Gossip Girl: Treasure of Serena Madre

And once again it is Thanksgiving in Gossip Girl land.  I for one am thankful that we were spared any hideously festive outfits this year, like Serena’s memorably terrible orange and gold nightmare from last year.  Treasure of Serena Madre has a nice buildup of everybody getting invited to Lily’s for a wonderfully awkward dinner scene completely ruined by a horrible music cue.  We have affairs, sabotage and pregnancy twisting their way through an episode that actually manages to balance all the characters fairly well, even people we hate like Vanessa.
 
Eric and the Humphrey’s are planning Thanksgiving at Lily’s apartment (let’s be honest, it is Lily’s apartment still) when she walks in and basically puts the kibosh on it declaring it’ll be catered.   Serena explains that she can’t attend because Tripp is having his entire staff work at a soup kitchen, sadly this was a lie and we weren’t treated to the sight of Serena trying to feed the homeless while showing cleavage like I’d hoped.  And because no fake good deed goes unpunished Lilly accidently invites Tripp’s wife Maureen to join them for dinner.  Tripp has already promised Serena he is divorcing Maureen, not for her but because he found out Maureen staged his heroic rescue of the drowning victim.  For some reason this convinces both of them that making out in an elevator, in Chuck’s hotel is a good idea.  Hey Serena, remember last time you were in Chuck’s elevator and he totally was spying on you and Blair?  Really?  You don’t?  OK, keep making out with married congressmen then.
 
Blair on the other hand is concerned that her mother is keeping a secret from her.  She finds a pregnancy test and evidence that Eleanor’s will is being updated and hysterically concludes that she must have a new sibling on the way.  Um, Blair you’re mom is like 50 that’s not gunna happen.  But Blair isn’t the only one with mother troubles this week.  Lily had claimed her mother Cece was not well enough to join them, but gets caught in a lie when Cece surprises her by showing up.  Lily covers with another lie about why she stayed longer at her mother’s, leaving us to wonder what Lily was really doing August-October when Rufus was stuck with the kids.  Vanessa’s mother returns to make all the same plot points she did last time, but I still heart Gina Torres and was glad to see her.  Her scenes with Dan were nice, though I still can’t buy the fact that Rufus would actually be friends with her. 
 
As dinner finally arrives everything is set for a perfectly outrageous feast.  Serena is now in attendance along with Tripp, her boss she’s in love with and his wife Maureen.  Nate is there for some reason mooning over Serena and giving Maureen that tape of her husband cheating.  Vanessa now has to deal with the mother she was trying to avoid.  Dan still has to figure out his feelings for Vanessa.  Blair is suspicious of everything her mother does.  Rufus is realizing that Lily has been lying to him.  Lily is trying to avoid her own mother.  And of course Eric and Jenny are continuing to plot against one another (still on team Little J with this, Eric is being petty for no reason).  This would have been a great scene were it not for them blasting Jason DeRulo’s “Whatcha Say” for the entire scene.  At first I thought it was a clever use of music, right after Blair tells Jenny of Eric’s betrayal…but then it just kept happening.  I could barely hear any of the conversation in what should have been the best scene of the episode. 
 
In the end Nate confesses his feeling for Serena, but he was a little late as Tripp had already renewed his promise to divorce Maureen.  Eric texts Homely Girl from the Cotillion that they need to strike back against Jenny ASAP as she now knows that Eric was the one who plotted her being left dateless at the event.  But of course the biggest mystery of all is what is Lily hiding from everybody?  I just can’t wait to find out!  And knowing that Maureen has the letter from Serena’s dad with the secret makes it even jucier.
 
And also, I am getting a little bit bored of Chuck being so neutered this season.  I still like him with Blair, but can’t he have some sort of nemesis in the picture to get the evil out?  Perhaps they should steal Desmond Harrington back from Dexter, I’d love to see the return of Jack Bass!