Wow, last night's episode of The Hills was excruciating. Lauren, who has been like a post-feminist icon this entire season, telling everyone that they need to stop putting up with shit from dudes (and alienating everyone in the process), resorted to her whiny and pathetic early Laguna Beach ways. Brody is the new Stephen.

In the episode's final scene, she takes Brody to the restaurant Off Vine. This spot is a huge departure from the usual trendy, trashy places the Hills kids go, like Katana, where Audrina went with her date. Off Vine resembles an old Victorian house that serves food—the sort of place you take your parents when they're in from out of town, or where you bring some guy whom you desperately want to be your boyfriend. Lauren tattoos "romantic date" on her forehead and orders something red in a champagne flute, but asshat Brody can't even bother to take off his ... hat.

Another awkward date featured Audrina and her new Aussie dude eating sushi, having typically hideous Hills convo. Then, at the end of the date, duder is like, Do you want to go out, or do you want to go home? And he makes that weird bro smirk, the one that tells you all he can think about is banging Audrina's hot bod, and that the thought has barely sustained him through the whole tedious sushi experience.

Please note: Brody, like Radar, thinks Justin Bobby will return. Dear Sweet Baby Jesus, can you make Justin Bobby return?

Also, Lauren was dressed as a sexy flapper at the Halloween party she and Audrina hosted at their pad. But the night before Halloween, not shown in this episode, she attended a party at Les Deux dressed as a sexy sailor. Crafting not one but two sexy Halloween costumes in a single year only compounds her tragic desperation. Even Audrina had the class to just repeat her vaguely sexy Madonna costume.

The most shocking moment of the episode was seeing Spencer reading. Like, a book. It was a tome straight out of the Chuck Norris Book Club, however—Eric Haney's Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit.

It's the sort of book that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. Spencer Pratt owns those wrong hands. He must be stopped.