On last night's episode we saw the terrible lemur's return of one Jennifree Q. Humphrey, Brooklyn's most hated daughter, the Sephora eyeliner department's most loyal customer, and our favorite character. And by "favorite" we mean "make her go away."

I wish I could say that murder was the case, because who likes Jenny and it would be interesting if someone (Vanessa?) murdered her, but no. As it turns out, fashion was the case, as it often is with episodes that are Jenny-centric. Remember a few weeks or years or decades or who knows anymores ago that Chuck made a seeeeecret phone call to someone RE: Jenny Humphsalot? Well it turns out that the seeeecret phone call was to none other than Chuck's trusted vizier and racquetball partner Tim Gunn. Chuck wanted Jenny back in town so he could use her to totally fuck with Blair, because he's trying to ruin Blair's life. Now, if I was trying to ruin someone's life, I would probably frame them for murder or push them off the top of a tall building, but Chuck has chosen to go a slightly different route. He figures he can bring Jenny to town, thus making Blair mad, and presto change-o, life ruined. Or something? I have no idea. The evil, Valmontian scheming on this show actually never makes sense, ever.

But anyway, Jenny comes to town because she suddenly got a mysterious call from Tim Gunn's people, saying they want to meet with her, possibly about a recommendation to Parson's School of Cigarette Smoking. So this is a big deal. A big enough deal, in fact, to break Blair's Banning. Yeah, ugh, farts, clump, stomp, clank. Blair "banned" Jenny from Manhattan because of who cares, so Jenny technically shouldn't be meeting with Tim Gunn, because if Blair sees her, she can legally shoot Jenny on sight. Or something. Why is this plot line? Just why is it? If Taylor Momsen doesn't want to be on the show anymore, than have her get shot in the face by Vanessa. Don't have her "banned" from Manhattan like it's a real thing. And don't have all the other characters be all "Oh, right, you're banned. What're you gonna dooo???" Because then we'll be forced to assume this whole show is some sort of King of Hearts-esque story about escaped mental patients. Maybe it is? That would be kind of fun.

So yeah, Jenny is back in Manhattan to have tea with Tim Gunn and Blair finds out and she is furrrrious. Just so angry. So she stomps into Jenny's house, because hey why not, and yells at her. "What are you doing here? I banned you! Where's my pistol? Someone get me my pistollll!!" But no one was there to get her her pistol, so she was forced to negotiate with Jenny. The blonde gets a day-pass for the island, but can only go to her meeting with TG, then straight home. That's it. In exchange, Jenny will not return to New York for the holidays. Oh, nice. "You have authority over me, I recognize that, so I will not see my brother and father on Christmas. Because you have decreed it, powerless 20-year-old." Banning. Really, guys? Really. Yup, banning. Blair of course doesn't trust Jenny to go straight to the interview, so she sends her little spies out to follow the Humphs around town. Meanwhile, Chuckles has come by the house and surreptitiously stolen Jenny's portfolio, because he has evil plans.

Everyone else is glad to see Jenny. Dan gives her a hug and Rufus talks about chili. And Erik... Well, someone went shopping at the tight t-shirt factory after getting an early membership to Madonna's gym. Kid was looking weirdly jacked last night. When he walked in Dan was all "Uh... oh... Erik. Heh... hello. I... Your... shirt. Is it too small? You're just... bursting out of... I ... UhhoOOohhhhOOhhh.... I... um. Pants. I need new ones. Excuse me." It was hilarious! I love when Dan gets all jizzy over Erik. But anyway, that wasn't really part of the main story, the point is that everyone was all "Yo Jen, we have your back in the case of you v. Binksy Waldorf, so don't worry. You'll be fine." Too bad she wouldn't be fine! Chuck called Jenny and, in an even more ridiculous purr-growl than usual, said "I seeeem to have takennn your portfoliooooo. Come get it at my sexhotel." Jenny said "No! No!" but Chuck said there was no other way. So Jenny had to run over there, with Blair's lackeys in tow, and they took pictures of her leaving Chiggles' hotel, so Blair knew that she had to to put this little blonde bitch in her place.

What she ended up doing was apprehending Jenny's five design samples and painting a letter on each one. When the dresses were all lined up in a row, the letters spelled HER OW, meaning Jenny was hurt. Oh, wait. No, I'm sorry. My producers are telling me that I got that mixed up. The dresses actually spelled WHORE. Oh dear! So Jenny was sitting there with an awkward-looking Tim Gunn and saying how her fashions empower women and all that and then the WHORE dresses walked out and Tim said "Her! Ow!!!" and ran away in tears. Jenny was ruined. The seventeen-year-old will never get another chance to work again. Misery.

So she came running out of Tim's atelier and standing there with a smug look on her face was Blair, who said "Don't mess with me, sister" and handed her a bus ticket back to Hudson University. (Chung-chung!) Jenny was furious, upset, hurt (ow!), everything. Dan was equally mad. (Oh yeah, Dan was there, ostensibly waiting for Jenny, but he was secretly hoping that Erik might come by wearing a mesh tank-top and Daisy Dukes.) What would they do to get revenge on Blair? Well, in typical Gossip Girl fashion, they would go to a party.

This party was for the New York Observer, some herbbity-blerbbity about a New York Cool People issue. Lily and Rufus decided to go too, as did everyone else in the cast. (Except Vanessa, who is in jail for threatening to shoot people in the face.) Oh don't you love every party on this show? They're all so grand! And they're always a terrific excuse for cameo casting. This week's guests were Ivanka Trump and her beautiful wife Jared Kushner, owner of the actual real-life Observer. They mumbled a few lines and then shuffled off. Jenny ran up to Tim Gunn, who was also at the party, of course, and said "That wasn't me! It was an accident!" And Tim, who had previously been so short with her and run out before she could explain, for some reason decided to stop and reasonably listen to Jenny at this party. "Oh, you followed me to a party. That seems normal. Now I'll hear you out." So Tim and Jenny made up and then Tim let slip that it was Chuck who had set up the meeting ("I just can't say no to those baby browns...") and the scheming cat was out of the scheme-bag. Jenny gasped and Tim surveyed the scene, looking at all this flounce and flurry, and he turned to the camera and said, softly, sadly, "Maybe it doesn't get better."

Jenny now knew that she was the victim of scheming from both Blair and Chuck, so she decided to get even. And she got even by... sending a mass text message to everyone and Gossip Girl saying that she'd lost her baginity to Chuckles. WAY TO GET 'EM, JENNIFER. That'll reeeeally show 'em. "I had sex with Chuck Bass, a known jerk." God that must have burned for Chuck. And for Blair. Apparently it did! This was somehow some sort of societal undoing that was never fairly explained. Jenny felt satisfied but Dan was disappointed in her. "Maybe you're not ready to be back in New York, with all this plotting. Maybe Vanessa should just shoot you in the face." Jenny conceded that Dan was right and, outside the historic Boom Boom Room, she confronted Blair and Chuck. Not to tell them it was war, but to tell them she was leaving again. She didn't want to become like them. She wanted to be better. So that was that. Dan stood, looking proud, while out of the corner of his eye he watched Erik run by in bicycle shorts and little else, Dan not sure if the pulsing throb he felt was coming from the bass of the Boom Boom Room or from somewhere... else.

Jenny's dead again, yay. Someone who is not dead? America's premiere actress, Katie Cassidy. Yeah, she had more story business this week. See Nate's dad has been transferred to Uptown Community Prison, same as where Katie's mysterious criminal brother is. Naturally they ran into each other in the visitors' line, and Nate was all "Huhh??" and Katie was all "Uhh...." and then they sat on a bench and had a talk about things in which nothing was actually talked about and Katie kissed Nate delicately on the eyelids and said "Hush, sweetpie. Hush." And Nate began to purr, content once again in his love for Katie. Forget that she lies, ridiculously obviously, to him about where she is going all the time. Forget all that. She loves Nate and pets him and gives him treats, and that's all he needs. That's all he needs for now.

Of course Katie is still making schemes with brother dear, and telling him about Nate's dad in the clink. So Nate's dad got beat up with a phone book or something, and we still don't know why. We just don't know. Will we ever find out? Presumably. Do we care to find out? Eh.

Another story that was happening was that Serena finally boned Joan from Mad Men's husband. Well, actually, they didn't bone. They just stayed up all night "talking." Meaning they said increasingly dirty things to one another until they couldn't bear it anymore and collapsed, asleep atop each other in a messy, erotic heap. "I'll finger your ears!" "I'm gonna rub my butt on your knees!" "Felch factor of 5, engage!!!" Things like that. So they are now, of course, in most desperate love. Too bad then that when Serena, trying to be a new goody two-shoes at the college, showed up to her Psymology of Brizness class, Joan's husband was toootally the professor. Hellloooo, Mr. Chips! What is Serena going to do?

Well first she is going to break up with him. Then she is not. Then she is going to break up with him again, then she is not. Back and forth she went for much of the episode, mumbling words that nobody cares about, going to the Observer party and being all weird, getting embarrassed when her mom found out that she was polishing her professor's apples, etc. At the party, while Joan's husband was winning the Kush's Cooch Prize for Most Eligible Bachelor, Serena decided that no, she would be a model student and not scream "I'm blowing your ankles!" at her professor anymore. This greatly displeased Joan's husband, but he said he would wait for her. Seven long weeks. He will stand by the lighthouse and stare out across the Columbia Sea and he will wait for Serena's ship to return from class. And then, when she is back, they will make the kind of filthy verbal love to each other not seen since the days of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. "Forsooth, I doth place my business upon thy brow!" That kind of stuff. The reeeeal dirty stuff.

But here's the surprise! After Joan's husband convinced Serena that he was just a 33-year-old man, standing in front of a 20-year-old student, asking her to wait for him after class, he went to a secret lair and there waiting for him, drink swirling in hand, was future AFI Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Katie Cassidy. Gassppsss! They are in cahootz! What is this terrible triumvirate of evil scheming? We do not know, we just do not know.

We do know that Katie Cassidy is kind of in love with her floppy Nate fop doll. She called him on the telephone device and was about to tell him all about her brother, but he wouldn't listen. He assumed she was breaking up with him because his Pa is in the hoosegow. Don't you love how no one on this show ever lets anyone finish a sentence? They always just jump to dire conclusions and walk away or hang up. It's completely not annoying or lazy storytelling at all! So that's exactly what Nate did. He hung up on Katie Cassidy before she could even say a few words, convinced that she was dumping him. He pulled a pillow close to his chest and began to cry softly. "Ahh boo hoo hoooo... Ah boo hoo hoooooo," he went for some time. Until he heard a soft-but-hard knock on the door and there, standing framed in amber light, was Dan. "Hey, uh, I...." Nate shook his head, put a finger to his lips. "No, no. It's OK. Come here."

And so Dan did. And so they tangled up in each other, lost in faraway thoughts. Nate thinking about prison, not in the sexy way this time, in the sad gray blocked sort of way. Dan thinking about his newly tree-trunk-thick stepbrother. "Erik..." Dan moaned at one point. Nate stopped him, looked up questioningly at Dan. "Huh?" "Oh, god. Gosh. Sorry. I'm just... I mean, have you seen him lately?" Nate considered this for a second. "Oh, yeah, man, you're right. OK, keep going, whatever." And so they kept going. They kept going and going and going, the ponds of their separate regrets pooling together and becoming a large, hot, churning lake of passion and sorrow, Chuck outside dressed up like a window washer, watching from the other side of the glass with calm indifference, video taping the scene for some reason, feeling he could use it later for more useless scheming. He'd tried to make up with Blair, or she with him, it wasn't quite clear, but it hadn't gone well. Too bad, so sad. He wished Vanessa was there to shoot him in the face.

Suddenly then it was the first stabbing streaks of early morning, and Erik, our silent Ajax, was jogging down Riverside Park, a content quiet in his breathing, a pearly peace in his mind. He was running fast, the streetlamps flickering off one by one behind him, following him. The warm, furious light of the sun was beginning to spread a new glow out over the world. And it was like this always, Erik knew then. Each day new and separate from the last. Every morning, everything new. A chance, once again, always, for something different.