Hills RECAP - April 7, 2008 EPISODES

Awkward conversations rife with warnings about backstabbers seem to be last night's theme on The Hills as the show opens with chief backstabber Stephanie Pratt winning a hesistant last-minute invite to the exclusive Lauren Conrad birthday party.After the opening credits roll, and Heidi has threatened to punch Spencer in the face, proving that, yes kids, violence is always the answer, Stephanie Pratt returns home to her condo to find her brother's gigantic fish tank situated directly in the centre of her living room. She's not psyched. Justifiably, she asks him when he's planning on getting a job. And this is an excellent question because by my count Spencer Pratt has not had a real job since, let's see, this Monday will make it........yeah, never. It's finally time for Lauren Conrad's big birthday evening at S-Bar and she casually informs best friend Lo Bosworth that Stephanie Pratt might "stop by" but she might not. Seriously? Homegirl lives for drama. She's stopping by. At the party, Lo and Audrina talk about how they don't trust Stephanie. Then the camera zooms out and they are literally 5 feet away from her. AWKWARD. Later, it's Brody Jenner: Superhottie's turn to warn Lauren about Stephanie. He tells her to be careful, thus becoming the 4586556th member of the I Hate Stephanie Pratt Club.When He-Pratt finds out about She-Pratt's appearance at Lauren's birthday, he confronts her with an obviously rehearsed speech in which he employs one of the best lines ever uttered in the history of The Hills. In response to Stephanie's statement that he's "making her cry right now", he snaps back with the zinger, "you're making yourself cry thinking about what you did." Oh Spence, manipulative and poetic.Heidi rounds out the episode by espousing yet another warning to "be careful", but this time it's to Stephanie about Lauren. She claims that she and Spencer did "nothing" to Lauren. When are they going to learn that the answer is always to Blame Spencer?Finally, Whitney's back! We catch up with her at People's Revolution where her boss, Kelly Cutrone, is holding a meeting and illustrating that as an employee of hers, if you screw something up, she will kill you in your sleep. The poor overly-lipsticked girl sitting to Whitney's right incurs the Wrath of Cutrone, but Whitney makes it out of the meeting unscathed.Back at Steph Pratt's apartment, she and Heidi declare a Girls Night and head out to club Vice. What a coincidence! Audrina just happens to be there with workplace confidante Chiara. Heidi attempts to make amends and Audrina actually gives her some good advice, noting that "you have to learn how to keep your friends while you're dating someone." This is probably a bajillion times harder, however, when the "someone" you're dating is Spencer Pratt.Oblivious to all of this drama for now, Lauren and Whitney set up a lunch date at Whitney's workplace. Any logical person would think this risky given the verbal beating Whitney's boss served up to Lipstick Girl mere minutes ago, but it ends up working out in Lauren's favour as one of Whitney's superiors sidles up and offers LC a position at NY Fashion Week. See how easy it is, kids? I wonder if I go turn some knobs at a recording studio, someone will offer me a record deal...Tipped off about the Heidi-Audrina encounter by Stephanie, Lauren heads home and informs Audrina that she can be friends with Heidi but warns her about being good friends with her. Oh ok, so she'll only start a sex tape rumour about you once you've reached "good friend" status. Glad we cleared that up.Later, while Lauren is out, Heidi drops by the Conrad/Patridge apartment to pick up some of her stuff. She again expresses to Audrina her desire to be friends, complete with the Heidi Montag signature pleading look, which is actually more effective with those new lips of hers. She departs and Lauren returns, upset that Heidi didn't just "grab her stuff and leave." Audrina looks nervous, Lauren looks murderous, and it's clear we haven't seen the last of this Audrina-Heidi reconciliation.