Even though Nate and Jenny seem to be heating things up, there’s a fall chill in the air on the Upper East Side and no one is feeling it more than Chuck and Blair. These days we're torn between being ready for them to quit playing this cat-and-mouse game already and wanting it to go on and on forever. Come to think of it, Chuck and Blair seem to be experiencing a similar dilema themselves. Having reached a stalemate over their inability to declare their love, Blair's finding it necessary to generate her own heat by way of a Chuck-inspired fantasy...
After convincing Rufus to let her quit school, Jenny's neck-deep in responsibility and new eye makeup at Eleanor Waldorf Designs.
However, it seems that Eleanor's making Jenny promises she doesn't intend to keep in order to continue using her designs. Jenny appears to be fine with this treatment until firestarter model Agnes (who may have a touch of the Trachtenberg crazy) starts planting seeds of discontent. After a meeting with Bloomingdales, Eleanor tells Jenny the only thing they were interested in was the Jenny Humphrey original she is currently wearing. Eleanor commissions Jenny to make a pattern of the dress and re-sew it in the fabrics of Eleanor's collection. Jenny hesitates, and we can almost see a little devil-horned Agnes appear on her shoulder. In the end, Jenny caves and agrees to re-sew the dress so Eleanor can show it to Bloomingdales.
Nate drops by the warehouse to give Jenny her sketchbook, and Jenny gives him a nervous thank you while, we presume, trying not to think about the naked version of him that she stumbled upon in the bathroom this morning. Sidenote: We LOVE Nate living with the Humphreys. We feel like this is a plot goldmine just waiting to happen. Nate commuting to the Upper East Side from Brooklyn? Genius. We've decided we only like Nate when he's part of a duo. Nate and Vanessa? Into it. Nate on his own dealing with the family financial crisis? Not so much. Nate and Dan as BFFs? Awesome. Nate agonizing over his father's drug use? Pass.
Dan and Serena are giving their friendship another shot. We're skeptical about the whole affair because after the fiasco with Nate, we feel like Serena might actually suck as a friend to boys with whom she's had sex. Turns out Serena's friendship strategy involves Dan playing Cyrano to help Blair seduce Chuck. Dan convinces Blair that the way to go is to throw herself at him at every opportunity. This advice makes us certain once again that Dan has never played this type of game.
Blair intercepts Chuck at Serena's house with many candles and her best pouty expression. Chuck gives in and the heat is on until a chirp from Blair's phone interrupts the action. Chuck and Blair make a simultaneous dive for the phone and Chuck comes up a winner. Blair's texting thread reveals a boastful version of her intentions and Chuck is out the door. Blair is left to do what she should have done in the first place which is put her phone on vibrate. We're pretty sure it's going to give her more action than Chuck will tonight.
Meanwhile, firestarter Agnes and her photographer boyfriend are showing Jenny a bar-hopping good time. Agnes convinces Jenny to switch outfits with her so she can model one of Jenny's designs around the bar. Unfortunately, Agnes takes off in a cab still wearing the dress that Jenny has to re-sew before the morning.
Pause for a word from our sponsors in which we witness the most heavy-handed abstinence commercial ever courtesy of the Candie's foundation and Jenny McCarthy.
Back at Eleanor's warehouse, Agnes shows up to return the dress and gives Jenny the hard sell for starting her own line. To this we say: Jenny's fifteen. Is there not some middle ground like demanding that her name go on the dress with Eleanor's -- like Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton? Tom Ford for Gucci? It's not rocket science, is it? Jenny finishes the dress in the nick of time and presents it to Eleanor who snatches it away and tells Jenny to go home, reneging on her promise to let Jenny meet the buyers. Jenny lets her have it and demands to take back not only the dress she spent all night sewing, but also the dress that rocked the house at Eleanor's show during Fashion Week. Eleanor gets huffy and tells Jenny if she takes the dress she's fired. Jenny does one of those things where she grabs the dress, never taking her eyes off Eleanor, and then storms out with her nose in the air. Go ahead, girl.
Blair takes Dan's advice and asks Chuck to meet her on the roof of Rufus' art gallery so she can finally tell him what he wants to hear. Dan's on board with this plan until Vanessa confesses the shame she suffered last week at the hands of Blair and Chuck's cruel intentions. Dan decides he was wrong about Blair's sincerity, intercepts her en route to the roof and gives her a nice big shot of doubt to numb her courage.
At the gallery, Chuck's waiting to hear Blair declare her love from the rooftops (literally), but thanks to Dan's intervention, Blair can't quite make the words come out, and Chuck storms out in a huff, leaving Blair in tears.
Meanwhile, Serena's flirting with Aaron, the new artist at Rufus' gallery, and Dan's attempting to be okay with it. Nate's trying to stop Jenny from diving head first into the wild life. Jenny blows off Nate and disappears into the night with Agnes and photographer boyfriend. Serena gets up on her moral high horse and tells Dan off for sabotaging Blair and Chuck. Dan feels chagrined. Serena switches gears and asks Dan for permission to go out with artist Aaron. No sooner has Dan reluctantly bestowed his blessing than Serena prances off to find artist Aaron climbing onto his motorcycle with another girl. Bummer.
Back to the complicated memoirs of Jenny Humphrey: the party Agnes promised turns out to be a fiesta for three featuring Agnes and Jenny dancing in their underwear in Agnes' apartment having their pictures taken by the photographer boyfriend. Bizarrely, Nate shows up (how does he know she's there? Is he moonlighting as a P.I.?) and drags Jenny out of there by her ear. Jenny spends about two seconds whining before deciding that kissing is better. See? We'll say it again. Nate is so much better in combo.
Always a sucker for a happy ending, Dan does his best to fix what's broken by convincing Chuck that Blair really does love him. Chuck meets Blair at her house only to share many long painful looks over their inability to commit to each other. Guess Blair will have to keep stoking the fire herself. Winter's on its way.