It was Turkey Day yesterday on Gossip Girl, and sort of turkey night for us, as a series of flightless bird storylines gobble-gobbled and feather ruffled uselessly before us. No murders, no sex, no drugs, no drinking (well not really), no gay stuff (again, not really). Just old pumpkin pie in a can family dramz, from Jenny the quite literally mop-topped rebellious fashion designer to Natalie Archibald, a young girl whose daddy did some mean things and now everyone is sad and yelly all the time. Put on your buckle shoes, buckle hat, and pantaloons, grab your musket, and come a'huntin' with me after the jump. Where we started: Jenny was mostly a hobo who was staying with gravelly-voiced Erik; Blair was mad still about her mom's new main squeeze, Wallace Shawn; Serena was still inexplicably drawn to little Fievel the mouse; and Nate was poor and having the-police-are-after-papa problems. Luckily EVERYTHING was resolved by the end of the episode (well, almost everything) because that is the way that Thanksgiving ends: with everyone happy and loving each other and not sitting alone in a darkened room of the house, gulping wine, still reeling from when your brother-in-law smacked your nephew right at the dinner table and your mom threw the fucking turkey out the window and your father yelled "all right! all right! all right!" as he banged the dinner table, which made your nephew cry more, and your sister wouldn't stop shrieking and shrieking and shrieking and somewhere in all of this your younger brother disappeared and for some reason you feel like he might be gone for good this time, I mean he took his guitar, and fuck your flight is going to be delayed if it snows and you can't believe you'd rather be at that miserable shitpile you call work than be here right now. That's never how Thanksgiving ends. Anyway! Jenny was trying to get legally divorced from her parents, because her crusty old rockstar dad just didn't understand her love of fashions and irresponsibly stupid haircuts. Erik was at the meeting with her because I guess they are best friends now and Jenny was shocked—shocked!—to hear that she'd have to, you know, like tell her parents that she was dibborcin' them and not just like mewp off into the fashionz sunset with nobody's feelings hurt. Well eventually Pa Humphrey found out that Jennifer had been staying at van der Bass Acres and he and Lily hatched a plan to get her back into the comfortable fold of warehouse Brooklyn where she belongs. Erik got dinged by the 'rents for harboring a fugitive, but not before Bart Bass ominously (and cattily, meow Miss Thang!) said that Erik best to check up on his mans, who may or may not have been jeepin' with the captain of the swim team. Were I a high school geigh, I'd probably have to stick with the captain of the swim team rather than a little Christmas elf who consistently scores highly in the Overly Earnest Voice Olympics. But that's just me! Erik was sad and curious as to how/why Bart knew such bitchy info, so of course he gushingly went to stepbro Chuckles, who showed him Bart's safe, which was full of gold bullion and richly embroidered hats and strange potions and elixirs and eye of newt and the lost Shakespeare play and Snow White's heart in a little wooden box and a single red apple and, most importantly, secret files. Ever the curious kitten, Erik read his and was shocked. "I'm gay???" he bellowed. On the other side of the same side of town, or somewhere downtown who the eff knows, Serena was feeding bits of cheese to her mousy little friend Aaron Rose. He had big news for her. He had decided to make it exclusive. This was good news for women everywhere, because previously Serena had been spouting some seriously messed up stuff about how she couldn't win him if she wasn't in the fight and all this stuff and you just wondered why this particular creature was so worth it and then you found out why: because he's a boring, super judgmental, Sober prick! Whee! Yeah, he doesn't drink because it really helps his "work," because, oh yeah Aaron. Because it must be completely impossible to put random shit in a pile and then play a movie on it when you're canned. Good on you. So Serena decided that she would lie and say she was a teetotaler when she is, in fact, anything but. So, awkward! Luckily for no one involved, Dan ran into Aaron at a little gourmandy Brooklyn greengrocer's, and like the big-mouthed idiot his character has never been on the show until this episode, he started gabbing about how Serena is a total drunk and probably killed a dude and how Aaron's mama was like a hardware store, three cents a sc— Whoa whoa whoa! It was all to much for Aaron. He looked puzzled in a "sometimes TV writers think that acceptable relationship obstacles are when someone thinks that their lover has done something bad in the past and they would completely break up with them if that was in fact true and that's supposed to be totally OK when it is in fact shitty and judgy and like, you should never date someone who is that condescending and boringly principled" kind of way. But whatevs, Dan took the blame for lying to save Serena's narrow, blonde little behind but then she felt bad. So—after Lily confronted Bass about the secret files (she was in a mental institution!! why??? we don't know!!) and the van der Woodsens left the manor—S took her secret file to Aaron because it is never weird when your girlfriend hands you a dossier of her life and says "read." In the end they had a talk and everything was OK. Much like the other two plot points that involved Blair being upset about her moms shutting her out of the whole I'm-dating-a-Sicilian plotline of her life. So she dragged dutiful Dorota (who is so sweet and pretty in real life, I met her this weekend, she's fab!) around town when all poor Dorota wanted to do was go feed the ducks. She understands simple pleasures, ones that don't involve oyster stuffing (ick, oysters) and fancy fancy gay dudes from Paris who just happen to be your dad. Anywayyyyyyy, Blair's mom ended up caring in the end and her dad made a surprise visit and new, happy, awkward family traditions were formed and everyone was so happy for these mind bogglingly wealthy people. Nate's dad came back and Nate was going to run away with him to a magical island where no one arrests you and the Archibald family has money and maybe, just maybe there is a SCUBA instructor from Australia with a nice toned, tawny physique and crinkly blue eyes and hair the color of hay and maybe his name is like Legolas or something and maybe he and Nate could be, uh, friends. But no! All was a lie! The Captain was going to hold Nate and his weak, dimwitted moms for ransom money! Which is the silliest thing I've ever heard! What was he going to do? Hold them at gunpoint? Tie them up? Bah. So instead Nate ended up asking dad to turn himself in, watched wistfully as he was carted off , and thought about how lucky his dad was to be going to a place where men to do each other what they do. Then he made up with Vanessa and had fun limo drinks with Chuck and he was happy again! Jenny came home!!! Storyline over!!! She was tired and poor and didn't want to divorce her parents because divorce means having to say you're sorry and that your parents were negligent when, in fact!, they were the opposite. So the Humphs and the van der Snitsens (minus artist-boning Serena) all had dinner at the Brooklyn brokedown palace and were joined by sad minority orphan Vanessa, who made up with Jenny... but then found an unread letter that Nate had sent that said "Jenny, I totes love you! What should we do, omigod!!" that had hearts over the i's and a picture of a bumblebee doodled in the corner. She stole the letter! Wicked Vanessa! Meanwhile Bart lurked outside and said "yes, bring me the head of Lily van der Woodsen." Or, rather, just the history of her head. He wanted to know why she was in that asylum. Um, because, yes, oftentimes it makes sense to ask a PI "give me only half of the information. I want the what, but ohhh mercy no, I don't want the why." Sure. So there this week's tale ends. Happy disjointed families eating meals and entertaining and feeling warmly dulled by wine and the crisp air whipping its way around the corners of the buildings all here in this big twirling glittering city, so brimming with love and mystery and all the other pearls that form the rich adornments of their lives, and meanwhile the rest of us will be choking down dry turkey somewhere cold and unpleasant while the steady whine of family members fighting in kitchens and living rooms and porches and guest bedrooms fills our ears and drowns out what we're saying to ourselves over and over again in our heads to make us forget: "xo, xo, xo, xo, xo, x....."