As Gossip Girl once said, Thanksgiving on the Upper East Side is upheld with a bountiful harvest of secrets, lies and scandals.
No scene quite exemplifies this as well as the Thanksgiving dinner of season three, during which turkey comes with a side of marital strife, extramarital affairs, backstabbing, sabotage and more. It’s even more delicious than Blair’s dad’s apple pie.
So before you take three hours to make that one dish your mom could do in 20 minutes, or promise your family you’ll behave before immediately getting into a politically-charged yelling match with a random relative, rewatch one of the best Gossip Girl scenes of all time and dive into our power ranking.
Blair Waldorf
For once, Blair is not involved is the messy drama of this episode. Her biggest concern is that her mom is pregnant, and that turns out not to even be true. Instead, her mom decides to peace out of NYC and move to Paris because it’s time for Blair to “make Manhattan her own.” So she’s queen of Manhattan, now has a second home in Paris, is in a solid place with Chuck for ONCE, looks good while everyone else seems to have gotten dressed in the dark, and outed Eric’s naughtiness to Jenny for no reason other than causing pandemonium. Plus, she forgives Serena and invites her to France, solidifying herself as the bigger person in that friendship (for now). Blair comes out on top.
CeCe Rhodes
The Rhodes matriarch will be at or near the top of any power ranking list she is on as those are just the rules. But the fact that she was specifically not invited to Thanksgiving and showed up anyway only to cause absolute chaos will solidly put in her in the top three. Cheers!
Chuck Bass
While it has always been a core personality trait that Chuck Bass owns a hotel, we rarely see what owning said hotel really means, other than a free penthouse suite. In this episode, we get to see Chuck put the Boss in Bass when his staff alerts him that some naughty couple stopped the elevator so they could make out Grey’s Anatomy style (which begs the question, did Seattle Grace get a notification every time those surgeons were doing the dirty on hospital property?). Of course the couple in question were Serena and Tripp, her married congressman lover boy. An older version of Chuck would have relished in this drama, maybe even taunted Serena with it. But this new mature, still-dating-Blair Chuck is rising above (kind of). He did the right thing by attempting to keep it quiet and only telling his bestie Nate to encourage him to tell Serena how he really feels before it’s too late. Should he have guessed that Nate would have taken the video and gone rouge? Probably. But still, by the end, he stays out of the fray and he wins the good friend card, sticking back from a trip to Paris to comfort a heartbroken Nate.
Maureen van der Bilt
Okay, yes, her husband is cheating on her. But… so? He is boring as hell. Plus, she’s still the wife of a congressman, has blackmail on Serena, has blackmail on Lily, and has that lil elevator smirk that says she’s about to set the Upper East Side on fire.
Eric van der Woodsen
Yes, his sabotage plans against Little J got outed, putting him at a severe disadvantage in future schemes, but baby brother has wiggled his way into the top five simply for coming back at Jenny’s accusations with “your sweet potatoes are bland.”
Eleanor Waldorf
She’s not actually pregnant, she’s headed to Paris, she does not have to see her ex-husband who left her for a male model this holiday season. But she’s at Thanksgiving solo because apparently Wallace Shawn was too expensive for this episode.
Gabriela Abrams
The fact that Gabriela ditched Rufus and Lily’s wedding because she was boycotting the floral industry just to come back to celebrate Thanksgiving — of all holidays — with the richest of the rich… like daughter, like mother. Hypocrites through and through, we hate to say it! But really, she doesn’t have any skin in the game. She’s here to come and watch the destruction of this family and not-so-quietly judge them while eating their food. But her daughter does hate her and she doesn’t have sway over anyone at this table except maybe Dan, so she’s in the solid middle.
Lily van der Woodsen
To these van der Woodsen women, we say, why you always lying? And if you are going to lie to your husband about maybe or maybe not seeing your ex, or maybe or maybe not having cancer, at least make sure your accomplices get their stories straight. Putting the letter you’ve been trying so desperately to hide from your daughter in someone else’s coat pocket? She’s truly taught Serena everything she knows about diving head first into trouble with only about two brain cells up there firing. And because of that we can only give her a few extra points for reading Serena so well on the Tripp situation. Mama van der Woodsen can always dish out good advice when she’s needed but you won’t catch her ever following it. You can always tell when Lily’s down bad because there will be a million cut aways to her downing a glass of Chardonnay, and for that we cannot fault her.
Jenny Humphrey
It’s honestly a pretty strong flex that Jenny didn’t even know Eric was trying to sabotage her until Blair told her. Little J, for the moment, is on top. But we know her too well to think it will last, especially not with this new drug-dealing gig and her only actual friend turning into her nemesis.
Vanessa Abrams
Vanessa is pretty neutral in this episode. Lonely boy is in love with her but isn’t man enough to admit it so she’s left very confused by this “new face” he keeps making. But her mom would rather save turtles or something than hang out with her, so it’s all kind of a wash.
Dan Humphrey
Lonely boy has turned into lover boy. If a threesome with your girlfriend (who is Hilary Duff) and your best friend is what it takes to make you realize you’re in love with your best friend… seek treatment. Dan is too much of a wuss to tell Vanessa how he feels and so he’s stuck refereeing a wrestling match between the Abrams women. But he at least manages to leave the episode without pissing either of them off.
Rufus Humprey
Poor Rufus. His brand new wife is lying to him, possibly cheating on him, and he’s essentially a trophy husband at this point. And he has to wear that ugly cowl neck sweater that reeks of an early retirement.
Serena van der Woodsen
Serena makes some iffy decisions in nearly every episode (cheating on the SAT, killing someone, marrying her stalker, etc.) but sleeping with a married congressman is simply not the move. If you are going to sleep with a married congressmen, the least you can do is not get caught by his cousin/your ex because you decided to have a make out sesh in the elevator of your friend’s hotel. Plus she may look good in this scene but she is on high alert for the ugliest blazer we have ever seen earlier in this episode.
Tripp Vanderbilt
Tripp is at the bottom in part because he’s at risk of losing his wife, mistress, career and reputation, and because his politics would surely offend us. But mostly it’s because of the amount of effort the camera crew has to exert to try — and fail — to make him look taller than Serena.
Nate Archibald
He ratted his cousin out to his wife and still couldn’t bag the girl…. Tripp may be at the brink of losing everything but Nate seems like he’s got nothing left to lose.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Don’t forget reply to this email with a Gossip Girl moment you just can’t stop thinking about. It can be as big as Chuck buying a burlesque club at age 16 or as small as Serena wearing her graduation tassel in her hair instead of a cap. We’ll compile these all for a Friday post. And catch up on this week’s posts about which characters deserved better and worse, coming to terms with Chuck and Blair, and the real-life aristocrats who made the Gossip Girl crew look like saints.