Last night's episode of everyone's favorite mystery series was so full of scheming and plotting and double-crossing and other shenanigans that it nearly gave one whiplash. Slow down, Gossip Girl! You move too fast for our feeble minds.

Heavens to Murgatroyd was there a lot of plotting last night. Who wrote last night's script, David Mamet's drunk teenage daughter? It was like The Spanish Prisoner up in there last night, except instead of Ben Gazzara, Dan was the oldest person, and everyone was an even worse actor than Rebecca Pidgeon. (That, if you're familiar with her oeuvre, is quite a burn for the GG kids. Quite. A. Burn.) There was just a ton of scheming. So, pressed for time as we are on this deceptively sunny doomsday, let's get into it.

Remember Blair? She's a character on this show who is such an incredibly awful person that it's truly surprising anyone in the world, even her mother and her maid, still talk to her. She is rude and mean and a desperate, showy social climber. It's truly a wonder anyone can stand to be around her. It's an even greater wonder that she feels she has enough friends and well-wishing acquaintances to have a big fancy birthday party, but that's what she's doing. Yes, it was Blair's 12th birthday last night, so she licked all her invitations (what is this, 1994?) and sent them away, thrilled to be the center of attention for the first time since last week.

One person she was NOT going to invite to her big soiree was her nefarious ex, Checkers Bass. Oh of course she doesn't want Checkers there, she hates him! They fight all the time! Or does she? And, or do they? In literally one of the dumbest plots in Gossip Girl history (that, if you're familiar with the show's oeuvre, is quite a burn, quite a burn), Blair and Chuckles were reunited by dough-faced Serena and Nate, and sat down to hammer out an agreement to coexist in New York. You know, sort of like a lawyer would do. Now, you'd think that this was done to be all cutesy and hoo-hooooo aren't these kids silly. You'd think that, probably because you are a rational adult who has reasonable limits in terms of what is believable and whatnot. But, you'd be wrong. It wasn't just a silly ha-ha game for one scene. Later we found out that it had been notarized and was going to be sealed in a vault or something, and was as binding as signing an old parchment in blood. Hm. Good job, Gossip Girl! That isn't a horribly dumb thing at all. You know, that 43-article-long document, legally notarized, about what 20-year-olds can do about their stupid breakup. How whimsical! And then how taken way too far!

So yeah, whatever, Blair and Carmichaels signed the ancient scroll and their soup-smelling lawyers, Nate & Serena, smiled. Aw. Meanwhile, Serena is still all hot in the pants region for her professor, Joan's husband from Mad Men. Oh man. You know how sometimes this show tries to be all, like, artsy with its sexiness? Oh hahaha, gosh and gloryoski, that is totally what they did this episode, and it was so gross. The first instance was with Serena and Joan's husband, as they met for "office hours". For them "office hours" meant having weird flirty conversation while the camera slowed down just a little bit and started doing really weird, unpleasant extreme closeups on the characters' mouths and whatnot. They weren't even talking about anything sexy! It was just mildly charged dopey banter, but they were supposed to be like completely doing their sinful business in their own pants. And I think we were supposed to be too? Like, with every closeup and soft fade or whatever, I think that we were supposed to be all "Uhrrmm... Excuse me, I have to... OOOoooOOhhhhh gyuhhhhh.... [long horrible pause] Never mind." I think that was supposed to happen in our pants while watching that scene on Gossip Girl last night! But most of us, perfectly normal adults who just happen to be watching Gossip Girl because that's what they have on in the prison common room, just barfed a little and then cried because we weren't allowed to change the channel. Stop with the trying to be sexy, Gossip Girl!

Anyway, the whole point of the Serena/Teacher face-fuck was that they are so hot for each other, but they cannot do anything, because of Columbia. So isn't that a shame. Well, actually, maybe it isn't much of a shame, because Teacher is involved in some pretty nefarious things! Remember at the end of last episode when you saw Teacher give the wicked Katie Cassidy, America's most celebrated thespian, a check of money? We don't know why he did that! But we do know that Katie Cassidy is bad (not at acting!!!!!) and so anyone associated with her must also be bad. So Teach is definitely up to something, but Serena is unaware. She is also clueless to Katie Cassidy's obvious machinations, because no one is ever good at picking up on clues on this show until they are hit over the head repeatedly with said clues. I mean, Katie Cassidy's idea of spying on Serena is to stand directly across the street from her, watching her on her phone GPS, in the broad light of day, and then running up to Serena as she crosses the street, and saying "HI! Weird!! How weird!!!" Typically someone would be like, "Yeah, I just saw you from across the street furtively staring at me and then back at your phone, and then I saw you run into me. But, um, OK. Hi?" But not on this show! Katie Cassidy is the best spy ever on this show. She really knows her spying business.

Her spying business involves getting into Blair's bday party. Luckily she had an in! See, the professor was going to be there for some reason, so Serena was worried that she would have another one of those gross face-boning scenes and she just can't have that. So she needs a buffer, protection. In swoops Katie Cassidy (I thought she and Serena hated each other? I guess not) and she was all "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, I'll protect you from scary professor-sorcerers!!" And here's something I wasn't quite sure about. So, Katie Cassidy, expert spy as she is, didn't seem to know that the professor what gives her money is the same dude what Serena is face-humping? Do I have that right? Or totally wrong? Wait, no, that must be wrong, because why else then would Katie Cassidy want to go to Blinky Waldorf's stupid birthday party? I don't know, I'm confused. I told you this was tricky! So basically Katie Cassidy is like "I can protect you from your secret man friend, though I don't think Blair likes me very much..." To which Serena said "Well, you'll be my guest," in this way that was like "Don't worry, you're in good hands." Which, what? Since when are those the rules of birthday parties? You know, where you can bring someone that the birthday boy or girl really hates with complete impunity because they are your guest. That is a terrible birthday party rule! "Hey Richard, happy birthday, great party. Oh, and here is my friend, Rick Santorum. No! No! Stop right there. You can't say anything. He's my guest. I know this is your birthday party, at your private home, but he's my guest. C'mon Rick, let's go get punch." I hate that rule!

Um, whatever. Moving on! Blair and Chuck are legal friends, Serena loves professor but can't so she's bringing Katie Cassidy to Blair's party for jerks. We're caught up. Another thing that was happening that day was that Rufus and Lily were having their anniversary. They really, really wanted to have a big, sexy party but what was the point if their beloved daughter Jenny couldn't come down from Hudson to enjoy it with them? Oh, and why can't she come down from Hudson to enjoy it with them? Because Blair said no. Because a 20-year-old with no ties to their family said "You can't come to New York." And people followed this rule like it was actually a rule! Which is so dumb, and, like the friendship contract, another example of this show taking a little bit of whimsical hyperbole and making it cold, hard, dumb, oft-repeated fact. The Blair Banning: A Real Thing. Guh. So yeah, Rufus is all bummed and weird about the fact that he can't have a widdle pawty, and Dan and Erik feel bad for him. Yeah, Dan and Erik spent soooo much time together this episode! It was great, and sexxxxy. Basically they wanted to do something that would get their parents to have an anniversary party, and of course that involved totally burning Blair and Chuck. Yeah, somehow the whole thing devolved into Dan and Erik making schemes against B & C, all of which failed.

First they planted some dumb fake story on the Gossip Girl blog that everyone still reads for some reason, but that backfired because Blair and Chuck both totally knew it was fake. Then Dan and Erik — who was somewhat reluctant, but what can you do when love is staring you right in the face and asking you a favor? — decided that they would totally embarrass Blair at her big fancy birthday party. OK, makes sense. Good luck, boys! After they hatched their plan, Dan opened a bottle of red wine and, while handing a glass to Erik, whose legs were trembling in a nervous-yet-excited pre-sex way, said "So, we'll just see where this crazy thing takes us, I guess. Me? I'm hoping it takes us all the way..." And then they sipped their wine and dimmed the lights.

Hm. What else? Oh, Serena is totally sad and jealous about Teacher sleeping with otha goils, so she follows him to his house, like normal people, and watches him go inside with a sexy lady. Grrrr! Serena mad! Serena smash! Serena mumble! She mumbled her way upstairs to the Teacher's house and he was all "What're you doin' here?" and she was all "Where's your fucking whore?? Fucking whore, show yourself! Drag your whore ass out here so I can beat you to death with your own fucking high heel, you filthy whore! WHORE, SHOW YOURSELF." But the whore did not show herself. Who did show herself was a lady in a maid outfit. ZOMPOPPLES, it was just the maid! Serena was so embarrassed. But Teacher just thought it was cute that she was jealous. Serena kneed him in the groin and walked out. She really would need help at this party if he was going to be there. (Most millionaire professors spend their time going to 20-year-olds' birthday parties.) She went to Nate and told him the problem and he was like "What, don't go with Katie, go with me!" So Serena called Katie and was like "It's off, whore" and Katie was so mad. See, she'd been texting her brother in prison (yes, on Gossip Girl you are allowed to send text messages to people in prison; nice world you live in, Gossip Girl!) and she really needed to scheme against Serena and she needed to scheme hard, but if she wasn't at the birthday party, this could not happen. So she called her sexbone professor friend, I guess not knowing he belonged to Starleena, and was all "Can you bring me to that 20-year-old's birthday party you're going to?" and I guess the professor was like "Oh, hm, that girl I give ominous checks to wants to go to my student fling's best friend's birthday party, plus I'm an adult. Sounds like a good idea!" So he did. So everyone did.

And everyone includes Lily and Rufus. Hahahaha. Isn't that great and sad? On their anniversary, the best thing Lily & Rufus could think to do was go to a 20-year-old's birthday party. A 20-year-old they don't even particularly like! Great work, writers. That makes a ton of sense. So yeah, eyybody was up in that bitch, including fabulous celebrity guests. You know, people like Joe Zee and Cynthia Rowley and Rachel Zoe. The stupid thing was that, according to jokes, Madeleine Albright and Jonathan Franzen were at the party too. And, hm, I don't think that Jonathan Franzen and the first woman Secretary of State go to the same parties as Joe fucking Zee. I mean, I don't know much about celebrity parties, but I think celebrities usually like to go to celebrity parties with other celebrities, not Joe fucking Zee, who has a made-up job at a magazine no one cares about. (Sorry. Residual The City anger.) So that was dumb.

Ugh this is going on far too long. Basically what happened: Everyone was giving toasts and then this dumb girl who nobody knew walked up and was like "Welcome to the Roast!!" And the weird thing is that she was carting around gay fantasia on sick beat themes, the singer Robyn, around with her. Sure thing! "I like your purse!" "Oh, thanks, it's Robyn." Well, OK, there actually was a reason. Basically the girl put on a tape of Blair singing at a bar after a Robyn show or something and she was drunk and it was sooooo embarrassing. Madeleine Albright walked up and slapped Blair across the face and yelled "Albright, away!!!" and, powered by loud, forceful farts, she crashed up through the ceiling and flew off into the night. Blair was ruined, basically. The dean who wanted to have lunch with Blair (because that's just what deans do) looked all pissed, and in her fury, Blair was thrashing around and hit Rachel Zoe, who broke into a million pieces because she is a brittle bone monster topped backwards and had chocolate fountain dumped all over her head. She actually said "I... die" and it was funny sort of but also like, ugh, Rachel Zoe, y'know? So Blair was ruined. Who had told that dumb girl it was a roast??? And why was Robyn complicit in all of this??? (The second, more important, question never got answered.)

Blair thought it was Chuck so she ran over to him and said mean things and he cried and said "It wasn't me!!!!" and then a voice behind Blair said "It was me!!!!!!!" and there was Dan, raging and crazy-eyed. Seeing Dan all frothing and angry, Erik said "Holy shit, I— OooHhhhOhhhhh... Eyunnnghhh... [silence] Ohh Dan." Yeah, it was Dan! Dan somehow knew about the singing video or something so he set the whole thing up to drive a wedge between Blair and Chuck only to... immediately reveal it wasn't Chuck, thus barely driving a wedge at all? Good scheming, Dan. So everyone was surprised but most of all Rufus, who said to Dan "I can't believe you're one of them. Come, Lily. There's some changing to my will that needs doing." Dan was embarrassed, Chuck was hurt that Blair had suspected him, Dorota was in the pantry with Joe Zee fooling around. Good party.

Oh the Serena thing. Um. Basically Katie Cassidy the expert spy showed up on the arm of the professor, liked walked out of the elevator into the party with him and then said, audibly, "Well we should probably split up before anyone sees us together." In the middle of the party. Good work, Katie! You should work for CIA 5 or something. But someone did see! Someone named Nate. With the sound of two rocks hitting against each other, simple little Nate finally put it together and decided that Katie must be dating Serena's professor, so he confronted her and Katie didn't seem to know about the Serena connection. Also the professor confronted Katie because he found out that she'd been having contact (text messages!) with her brother in jail, or something, and everyone was mad. It made no sense. I can't follow it. Sorry guys. Serena kissed the professor and give him a total boner and then left. He stood there with his pants tented and the maid dusted it with a feather duster as she walked by. Katie Cassidy called her brother on the phone and he was all "You can't tell Teacher what we're doing! Just get Serena expelled!" and I think we are supposed to care? Basically he is probably the druggie that Serena thinks she "killed"? Remember, those seasons ago? Or not. Or he's someone completely different and stupid.

At the verrry end of the episode, Chuck went over to Blair's to be more mad at her and they were all "I hate you!" "I loathe you!" "You're disgusting!" "Get in me!" Yeah, they totally kissed and then reeeally raunchily did it on poor Margaret Colin's pianah. It was another weirdly slowed-down sexy scene and it was just pretty revolting. Sex is gross when you are on Gossip Girl! This is just plain fact.

Well, not always. Back in Brooklyn Dan was nursing his wounds. He had talked with Vanessa, who lives there, and she was no help. So he was lying in bed, staring out through the window at the moon, and then all of a sudden he was there. Erik, up the fire escape and at the window. Dan opened it. Cold late October air was blowing into his room, but he didn't care. There was Erik, wrapped around him, undoing a belt buckle, lifting a shirt, giggling, running his fingers through his hair, kissing and biting and pinching and squeezing. Dan felt like he would fall right through the bed, like he was floating in most infinite outer space. "I..." he said at one point, but it was all he could manage. The two lovers, the two plotting pals, curled up into each other and became one heaving mass, their bodies hung up in the night sky with the stars, warm celestial beings, quasars or other phenomena. Dan was crying and laughing and yelling all at once. He was weightless, he was forever.

Until a drunken Rufus stumbled into the bedroom and started peeing on the bed, thinking he was in the bathroom, and Dan had to yell "Dad! Dad! Stop! This is Dan! You're in Dan's room!" but Rufus was too drunk to stop and Dan just kept yelling, not noticing that next to him, amid all the noise and urine, Erik hadn't stopped, hadn't even missed a beat.

OK. That was gross. I told you sex on this show is always gross! Anyway. I'm exhausted. Gooodnight. Sleep well. Have sexy dreams!