Gossip Girl: A House Full of Turkeys

"Oh Serena, light a match."

During the first Thanksgiving—when, 1,492 years ago, Italian immigrants came to an Indian birthday party and turned water into loaves of fish—a ritual began, a custom was put in place that last night's Gobble-Gobble-themed episode of Gossip Girl respectfully honored. Basically, the rite is this: you yell at the person sitting next to you, then storm out of the room. Back in those olden days the ritual was called the Yellow Storm, named not, as some once speculated, for what happened when fellow Italian Marco Polo enraged some folks during his travels in the Orient, but for all of the yelling and storming out. She yells at him! He yells at her! She growls at that one! This one barks at that thing! It's as exciting and as perfectly choreographed as a May Pole dance at a tony liberal East Coast private grammar school's end-of-year festival. (I may or may not speak from experience.) Which is to say, it's dumb and fumbling and ridiculous, just like this show is, always. Let's dissect the bird carcass, shall we?

The best place to start is probably with the dim blonde quasar that is Serena van der Hootsen, arguably the Squanto-like (Squanto was the Indian who never did anything remotely consistent and whose character changed, on a dime, according to the writers' whims at the moment, right?) heroine of this holiday episode. See S has problems. She's got this flip-flop mip-mop flop-top porcelain SexDrone named Nate in love with her, but alls she wants to do is suck bones with City Alderman Tripp Humperdinck, the suavest cool cat in politics with a hair bouffant designed by Hokusai. The trouble there is that Tripp is married to Maureen, a Newport-puffing Mercury Sable-driving straight-outta-Dot Boston transplant who has big green emeralds in her eyes now that she's snagged a big politico husband. So there's something of a romantic triangle or something going on there, made all the more complicated by the fact of Nate's burning Lite-Brite love and Maureen's scheming. What's a girl to do? Well, in Serena's case, a girl is to frown. To frown and then frown some more. Blake Lively came in second at the Topsfield Fair Frowning Competition, but only because Dan Hedaya showed up as a late entrant. Had that old crank not been there, Blake would have sewn that shit up.

Anyway. Serena is struggling with the whole cheating-with-a-married-man thing, Blair hates her because she thinks the affair is seedy (which it is), Nate's busy crying robot tears of the future, and Tripp is just simmering coolly there in the corner, not so much by design of the character, but because Aaron Tveit couldn't act his way out of a Broadway Flea Market shopping bag. He's really bad, guys. Just dull as crackers. And he do not look all that good in the HighDef. Ah well. Doesn't matter to Serena. The day before T-giving she told her mom that she had to go feed hobos to pigeons, or pigeons to hobos or something, all so she and Aaron could make the roast beast with two backs all Thanksgiving long. But that plan fell apart when Maureen called up and said "Hey Aaron, it's Mawreen. Yar, I'm awn the fahkin' Chinertowne bus, awttah be down theah around fawh. Let's have Thanksgivin' tegethah." So, nuts. Maureen was coming to Turkey and now Aaron and Serena couldn't make their weird Norse love to each other and, yep you guessed it, cue frowning.

Meanwhile Dan was falling butt crazy in love with Vanessa. Because, really, Vanessa is a wonder of humanity. From her puffy cavewoman wig to her chunky El Salvadoran escort jewelry to her complete lack of anything remotely interesting to say, Vanessa is a real catch. And it only took Dan one episode to realize that! Yeah, remember last week during Hilary Duff's glorious finale swan song when she said "Dan, you like Vanessa" and then that string holding a light bulb got dangled down into the frame over Dan's head and Penn Badgley put a finger into the air and said "By jove!"? Well, that's all it took for young Daniel to cream his pants-mushrooms (for the green bean casserole) and fall head over butt-chin in love with the dangerous V. Trouble is now he doesn't know how to act. Should he bring her flowers? Should he serenade her? Should he listlessly word-hump her leg, like he does to all his other lady loves? No, actually he should just invite her hippy-dippy mom to Lily's big Thanksgiving Anger-Bake and spend all day giving Vanessa some sort of "look" that will be the crux of their cutesy banter for the whole episode. Some new "look" of Dan's, some little odd new parabola dip of his face. That's what we're talking about, from an actor who's about as expressive as the back of Goldie Hawn's head. Think before you write, Gossip Girl!

What the hell else. Um... Oh, yeah, Blair thinks her moms is pregnant because she's changing her will, but it just turns out that Blair is actually a ghost who was wearing that Thanksgiving dress when she died, thirty years ago today... Or, you know, she's moving to Paris or something. Nobody cares. Though, it is sort of sad that the great Margaret Colin won't be back much. She probably finally sat down to watch an episode of the show and said "Oh, holy— Somebody get me Ed! Oh, holy god no, I'm not— Ed, I need Ed!"

OK, back to Serena. So in true Gossip Girl fashion, the whole Thanksgiving feast at Lily's turned out to be for everyone on the show, because that's just how this jellyroll jams. Dan showed up with Vanessa and Black Mamba, hiding his boner behind some candied yams. Nate came puttering up on his robo-wheels saying "Weeping. Weeping. I am weeping. Circuitry: Functional. Heart: Broken. Weeping." Rufus was there wearing a big bulky sweater and drinking hot cider and was basically in a Hallmark commercial of his own making. Tripp and Maureen showed up, he hiding his Serena-boner behind Dan's candied yams, she drinking a Mike's Hard Cranberry and wearing a stained Bruins jersey, acid-washed jeans, and black motorcycle booties. Grandma Lily came too, because who doesn't want to see a doddering old actress who can't act on Thanksgiving, and also because she needed to stir up some secrets vis a vis Lily and Rufus, who later went to sit on the porch and talk about autumn.

Maureen was already suspicious about the whole Tripp and Serena liaisons dangereuses because she'd run into Lily on the street and heard about the whole made-up soup kitchen story. What she didn't know was that the previous night Tripp had showed up at Serena's hotel and, after staring at each other blankly for a few moments, the two began mechanically making out, their big blonde bobble-heads clunking back and forth in an Empire Hotel elevator. Watching from a video monitor high up in his fortified control room—feet in kleenex boxes, fingernails grown terribly long, jars full of urine lining the walls, like some sort of Upper East Side Howard Hughes/casino-owning Mr. Burns—Chucklies Bass saw the pair suckin' grit and became furious. How dare a sexy sex scandal involving bee-stung 19-year-olds and Ken-wigged young politicians take place in his hotel. Chuck must protect this house! So he told Nate about the rendezvous and Nate's heart made ones and zeroes of sadness that soon hardened into the processor whirring of bitter revenge. Dark clouds gathered over the big dining table, which was adorned with those ugly flat-bottomed wine glasses that I really don't ever like. (Do you ever like those? I really don't.)

This is when the big Yellow Storm came blowing through, going from guest to guest as they sniped about their issues of the day and ran out of the room. Blair yelled "Pregnant!" (while Margaret Colin yelled "Ed!!!!!") and hunched off to go eat pie, just like she did in the first season. Callbacks! Um, Lily went huffing off to get drunk on mysterious brown liquors because her mother was purring on in her bad-actress monotone about secrets secrets and how they are no fun. Rufus sighed and put his L.L. Bean boots up on the table and wrapped his woolen Lillian Vernon blanket around him and hummed his favorite secular holiday tune, "A Winter's Solstice", from that album he'd bought in the Plow & Hearth catalog. Vanessa stormed out for really no reason at all, but maybe it had something to do with Penn Badgley's new "look" and the sight of his face trying to make said "look." (Penn Badgley's face looks bald. I don't mean that he should have hair all over his face, but his face possesses a quality of baldness, does it not?) And then the sad, malfunctioning TwinkMatic 3000 (Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, Winter 2009, pg. 52) that is Nate Archibald produced a camera phone with the video of Serena and Trippers making out in the elevator and Serena, yes, frowned, and Maureen shouted "Fahkin' Nomah! I mean Sereener!" and Tripp's hair did a solemn bounce but then snapped right back into place and things were suddenly messy. Everything was muddy and awful, just like it was during the first Thanksgiving, which took place 43 years ago when the Inuits finally made peace with Cortez.

Everything that happened next was this: Rufus found out that Lily had lied about when her mom got better, so where was she between August and October? Vanessa and her mom fought some more while Dan hid his boner in some candied yams. Nate tried to apologize to Chuck for stealing the hotel video in beep-bloop-blorp robolanguage and then he wheeled after Serena. Serena totes broke up with Tripp because he needed to stay with Maureen, who was busy doing whippets in a corner with Grandma Lily. Blair found out that her mom actually bought a house in Paris, on the Ile Saint-Louis no less, and she intended to move there. Blair was sad but relieved. She invited a sad and unrelieved Serena to come with her to Paris for a spell, to which Serena said yes (and I got very jealous, because, oh my god ma, Paris!) But Serena ended up not coming. You know why? Because Tripp showed up and said "Maureen's gone. We're done. I put her back on a Greyhound to Wonderland (with her whippets, heh) and it's just you and me, babesalot. Just you and me." Serena's face did a happy frown and Blair said "Go, go" and we all threw up our hands and said "Wait, they've barely kissed and he's willing to give up his political career? Dude must be really horny." But! The drama was not over!

As Serena prepared to slink out of the house, she was putting her passport back in her momz's safe and found the letter from last week, the one from her father. What did it say inside? Well, we don't know yet, but we do know that it contains a wicked mystery about Lily's Lost Months and I think we're to suspect that Lillian had an affair with Serena's dad, even though nice old Rufus was waiting at home, flipping through a Wireless catalog and chuckling at their hilarious mugs and T-shirts. So Serena was furious at Lily for judging her—Lily had threatened Serena with banishment if she didn't end it with the married man—and stormed out to join Tripp in his sinister black sex-limo. She almost got there but was stopped by a weak metallic gripper grabbing her arm. She turned around to see the battered and dented FopTron v 2.2 shedding his LCD tears. "What is it, Nate?" Serena asked wearily. "Serena. I am a robot sent back from the future. I have learned many math equations. I am also programmed to kill. But the one thing I do not understand about humans. Is love. Please teach me about love. Serena. Please. Also. Do you have any candied yams? This is about to get embarrassing." Serena looked so pitying and dejected for poor stinky old Nate, but of course she got in that damn sex-cab and rattled off into the inky, dangerous night with Tripp anyway. I mean, it's Tripp van Houten. The biggest politician this side of the block. Nate's gears creaked and moaned and out of the mottled shadows strode Chuckles. He put his arm tenderly around Nate and looked up at him (Chuck has never looked shorter than in this episode) adoringly and purred "C'mon baby, let's go get drunk." And, actually, that's barely an exaggeration of what actually happened. It was slyly romantic, that little scene.

Oh so Lily feels bad and hid the daddy letter in a coat, but gasp! Remember earlier when Maureen and Lily had the same coat—the faded and slightly-soiled Red Sox windbreaker from 1989? Yeah, well, Lily put the damn letter in Maureen's coat and as the episode ended, the red-haired menace read the damn thing and next week, aw snap. Though, what any of Lily's philandering has to do with Serena is somewhat beyond me. Oh well. I'm sure the writers will find a way to not really properly address it.

Back in Brooklyn, Dan was out of candied yams. There was no hiding it anymore. Luckily Vanessa was in the other room so she couldn't see. But her moms was there, staring at Dan with a withering expression. "Look fool," she snapped. "If you like Vanessa you'd better like Vanessa. Don't break that girl's heart." Dan's face crinkled a bit and then Vanessa came skipping out and said "Mom, that gay guy from the theater cabaret who I improbably like invited us to drinks, should we go?" And then Mama looked Dan hard in the eye and said "I don't know, Dan, should we?" Which was super weird. If I was in that situation I'd be like "Mom, why are you pointedly asking Dan in that weird way? What the hell is going on?" But Vanessa thought nothing of it. Dan nodded his head like the big tunafish that he is and said "Yeah, V really likes him. You should go." And Mama gave him an approving look and said "Mmhmm, tell you about liking people..." and she and her daughter disappeared into the night, leaving Dan lonely and yamless and forced to pull his own wishbone.

That was the episode! I didn't forget anything, did I? What's that? I did? Erik and Jenny and, gorp, Dorota had storylines this week??? Of course. How could I forget.

Dorota's pregnant. Yes darling D has been doing the Polish sausage dance with Vanya the Doorkeeper at Lily's fortified castle. Already an uncle, Vanya will now be a papa. This is a fun and kind of strange plot development—cute foreign poor domestics in love, how terribly Upstairs, Downstairs, only more xenophobic. But good for the always lovely Zuzanna Szadkowski for getting so many damn lines last night! Let's get a spin-off.

The other story, about Erik and Jenny, doesn't have quite such a happy ending. They'd been rattling around that big old house for weeks now, barely speaking, cold breezes and shudders. Erik pretending he didn't hate the moppety Jenny. It was a precarious, icy house of cards that was bound to come tumbling down. And come tumbling down it did last night, when Jennifer found out that Enrique had been jeepin' behind her back in the scheming department, that he had set up her cotillion embarrassment. She was shocked and appalled. He raged at her about Jonathon, about the cruelness of a world that had stolen his only love. "Don't you see?? I'm torn in two!!" he bellowed at her in the parlor. Tears streaked her proud, usually-pristine face. Erik screamed and tossed a vase at the wall, then turned and stormed out, his jodhpurs rustling in the breeze, riding crop stiff under his arm. "Oh, Erik!" Jenny had cried after him, but it was too late. He'd already stormed out onto the grounds and was now slashing at things with the crop, watching bitterly as birds skirted and soared in the sky, free and hollow of bone, light and without consequence, so frail that breaking them takes mere seconds. None of the slow, bilious death that Erik was suffering, here cramped up in this horrible country manor, forced to play court with the false Duchess Jenny. What a cruel ugly twat of a gift this nobility was. He wanted to be a peasant. He wanted to be a commoner.

He strode down the long drive to the main road but suddenly stopped before he got to the end. There by the road were the chamber maid Dorota and the Master's valet, Vanya. They were groping each other, slovenly and forceful in their lusty indignity. He kissed the nape of her neck and worked his way down to her ample bosom. She threw her head back and, with eyes closed, saw heaven. Erik's knees were trembling. Never had he seen such a thing, not even that now, at age 16, he was officially a man. He suddenly missed Jonathon, his old and closest school friend, so painfully now, a darting stabbing pang like diving into ice water. He stared for a moment longer at the two servants in love, the common earthiness of their coupling, the brazen thrum and rhythm and passion of it. How easy they had it. Getting a queasy feeling in his stomach, Erik turned on his heel and set off wearily back to the manor.

As he approached it he saw Jennifer, standing in her cornflower blue dressing gown, that ludicrous string of diamonds draped across her neck. She was smoking one of her father's cigarettes, her eyes were glassy, irises unmoored by liquor. He attempted to stomp up the stairs and wordlessly breeze past her, but she caught him. Grabbed him sloppily and pulled him in close, mussing his hair. She hissed, breath acrid and sharp, "This is our life, dear boy. This is it." She then tossed him back and he stumbled in his stiff riding boots. He watched as she took the long brown cigarette, opened her palm, and slowly extinguished the thing in her pink sweaty skin. "All we have is pain," she said wetly. And then she laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed and hiked up her dressing gown and ran down the stairs, off into the grounds. Halfway to the large stone gazebo by the reflecting pond, she fell to the grass and rolled and cackled. Erik stood and watched her, this inane lithe young thing. He too was young, he knew. He felt that rolled patch of grass calling to him. He stood, riding boots quivering. He stood.

Somewhere far off, away in the town, a church bell rang.

And Erik stood, waiting.