You know what this show needs? A good death. The death of one of is principal actors, too, none of this Bart Bass nonsense. The best part is, there are so many characters to choose from! In an ideal world, you would kill all of them. “But then you wouldn’t have a show.” Exactly! But, OK, sure, fair enough. So let’s just kill one! I am completely willing, at least for now, to only have one character die, instead of someone detonating a bomb inside the Annual Fancy Charity Dance For Charity, or whatever. (This show loves to party.) And last night we finally had our chance. The previews teased us with images of Serena in a car accident, and the episode even begins with Serena in the car accident and then retraces her steps with how she got there (kind of like Memento, or How’s Your News?). But SPOILER ALERT she doesn’t die. Sorry to ruin the suspense. The good news, of course, is that she almost dies. So for a brief second we get to feel that joy.

So, it is the one year anniversary of Bart Bass’s death. Everyone is dealing with it in their own way. Lily is dealing with it by forgetting all about it until Blair tells her. (Lily, I’m getting you a t-shirt that says “World’s Best Person,” but I want to make sure it fits. You wear a size extra-bitch, right?). And Chuck is dealing with it by having paranoid schizophrenic delusions of his dad’s ghost.

“He’s in a better place now, Chuck. Gotham City.” Why is Bart Bass Batman now? And why is his face a lobster?

Anyway, Chuck is thinking about buying a homeless shelter and turning into condos (classic Bass! Bassic! Boo!) but Blair doesn’t want him to do it because of the homeless people. Sure, Blair. Except that I don’t think that’s how it works. Like, if the people who own the homeless shelter are trying to sell the homeless shelter, I don’t think it’s going to be a homeless shelter for much longer. It’s not like homeless shelters only exist in the world because nice people refuse to turn them into condos. But Chuck is only turning the homeless shelters into condos because he misses his dad and he wants to show his dad that he can be tough (on the homeless). He drinks a lot and falls asleep and argues with his ghost dad some more and tells Blair to get lost. That will show his ghost dad!

Meanwhile, Serena and Tripp are hanging out in the Archibald cottage. Wasn’t Tripp JUST ELECTED to the United States Congress? Nevermind. He’s got nothing but time, I’m sure. Tripp tells Serena that he is going out to get groceries, and then he tells her that he is meeting Grandfather, but in reality he is going to meet his wife and try to “fix” things. But first, he puts on his normal Congressman outfit.

What? That’s what Congressmen wear! They always dress up like they’re in a fashion spread in Gay Field And Gayer Stream. He and his wife decide that they will remain married, but that Tripp will keep Serena as his mistress. Good plan! Tripp sends his wife to the cottage (where Serena is sitting around bitching about how there is no TV, no microwave, and no heat: cool cottage, rich people) to explain the new plan to Serena. This plan just keeps getting better and better. But when Serena sees Tripp’s wife she says “you have no reason to be here, get out.” Hahah! I guess Tripp made her Mayor of the Cottage while he was gone. Serena is a fucking idiot.

So now Serena doesn’t want to fuck Tripp anymore, even though things are basically the same as they have been the whole time. He’s still married, and she’s still 18…but he’s been married the whole time, and she’s an asshole! Oh well. I guess their’s was a love that flew too close to the sun. LOOK OUT, THE SUN! Just kidding. I wouldn’t warn them. I want them to crash into the ocean. Did you know that if you fall from a great height into the ocean, it is harder than falling onto cement? I read that somewhere. Probably science.gov.

Oh, but also, something something, Lily fucked Serena’s dad over the summer? Maybe? Or at least she spent the night in her dad’s hotel room? But she’s been lying to Rufus, because of how she does nothing but make great decisions and build meaningful relationships based on trust and mutual respect with everyone in her life. Seriously, the one way in this show is actually well written is the way in which it is so clear where Serena gets her shitty cuntiness from. The terrible apple doesn’t fall far from the nightmare tree. And that is just one example of how miserable Lily is in this episode, which is pretty miserable, but the worst is obviously when she goes to Chuck’s hotel and tries to convince him that it’s important to grieve openly when you are in pain, and not to bottle things up inside and drown your sorrows in work and alcohol, and that she needs him in her life, and would like to go with him to the graveyard (in the middle of the night?) and honor the memory of his father. Which is what a nice, caring parental figure would do. Until two seconds later when she gets a phone call from Serena saying she is tired of being a Congressman’s mistress, and immediately ditches Chuck. NIIIIIIICE. What a cool lady. I wish she was my mom! Actually, I wish she was the Black Dahlia’s mom.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Serena gets in a car crash, and everyone immediately stops what they are doing to go to the hospital. Like, everyone. Lily, Eric, Blair, Dan, Vanessa, Jenny, and Chuck. Looks like the homeless will have shelter for one more day. Did you know that most homeless shelters only exist because someone had to visit their friend in the hospital and never got around to turning them into condos? Congratulations, now you don’t have to go to business school anymore.

Unfortunately, everyone raced to the hospital for nothing, because Serena is basically fine. (“Damnit” — everyone.) OH BUT ALSO (Jesus, how complicated does this show have to be? It’s for 9-year-olds!) so Tripp got in the accident, right? But instead of calling the police, he calls his wife. And together they come up with the foolproof plan of moving Serena into the driver’s seat and disappearing. The perfect crime. Tripp and his wife are the cat, and they are here to steal! Honestly, I’m not Professor Political Scandals over here, but IT’S TRIPP’S FUCKING CAR! And Serena bashed her head against the windshield. Even the guys at CSI: NY (the worst CSI) could piece together what happened. But this is not the real world, this is Constance, and so we will have to settle for the only justice we can get, which is Nate being the man now, dog.

Oh man, remember when Serena didn’t die? That was the worst.

Anyway, so Chuck got over his dad being Batman in Heaven, oh and I’m not even going into the whole Jenny and Eric plotline but needless to say they are friends again for now but Jenny is also a drug dealer, which I’m sure will end poorly three months from now only to be resolved in five minutes four months from now, and also Rufus found the letter to Serena from her dad that detailed his night with Lily because dads are always writing to their estranged daughters about that kind of thing, so now Rufus is going to maybe have Jungle Fever with a woman from his Co-Op Board? JUST HOW UNSAFE ARE THE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR ARSENALS IF WE CANNOT GET OUR HANDS ON THEM TO TAKE CARE OF SOME BUSINESS? Not unsafe enough, apparently. I blame Putin for this show. Cold War 2.0.

CORRECTIONS: somehow, in writing up last night’s show, I somehow forgot to mention the WOLVES that caused the accident. Incredible. I also forgot to mention how it turns out at the end that Chuck’s mom is still alive. One of the reasons I may have forgotten about that today was because of how that storyline was JUST MADE UP during last night’s episode when someone made casual reference to how Bart would never even take him to where her body was buried. This show loves a good Deus Ex Lazyna.