Thanksgiving means something different to everyone, whether it is food, family, or naps in front of the TV. But to many teenage girls, the holiday brings one important thing to mind: “Gossip Girl.”
Hello Wildcats, Gossip Girl here, your one and only source for the best “Gossip Girl Thanksgiving episodes ever. With Thanksgiving only a few weeks away it is time to reminisce on the iconic dramatic “Gossip Girl” Thanksgiving episode that sparked a viral TikTok trend.
“Gossip Girl,” a show about the Upper East Side society in NYC, is one of the most well-known American teen dramas of the 2000s. The series aired on Sep. 19, 2007, and eventually racked up 300 million views on the CW network.
The show centers on four core characters: Serena Vander Woodson, played by Blake Lively, Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, Nate Archibald, played by Chase Crawford, and of course Chuck Bass, played by Ed Westwick, are a part of wealthy families that live in penthouses and “summer” in the Hamptons.
Dan Humphry, played by Penn Badgley, and his little sister Jenny, played by Taylor Momsen, live lives that are made to seem less glorious in Brooklyn with their single dad, Rufus Humphry, played by Mathew Settle.
Although they come from different boroughs, they all attend the same brother and sister schools: St. Judes School for Boys, and Constance Billard School for Girls. “Gossip Girl” is an online blog that is run by … Just kidding! No spoilers! And she (or he) remains anonymous until the series finale, season six, episode 10, “New York, I Love You XOXO.” Gossip Girl sends out “blasts” to their followers reveling the “Sex, lies, and scandals” of the characters and their families to stir up drama and make their lives more interesting.
If you are scrolling on TikTok this time of year you have definitely come across a video to the song “Watcha Say” by Jason Derulo. The trend’s purpose is to recreate the most well-known Thanksgiving episode, Season three, episode 11: “The treasure of Serena Madre.” In this drama-packed scene, it is revealed that Serena is having an affair with Nate’s married cousin, Tripp Vander Woodson; Blair, meanwhile tells Jenny that Eric, Serena’s brother, plotted to ruin her cotillion.
As the dinner goes on, more drama starts to unfold: Blair thinks her mother is pregnant and wants her to admit it; Dan’s girlfriend breaks up with him because of his feelings for Vanessa’ and to top it all off, CeCe, Serena’s grandmother, tells Rufus that Lily, Serena’s mother and Rufus’ wife at the time, has been lying to him about her travels over the summer.
“Cause when the roof caved in, and the truth came out,” the Manhattan elite did not know what to do.
Ella Mattocks ’22, a sophomore at Villanova, thinks that this “Gossip Girl” Thanksgiving episode made the show more relevant.
“It is iconic because of how memorable it is,” she said. “It is exactly why ‘Gossip Girl’ is so popular.”
The best part of the entire scene is not even the drama, but the characters’ dramatic ways of getting up and storming away from the table. In the TikToks, fans will video themselves slamming their hands down on the table as they walk away looking mad. They then will add text to the video with a scenario that relates to their lives like “when someone brings up my ex” or “when someone brings up the dress code.”
Mina Sugiyama, a junior, notices TikTok parodies used to show drama happening within friend groups.
“I will see people use it as a way to express inside jokes between their friends,” Mina said.
Other “Gossip Girl” Thanksgiving episodes include season one, episode 9: “Blain Waldorf Must Pie!”; season two, episode 11: “The Magnificent Archibald’s”; season four, episode 10: “Gaslit”; and season six, episode 8: “It’s Really Complicated.” But nothing will ever compare to “The treasure of Serena Madre.” EliteDaily.com ranked this episode at the top of all the show’s many Thanksgiving episodes.
Mina says that the scene is also ironic because it makes fun of real-life family drama, which often includes bickering many experience over the holidays.
“I think it’s funny how it shows an over exaggerated representation of what family gatherings are sometimes like,” she said.
