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Gilmore Girls: Introducing Lorelai Planetarium
(S07E08) Hmmmm......Ya think something's a'brewin' in Gilmore-land?
Lorelai is trying to convince herself as much as Rory that marrying Christopher was the good and right thing to do; meanwhile, she's running to see Luke at the hospital when April has appendicitis. She resists, but then relents when Chris wants to make some changes around the house; meanwhile, she's definitely keeping the name Gilmore, because she doesn't want to be called "Lorelai Hayden Planetarium." And here's the biggest thing: despite the fact that she married Rory's dad, she, Chris, and everyone else knows who the rock is in Rory's life. That's going to be a lot for ol' Christopher to overcome, isn't it?
It really does feel like this marriage is a setup, doesn't it? It's this McGuffin that David Rosenthal has set up to lull the audience into believing that Lor has finally found her man and is ready to settle down forever and ever and ever. If that was the intention, he's doing a really bad job of lulling us.
You can just tell that nothing is right about this whole thing, from the land-speed record of how it came together (20 years my ass... as I've said before, this version of Chris and Lor was built on a rickety foundation to begin with... the version from three years ago was more solid), to the fact that Lor is already resisting the invasion of the love of her life into the safe haven she's made for herself over the last 38 years, it just looks like Lorelai is fixing to run away again. In fact, this time around, she'd be the flaky one in the relationship with Chris, but at this point, it would make more sense than this marriage does right now.
Know how I know? Two things: 1) How quickly she ran to see Luke when April went to the emergency room, and the chemistry they had up until the point where he saw the wedding ring, and 2) the fact that she wants to stay a Gilmore and not become "Gilless." She and Rory have been on their own for 22 years, and it's going to take more than a ring to divert Lor from that path. A marriage to Luke would have continued that, since Luke had nothing to do with Rory other than being a good friend. But Chris is her dad. As uninvolved as he's been in Rory's life, he wants to get involved now, and will demand that his voice be heard. Not sure if Lor's going to like that, considering she's the one who did all the heavy lifting that shaped Rory into the literary, nasty essay-writing, soon-to-be-Yale-alumnus she is now.
By the way, can I say that I've been to a couple of media parties like the one Logan dragged Rory to, and I completely understand why she found them so pretentious and boring? Yeah, she's not "Josephine Six-Pack," but she did have a much less easy road to where she is now than Logan or any of his trust-fund buddies have had. So the fact that she wrote a scathing rebuke of such parties for that online magazine editor (apparently, it's "Slate crossed with the Times' Styles section, before it sold out," whatever that means... they should have just said Salon) seemed to be completely justified.
Logan's reaction to it not only seemed out of character for him -- all of a sudden he likes being a trust-fund kid? When did that happen? -- but it was yet another example that he needed to have control of the relationship. You could especially see that when he said "You're not exactly paying rent, are you?" Yikes. Rory eventually comes to the realization that the essay was mean when her arty friends tell her it was mean, but in a good way. But since she hurt Logan with it, it was a "bad mean."
My take? Screw that; if it was mean and judgemental, then it needed to be published on pseudo-Salon immediately. Mean and judgemental gets attention; just ask Ann Coulter, Maureen Dowd, the editors of Spy, and everyone who's ever worked for Gawker Media. Rory without her mother is such a wimpy character it hurts. At least she's decided to get her own place after Logan moves back to Manhattan.
Oh, it was fun seeing Luke being a real dad, asking April about boy-girl parties and taking a verbal beating when he thought she was too sick to go to that party (you're not a parent until your teenager tells you that he or she hates you, right?). But the story felt adrift as usual until Luke called Lorelai for advice on April's illness. It's amazing that he thought nothing of calling her and she felt no compunction with picking up the phone and answering (she saw his phone number on the caller ID, I'd presume). Something's definitely going on, and you'll see these islands come together more as the season goes along.
Question: was it weird that Chris was OK with Lor going to see Luke and April? Was it even weirder that they didn't make a big deal out of it and she told him before they left?
What's interesting about this episode is that, even though the pace was slower than usual, and the only pop culture references were to Slate and a bunch of mean female essayists, I actually didn't cringe at the dialogue. That's been rare this year. Like I said last week, I'd rather the writers drop the Palladino-esque patter if it makes the episode make more sense. Why bother trying if you can't pull it off? Despite what I think of the storyline in general, the episode didn't make me throw up my hands in frustration, which is a plus. Was it compelling and exciting? No. But my expectations are pretty low this season, so any episode that isn't awkward and weirdly-paced is a good one, as far as I'm concerned.
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