Savannah Serena Celia van der Woodsen Humphrey is a fictional character in the Gossip Girl novel series and in its TV adaptation, in which she is portrayed by Blake Lively.

Serena is a tall, blonde, slim, beautiful teenage girl from the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City.

Her father runs the Dutch shipping firm his great-great-grandfather founded in the 18th century, and her mother, Lillian van der Woodsen, is a socialite, art collector, and philanthropist.

The van der Woodsens live in a 14-room penthouse on the top floor of 993 Fifth Avenue, a ritzy, white-gloved doorman building directly across the street from The Met and Central Park.

'"[4][5] Vogue magazine wrote that Lively's upbringing helped her portray Serena and called her "dazzling and worldly and optimistic".

Serena escapes and runs into Dan, a St. Jude's student from Brooklyn, who often expresses cynicism about his wealthier classmates' lifestyle.

[10] Serena encounters myriad problems as her mother becomes engaged to Bart Bass,[11] who forces her family to adjust to living with Chuck.

Her relationship with Dan is further complicated by the arrival of Georgina Sparks, a longtime friend who slowly reveals to viewers the real reason Serena left Manhattan.

Georgina drives her to commit the same mistakes she did before leaving Manhattan, from partying excessively to drinking heavily, causing Serena to miss the SAT.

The second season shows Serena spending the summer with her family and Blair in the Hamptons, attempting to move on from her relationship with Dan.

[21] She reconciles with Dan but their friendship soon threatens her relationship with Aaron, prompting him to escort her to a ball where Serena receives news from her mother of Bart's death.

The plan completely backfires: Serena is arrested, Poppy escapes, and Georgina, becoming the scapegoat, eases back into her old ways.

The Los Angeles Times noted her character's penchant for secrecy but wrote, "It initially seems as though Bad Serena is back, but we all know her highway of crazy behavior is always paved with good intentions.

During Lily's wedding, she discovers Carter's previous transgressions and loses him when he chooses to make amends for his mistakes, breaking her heart in the process.

Serena eventually makes her time in New York useful by taking a job as a publicist, one that is short-lived as her relationships with both her friends and her family begin to erode.

Upon arriving, she is shocked to find her mother answering the hotel door, assuming that she had been in Canyon Ranch the entire time.

Chuck's arrival and a visit to a Parisian morgue confirm that he is alive but Serena pursues him in hopes of convincing him to return to New York when he tries to run away to London.

Serena's enrollment at Columbia has her face Juliet's many attempts to get rid of her: excluding her from an exclusive society and driving Blair against her; exposing her relationship with her professor, Colin Forrester (Sam Page), who happens to be Juliet's cousin, to get her kicked out; and spreading various rumors about Serena, who manages to evade these attempts.

Juliet then recruits Jenny and Vanessa and succeeds in gaslighting her into toying with Dan and Nate's feelings, attempting to take a foundation position from Blair, and returning to her old partying habits.

In Season 5, Serena is working as a film producer's assistant in Los Angeles and spending her free time with Nate and Chuck.

After being fired by Jane, Serena is hired by Nate's boss, Diana Payne, to start a blog based on her life in order to take down Gossip Girl.

Upset, she is told the time wasn't right for her blog, but she ultimately discovers that Nate had it shut down as a favor to Gossip Girl.

After her grandmother's death and shocking news of her will, Serena starts a vendetta against Ivy (who received the majority of CeCe's estate), trying to win back her family fortune.

Depressed, Serena leaves the city with one of Damien Dalgaard's drug dealers, a flashback to her days before she returned to the Upper East Side in season one.

A scene set in the future shows everyone reunited at the Bass-Waldorf residence, witnessing the marriage of Dan and Serena.

Serena does not appear in the 2021 sequel series, but in the episode "How to Bury a Millionaire" from season two, Georgina reveals that she lives in Brooklyn Heights and is still married to Dan.

[30] EW's Meeta Agrawal places Blake Lively's Serena van der Woodsen amongst the wearers of the 20 Knockout Dresses of the '00s.

[29][32] In an interview for Vanity Fair, costume designers Eric Daman and Meredith Markworth-Pollack considered fashion model Kate Moss and New York socialites Tinsley Mortimer and Arden Wohl as a muse when dressing Lively and when asked if they were influenced by New York socialites, respectively.

[35] Blair and Serena's friendship was praised as "it offered a relationship whose depth and complexity approached Rory and Paris' [from Gilmore Girls].

"[36] Vanity Fair considered Serena's murder storyline to be "unrealistic" and "an obvious ratings ploy," going on to compare it to a dramatic scene in The O.C., stating that the show may have possibly jumped the shark.