Eyes High

My UO is that I hated how Mrs. Kim treated Lane when I watched GG as it originally aired, to the point where I secretly hoped Lane would rebel to the point of cutting all ties with her mother. This is probably a cultural issue, since I had a standard North American upbringing in terms of the freedoms I was afforded. Since GG has ended, I've met people raised in other cultures in a similarly strict fashion who didn't seem particularly bothered by this mode of parenting, but it really, really bothered me at the time. I remain disappointed that Lane didn't peace out on her mom, run off to some non-Christian college, drop out of that college, and hit the big time as a rock musician. It might not have made her happy, ultimately, but at least she would have been free. Nor am I particularly moved by the insistence of some I've seen that Mrs. Kim was doing what she thought was best for her child. A lot of parents do horrible things to their children under a misguided but honestly held belief that it's in their best interests. Given Lane's unenviable and arguably tragic fate--trapped at home with twins at the tender age of 21 while her husband lives out her dream--it's hard not to view her as severely damaged by her conservative Christian upbringing. A great website (the-toast.net) posted this list of fictional characters whose lives would have been vastly improved by an abortion. Lane, not surprisingly, was on that list.

Assuming ASP has a vested interest in not enraging either the Rory/Jess nor the Rory/Logan fans by pairing Rory off with the guy they're not rooting for--which I doubt, but let's assume that she does-- a "nobody 'wins'" scenario where Rory winds up a single mom to a child not fathered by either guy seems plausible. Spitballing the four seasons thing, maybe the crisis that leads Rory to come home is an unexpected pregnancy. Because this is Rory, let's imagine that the father is a guy she was in a serious relationship with for a long time--probably since not too long after she broke up with Logan, because God knows Rory can't be single for longer than a goddamn minute--who bailed when she got pregnant. The miniseries then follows Rory over the course of her pregnancy and culminates with Rory giving birth in the last "season" and naming her daughter Lorelai. She would interact with Jess, Logan, etc. over the course of her pregnancy, but I'm guessing her impending motherhood would put the kibosh on the possibility of any romantic overtures, unless they pull a Henry from Mad Men and hit on her when she's obviously pregnant with another dude's child. It pretty much writes itself, to my mind. Stars Hollow is atwitter (and maybe a-Twitter, who knows?) with the news of Rory's pregnancy and scandalous rumours are flying fast and furious about the father's identity. Rory goes into OCD mode trying to ensure the perfect pregnancy, while struggling with worries over what will happen to her career and what kind of mother she'll be. Rory keeps the news from Emily and Lorelai for as long as she can, and she worries that they'll be disappointed in her; drama inevitably ensues when the news gets out (although Lorelai is upset because Rory kept the news from her, and Emily is upset because of the Lorelai 2.0 situation). Luke, outraged at Rory's predicament, volunteers to kick the wastrel babydaddy's ass. Rory reconnects with Lane and they bond over Rory becoming a mom. Paris weighs in long distance from her incredibly prestigious residency to offer bracingly blunt insights on the negative impact single motherhood will have on Rory's career prospects. Logan and/or Jess tell Rory cute stories about their own children--I guarantee you Jess' names for his kids will be insufferable--and sweetly assure Rory that she'll be a good mom. And so on. As for Rory and Paris coparenting, as suggested upthread, I think Paris would be all "Nannies. Look into it." (On a different show, in the event of an unexpected pregnancy, Paris would be the one reasonably pointing out that abortion was a sensible option, but GG has always been pretty conservative.) That's how she was raised, after all. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Paris would pick the most demanding, time-consuming surgery specialty, so she would have even less time and patience for Rory's bullshit than she had in undergrad. The friendship would probably be reduced to Paris barking advice at Rory over the phone or texting her orders on how to get her shit together in all caps.

The exciting--or terrifying, depending on how you look at it--part of the revival is that we're going to find out what ASP's "real feelings" were, at least in relation to how she intended everything to end up.

Interesting. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that. Given Hanzee's background in Vietnam, I wonder if we're meant to think that his callous approach to causing suffering and death and cool detachment are a result of his traumatic experiences in the war, or whether they're meant to lead us to believe that he's just another sociopath "born wrong" like Lester and Malvo from Season 1. Another interesting thing to me is that Simone hates her father to the point of urging Mike to kill him but seems to get along just fine with Hanzee, even though Hanzee has likely been complicit in her father's abusive behaviour towards her mother and physically (and possibly sexually) abusive behaviour towards her; Floyd intervenes when Dodd threatens Simone with "the fist or the knife," but Hanzee stands idly by when Dodd slaps Simone, grabs her by the hair and manhandles her into the car. It seems strange to me that if Simone loathes her father for abusing her and her mother, she doesn't at the very least resent Hanzee, the man who shrugged his shoulders at that abuse. Maybe it's just another form of the Gerhardts treating Hanzee as property and therefore incapable of making his own decisions, so anything he does or doesn't do is on his "owner" and not on him. I don't know. With respect to the sexual abuse thing, I can buy that Simone's comment about her father "getting hard" at the prospect of hitting her was some spur of the moment comment aimed to provoke. Dodd's attitude towards her sexuality and comments about her body--she's "embarrassing" him with her open coat, noting that she doesn't wear a bra, etc.--makes me wonder if there's something more to it.

Probably not, for the reasons I mentioned--I can't see things ending well for Charlie at this point, and his best case scenario probably involves prison--but they were so cute together. One thing that's bothering me about the season so far is that we have so little sense of why Hanzee is so loyal to Dodd in particular, even to the point of endangering the other members of the Gerhardt clan by supporting Dodd's lie about the Butcher of Luverne. Why is Hanzee content to be Dodd's lackey and to be treated as his property? If he feels he owes a debt, surely the debt would be to Otto, who took him in, not to Dodd. Also, Hanzee is clearly much smarter and much more capable than Dodd. Why be content to be his stooge and to be talked down to and ordered around? What does he get out of it? The little bit of information we have learned about Hanzee hasn't really assisted in determining why he is happy to play this role and why he is so loyal to Dodd, even when that loyalty endangers the rest of the family. We know that he was unimpressed by a magic trick; that he's a dab hand at trapping rabbits; that he's immune to Simone's clumsy attempts at flirtation ("Sometimes a girl just wants to bust a nut, ya know?"); and that he has horrible memories of being forced to be a tunnel rat in Vietnam on account of his being Native American. It's...something, I guess, but not enough. The easiest explanations that come to mind are that either Dodd helped him once in a big way, that Hanzee is so traumatized by Vietnam that he doesn't think he deserves anything better than being Dodd's minion, or that Hanzee's in love with Dodd. All of these would be a bit trite, but at least they would be something. What bothers me more is the possibility that we may never find out, and I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of Hanzee remaining this inscrutable, mysterious figure who appears to accept his apparent lot in life as Dodd's slave for no reason, due to the obvious racial dynamics at play (Native American gracefully accepting his life of servitude under his white superiors, who treat him like a servant at best, property at worst).

Yes, I imagine it was planned out beforehand, but I remember there being shipper conspiracy theorists who thought otherwise. In the interests of bringing things full circle, maybe Rory gets pregnant by some random guy who is out of the picture for whatever reason, and the show ends with Rory giving birth to a girl (whom she names Lorelai) and raising the girl as a single mom, just like her mom did, albeit under very different circumstances and with much more support.

I don't know whether this is a nitpick per se. I'm hoping someone in the know can enlighten me. Wasn't Richard's mother, Lorelai (Trix), from a very high social standing? Wouldn't Lorelai be a pretty unusual name for someone of that social class from that time period? I honestly don't know.

Sometimes, yes. Milo Ventimiglia and Hayden Panettiere had crazy chemistry on Heroes that the characters they were playing were not "supposed" to have (well before the actors started dating in real life), and I remember there were a lot of fans of their relationship early on in the show, wrongness (big age difference, Hayden's character was a high school student) notwithstanding. The writers later revealed that their characters were closely related, and I remember speculation at the time that the writers introduced this information as a way of getting around the substantial support the pairing had. That's the weird thing about chemistry between actors. It's lightning in a bottle. It can't be forced or artificially created. Sometimes, it occurs between actors playing characters who have no business hooking up and who should in theory want nothing to do with each other romantically, when these characters' intended mates are played by actors with whom the actors have comparatively less chemistry. This leads to a dilemma for TV writers when the chemistry is powerful enough. Do they 1) ignore it and stick with their plan (and keep the characters paired with other characters where there is substantially less chemistry between the actors) or 2) go with the chemistry between the actors and capitalize on it, regardless of how much violence this might do to the integrity of the characters in question? It's always interesting to me to see whether or not writers will stick with their plan or run with a compelling pairing and worry about whether or not it's in character later. To bring this back to Gilmore Girls, I think the lack of chemistry between the main actresses and several of their respective love interests made it difficult to get invested. The only love interest of Rory's who seemed to have any chemistry with her was Jess (in my opinion). As for Lorelai, my opinion is that the only one she had any chemistry with was Christopher. I don't think that the chemistry negated all the myriad issues with Christopher as a human being and a father, let alone as a romantic partner, but I saw chemistry there that I didn't see with anyone else: not Max, not Digger (I always got a gay vibe from the character, personally), and not Luke.

Realistically, though, if the Gerhardts are destroyed, Charlie would surely get taken down with the rest of them, wouldn't he? The only way he makes it out of this, assuming he's not going straight to prison, is either getting as far away from his family as he can or if the Gerhardts are still powerful enough at the end of the season to protect him from rival criminal concerns. That doesn't seem terribly likely, at this stage, unless Bear gets it together. However, I'm rooting for Charlie, and I'm shipping Charlie/Noreen so hard. I saw more chemistry in that little exchange than I see in most romantic comedies.

I like the idea of JDM as Negan. He can do "wolfish charm" very well.

1. I agree about the potential of the finale being preferable to the reality. Be careful what you wish for and all that. Unless the revival is pure fanservice a la Veronica Mars movie, someone's going to be disappointed that the post-finale reality they'd comfortably imagined for their favourite characters was wiped out by whatever ASP dreamed up. 2. Lauren Graham is what, 48? They can fudge her age, but it seems unlikely to me that ASP would write a pregnancy storyline given Lauren Graham's age. On the other hand, I just can't see the revival starting with Luke and Lorelai having had one or more kids in the intervening eight years, although I can't give any logical explanation for feeling that way. 3. I like the idea of Rory touching base with her exes, since for the reasons mentioned in your post and upthread it makes sense that they would cross paths. Jess is Luke's nephew, Emily and Richard knew Logan's parents and moved in the same circles, Dean still lives in Stars Hollow, etc. Where it falls apart for me a little is the idea of getting back together with any of them. I don't know that the fandom being divided as to Rory's most suitable ex-boyfriend would influence ASP. I suspect she had plans to either pair Rory off with someone specific or to keep Rory single and will just follow through with those plans, the fandom be damned. 4. I'm really curious to see what they do with AB's pregnancy, assuming that it's not just a baseless rumour. The revival is supposed to span four seasons, so unless they go with a weight gain storyline--which would be hilarious to me, given Rory and Lorelai's eating habits--it's not as if she can be the same amount of pregnant for a whole year. They'll probably go the usual route to conceal actresses' pregnancies: hiding the bump behind objects, shooting from the chest up, billowy or loose clothing. 5. I love your dream revival ideas. I would love to see some meaningful, lasting rapprochement between Emily and Lorelai. Maybe Richard's death will bring them closer together. 6. I wonder if Rory and Paris remained close in the eight years even though their paths took them in very different directions. I imagine medical school and her residency would absorb Paris' attention. I quite liked Rory's nightmare about Paris having incredible success in her professional and personal life and surpassing her while she floundered. It will be interesting to see if that's played out in any way, shape or form.

I think that all of the deaths Ed and Peggy have directly caused so far in the season have been in self-defence (or accidental, as with Rye). Ed even saved the life of one of his would-be assassins (albeit only because Noreen begged him to, but he could have refused). If they "graduate" to killing people for other reasons--eliminate witnesses, money, what have you--I would write them off as doomed. As it is, I think Ed and Peggy aren't quite in Lester territory...yet.

There's a shot in the preview of someone's back. The person is wearing jeans and a blue jacket and is reaching for a gun tucked into their waistband. Looks like Charlie--same jeans, same shirt, same jacket, same belt--but the right hand reaching for the gun looks normal. Maybe the image is flipped. Judging from the preview alone, this is what I think happens: Ed is taken away by car, is interrogated by Lou regarding the death and fire at the butcher shop. Hank stays at the Blomquist house to protect Peggy. Dodd, on Floyd's orders, comes to Ed's house looking for Ed. Hank meets him on the porch. Hanzee sneaks up on Hank and hits him with the pipe, either incapacitating him or killing him. Unhindered, Dodd enters the house. There's a shot of someone walking in the Blomquist foyer running their weapon (a piece of pipe) along a radiator, the same radiator in the Blomquist front hall. There's also a shot of Peggy looking down at someone in what looks like the garage, maybe attacking someone. There's a gunfight at some point, as there's a shot of a kitchen being shot up as well as shots of Mike and the Kitchen brother firing. I'm guessing Dodd and Hanzee escape, but that the men who arrive with Dodd wind up as casualties. Maybe Peggy escapes in the confusion, or maybe she's saved by the arrival of third parties.

Depending on where on his body he was shot, he could be facing far bigger problems than potentially going to prison. For someone so dim, Ed demonstrated unusual presence of mind when going up against the hitman. He reacted to Noreen's warning and ducked out of the way. He chucked a pan at the hitman when aimed at him, and he managed to defeat the hitman in combat despite the hitman having a gun (albeit with an assist from Noreen). He used improvised weapons three times to dispose of the hitman: the pan, whatever it was he used to get the hitman off him when the hitman was choking him, and the cleaver. Well done.

You're right that it would be completely in character within the world of GG for Rory's exes to continue to pine for her, but is it realistic in the sense that in the real world, all of a young woman's exes, even those she dated in high school, would be obsessively hung up on her and unable to move on despite 8+ years having passed since the time of their relationship? No. This aspect of Rory's storyline in the show seemed to be yet another iteration of a particular fantasy, just like Logan (the rich bad boy womanizer who reforms for love of you). In real life, your exes move on (absent any mental health issues which would cause them to dwell obsessively over a failed relationship for several years). In a fantasy, your exes may form other relationships, but they will always mourn you as the one who got away, obsessively pine over you, and leap at any opportunity to get back together with you no matter how much time has passed since your relationship. I became a little worried about the revival when I thought of Everwood, a show cancelled despite a mighty fan campaign to save it. The show received a series finale that nicely tied off all the loose ends. The fans were devastated to see the show go...until, that is, they learned what the showrunners had planned for Season 5 had it aired. The series' cancellation then looked less like a tragedy and more like a very lucky escape. The same could be true of Gilmore Girls, depending on how the revival plays out.

I knew I'd seen Angus Sampson (Bear) before, but I couldn't place him. IMDB solved the mystery. He was a series regular on a great little Australian TV show called Spirited. Otto looked familiar, but I didn't realize that it was Michael Hogan, aka Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, until it was pointed out to me. Otto losing the use of one of his eyes worked out pretty well, since Tigh lost an eye in BSG, therefore requiring Michael Hogan to get very good at acting with only one eye. It's a running joke how Jesse Plemons always seems to get cast as unlikely murderers: Landry in Friday Night Lights, Todd in Breaking Bad, and now Ed in Season 2. I've heard he's quite good in the Lance Armstrong movie, The Program, where he (presumably) doesn't murder anyone.

I agree. I think Dean is out of the running in all likelihood, though. 1. Did ASP ever intend Rory to remain a Perfect Princess Rory, though? I could have sworn I read something somewhere about how ASP planned for Rory to become pregnant unexpectedly. Am I taking crazy pills? 2. I think Logan will be married to some Huntzberger-approved bit of cookie cutter perfection, having taken the path of least resistance, but still pining for Rory, as one does *rolls eyes*. Jess I'm less sure about, although it would be funny if for all of his edgy pretensions he wound up going the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, labrador retriever, SUV route. More likely he wound up with some cute hipster girl he met through his work, though. 3. Realistically, all of Rory's exes would have moved on long ago. I would also expect Rory would have moved on as well and would be married to or in a serious, committed relationship with someone she met through work. This show was never really known for its realism, though. 4. Bunheads raised a lot of concerns for me about ASP's ability to bring this home. Season 7 was pilloried, but only because we didn't know what ASP had planned. It also seemed to me as if Season 7 was dedicated to undoing a lot of the damage done by ASP. We'll see, though.

I am curious as to what Rory has been up to in the intervening eight years since she graduated, but in the way of many flashforwards, it seems likely that she'll have had some random boyfriend for the whole eight years, with their relationship conveniently ending so that she can be freed up to be paired off with whomever ASP intended to pair her off with originally. I think Rory would have benefited from being single for a while, considering how lousy her boyfriends were and her distressing tendency to be too easily influenced by her boyfriends. I doubt a reasonable person would have been in any hurry to throw herself into another relationship after what happened with Logan, but this is Rory we're talking about.

I've never seen an onscreen couple that seemed so profoundly uncomfortable in each other's presence during their supposed romance. Usually that level of onscreen discomfort is associated with some sort of Dark Secret, but here, it just seemed to me as if the characters visibly recoiled at any intimacy even when the story dictated that they were supposed to be madly in love. It made it very difficult to root for them; when they were kissing or even just kicking back together, their body language seemed stiff and awkward, as if merely being in each other's presence pained them. I don't know whether the actors had some sort of epic tiff that bled over into the rapport of the characters or whether they just had a terminal lack of chemistry, but something was seriously off. Say what you will about Chris and Chris/Lorelai, but at least they seemed at ease around each other.

Charlie and Noreen were so cute. Even though I know it was just delaying his inevitable doom and his eventual death will likely be a lot messier than a mere strangulation, it was thrilling to see Ed fight back against the hitman. Molly in Season 1 mentions being pulled out of Algebra class to be told about her father's injury. Little Season 2 Molly is nowhere near old enough for Algebra class. Whatever happens in Sioux Falls is going to have to dwarf everything that's happened so far, including the massacre of Joe Bulo's guys in 2x05. Aren't we already at the "If you stacked them, you'd reach the second floor" stage by this point?