One is the Loneliest Number: Unpopular GG Opinions

[txhorns79]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:08 PM, Meow25 said:

I LOVED Luke during the first watch through, and I like him less and less each time.  I see no compatibility between Luke and Lorelai at all anymore.  In fact, I find his treatment of Lorelai during the April scandal so outrageous that it really ruins any chance of them being together again.  I hate that Lorelai went back to him after that.  

Yeah, I don't see how she could ever trust him again on an intimate level.  It was such a betrayal. 

[SJC]

My unpopular opinion is that Kirk's storyline in AYITL was AWESOME. I freakin' loved Petal the pig. 
Everytime I hear Kirk say "Oooober" I nearly shriek with laughter.
And his movie was GREAT. 

[SJC]

Another hugely unpopular opinion of mine is that Lorelai's phone call to Emily in Fall wasn't that moving IMO.
I can't explain why. 😜

[JustHereForFood]

2 hours ago, SJC said:

Another hugely unpopular opinion of mine is that Lorelai's phone call to Emily in Fall wasn't that moving IMO.
I can't explain why. 😜

I wasn't particularly moved, but I guess it was supposed to be a correction of the previous failure to provide a good memory of Richard on the spot. Which I was never bothered by, it can be hard to come up with something with no time to prepare (and even with that time).

[SJC]

19 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

a correction of the previous failure to provide a good memory of Richard on the spot

I'd say so. 😊

[scarynikki12]

3 hours ago, SJC said:

Another hugely unpopular opinion of mine is that Lorelai's phone call to Emily in Fall wasn't that moving IMO.
I can't explain why. 😜

While I thought Lauren and Kelly both did a great job with the material I agree. For me it's because of how their relationship was presented in the series. Richard wasn't a particularly involved father which is why his relationship with Rory completely threw Lorelai at first. She described him to Luke in season 1 as a decent man who provided for his family and worked hard in his field but also that she was unable to think of any special moments that the two of them shared like going to the circus or fishing. That plus her confusion at how loving and attentive he was with Rory tells me that he didn't behave the same with Lorelai.

Now they did have some nice moments during the series if they truly wanted to give Lorelai a tearful speech to Emily but instead we got a retcon. If it were up to me I'd have had Lorelai's impromptu just woken up speech at the wake be along the lines of what she said to Luke in season 1 (Richard worked hard and provided for his family) with Emily getting mad at her for how generic it was. Then we could end with Lorelai tearfully talking about how Richard was a wonderful grandfather, how much it meant to her to see his pride at her graduation, or the nice words he said in the series finale. Things that we got to see in the series and could connect with. A story we never witnessed that contradicted  their relationship when the show began just didn't work for me no matter how well it was acted.

[SJC]

4 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

A story we never witnessed that contradicted  their relationship when the show began just didn't work for me no matter how well it was acted.

Right on ! 😎

[Gam2]

She definitely could have said that what her dad said to her at Rory’s going away party about this being as much about the love the town had for HER as it was about Rory. Emily, of course, tries to shut that down but Richard was very sweet and sincere.

[SJC]

34 minutes ago, Gam2 said:

Emily, of course, tries to shut that down

JEALOUSY.

[SJC]

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that Michel was a unlikeable jerk.
He was very rude nearly all of the time. In real life he wouldn't last more than 1 day on *any* job due to his constant rotten attitude.

[peacheslatour]

1 minute ago, SJC said:

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that Michel was a unlikeable jerk.
He was very rude nearly all of the time. In real life he wouldn't last more than 1 day on *any* job due to his constant rotten attitude.

As a French person the "rude Frenchman" stereotype bugged me. I did  not find it endearing.

[Kiki777]

My unpopular opinion is that Zack wasn’t all that bad.  Sure he was kinda dumb and not the best match for Lane, but he truly seemed devoted to her.  He never strayed after she told him she was waiting to get married (can you imagine Logan’s reaction if Rory held out like that? He’d leave her dorm room and fall crotch-first into the first girl he passed in the hallway). Also when they fearfully told Mrs. Kim that they’d gotten pregnant so quickly, Zack jumped in front of Lane and said ‘hit me, hit me instead!’ It was comical but oddly sweet.

[Taryn74]

2 hours ago, Kiki777 said:

My unpopular opinion is that Zack wasn’t all that bad.

Oh, I adored Zach. I actually thought he was a really good match for Lane, despite not exactly being an intellectual. One of my favorite blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments is when Lane revealed that she had been setting back some of the money from the band's tour so they weren't really broke and he looked so proud at her good stewardship.

My unpopular opinion is that I did not like Dave, LOL. Like, at all. It really bothered me that he never encouraged Lane to come clean to her mother about her "hidden" life, instead he went along with all of her shady shenanigans. And as a person who takes faith very seriously, it really bothered me that he so easily lied about being a Christian to gain Mrs. Kim's favor. I know a good deal of that was just ASP thinking she was funny, as per our usual arrangement, but it never sat well with me.

[BlancheDevoreaux]

My UO: I enjoyed the Life and Death Brigade stuff in A Year in the Life. I thought it was fun and of course absolutely ridiculous, also kind of sweet. Rory was wallowing in how she was a colossal screw-up with no direction in her life and Loga, with the help of Collin, Finn, and Robert, did all he could think of to try and cheer her up. 

[SJC]

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that Emily & Lorelai's relationship was completely done at the end of AYITL. 😩

[Keywestclubkid]

Rory was a spoiled brat who was overly praised and really had no self awareness of her talent in writing or lack there of. Her writing about the hippo ballerina and her article about trust fund kids kinda points this out. She can’t take any form of criticism and was completely unaware of how her writing was coming across 

[SJC]

20 hours ago, Keywestclubkid said:

She can’t take any form of criticism

ASP wrote Rory as having little resilience, but would have other GG characters praise her to the skies over every little thing. It made Rory so unrelatable and  was so mystifying.
For example Headmaster Charleston stating in AYITL that she was internally stronger then everyone else. I mean that is so puzzling. 
And the Yale newspaper staff fawning over Rory to have her run the paper was just plain bizarre and laughable.
ASP tried to make us--the audience--believe Rory to be strong and good and kind hearted by having other characters tell us that, but she failed to SHOW it. 
I so loved "early Rory", it's a shame that she became so very entitled and uncaring in later seasons/AYITL.
😡

Edited December 11, 2021 by SJC

[andromeda331]

7 hours ago, SJC said:

ASP wrote Rory as having little resilience, but would have other GG characters praise her to the skies over every little thing. It made Rory so unrelatable and  was so mystifying.
For example Headmaster Charleston stating in AYITL that she was internally stronger then everyone else. I mean that is so puzzling. 
And the Yale newspaper staff fawning over Rory to have her run the paper was just plain bizarre and laughable.
ASP tried to make us--the audience--believe Rory to be strong and good and kind hearted by having other characters tell us that, but she failed to SHOW it. 
I so loved "early Rory", it's a shame that she became so very entitled and uncaring in later seasons/AYITL.
😡

Yeah, she decided to tell us instead of show us Rory being strong, good, and kind hearted. In the early seasons they showed us that. Rory deciding she had a enough of Paris in second episode and beat her to answering a question and standing up to Paris after she told everyone at a school about Lorelai and Max kissing. She called her out on her crappy behavoir but was also nice when she offered to talk if Paris ever needed it in tha same scene. Lorelai called Rory on her crap when she needed it. All Rory's good traits disappeared but for some reason ASP really doesn't seem to ever realize that. It really stinks I wish we kept the Rory from the early seasons. 

[peacheslatour]

I was watching the marathon on UPTV and it hit me that when Rory was doing all the community service at nursing homes, soup kitchens and so forth, as a journalist she should have been looking for corruption, misspent funds or other abuses. Anyone with an ounce of ink in their blood is going to see if they could get a story out of it even if she wasn't on the paper any more. I was on the paper of every school I went to from jr. high to college and I was always nosing around for stories. Mitchum was right, she didn't have it.

[chitowngirl]

She just wasn’t…curious

[andromeda331]

50 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I was watching the marathon on UPTV and it hit me that when Rory was doing all the community service at nursing homes, soup kitchens and so forth, as a journalist she should have been looking for corruption, misspent funds or other abuses. Anyone with an ounce of ink in their blood is going to see if they could get a story out of it even if she wasn't on the paper any more. I was on the paper of every school I went to from jr. high to college and I was always nosing around for stories. Mitchum was right, she didn't have it.

Also stories about the residents of nursing homes and who come to the soup kitchen. There were a lot of stories she could have found doing that work. But didn't. 

9 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

She just wasn’t…curious

She really wasn't which is a weird for someone who wants to a journalist. They are naturally curious. Rory really wasn't.  

[peacheslatour]

13 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

She just wasn’t…curious

Being incurious is a bad quality for a journalist. It seemed to me she just wanted to travel and she slapped on "being a journalist" like a label on her suitcase.

[scarynikki12]

53 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I was watching the marathon on UPTV and it hit me that when Rory was doing all the community service at nursing homes, soup kitchens and so forth, as a journalist she should have been looking for corruption, misspent funds or other abuses. Anyone with an ounce of ink in their blood is going to see if they could get a story out of it even if she wasn't on the paper any more. I was on the paper of every school I went to from jr. high to college and I was always nosing around for stories. Mitchum was right, she didn't have it.

It never occurred to her because Mitchum was right but I buy that she wouldn't have done it even if it had because she'd have had to acknowledge the felony she'd committed and how that was the reason she was in this position in the first place. And Rory rarely did anything that drew negative attention to her. 

[Daisy]

The funny thing is - it would be understandable that no one at SHH caught this, but moving to Chilton - a high powered private school that basically is an Ivy League feeder school - i find it hard to believe that A: Rory didn't experience a sort of grade drop off, or more importantly B: no one saw the issues that Mitchum saw. (and if you wanna side eye that it was just high school x2 and this stuff slides, i can guarantee you it doesn't at University, so if she's taking journalism courses or something, Rory not knowing how to be proactive and find stories). 

And as someone pointed out - she loved to travel. why not be a travel journalist. you don't have to be all investigative reporter, esp. during that time period there were always stories in our paper from freelancers who basically had an open ticket and travelled the world and simple shared their experiences. Rory would have been great at that. I don't know why they were so focused on the Christiana Amanpour angle. 

[Crs97]

I know Rory loved to travel, but did she do much beyond join her grandmother’s itinerary?  I don’t remember her really immersing herself in the culture of the country she visited.  I may not remember correctly anymore, but even that seemed more based in her privilege than in any curiosity.  I don’t need to read about a series of luxury resorts where my every whim is met for a price.

[Daisy]

2 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

I know Rory loved to travel, but did she do much beyond join her grandmother’s itinerary?  I don’t remember her really immersing herself in the culture of the country she visited.  I may not remember correctly anymore, but even that seemed more based in her privilege than in any curiosity.  I don’t need to read about a series of luxury resorts where my every whim is met for a price.

she went backpacking with Lorelai for graduation i think, and they spent a lot of time in youth hostels and the like. 

[peacheslatour]

8 minutes ago, Daisy said:

she went backpacking with Lorelai for graduation i think, and they spent a lot of time in youth hostels and the like. 

All over Europe for three months and she went to London on the reg.

[Taryn74]

3 hours ago, Daisy said:

And as someone pointed out - she loved to travel. why not be a travel journalist. you don't have to be all investigative reporter, esp. during that time period there were always stories in our paper from freelancers who basically had an open ticket and travelled the world and simple shared their experiences. Rory would have been great at that. I don't know why they were so focused on the Christiana Amanpour angle. 

What's really amusing to me is that's so similar to what Rachel was (a freelancing photojournalist). I would have loved to have seen Rory cozying up to Rachel and listening to all of her travel stories, while Lorelai watched on with silent jealousy.

[SJC]

59 minutes ago, Taryn74 said:

Lorelai watched on with silent jealousy.

And thinking, that's MY Rory !!  lol

4 hours ago, Daisy said:

why not be a travel journalist.

This would be a great career for Rory.

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

she went to London on the reg

Her Logan hook-ups. 😵

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by SJC

[andromeda331]

8 hours ago, Daisy said:

The funny thing is - it would be understandable that no one at SHH caught this, but moving to Chilton - a high powered private school that basically is an Ivy League feeder school - i find it hard to believe that A: Rory didn't experience a sort of grade drop off, or more importantly B: no one saw the issues that Mitchum saw. (and if you wanna side eye that it was just high school x2 and this stuff slides, i can guarantee you it doesn't at University, so if she's taking journalism courses or something, Rory not knowing how to be proactive and find stories). 

Yeah, there's no way someone at Chilton wouldn't have talked to Rory about not being a good fit for journalism. 

Quote

And as someone pointed out - she loved to travel. why not be a travel journalist. you don't have to be all investigative reporter, esp. during that time period there were always stories in our paper from freelancers who basically had an open ticket and travelled the world and simple shared their experiences. Rory would have been great at that. I don't know why they were so focused on the Christiana Amanpour angle. 

I don't either. Its was fine for Rory to dream while she was growing up. But that dream really should have changed either at Chilton or at Yale when she realized she really didn't want to be in a warzone. Then we could have had her explore other careers and other types of writing.

Quote

 

And as someone pointed out - she loved to travel. why not be a travel journalist

 

That would be a perfect career for Rory.

[Mrs. Landingham]

On 11/21/2021 at 12:17 PM, SJC said:

Another hugely unpopular opinion of mine is that Lorelai's phone call to Emily in Fall wasn't that moving IMO.
I can't explain why. 😜

My unpopular opinion is that I didn’t find Emily’s gratitude for that phone call realistic at all. In my unpopular opinion, I think it would have been more in Emily’s character to hang up the phone mid-story, or fixate on the part of the story that teenage Lorelai borrowed the fancy blouse without permission, or accuse Lorelai of being dramatic and maudlin by telling that story.  

Edited December 13, 2021 by Mrs. Landingham

[SJC]

I hadn't even thought of that, but it makes sense.
Maybe Emily was too sleepy ?  lol

[peacheslatour]

46 minutes ago, SJC said:

I hadn't even thought of that, but it makes sense.
Maybe Emily was too sleepy ?  lol

Too out of it to be her usual caustic self?

[SJC]

1 minute ago, peacheslatour said:

Too out of it to be her usual caustic self?

Exactly.

[SJC]

Another unpopular opinion of mine is that Rory's main problem in A Year In The Life was burn out, NOT laziness.
I do however think, as many others do, that she was spoiled/entitled. 
And I also wonder why Lorelai was seemingly so oblivious about Rory's career woes.  

Edited December 13, 2021 by SJC

[BlancheDevoreaux]

On 12/11/2021 at 2:40 PM, SJC said:

ASP wrote Rory as having little resilience, but would have other GG characters praise her to the skies over every little thing. It made Rory so unrelatable and  was so mystifying.
For example Headmaster Charleston stating in AYITL that she was internally stronger then everyone else. I mean that is so puzzling. 
And the Yale newspaper staff fawning over Rory to have her run the paper was just plain bizarre and laughable.
ASP tried to make us--the audience--believe Rory to be strong and good and kind hearted by having other characters tell us that, but she failed to SHOW it. 
I so loved "early Rory", it's a shame that she became so very entitled and uncaring in later seasons/AYITL.
😡

That made no sense, especially when you take into consideration they are replacing Paris because of her meltdown and Rory is fresh off her semester off after her own personal meltdown. No one would think taking a chance on her was a good idea at that point.

22 hours ago, Crs97 said:

I know Rory loved to travel, but did she do much beyond join her grandmother’s itinerary?  I don’t remember her really immersing herself in the culture of the country she visited.  I may not remember correctly anymore, but even that seemed more based in her privilege than in any curiosity.  I don’t need to read about a series of luxury resorts where my every whim is met for a price.

There was that one time she wanted to explore the catacombs and explained to the concierge that her grandmother took a nap each afternoon and that was when Rory would go off on her own, but other than that, nope. 

Rory was definitely a follower. Her mom wanted to do Europe by backpacking across it, so that's what Rory wanted. Emily did it up "properly" and Rory was all about that. If you look back on the show, it was a lot of Rory doing what she thought others wanted and molding into what others wanted her to be. Guys are a great example of this. She was a different person with Dean than she was with Jess. She was one way when she was hanging out with Marty and another when around Logan. I think there's a good chance that she was happiest in the Gilmore/Hunstberger world, but her relationship (see: Codependence) with her mom made her insecure/afraid when it came to voicing that.

[SJC]

30 minutes ago, BlancheDevoreaux said:

If you look back on the show, it was a lot of Rory doing what she thought others wanted and molding into what others wanted her to be.

Yep ! Rory was like a chameleon. It's a shame TBH.
And yes, she never wanted to make a choice that Mommy disapproved of. Again...a shame.

[peacheslatour]

20 minutes ago, SJC said:

Yep ! Rory was like a chameleon. It's a shame TBH.
And yes, she never wanted to make a choice that Mommy disapproved of. Again...a shame.

That chameleonlike ability would be an asset to a journalist, too bad she didn't have the intellectual curiosity to match it.

[SJC]

1 minute ago, peacheslatour said:

didn't have the intellectual curiosity to match it.

Righto. Why didn't Rory ever spend a summer interning at a magazine or newspaper ??

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, SJC said:

Righto. Why didn't Rory ever spend a summer interning at a magazine or newspaper ??

Good question. Even after Rory realizes she hasn't done any of that in one of the later seasons she still ends up not doing anything. Why not? That was what she wanted to do and she wasn't even trying to get her foot in the door. I know Rory gets disappointed about not getting the NY Times fellowship but really why would she? All she had to impress them was she went to a private school and Ivy league and worked on both their newspapers. She had no internships at magazines or newspapers, never had a part time job or anything. Nothing to set her apart from any of the other applicates most if not all who would have a lot more then just working on their high school and college paper.     

[SJC]

3 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Even after Rory realizes she hasn't done any of that in one of the later seasons she still ends up not doing anything. Why not? That was what she wanted to do and she wasn't even trying to get her foot in the door.

ASP wanted Rory to be a flop. ☹️

[Cristofle]

I'm doing my annual Nov-Jan rewatch of Gilmore Girls and my  unpopular opinions always occur to me. #1 unpopular opinion, at least with the fandom at large on all social media platforms, is that Jess is my least favorite of Rory's love interests. Dean comes next (how close he is to Jess depends on the season - Dean made me uncomfortable in S1 but by S3 I felt sorry for him) and Logan is my favorite. I fully admit some of these opinions may be due to the fact that I got into the series late, whenever it came on Netflix. I had seen scenes here and there, I knew the major players, but that's it. So I came in being told by many of my friends that Jess was amazing, wonderful, the best of Rory's love interests and that...did not materialize on my screen. I found him to be a thoroughly unlikable sullen killjoy. On the flip side, I had long been very into The Good Wife when I watched, and I love Matt Czuchry, so I'm sure that plays into Logan being my favorite (although I genuinely feel like his onscreen growth was the best - Jess' was mostly offscreen and told instead of seen).

This is probably LESS unpopular, but still perhaps unpopular: I don't like Rory with ANY of them. I don't think she has significant enough chemistry with any of the actors. Arguably her best chemistry that I saw was with CMM, and that still wasn't exactly setting the world on fire. So I have thoughts on how they treated Rory and how she treated them, but I generally judge the boys on their own because I don't really like any of the pairings. 

I agree with a lot of the thoughts on this thread that Rory was never cut out to be a journalist, and I was unsympathetic to her plight personally because I came into college as a journalism major, realized it was not for me, and moved to another field. I'm just not feeling her utter meltdown about it. Mitchum was right and he had solid points to back him up. Sure, he could have TRIED to say "You really need to work on X" (such as being more proactive and more of a go-getter) without "You don't have it", BUT....she didn't have it. LOL. 

[SJC]

4 minutes ago, Cristofle said:

I don't like Rory with ANY of them.

Yes....THIS ! I could not agree more !

[Cristofle]

I should have added the caveat that Logan's onscreen growth is the best IN THE SERIES. I can't even talk about AYITL as it relates to Rory or Logan (that is not unpopular, I don't think, lol). 

And this might be unpopular? Because I see it get referenced a lot in the fandom and obviously ASP wanted to bookend Lorelai and Rory with the "last four words". Rory and Lorelai are not the same person. Other than having a dry sense of humor, they don't even have THAT much in common. Rory clearly wants different things in life and Lorelai is active and dynamic whereas Rory is very passive and reactive. Those personality types need different kinds of partners. It bugs me overall, but it might bug me the most with "Jess is to Rory what Lorelai is to Luke!" #1, no he's not, don't insult Luke like that. #2, Rory does not need the same kind of partner as her mother does. 

Re: Rory and Jess as a pair, I have a hard time getting over his treatment of her in their actual relationship, especially the infamous party fight. That is a HARD pass, do not ever go back to a guy like that, I don't care how much he's grown. Let him go find Mandy Moore offscreen. I swear, you will find other boys who like to read. BUT, if I were to try to put that aside and look at his later appearances on his own, I still don't like them because she does not seem romantically interested in him at all. She had clear opportunities to choose him and she made it very clear that she preferred Dean and Logan respectively. And I have to go by the dialogue because the chemistry was not adding layers in any of those relationships, lol.

 

[SJC]

1 hour ago, Cristofle said:

I still don't like them because she does not seem romantically interested in him at all. She had clear opportunities to choose him and she made it very clear that she preferred Dean and Logan respectively.

Exactly ! Even in AYITL Rory showed *no* romantic interest in Jess.

[SJC]

1 hour ago, Cristofle said:

Logan being my favorite (although I genuinely feel like his onscreen growth was the best - Jess' was mostly offscreen and told instead of seen).

Agree ! I *hated* how Logan had regressed in AYITL.
Blast that ASP !

[Cristofle]

4 hours ago, SJC said:

Agree ! I *hated* how Logan had regressed in AYITL.
Blast that ASP !

I'm still so mad, lol. It was partially rooted in her refusal to acknowledge S7 at all, which is just childish, but she also seemed like she wanted to take a blow torch to Logan and Rory as characters. And Logan got virtually no POV, he spoke to no one at length but Rory. And he'd derailed all his career goals that he was working towards, because ASP simply refused to acknowledge them. I have no idea if this is popular or unpopular, but AYITL is Pod Logan and I basically won't acknowledge it as part of his arc. 

I just saw no indication Rory had the slightest romantic interest in Jess basically after he ditched her without a word in S3. Which is fair, actually. But I remember being pretty struck with Dean in S4 because Lane was actually giving all the reasons Jess might be appealing and Rory had once found him appealing and Rory was like "Nope. Pass." 

[scarynikki12]

54 minutes ago, Cristofle said:

It was partially rooted in her refusal to acknowledge S7 at all,

The Ps did write Lorelai flat out saying the Chris marriage was a mistake so I do love them for that.

[andromeda331]

3 hours ago, scarynikki12 said:

The Ps did write Lorelai flat out saying the Chris marriage was a mistake so I do love them for that.

Given how much ASP seems to love Christopher that does surprise me.

[heatherchandler]

10 hours ago, Cristofle said:

This is probably LESS unpopular, but still perhaps unpopular: I don't like Rory with ANY of them. I don't think she has significant enough chemistry with any of the actors.

I agree!  I’m trying to think of any guy she had any chemistry with and I cannot think of anyone.  Maybe Marty?  Or no, not really.