In contemplating which tyrant Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen) most closely resembles, there are several choices. Robespierre, who initially spouted platitudes about liberty and equality and liberty yet became as bloody-handed as the monarchs he replaced? Or Stalin, who was born of peasant stock but rose through the ranks via connections, cruelty, and subterfuge? No, if you want to find the most intriguing parallels, you have to turn elsewhere; Jenny Humphrey is Adolf Hitler. I understand such comparisons shouldn’t be made lightly, and I’ve already invoked the H-word before when discussing Gossip Girl characters; but bear with me.

It’s Halloween on the Upper East Side, and no holiday fits our characters better. Slipping into the cover of night, hiding behind masks and costumes, tricks and treats: the omnipresent themes of subterfuge and identity come out in full force. This episode’s lynchpin is the Halloween opening of the Gimlet nightclub; its owner, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), still smarting from Blair (Leighton Meester) and her manipulations in the previous episode, attempts to cut her out of his business affairs. Blair, on the other hand, tries to scheme her way back into his heart. Meanwhile, Serena (Blake Lively) solves problems in her publicity job and with her friends by bringing celebrities and paparazzi to Gimlet — and one of those celebrities happens to be Olivia (Hilary Duff). These events add another layer of awkwardness to her relationship with Dan (Penn Badgley), already complicated by Gossip Girl posts and Hollywood baggage. Then there’s the Jenny plotline, along with a runner with Rufus (Matthew Settle) and Lily (Kelly Rutherford).

That’s right: we have A, B, C, D, and E plots. That’s a lot of knives to keep in the air for forty minutes, and the writers actually manage to pull it off; even the forgettable Rufus and Lily story has a choice line about Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift costumes. (I can immediately comprehend what the Lady Gaga look is, but what the hell does a Taylor Swift costume look like? Something involving cowboy boots?)

In keeping with the holiday, one can divide the characters in each storyline into “trickers” or “treaters”. You can gloss them into any dialectic you want: idealists versus realists, negative liberty versus positive liberty, neoconservatives versus sane people. The trickers are comfortable with accepting some level of falsehood or deception into their lives if that’s what it takes to make things work smoothly. Blair is capable of all sorts of double-dealings to get what she wants, including calling in favors from a guy who’s her boyfriend’s mortal enemy and who attempted to rape her best friend’s mom. Serena, flipping around from her role in the last episode, pulls her fair share of machination as well. At this point, Jenny is practiced in casual deception, as is her stepmother. And Olivia the actress lies to Dan (and herself) about her previous onscreen/offscreen relationship and its meaning. “It’s all acting,” she says — while she and Brando might disagree with me, good acting is all about lying; great acting is all about telling the truth. The perfect deception is one you come to believe yourself.

In opposition to the trickers stand the treaters, who instinctively recoil from subterfuge and are perhaps more idealistic and less compromising; the most surprising character to fall into this category is Chuck, who previously invited comparisons to the ultimate trickers, the CIA. Unlike them, Chuck appears to have some baseline of scruples; some things aren’t games to him, and he tells Blair that when he says the reason he found it difficult to tell Blair he loved her was because “I couldn’t trust you.” His big turn in the episode, which is usually the culmination of a grand deception, is actually a grand truth — he calls the cops on himself to shut down his party because of his club’s lack of a liquor license. It’s part of a bigger scheme, of course, but the fact that there is any truth there at all is surprising.

Even Serena, in a stunning display of character consistency, finds it acceptable to manipulate strangers but draws the line in playing games with those close to her; she reveals her plans to Olivia and lets her make her own decisions. (Serena is Bukharin, and Blair is Stalin?) In this whole story, Dan once again serves the role of surrogate for the public. He is a spectator, watching Olivia’s performance in her films, watching her in Gossip Girl blasts, and watching her as she tells him her story in person. He has to take all these elements and collapse them into a cohesive narrative, which is difficult when you can’t tell what’s true and what’s false. Decisions are made for him, and he goes along with the ride Olivia and Serena have set up for him because events roll forward beyond his control.

This lack of control emanates from the publicity machine that dominates this episode. Chuck needs publicity for his club. Serena needs publicity for her job. Olivia needs publicity for her friends. There are many shades to this machine, and call it what you like: publicity, propaganda, espionage, dogma — it’s all about constructing a narrative that, when consumed, facilitates someone’s goals and agenda. In the end, publicity is nothing more than an elaborate costume or mask. This is where we get to Jenny Humphrey.

In the episode, Eric (Connor Pablo) and Jonathan (Matt Doyle) comment that Jenny is wearing a mask: she is friendly when interacting with them and her family, and cold and domineering when in her role as Queen Bee of Constance. Jonathan says that she’s been wearing the mask so long, “the mask is becoming her face.” Besides recalling a really good Twilight Zone episode, it puts deception into the context of leadership. The military historian John Keegan examined the nature of leadership in wartime, which is when it’s put to the test — after all, you’re asking for the greatest sacrifice, people’s lives. People may be easily led, but you have to prove that you are fit to be the leader. Although flawed, Keegan created an interesting framework, defining that proof of leadership as heroism; to him, leaders have to put on “the mask of command” in order to lead; in other words, they had to create the image of being a leader. It’s publicity in a different guise. Keegan classified leaders into different types: Heroics like Alexander the Great who lead from the front, lead by example, and claim authority by their own bravery. There are Anti-Heroics like Lord Nelxon, who take leadership as a mantle of privilege that few are qualified for; then there are Unheroics like Ulysses S. Grant, who view leadership as a burden and responsibility to shoulder for the sake of others.

However, Keegan has a fourth category: the False Heroics, leaders who create a grand illusion to drive and and motivate the people while the leaders themselves remain in secrecy and without accountability. His main example? None other than Mr. “Godwin’s Law” himself.

Leaving aside the surface parallels (creatives who abandoned their craft for the sake of power, and who took command after an earlier failed attempt to usurp control from sitting leadership), the closest link is that Jenny believes she can maintain her regime by projecting an aura of invincibility. If this means betraying and deceiving everyone around her, so be it. She says one thing while doing another; one can imagine “Operation Dillinger”, in which Jenny’s minions egg Jonathan, as the equivalent to the Reichstag fire. Such a regime is consolidated by visiting violence and marginalization on those who would challenge it, acts of violence which cement the bonds of those in the power structure. The critical problem with such a setup is that it is entirely built on lies and deception, and gargantuan effort must be exerted to maintain the fiction. As Jenny says herself, “As soon as those girls see me hesitate, I have a full-blown rebellion on my hands.”

Which is, of course, what will happen. At the end of the episode, Jenny destroys her creative identity by abandoning her sewing machine; remember what happened the last time she did that. She’s going to have her “cornered in the bunker” comeuppance eventually; the only question is what form it will take.

(I was hoping to be the first intersection of the keywords “Gossip Girl” and “Reichstag fire”, but alas, everything is on the Internet already)