- Mr. Duvall welcomes everybody to the Winter Talent Show. First up, it's Damian, who sings Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful."
- He's literally a hit—as in, he gets hit when somebody in the audience chucks a shoe at him.
- Next, Kevin—you know, from Mathletes—and his friends perform a raunchy rap that gets cut off early by Mr. Duvall.
- Backstage, Cady, Gretchen, and Karen are getting ready to perform. Gretchen speculates about why Regina sent Cady and Karen candy canes, but not her.
- Maybe she's acting weird because her parents don't sleep in the same bed anymore. Oops; forget she said that.
- Maybe Regina's being weird around her because she's the only one who knows about Regina's nose job. Whoops! The secrets just keep pouring out.
- Just before Cady and The Plastics—er, we mean "Santa's Helpers"—take the stage for their big number, Regina asks Gretchen to switch places with Cady, so Cady's next to Regina instead of Gretchen.
- Gretchen protests; she's always next to Regina. Plus, the dance will be backwards. Regina insists that she move over. Now.
- Their dance to "Jingle Bell Rock" is—uh, let's just say we've never seen any elves dance like that.
- Partway through the routine, Gretchen messes up the choreography and sends the boom box playing their backing track into the audience, right into Jason's face.
- Cady starts to sing "Jingle Bell Rock" acapella. Aaron starts singing, too; then more of the audience joins in.
- Ms. Norbury jumps behind the piano, and Santa's Helpers finish the number. Jingle bell crisis averted.
- Backstage, everybody's happy. Karen thinks it's the best the number has ever gone.
- Aaron comes backstage to celebrate. Kevin compliments Cady, and Gretchen jumps right into "Oooh, Cady! You have a crush on Kevin!" mode.
- When Gretchen says that it's "so fetch" that Kevin complimented Cady, Regina pounces, and orders her to stop trying to make "fetch" happen.
- Gretchen's silent and clearly hurt.
- Cut to History class. Gretchen gives an impassioned (read: hysterical) reading from her essay about why the Romans should totally stab Caesar.
- "When did it become okay for one person to be the boss of everybody?" she asks.
- Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Brutus is just as smart as Caesar. People totally like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar.
- We're pretty sure she's not really talking about Caesar here.
- Gretchen officially loses it. In the girls' bathroom with Cady, she spills more of her resentments toward Regina and more of Regina's secrets—most notably that Regina's cheating on Aaron.
- Every Thursday, she says she's doing SAT prep, but, really, she's hooking up with Shane Oman in the projection room above the auditorium.
- Consider Gretchen Wieners cracked