a couple struggling to get out of their rut and back into the groove, and lots and lots of hookers.

If there's one thing that Gossip Girl gets right (and there are many), it's the importance of teenagers. Teenagers are really just the best, most interesting, and most effectual people a person can ever know. Are you some bumbling idiot middle-ager who just doesn't get it? Well, call a teenager. Feeling loveless and lonely and terribly old? Call some teenagers and watch them make out for a while. They are just the balm of Gilead to this weary, crumbling modern world of ours. Why just look at the Gossip Girl kids!

Young Jenny. Why, she knows more about fashion than esteemed stage actress Margaret Colin! Yes, famous fashion designer Winksy Waldorf was back on the show tonight, conveniently in time for Jenny to start turning her life around. See she's been in a bad way this season — consorting with Canadians from the movie Air Bud, being disrespectful to her Sister-Father Rufus, telling school to stuff it in a sack — and she's ready to climb on out of her Jenny pit and reenter the bright world of good. And what better way to become a responsible citizen of teenage America than by studying hard in school and being nice to people joining the fashion industry. Winksy accepted Jenny's apology (even though Winksy totally tried to rip Jenny off, didn't she?) and rehired her, after some begging by Ma Humphrey.

The situation was this: Winksy is selling out. Yep, the economy has tumbled down the filthy rabbit hole that's under the outhouse and no one's buying high-end clothes anymore. So for her new Young Adult line (clearly the most important line) Winksy has decided to go low-rent and is trying to get a Wal-Mart-esque super emporium to carry the collection of black riding outfits and classroom-friendly bondage gear. Though this pains Winksy's daughter, Blair, she is willing to help out in any way she can. The way she can help out, of course, is teens. More teens, please. Hot oval-teens, please! I'll have the two teens value meal with a diet teen. To go! Well, OK, maybe they weren't teens exactly. Winksy wanted to show Mr. Walmart that she could sell her clothes in middle America, so she asked Blair to invite her friends from NYU to the fashion show, to prove that normal kids like the garments. Yes, because if there's any representative of middle America, it's an NYU freshman.

It was a great idea! There was only one problem. Blair doesn't have any NYU friends. Because if there's one thing that NYU kids don't like, it's girls with nice clothes and lots of money whose moms are famous fashion designers. So who's she going to bring? She can't tell her mom that she is failing at social college. Aha! An idea. Remember from a million episodes ago when there was that whole thing with prostitutes that lived in the NYU dorms? Well, yeah, Blair decided to call them. 30 of them. At $300/hour each. Last I checked, that's $9,000 an hour. That's a lotta clams! For just 30 clams. (BAZUMBO.) Well, OK, it wasn't all clams. There was a rentboy there too. So the fashion show goes and all the middle-American NYU hooker girls squeal with delight but Mr. Walmart shakes his big gray head and says "No. No." He does not like it. Why? Because, as he says to Blair, he didn't know that prostitutes were the Winksy Waldorf Designs way. Yes, he knew Blair had hired help. But how?

Well, it turned out that Mr. Walmart had a sex appointment with the male rentboy hooker gigolo. Yes! If you are scratching your head and asking "Wait, but why, if a gay hooker prostitute male that he had secretly slept with was in the room, would Mr. Walmart spill the beans and tell Blair that he knew there were hookers about?" then just hold perfectly still and Stephanie Savage will come and lobotomize you. It's a perfectly reasonably plot-based question to ask in any normal realm, but this is Gossip Girl we're talking about. Anyway, Blair found out that Mr. Walmart had been getting his roll backs on with Young Deuce Bigalow, and she blackmailed him into extending her mother an offer. (Because he's so cagey about someone finding out he sleeps with hookers, except for when he tells Blair that he sees a hoo— Stephanie, no! Noo!! Noooooo!!!) But in the end Winksy couldn't sell out, so she told Mr. Walmart no and he bow-legged outta there so fast you'd think he was headed to go have sex with a hottie male sex worker. Which he was. Blair then decided that she'd have more friends at Columbia, so look for that to happen.

Meanwhile Jenny was getting drugged by Caitlin Cooper from The OC. Yeah, I don't know. There was some bullshit about the Agnes model character from a while ago wanting to get revenge, so she had her bitchy friend put a few of Air Bud's Magic Delirium Capsules into Jenny's champagne (which sixteen year olds just drink, with impunity, while interning at fashion shows). "Wuhhh whoaaahhhhhh" Jenny said after gulping down the champagne. "The Jenster doesn't feel so goood...." And Agnes and her bitchy friends laughed and said "Come on, let's go get her raped." This is actually what they did! They took the Jenster, who was wearing a lampshade on her head and singing the Pina Colada song, to some random nightclub and dumped her at a bachelor party and were like "Have fun boys!" And, like, I know that Men Are Evil, but would anyone really, at a bachelor party surrounded by friends, be like "Awwww yeahhh" at the sixteen-year-old who can't even stand up and has a trickle of vomit running down her chin and has soiled herself and is quietly and obliviously mumbling monologues from William Inge plays to herself? I just don't think so. But sure enough, on Gossip Girl there was one jerk who was into it. So Jenny was going to get raped! Ha ha, what a fun plotline.

Luckily Nate came to her rescue and now Jenny is butt-crazy in love with him and will try to steal him from the lithesome Serena. Which, gross. Jenny and Nate doing it would be like mashing two Skipper dolls together.

Another thing that happened this episode was that Chuck and his mom were all fighting about the hotel stuff while Jack Bass the Jackass glowered with his dumb beard. Turns out mom's in love with Jack, and will do whatever he says, including dicking over her one and only orphaned son. Ed Westwick got to Act a lot in this episode, with tears and growling and stuff, so good for him. And then his mom was all "I'm not your mom" and Westwicky knew she was lying but he let her lie and drive away. And you know what? After Mulholland Drive came out I was all "Why didn't Laura Harring get famous like Naomi Watts got famous?" And then I realized last night that, oh, Laura Harring just can't really act all that well. That's all.

Dan and Vanessa were having problems. They're slowly starting to realize that they are the most boring people in the world, so they want to spice things up. Well Vanessa does, at least. So her strategy was to dress up like Grace Kelly in Rear Window and, in a sexy cavewoman purr, to tell Dan "You can rear me in my window." Dan's eyes bulged out and an owwoooga car horn sounded and then Ma Rufus showed up wearing his big farm dress and bonnet, throwing seeds to the chickens and saying "Come on now, git. Come on now, shoo, shoo." He proceeded to hang out with Vanessa and Dan even though they were on a sexy date. Because Rufus is sad and lonely. What a dump. What a sad thing. In the end Dan convinced Vanessa that they can still do the same old things they did as friends and be romantic at the same time. The romantic part comes when she delicately alfreds his hitchcock. That never happened when they were friends! Vanessa nodded her heavy, fur-matted head and that was that. Rufus watched from a peephole for a spell and then turned and looked out the window. Storm was brewing. So he went out to the porch and called out to Jenny. "Jenny, you come back in this house now, you hear? Storm's a'comin' and I don't want you catchin' your death of cold and making Doc Turner come all the way out here to check up on ya. And close the gate on your way in, you know how the pigs get in this weather." He looked off for a while, waiting for Jenny, then shook his head and tsked and trundled back into the house and sat down in his favorite rocking chair and closed his eyes and said "Lord above. Lorrrd above."

And that was pretty much the episode. If you looked closely you could see Erik a few times briefly in the episode. There he was as a friend of the male sex hooker, clutching his hand in a vain attempt at genuine intimacy. There he was, bewigged and glad in a black handbag dress, walking the runway for Winksy's show. There he was, sitting glumly at the bachelor party bar, muttering to himself about life and love and men and marriage. And there he was outside the Humphrey house, a small speck in the distance, running against the storm-streaked sky. He was heading to the barn, we think, for shelter. But we do not know if he made it. We just do not know.

OK BRIAN. How'd everyone do in the rankings this week? Are they in Barney's territory or Ames land?

Thanks, Richard. As always we have a special shoppers who fared well, but most everyone ended up in Filene's Basement. Here are the running tallies.

Dorota:
Fashion Points: Maid outfits come in maternity sizes: +2
Power Play: Knows how to negotiate rates for a hooker: +1
Total: 3
Season to Date: 52
Power Position: Up

Blair:
Family Secrets: Her mother still loves her, even if she's a loser: +1
Fashion Points: That bowler hat: -1, The off-color zipper up the back of her dress: -1
Power Play: Has no friends to bring to mommy's fashion show: -2, She's still a big shot at Columbia: +1
Social Schemes: Has to hire a hooker to be her friend: -2, Can only find a hooker named after a university: -1, Her plan fails and the guy from Conwell's knows she hired hookers: -2, Uses the Conwell's guy love of (hot!) gay hookers against him: +3
Total: -4
Season to Date: 30
Power Position: Down

Chuck:
Family Secrets: His mother isn't really his mother: -2, No, wait, she is!: +2, But she's leaving him: -2, But she's an evil, manipulative simpleton, so it's probably for the best: +2
Fashion Points: Purple!: -1, No one wears a suit quite like Chuck Bass: +2
Power Play: Kicked out of his own hotel: -2, His army is Blair, stupid Nate, and skanky Serena. He's doomed: -1, His mother loves his Evil Uncle Jack more than she loves him or his money: -2
Social Schemes: His mother and Evil Uncle Jack totally dick him over: -1, He has got a plan and a formidable ally in Blair. Shit is about to get good: +2
Total: -2
Season to Date: 23
Power Position: Up

Nate:
Personality Flaw: After all those years hanging out with Chuck, he should know what a hooker looks like: -1
Power Play: Knows how to use technology to save Jenny: +1, Rescues Jenny from a horny hedge funder: +2, He even gives her a little pep talk and lifts her gothy spirits: +1
Sexual Intrigue: Serena taught him what role play is: +2
Social Schemes: Devised a plan to end Evil Uncle Jack: +2, It fails: -1, Why do he and Serena think that they can pull off a scam like they're Chuck and Blair?: -1
WTF: Is it just us or did Nate get like smart and cool over night?: +2
Total: 7
Season to Date: 8
Power Position: Up

Rufus:
Personality Flaw: Finally admits there is more to life than waffles: +2, Makes them anyway: -1
Power Play: His idea of grounding Jenny involves letting her leave the house go to work, get drugged, get felt up by a drunk hedge funders, come home stoned, and not even notice that any of this happened: -3, Invades Dan's Brooklyn pussy den: -1
Sexual Intrigue: No wonder Dan is so clueless about women with Rufus as his role model: -1
WTF: Now that Lily is gone, he's the designated ignorer of poor gay Eric: -1
Total: -5
Season to Date: -10
Power Position: Even

Stupid Jenny:
Personality Flaw: Leaves a model alone with a bag full of drugs. That is never a scenario that ends well: -2, Wow, she really pulled it together to keep Rufus from finding out she was stoned: +1
Power Play: Gets Elinor's shade, but also gets a second chance: Even, Underage drinking: +1 (we've all been there, honey), For some reason we can't figure out, Nate still likes her: +1
Sexual Intrigue: Even a bunch of horny, drunk hedge funders don't want to sleep with her: -1
Social Schemes: Evil model Agnes is going to fuck her over big time: -2, She lets an ugly model and a bitter stylist ruin her big return to fashion: -2, Drugged!: -3, Left to get date and statutory raped in a room full of horny, drunk hedge funders: -2, Knows everyone hates her, and knowing is half the battle: +1
Total: -8
Season to Date: -20
Power Position: Down

Vanessa:
Family Secrets: Everyone knows she's dating Dan: -1, The lady dreads seemed to be tamed: +2
Fashion Points: The Grace Kelly outfit looks like a Halloween costume she threw together out of the wardrobe of a girl who is a foot shorter than she is: -2
Personality Flaw: Hasn't seen a movie made this century. Smoke a doobie and go see Hot Tub Time Machine like a regular college student, would you!: -1
Sexual Intrigue: Doesn't know how to spice up her love life: -1, Gets a lesson from Serena. Next thing you know she'll be wearing tiny, tiny dresses and fucking everything that moves: -2, This wouldn't be the worst thing: +2, Lets Dan convince her that not taking her in public and only buying her noodles is actually a good thing: -2
Total: -5
Season to Date: -20
Power Position: Down

Lily:
WTF: She doesn't even warrant a mention this episode and forgot to leave instructions about the care of her mute gay son: -2
Total: -2
Season to Date: -26
Power Position: Up

Dan:
Family Secrets: Everyone knows he's dating Vanessa: -1, They still like him, which is amazing: +1
Personality Flaw: Wants to be a boring married person and stay home and watch movies. You're 19. At least take your girlfriend out and get drunk!: -2
Sexual Intrigue: Serena is giving his girlfriend slutting lessons, which can only mean there is lots of sex and whipped cream in his future: +2 Has no clue what women want, whether it's Serena, Olivia (we miss you!), or Vanessa: -3, Thinks what he and Vanessa had was enough: -1, He has Vanessa whipped! She fell for that whole "what we did as friends was enough" bullshit. That is some serious scamming, Dan: +4
Total: 0
Season to Date: -30
Power Position: Up

Serena:
Personality Flaw: Looks down on hookers. Hello, Serena. They have probably had less sex than you have, and they're smart enough to charge for it: -2
Sexual Intrigue: Giving lessons on being a slut to Vanessa. Finally, she uses her powers for good: +2, She and Nate are not Blair and Chuck and their schemes always fail. When will she learn this?: -2, Her boyfriend is off saving a little girl instead of attending to her insatiable needs: -1
Total: -3
Season to Date: -51
Power Position: Up