Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 6.02

Rory gets up on the wrong foot as far as her community service goes. In the meantime, Luke and Lorelai decide some living arrangements. 

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

I love that Luke was a trekkie and that he argues about Star Wars. Imagine if he discovered fandoms? Oh. my. God.

Rory’s life at the pool house
She is starting her community service picking up trash from the side of the road. She clearly feels out of place, but like, tough. Emily prints out a list of how to interact with “fellow prisoners”, which is as silly-sounding coming from her as you would imagine. She even gives Rory cigarettes to barter with. Dear Lord.
She is also hanging out around the house a lot, since she does not have a job yet. She starts chatting in Spanish with one maid there, who is from Guatemala. Emily sees them and barks at the maid to go away, telling Rory she should not be doing that (treating maids like human beings! how dare she). Next thing we know, they hired another maid. I really really hate Emily when it comes to her employees.

Richard and Emily inform Rory that they can help her get a job of some sort, to which Rory replies that her community service severely limits her options as far as work. But, uh, 300 hours in 6 months would require about 10 to 13 hours a week? That is 100% doable, while having a part time job.  Later that day, the DAR women mention to Rory that they have a job opening, as an assistant of some sort. She decides to take it. Oh boy, more like a bratty brat socialite every day.

Lorelai and Luke’s home
Luke places back his offer on the Twickum house (which he had pulled out) and starts planning what things to do about that house, and about Lorelai’s current house. Lor starts rambling about keeping it for some other thing, and Luke picks up on the fact that Lorelai doesn’t wanna let go, so he suggests they stay and live there.
Liz is trying to get TJ out of the house so she begs and manipulates Luke into hiring him as a contractor for renovations around Lorelai’s house. In classic TJ fashion, he screws up left and right, and sledgehammers an enormous hole in Lorelai’s bedroom as his first decision. Oh TJ.

Paul Anka arrives!
Not the singer (not yet), the dog. Lorelai gets a cute-as-fuck dog – to fill in the Rory-shaped void in her heart – who is afraid of everything. He is the cutest, though! I had kind of forgotten how cute he is.
Luke apparently hates dogs? I don’t trust men who don’t like dogs.

 

Plus he is hella smart.

 

Rory visits the diner
And asks Luke how everything is going. Luke tells her that he and her mom are engaged. Later on, because he feels stressed out about it, Luke snaps at Lorelai and tells her what happened. Lorelai yells back, saying no one should have told her anything. She is so unreasonable and so so petty about this. It is not Luke’s fault that they are not talking. And honestly, the no-talking thing is such a bullshit thing, too. Which Luke points out, and I am glad he did. She is not being a mother, she is being a petty high-schooler.

She gets into a fight – probably because of her frustration and hurt that Lorelai didn’t tell her about the engagement – while doing her community service, which is ridiculous because Rory cannot possibly take anyone in a fight. Later that same day, Lorelai is driving by and sees Rory on the side of the road. She stops the car and has a 3 minute bickering match with her daughter. Interrupting her at work, taking out her frustrations over something that is her own fault (they stopped speaking because Lor cut her daughter out completely), possibly getting her in trouble, to achieve *what?* Nothing. Not telling her daughter about getting engaged *is* super hurtful, uncalled for, and seems like an intentional dig. So petty.
Uh. Soon mother and daughter will stop being ridiculous. Soon. Ish.

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 6.01

Ooof. Season 6 amirite? Last time we checked, Lorelai had proposed to Luke, Rory was moving into the pool house with her grandparents after dropping off Yale, having stolen a yacht.

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Luke & Lorelai sitting in a tree, e-n-g-a-g-e-d (that actually kinda rhymes too!)
Luke says yes, of course. They toast with zima in the town gazebo. Awwwwwh. We know, we know.
The town seems a little concerned that Lorelai proposed to Luke and not the other way around. I say fuck that. I love that it was her who proposed.

Mrs Patty: *She* proposed…
Babette: Yeah, well, thank God he’s got a good ass.

Kirk is now in the business of selling dead women’s rings and also teases Luke about it, saying how he pities him for having Lor steal his moment. But who cares what Kirk thinks.

300 hours of community service
Richard’s lawyer brags about himself and how he’ll get Rory out with no more than 20 hours of community service. But when they go to the courthouse, the judge voices her exhaustion with rich kids viewing the world as their playground (damn right!) and gives her 300 hours to be done in no more than 6 months. Ah well.

Rory’s now in the pool house
We see the first steps into the grandparents and Rory living together. It is a bit awkward for Rory, but it seems okay for now. Richard gets her a lawyer for the boat incident, and calls Lorelai to let her know. Lorelai is very snarky and makes it known she doesn’t care. I don’t think that’s useful, and it looks like throwing a fit, but okay.
Paris visits and also questions Rory about the Yale thing, but Rory stands her ground, telling Paris that it is her life, which is, well, true. If people close to her actually asked her what was going on or opened up a dialogue with her, that would have probably helped Rory and their relationships with her a lot more, but hey, judging works for some. Not most, though.

What I do not like, is how easily she gets comfortable with that rich girl life. Logan’s friends (including Riki Lindhome! I didn’t remember she was on Gilmore girls!) throw her a “for she’s a jolly good fellon” party, for fucks sake, which seems to me like the very epitome of white privilege, and mocking the prison industrial complex, which is gross. Anyway.

Emily sends Lorelai a message that she will be picking up Rory’s stuff from her house, so Lor sends Michel to let Emily into her house. She also does not even attempt to put stuff in boxes or in bags or anything. Then, after Emily left Lorelai notes and voicemail messages, Lorelai decides to barge into her parents’ house in the middle of the night to drop off the rest of Rory’s stuff. Lorelai is upset, we get it, but she is acting like a child. What is she accomplishing with this? Literally nothing. This kind of passive-aggressiveness is what I’ve heard freshman roommates do to each other, not 40-year old grown women. Jesus fuck. And she acts like it was some kind of ploy deviced by Richard and Emily to get Rory to “be like them”. Regardless of whether or not it is kind of true – Rory is getting to be more and more like a rich brat socialite as the seasons progress – it is not really something the grandparents planned. And Rory is not a puppet, or a child.
While I really don’t like when Rory and Lorelai fight, I like that it is very real. They are very close, and love each other so much, so obviously when they fight, it hurts. They are both flawed humans, and they fuck up. One of the things I love about this show is how the “strong female characters” (which this show has a TON of) are allowed to be unreasonable, insecure, stubborn, petty. All of them, but since the show focuses on mother and daughter, they get to be more of all of that. It’s refreshing, even on my nth rewatch.

Next episode includes a lot of changes: Rory starts her community service, Lorelai gets a dog, Luke and Lorelai make some house-related decisions.

Today I recap: Gilmore girls, season 5

I need to be honest that I like the first 4 seasons more than the last 3 – I think it is mainly because there is a lot more drama in the last 3 -, but I still do like this season a lot. Especially once Dean leaves. In light of all the news about the revival (!!!), and that Jared Padalecki is coming back for it, I hope he comes back just so that everyone throws tomatoes at him. It’s unlikely that that’s his role, but a girl can dream.

Now let’s recap! Starting with my least favorites: On #5 I would put But I’m a Gilmore (5.19), because the Huntzberger fam sucks. At #4, We Got Us a Pippi Virgin (5.05) because Dean is there and Luke is a dick and everything is kind of boring. For #3, Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller (5.01) because Lorelai and Rory are fighting and that makes me anxious. At #2, I would say Say Something (5.14), because every time I rewatch that dream sequence of Lorelai, I cry. And my very least favorite is A House Is Not a Home (5.22) because it took me forever to write that review because I knew how stressful it is.

Now, my favorites! Norman Mailer, I’m Pregnant (5.06) would go at #5, because a lot of little funny moments happen throughout. At #4, But Not as Cute as Pushkin (5.10) would be next, since I liked Rory showing Anna around and all those shenanigans.

 

This insult is now an integral part of my vocabulary.

 

My #3 would be Pulp Friction (5.17), because Tarantino, and Luke and Lorelai just getting back together is also fun. For #2, Wedding Bell Blues (5.13), despite the drama that makes me nervous, it is a really solid and entertaining 100th episode. At #1, despite me maybe, I would put You Jump, I Jump, Jack (5.07) – rich kid shenanigans sounded fun, okay? Let me live.

Woooooop. That’s it. I anticipate the next two seasons will be super interesting to review, since I haven’t watched either of them more than once, maybe twice? See ya babes there.

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.22

I have some anxiety about writing about this episode. It took me a while to finally sit down to do it.
In the aftermath of yacht-stealing, Rory feels like she needs a change, and not everyone likes the decision she makes. Lane feels her band is fading away, and she gets unexpected help.

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Grand theft boating
The episode opens with Lorelai being super awkward, worried and unimpressed, at the police station, waiting to pick up Rory.
Lor asks Rory what happened and then interrupts her to declare she knows what happened: Logan got her into this. Lorelai tells Luke and he declares the same thing: Logan must have gotten her into this.

   

While no one can deny that Logan’s rich kid shenanigans have influenced Rory in the general sense of *without him she would not have been around yachts to steal in the first place*, Rory was the one to suggest it. Not only that, but I am seeing a very clear parallel with when Jess and Rory got into a car accident in season 2 and everyone accused Jess 100%. Except in season 2, it was nobody’s fault. Here it was definitely Rory’s decision (not that Logan stopped her but it’s not his job, or in him, to do so). She was the one who acted like a rich, entitled brat throwing a tantrum. It’s not even that she stole a yacht (I mean, yes, you must have some privilege and money to know you can get away with it, but w/e), for me anyway, it’s why.
Rory tells her mom about why she did it, which is that she was upset about Mitchum telling her she hasn’t “got it” as a journalist. Lorelai, channeling me, tells Rory that Papa Huntzberger is just a man with a good parking space, just one opinion, and who the hell does he think he is. Not because he is definitely wrong or definitely right, but because Rory’s sense of self-worth and confidence in her career should not depend on one pretentious asshole’s opinion.

Lorelai is very chill and understanding at the beginning, to be honest. She is worried, but she is trying to keep her chill. Until Logan calls, and Lor tells him to thank his father for “all of this”. So passive aggressive, but okay. Logan asks Rory about this, so she tells him about what happened. While Logan tells Rory that he is a bully, he does not reassure Rory that Papa Huntzberger could be wrong in what he said. What Rory needs is reassurance that she can be a journalist, and that Mitchum’s words aren’t everything. Anyhoo.

Hep Alien isn’t doing so great
Lane notices that nobody in her band seems to care about, or have time for, the band anymore. She confronts them about it and they all tell her to calm down but it all just kind of confirms to her that the band might be over. She is quite upset, since she risked so much for it.

Lane: According to my mother, I’m going to hell for this. That’s commitment, my friends. Eternal damnation is what I’m risking for my rock’n’roll. 

I’m also a little bothered by how condescending the three guys are to Lane, saying she is imagining what she is clearly not just imagining. I am very bothered by it, actually.

Anyway, seeing as the band is probably not working, Lane goes to her mom and tells her that she might be needing to move back. I don’t understand why, if she is paying rent and not living with strict rules, etc. That must have been hard. Mrs Kim, though, is not having it. She tells Lane that Kims don’t give up, and decides to help plan a tour with them. A tour of East Coast church theatres, but a tour regardless.

Not going back to Yale
Rory announces to her mom that she is not going back to Yale next year. She feels lost and like she doesn’t know what she wants anymore.
I have so many mixed feelings about this, that I don’t know how to write without writing a whole book.
On the one hand, a lot of us wanted to think of Rory as this super confident, smart, independent woman. What I see here, though, is a deeply insecure one. This is not as a criticism. She is 20 here, and a man she admires, who is famous in the field she aspires to be in, who she thinks has no other reason to want her to give up (which to me seems incredible but that’s because I am that kind of person to see the worst in people), tells her she is no good.
I do think that, at least the way it’s presented here, she took a whole 2 days to think about quitting Yale, which seems reckless or impatient of Rory. And then we have Lorelai’s reaction.
I get where she is coming from, because my dad would react the same way, but… My dad would react the same way. My dad and Lorelai should have zero in common. She is worried, and thinks this is the end of the world, but it really isn’t, and more importantly, her reaction is the opposite of useful in letting Rory find her own way around her feelings and thoughts. It is absolutely horrifying to see, to be honest. She sees her daughter, in her own words, floating, lost, insecure, and she shuts the door between them. Wow, in all previous rewatches I had been upset at Rory but now I’m really not. Like, yes, she fucked up with the yacht and she is turning into a brat, but the Yale thing? Nope. This is interesting.

Lorelai goes to Richard and Emily to tell them all that had happened and to ask for their support on triple-teaming (even that term makes me mad) Rory and getting her to go back to school. When will relatives and people in general understand that pushing someone who is falling is not gonna get them back up, it’s just gonna make them keep rolling downhill?

[Brief pause to talk about the shaking employee at the Gilmore house? Yes, please. Richard asks her something about his shoes and she seems panicked, unable to answer, shaking. THIS IS NOT OKAY. It’s played for laughs and Richard scoffs at her “incompetence” but, uh, hello? How are you treating them? Why aren’t you asking if she is okay?]

Friday Night Dinner time
Early afternoon Friday, Rory goes to her grandparent’s house and Richard is there. Rory starts crying and telling him she doesn’t know what to do, because everything is falling apart. There is still that little voice in my head saying, “Well yeah you fucked up but you need to deal” but I want that voice to shut the fuck up. Because she is 20, and she is clearly very lost and very stressed. She wants to breathe.

  

Richard and Emily discuss what Lorelai said, what Rory said, and decide to back Rory on not going back to Yale. Since Lorelai shut the door for Rory (as far as going back to Stars Hollow and working there or something), they offered Rory to stay in the pool house, and agree to discuss going back to Yale after things cool down.
Lorelai obviously does not calm down or think about it rationally like Richard suggests she does. She leaves the house in a huff, while Rory moves her stuff into the pool house.
I hate it when they fight.

Oh, but the episode isn’t over yet, is it?
Lorelai goes back to Luke’s to rant about what happened. Luke sounds supportive of Lorelai in a weird lets-kidnap-Rory way, and goes on and on, while we see something pop in Lorelai’s mind.

I’m done, too many emotions. Good night.

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.21

We are approaching the end of Season 5. I don’t want to review the last few episodes because they’re so painful in different ways, but I will. There is a lot going on in today’s episode.
Emily is sponsoring a ballet dancer and bringing them home, which sounds a little creepy, but okay, that’s a thing. Luke has competition towards buying the Twickum house off of Taylor, and Lorelai has a pregnancy scare, while Sookie is having her baby. The article where Lorelai makes funny but horribly offensive digs at her mother comes out, and of course Emily reads it. And Rory is nearing the end of her internship shadowing Mitchum, which ends on a sad note for her. 

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Sookie is giving birth, Lorelai might be preggers
Just as Lor and Rory were going to throw Sookie a late baby shower, Sookie is having contractions and running to the hospital. As they’re deciding baby names, Jackson keeps saying that they’ll save the names for more babies. Sookie keeps saying famous people everywhere, and she is cute every second of it.What is not super cute is that, after giving birth, Sookie announces (not asks) to Jackson that he is getting a vasectomy right then and there. Don’t get me wrong, if she doesn’t want more babies, they don’t need to have them, but springing that on him is rude.
After a party in NYC (related to the magazine article Lorelai did), after Luke rants about big cities and NYC smells – ranting Luke is the best Luke -, after they drunkenly get to Luke’s place and Lorelai wakes up… she realizes they had sex without a condom, and I am guessing no pill either, which is, from the looks of it, a first for Lor in a while (good job having safer sex always woohoo!). Lorelai panics and calls Rory and wonders how she feels about having a baby. It ends up being a false alarm so, whatevs.

Emily buys a Russian ballerina
In a creepier move than is already usual for Emily, her rich friends and her decide to help out the Russian ballet by “adopting” (buying) a ballerina to bring home. She doesn’t like the first one, Pola, because she was “annoying” and “dumb”. So she gets a guy, Mikhail.

Lorelai decides to get the article and the awfulness out of the way so she shows the article to Emily, and Mikhail, herself. Emily decides to stop reading after Lorelai begs her to, and she forgives Lorelai, but Mikhail storms off the house. Why? Because Lorelai thinks Emily Gilmore is like Stalin.
I am so glad they included this. Even if that may not have been why they included it, it is a lesson about making jokes that compare trivial things to awful, historically oppressive things. Lorelai explains and apologizes for making such an awful joke. Good.

Luke isn’t the only one interested in the Twickum house
Guess who else is? KIRK. You read that right. I remember the first time watching this, I flipped out. What? Why? How. But then it clicked: he has been living with his mom all this time, working a million jobs, living a very simple life. It still seems excessive that he would have 250,000 but it is not that far out there, I guess. I would be as angry as Luke was, though.

In any case, both Luke and Kirk meet with the “town elders” at a steam room – of course! old rich white men like steam rooms – and a misterious man under a towel declares that Luke deserves the house because he has been pining for Lorelai since the dawn of time. Hurray for everyone in a small town knowing everything about everyone, I guess.

Rory’s aiming for the summer job
As the semester ends, Rory’s internship might end, unless she gets a summer job at the paper with Mitchum. She seems to be on top of her game and her duties, and she seems to like it very much.
After a meeting, Mitchum sits Rory down to give her feedback. He tells her that he doesn’t think she has what it takes to be a journalist, to put herself out there in that field. He thinks she could make a good assistant.
Now, I have conflicting thoughts about this. My initial reaction, the first couple of times watching the show, was to defend Rory. How dare he talk like that to our precious angelic smart Yalie? Then I had thoughts about, how could he possibly know? Has he read anything she has written? Did he give her an actual chance? No. At the same time, it is not false that she never did or try anything besides what she was asked to do, she never went out of her way to be more than an assistant. It sucks, and most internships suck in that they don’t do much for the interns as far as actual teaching or training beyond getting people coffee and do boring-ass paperwork.
He is still a jerk though, and he could have given gradual feedback – him, or someone else in the office – throughout the internship to guide Rory better instead of just raining on her parade at the end of it. But, yeah. Those are my thoughts. What does make me super angry is him telling Rory that he may have just done her a big favor. Such an entitled jerk. That line right there is where I knew for sure that he was absolutely agreeing with his family about Rory.

But then Rory goes and makes me eyeroll at her beyond what I thought I was capable of eyerolling.
Crying about that, I get. Being angry and disappointed, I get. Stealing a yacht like your rich, petty boyfriend has done before? Really, Rory? And it just gets worse, way worse, before it gets better. Hang on, kids.

 

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.20

It’s Rory’s first day as an intern at Mitchum’s (Papa H) newest newspaper. Logan is invited to a Friday Night Dinner which has Richard and Emily thrilled, and Lorelai, well, she is less happy.

   
   

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Rory is an intern now
I relate to her first day at the internship very much. My first day on my first internship was nothing like hers (mine included sex toy perusing & conversations about the word ‘moist’) but I feel like it would have been if it had been an office or something like what she is doing. She doesn’t know when she is supposed to take breaks, or who anyone is, or what her job is, and she is wearing uncomfortable shoes.
I also relate to doing an absurd amount of researcher on her boss, which I did too. She went overboard though, with a tower of books on everything Mitchum Huntzberger has ever written about, an indepth knowledge of everything he has ever done and said, etc. A little creepy, but endearing. She even calls Logan in the middle of her day to ask him to help her know him better, which he tries to do, even though he does not know him or bond with him much. She admires Mitchum, which is sweet but also terrifying because he is kind of a dick, as we will discover as the relationship between Logan and Rory continues.

Emily and Richard must meet Logan
I mean, they’ve met him. But they must re-meet him. They demand he join them for Friday Night Dinner, which encourages Lorelai to invite herself too, since she wants to know him as well. If I were Lorelai I would have told Rory to take Logan to Stars Hollow and have a more chill evening just the three of them instead. But whatever.

Tsk tsk. You don’t know he is straight. He could be bi. I know he is bi in my dreams.

We also learn in this episode that some friend of Richard’s wants to meet up with Lorelai because he is interested in doing business with her or something. We learn that this businessman knows about the inn because of the article – THE article, the one that, last we heard, wasn’t going to get published because Lorelai compared Emily to Stalin – which comes out soon.

Richard and Emily are really into this dinner with Logan. Right before they arrive, we hear them talking about the possibility of buying land in Martha’s Vineyard, talking about how it’s great for marriages and kids. They are so creepy, so ahead of themselves, so desperate. They keep telling the two babefriends that they’re perfect and praising everything Logan says and does. They freak me out. They also keep making digs at Lorelai, putting an onion in Lorelai’s martini, keeping her out of the conversation, making everything super uncomfortable for her. It’s not even the fact that they’re making Lorelai never want to come back to dinner with them, but they’re also failing at their manners rulebook by having all this pettiness in front of their precious Logan.
But Emily and Richard will not stop asking Logan about whether or not he likes Cape Cod for weddings, whether or not he likes kids. It is so intrusive, and so very creepy.

As part of a Life & Death Brigade (you know, the frat-type group Logan belongs to?) inside joke, Logan takes a knickknack from Emily’s living room and leave a knickknack from a previous rich person’s house in its place. Emily, being true to herself, immediately notices, and pounces on her maid. Lorelai, who saw Logan take it, asks for it back and tells Emily she found it. Lorelai looks at both Logan and Rory with a really disapproving face. Now, I get not being super into a rich kid’s shenanigans, but c’mon. He is taking silly things from other rich people’s houses. It’s not the biggest deal. And Lor acts like she would never make fun of her parents or like it is a huge offence or something. It feels like she is taking how her parents are treating her and projecting that onto Logan, which is unfair at this point. He is not his family, and he is not her family either. Wow, I am defending Logan, this is interesting.

Emily: Have you lost your mind?
Lorelai: No, nope. Still sloshing around up there.

After Logan and Rory leave, Lorelai tells her parents about how Rory was treated at the Huntzberger’s house. She handles it super wrong though, telling them about other things that she knows they won’t care about or believe her about. She voices her concerns and doubts about how legit the internship is, and if it is just a ploy or a buy-off. If she wanted to make a point about the family treating her daughter badly, that’s fine, but she could have stuck with that. Would have saved us all a lot of time between now and when they finally realize what was happening. The grandparents are so good at gaslighting and passive-aggressive awfulness so of course they were going to ‘win’ this one. Especially since they don’t seem to care about Logan’s rich kid shenanigans – oh, if Lor knew he sinks other people’s yachts and throws himself off of tall buildings on pretentious outdoor parties! – or anything other than Logan being rich and how cute their kids would be.
That was so uncomfortable to watch and think about. Let’s move on.

The episode ends with Sookie and Lorelai talking about the business dude and how he is interested and open about options for the inn, and for them. They talk about travelling, consulting, and how great that would be.

Sookie: I can picture us in the south of France. Ohh! Topless.
Lorelai: At work?
Sookie: On the beach.
Lorelai: Much more appropriate.

Sookie can’t leave because of family, but Lor could. She is considering it..!

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.19

Sookie is very pregnant and needs bed rest, which does not sit well with her and her chef duties. Rory tells Logan she cannot do casual dating, and gets some unexpected results. Here we go. 

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Rory is a ‘girlfriend’ girl
Now, we pretty much knew this already. Plus, we learn here that that time period she was freaking out about not hearing from him for? A week. So, casual is definitely not in the books for her. I am glad she cleared that out with Logan. At first, Logan misconstrues that as an ultimatum but understands that it wasn’t and swears to Rory he can be a boyfriend, and he wants to.
Now, relatively unimportant detail here maybe, but, what kind of average-looking 23-year-old has so many girls on speed dial, and super interested in him? Seems unrealistic. C’mon ladies, you can all do better. Anyway.
Rory seems happy and he seems enthusiastic about trying a new thing.

And then they come back to Logan’s apartment to find a girl there waiting for him.
Not to worry, it is only Logan’s sister, Hope.

  
 

Hope invites Rory to have dinner with their family, since Hope is announcing her engagement to marry her boyfriend. Okay, okay. Is it just me or is inviting someone who just introduced herself as a new girlfriend to your family’s house a bit much? They’re 22-23! Who does that? Especially with a family like Logan’s. That’s just absurd. Also intrusive since Hope didn’t even check with Logan first. He seems to be fine with it, since he is now rolling with the whole “boyfriend” thing – which does not have to include parent dinners, but okay, let’s say it does. Maybe it is precisely because he has never called any woman his girlfriend that he doesn’t know the hell that awaits Rory’s poor, poor soul.

Paris has a sick boy at home.
When Paris gets back to her dorm, she finds Doyle laying in her bed, with a really bad cold. Turns out he was also not avoiding her or disliking her, he was just ill.
While I get it that a lot of us do that sometimes, exaggerate or overthink things that in reality mean nothing, I don’t like how the people doing this in each and every piece of media I can think of are women. In my experience, the neediest, weirdest over-thinkers have been men. Moving on though, because Doyle is sick and Paris seems to be terrified of catching whatever he has, despite being pre-med (and constantly reminded of that fact), and that’s fun to watch.
Paris brings him Nanny to take care of him. Am I the only one who is a big unimpressed that Doyle and Paris had slept together for not long at all and he went to her dorm expecting her to take care of him? Who does that?
I’m glad Paris confronts him about what their relationship is, and hopefully explains what her expectations and needs are. Boys shouldn’t just get Nanny and saunter away without having a normal conversation like fucking adults. They end up establishing they are in a committed relationship.

Sookie needs to stay in bed
And someone has to make the dinner. Because, classic Sookie, she does not delegate, so nobody in the kitchen knows how to do what she does. Lorelai is freaking out about that so he enlists Luke to help cook dinner.
Of course Sookie is not at peace with this, so he calls Luke again and again to question him on his methods, like he hasn’t been running a diner for I don’t know how many years. Oh, Sookie, you sweet, adorable, hormonal mess. She also didn’t check applications for her temporary replacement. I know it’s cute because it’s Sookie, but that’s beyond unprofessional if you’re running a kitchen. Not to mention that doubting his skills and annoying him and interrupting him would be super ungrateful of someone who is running an inn kitchen for you for free because you wouldn’t properly train your staff. Anyhoo. I still love her, because my sweet babe does not know how to not be the boss of her own damn kitchen always. It’s creepy, but endearing.
After she steals food from Luke’s kitchen (because while it is Sookie’s, he is running it, for free, to help her), moves herself to one of the Inn’s rooms to be able to sneak in food,  and is told several times to stop it, she gets upset and calls Jackson. My poor lost babies. Everyone gets upset but then everyone makes up. Because Sookie needs bed rest.

She is a Gilmore, and yet…
Rory and Logan go to the Huntzberger’s family dinner. There are crickets because Josh (Hope’s fiancee) is boring and because the family is boring and because their house is ugly. Maybe that last part is not part of the reason but I needed to throw that in the mix of things that are uncomfortable to watch.

  

But then Grandpa H gets pissy. He slams the table and declares that bringing undesirables into the family is a discussion that must be had. Now, because Hope is engaged we all think they must be talking on poor silent Josh, but no!
They are talking about Rory, and how unsuitable she is to be Logan’s wife. Wait, what? Yes. They are worse than Richard with his uncomfortable, unnecessary questioning of Dean back in season 2. They have literally started dating 2 minutes ago, Rory is 22, why is everyone talking about marrying into the Huntzberger business?! And how are Grandpa H and Shira (Mama H) attacking her, calling her less than them, bringing up Logan’s exes? Aren’t these people supposed to at least pretend to have manners? The only thing I can think of is that they clearly think themselves so above everyone, so above Rory and her family, that they can talk like that on a first meal they have together. It is even more ridiculous since we know that even within this elitist, classist bullshit universe, Rory is of ‘good breeding’ (god how I find that term disgusting), Rory is smart and capable and pretty and would make a wonderful wife to Logan. She could run the business with him if she wanted to. This entire thing is so unpleasant.
As Logan rightfully stops them on their tracks and stands up from the table to leave that hot mess, Mitchum (Papa H) Huntzberger arrives. He seems completely unaware of the happenings of the night, seems pleasant to Rory, and surprised that everything is the hot mess that it is.
After dinner, Logan is not talking much and everything is awkward. He drops off Rory without much said, and she calls Lorelai to tell her about that dinner, and about her fears that that may make Logan reconsider their relationship. Lorelai is right to be upset at the Huntzbergers, and worried about her daughter, and she tells Rory that she is worried because the other night her daughter was drunk and crying on the bathroom floor. I get it, but at the same time, who hasn’t drunk-cried over insecurities that have more to do with us than the other person, the actual situation that is happening? Anyway. Logan comes back to Rory’s room to apologize for leaving like that, and to take her to dinner. Good boy.

The next day, Papa H (I like calling Mitchum that, sorry) shows up at the Yale Daily News to talk to Rory, to apologize for his family’s behavior, and to make Rory an offer: an internship at a paper Mitchum recently bought. At first she says no, because he is only doing it out of guilt, but then Mitchum tells her that it’s still an opportunity, even if it was true that he only offered to apologize. He is right, too. So she says yes.
In the next episode, Rory starts her internship, and the Gilmore grandparents demand a dinner with Logan, which goes, well, a bit uncomfortable.

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.18

It’s been a long, long hiatus. But we are back in business.
An old townsperson dies and leaves his big house to the town, which is converted to a museum of “might have happened” historical items. Luke helps Taylor with the museum, to everyone’s surprise. Logan hasn’t called Rory, and Doyle has not called Paris, and Lane thinks Zack is cheating, so the gals get drunk together. Kirk is still looking for a place to stay, and Lorelai overshares about her family issues on an interview for the inn.

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Mr Twickum’s museum
Mr Twickum dies and donates his house to the town, along with allegedly historical items, and asks for his place to be converted to a museum. The items are hilarious: a letter that might have been from someone who might have been related to a former president, a flag that might have belonged to a person who might have been important somewhere, etc. Luke decides to help build and set it up, though, and no one understands why he is doing this. He tells Lorelai that he knew Mr Twickum because the man was like a second father to him. But later on he tells Taylor that he is volunteering to help because Lorelai asked him to. No one knows why he is doing it until later in the episode. So I will keep the mystery for now too. Taylor is obviously suspicious of Luke’s motives too but he makes Luke his right hand man, even if Luke did try to behead Taylor with a frying pan. Which is hilarious and I wish we could have seen it. Seeing Luke biting his tongue and being super uncomfortable around Taylor bossing him around in his very specific, peculiar, unique way of doing things is super fun though.

The museum is so very Stars Hollow. It is cute, and cheesy, and all of the artifacts in it are historically insignificant: a collection of maybe-someone-famous-had-a-relative-who-might-have-written-this-letter type of things. A 48-star flag they got from Sears, a cannonball that belonged to some unknown and then was lent to another unknown and then transported to the museum, not without breaking the floor and ending up in a hole which you need a flashlight to look into. Classic Stars Hollow. And a history which puts creationism and evolution on equal level, completely ignores Native Americans, and makes up shit as they go along. Classic ‘Murica.

Also part of the museum. Spooky.

Lorelai’s interview
The Dragonfly Inn gets the attention of a magazine, and they want to do an interview with Lorelai. In the interview, her upbringing is touched upon as a side comment by the interviewer, and Lorelai starts cracking a million jokes about her mother being comparable to Stalin and the like, in classic Lorelai fashion. This is not only offensive and inaccurate, all she says, but also extremely petty and unreasonable and unprofessional to do. Does she not realize she is talking to an interviewer? Does she not realize her mother could read this, and that she has feelings? Does she not think that the interview should center the inn and the work she has put into it, and not her “rich kid who doesn’t want to be rich” sob story? Does she not notice how ridiculous she sounds, a thirty-something talking about her mom like she is an angsty teenager? Honestly.
I have talked before about how her upbringing might not have been warm and fuzzy, but there is no indication that there was ever abuse. Toxic relationships, bad communication, huge incompatibilities in character, tastes, goals. All of that, yes. Serious abuse, neglect or unquestionably bad parenting? Hardly. It just seems super ridiculous, unnecessary and mean to me.

In any case, Lor gets her shit together, realizes that that article should not be printed, and tells the magazine to throw it all out.

The sisterhood of the travelling heartache. And Kirk.
Rory and Paris are both in a bit of a dry spell (as in, the boys they are into are not calling, for one reason or another) and so instead of being “pathetic” and sitting alone watching TV, they decide to go to Stars Hollow for the weekend. They are both staying at Lorelai’s… and so is Kirk. His living situation is still uncertain so he is staying on the couch.

Paris: How old is he (Kirk)?
Rory: You’d have to cut him open and count the rings.

They all have breakfast like Lor has three children and make plans for the weekend, while Paris mocks Rory for being super sensitive about getting any calls (from Logan) at all. She does not.

Lorelai: The grand opening of the Stars Hollow museum is this morning — any takers?
Paris: It’s always amusing when provincials grasp for legitimacy. I’m in.

They meet up with Lane at the museum opening, and Lane is mopey because Zach lied to her about where he was the night before and she then saw him head out of Sophie’s (music) shop later, so she thinks they are having an affair. So they’re a fun group. And like a fun group of college gals, they decide to drink, and Patty’s leftover punch (famous for its ridiculous amount of alcohol) is there for them.

Lane: I’m getting to the bottom of this.

Lane goes and confronts Sophie, who shows her that Zack was lying… about being in a bluegrass band. Zack has embarassed so he hadn’t told Lane. So that’s settled.
Paris, although she swears to Rory that she won’t call Doyle, runs around Stars Hollow drunk, without her shoes on (because she left them with Rory to ensure she wouldn’t go far), trying to get some change to call from a payphone (because she gave Rory her cellphone). Poor thing.
Rory sort of holds it together but ends the episode crying on the bathroom floor – presumably alternating between that and throwing up – on Lorelai’s lap, asking why Logan doesn’t like her. Ohhh man. I remember that kind of heartache when I was in college. Feeling like every mediocre boy that doesn’t call is the end of the world. It is the worst.

During the episode, Luke had run into Dean a few times and had seemed pissed for no reason, all angsty and being his usual worst so finally Luke confronts him. What was up, you ask? He is still the worst, he is still bitter about Rory, and he is bitter that Luke is still with a Gilmore girl and he is not. Ruh-roh. I get what he is saying about Rory moving on from Dean, and yeah, that sucks (especially because he is not wrong, that she was attracted to fancy, rich Logan, leaving small-town Dean behind), but being bitter with Luke? That’s such a silly thing to me. He remains the worst, is what I’m saying.

So, wait, what is the actual reason Luke was helping out with the museum?
*drum-roll please*
He would like to buy the house off of the town after the two months of museum time are done. For him and Lorelai. That’s a big-ass house for only two people. Even if they had kids, they would have to have like ten children. In any case, it’s a thing he wants and it’s sweet. Lorelai and Luke talk a little bit about how big and pretty the house is. It’s cute.

Next up, Rory tells Logan she cannot do ‘casual’, and Sookie needs bed rest which changes things up for a lot of people. We are near the end of season 5!

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.17

Lorelai and Luke are back together! Lorelai is still not speaking to Emily, though. Rory and Logan are seeing other people, but neither of them seem to be doing great at it. Michel is back from vacationing in California, where he won an RV.

xxx

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Michel has an RV
Michel is such a treasure. I need to meet Yanic Truesdale in person and tell him how much of a treasure he is. Michel went to LA and loved everything, especially the pretty people and shopping. Of course.
He also signed up to compete in The Price is Right. The image of Michel at a game show is priceless, I wish they would’ve shown it. He walked away with 100,000$ in prizes, but they’re all in the form of an RV. So now he has to sell it, and it is parked right outside the inn. Lorelai had a fancy photoshoot happening for a magazine, and the RV is standing right there, so she gets super mad. Kind of exaggeratedly so. Lorelai snaps at Michel when, in general, he is a good employee and business partner. He couldn’t have prevented the RV coming to the inn the exact day of the magazine photoshoot. Fortunately, she apologizes afterwards and helps him sell the thing.

Kirk is looking for some intimacy and independence
Kirk wishes to have with Lulu what Luke and Lorelai have, meaning being able to sleep over, have some real intimacy and privacy, but he lives with his mother, and the mother is apparently allergic to Lulu. Luke suggests that he get some independence, and finally move out of his mother’s place. Which, I mean, is good advice, but can’t he stay over at Lulu’s too? Does she live with her parents too, or alone?

In any case, Kirk gets super excited about leaving his house, so he does. But he didn’t think to get a place to live first. That doesn’t make any sense, given that soon we find out that he is rich, and smart enough to save to buy a giant house. Anyhoo. Lorelai and Luke come home after their getting-back-together-date to find Kirk sleeping naked in the garage, inside the boat. So there’s that.

Logan and Rory are keeping things casual
Lor and Rory run into Logan while he is on a date, and so Rory clarifies to Lorelai that she’s fine with it, because they both agreed to have casual fun. She doesn’t seem like she is 100% fine when Logan asks her about that – which I am glad he does: checking in is important. Later on, Robert (insignificant friend of Logan’s) asks Rory out for a party, and she says yes. She looks super proud of herself for also seeing other people. My sweet darling.

Rory is Gogo Yubari! So cute.

They go to the party – which is Quentin Tarantino-themed! I want to go to a Tarantino party! – and Logan is there with a date as well. Logan doesn’t like seeing Rory with Robert, apparently. He gets jealous, which is ironic but not surprising to me. He may be used to sleeping around while the women swoon exclusively for him. Bleh.

Lorelai (on the phone): [The dress] is too slutty.
Rory: The dress is fine. The person in it, however–
Lorelai: *gasps* You’re breaking up. The house is going through a tunnel. *imitates static*

Luke and Lorelai discuss Rory’s dating situation a little, and Lor says that while she doesn’t think Rory is a casual dater, she feels like she cannot bring it up with Rory because Rory doesn’t have to come home if she doesn’t want to. Aw. I get that. Especially given the way the sex-with-Dean thing went. At the same time, asking “are you sure this is what you want?” could work. And in any case, if it is not Rory’s thing, Rory will arrive to that conclusion. I remember having a similar situation with a friend of mine, who was having tons of casual sex, but invariably she caught feelings, and got heartbroken. I knew she would arrive to that conclusion herself, so I let her do that, supporting her as well as I could along the way. Sometimes that’s kind of all you can do.

Lorelai doesn’t show for Friday Night Dinner
So Emily wonders why, if she specifically told Luke to get back together with Lorelai. Like the world revolves around her and awaits for her instructions! Emily is so silly sometimes. I’d like to think no one is *that* entitled. Being as confused as she is, Emily goes back to Luke’s diner and starts shouting at him, asking him why he didn’t follow her instructions. Luke uses his recently discovered speed-dial to call Lorelai, so Lor shows up at the diner, tells Emily that they’re back together but that, obviously, that doesn’t mean things are fixed between mother and daughter.

This was satisfying to watch. Not gonna lie.

In the next episode, Rory and company get drunk, Kirk is still staying at Lorelai’s, and Luke is looking into buying a house.

Today I (re)watch: Gilmore girls, 5.16

Richard and Emily are back from their second honeymoon. Luke is at his worst, grumpypuss-wise. And Lane has a romantic dinner with Zack, with unexpected outcomes. This one has a happy ending, yay!

SPOILER ALERT. I have seen all the seasons before, so I am reviewing with future events in mind. SPOILER ALERT

Luke is the worst diner owner
He kicks people out, literally. He burns the food, yells at everyone, challenges them to go to Weston’s if they are going to complain about the shitty food. I don’t think this is charming. He has serious anger management issues. He did the same things when he suspected Nicole was having an affair. Being unable to control your feelings is not a great sign of anything.

Zack: His eyes, red, like the fires of Mordor.
Poor Zack. He only wanted some fries.

Lorelai is mad at Emily, not Richard
Because the scheme to get Lorelai and Luke to break up was all coming from Emily, Lor is still talking to Richard. She has some problems with her insurance company so she calls him up to get his opinion. Meanwhile, Lorelai hangs up at Emily every time Emily calls her. I would do the same, to be honest.
Lorelai makes it clear that she is still okay with Richard, and they have a nice meeting at the Dragonfly Inn. Emily gets mad about this, obviously, accusing Richard of not standing by her.

Lor is not going to Friday Night Dinners
Sookie is worried that now that Lorelai doesn’t have that, and Rory’s away, and Luke is no longer in the picture, she’ll become couch-potato girl, alone every day at home, so she plans a girls night out with her. Sookie is such a good friend. Such a great character, to be honest. She is professional and super on top of her shit as a chef, a good and caring mother, and an excellent best friend.

No context is best.

Lorelai: But remember, I don’t put out unless I get dinner.
Sookie: I know, I saw your bumper sticker.

Of course, because Sookie is super pregnant, she doesn’t really feel like dancing, or going to a bar, or to the movies, so they stay home to watch stuff, and then they go to Weston’s to eat pie. Together, though, so it’s not *pathetic* (she writes as she sits at home, watching TV all day.)

Friday Night Dinner is loud
I like when Rory expresses her feelings. It is not super often that she gets mad, but when she does, I adore her. She goes to dinner because she has an agreement with her grandparents, but that doesn’t means she is happy with Emily or what she did to her mom. So she makes it clear that she is happy to see Richard, and is cold around Emily. Finally Emily confronts her granddaughter, and Rory tells her exactly what is going on. As if Emily didn’t know? What could a person doing what Emily did expect?
I get happy feelings because Rory stood up to Emily for her mom.

Later that night, Rory tells Lorelai about Logan, because she wants to go back to talking to her mom about all the things, like before Dean (the second time around). Lorelai is looking very awkward, but trying not to be. The way Rory talks about Logan, she makes it sound like a serious relationship, even when it is not, as it will become apparent in the next couple of episodes. Logan comes back from a trip with his friends early, so he invites Rory to join him at Yale, since they would have the place to themselves. And of course, Rory abandons everything, including her “spinster” mother, to join him there.

Zack cooks for Lane
Zack and Lane are hilariously relatable. The way Zack awkwardly sets up clues that he wants them to have sex, how Lane is generally clueless about it because she isn’t thinking about sex in that way. Of course, clear communication is best, but the awkward non-verbal thing is common to us all, when we are starting off having sex. When it comes down to it, though, Lane says she has to wait until she gets married, which Zack didn’t expect. And neither did Lane. They both look very confused at this new revelation. Mrs Kim’s thoughts and teachings did stick, apparently.

xxx

Rory: Wow, you’re making me sound a little slutty (2 guys in a year isn’t slutty, silly.)
Lane: Well, why wouldn’t you be slutty?

 

The episode ends with Emily visiting Luke at his diner. She tells him that Lorelai won’t speak to her, and that Lorelai has clearly chosen Luke. Then Emily *tells* him to go back to her. The way Emily views the world as something she can command is hilarious and terrifying to me.
In any case, he listens. He goes to Lorelai’s house and they make out. HUZZAH!