- Cady's having lunch with The Plastics. It must be Wednesday because she's wearing Damian's enormous pink polo shirt.
- Gretchen lays down some ground rules, like how often you can wear jeans or put your hair in a ponytail. It's bananas.
- Regina leaves to get some cheese fries and Gretchen asks Cady if she's got her eye on anybody at North Shore. Cady mentions the pencil guy from her calculus class, Aaron Samuels. Gretchen's earrings practically shoot out of her ears. That's Regina's ex-boyfriends, which means he's a no-go.
- Cut to Cady in her calculus class, staring dreamily at Aaron. When the bell rings, she makes her move to talk to him, but she's intercepted by Kevin Gnapoor, who wants her to join the Mathletes.
- After school, Cady walks by the soccer field and sees Aaron practicing. She waves, he waves back, and then Regina pulls up in her convertible with Gretchen and Karen. They're going shopping, and she orders Cady to get in. Okay, then.
- At the mall, Cady tells The Plastics she's thinking about joining Mathletes. They think it's social suicide—and think Cady's lucky to have them to guide her.
- They pass by the bath and body shop where Janis works and Janis mocks The Plastics without them seeing her. Cady smiles, shrugs, and waves.
- At the mall fountain, Cady surveys the student population. She tells us via V-O that being at the mall kind of reminds her of being in Africa, by the watering hole, when the animals are in heat. For a moment, all of the high school students start clambering around like monkeys.
- She's snapped back to reality by Gretchen, who spies Jason talking up some girl named Taylor by the fountain. Apparently, Gretchen and Jason have history. Gretchen's pretty upset to see him flirting with somebody else.
- Regina calls Taylor's house and gets her mom. She pretends to be Susan from Planned Parenthood, and asks Taylor's mom to have Taylor call her right away about her test results. It's urgent.
- Dang; that's cold.
- Cut to Regina, Gretchen, Karen, and Candy rolling into Regina's house. It's a mansion.
- Cady's introduced to Regina's mom, who is desperate to be "one of the girls."
- Up in Regina's room, The Plastics crank up the radio and analyze all their "flaws" in the mirror, like weird hairlines and huge pores. Cady can't exactly relate.
- Mrs. George pops in with a tray of mocktails, and wants to know what the hot gossip is at school. Regina asks her to leave.
- The Plastics find their old Burn Book, which contains pictures of all the girls in their class, along with a nasty insult about each. Cady seems kind of taken aback.
- They come across Janis's entry, which had a picture of her and Damian, and the label "Dyke." So maybe that's the rumor Regina started?
- When Karen asks who that is in the pic with Janis, Cady says it's Damian and repeats a comment Janis made when they first met about Damian being "almost too gay to function."
- Regina says that's funny and orders them to put it in the book, and Cady immediately regrets it.
- Cut to the mall. Janis is at work, and Damian's hanging out with her. Cady tells Janis all about the Burn Book.
- Janis wants to know what it says about her; Cady lies and tells her she's not in it. Janis seems a little offended.
- Janis tells Cady she has to steal the Burn Book so they can publish it and show everybody how awful Regina really is. Cady's not too keen on stealing.
- They spot Mrs. Norbury. She comes over to say hey. Turns out she bartends a few nights a week at P.J. Calamity's. That explains the vest full of buttons.
- Ms. Norbury tells Cady that she hopes she joins Mathletes. It would be good to have a girl on the team. Also, it would be good for the rest of the team to just meet a girl.
- Damian blurts out that Cady can't; it'll be social suicide. That seems to be a popular opinion.