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Gilmore Girls: Unto The Breach
(S07E21) So here we are... the next-to-last (or penultimate, if you want to use SAT words) episode of Gilmore Girls. Like I said when the show's demise was first announced, it seems like the show wouldn't be able to wrap up any of their loose ends, especially because the season was already in the can when the announcement was made. But as we found out from one Ms. Lauren Graham, chances were that the show wasn't going to come back, anyway, and the last few episodes were written to function as a season and series finale.
You know what that means: whatever grand plans Amy Sherman-Palladino, or even David Rosenthal, had to conclude the series will never see the light of day, and whatever Rosenthal and company devised for next week will have to suffice for the show's fans. Oh, well. I hope there's some sort of closure, even if that closure makes the viewers say, "Too bad we can't see what happens next."
OK, let's get right to the most important part of the episode: Rory said no. Wow. For some reason, there was a part of me that didn't expect that to happen. I think it was because I had seen the squishy, indecisive Rory from the last couple of years and figured she'd melt as soon as Logan showed her the ring. But the strong Rory from seasons 1-5 (and the last few episodes) finally took over the joint and said no.
Good for her! Logan actually turned out to be a pretty damn good boyfriend, one who found responsibility and a sense of what's important in his life, but he made one mistake: he expected Rory Gilmore, who's always had a world of choices, to toss those choices away and move across the country right after graduation. Squishy Rory reared her head a little when she turned down his proposal (after she just got her diploma, no less... talk about ballsy), saying they could try a long-distance relationship. But she probably knew that Logan wasn't going to go back to that after giving her the ring. Was seeing her give the ring back to him while she's still in her cap and gown a little sad? Sure. But every GG fan knew that Rory wouldn't be Rory if she wasn't out on her own.
Rory's reasoning was sound: for the first time in a while, things are wide open, and she's actually starting to like that. She probably realized that even Yale grads who seemed to have their career path set for them -- New York Times, The New Yorker, a spot on Conan O'Brien's writing staff (oops, that's Harvard) -- don't necessarily need to go down that path. She can work for an alt-weekly, or a magazine, or (gasp!) a cable network! Or she can just take the summer off, as I said last week. She'll learn, just like the rest of us do, that the sheepskin in her hand only helps her get her first job; the rest of her career is up to her.
Nice to see Christopher back. Seriously. It's good to see that things between him and Lorelai are civil after the entire divorce thing (by the way, did they even get a divorce? No one ever even mentioned the word until Lorelai said they'd eventually get the hang of the "divorced parent thing"). As usual, he has taken his seat as the distant second-in-command in charge of his daughter's life. After Rory ran out of Richard and Emily's graduation party after saying "I don't know" to Logan, she called Lor. And guess what? Chris told her that he'll stay back while Lor talked to her. That's always been the way of their relationship, and Chris' absence during Rory's first eighteen or so years is going to cost him dearly for the rest of his life; he knows he has no power in matters like this.
Lorelai showed great restraint in telling Rory that this was her decision (I like how they talked in the horse and carriage Logan got for their post-engagement romantic moment). We knew from her discussion with Sookie that she'd rather her daugher wait, but she also knew that influencing Rory one way or the other was a bad idea, no matter how much her mother objected to that. No "turtle-bird" compromises this time around for Rory, and she knew it.
Of course, Lorelai and Luke's history bled into the discussion over Rory, and it was all because Kirk wanted to sit in a Lucite box. She goes out to see him and runs into Luke. We had the usual TV romance misunderstanding earlier, when he overheard Loreali tell Babette and Miss Patty that her karaoke serenade to Luke of "I Will Always Love You" meant nothing. Scott Patterson did a great job showing Luke become crestfallen at the news (remember, he bought a necklace from Liz that he fully intended to give to Lorelai at some point). She advocated leaping, while he advocated being careful. It almost felt like last season's finale all over again, and it seemed like a cheesy way of extending the tension for just one more episode. However, thanks to the CW's promo department, we know a little of how that situation is going to turn out next week.
Oh, a word about "Kirk in a box": Is Kirk going to blow himself up, Daffy Duck-style, as his ultimate stunt next week? Remember, it's a great trick, but you can only do it once.
More fun stuff: Paris' super negotiating skills with her Craigslist "victims". Also, it was kind of sweet to see Paris get along with Lucy and Olivia; maybe it was graduation-itis, but it seems like the two of them would be the complete opposite of who Paris would ever get along with. But she's finally loosening up... somewhat. It's going to be kind of hard studying those medical textbooks when she and Doyle are trekking through India.
I wonder if Michael Winters, who plays Taylor, hurt himself, thus the scene of Taylor in a wheelchair. But it was cute that the entire town wanted to go to Rory's graduation. The town voting for a graduation re-enactment sets the stage for next week. Hopefully there we'll see Michel, Jackson, Zack, and Lane. Heck, I hope we see everybody. It's the last go-around for Gilmore, and I'll be there to see it. Despite the cheesiness of the artificial Lorelai-Luke tension, this was a good mix of comedy, drama, and surprises. I'm giving it a 6.
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