Every time I think we're getting back to the good stuff with this show (like last week), we get an episode like "Ex-Husbands and Wives." On the plus side: mass scheming. On the down side: soap opera level exposition. What the hell, Gossip Girl? Just because you are a soap doesn't mean you have to absorb the worst possible aspects of a soap opera. Thank goodness you are going to Paris next year.

Jenny is the Fucking Worst

This is, of course, not a knock against Taylor Momsen. She shows up to work week in and week out. But Jenny Humphrey is the schemingest schemer on this show if you can imagine. Blair and Chuck prostitute each other, but Jenny will let people believe that Lily might really have cancer if it suits her.

Let's back up: Chuck and Jenny are still trying to get to the bottom of the medication/faux-cancer situation. Jenny peeled part of the label off the bottle Chuck managed to retrieve. While the doctor's information is missing, there's enough there for Chuck to bribe the right pharmacist. Do we see this, though? No. We get to listen to Chuck explain his process in detail to Jenny over the phone. ANYway, Chuck and Jenny turn up at Blair's to get her help extorting the psychiatrist in question, but Blair sends them away (poor Chuck looks so disappointed). I should also mention that Jenny is supposed to be grounded to the loft at this point, but, because Rufus is too stupid to parent, he didn't realize that if he and Dan left the loft, Jenny would leave also. Chuck and Jenny burst into the psychiatrist's on their own, while Nate and Dan interrupt Blair's date with Cameron (the Columbia guy from a couple of weeks ago) because they, too, need Blair's help with a scheme. Earlier Holland told everyone at Prada Mafia that she slept with Rufus, which is impossible to believe, but Lily does anyway. Nate and Dan need Blair's help to clear Rufus' good name (even Blair is like, there's a zero percent chance that Holland slept with Rufus). So anyway: Chuck and Jenny are trying to find the psychiatrist (she'll be at the Party Everyone Ends Up At tonight), when Nate, Dan, and Blair burst in because the psychiatrist in question is Holland. DUN! No, seriously, I was actually kind of impressed by this one. 

Now that they have that piece of the puzzle in place, everyone waits back at the Waldorf rez while Jenny rummages through Prada Mafia's drawers to find a bottle with the label intact to use as evidence to get Holland to confess. Serena catches her, and, while Jenny does swipe the necessary bottle, her fight with Serena reveals Jenny's just-made-up-but-still-plausible belief that life would be better if the Humphreys went back to Brooklyn. Without question, Jenny, but that's not your call to make. But, boy howdy, does she make it her call. She lies to the rest of the team that she didn't find anything. Later, when she's supposed to be on the look out for an AMA guy they need threaten Holland, she calls the doctor off. Finally, she warns Will to get the hell out of Dodge before the truth can come out, so the van der Woodsens can hang on to the belief that Will isn't a terrible person and therefore still be pissed at Rufus. When Chuck realizes that only an insider could have tipped Will off, Jenny confesses in front of her entire family that she's so monstrously selfish that she would let everyone believe that Lily really is sick in order to get her family back in Brooklyn where they belong (agree on that last part). Rufus is pissed, telling her that Prada Mafia is their home, but the worst comes from Eric, who quietly tells her that if she doesn't want to be part of their family, she can leave.

So she does. She backs her bags and her suddenly huge breasts and shows up at Nate and Chuck's because apparently they will take her in. Not put her in other suite, not send her to Brooklyn to live with Dan even though there's nothing standing in the way of that idea and it's what she claims she wants. Nope, if Jenny spies an opportunity to get next to Nate's fire, she's going to take it. And 'cause Serena broke up with him, Nate does take Jenny in. Also, Jenny's extensions are so gross that by episode's end, they are just in a giant knot like the hair of the homeless guy I sometimes see on the bus. Similar in colour as well.

Lily's cancer was real, is now fake

Last summer, Lily really did have lymphoma, and Will cured it. He fell in love with her again, and, when he saw Serena and Eric, he realized he wanted his family back. Holland owed him a favour (a favour so huge she would risk her medical license, apparently), so she prescribed drugs that would mimic Lily's previous symptoms, making Lily think she needed Will again. Will would then ride in on his white horse and win back his entire family. I know this because not only did Chuck, Blair, Nate, Dan, and Jenny sit around in a limo explaining this to each other for several minutes but also because Will explains it all over again to Serena using the exact same words. Glad you can copy and paste, writers! Now piss off! The only good part of this occurred when Nate says no wonder "you" admire this scheme as it is something "you" would come up with, and I honestly wondered if he meant Chuck or Blair. Blair responds, so I guess he meant her. Point is, Lily is not dying. I guess that's two good things.

Relationship Merry-Go-Round

Nate starts the episode believing that Serena, thus he and Serena, are in a good place because she hasn't lied or run off for two solid minutes. Unfortunately, he sides with Rufus in the adultery-that-wasn't. To Serena, that's siding against her family. Later, when she finds out Nate was in on the scheme to bring Will down, she flips that all Nate had to do was take her side, and he couldn't do that. In another bad soap opera moment, she further explains everyone else's motivations for wanting to take Will down (Dan for love of his dad, Blair for love of the game, Chuck for love of Blair) but points out that Nate's love of Serena should have been his. Later, Nate decides to get his Daddy Issues all over her by calling the cops on Will. While Serena refuses to run away with him, she does let Will escape. She then calls Nate and says that shit like this is why she can't trust him. When she gets back in the limo, who should be waiting but Dan. Vanessa's gone to Haiti (hopefully for forever), so this show thinks that now I will give a flying fuck about Dan and Serena romantically. No, thanks, I like them as siblings. And, as previously mentioned, Nate takes Jenny in at episode's end, presumably to cash in her V card.

Chuck wheedles the Cameron date info out of Nate (it appears that Nate really does know him from Columbia) but is powerless to stop it. Scheming together does bring out the best in Chuck and Blair, though. Particularly loved Blair saying "I have an idea," followed by Chuck's "I already had it" as they make their way across the room to accost Holland. They lay out their issues to delay Holland as a bid for couple's therapy: Chuck prostituted Blair for his hotel, Blair prostituted Chuck for a speech, Chuck's kissed dudes before, Blair's slept with Jack before. The nastiness on Chuck's face when he throws out this last tidbit makes it clear that it still stings. Holland's pretty much like, you guys have massive trust issues, please call me during office hours. Later, as Blair waits for Cameron, Chuck forces her to admit that she got a hell of a charge out of scheming with him and that she still feels drawn to him. Blair, however, thinks that they should still move on because they aren't "safe" with one another. Chuck is dogged, however, pointing out that the most dangerous thing he's ever done was tell Blair he loves her and that turned out really well for him. He gives her until 7:00 the following evening to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building or else he will close his heart to her forever. Blair leaves with Cameron, but the sight of the building pretty much stops her in her tracks. 

In other news:

• "Dorota's family has Polish mafia ties." -- Blair's response to Serena revealing that Rufus cheated
• "Why are you whispering? If this is a seduction technique, it isn't going to work." -- Chuck to Jenny over the phone
• Blair changes her dress from the one Chuck and Jenny approached her in to another for her date with Cameron because you know they totally ruined that first dress for her.
• When Cameron wonders if they scheme a lot, Nate tries to explain the Poppy Lifton situation, gets confused in the middle, trails off, and eventually concludes with "Dan doesn't normally participate."
• Eric is once against the coolest person ever, advising his mom to take Rufus back if she loves him and wants to make it work, immediately groking to the fake cancer while Serena goes into denial, and, as mentioned, kicking Jenny right on out of the family.

Next time: Georgiana's back in a blonde wig and needs someone's help; Chuck proposes to Blair at the top of the Empire State Building and gets punched in the face for his troubles. I can't imagine why Nate, the show's preeminent face puncher, would be against this, but who knows? Also, I would say that they are awfully young, but they belong together. Plus, it reminded me that Chuck and Blair are essentially the super-cool version of Edward and Bella. You know, if Bella had a personality, and Edward was likable.