S rides to B's house in a taxi, laughing that this might be the first Thanksgiving she remembers in a while. Dan smiles ruefully, and allows as how that's probably true. She didn't get the joke. Serena's excited for Blair: her dad's coming home, for the first time since he left for Europe with Roman. Dan's having a reunion too; his mom's going to be in attendance. I wonder if she's even gone home. Serena smiles, happy for him as she is for Blair: "It seems like your mom is really trying." Dan's not incredibly impressed, because when is he ever? "Better Thanksgiving than never." She offers to be on call: "Call me between every course?" Gross? He agrees, and she makes kissy noises into the phone. I don't think it's necessarily gross -- from what Serena knows about moms you could retro-engineer Martha Stewart's entire Entertaining back catalog, but not a shitload of comfort, and she knows how ambivalent Dan is about Alison. As we all are.

Jenny's overjoyed to have her mother home, all asking her about the healthful qualities and nutritive value of heavy cream; Alison's overjoyed to be home, cooking and cooking and cooking until her family will finally just give in and forgive her before they pass out or explode. Dan calls her on the overfeeding borne of guilt, and she's like, "You got me, but check out how much more twisted this could get, because Eleanor Waldorf is about to tie binging and purging, guilt and parental mistakes, and Blair's entire body into a barfy little bow." Gotta say, I don't hate Alison in this episode much. She's got a lot of BS going on, but ever since that whole "The price of loving musicians is dealing with musicians" speech last time, I'm kind of on her side. In a world where Lily van der Woodsen was less than the most perfect creature in creation, I wouldn't give it a second thought, in fact. Jenny draws a line in the sand and says that one side of the kitchen is positive -- that is, living in a fantasy world where Alison and Rufus belong together -- and the other is negative -- that is, full of self-importance and Dan's usual bossy bullshit. Dan offers to join the side of goodness, naïveté, and opening the cranberry sauce. Because he is a man, you see, this is the limit of his ability to cook. I wish he would just make out with Chuck already. I miss Chuck. And the Minoriteens. There's another character missing this week but if you say her name three times, she might show up, so I'm keeping quiet about her. I do not miss her. Her ass is, I'm sure, in Vermont having dinner with her no-doubt fabulous parents, hectoring them about free-range this and tofu wheatloaf that, and chaining herself to the turkey.