Gossip Girl S03E11: The Treasure of Serena Madre
Posted by KAT in Gossip GirlDecember 1st, 2009, 12:43 PM
Oh man! Finally, a Gossip Girl that kept me titillated at each turn! We celebrated Thanksgiving a week late this year with a bit o’ Upper East Side hijinx…
Jenny Humphrey and Eric van der Woodsen
So basically, Eric’s bad now and it’s surprisingly not annoying. At Thanksgiving dinner, Jenny finds out that it was in fact Eric who sabotaged her at the debutante ball, costing him his relationship with Jonathan. Jenny attempts to call a truce, but Eric (in a pretty pimp ‘welcome to the dark side’ speech) tells her they’ve both changed and their ain’t no turning back on evil. This means war! The end of the ep sees Eric texting someone (probably that bleh Kira Abernathy girl?) to let them know it was time to pounce on Li’l J.
Blair and Eleanor Waldorf
So Blair’s got abandonment issues and is convinced mother Eleanor is keeping a secret from her. After accosting long-suffering maid Dorota in the hallway and insisting she look into her shopping bag, Blair finds a pregnancy test and is convinced her mother is pregnant. In the end it turns out it’s Dorota who’s knocked up - with doorman Vanya’s baby! Our sweet maid is concerned with how her Polish family will react to her canoodling with someone from the Soviet out of wedlock (as a Polish gal myself, I can relate). P.S. How cute will this li’l dumpling of a baby be?! So excited!
Eleanor’s secret? She and Cyrus Rose are moving to Paris! Blair is left alone to make her mark on New York.
Dan Humphrey, Vanessa and Gabriella Abrams
Snooze! So Dan’s giving Vanessa the googly eyes on account of he’s been crushing on her ever since they had that grody threesome with Olivia Burke. Meanwhile, Vanessa’s being a bitch to mother Gabriella on account of mom cares more about saving baby whales and condescending to the working class and stuff than her own daughter. Dan succeeds in reuniting mother and daughter by explaining to Gabriella that she sucks at being a mom. Mom and daughter leave to meet up with Paul (new theater guy Vanessa’s seeing off-screen) and his parents.
But not before Dan confesses his budding romantic feelings for Vanessa to Gabriella! A mother knows, you guys, and like I said, Dan’s feelings are written all over his googly face. Gabriella advises the boy to only pursue Vanessa if he truly knows his feelings for her are true. “If you break her heart again, your friendship won’t survive,” Gabriella tells him. OoooOooh!
Rufus Humphrey, Lily van der Woodsen, and CeCe Rhodes
Even though the Humphreys love Thanksgiving, Lily van der Woodsen wants to keep it small and low key. Rufus and Eric, however, decide to video-conference in grandma CeCe, on account of she’s been sick and they want to surprise Lily. They soon find out that she’s in perfect health, and the broad basically invites herself over for din, knowing something’s up.
By the end, we discover that Lily is in fact keeping a secret from Rufus. It turns out CeCe’s cancer has been in remission since August, and Lily has been using her mother as an excuse to be away from home. When Rufus confronts her about it, she lies again, telling him she was bonding with her mother and didn’t want to leave, though she knew it was unfair to him. Rufus buys it, but Lily reveals to CeCe that she’s keeping a secret from him that she’ll never reveal. $10 says it has to do with Keith van der Woodsen and that letter she’s hiding from daughter Serena.
Serena van der Woodsen and Trip van der Bilt
Serena is STILL crushin’ on Trip, but is nervous about getting affectionate with him until his divorce with wife Maureen goes through. She’s super dumb, however, and invites him to spend Thanksgiving with her in her hotel room, telling mom Lily that Trip has her working at a soup kitchen for the holiday.
Unfortunately for S, Lily runs into Maureen on the street (wearing the same coat!) and invites both Trip and her to Thanksgiving to relieve Serena of her philanthropic duties. Maureen accepts the invitation, knowing something’s up.
Meanwhile, Serena is doing her best trying to avoid Trip, but ends up making out with him in her hotel elevator after pulling the emergency brake. Stupid S seems to have forgotten that step-brother Chuck Bass owns the hotel, and has access to the security tapes. Chuck tells buddy Nate Archibald about said tapes and Nate, perhaps selfishly out of love for Serena, gets his hands on the footage and shows it to Maureen. Shizz ends up hitting the fan over Thanksgiving dinner, and Maureen blows up at T and S, telling Serena to end it (”He’ll be a political joke and you’ll be a punch line,” she says).
A freaked out Serena apologizes to Maureen, promises to never see Trip again, and accepts BFF Blair’s invitation to visit Paris with her. When the girls go to find Serena’s passport in Bart Bass’s old safe, they find a letter addressed to Serena from dad Keith van der Woodsen. Serena is shocked by its contents!
Trip shows up at that moment and asks for her hand again, and Serena decides to go with him, with Blair’s support. Not really sure why, btw - his speech was like negative moving. On their way out, Lily tries to stop her daughter, but whatever S found out in Keith’s letter inspires her to throw the note in Lily’s face and say “You don’t get to judge me, ever again” and walk off. Lily takes the note and hides it in her coat pocket, to keep it from Rufus.
Nate tries to stop Serena from getting into the car with Trip, asking her to give him a chance. She’s torn for a second, but in the end, gets in. Uh oh, methinks trouble will be afoot!
Maureen is still at the van der Woodsen house and dejectedly goes to the closet to pull on her coat and leave. In the elevator out, she reaches into her pockets and discovers… the Keith van der Woodsen letter!!! She’s mistakenly put on Lily’s identical coat! As Maureen reads the letter, an evil smile comes over her face. She now has some sort of ammunition against Serena. Oh noes!
Phewf. Okay, so that’s that. I’m wondering if everyone else enjoyed the episode as much as I did. Sure, the story was as disjointed as ever and plots were thrown at us a mile a minute - but we got some great story development in there. And I can’t wait to find out what all these secrets are!
What do you think? xoxo!
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December 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I too liked the episode. But hoping the “secret” doesn’t turn out to be another ” I killed someone” bs story line. Like the end of Season 1.
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Omg, I couldn’t agree more! What a disappointing ending that was!
From the looks of the previews for the next episode, Serena will be in a car crash, and I REALLY hope they don’t end up killing her off like they did with Marissa on The OC. That totally ruined the show.
I wanna know the secret!