Over the course of its six season run, the original Gossip Girl (2007) gained a reputation for its dramatic Thanksgiving episodes. The show used Thanksgiving as a stage upon which to reveal secrets, air out family drama, and fuel scandal – all around the dinner table. These episodes have become some of Gossip Girl’s most iconic, being known as a yearly Thanksgiving must-watch. Even though many of the original elements were there, the Gossip Girl reboot’s contribution to the Thanksgiving episode collection didn’t live up to the others.
The original Gossip Girl manages to thrive with overtly decadent, soap opera-adjacent storylines, acting, and directing that are often bordering on over-the-top. The Thanksgiving episodes, in particular, seem to throw caution to the wind and not concern themselves with packing too much conflict into one small space. Another one of the original’s unique strengths was the characters’ detailed histories, backstories, and established interpersonal relationships that are referenced and built up throughout. Much of this comes out in the first Thanksgiving episode, “Blair Waldorf Must Pie” (Season 1, Episode 9) This episode involves multiple flashbacks including the revelation that Dan (Penn Badgley) first met a very drunken Serena (Blake Lively) on Thanksgiving the previous year; he remembered this moment forever, and she didn’t remember it at all. This, among the episode’s other ongoing flashbacks, adds layers to the story and depth and complexity to the characters. Even though the episode appears in the first season, there is still a notion of a more established history and characters’ lives that viewers are simply walking in on. When the narrative flips back to the present day, new secrets seem to fall out of hiding every few minutes, and the characters’ many entwined storylines become further exposed. This format and tone is repeated, in various ways, throughout the five Thanksgiving episodes that follow.
Even Gossip Girl (Kristen Bell) herself admits that Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday, and that it’s the one day of the year when she doesn’t post to her beloved blog. This makes the importance of Thanksgiving as a playing field for some very drama-filled games an ongoing theme throughout the series and, at times, a kind of inside joke between the show and its fans. When it comes to inside jokes, the Gossip Girl reboot is a master. It has made some atypical reboot choices, changing the entire cast of characters but keeping the lore of the original group fully intact and often referenced among the newbies. The original show remains a legend in the world of the reboot – ghosts of Upper East Side high school alumni past live on in the minds and conversations of the reboot’s characters. Their fame is what sparks Gossip Girl’s return, making the reboot a direct sequel.
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that the Gossip Girl reboot chose to make its return three months after its mid-season finale with a Thanksgiving episode (Season 1, Episode 7). Differing from its source material, the Gossip Girl reboot has been met with much less popularity and mixed reviews with only a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes versus the original’s 84%. The reboot has a smaller, more naturalistic feel to it. It lacks the grandiosity and sometimes soap opera-esque feeling. These things, along with the storyline, take a very different approach. However, while it’s far from copying the plot of its source material, the reboot often feels as though it’s striving to emulate the tone. This Thanksgiving episode is a pretty clear example of that attempt and why it doesn’t work.
“Once Upon A Time In The Upper West” makes some pretty clear moves in trying to repeat the Thanksgiving episodes of the past. Zoya (Whitney Peak) and Nick Lott (Johnathan Fernandez) are having their apparently annual open-door Friendsgiving. Of course, nearly every important character ends up at their apartment through a series of miscommunications and changes of plans. This is where the annual Gossip Girl drama-filled Thanksgiving dinner table scene takes place. The episode tried to achieve humor that could carry the dialogue along by adding a motley arrangement of guests at the table, but these characters actually feel a little too real. None of them is as abhorrent, over-the-top, or eccentric as the original cast of characters. And even those who are placed there for comic relief, Lola (Elizabeth Lail) who gets cartoonishly drunk as the night progresses and Saskia (Lucy Punch), Max’s (Brian J. Smith) loud, eccentric biological mother who’s in town for Thanksgiving, don’t quite succeed. They fail to add color to an otherwise strangely dull backdrop and they give off a feeling of being contrived devices.
A pillar of these episodes in the original series is the bringing together of multiple separate plots in a messy deluge of drama. In this episode, plenty of plotlines converge and twist around each other: a threesome venturing into love triangle territory, an actual love triangle between two sisters, and two estranged spouses forced into a room together, among many more. The concept of trying to get the individual plotlines and subplots of the show to overlap, harmonize, and swell isn’t a bad idea on its own; it gave an opportunity to hit the tone without forcing it. However, the intention to inauthentically produce a satisfying chaos was palpable.
When fights break out, and as expected, secrets are revealed, the dialogue makes a sloppy attempt at high energy and tonal shifts. The layers of fights, dynamics, and personal turmoil combining at a big Thanksgiving celebration with everyone invited sets the stage for scandal, big conflicts, and even some moments of familial bonding during the denouement. Yet, it doesn’t work to come to that familiar head and feels more awkward than anything. There were no flashbacks, and while stories of the characters’ pasts are whispered about, they aren’t fleshed-out or adding intrigue. The naturalism is too real and too serious even when it’s trying not to be, which takes away the elements of fun and effective humor. Without those, the episode fails to boil the wild, juicy Thanksgiving down to a formula that actually works. The dinner table scene, overall, feels somewhat dark and serious, making the comedic moments echo in an empty void.
The puzzle pieces of a successfully rebooted holiday episode were all there. When put together, however, these puzzle pieces don’t come out looking like the Gossip Girl Thanksgivings of yore. It was clear that the episode (like much of the reboot) was attempting to hearken back to its source material and achieve that perfect mix of dramatic plot twists, awkward tension, and dialogue that creates momentum. Yet, a feeling and tone can’t be replicated by just repeating some of the elements of the original and going through the motions. And, when trying to recreate a classic, making it objectively “better” won’t always improve it; sometimes it loses the magic that makes it what it is.
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