November calls for pumpkin spice, turkey dinners, the first snow of the season, and aGossip Girlre-watch (the original, of course).The show famous for chronicling the scandalous lives of the teenage Manhattan elite is at its best during the holiday season, particularly around Thanksgiving.Each season ofGossip Girlfeatures aniconic Thanksgiving episode filled with everything viewers love about the show— lies, drama, backstabbing– with gravy poured over the top.
But there is oneGossip GirlThanksgiving episode that undoubtedly reigns supreme.Season 3’s “The Treasure of Serena Madre” is the show at its best and the holiday at its worst, shining in its ability to gather the main players in one room and drive up the tension until everyone reaches their breaking point. Each character gets the chance to shine in the A-plot and drop a quotable one-liner or two — and everyone has something to hide.
Gossip Girl
Privileged teens living on the Upper East Side of New York can hide no secret from the ruthless blogger who is always watching.
This Episode Gets the ‘Gossip Girl’ Gang All Under One Roof
With an ensemble cast as large asGossip Girl’s, the show can struggle to make each of its plots feel interconnected, and viewers don’t always get as much face time with their favorite characters as they’d like. “The Treasure of Serena Madre” manages to fit the entire gang at one Thanksgiving table: queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), always-messy Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), pretty boy Nate Archibald (Chase Crawford), Mr. “I am Chuck Bass” (Ed Westwick), and lonely boy Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley).
In addition to the show’s main five, the rest of the show’s recurring cast is present along with some visiting faces— and it’s always a great episode when grandma Cece Rhodes (Caroline Lagerfelt) comes to town. The episode also features Nate’s cousin and Serena’s boss-turned-lover Tripp van der Bilt (Aaron Tveit) and his scorned wife Maureen (Holley Fain), along with series regular Vanessa’s (Jessica Szohr)’s absentee mom Gabriela (played bySuit’sGina Torres). This makes for a total of unlucky number 13 dinner guests along with the delightful maid Dorota (Zuzanna Szadkowski) serving the meal.
A ‘Gossip Girl’Thanksgiving Always Has Secrets
With so many characters to focus on,Gossip Girl’s “Treasure of Serena Madre” gives some drama more weight, but even the plots that don’t take center stage still manage to draw us in and keep us hooked.The awkward tension that runs between Dan and Vanessa in the aftermath of their threesome with Dan’s now ex-girlfriend Olivia (Hilary Duff) is palpable. Vanessa keeps asking Dan why he’s suddenly looking at her with a new face, asking the table if it’s normal to develop a totally new face at 18. Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) takes this opportunity to make a dig at her new stepbrother Eric van der Woodsen (Connor Paolo) after news of his attempt to sabotage her cotillion comes to light. “I’d ask Eric. He’s mastered two [faces],” she says to Vanessa, to which Eric responds with the ever-so-quotable burn, “Your sweet potatoes are bland” — just in case we forgot that this is very much a Thanksgiving episode.
One of the more lighthearted sub-plots of the episode focuses on Blair’s conviction that her (presumably post-menopausal) mother, Eleanor (Margaret Collin) is pregnant and hiding it from her. Thanksgiving is Blair Waldorf’s favorite holiday, and, as she says, “Thanksgiving always has secrets.” She tries to lure the truth out of her mother with champagne and lox, but it turns out that the one who is pregnant is actually Dorota. Getting to see her tell her boyfriend Vanya the news and his joyous reaction brings some much-needed wholesomeness to the episode.
The van der Woodsen Women Steal the Show in This ‘Gossip Girl’ Episode
But at the heart of this episode lies the van der Woodsen women — Serena and her mother Lily (Kelly Rutherford), hence, the episode’s title: “The Treasure of Serena Madre.“Lily is hidingsomethingfrom her husband Rufus, which is made all the more complicated by the unexpected arrival of her mother Cece, who does not realize she is meant to be Lily’s alibi.It turns out that when Lily was ostensibly overseas taking care of her mother’s cancer, she was actually staying with Serena and Eric’s father, her first of many ex-husbands, in what leads into one of the show’s most convoluted plot lines (which is saying something). All of this is revealed in a letter that she hides in the pocket of her coat — a coat that someone else at the party happens to be wearing as well.
This brings the story to Serena, the star of the episode, who is also having an affair with her boss, Congressman Tripp van der Bilt, who also happens to be Nate’s cousin — andNate, of course, has feelings for Serena.Viewers get a sexy elevator make-out scene (that’s ultimately used as blackmail), but Tripp gives off serious serial killer vibes in this episode, as does his wife Maureen, the other owner of Lily’s coat. When Lily runs into Maureen on the street, she invites Tripp and Maureen over to Thanksgiving dinner, where she manages to put two and two together.
The letter she finds stashed away in the pocket of her coat, the one Lily mistakes as her own, is just the fodder she needs for revenge after Tripp decides to leave her and head off to the Hamptons with Serena after dinner.The characters of this show are not known for their upstanding moral choices. In one of the sadder moments, particularly for Nate/Selena shippers (they should have been endgame!), Serena still chooses to leave with Tripp after Nate confesses his feelings for her and begs her not to go. Butgreat episodes set up great episodes, and all the pieces are now in place for the bombshell in the season’s following episode, “The Debarted.”
Let’s be real — the holidays are never drama-free.Gossip Girlknows this, butGossip Girlalso embraces it and then increases it by multiples.The show is at its best when the lying, cheating, and backstabbing are at their peaks, and “The Treasure of Serena Madre” most definitely brings all that and more to the dining room table.The only thing that would make this episode more quintessentiallyGossip Girlwould be some Chuck and Blair drama, but the front half of season 3 allows them a few episodes to be a happy, stable(ish) couple before all hell breaks loose. As they say on the Upper East Side, XOXO…
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