January 30, 2007: Letter Go
So, wouldn't ya know it, Chris found The Letter. The one Lorelai slaved over, the one she wrote and rewrote, the one she finally banged out on a typewriter, the one she hid, the one she keeps calling a "character reference." Big diff, right? Well, actually it is. I wouldn't exactly refer to Lorelai's praise of Luke ("He's honest, he's decent, he's kind, he's caring. Once he's in your life, he's in it forever") as a
love letter. Now that kind of thing would go on to say something like: "And I can't believe I gave you that ridiculous ultimatum. When you said no and stormed off, I went straight to my ex Christopher's house, slept with him, told you the next day while turning down your offer to get back together, then impulsively married my ex only a few months later, let him move into the house that you helped me rebuild and actually allowed Chris to put up a ridiculously
ginormous plasma TV in the living room of my quaint and tastefully decorated Victorian-style home." I didn't hear any of those words as the judge and Chris read that letter at the same time. (That voice-over work was the best part of the entire hour.) So why was Chris so angry? More importantly, why was
I so angry?
Maybe because back in the old days of, oh, last season, this show used to move so fast, I could've reached for a fat-free chip and missed someone getting pregnant. That's what made
Gilmore Girls so damned smart and so freaking good. (Did you catch that Sookie is knocked up? Because it only took two gigantic scenes to set that one up.) So I watched The Letter Scene two more times, just to make sure I didn't miss something. You know, 'cause Chris was so mad, mad, mad! And guess what? I didn't! Lorelai looked Chris straight in the eye and said "I am not in love with him!" And yet he still didn't believe her. (She
is, but that's for another blog.) So, he stormed off and never came back that night. I'm not quite sure he had a good reason, but if this is the start of the breakup, then so be it. Oh, and if you weren't sure, Sookie is having another baby!
Sigh. This ep was Lauren Graham's debut as producer. It's impossible to find her fingerprints, since there were a million other people listed with her. (Her name came up right after the credit for our beloved Amy Sherman-Palladino. Nice!) Producers, co-producers, executive producers. Too many cooks in the kitchen! Too many, and it shows. We could have done without the Paris scenes, the Sookie scenes, the Lucy scenes. All those side-stories used to keep us sharp throughout the hour. This time my head kept falling in the chip bowl. That is, until Richard's heart attack at the very end. OK, so now you have my attention. Too bad you had to wake me up out of a face full of Fritos to get it.
