Frelling Tralk

I do think actor availability played a big part, the reason that Chris isn’t in the picture much after his efforts to be a better father in season 2 is because David Sutcliffe ended up on another show and was difficult to schedule. The reason that the viewers see Chris differently from Amy does is possibly because she didn’t take into account that his continued absence in Rory’s life made him look like a jerk and inconsistent with his resolve to be a better father in season 2, whereas she viewed it more as just unfortunate that they couldn’t use the actor as much as they wanted too For example his absense from Rory’s graduation is often brought up as evidence of saying volumes about just how little he cared about Rory, but from the writers perspective it probably wasn’t intended to say anything of the sort, they just couldn’t get the actor to make an appearance that week. IMO that’s why they didn’t make his absences during the series an important part of his charactisation and how other characters react to him. Whereas, if that season 3 episode was deliberately intended to put Chris in a bad light, then you likely would have got Rory’s grandparents and Lorelai expressing disappointment that he didn’t show up for his daughter, and it would have been dealt with more. Instead there’s mention that Chris couldn’t be there and so they were taping the ceremony for him, the same as the phone calls between Rory and her Dad that we were later told had began again with Rory having regular contact with him offscreen, so presumedly Amy thought that occasional references like that were enough to cover for them not being able to actually use the actor At least the vibe I got is that we were meant to view Chris as trying harder with Rory over the course of the series because he did genuinely regret losing out on her early years, I think he was meant to be way more consistent with wanting to be a better father than came across onscreen. For example in early season 3 he was outraged and blaming Lorelai when Rory wouldn’t take his weekly phone calls. Not Christopher’s finest moment granted, but still it does suggest that yes he did give a damn about his contact with Rory, and was pretty fired up when he thought that Lorelai was trying to keep her from him. So yeah, whether the writers always succeeded in that is another topic, but I do think that we were meant to view Christopher as sincere in wanting to be a better father and make up for those years, part of Sherrie’s appeal even was getting another chance to be fully involved in raising GiGi from the outset. If they were able to sign David Sutcliffe on as a regular for season 3 then it would have likely gone very differently, and I suppose it’s another sign of the weakness of Amy as a writer when it comes to making actual onscreen events a factor in the canon, as opposed to how she had visualised it going in her head

Honestly that’s how I’ve always seen it too, she fled to get away from the people telling her what to do, she would have absolutely hated if Chris had turned up in Stars Hollow and demanded equal custody when Rory was a baby, she was weirded out enough when Sherry suggested a 17 year old Rory spending something like a weekend with them over Xmas, her first thought is immediately on how that cuts into her own time with Rory. Giving him access to Rory is one thing that Lorelai is right that she never fought him on, but it wasn’t only Christopher who seemed to see Lorelai and Rory as a package deal, Lorelai too seemed to believe that he was only capable of being a full time father if he moved in with them and they became a proper family. Look too at when Sherry becomes pregnant, it’s automatically accepted that Christopher needs to get back together with her if he wants to do it right this time, there’s never any consideration given to him still staying with Lorelai while sharing custody of his child with Sherry. I think that’s why Richard and Emily cut Christopher so much slack on what a terrible father he was, everyone seems to have that same attitude that Lorelai prevented him from being a fully involved Dad after she turned down his proposal, so apparently you can only be a father if you’re living in the same house as your child

I think Richard and Emily took Christopher’s side because in a way they all saw Lorelai as being the one to bail, and her leaving for Stars Hollow was seen as a massive rejection of them all. I know that Lorelai left a note for her parents, but I don’t think it was ever clarified if she said anything to Christopher before running away? It’s certainly all on Chris that he didn’t step up to the plate later on, but I can actually understand why a 16/17 year old Christopher could well have not seen it as a great plan to try and track her down after she had just turned down his proposal and fled without a word to him.

I absolutely hated how Richard would just smirk and act like it was a big joke when his mother would make idiotic comments about how Emily was five minutes late with the meal or whatever. It was sooo incredibly rude and disrespectful, and Richard could clearly see that Emily was very stressed and it was upsetting her to be talked to in that way. I really don’t understand why he couldn’t have had a quiet word with his mother and asked her to treat his wife more appropriately when she’s staying in their home, he was certainly quick enough to angrily speak up when Trix aimed a jab at him in the conversation on lending money

That’s not how it’s portrayed in the episode at all though, Dean specifically showed up to watch them rehearse after Tristan taunted him at the market about how he was going to be kissing Rory in the play. RORY: I'm really sorry I didn't tell you about this before, but Tristan… DEAN: Is playing Romeo to your Juliet. Yeah, I heard. RORY: But he wasn't even in our group at first, but then no one else wanted him, and then Paris moved the rehearsal spot to here, and she did it today and I didn't have time to tell you. DEAN: You and Tristan wind up thrown together a lot at that school. RORY: It's just a project, that's all, nothing more. Yeah Tristan was being a jerk who enjoyed how easy it was to get a reaction out of Dean, but it was still over the top to show up to a school play rehearsal, not even the finished project, and make everyone uncomfortable with your presence. Rory kept coming up with silly excuses at first that made it obvious she was trying to politely say that she didn’t feel comfortable with him there (you’ll be bored, we don’t know our lines yet, wait to the night of the play or you’ll spoil it for yourself), and he *still* insisted he was going to watch, even though his girlfriend clearly didn’t want him there. He only eventually backs off at the rehearsal itself after Rory has to spell it out for him that, ‘I really need you to leave....The play is tomorrow, and it's fifty percent of my grade, and you standing there staring at Tristan, it's like a challenge or something.‘ And I wouldn’t say that Dean let go of the relationship easily, he spend months calling Rory’s house over and over again (20-30 times in one night was his record I believe!), hanging around outside her house to see if she was home and just not taking his calls, even having talks with her mother on whether she knew where Rory was. It came across that his outburst at the dance marathon was just a final straw kind of thing after months of trying to hang on to Rory, before finally realising that it wasn’t getting him anywhere when it was obvious that Rory would rather be with Jess. I don’t think that he was intentionally emotionally abusive at all, but I do think he had a very entitled and possessive attitude towards Rory. Certainly it wasn’t particularly healthy for Rory the people-pleaser to be dating someone who constantly made her feel like she just didn’t love him enough, and how could she not want to spend all of her time at his side

I agree, Dean and Rory not being on the same page when it came to how serious their relationship should be can happen and is nobodies fault, but to me it was emotionally abusive the way that Dean would badger Rory and make her feel like she was the one in the wrong. He was always imposing himself on Rory’s life, showing up at the play rehearsals for a school that he didn’t even go too, and then getting all possessive when Rory and Tristan had to kiss as part of the play. And it would have been cute that he wanted to spend all his time with Rory, except for how he made Rory feel bad for not wanting to revolve her life around his. I.e when she wanted to spend a day on community work for her college application, or when she wanted to spend the night by herself doing laundry, he could not stand the idea of Rory not being just as obsessed with him as he was with her, and certainly calling someone’s home up to 30 times is beyond clingy and desperate. He just didn’t seem capable of healthy and respectful boundaries when it came to Rory And regarding the comments on Dean never actually finding out about Rory losing his bracelet, that’s true, but I think her response there still says something about how he treated her for her to be freaking out that much about a bracelet slipping off her wrist. Dean absolutely would have made Rory feel bad and read a lot into her losing the bracelet, just look at how he reacted to her not being ready to say ‘I love you’ after three months of dating, he constantly made her feel like there was something wrong with her whenever she wasn’t as slavishly devoted to him as he was to her

Same lol, the second scene is Rory just worrying about her mother keeping her true financial circumstances from her and that’s fair enough, but the first scene from 407 really does come across like she sees coupon cutting as something that’s really cheapskate and embarrassing. Putting aside how ridiculous it is to try and shame her mother for trying to save money (yeah it was said jokingly, but it still comes across loud and clear that Rory looks down on the concept of saving money in that way), her attitude doesn’t even fit with how Rory supposedly grew up poor with her mother scrimping and saving for years before she owned her own house

It did seem like Rory had a few ideas for changes with the newspaper at first, but then everyone made such a big deal about the poem no longer being on the front page, so she gave up after that and return to the status quo

This probably isn’t very unpopular as it sounds like something we can all agree on, but I hated how Lorelai acted after the accident as well. Okay I could sympathise more if the first thing she had heard was from a doctor telling her that her daughter had been involved in an accident, and so she immediately leapt to worst case scenarios and took a while to come back from that, but in fact she heard it from Rory herself straightaway that it wasn’t a big deal, she just fractured her arm. There was no excuse for freaking out in the way that she did, and she really was horrible to Luke in the way that she broke the news to him by just screaming that Jess and Rory had been in a terrible accident She acted just like her mother did after Richard’s accident in fact, and at least Richard was dealing with an actual life-threatening heart attack when Emily came charging in the hospital expecting all of the doctors and nurses to immediately cater to her

As pointed out by marineg above, April already had become a part of Luke’s life by the time that Lorelai found out about her existence, she had shown that she liked and accepted him as her father without any issues at all. She was very chatty with him and happy for him to host her birthday party, so it wasn’t like Luke and April were fumbling through awkward first meetings not knowing what to say to one another, and it was this really fragile thing that cartoon character Lorelai should not be intruding on. Luke protested that it was still ‘too soon’ after he had already spend two months getting to know April, but really what difference would waiting another two months have made, or six months, or a year? It wasnt like he was only a week into meeting April and finding out about her, he was either ready after two months for the two people in his life to meet and form some kind of relationship without feeling threatened, or he never would be. Of course there was always more progress to be made in Luke’s relationship with April, but they were a part of one another’s life’s by then imo. And for all his fears on not being great with kids, Anna joked with him at the birthday party that he had been a big hit with April’s friends as well on the school trip and been nicknamed Hagrid, so there was no reasonable expectation to think that April would lose all interest in hanging out with Luke as soon as Lorelai showed up. April would have liked Lorelai and had fun with her sure, but that didn’t meant that she was going to just ditch her father. The problem was always Luke and his own hang-ups. You even say you’re in agreement that Luke should have allowed Lorelai to meet with April sooner, and yet you keep coming up with reasoning on why Luke was still right to keep the two of them apart to protect his relationship with April, on why he was right to fear April liking Lorelai better. And Lorelai clearly did feel that she was forbidden from April, hence peering through the window at the rest of the town hanging out with April at Luke’s, and not feeling able to get up and join them just to say hi. Luke point blank says no when Lorelai asks if she can meet April, with the rationale that, ‘Kids love you. I wouldn't hang out with me either after meeting you.’ How is that response not going to make Lorelai feel like she was forbidden from meeting her partners kid? Lorelai clearly did feel pushed out of Luke’s life, that was the whole cause of their relationship breakdown

But I still don’t see why letting Lorelai get involved in April’s birthday would have a detrimental effect on her building a relationship with Luke. Lorelai ended up picking out the science-related gift in the end anyway, and Luke was panicking at first when April was about to open his present, and then relieved and thanking Lorelai for replacing it with something more thoughtful, so it clearly *did* matter more to him to have the perfect gift and to give April a birthday to remember And those gifts were something that Luke and Lorelai could easily have shopped for together and discussed what April might like, with Luke realising that oh yeah something to do with science could be a cool idea actually, April does seem very into that stuff, rather than Luke stubbornly sticking with the generic toiletry kit because it had cats on it. That would have helped him get to know April better exactly? All that would have led to would be an embarrassing moment of April opening his gift and staring blankly at it, trying to cover up her disappointment, and Luke feeling like a total screw-up I’m saying that Luke didn’t need to freeze Lorelai out in order to build a close relationship with his daughter, that he didn’t need to refuse to allow Lorelai to meet April, that he didn’t need to hide April’s existence from Lorelai in the way that he did. Lorelai rightly points out that he’s being ridiculous to say that it’s just a fact that April will lose all interest in him as soon as she meets Lorelai, that was not how it was going to work when Luke was her newly found father. Luke could still have had one to one meetings with April and done what he needed to build that relationship, but he didn’t need to push Lorelei aside completely in order to do that, he didn’t need to forbid Lorelai from even meeting the girl for as long as he did I was referring to Luke’s partnership with Lorelai, they were supposed to be in a relationship when he was freezing her out of a huge chunk of his life

I mean I don’t disagree that Lorelai was being too pushy, but I do think that she meant well. I don’t think it was about just trying to help, I think that she was desperate to connect with Luke and finally have a part to play with April, so she just got carried away when here was something that she could really help Luke out with and they could pick something together. She comes across as more desperate than know-it-all to me when she pleads that c’mon I could really help you out here. And instead Luke did his usual thing of freezing her out, I’m her dad and I have to do this alone. Lorelai might not have always gone about things the right way, but Luke was not being supportive of Lorelai either when they were supposed to be a partnership. Regardless of Luke being new to being a dad and still feeling his way, it really shouldn’t have been that big a deal for an adult to laughingly tell her partner that no you’re on the wrong track here, as someone who knows teenage girls let me help you out. Instead Luke made everything into a bigger deal than it needed to be, and that was because of his own weird issues with April and Lorelai possibly forming a stronger connection than his own relationship with April And frankly, with everything that had been going on with Luke keeping April a secret, it would have come across as incredibly passive-aggressive if Lorelai had instead shut up and said that I’m sure that you know your daughter best, I’ll leave it to you

I just don’t see it going that way, it was way too early in their relationship for either of them to feel comfortable with April suggesting that she exchange it and just pick something out herself. There’s no way that Luke would have laughed it off, he was such a touchy person that he would have been absolutely crestfallen and silently been beating himself up if April had had a meh response to his gift And I just looked up the episode transcript, and while I agree with those saying that Lorelai was very blunt about Luke’s choice in gifts, it wasn’t like she was dismissing a gift that he had already brought and she got herself involved without being asked. The two of them were window shopping when he *asked* her what she thought about the toiletry kit as a gift idea, she answered honestly that it wasn’t quite right, and then only later elaborated on it being a weird gift idea, too hygienic etc when he stubbornly dug his heels in and decided that it was the perfect gift LUKE: [pointing to a window display] Hey what do you think of that? LORELAI: What? LUKE: The toiletry kit. LORELAI: What? And throw away the 5-year-old Dixie cup you use to hold your toothbrush? It’s historical. LUKE: I mean as a birthday present for April. LORELAI: April who? LUKE: Come on, it's cute. LORELAI: Um, yeah. I don't think it's quite right. Yeah she gets ruder after Luke keeps insisting that he picked out the right gift, but Luke himself recognised deep down that it wasn’t right, he later panicked when April was about to open it and suggested waiting. He was clearly relieved when it turned out that Lorelai had replaced it with more personal gifts that actually spoke to who April was (The new "way things work”, and a gift certificate to the discovery store). It wouldn’t have been that hard for him to listen to what Lorelai was saying and put a little more thought into the gift, instead it came across like he only wanted to go with the first gift idea he thought of because Lorelai didn’t think that it was the right one, and :puffs chest: he knows his kid better than Lorelai And the girls were all nervous at the party originally because Luke sat them down and listed a bunch of rules about staying in the ‘party area’, so they all ended up very nervous and asking for permission to go to the bathroom, and Luke is taken-aback and said he didn’t mean to say that they couldn’t use the bathroom. Part of the problem there was that he just didn't know how to loosen up around young kids

Luke clearly did not want the gift and the birthday party to fail and for him to be the uncool dad who didn’t get his daughter though, it did matter to him what April wanted and it was very important for him to get it right, so I think that Lorelai was coming from the right place in suggesting that she could help Luke out with making it a success if they go shopping together. I just don’t see how it’s better for Luke to pick out a bad gift by himself, and struggle with a bad birthday party by himself, but somehow a 13 year old girl is going to find that more endearing than her Dad and his partner presenting her with a really cool gift and a party that she actually wants. We see in the episode that Luke was struggling and really embarrassed when his party didn’t connect with April and her friends, and April didn’t exactly come off as it’s cute that he’s her dad and he’s at least trying, she was ultimately much happier after Lorelai got involved and made it an actual hit I see it as similar to the lack of relationship between Lorelai and April quite honestly, I think it’s a real shame that the implication is that Luke’s issues prevented them from ever getting close. Lorelai was always great with kids, as shown in the birthday episode, and she and April could have had a close stepmom relationship with Lorelai being someone else for April to confide in, and I’m sure that Lorelai too would have enjoyed having a young teenage girl to co-parent with Luke. Heck she brings up surrogacy in the revival because she feels that she and Luke lost out in not raising a child together, they could have easily co-parented April without it needing to be a big deal, but Luke always had to insist on April being ‘mine’ and back off, which led to Lorelai walking on eggshells around his daughter. And it wasnt just in the first few months when Luke was still just getting to know April, Lorelai and April are incredibly stiff and uncomfortable around one another in the revival still, but apparently that’s okay because Luke is April’s dad and that’s the way he wants it? It might be best for Luke to try and do everything by himself, but that’s not always what’s best for the people in his life, and I think that both April and Lorelai lost out over not forming a closer bond

Yeah I think that Lorelai was a bit tactless about Luke’s gift for sure, but I don’t see what was so wrong with her gently pushing him to pick something else out with her help when his gift was obviously something that a 13 year old girl wouldn’t really like, and it is supposed to be about April and what she would like for her birthday, not that oh April would prefer to have a gift that her dad picked out all by himself. I don’t think that getting a crappy gift from a relative really works like that, we’ve all been stuck with something that we don’t really want, and would have surely appreciated it if a younger female friend had had a quiet word about what a young girl might actually be interested in We saw the same with April’s birthday party, Luke was determined to do it all by himself because he’s her dad and everyone else back off, but that only led to the party being a total disaster for April and everyone having a miserable time until Luke finally agreed to get Lorelai involved. Lorelai was clearly coming at it from a place of concern and not wanting Luke to embarrass himself with April (and let’s face it, the audience all knew that a thirteen year old was not going to get excited about a toiletry gift), but he was just so needlessly touchy about everything. Okay it’s tough for anyone to adjust to suddenly finding out they had a kid they never knew about, but Luke handled it it the worst possible way with the way he kept Lorelai at arms length, refusing to explain his thought process until she dragged it out of him