It’s really over. As hard as it is to write those words, I actually feel like I am able to let go. I had a lot of help, actually. It took a village. Every single person in the wonderfully quirky Stars Hollow made it easier to say goodbye to Rory as she left her tiny town for wide-open America. And it was bittersweet.Who else but Luke would gather everyone to plan a huge last-minute surprise party for Rory in the town square? And when the forecast (aka Babette’s swollen ankles) called for rain, he collected tarps and raincoats to sew together a tent. Sure enough, it was pouring on celebration day when Lorelai and Rory pulled up in their Jeep as all of Stars Hollow huddled beneath that tent. I loved that panning shot of the happy faces that we’ve gotten to know over the past seven years: Zack, Liz, Kirk, Lane, Michel, Lulu, Brian, Gypsy, Miss Patty, Babette, Morey, Taylor, Jackson, Sookie and a wide-grinning Luke all clapping and cheering for Rory. “I can’t be...
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I’m shocked. Totally and completely shocked. Not that Rory turned down Logan’s public marriage proposal. (You never want the answer to be, “Will you come talk to me, outside?”) No, I can’t believe she gave back the ring the same day she got her diploma. “I graduated today. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Now when I look back on it, I’m just going to think about this horrible thing that happened,” she told Lorelai. So she couldn’t wait one day? Guess not. Maybe that’s because deep down she always knew she could never marry the guy. Did you see her face when Logan said goodbye and walked away for good? Lorelai looked more anguished during the proposal. Rory just didn’t seem all that devastated over such a “horrible thing.” Sorry, Rory and Logan fans. I know you’re upset, probably more so than Rory. I’m upset too — that we didn’t get to see the huge rock he probably gave her. Aren...
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We have just witnessed the power that is Gilmore. Who else could turn a reckless, rakish, rebellious little rich boy into a responsible, polite, mature grown man? And who else could make a rough, hardened, jaded tough-guy tear up over a love song? Yep, those are our girls!So Logan is going to ask Rory to marry him! And he actually went to Lorelai’s house to ask her permission. Now, usually I would write this off as one of his typical smooth moves. But you know what? He had me at “I came here to see you, Lorelai.” This wasn’t just some old-fashioned formality. He really, really wanted her approval. And he thought he’d get it. After all, they’d just bonded over late-night pie and ice cream. She told him she believed he had cleaned up his act, that he didn’t need to convince her anymore. But there’s one teeny-tiny problem: Lorelai’s reaction. The last time we saw that devastated look was when she woke up next to Christopher, not Luke. (That...
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Let’s get the worst part out of the way first: Rory didn’t get the fellowship. I’ll admit it, at first I was a little surprised, especially after Paris opened acceptance letter after acceptance letter. But sometimes the best opportunities don’t go to the best people, a lesson Rory has finally learned. Remember, this is the girl who breezed right into prestigious Chilton, was accepted to both Harvard and Yale, landed a top spot at the best college newspaper in the country and then became its editor-in-chief. These things don’t just happen to your typical journalist. At some point, that chance-of-a-lifetime will be given to someone else. But without the risk, there is no fellowship. So good for you, Ror, for going for your dream job. And don’t worry, we’ll be seeing your byline really soon.Now, what to make of Luke and Lorelai? At first I thought the car shopping would go smoothly. You know, an afternoon of witty repartee, lots of bonding over Hummer...
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This was one of those episodes. You know, if you turned away for a just a minute to grab another Diet Coke, you missed Lorelai and Logan making nice. In the middle of the night. In her kitchen. Who’d have thought, right? Well, come to think of it, a lot of loose strings were nicely tied up in this ep. Here are a few of my faves:1. Luke and Lorelai make up. Sure they’ve run into each other tons of times and always do the awkward small talk. Lorelai’s answer to Luke’s “How are you?” is always “polite, succinct, fine.” But when Lorelai runs into Luke while stranded in the middle of Taylor’s dopey hay maze (symbolism alert!) they really did have the perfect conversation. First, Lor apologized for running off to be with Chris that night. (And yeah, why didn’t she do that sooner? Not cool.) Then Luke fessed up to using April as a way to push away Lorelai. (It took a custody battle and her cross-country move to figure that one out? Oh well,...
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Our three Gilmore girls together on a road trip to North Carolina? You’d think it would be witty Lorelai providing the comic relief, but this time it was typically humorless Emily! Driving the Jag in the slow lane with a parade of cars behind her. Fighting with Lorelai over the power window button, and winning by using the child-proof feature. A stop at a greasy spoon, where Em actually ordered a chardonnay. “That’s the clear one,” she informed the waitress. And of course, there were show tunes for entertainment. (For those of you who aren’t theater geeks, that was “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma!. Love the irony.) Afterwards came some much-needed bonding. (This was a road trip, after all.) Which did you think was more powerful? That Emily sought out Mia for some old pictures of Lor and Rory? After all, the woman was essentially Lorelai’s surrogate mother and Emily’s nemesis. (Talk about swallowing your priceless pride.) Or wa...
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Don’t know about you, but I feel like I finally got my Girls back, and then some. It took a while, but both Lorelai and Rory have found their footing and are moving in the right direction. And the steps they’ve taken have affected everyone around them, both good and bad.Let’s start with Lorelai. Her recent behavior? Making demanding ultimatums, then impulsively getting married. Since leaving Christopher, she’s become a patient daughter, a good friend and a fantastic mediator. She helped Luke win partial custody of April, she stepped in when her mother needed to get Richard’s business in order and she’s brokered one hell of deal between the stubborn Lane and intolerable Mrs. Kim. The listener, the messenger, the pacifier: Lorelai played every role perfectly. In the end, Lane accepted that her twins could turn out to be bible readers, and Mrs. Kim understood that they could be rock and rollers. Loved Lorelai’s gentle reminder, “My mother missed ...
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Finally, a good solid dose of Stars Hollow! We wanted our lovable wacky townspeople back, and we got ’em! Who better than Miss Patty and Babette to gossip about Chris and Lorelai out loud in the diner as Luke was passing right by them with coffee and plates of food? Loved the bizarre code names: Chris was the beagle (though he probably should have been the hound), Lorelai was the hen (if anyone, Babette’s the mother of all hens. I’m thinking a swan would’ve been more appropriate). And Luke was the rooster (that one actually makes sense, the domestic male). Why did those two even bother using symbolism? Not only was the conversation totally obvious — “Did the hen break up with the beagle or did the beagle break up with the hen?” — but Luke already knew, thanks to East Side Tilly “who was in here yesterday, blabbing her big mouth off.” For a moment they considered whether Lorelai and Luke should get back together, causing Babette to de...
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If you managed to catch the preview for this episode — and I’m not sure you could have missed it since it aired every half-hour for a week straight — you knew the end was coming. “You’re the man I want to want!” wails Lorelai in the promo. So when she finally choked out those sad words in the episode, they kinda lost their kick-to-the-stomach-effect. Which was a shame, because the familiarity practically robbed us of her honesty. It’s as if the lines were delivered by a woman on truth serum, admitting to one horrible thing after another: “I still have feelings for Luke.” “I jumped.” “I’ve always thought of you as a possibility” (BTW: Chris, “possibility” is another word for “backup.” Ouch.) And then the Big Line. Chris took it well, actually. Who wants to hear that someone wants to love you, but you know, they just can’t muster up the feelings? Interesting: Chris is a selfish jerk, but som...
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While I am so, so tempted to write all about how Chris completely bailed on Lorelai during her awful time of need (was that four or five messages left on his cell about Lorelai’s dad having a heart attack?), instead I will write about Rory. Yes, Rory, the fair-skinned, doe-eyed, too often incomprehensible but still incredibly bright daughter of the esteemed Lorelai Gilmore. (There I go mentioning Lorelai again! Gotcha!). Now that you’ve picked yourself up from the floor, 'cause you know, I actually mentioned the "R" word, let’s move on. Can you believe how Rory’s relationship with Logan completely turned around? One minute she’s jealous over Bobbi, two minutes later he’s jealous over Marty, and now Rich Boy actually flew in on a freaking helicopter from Montauk, Long Island, straight to the hospital in New Haven! (Hey, if you had a hedge-fund partner-dude who’s willing to lend you his chopper, you'd swoop in Jack Bauer-style, too. I'm just surpris...
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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 ...
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Yep, that sentence can explain both Lorelai’s head and much of this episode. We waited seven weeks, seven long weeks for our Girls to return. So where were the Lorelai and Chris struggles, the Luke and Anna tension, the Rory and Logan misunderstanding? They must’ve disappeared in rerun land and were replaced by seven Christmas trees, Chris' hugely garish stockings and Gigi and Rory’s strings of cranberries and popcorn. OK, so Lorelai put Christmas on hold until Rory got back from London. She even did a dance with a coconut bra to make sure it didn’t snow. (And for real, it didn’t, not here in the Northeast. Maybe the bra worked.) Sure, that’s sweet. But this whole scenario would have been so much more charming, I don’t know, maybe two weeks after the holiday? But not an entire month later! It wasn’t Stars-Hollow quirky, it was Stars-Hollow bizarre. And so was Lorelai as she tried to write Luke’s character-witness letter. “Bicycle, un...
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Ladies and gentleman! In this corner, we have lightweight Christopher Hayden! Prep-school flunkie! Former deadbeat dad! Total metrosexual! Newly minted millionaire! Recently married to Lorelai Gilmore! And in that corner, we have heavyweight Luke Danes! Diner owner! Public-school grad! New father to a teen he didn’t know existed! Total tough guy! Regular middle-class Joe! Recently engaged to Lorelai Gilmore! Let’s get ready to ruuuuuumble!Now, I’m not one for violence, and I usually look away when things get brutal. But this was one smack-down I was not going to miss. I was shocked that Chris, the kind of guy who gets manicures and facials, could even hold his own against lunky Luke. But he got in a few good punches before Luke socked him right across the jaw, knocking him to the ground. That didn’t stop scrappy Chris from lunging back at Luke. (Nothing says Merry Christmas like two grown men rolling around the town square, taking down the Stars Hollow Christmas ...
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Quick: What’s the first thing you think of when you see someone knitting? What about an entire town full of people knitting, huge balls of yarn in Stars Hollow Square, and Sookie cooking up balls of spaghetti speared with bread sticks? Okay, we get it. This one is about children. A little too heavy-handed this time around. (Meanwhile, what town actually holds a knit-a-thon to save a beetle-infested bridge? Don’t most New Englanders raffle off romantic swag like intimate candlelit dinners for two, midnight hay rides and weekend stays at cozy B&Bs?)So, of course, Liz finally had her baby. I loved how Luke rushed right over as she was delivering — at home, natch. Did you catch that huge smile when he first held his niece, Doula? (With a name like that, I hope this kid will pack a mean punch on the playground.) I don’t think I’ve seen Luke that happy since he and Lorelai kissed on the gazebo the night they got engaged. Good thing, because holding that newbo...
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I found it quite appropriate that the theme of tonight’s episode was printed on an old rock T-shirt Chris stole from Lorelai when they were teenagers: Synchronicity. It began the second Lorelai put that shirt on and said she’d never take it off. (Here, let me quote you some of the lyrics by The Police: "Synchronicity / A connecting principle / Linked to the invisible / Almost imperceptible / Something inexpressible / Science insusceptible / Logic so inflexible / Causally connectable / Yet nothing is invincible.")Is it just me, or do those lines explain exactly what’s going on between these three couples: Chris and Lorelai, Luke and April, and Rory and Logan? Each of them is bound together in this episode by odd timing and twists of fate: After 20 years, Chris and Lor are now the married couple settling into the house that, ironically, Luke rebuilt. Sure, there was some back-and-forthing about the flat-screen TVs in practically every room and how they’d need to re...
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Unless you unplugged your computer and your TV and you ignored the recent cover of TV Guide, you already knew that Chris was going to propose. I’d be very impressed if you managed to hide from the news. The only true surprise was exactly how he’d do it. Say what you will about Chris (and most everyone has), he is tres romantic. Sure, he had to throw a ton of Euros around to get the most gorgeous restaurant in Paris to open at 5 am and serve them a candlelit dinner alongside a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. It worked, but I wondered if Lorelai wouldn’t have been just as happy if he’d asked during a stroll along the Seine as the sun rose over Paris. It just seems odd how our boho girl has fallen for all of the fancy stuff she once eschewed: the five-star hotel; the huge comfy bed with silk sheets (but no mini bar?); the waiters standing like soldiers, ready to honor any request, towels folded over arms. When Lorelai came back to Stars Hollow, did you notice how ...
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I’m pretty sure my old Magnavox isn’t going fuzzy. And thanks to my contacts, I’ve got a perfect 20/20. But I swear I just saw a bunch of people in Stars Hollow getting soft around the edges. Let’s start with Luke: packing lunches, checking for biology homework, reminding about sweaters, swimsuits and pickups after practice. Sure, it’s with a typical Luke delivery — curt and succinct. But did you catch that huge smile on his face when April ran back into the diner to grab the lunch she’d left behind? Someone’s falling in love with his daughter. More proof? The two of them close together on the couch, Rory-and-Lorelai style, pigging out on pizza and sweet rolls. 'Nuff said.Now Lorelai. Did you ever think she’d attend a stuffy, foofy event unless her parents forced her into it? But Chris really wanted to go to parents’ weekend at Yale. So after some slight prodding, she actually agreed. Sure, she complained about the too-green grass an...
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Remember how last week I’d said that Chris knows how to give good romance? Well, apparently so does Logan. Sweet: calling Rory from London and insisting she run to the rooftop to watch a meteor shower together. (One question: England is five hours ahead. Would they really be able to see it at the same time?) Even sweeter: finding Logan there, along with a candlelit dinner and trees decorated with white lights. No real meteor shower, but sparks do fly between the two. Now, I’ve always admitted that I am not a Logan fan. But I am impressed by his efforts. So imagine how annoyed I am when Rory turns out to be the big baby. Who cares if one of Logan’s business partners is a hot blonde who uses her long, sexy legs to close deals. (Freud would have a field day with that one. And maybe with the pickles in Stars Hollow, too. What was the point of that?) Well, OK, I can see why Rory would be threatened, considering Logan never mentioned that Bobby was a woman. (Not like Bobby ...
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Even if you loathe Chris, if you think he’s a former dead-beat dad for neglecting Rory all those years, and a total snake for sleeping with a heartbroken Lorelai, you gotta admit the guy gives great romance. Driving Lorelai in a cherry-red classic Mustang convertible to a deserted barn where he played Funny Face from an old-school film projector. Did you catch the big moment, when Lorelai tried not to cry just as Chris pulled a bag of popcorn out of the glove compartment? He couldn’t have picked a better musical; one of her favorite movies with great lyrics. “’S wonderful/’S marvelous/That you should care for me.” Notice the usage of the word care, not love. Chris is finally smart enough not to push this relationship too hard. And when Lorelai says she doesn’t trust him, or herself, he doesn’t argue. He lets it be. Wise move. Almost zen, actually. And it works. She invites him upstairs after the date. Meanwhile, back in what is best described...
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Alright, is everyone calm? If not, take a deep breath. Another. One more. Are you all OK after that final scene? Good. So let’s be rational for a few minutes. We knew it was coming. We knew Chris would tell Lorelai he loved her, that she was the one, that their night together felt right, that he’d wait forever until she realized they were meant to be. (Yes, she was wearing a white gown and holding flowers. And he was dressed in what looked like a tie-less tux. But let’s not digress.) It happened. Said. Done. Wait, you’re probably saying. Why are we breezing right past this? Because it wasn’t the most important part of the ep. Not by a long shot. We’ll get back to that later.It happened at the kitchen table, as things usually do in the Gilmore home. The identity crisis. It was pretty close to the whole “who-am-I-where-am-I-going” Tony Soprano moment, but over boxes of Pop-Tarts, not a crazy uncle and a really gross gunshot wound. How long have ...
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Welcome to Gilmore Girls 702. Class has begun! Please take your seats. Your computers are fired up and ready to go. We¹ve been given four different L&L breakup theories. Let¹s break 'em down and discuss!THE THEORIESLorelai: It was him not fighting for me. I gave him the ultimatum and he let me walk away. I didn¹t want a life separate from Luke, and that¹s all he could give me. It¹s like Luke is driving a car and I just want to be in the passenger seat. He¹s locked the door and I have to hold onto the bumper. I am not even asking him to open the door for me, just leave it unlocked and say come in, but he didn¹t do that. So I am hanging on to the bumper and life goes on and the car goes on, and I get really badly bruised and I¹m hitting potholes. And it hurts. It really hurts. So yesterday I had to let go of the bumper. Because it hurts too much.Luke: It¹s not your fault, it¹s not my fault. It¹s just that we¹re not right ...
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No matter how many inn reservations Luke Danes made, no matter how much cool stuff he packed for a romantic honeymoon, no matter how long he stood there with those puppy-dog eyes begging for forgiveness, nothing called off his quickie wedding plans faster than Lorelai?s one line: ?I slept with Christopher.? Even I was equally blindsided by her flat, emotionless admission. But that?s probably because I was watching the entire episode on the edge of my couch, judging every line, analyzing every shot, hoping our girls would be handled with care by new show-runner David Rosenthal. But when the screen went dark, and the credits flashed, my eyes immediately welled up. (Yeah, yeah, I?m a big softie. You guys knew that already.) But you know what? Those tears were really, really good news. The show is going to be OK. Actually, it?s going to be way, way better than OK. David got it down right out of the gate! The real Lorelai never minced words when she was hurting, so of course she was goin...
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