Gossip Girl – Now THAT’S a Thanksgiving dinner table

First, lets get it out of the way. Yes, I am a hetrosexual male, and yes I’m going to be helping to cover Gossip Girl. I could defend my decidedly non-demographic show choice by talking about the hotness that is Blake Lively and Leighton Messter, but honestly, I think Gossip Girl is a well written, well acted drama. In fact, I disagree with most of the criticism that’s been leveled on the show this season. I think Hillary Duff’s character has been one of the best additions to the show, and she’ll totally be missed. I also love that characters like Serena, Chuck, and Dan are growing up faster than they’re supposed to because of the fantasy world they all live in.

There are screwed up Thanksgiving tables, and there are screwed up Thanksgiving tables, and on this week’s Gossip Girl we definitely saw the later. Between the Lily/Rufus, Blair/Serena, Lily/CeCe, Vanessa/Dan, Vanessa/Gabriela, Blair/Eleanor, Serena/Trip, Seren … OK, I’m just plain tired of typing all of those different dynamics. I mean, we could do a hellacious VENN diagram or flow chart or something with all of the tension at that table. The scene where the entire night devolved into a series of accusations followed by storm offs that would make Glee‘s Rachel Berry proud was positively delicious.

I’m not sure that an Eric vs. Jenny battle royale is the way to go. Sure, Jenny has bounced back and forth between ‘good’ girl and ‘bad’ for two and a half seasons now, and frankly, it’s gotten old. Eric has been the only innocent in this whole thing, and I think playing with that is unnecessary. Along the same lines, a Blair/Serena make up moves us past another boring separation. And Vanessa’s mother, despite how much I love Gina Torres, is a boring cliche that we could all do without. Oh, and Rufus/Lily drama sucks too.

But not all of the fallout of the dinner was negative. One need not look farther than Vanya’s reaction to Dorota’s news to see that. My favorite part of the episode was self admitted bastard Chuck Bass knowing what the look on Nate’s face meant, and knowing instantly that he needed to bail on the trip to Paris. Lily and Rufus will eventually get things right, but I haven’t really minded watching them screw things up in the mean time.

Other notes:

• The van der Woodsen girls (and grandmother Rhodes) truly are a bunch of schemers, aren’t they?
• Lionel Tribbey goes from White House Counsel (The West Wing) to Eleanor Waldorf’s estate attorney?
• Eric’s response to Jenny’s accusation, “Your sweet potatoes are bland” was ridiculously understated, but sooo perfect.
• Dorota is comic gold, and the more time we spend with her the better.
• In the vein of Team Jacob/whatever the other guy’s name is, count me in Team Anti-Vanessa/Dan.
• I’m also Anti-Serena/Trip, if anyone is asking.

Clacked by Ivey West
on Dec 01, 2009 @ 13:00 EST5EDT