macstarli

I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that when Rory broke off the no strings agreement she was also trying to protect Logan? Because I don't think that was on her mind at all. She didn't think he was emotionally attached to her the way she was to him, so ending their agreement shouldn't effect him all that much. Sure, he enjoyed their time together and if she didn't end it would be happy to continue as they were, but it's all shallow enough as far as she's concerned that I don't think that she gave much thought to what ending it would mean to him. And is she making a decision for him that he isn't ready for? Or is she not making a decision for him, because she knows he's not ready? And what decision do you mean? Breaking things off? Because I don't really think it matters whether or not he was ready for that decision if she was done with things and she clearly was. Break-ups are pretty unilateral deciscions. If one person is out, there isn't much of a relationship left. I think that's at the root of a lot of Rory's problems. She was told very early on exactly who she was going to be and as a result she feels incredibly guilty every time she wants something that doesn't fit that picture. I actually think it's really sad that GG seemed to loose quite a bit of nuance after Season 1, because there is a lovely conversation after Rory got hit by that deer, where Lorelai talks about the fact that Harvard might be more her thing than Rory's and that she doesn't want her to feel pressured into it or something along those lines. I think the show lost some of it's awareness of some fairly complex issues in later years. Which is why I so appreciate that episode in S7 where Lorelai realizes she's still being guided by her parents and so decides to try some of the things her parents like. No, sadly it's not dealt with in any long term kind of way, but I like what the episode portrayed. Of course she's utterly confused about her own likes and dislikes, because she just came to the realization that she had been doing things for a very long time based on a faulty premise. It's gonna take some time to deal with that and unravel her own genuine opinion from the emotional reaction she immediatly has to everything concering her parents. And I like that it involves trying out things she used to deliberatly not do to try and see if she might like them after all, because how else would she figure out what her own opinion is? I wish it had been dealt with more consistenly, but I just like that it was being voiced at all. I'm also really, really interested in the way Logan and Lorelai compare and I think it's fascinating how much she held his family against him considering how she felt about her own parents. One of my favorite moments is at the Vinyard after his dad showed up when they look at each other and she says "no one understands letting family down better than I do" (not a direct quote). On the other hand these little moments that seem to grasp at some of the deeper issues are all the way more frustrating, because there's usually very little follow up. But we're already pretty off-topic, so I'm gonna stop here.

He definitly planned it in the way that he knew that that's what he was gonna do and he probably put a lot of time into figuring out just what to say, but I don't think that's quite the same thing as completely stopping and planning the proposal from the ground up. He kind of pickybacked onto already existing plans. And yes, I am completely aware that I am debating semantics that probably don't make any sense outside my own head. Well, since you're playingdevil's advocate, I'm gonna go ahead and present a different reading of the situation. I think that Rory definitly felt ready for a no-strings relationship and especially after the mess with Dean maybe even convinced herself that it was a really good idea to go for something more casual, but I don't think that negates the fact that she was crushing on Logan hard. That's on display pretty heavily when they meet at the pub to help him with his article and she doesn't just want to go that party he's going to, because it would be great to meet those people, but because she wants him to pick her. She wants him to want to bring her along and spent time with her, in the same way that she wants to spent time with him. It's more than just wanting him in general and while she accepts that it's going to be a fling and wants to try and see what that's like, I think entirely left to her own devices, it probably wouldn't have been how she would have chosen to proceed. Maybe more something like dating just before it becomes a relationship. You're spending a lot of time together, you're not seeing other people, but it doesn't quite have a lable just yet. And I think if she had been entirely honest with herself she would have admitted that she could totally see that transitioning into an actual relationship, given some time. But Logan makes it clear that it's not what he wants and it's not something he can give her and she thinks that it's something that she wants to try, because she's fascinated by him and wants to see what it would be like. And so I don't think she wanted to break it off, because she started having feelings, she wanted to break it off, because she could no longer ignore those feelings. That's a pretty important distinction. She's feeling hurt and probably hung over and rejected and she already knows that Logan's not interested in anything more than what they're doing right now, because not only did he tell her that, he also seemed to be perfectly okay not talking with for days on end. And she wants to stop feeling like that girl sobbing on the bathroom floor, so the only option is to break it off. I don't think that's quite a fair assessment. I don't think it's so much that she was willing to let him go as much as she was entirely certain that he wasn't interested in her that way and so there was no point in holding on. She can't make him want to be her boyfriend and considering how crappy and raw she must be feeling at that particular moment she probably remembers very few reason that he would want to. And I actually think that's a really good and healthy decision. She can't control Logan, she can only control herself and thus the best thing she can do is to remove herself from a situation that is currently causing her pain. And the reason it's causing her pain is that she does want to be with him, she just thinks she can't have that. I think we're gonna be talking in circles with this one, because we're fairly close to agreeing and I think we're just drawing different conclusions from it. Yeah, there are a lot of things Rory needed to learn with regards to how to love and how to be in a relationship and probably just how to deal with life and emotions in general and I wish to god she had, if for no other reason than that I want nothing but good things for Logan and he very clearly wants her. And I think they could be so amazing together, if Rory ever got around to unlearning some of the bad relationship habits she picked up from her mom. And I think there are some indications along the way that Rory is deeply in love with him. There's the fact that she's the first one to say in love you (so she did initiate atleast one milestone) and she handles the aftermath in a really good and healthy way and then there's the Vinjard where she tells Lorelai that these could be the ones. So clearly she has thought about their future and wants that future, she just didn't expect it to come around quite so soon. I don't that means she doesn't love him enough, it just means that sometimes life doesn't work out the way we want it to. Logan was ready before she was, yes, but she still wanted all the things he did, just a little bit later. Granted, she did a crappy job of communciating that during her answer to his proposal and I really don't have an answer for that. This is right here is why I could never hate Season 7 the way some people do, because I think that season is the closest we get to those things. It's by no means perfect, but I remember early on there is an episode where Lorelai realizes that being guided by her parent's disapproval is still being guided by her parents and that maybe not everything her parents stand for is completely awful. It's not much, but I do appreciate the pieces that we get. And after so long of being born into money and high society meaning you're a horrible, shallow person hearing Logan shout "Yes, I am like those people. I'm a rich trustfund kid and I'm not ashamed of it" (not a direct quote) feels hugely satisfying.

And at no point did I say, that he made a good choice. I'm saying that I can try and understand what he was thinking and that I think he got caught up in the idea and the momentum of all of it and as a result that the graduation party, already set up and sorted in a probably fairly busy time for Rory, felt like a good idea. He was excited and he wanted to share that excitment. I think that if he had ever stopped long enough to actually plan something else, he wouldn't have decided to do it infront of anyone, but that's my entire point. He didn't plan something elaborate completely by himself, he decided he wanted to propose and looked at the graduation party and somehow thought that would be a good place to do it. I'm not saying he was right, I'm saying I can understand how that might have happened. I think that completely dismissing what happend at the wedding is doing both Rory and her relationship with Logan a disservice and selling them short. Yes, he was already interested in her before that, but she still decided to take ownership of her attraction to him and confront the situation, which is even more remarkable for the fact that it happens so rarely for her. It's on one my favorite scenes for the two of them precisely because her deciding to make a push for it with Logan and not let his intial flippant reaction throw he must have been difficult for her, because as you pointed it out it's not really a situation she was used to. She was risking being completely wrong and getting rejected, but she decided that it was worth it for the chance that he might not. She doesn't bow out when Logan explains why he hasn't asked her out or anything like that and if I remember correctly (currently at work during break, so I can't check) she's the one who leads them of the dance floor to start something right there at the vow renewal. I do think we should give her credit for being a very active instigator her. I do agree with you that the way guys keep falling in love with and are then apparently unable to ever move on from her is a bit much and part of the reason, that I tend to have issues with Rory. If I felt like the show was dealing with her and her flaws in a more real way, it would be a lot easier for me to give her the benefit of the doubt and be sympathetic, but instead a lot of the times my hackles go up and I instinctively side against her. We're going to disagree though on how much Rory loves or doesn't love Logan, though. For all that I resent a lot of how she handled being in a relationship with him, I don't really doubt that he's the one she wants and that that's why they are where they are in the revival. That's why he's the person she calls when she needs someone to talk to and why it hurts as deeply as it does when things crash down between them. I don't think it was just being afraid similar to her relationship with Dean in the beginning of Season 5. With Dean she went back to recapture something that made her feel safe, but clearly wasn't there anymore. I do think that she feels safe with Logan and that he makes her feel better when a lot of things in her life are going wrong, but ideally that's what being in a healthy relationship is like and unlikely her relationship with Dean her and Logan work well together and love each other even without the nostalgia factor of their previous relationship. This wasn't directed at me and I think @marineg did a pretty good job of explaining the things you quoted, but I still feel the need to respond, because I freely admit that I have a lot of issues with Rory for a variety of reasons and that I probably sell her short on occasion. Of course there have been a lot of times where she was a good girlfriend, if they weren't I'd have left this ship a long time ago. But to me it always feels like we got so much of her POV in the show and like the show just brushed so many of her less good moments under the rug, that it's hard for me to let those things go. It's not that I couldn't try and understand where she comes from, but because there are plenty of moments where she just gets a pass for her behaviour, not seeming to learn anything from it or even feel particularly bad about it that I don't feel inclined to bother to sympathize with her, especially if it's a situation where Rory herself seems to be completely unwilling to consider anything but her own feelings and version of events. All of that being said, I'm really interested in hearing what you think of Rory and her relationship with Logan and maybe I'll change my mind on a couple of things.

Ouh, this is making me so exited! It's an interesting question and I haven't really got a good answer for it, but I'll try my best to put the thoughts I do have into something that's at least semi-coherent. I think something that is quite clear is that in at least some ways Logan continued his growth. He seemed quite serious about his work, so clearly his newly discovered work ethic has stuck around. We're not really sure how he ended up working with Mitchum again, but I like Matt's interpretation that Logan grew to appreciate what he could get from working with his family and I'm sure he's good at it. And I like the idea that Logan has learned to rise above the mess with his family and not let that ruin a path that seems like a good fit for him. For the most part anyway. His conversation with Mitchum seemed cordial enough and in the way he talks about him with Rory it seems like he has found a way to make peace with who his father is and moved on from letting that rule his life without pretending that this somehow makes Mitchum a good person or a good father. And he's still incredibly sweet and encouraging with Rory. He's her constant cheerleader, he's perfectly happy to be her sounding board at all hours of the night and to put all his resources at her disposal, should she feel like it, no strings attached. He's interested in her life and attentive and he never stops being inspired by who she is. Even when she feels like she's at her worst, he's still a little bit in awe of this amazing woman, that has been the love of his life for more than a decade at this point. He definitly feels a lot more settled than S5/S6 Logan and even than S7 Logan. S5/S6 Logan was doing a lot of running, trying to avoid something he at the time felt to be inevitable and in S7 he slowly started to come to terms with that and the end leaves him at a turning point, awaiting an exciting adventure. By the time the revival has come around, I think he's finished that process and has conquered the adventure. He's spent years working in this field, so he feels secure in that and he seems to feel secure in his life in general. With the one huge exception. And here's the thing about Odette. I know nothing about her or Logan's relationship with her. Even above when I'm talking about Logan and his family and his work I'm already reaching and headcanoning, but I think we've got a little bit of solid ground to stand on, because we can infer some stuff from seeing him directly interact with Mitchum and his conversations with Rory. With Odette we certainly never see her and we don't really see Logan talk about her either, at least nothing comes to mind at the moment. So let's get the obvious and the only thing we actually see on screen out of the way. I hate that they make him a cheater. It doesn't really fit with either S5/S6 Logan or S7 Logan. He was a playboy, sure, but he was perfectly upfront about it, which is an entirely different thing from cheating. And I certainly can't ever picture the Logan who was so aware of himself and his relationship with Rory, who chose her over and over and over again, in a million little and big ways, put her in a position where she's his mistress. Not that Rory isn't responsible for her deciscion to sleep with someone who is in a relationship (while she's also in a relationship nonetheless), but I still can't see Logan being okay with that. So yeah, that feels like a huge regression. And I resent the hell out of it and I don't think the revival wanted to make it anything more than that, because if they wanted to they would have. But because the situation as presented in the revival doesn't make any sense to me, I think Logan to a very large extend is the person that we choose to see in him as. Because he seems to be at peace with his family and I have a very hard time reconciling that with the fact that he would let them run his love life, I can imagine that he and Odette are actually good friends. That they get along well and respect each other and are well aware that the person they are engaged to doesn't love them that way, but they both have their own reasons for going along with their family wishes. And if that's true and Odette knows about Rory (hey, maybe she's got her own true love somewhere out there) then I can kind of make it work as a continuation of Original Logan. It doesn't feel very Logan (in any season) not to go after what he wants with Rory, but I think in the revival there are enough indications that Rory shuts down everytime he trys to push for a little more that I can accept that maybe in the beginning he thought it would eventually naturally lead to more and eventually he resigned himself to the fact, that pushing Rory on their relationship would just make her run. I'd imagine that he has had other relationship between the end of S7 and meeting Rory again and he has come to terms with the fact, that he's not going to find what he had with Rory with anybody else, so he eventually gave up on loving someone else because he just never quite managed to move on all the from Rory, which isn't fair to anybody involved. It's not really the kind of story I wanted for him (I was either rooting for a happy ever after with Rory or that he found love and a fullfilling relationship with someone else, preferably someone who was a little more emotionally aware than Rory) but it sort of makes sense, I guess. It's really hard to tell, because we know nothing about his life between the OS and the revival or Rory and Logan's relationship pre-revival or how long it's been going on. Does it pre-date Odette? Now if you don't like Logan, it's easy to look at the character and just say that he has ultimately proven himself to be the worst version of himself. He's a cheater, he's shallow and weak enough to consent to a family arranged engagement instead of going with his heart and he's unprincipled enough to not even follow through with that and instead keep Rory as his mistress on the side. His deep love for Rory doesn't seem to have been more of a kiddy pool after all or maybe it's just grown more shallow over the years. Either way, if you wanted to, you could make an argument, that if they had gotten married, there's no garantue that he wouldn't have cheated on her the same way he has on Odette. Granted I don't think any of that is true and while a lot of it seems to be implied in the revival, I don't think there's conclusive evidence to definitly prove it, but I don't have any evidence to disprove it either, other than saying it doesn't fit with how he's been presented in the OS. Because even S5/S6 Logan certainly wasn't weak when it came to his family. He had his head stuck in the sand when it came to his future in the business, sure, but it's not like he avoided pissing off his parents because he disliked the confrontation and he had absolutely no problem whatsoever standing up to them when it came to Rory. And then he came into his own during S7, realizing that he life he had been running from for such a long, long time was maybe not the worst thing afterall and he probably began to realize that he didn't need his family. That he was perfectly capable of making it out there on his own. And then he did exactly that. So it's not like he doesn't have a personal drive independent from what his father wants from him or like he shys away from telling them to shove off. And during his entire relationship with Rory there isn't really a single thing to suggest that he is unprincipled or a cheater. Whether or not you consider the bridemaids-incident to be cheating, I think it's very clear that Logan honestly believed them to be broken up and that he would never have slept with those girls if he didn't believe that. And during their dance at Richard's and Emily's vow renewal he is very upfront with Rory. He knows who he is and he's not ashamed of it, but he's also not going to take advantage of the fact that Rory has a crush on him to sleep with her, dangling the possibility of something more infront of her. That doesn't really speak of someone who is unprincipled and used to taking the path of least resistance to get whatever he wants. And it is now way too late over here and I need to head to bed, so I think I'm just gonna leave this as is. I might have more to say tomorrow after work and hopefully if I do it will be a little more structured and less all over the place than this has been. And maybe I'll even get around to comparing OS and Revival-Logan in a meaningful way. But honestly, I have a lot of conflicting thoughts and emotions on that goddamn revival and other than resenting the hell out of ASP a lot of it depends on which angle I look at it from. If you want to read some more ramblings on that revival you can also check out my tumblr, although there isn't a lot on there.

I love long posts, too! Shocking news, I'm sure. There just always seem to be a million different things to say. I'm not thrilled with the public proposal either, but I can kind of understand how he thought she might like to share that moment with her mom and her grandparents and I can imagine, that he might have gotten caught up in what a huge deal this was in a way. He was publicy declaring how much he loved her, how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and for a guy who had spent almost his entire life believing he was gonna end up in a loveless high society marriage and sleeping with an endless line of girls I'm sure this felt like a way of reinforcing his decision and demonstrating just what she means to him. And now I'm frustrated, because I'm wording this really badly. Basically, I think he was just really excited and got lost in the grand gesture. Not ideal, but I don't hold it against him. And I'm always blown away by what a great boyfriend Logan was, especially considering that Rory is actually really bad at being in a relationship, and I think it's such a testament to who he is and how he loves. From the second he agreed to be her boyfriend he was all in and he never regreted it for a moment. I also think for him the bar break-up was a real turning point. Not that he wasn't amazing and comitted before that, but I think going back to his old lifestyle helped him clarify just how much Rory and their relationship meant to him. He came back to her, deliberatly and actively choosing her again, because he realized that she was it for him and I don't think he ever wavered from that again for a second and I'm not sure Rory ever really caught up again after that, because she never had that moment in the same way. At least not on screen. I'm fairly certain she had it at some point between the original series and the revival. But because she had already had two different boyfriends before Logan I don't think that their original relationship ever really forced her to examine herself and what she has with Logan in the same way that commiting to her forced Logan to examine just what is he wanted from them. And because he was so certain about what he wanted and pushing them forward I don't think she quite got there in the same way until after she had lost him. Oh, and by the way, I'm planning on having t-shirts made that declare, he didn't f-ing cheat. I get why it hurt Rory, but this is where she really needed to figure out how to communicate and also how to deal with her emotions in a productive way. There is nothing wrong with being hurt and upset and angry while also rationally understanding that he didn't do anything wrong and was just trying to cope in the best (only?) way he knew how. Emotions don't stop just because we understand that they don't necessarily make sense. But I don't really think Rory was ever really capable of that kind of introspection.

Thank you so much! This makes me so happy, because I felt kind of bad basically just repeating what you had already said, just in a really long winded way, but I desperately needed to put my thoughts down somewhere. And the more I think about it the less I understand why some people think it was Logan's job in that moment to not let their relationship end. Rory kind of tries to put it on him with the "all or nothing" thing, but why should he have a compromise ready for her? He has already told her what he wants, he believed that's what she wanted as well and so he's obviously reeling from the fact that he was so completely and utterly wrong about that, so why should he be in any kind of frame of mind to be able to start negotiations on how their relationship might continue? He wasn't the one who knew how this conversation was going to go and he wasn't the one who needed to prove to Rory that he was commited to their joint future, because he had just proposed and made his feelings towards her pretty clear. Any kind of suggestion from him wouldn't have solved anything, because Rory was the one who needed to communicate her feelings and her thoughts and reassure him about how much she wanted their relationship to work even if she wasn't ready for marriage yet. And really I think it's unfair to not only expect him to be able to sort through his emotions and general inner workings quickly (in a matter of minutes, probably even seconds really) enough to realize that he didn't need marriage from her, just any kind of indication that she felt the same way about him as he felt about her, but then also actually go ahead and basically beg for that, when the mere fact that she's had time to think about this and come up with what to say and how their relationship might work, if she was at all interested in actually conserving that relationship, and yet gave him absolutely nothing, should already answer that question. Plus, you know, he had literally just offered her everything and had been soundly rejected, I can see why actively trying to talk her into giving him scrapes after that doesn't come naturally and really, he shouldn't have to. She's the one who didn't like what he wanted for their future, she's the one who should have had a different plan, if only because last time he thought he knew what she wanted he was wrong. And you're completely right, Rory is weirdly stoic about all of this, there's not really anything more than a token effort made to save their relationship, there's not really a lot of asking him not to walk away, that they can make this work, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of desperation that she is loosing something she is holding extremly dear and that she's trying to keep that from happening. I think if she had, she might not have even needed a counter plan. Just the mere fact that she feels that strongly about loosing him, might have been enough for Logan and could have faciliated a conversation where they both actually talk about their feelings in-depth and hopefully that would have lead both of them towards a conversation of what their relationship could look like if Rory wasn't ready to get married, but Logan still needed some kind of reassurance that they were in this for the long haul.

That's really interesting (and I think you're completely right) and it made me think about what would have happened if Logan hadn't proposed and I think there's actually a decent chance that they would have broken up either way. It probably comes down to the sequence of events, like when they have the conversation about what's gonna happen after graduation and if she already had her job offer, but while their break up ends up being presented as hinging on whether or not she wants to get married I actually think the thing that kills them is that she isn't coming to San Francisco, that her wide open future and her unwillingness to consider them in making deciscions for it precludes any kind of meaningful relationship in their future for as long as that is true. I also decided to re-watch the Hay Bale Maze scene, because it is so often quoted for being the reason for his "ultimatum" being unforgivable, that he has no right to expect her to factor him in after he told her not to do that. So there is another loooong quote coming up, because I've always been obsessed with working as close to the text as possible... Logan: So you know, when you were making that pro/con list last night? (...) I kinda noticed that there was something on there about me. Rory: Oh, yeah, I didn't know where to put you. Logan: Yeah, I saw that, I saw you put Logan and there where like three question marks. Rory: Well, there are just so many factors. I wasn't sure to what extent I should factor you in. Logan: Well, I want you to know I don't want you to factor me in. Rory: Oh... Okay. Logan: No! I mean... I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to be doing next and I know I wanna start putting my ideas out and I know I wanna start working, but I think you should do what you wanna do and then, then maybe I factor you in. Rory: Oh. You wanna factor me in. Logan: Yeah. I like that. If you're in Providence, maybe I come live in Providence. Rory: That'd be great. - But just in general, I'd like to factor you in, too. Logan: Okay. Well, for this one, you make your deciscion based on what you want for you, you do what you want. Rory: Okay. - I know what I really want. (...) I wanna go for the fellowship. I'm gonna say no to the (other thing I can't quite make out and have no idea how to spell). Logan: Okay. Rory: Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna go for it. So, for me, I've come to the conclusion that it's really unfair to hold this scene against him, because it happened under very specific cirumstances. For one, it happened while they were both under the impression that Rory would be the first one to settle her future, because, for another thing, she was in the middle of making a very concrete deciscion and he is telling her not to worry about him while she is making that very specific decision, which makes sense, because he is in a position where he can give her that. He doesn't currently have anything lined up (just like Rory doesn't, when he proposes and thinks she's gonna come with him) and he has his feelers out everywhere, so once he's got a reason to limit his scope for her, he can do that without any kind of issue. That changes afterwards and I don't think either one of them was taking this conversation to mean that he was going to stop looking for a job until Rory had figured things out for her, just that for the time being, while things were like this, she shouldn't worry too much about him. And again, this conversation didn't happen out of the blue, with no context, it happened because he was reassuring her about a concrete choice she was in the immediate process of making and which she made immediatly after he finishes saying what he says. And her choice ends up not working out, while he is California and realizing that he is about have something he is really excited about. And Rory knows he is California, buidling contacts and what not, so again, she clearly didn't expect him to just completely drop everything and wait for her to decide what she wants to do. Hence this conversation in Lorelai? Lorelai?. Rory: Oh, that's okay, I'm just glad it's going well. Do you think they are gonna make you an offer? Logan: I don't know, it's hard to tell, this guys play things pretty close to the vest. Rory: Well, I'm sure they will. (...) Logan: I love you. Rory: I love you, too. Logan: And hey, don't worry about the times or the final or any of it. I have a feeling in the next couple of days you will have moved on and forgotten all about this. Rory: I don't know. Logan: Things will be looking up, I promise. Rory knows he is out there actively looking for a job, without any clear idea of what her future is (because of course that's what he has to do) and she is very actively supportive of it. Logans happy smile as she says, she's sure they're gonna make him an offer, is utterly beautiful and you can just tell that he has a pretty good idea of what's going to happen next and he takes it as a sign of her wanting that as well, of her being aware of his future and approving of it and wanting to be and seeing herself in it. Which isn't really an unreasonable thought, considering both their relationship at that point and the fact that in the conversation before the Hay Bale Maze she actually says, that she wants to factor him into her future. Yes, he tells her not to worry about it, but again, that was said in a context that has since been vastly changed, which they are both completely aware of and given Rory's current situation and her behaviour in regards to his dealings in California he has really no reason to think that she has completely changed her mind and in fact doesn't want to factor him into her future at all for (and this really can't be said enough) no specific reason other than she doesn't want to. And again, she knows things are in the works for him and she is rooting for that, so it's not like she is completely blind sided by the fact that he might have things settled before her, meaning it will then be incredible difficult for him to factor her in. Which is why I think they're potential break-up without a proposal comes down to the sequence of events. If she gets the job offer quickly enough, thus giving her a reason for not being able to go to San Francisco, I don't think Logan would hold that against her or their relationship. No, he probably wouldn't be thrilled at another long distance relationship, but neither would she, because why would they be. But it wouldn't make him feel like Rory just doesn't feel the same way about him as he does for her and thus make him question the entire relationship and it would actually come with at least some kind of end date build in, so depending on if they talked about what might happen after and Rory just generally agreeing that they are gonna reconfigure and see what happens after the campagne trail together I think they would have been fine. If they had a conversation about San Francisco before she has that job offer and she still doesn't want to come with him I think they're relationship is doomed whether marriage ever comes into it or not and I think that's just logistics. If Rory's not going to consider him in her career choices, there is absolutely no garantuee as to where she is going to end up and it likely won't be close enough to him to make an every day relationship feasable. In fact considering that she is deliberatly deciding against leaving with him after just having graduated from college with nothing holding her back, it's probably easy to assume that she might choose something that keeps her close to her home town and her mom, because that's where she wants to be more than she wants to be with him. And if they are plannind on building two seperate lives with no end date in sight until one of them decides that enough is enough and to uproot that life to bring it closer to the other person, I think Logan would have decided against staying in a relationship with her and I really can't hold that against him. (And yes, I know the actual job ends up being different and actually extremly difficult to factor in for Logan had he waited, but they don't know that until, well, until they know that.) It reminds me of what my mom used to tell me, that it's surpisingly common for people to get divorce just as they get retired, because it's a major change in their lives and suddenly they realize that up until then things had worked perfectly fine, but now they might have very different expectations as to what they are gonna do with their future that can't really co-exist and so they split. So I guess my tl;dr is that college graduation is another one of those crossroads that often leads to couples seperating (as Paris actually points out in an earlier episode) and they were going to have to make a decision for that crossroad whether Logan proposed or not and Rory's decision probably wasn't going to change even if's not linked to becoming engaged.

(Quote taken from Unpopular Opinions Thread because there's a whole different discussion going on over there and this is really just a jumping off point for me to talk at length about Rory and Logan.) It's about twenty minutes til midnight over here and I should be going to sleep right about two hours ago, but reading the quote above struck a chord with me and I felt the need to put it down somewhere, so instead I'm gonna ramble here for a bit. I also put myself through re-watching the rejection scene, so that's gonna be quoted quite a bit. Rory: I'm sorry... I can't. I love you. You know how much I love you. I love the idea of being married to you, but.. there are just a lot of things right now in my life that are undecided and that used to scare me, but know I kind of like the idea that it's just all kind of... wide open. And if I married you it just wouldn't be. I have so many thoughts on Rory's decision and the why's of her saying no and those thoughts have changed and broadened quite a bit as I've gotten older and gathered some more understanding of her situation, but regardless of all of that, I think it's quite clear from what she's saying, that Rory is not ready or willing to deliberately make room for Logan in her future. She doesn't want to "factor him in" as it were. She's looking at her future and everything she wants to do and she wants Logan in there as well, but very much of the side and not impeding her decision making in any way. She wants build a life with him in it, but at this point in time she doesn't want to build a life together with him. And if that's how she feels she is completely right in saying no to his proposal. Because everything that Logan was talking about and excited about (the house, the paper, their life together) isn't what she wants right now. Later, once she's settled down, yes, but not right now. Right now she doesn't want to bind herself to him in a way that requires her to take him into account that way (which is a very Lorelai-thing, both senior and junior). Logan: So what, I stay in San Francisco, you stay in the east and we see each other occasionally? Rory: Well, we can try long distance. We've done it before. I think what's important here, is that Rory doesn't really offer any kind of reassurance of her commitment to him or their relationship in her response to him, other than a vague unwillingness to let things permanently end. At this moment there's really no particular reason for her not to go to San Francisco with him, even if they don't get engaged, if she wanted to. She doesn't have a job offer that is keeping her on the east coast or even an idea of what she wants to do that is keeping her here. Like she said, her future is wide open. That changes in the next episode, but very much out of the blue and there is no way of knowing how Logan would have reacted to that job offer other than speculation. Personally I think he would have supported her in it, but like I said, that's speculation. But keeping in mind her wide open future, at this point not only is Rory saying, I don't want to marry you right now, she's also saying, I would rather put us through another long-distance relationshop for an indeterminded amount of time for no particular reason other than I don't want to go to San Francisco with you. That's about as far away as you can get from building a life together, which is what Logan wants. And, again, it's okay that Rory doesn't. She's under no obligation to follow him to San Francisco, just because his job is moving him there, but it does say a lot about their current relationship and just how she looks at it and how invested she is in it, that she seems to have completely decided against that. Not just against an engagement and marriage, but all of it. And Logan knows, just as he told her in the Hay Bale Maze, that if she'd been the first to settle her future, that he'd have followed her wherever she meant to go. And it must really hurt, that even with nothing currently holding her back, she doesn't feel the same way, which leads to his next... well, technically it's a question, but it's really more of a statement. Logan: You really think that's gonna work? Because for him, he knows it's not going to work. He has just realized, that he is far more invested in their relationship and their future and their life together than she is at this point and I'm fairly certain all he can see is them growing further and further apart as she explores her wide open future far away from him and by her own admission without any consideration of him or their relationship for god knows how long. Rory: I think it would be hard, but - And Rory's got nothing to put against that. Again, she's got no words of reassurance as to how their relationship is going to continue after this point, a relationship, by the way, that has just been dealt a fairly major blow and whose participants are in the process of realizing that they are not nearly on the same page as to what their relationship is right now. That's not an easy situation to deal with under ideal circumstances and what Rory is proposing is certainly less than ideal, with a huge amount of distance between them and both of them in the process of establishing themselves in their work enviroments. Logan: I don't wanna do that, Rory, I don't wanna go backwards. If we can't take the next step... It's only after this sentence that Rory truly seems to realize, that this is going to be the end of their relationship. Up until that point a part of her genuinly seemed to believe, that Logan would agree to continuing their relationship on her terms and I think that's a really huge indicator of how little she understands the implication of everything she just said. Or maybe rather, of everything she didn't say. Because Logan is just looking her, still processing how completely and utterly wrong he was about her, about everything, and she's really giving him nothing to hold onto. Which is why next she says - Rory: Does it have to be all or nothing? And I know that Logan is about to say yes to that, but personally I don't think that's actually true, allthough I'm sure it felt true enough while he said it. I think he says it, because it's what the situation ended up being and he's feeling incredible raw and hurt and is still trying to come to terms with everything that just happened and then she uses those words, more or less putting them in his mouth, but really I think all he's looking for is something. Anything, really, after the blow he's just been dealt. Like he says, he doesn't want go to backwards to some vague long distance relationship. He wants to build on everything they've had over the last few months in particular and the last few years in general and I think if Rory had given him any indication that she wanted that as well, it didn't necessarily have to mean marriage or an engagment. Just something more than the nothing she was currently offering. Which is why I think they really had to break up going on everything that was just said. Because Rory loves him, yes, and she can see herself marrying him in the distant future, yes, but right now, she can't or doesn't want to give him anything more than what she just offered and that is not going to be enough. I think Logan would have been okay with a long engangement or a number of other things, but Rory can't offer that, because it's still more than she wants to give of herself right now. Which, based on her answer to his proposal, isn't really much of anything. And that is completely valid and her right. But it's also no way of being in a long term relationship, especially one where the other partner wants so much more. Which is why for Logan it really sums up perfectly in one sentence. Logan: What's the point? What's the point of hurting himself (and Rory) by staying in a relationship, that is barely even a relationship anymore, just so watch them drift apart and make them resent each other, because he knows that he wants more than she can give him? What's the point of hoping that the potentially years they spent living parallel lifes far away from each other with no end in sight doesn't inevitably end with them falling out of love or one of them meeting someone new they spark with, someone who is actually there? What's the point in draging this out painfully for both of them when in this moment it's so clear, that they're relationship has just been rocked to it's core in a way it's highly unlikely to recover from? I don't really blame either one of them for the break up, but watching this scene always makes me resent how little thought Rory seems to have put into what her saying no means. I don't know if she was in denial, desperatly wanting to believe that she wasn't going to loose Logan, because of course she didn't want to lose him. But I really don't see how his reaction can take her so completely by surprise, that she doesn't have a response for him as to what their relationship is going to be, if they don't get engaged and she's not going to come to San Francisco. She knows that this is what's going to happen, so how can this not be the end of their relationship? And if she does know it and she's thought about it and she really has got nothing to reassure him about her comittment to him and their relationship, what's the point of making him issue that "ultimatum" and making him essentially be the one who ends it rather than accepting that her "no" is the end of their relationship?

Long team reader, first time poster :) I just had to leave this thoughts somewhere and this place seemed like a good fit. I've been re-watching this ep as part of my lazy saturday morning, and it struck me again just how much potential this episode has and it lived up to so much of it and then we get to felicity's apology and I just want to bang my head against the wall. Especially because I don't even think we needed it at all to have Olicity move forward again. Felicity already said at the end of Season 4 that she didn't actually mean it when she said he'd never change, so the door for him to do just that was already open and then of course in the flashback she added that she needs to understand why (presumably because that means they could work on the underlying issue and thus she would be able to trust that moving forward the same problem wouldn't come up over and over again). And she get's her why in the tunnel, when Oliver tells her it's not that he doesn't trust her, it's that he doesn't trust himself. And I think that's actually a kind of beautiful answer for him, that makes a lot of sense (or, you know, as much as sense as anything character related in this show makes). Not being able to trust yourself is such a major, major handicap that can leads to some pretty stupid decisions, because you're literally second-guessing the entire world and how you see it all the time, because what if you're just wrong. And it makes it so lovely, that you can genuienly tell he does trust her. That's such a testament to his faith in her. Now, granted, it takes some twisting to connect that to the BMD, but I can fanwank, that he wanted to tell her, that his instinct was always to tell her, it's just that he didn't trust those instincts and so he bowed to Samantha's (and later Thea's) judgment instead. The fact that he did want to tell her, must have made it that much harder to convince himself, that he had the right to ignore Samantha's stupid rule, because he had to have wondered if that clouded his own judgment. So there you go. Felicity has her underlying issue that can be adressed and hopefully rectified, Oliver has a positive goal to work towards and Olicity is go, go, GO! No need to have her apologize for being a hypocrite. And the most annoying thing for me (apart from the fact that Oliver just sat there and nodded, rather than taking responsibility for the fact that his shitty actions blew up the relationship) is that her saying "I get it now because Helix" doesn't even connect to the actual underlying issue as I see it. Apart from the fact that I don't see what is inherintly evil in Helix and her working with them, I don't think any of it had anything to do with her not being able to trust herself. Which was the new thing Oliver told her and why she tells him to figure out what kind of person he is. So how does Helix help her understand why he lied to her if the issue isn't that he's willing to do whatever it takes? And rather being willing to do whatever it takes is just another symptome of the fact that he doesn't trust himself to make solid decisions and be a good person, so instead he resorts to questionable decision making skills? And why on earth did she have to say she unterstands why he had to lie to her, absolving him of any personal responsiblity? Because the fact that he is all kinds of fucked up, does not mean that he has to make stupid decisions. It might make it more understandable, but the entire point of this is to show that he can learn and move past his issues, so he won't do anything like that again, thus effectively proofing, that he absolutely does not 'have to'. So the fact that he did in the first place is still on him. Not an unforgivable act, sure, no longer something she thinks she can never move past, yeah, but still a fucked up decision, that he has to own. And absolutely a decision she had every right to walk away over. So it annoys me to no end, that not only do we get the apology in present time, we also get the apology in the flashback from her for walking away too quickly and not talking and again he just accepts it, rather than owning up the crappy things he did, implying that she really was wrong to just walk away and she somehow owed it to him after all that to try and hash it out. Which is kind of ironic since the entire problem was that at absolutely no point he seemed to think he owed it to her to talk anything over. So now I am incredible bitter that somehow this ep not only had her apolgize twice to Oliver and not have him own up to any of the shit he did, somehow implying that she was wrong in how she broke up with him, but also try and imply that she should just accept the fact that he lied to her and shut her out, because he had no other choice. I just really don't think we needed that. She can have been right to walk away back then and still be open to potentally getting back together with him in the future. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. But yeah, other than that, the episode was absolutely gorgeous! I think my favorite moment might be when they're hanging over the vents and Felicity tells him to let her go and somehow he manages to pull her up again. Of course there was never any way she was going to fall to her death and I highly doubt there was any person that Oliver would have willingly let die in that moment, but it still felt like a special refusal to ever let go of her, because it's Felicity! But really, there were so many great moments for those two and the show in general that I am somehow even more annoyed about the other stuff. They couldn't just let me have this one episode to bask in? But back to the positive, I also really adored how they managed to sprinkle quite a lot of funny moments in there without letting it undercut the tension. I've been grinning over Olivers "Hold on tight... Not that tight! Not that tight!" for like a week now and his face after Felicity injects him with the adrenalin is just pure comedy gold. I always like it when my entertainment is actually entertaining.

Delurking because I've been thinking about this episode all week and I need to put it into actual words. I haven't watched Once since somewhere early S4, but I kept up with it through this forum (you guys are great, btw) and I decided to give this ep a shot to see how the writers handle "the return to Snow White" and as much as I like the idea, the execution really leaves something to be desired for me and I've been trying to put my finger on why. In the end I think it comes down to it seeming like the writers are trying to sell this grand idea, that this was somehow an arc story for Snow, that she lost herself during the curse and never found back to it and so now her reclaiming her actual name is the cumulation to that particular arc for her. When Snow tells Emma something like "You don't know this about me, but I used to be..." it bugged me, because wasn't the point of the princess arc in 2A for Emma to realize that the friend she needed to protect as Mary Margret wasn't who her mother as Snow White was? It feels like they're taking their crappy writing, realized people didn't like it, maybe even agreed with that assesment and decided to fix it, but by putting so much emphasis on it and pretending this is what they had written all along it felt off. I would have much rather had a more subtle approach, maybe more along the ways of "Okay, I tried doing things like this for a while, it didn't work, I'm gonna be doing it differently now", rather than saying that the cursed personality was still taking hold somehow, which isn't quite something we've seen to that extent with any other person. It also feels disingenious, because as far as I remember over the course of the past 3 and a half seasons (S2 - S5A) I can't recall anybody really pointing this out as a problem in regards to Snow, though as I mentioned I skipped generous parts of that so I'm not ruling out that I missed some important information. Either way it made Reginas "It's about time" seem even more off than it already was, considering everything was getting blamed on the curse which obviously gives Regina a huge part of culpabilitly in that mess. Which brings me to the point that Regina was probably the worst possible option to be Snow's sounding board in this episode. The part where Snow talks about everything she lost while talking to Regina makes it so obvious that an apology is so desperatly in order, but I can see why it didn't come from a writing standpoint, because Snow's arc for this ep didn't call for an apology, it called for a pep talk. Which is fine. Except then you can't give that talking point to Regina of all people! If they really wanted someone for her to talk this over with someone who knew her as Snow White, let her talk with Charming and put the emphasis on how all the things she went through made her loose herself and now she wants to change that. Maybe throw in a line that she held on to the name Mary Margret because that's how Emma knew her and that it was a connection to a time, where she and Emma had an easier relationship and she knew what to do and what to say. Then she can give that up and try to redefine herself as Emma's Mom as Snow White, the person she actually is. It's not an ideal solution, since after so long, everything was going to feel kinda hard to swallow for me, but I think if they hadn't tried to hit me over the head so much with "Look! She was Mary Margret! Now she's Snow White again! We're telling you, you're getting what you want!" and instead put the main focus on actually showing me that and if they had removed Regina, who really, really needs to apologize so badly, but can't in this episode even when confronted with her bad deeds, because the structure of the ep doesn't call for it, then I would have accepted it a lot easier. I do realize that the writers were in a tough position, if they wanted to undo some of the damage that had been done to Snow after all this time, because the longer it went on, the more they had to dismiss a huge part of their canon for Snow (3 1/2 half seasons of a show, that's only been running for about 4 1/2, if they want to go back to "the curse changed me"), which is obviously really hard. So I am perfectly happy to not look a gift horse in the mouth if they actually stick to their promises and I can have Snow White back permanently, but I wish they could have done something that has been going on for so long proper justice. Because this really should have felt like such a victory after all the disapointment in Snow over the past seasons and it did at first, but even while I was still watching the ep I had to force myself to hold onto that and focus on taking the bad with the good, because I really, really want the good. Also, I'm adding the disclaimer that I've only seen the ep once on Monday, so I'm basing this entirely on my impression of that. I can't remember if maybe some of the issues I had did get addressed to some extent, but it didn't stick with me, because it didn't seem to be done properly for my taste, or if maybe I warped some things into fact in my head that wasn't actually there, because of the general impression I got from the episode and, well, the entire show, which can bias how I read things.