moonb

Mitchum's one scene in the revival made me think that any job offer for Rory that came through him would carry some sort of non-financial price. He was pretty clearly enjoying gloating around her and mentioned Odette also, iirc. Most of Rory's revival behavior was lazy or ridiculous, but I can't blame her for not accepting the house from Logan or any direct Huntzberger publishing/editing job. The Conde Nast bit could have been a decent indirect connection, if Rory had actually earned anything through really good work.

For some reason I had assumed that Gigi would be in boarding school in France, since she's supposed to be a teenager by the time of the revival. I don't know where I got that fanwank from, other than it fits in with how Christopher himself was raised. Any way you explain it, Christopher's scene is, imo, supposed to show his loneliness.

I don't know how additional episodes could provide enough drama to be watchable without the writing getting really sloppy and manufactured, and the AYITL rightly got enough of that criticism. Lorelai's gone through a bit of growth, but she is what she is, and grandma!Lorelai won't be too different from MomLorelai. Would her storyline be "Lorelai and Luke have communication problems, Part the Infinite?" Emily's arc also ended in a good place for her, dramatically speaking. Not that good TV characters have to be under a certain age....it's just that Emily's and Lorelai/Luke's storylines seem finished, and Lorelai dealing with, say, her mother's slow decline after her father's sudden death would be awfully heavy for a show like GG. Which leaves Rory, the baby, and Logan/maybe Jess for the focal point in another years-long Lorelai/Christopher timing dance. Personally, straightening out Rory's life wouldn't be enough for another series for me. Rory is best as an ensemble character, imo.

While I buy that Paul is a punchline to Rory and Lorelai, I thought it was out of character for Emily and Luke to blatantly forget somebody Rory was dating. That seems very unlikely. Whatever, he was supposed to a joke. Since this is fiction, it's not the cheating as such I find gross so much as the associating stuff, like Mitchum subtly gloating at Rory in the restaurant for being the "other woman." He knows she's trapped somewhat by this. Some thing with the family house Logan offers Rory, or the hotel room. Yes, they supposedly love each other, but that stuff makes it a joke, imo.

Right. The mishap isn't so much handing out the wrong envelope, it's the two plus minutes afterward of letting it all snowball.

Maybe because however you look at it, they're just digging themselves into a deeper hole. Like, this guy isn't new; it's his 4th or 5th year handling the Oscar envelopes, so even if he's starstruck, he can't point to inexperience. He also made the (now really unfortunate) point in the PwC interviews that there was a tiny chance that a mix-up could happen, and talked about the protocols and processes that didn't work in this case. So either they didn't bother with them, weren't as well-versed in what should happen if a wrong envelope was handed out (Ruiz and Cullinan couldn't communicate instantly backstage, I guess, hence the delay), or the protocol wasn't really workable anyway. And....that makes him look kind of arrogant or lazy, like he just wasn't on top of things because of celebrities. I'm not sure how you can really spin any of this positively, unless there's some new piece of information we don't know about.

My completely worthless experience has been that 20- and 30-somethings in stable ongoing relationships have fewer birth control issues. Or frankly, an accidental pregnancy can be presented as a happy, planned event. Equally possible. What I think does happen is that more casual or intermittent relationships can mess with that stuff (because why stay on long-term bc if it's unnecessary?) I definitely know of some responsible adults who were careless and over age 35. It happens. Since Rory was having a year-long meltdown, birth control caution probably wasn't at the top of her list. And it's possible that time zone differences and Rory's travelling could have lowered a pill's effectiveness.

So Lindsey and her mom are alternative-Lorelai and Rory, except with a different goal in mind for the Gilmore girls than a contented homemaker? :) That's pretty much the way either of them would have behaved toward a significant other when he's working (Luke's, ahem), complete with bringing a new wardrobe or a story to review instead of food. And of course neither Lorelai or Rory ever thought there was anything wrong with their behavior (naive, sheltered, adorable). I figured Lindsey was just frustrated that her vision of how marriage would be didn't match up to the real thing - there are people who still think marriage by itself magically fixes your life and your finances, after all - and perhaps hadn't planned on anything beyond that. She's not exactly a three-dimensional character, but I hope her life by the revival was closer to Dean's happy ending.

Yeah, I thought this was a missed opportunity in the revival. There was a brief moment where Lorelai had this queasy look on her face after finding out about Rory and Logan, like she's realizing that she can't chalk this one up to an inexperienced mistake like she could with Rory's affair with Dean, and that there are things she doesn't really like about her grown child. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, lol. But I wish there'd been more of a thread about this part of Rory's character that needs to be comfortable and how that can be beneficial or self-destructive. Lorelai certainly got enough pushback and disapproval from her parents and even Sookie about her relationship and commitment problems. Too bad there couldn't have been a "what are you thinking!?" to Rory from Lorelai, Lane or Paris. Instead we got a "oh no, you didn't treat him badly" from Lorelai when Paul finally breaks up with Rory.

Another fan of season 2 here - it's the one I rewatch the most. Everyone's character arcs make sense to me: Emily and Richard aren't cartoonish yet and have some moments of connection with Lorelai; Rory and Lorelai are both frustrated that the other one doesn't appear to trust them with respect to Jess; Dean is legitimately worried that Rory's actions and words don't line up where Jess is concerned (rightly so). Even Jess, obnoxious though he is, isn't necessarily wrong to think Stars Hollow and Lorelai are equally obnoxious. Compared to season 1 all of them are fuller characters that I can empathize with and dislike at the same time. "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" is probably my single favorite. From season 4, it's a toss-up between "Affair to Remember," "Fundamental Things Apply," and "The Reigning Lorelai." In general I really like professional, competent Lorelai, even when she falls short of the mark.

And of course, the almost full Gilmore family mausoleum and Aunt Cecile, teller of terrible jokes.

Well, we know that Charles died when Richard was young, leaving him and Trix to have the close mother-son relationship. If he came from enough money that he and Trix could travel the world and donate enough money for a hospital wing, I'm going to guess that Richard was formed more by his absence than the kind of father he was. We also know from Marilyn's story at Trix's funeral that Trix was the more energetic travel-lover of the two, so perhaps Charles was a bit more of a homebody. It's interesting that Lorelai doesn't even know much about either Gilmore grandparent, including Trix. We know that she rarely visited Richard and Emily when Lorelai was little, but either Richard only told the same few stories about Trix, or Lorelai didn't listen (totally possible). We know Emily went to Smith and expected to get married, and traveled through Europe either during or right after college, and her never-again-mentioned-after-season-1 sister Hope lives in Paris. Imo, that all points to a similar background to Richard's. But again, it's notable that Emily and Richard, for all their traveling, never visited her. So she either stopped existing because the writers forgot, or Emily and Richard prefer to keep all extended family at a distance, lol. Yeah, I'm guessing it's the first one. ETA: Emily talks about her mother putting pearls on her 21st birthday party invitation. More evidence that Emily's mother is more Shira Huntzberger than Trix Gilmore?

Lol, maybe the post above really would have improved the GG revival. Kirk and Lulu being a demon spawn's parents, the LGB and Christopher running an illegal business, and April's mom Anna attracting psycho Luke. It's dark Gilmore Girls!

Rory did do the everyday stuff with Logan from late season 5 through season 6, but you could also argue that she seems out of character (A Vineyard Valentine, anyone?). She's saved from that by the LDR with Logan in season 7 though. And actually, in the revival, dating Paul for 2 years and keeping things long distance would give her the space she likes without the Logan issue. I'm not sure that I agree with her motivation being avoiding pain or causing pain, though. Rory recognizes that she caused a lot of pain during the Dean/Lindsay situation, but she seems more callous about it in the revival. Going after unavailable partners, imo, is equally tied to her feeling lost or unsettled. So far, anyway. Lorelai clearly makes some bad relationship decisions over the course of the OS and causes Max/Luke/Christopher a lot of pain. But she causes herself a lot of pain, too, and show hints a couple times that her worst moments come from feeling unlovable (see the boyfriend who dumped her in her Richard memory calling her "loud and weird," or the Mimi scene in Luke's where she admits feeling like she'll never get the whole package). I don't think the same applies to Rory.

Agree that, in my experience too, college students can be physical with each other, and that Rory could simply be so interested in Logan that she's oblivious to Marty's feelings for her. Clearly Marty's feelings are not her fault, but my problem with her naivete, especially her denials to Marty that Logan's attracted to her, is that it's just too much of a retread of the Jess-Dean triangle. If Rory were 19 and a sophomore at Yale without having had any prior relationships, her attitude might make more sense to me. But her trying to placate one and then the other, and playing dumb about why Jess/Logan is trying to get her attention, yeah, we've seen that before.

I thought of RL Carrie when I went to South Dakota's Black Hills last summer - iirc, she worked at a printer's throughout her young adulthood? I know she married in her 40s. She sounded like she had an interesting life, but for tv purposes, she was "baby" Carrie.

The only people in GG we really see expressing wholly positive feelings about babies and kids are Lorelai and Sookie, I think. Sookie is excited about being pregnant in season 3, and Lorelai is excited/nostalgic. But Lane has super mixed feelings about her pregnancy, and she was never shown being around kids or having an opinion on them before having the boys. Sookie has her freakout about not being a child-person while catering the kids' birthday party. Emily likes her own family, but is hardly a baby person and seems to enjoy seeing kids in society-appropriate settings, like the cotillion. She's pretty dismissive of them otherwise. RevivalEmily might have different feelings about that, but she'd hardly turn into a brand new person. Paris feels distant and detached from her kids - something else not going according to plan in her life. I don't think Rory's attitude is different from most of the other characters. Of course, a lot of them don't have *planned* pregnancies they're thrilled about at first, so....:) Just my interpretation of Rory's whole story arc: talking about feeling lost, flailing in journalism, insisting that she's not like the 30-something crowd, having the talk with Christopher about Lorelai's raising Rory herself. I very much doubt she'd leave her writing career behind, since the revival shows the opposite. My take on the last scene was Rory still trying to wrap her head about being pregnant unexpectedly and by an ex as well, and maybe having to refocus her life.

Another small nitpick from Spring: would a back-to-Chilton event that wasn't a significant reunion really bring so many members of one class back to campus? Particularly given that Chilton graduates by their 30s would have a lot of career and family demands, might be living all across the country, and wouldn't all just happen to be nearby? I could see Rory and Paris planning to be there, but Francie's and Tristan's cameos made me roll my eyes.

Especially since, imo, Rory's attitude toward her pregnancy is "what the hell, why not? Better than struggling with journalism, anyway." Yeah, of course she can be a good mom, as Lorelai is both a pretty good mom while also being quite selfish at times. But, like others have said, Lorelai's example of motherhood as a guidepost and focus for one's life just might be a lot harder for Rory than Lorelai. Rory is a lot older than 16 and more set in her ways. ETA: It would pretty interesting if Rory were a mother who specifically didn't like young kids or babies, or even older kids. Mothers who don't a certain age well are realistic, but I think rarer in fiction.

See, I thought this was a pretty sad scene, and yet I don't feel pity for Christopher. I thought by "defeat" he was referring to both Lorelai/Rory's lack of real need for him and most of his own choices in life. He's in a big empty office in the family business with no signs of human connection, and nothing of his own that he made for himself. His relationship with Rory will always be an afterthought, and there's a throwaway line about Gigi being in Paris; that is, a huge distance away. He just broke off another casual-sounding relationship. I guess I figure "defeat" means that Chris at almost 50, or 70, or whatever age, will always be the charming superficial kid he's always been and not much else, and he's figured out that he's the one who put himself there. Yeah, he can feel self-pity about it, but nobody has to listen.

It's worth noting here that this is what first ladies have traditionally been expected to do. To look nice, give speeches, and be a devoted wife who doesn't overshadow the POTUS. Yes, first ladies do a lot of work to support all kinds of initatives and causes, but they're usually not terribly controversial. None of that is wrong, it's just to point out that any whiff of controversy grabs attention (I'm thinking of Nancy Reagan and her support for stem-cell research here, even though that was well after Reagan's presidency). Our last 3 first ladies all know this, because when HRC *did* appear to overstep this boundary during Bill Clinton's first term, she got all kinds of attacks for it. Laura Bush carefully kept some opinions to herself until after GWB was out of office. The first lady is in an odd negative space where she's damned if she does "do something" (which perhaps isn't wifely) and damned if she doesn't. And all of that is only about Michelle Obama's role as wife, and doesn't even touch on race.

I'm not sure Richard would have considered Rory a failure as such, but he might have been disappointed that she couldn't make herself stand out in a tough field like journalism. I doubt he'd mind that she turned to a different field of writing, though (and he certainly won't be the villain of Rory's memoir). After all he didn't have her set on a specific career track so much as an Ivy League education, professional success and traveling before she settled down somewhere. It's not surprising that Rory wouldn't have "made it" by 32 - I'm remembering Richard and Trix's argument in season 4 over a failed investment he made in his late 20s. Lorelai was a successful general manager of an inn and a homeowner by 32, but her real business success didn't come along until years later with the Dragonfly. *And* both Richard and Lorelai were in much more stable careers than journalism. I do think that it's appropriate and a little touching that Lorelai would expand her 'empire' with Richard's money, both of them being business oriented. I doubt Luke's doing too shabbily either, given that he was able to loan Lorelai money for the Dragonfly years earlier, lives in her house, already owns two buildings, and his diner is always busy.

Unfortunately, I know a woman who holds views similar to Pence's "just adopt!" line. *But,* she has a clear nostalgia for the pre-1970s Good Old Days when (mostly unmarried) women gave up their babies for adoption so that there were lots of babies to adopt - older children of varying ages don't seem to exist for her. (She really wants a grandbaby specifically, and her daughter is struggling with painful fertility issues.) She holds progressives responsible for legalizing abortion, which of course ignores the illegal abortions occurring pre Roe v. Wade. It allows her to be angry and in pain though, and that way she doesn't have to think about how lots of those 1950s-1970s adoptions weren't freely chosen by the mothers and caused no end of devastation, and the fact that hey, unmarried women get to keep their babies. It's a weird way to turn children into possessions. Is this something that I think Trump cares about? Maybe not, but the people around him do.

Yeah, imo Alexis was pretty good in the revival, better than in the later seasons of the original. I think her strong suit really is playing flawed, "lost" Rory even more than sweet, studious Rory. There's all this intelligence there and she (Rory, that is) doesn't have the slightest idea how to translate that into a real person rather than good student Rory or journalist Rory, daughter of Lorelai. That's what Alexis does well, in my opinion. I bought her as the fragile depressed housewife on Mad Men, but I think she just doesn't do sensuality well at all - which might be a reason she plays "young." So her affair with Logan makes character sense but it's just as well there weren't any sexual scenes, lol.

Now I'm thinking of Emily's furious "we haven't failed until that girl comes home pregnant. THEN we've failed" from Rory's 21st birthday party. I am assuming that in Emily's mind "fail" means unplanned and single. I don't know if the show necessarily means that, since a 22-year-old or 32-year-old Rory will still have a lot more choices, and be a lot more aware of the consequences, than a 16-year-old Lorelai.