That wisp dancing up into the azure sky isn't smoke from the Fire of Santa Barbara. No, it's bits of the dearly departed soul of Spencerina, fleeting up to heaven to make handbags with God.

Yup. Handbags Pratt died on The Hills last night, because Kelly Cutrone demands perfection and farting slowly into a dress bag while your eyes google around in your head and boys named Robert, Roberrrrtoooo, Rooobbbeerrrtooo call you on your big pink chunkyPhone is not exactly perfection.

Handbags' laziness is interesting. As the by-far most unattractive person on the show (sorry, but it's true), you'd think she'd be wary of painting herself as a complete villain, because then she might risk becoming as dispensable as Jen Bunny. You know? Like, Buffy had a major villain every season, and then she killed them at the end and they were gone for good. Which could happen to Handbags. Because she does play the dim, dumb villain to Lauren's increasingly likable taskmaster. And it's horrible. That insolent, Cheesecake Factory face. That fried, straw hair. Those raccoon eyes that just blink in dull patterns, like buoys far out in some placid and fishless stretch of sea. She's the forgotten Fraggle, the one left to molder in a deep and dank and faraway cave, strange strains of rock 'n' roll bouncing off the bats and stalagmites and translucent spider bugs and all the guano. Her floppy face rippling ever so slightly in a soft cavern breeze. Where does the wind come from? her walnut Fraggle brain struggles to ponder. Who makes these things that we cannot see?

The problem at work was this: Lauren asked Hangbags to put some clothes in a bag. I know, I shouldn't be so hard on the poor girl. That is a really hard task. Like if someone asked me to do that with as little explanation as Lauren gave, I would totally like pick up one piece of clothing and throw it violently at the floor. Then I would pick up the bag and sorta paw at if for a while. Maybe dribble a little iced tea on it to see what happened. Then I'd pick up some more clothes and stuff them all into a little ball and then put that ball on my head and say, out loud, "Hat." Then I might stare out the window for a while, watching cars go by, a pod of dolphins swimming through the clouds. "Hat," I would say again, quieter this time, more pondering. Eventually I would get scared—of the building creaks, of the hissing steam machine, of the big black telephone—and would slowly back out of the room, turning off the lights, then walking very fast down the hall and out the door. Because that is what a person of above average intelligence would do when someone says "put those clothes in that bag" and doesn't explain any further. We're not mind readers, Lauren. We're human beings!

So Handbags did just that and when Lauren arrived the next morning at Smashmouth Studios, where the band just plays "All Star" over and over and over again until their fingers are raw to the bone because this is the prison sentence they must carry to term, she didn't have the proper clothes that she needed for the bigtime fashion photo music shoot. Lo was there, because she works for Smashmouth and hey now she's a rockstar and she and Lauren grumbled about Handbags, who was having lumpch with Roberto Benigni, who was doing bittersweet dances on the back of his chair. "D'ya wan' me 'a callll some'ody?" Handbags drawled, some stupid smirk spreading across her face.

While she was smirking, other things were happening. Heidi fell down some stairs and when she woke up there were beautiful stars in the sky and the grass was moving with insects and maybe also the Zalinksi kids and she could hear woodchucks chattering away to each other and a small warm puddle formed around her midsection and she was peeing and then her phone made little twittery bell sounds and it was a text message from Barnacle the Barmaid, that one that Spencer likes to be told to flirt with. The text read: "Hat" so Heidi knew she was at work. After a few days, Heidi got up from the grass, said goodbye to the Thompsons (it had been them in the grass all along!) and cried for their dead ant friend and went to Barnacle's bar.

Barnacle's bar is a rundown old crow's nest out by the docks, surrounded by mist and fog, the knob-knobbling of peglegs on wooden planks, the Doppler caws of unseen gliding seagulls. She creaked open the door and two rusty old seamen glared at her from behind their frothy mugs of ale. "Aye, Barnacle!" Heidi shouted, cocking her pistol, cracking her knuckles. "If it's a fight ye want, a fight ye'll git." The fight was:

— You are a slut!

— I believe you are crazy!

— When's the last time you saw your self in the mirror?

— You should go to church.

— Why are your pants so blue, huh?

— You smell of apricots.

— Go take a dive off Clausen's Pier.

— Is this your thumbtack?

— I'm scared

— Goodnight, Barnacle.

Yeah, Heidi called everyone sluts and Barnacle called everyone crazy and so they agreed to disagree. They shook hands, turned back to back, walked three paces, and then dueled. The two salty boatsmen fell dead, smoke rising from the half-dime sized wounds in their chests. "Aye, a good stratagem," growled Barnacle. "Seaslut!" chortled Heidi. Then the play ended and the curtain fell and everyone clapped and the girls bowed and everyone agreed that the New Bedford Players have been top notch ever since Stefan came from New York City to teach drama at the high school and volunteered to run the local theater company too. Stefan's so nice. Have you met his roommate Linus? Oh he's wonderful, Mitsy. He's a chef you know, at some fancy restaurant in Westport. Mmhmm. You should try his muffins. They're delish. When she got home, Heidi told Spencer it was like going into Satan's dungeon, then she dared Spencer to ever cheat on her again. She dared her husband to cheat on her. Terrific.

While Heidi and Barnacles celebrated at the cast party (Linus made little finger foods!), Audrina was dealing with some major gigundo problems. See, everyone knows that she and Brody had hot sweaty reality show sex in his Mexican/Hawaiian hotel room, including Brody's terrifying female partner Jayde Scorpion and now Audrina's terrifying female partner, Justin Bobby. Audrina had work and work means never having to say "ignore call" so she answered when JB called and then they met for dinner and Audrina didn't even really sit down she just yelled at him "no calls no texts no emails no candygrams (cause I'll know you're just Jaws pretending) and no nothing cause we're over, Buster Brown, I'm a strong independent lady who doesn't know where her car is and would, um, like a little help do you think maybe it's in this white cage of emotion?" Justin Bobby wasn't hearin' it cause he gots to be on the show y'all! But it was too late. Audrina was sealed in her cage and Justin Bobby was almost out of quarters and he could see, just arcing around the North Star there, was his magic San Fran city bus coming to take him and Alfre Woodward to the Underworld. References!

Back at Disaster Central H.Q. Handbags was meekly apologizing to Lauren for getting confused about what "put those clothes in this bag" means. Lauren was testy and breezy, terse and pursed. Then a rumble and a shriek came tearing through the sky, like a thousand MiG jets coming screaming for Goose, and a blazing glare of light and there was Kelly, in her high boots and furling cape, her long jeweled space scepter glimmering in the Southland sun.

"You," she snapped at Lauren. "In my office."

Lauren went trotting off, while Handbags receded into her dark, forgotten Fraggle cave of worry. Cutrone's face was only bone and Lauren was scared. "I want you to fire her," the bones of Kelly intoned. "I want you to dance." And so Lauren danced. "No. Dance sexy."

So Lauren danced as hard and as sexy as she could and eventually Kelletor was sated and she was sent back to her desk. "Quick, like a guillotine," Kelly advised her about the firing. But, Lauren was scared that she needed to save that for sweeps or something so she didn't say anything. "Maybe she doesn't know yet," Handbags murmbled.

Maybe she doesn't, Handbags.

Maybe no one knows.

I'll tell you what I do know. I haven't had that much fun at a Players cast party since Brigadoon in '89. Remember that? Stan Cranston tried to kiss Marsha Welby on Sue Nicols' back porch? Ha! We were so young then. So very young. How old are you, Linus? You can't be a day over 29. Can you? You just can't be.

You're going to make someone very happy someday, Linus.

I just promise you. I really do.