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Gilmore Girls: To Whom It May Concern
(S07E12) For some reason, despite everything that has happened to make this show start circling the drain, four Gilmore characters can be relied upon to entertain, no matter who is writing the episode: Emily, Richard, Sookie and Paris. All four of them are in tonight's episode (Emily is just in the cold open, but it counts), and, I've got to tell you, their presence made it pretty decent as a result.Otherwise? Um... well... Let's just say this crawl towards the inevitable Lorelai - Luke reunion is driving me nuts.
Oh, come on, people; we know it's going to happen. They couldn't project this in bigger letters if they rented out the local drive-in. First, there was the letter; it wasn't just a character reference for Luke's custody case, it was emotional, heartfelt, and emotional (yes, I said that already. It was that good). You knew the stomach-punch parts of it, if Chris were to ever find it, were when Lorelai said that Luke was always there for Rory -- implying, of course, that Chris wasn't -- and that when Luke enters a person's life, he stays forever.
And, of course you knew Chris was going to find it (It was in the coming attractions last week, anyway... thanks, CW promotions!), and of course you knew that he was going to overreact. But leave? Disappear? Over that letter? Really? Isn't Chris supposed to be mature and responsible now, not bolting at the slightest sign of trouble? I mean, for crissakes, he even had trouble choking down coffee from Luke's diner, much less dealing with this letter. What a baby. Granted, the letter was quite a bit more than a character reference, and maybe he was just realizing what the entire Gilmore-watching public knew already: that he was Lor's second choice. But being married means working through these issues, or at least trying. It's not about getting liquored up and running back to Hartford.
Anyway, it's not like Lor and Luke don't have their own issues. Anna, who all of a sudden has been made a bitch, tells Luke before their custody hearing that he bailed on Lorelai, to which he vehemently objected. Technically, he's right. But he became emotionally unavailable to the point where Lor walked away. If Anna had actually known how that all went down, she might have retained full custody of April instead of losing her on every other holiday (by the way, I was actually kind of surprised that Luke won so quickly. The letter may have turned the tide, considering his behavior during the visit with the judge. But that would be too easy for the writers to write... wouldn't it?).
Moving on... Was Sookie's harumphing over Jackson's non-vasectomy adorable or what? News of Melissa McCarthy's pregnancy had been floating around the web for a while, so this turn of events wasn't unexpected. But it's nice to see her and Jackson get more screen time; lately we've just seen Sook sitting in the inn's kitchen saying "Are you sure you're OK with Luke doing blah blah blah?" to Lorelai all the time. It's good to see that the writers have realized she's good at other stuff, too.
Here's what I want to know: why is Rory following Paris' nutty post-graduation scheme of grant applications and taking unnecessary tests like the MCATs ("Sanjay Gupta. CNN's chief medical correspondent. He's cornered the market.")? Is it because she doesn't know what she wants to do with herself? Is she humoring Paris? Or was she just trying to distract herself from the whole "Lucy hates me" issue? Thankfully, Paris decided to get Ror and Lucy back together with her own heartfelt speech about how Rory is one of the best and how lucky she is to be friends with her (believe me, I'm being more sentimental about it than Paris was). And those tiny, portable reproductions of Paris' whiteboards were pretty funny. Don't you think a Paris spin-off would be a hoot? Maybe as a half-hour single-camera sitcom...
So Lucy broke up with Marty. Do I see a Marty-Logan-Rory triangle in the offing? God, I hope not. And Richard decided to go have himself a heart attack; I guess all the years of cigars and awful Mexican quail dishes finally caught up with him. It's the perfect device to show what kind of a schmuck Chris is and how wonderful Luke is, isn't it?
Like I said, this episode was better than the season's average. But the continuing weird characterizations of Chris -- "I can't believe I drank his coffee!" -- and Rory -- "I don't know what I want to do with my life, even though I've wanted to be a journalist since I was in diapers!" -- are still bothersome to me. Oh well. I guess a half-decent Gilmore episode is better than what we've been getting so far this year.
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