Gilmore Girls - "A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving"
It's Thanksgiving and Lorelai and Rory promised they would go to four different dinners. Think of the all the stuffing. Their plan: skip the rolls. Not only is this is a warm and fuzzy episode to watch for the holiday, it's almost an impressive amount of food to eat in one day. Also, for the Gilmore Girls fans out there, this is a cute episode to watch because it's still the beginnings of the Rory/ Jess saga. I've always been Team Jess myself, even though he skulked off to California when he failed out of school. Essentially he's a wannabe Kerouac, but I digress.
If you're a fan of fast talking and food comas, this is your go-to Thanksgiving episode.
How I Met Your Mother - "Slapsgiving"
While the whole will they, won't they with Ted and Robin constantly infuriates me, I enjoyed this episode purely for the scenes with Marshall and Barney's slap bet. In a previous episode entitled Slap Bet, Marshall and Barney make a bet where the loser gets five slaps to use over the period of a lifetime, and sadly Barney lost. Throughout the episode, Marshall taunts Barney with a slap countdown and although the permission to slap is revoked by Lily at a certain point, she taps him back in at the very end resulting in a hilarious outcome. The final scene ends on a touching note, with all of the friends experiencing their first official Thanksgiving as friends in the big city. Makes you appreciate your close friends, even if they look forward to causing you bodily harm.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Pangs"
Buffy has some great seasonal episodes, particularly Christmas and Halloween themed, and Pangs is actually the only Thanksgiving episode. I especially love the scenes with Spike in this episode. He is newly implanted with the chip from the Initiative, which makes him a completely useless vampire. This Thanksgiving episode deals directly with the unspoken of issue during this holiday: the oppression of the Native American culture. The ghost of a vengeful Native American spirit haunts the gang, giving Xander syphilis (I mean, who else would get it really), and turning a Chumash warrior into a gigantic bear, to which Spike yells, "A bear! You made a bear!" Best line. For more ins and outs of this specific episode, check out this Buzzfeed article.
When the Scooby gang finally sits down to Thanksgiving dinner, the table is littered with arrows from the fight. Typical Buffy style.
Friends - "The One with Rachel's Other Sister"
Rachel's sister, Amy, makes her first appearance on the show (played by Christina Applegate). When she isn't offending just about every person at the dinner, she's fighting with Rachel because they didn't let her have Emma when she hypothetically died. All the while, Monica and Chandler are arguing over whether to use the good china for Thanksgiving (that does not work out in Chandler's favor), and Phoebe teaches Joey how to get away with a good white lie. It's a doozy of an episode and I recommend giving it a watch with some pumpkin at the end of your dinner.
Friends - "The One with All the Thanksgivings"
I love this Thanksgiving episode because it's essentially a montage of all of the friends' worst Thanksgivings. For Joey's story we are transported back to 1992 when he gets his head stuck in a turkey (do not ask me how he pulled that off) but it's Monica's story that wins in the end. Back in their college years, Ross brings Chandler over for Thanksgiving dinner. Rachel and Monica are still in high school, with Ross still slobbering all over Rachel and Monica in tow behind her. Chandler stupidly makes a fat joke about Monica and she hears it, resulting in her drastic weight loss the next year. In an attempt to get back at him, she ends up severely damaging his toe.
Since Monica and Chandler are secretly dating in this episode, they both feel pretty awful knowing each others worst Thanksgivings, so Monica ends up (somehow) getting a turkey on her head and shimmying for Chandler. This results in Chandler blurting out, "I love you," which hilariously has Monica freaking out with a turkey still on her head. It's a classic scene, so romantic and genuinely funny.
Sidenote: My personal favorite "worst Thanksgiving" story is Phoebe's, which has us traveling back to the Civil War era with the blonde hippy as a nurse mending soldier's wounds, naturally.
Well there you have it. Those are my personal favorite TV Thanksgiving episodes. Did you have a favorite that's not on my list? Tell me about it in the comments!
