moonb

It occurs to me that Rory didn't make one genuine platonic friend on her own in college. They're all from childhood (Lorelai, Lane), high school (Paris), or friends like Marty, whose friendship didn't mean what she thought. Once he disappears Rory inherits Logan's friends instead, or hangs out with Doyle because of Paris. And Lucy and Olivia's only function in season 7 is to show that Marty can't get over Rory (like Dean...and Jess....and Logan). None of that is Rory's fault, and she's an introvert who prefers a few meaningful friendships. But no wonder she seems especially alone in seasons 4 and 6.

Ha, I had the reverse reaction that Lorelai took me out of the scene, though I think it's partly that I didn't watch Parenthood and haven't seen Lauren Graham really since 2007, whereas I saw Alexis' more adult appearance in Mad Men. So I buy Rory as 30 year-old professional daughter, whereas Lorelai is in what looks like her same kitchen making jokes like it's 10 years ago and nothing's changed. I know that's what the trailer is aiming for, I was just a little jarred by it. :)

I'd actually argue that Emily had management problems in her world herself, though her inability to keep maids was played as a running joke. In real life Emily would run into problems, just like Lorelai would have with the fires. I don't see Rory and Lorelai ever having an Emily/Lorelai relationship, but you can see Rory/Lorelai start to brush some things under the rug over the series - that's probably only natural. Rory does shut down with Lorelai over Jess/Dean/Logan/Yale issues many times, and Lorelai becomes more tentative in broaching sensitive subjects with Rory, fearing that Rory would pull a Lorelai-esque estrangement on her, I guess. A huge difference, though, is that passive aggressive nitpicking streak that is a result of so much hurt and misunderstanding on both Emily's and Lorelai's parts.

I think Lorelai as a character messes with several fictional tropes. The sacrificing, all-loving mother, for one. Yes, she does sacrifice for Rory in living in uncomfortable circumstances, at least initially, and in not going to a traditional 4 year college. But she also admits that she's happier in her "wonderful bohemian existence" than in her parents' life, and Rory was an obvious excuse to leave. She clearly loves Rory, but makes some destructive romantic decisions without regard for her. She's also self-absorbed and sometimes cruel as the article notes, something that makes people uncomfortable when it comes to fictional mothers. Cruel and narcissistic moms are all over fiction, but they tend to be monsters, and Lorelai is in many ways (arguably) a good mom. The show makes her a fairy tale-like single former teenage mother, but other commenters have pointed out that we don't really know what she was rebelling against when she left her parents, other than she felt they were controlling and overbearing. She's a self-made woman, except for being taken in by Mia in the first place, living at the Independence Inn, and having her parents' wealth to assist in helping her daughter become that Ivy League graduate.

Lorelai Gilmore, anti-hero? Well, we know she can be immature....

Moved to the Lorelai topic.

Coach Cutlip was a classic, especially since I was about Kevin's age when the show was originally on. The infamous sex ed diagram? The horror of choosing teams for basketball, and him getting bonked on the head? Awesome. That said, I'm now basically Jack and Norma's age, and wow are the parent-centered episodes painful and heartwrenching to watch. Kevin asking his mom to ignore his presence at school because he's embarrassed by her; Jack's fights with Karen; Kevin asking his dad not to die; Jack's job at Norcom - yeah, I had to stop watching those and focus on the sillier teen angsty ones.

To cuddlingcrowley's point, though, I did roll my eyes at Rory being instantly successful and selling out her first event - like, of *course* Rory is as good at this as she is at journalism. But season 6 didn't really show that, imo; Rory is more a struggling, still slightly awkward girl who happens to have the right family connections to be where she is. It's funny that she doesn't make many journalism connections other than Stamford, the Yale Daily News, and Mitchum Huntzberger....and this is another version of the Harvard/extracurricular activities lesson she was supposed to learn in season 2. Which just points back to the fact that Rory isn't as suited to her chosen career as she hopes.

I thought this was consistent only because Rory has always gotten along better with older adults than her own peers. And among the DAR, she might be forgiven some awkwardness and lack of polish because she's Emily's granddaughter and well, she looks like little birds dress her in the morning. :) They treat her almost like a doll to dress up in Presenting Lorelai Gilmore, too. And it might not take much to make your average DAR event more exciting, either - add some music, a theme, and take the salmon puffs off the menu and there you are.

Even with mileage varying greatly with regards to Luke and Lorelai, I really love the Mimi scene in Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days. It says quite a bit at that point in the series that Lorelai would only reveal her innermost wishes to someone like Luke.

I like season 7 starting with I am a Kayak, Hear Me Roar, when everyone seems more like themselves and the Lorelai/Christopher fantasy marriage is done. Agreed that the season is to showcase Lorelai's and Logan's growth (and to a lesser extent, Lane and Zach's and Emily and Richard's), and Rory is more just there. Once she went back to Yale in season 6, she was really done as a character. Yeah, she turns Logan's proposal down, but that's not so surprising. On a really shallow note, I realize Lorelai's had some unflattering outfits throughout the series, but I'm so distracted by her FND dress in Lorelai's First Cotillion. The red dress and wide black belt makes her look like Mrs. Claus. Since this is the ep in which Lorelai rethinks her entire style thanks to Emily's influence, I'm wondering if that's intentional. Or some kind of nod to Bad Santa.

Yep, I skip all Sherry-related scenes in season 3. I just realized that young Lorelai's voice reminds me of Francie, another dull part of season 3, imo. They both come across as any generic prep school girl.

I think underneath the Rory/Logan fight was Logan's slight disappointment in Rory for dropping out of Yale - that looms over the first half of season 6, imo. But being Logan, he doesn't confront her about anything. Then not only does Jess, a guy she has this deep connection with, show up, but Rory tries to blame Logan for her decision to drop out and well, most of her life since mid-season 5 (very meta!). And Jess's appearance gets Rory to get herself back on track to where Logan didn't. I love watching unlikable Rory, tough love Lorelai, and controlling Emily/Richard, though, so I rewatch the first half of season 6 a lot more than most. Except for "Always a Godmother, Never a God," ha. That one I can do without.

I'm surprised during the rewatch by how Lorelai isn't as much of a Cool Mom as either she or the Internet thinks. For supposed best friends, they have a number of very parent-versus-child disagreements over the first three seasons, and then later on a slow parental letting go/separation attempt going on. Was that successful? Not really, and I don't think that was healthy, but lots of very traditional parents- and their kids- don't cope well at all with the transition to adulthood. And plenty of those parents are as self-involved as Lorelai is - it just might show up in different ways. I do think Lorelai tries too hard at being Emily's opposite, and projects Not!Emily plus Lorelai-baggage unto Rory, and that's a little cringeworthy and where she makes mistakes.

Would Rory have had as much of an "in" at Yale coming from Stars Hollow High in prep-school rich Connecticut, though? I'm assuming like txhorns79 said that it's more of a connections issue than an academic issue. If Rory is competing with Paris for a Harvard spot, her upbringing and temperament might help her, but only if admissions officers see that their academic records are truly similar. Lorelai seems to have thought of Chilton as a necessary evil to help Rory achieve her Harvard dream. Rory would have met as many Logans, Tristans, and Parises at Harvard as she did at Chilton and Yale anyway. I thought it was entertaining that, in the Pilot, Rory truly believed that Chilton students wouldn't care about fashion and would only care about studying and learning. I know she's supposed to be a little young for 16 and definitely sheltered, but surely she would have seen Cruel Intentions or something.

I'm not sure the series ended with us knowing who Rory was, aside from her career aspirations. Probably not odd for an early 20-something, however. Her college drifting makes so much sense in retrospect, though: Rory did extremely well with Chilton, but Chilton was all about structure and expectations, which Rory excels at. Since college lacks all that, it's no wonder Rory had fits over losing her study tree.

Besides Richard's mixed feelings about retirement, I'd bet that the only women he spent his working life around were assistants - and Emily plays that supportive kind of role for him at home also. Suddenly spending his time around his wife, with a life of her own, and the grown daughter he treats as a teenager had to be disconcerting. I think Richard's reprimanding Lorelai for flirting at work is a pretty notable scene, simply because he's oblivious to how his authoritative style wouldn't get her very far either with her employees or with the inn's customers.

Did Christopher have a business or hold down a job by season 6-7? I can't remember if once he inherited his grandfather's money, he was still balancing work and raising Gigi, or if he'd retired, so to speak, to enjoy his lifestyle. Sherry as a character never made much sense to me. I assume Madchen Amick was no longer available for the role after season 3, but she's one type of person in It Should Have Been Lorelai, and then she became this career woman who was mocked by the show - she couldn't stop working during labor, she talked about treating her child like a doll, and then moved to Paris for her career. But when she first appears, she's the overly-enthusiastic dad's girlfriend who wants to be Rory's other best friend. If what Rory says is true, she had wanted a child enough to briefly consider single motherhood before meeting Christopher. Lorelai had a couple other good foils, and it's in-character for Chris that their relationship didn't work out, but it's still too bad that he didn't have a serious girlfriend/wife who could have pointed out the oddness of Lorelai's open door policy with Rory. What girlfriend or wife would be comfortable with her significant other crashing on Lorelai's couch in order to visit Rory?

Finally, something Christopher and Emily have in common - a lack of self-awareness and not thinking of unintended consequences of their actions. Chris is a big gesture, little follow-through kind of guy, and while I think he was sincere in offering to pay for Yale, no strings attached, perhaps he thought that being a little more present in Rory's life for the previous two seasons before Logan's proposal would give him and Rory a healed relationship, and he'd be considered more of a real dad.

Ah, maybe it's Max who's the true male Lorelai and not Jason or Alex - in terms of dysfunctional relationship approaches, not identity.

Well, the good news is, if Gigi finds herself a Logan, he might go to Christopher about proposing, because he's the *better* of Gigi's two parents. :) I doubt we'd see her in the revival, but part of me would hope she's being an extremely difficult teenager to him. Imo, Christopher is pretty aware of his parenting flaws - he expressed regret to Rory in season 5 after Straub died, but then promptly disappeared again - but he isn't willing or able to change that pattern. He's caught up in his own self-image with regard to Lorelai and Rory, that Lorelai is Superwoman Mom whereas he's that guy who can't cut it, but the two of them always let him back in without serious consequences (except for permanently losing Lorelai as a romantic possibility in the end). It's one thing if Lorelai and Rory think of him as "vacation dad," but having your daughter's x-box owning, kicked-out-of-prep-school boyfriend not take you seriously as a parent might be a more uncomfortable mirror.

Which reminds me - in So...Good Talk, when Emily is throwing her temper tantrum at Richard in the kitchen about his being the favorite, there is a truly hilarious amount of flowers and fruit arrangements on the counters and behind her. I can buy her arranging lots of flowers for display around the house. Perhaps the fruit is part of that? Do Emily's maids and cook live with her (shudder)? It doesn't seem like that house would have a wing for the help, but there is supposedly a servants' entrance around back.

Unfortunately, Emily wasn't much better by the time Rory was 21 and Emily discovered she was sleeping with Logan. We can get a little sense of how Emily and Lorelai's relationship might have gone by watching her try to mold Rory. But I think the big difference where Rory is concerned is that Emily is viewing everything with the hindsight of teen pregnancy, and anxiety over girls and their freedom, sexual and otherwise, must necessarily reflect on Emily. In Dear Emily and Richard, Emily mostly seems exasperated with her teenage daughter's stubbornness, and Lorelai could have seen that as smothering. Based on season 6, I think we're supposed to get the sense that Lorelai's getting pregnant and running away caused Emily to get even more controlling. Emily seemed to be getting there with Lorelai in early seasons, but then she regressed big time, maybe to cause more drama for story purposes.

It's a pity Trix and Christopher didn't meet. On the other hand, she would have gotten bored with him quickly, since he's not her kind of target.

I'm beginning to understand how Richard was so attracted to bohemian, window-escaping, buy-me-a-boa Emily. Her Chanel suits are radical in comparison. :) It's hard to imagine Trix as an energetic 50-ish new grandmother when Lorelai was born. She really does belong on Downton Abbey, at least style-wise.