Lorelai Gilmore: The 10(+) Things I Hate About You

[TwirlyGirly]

It's been years since anyone has posted in this topic, but today I had GG on Netflix playing on my tablet while I was doing other things, when "Secrets and Loans" (S2.E11) came on. 

This is the episode in which Lorelai and Rory discover termites have attacked their house, causing major damage to the house's foundation that will cost $15,000.00 to repair.

Lorelai is unable to qualify for a loan to pay for the repairs, and her calling bank loan officers repeatedly to ask whether they've changed their mind about approving her loan makes it painfully obvious how little Lorelei understands about banking, loans, credit, etc.

Rory quickly realizes how futile Lorelai's attempts at securing a loan are, and suggests her mother ask her parents for the money. Lorelai refuses to consider this solution and tells Rory she is not to mention the issue to Emily and/or Richard.

Rory defies her mother that same evening, telling Emily at Friday night dinner about the termites, the damage to the house, and the loan application refusals. Emily tries to write Lorelai a check to cover the repairs, which Lorelai refuses to accept. 

When Lorelai and Rory arrive home after the dinner, Lorelai explodes and berates Rory for defying her and telling her mother about the termites and her money troubles.

For all of Lorelai's insistence her mother doesn't know or understand her (a major theme of their relationship throughout the series), Emily demonstrates here that she understands her daughter a lot more than she's given credit for.

Emily knows if Lorelai won't allow her to give or loan her the money, Lorelai's only other option is to have a co-signer for a loan. But if she presents this solution to Lorelai outright, Lorelai will reject it. 

Her only option is to orchestrate an elaborate ruse behind the scenes: set up an appointment for Lorelai at her own bank with the loan officer she and Richard have known for years, without telling Lorelai she'll be there, too. Then when Lorelai sees her at the bank and tells her to leave, tell Lorelai it would be rude because they already know she's there. And when the two of them are finally seated in the loan officer's office and he's making small talk with Emily, Emily swallows her pride when Lorelai rudely interrupts her mother and tells the loan officer her mother isn't a "silent participant" in the meeting, but a "silent."

Of course Lorelai's loan application at her mother's bank is refused, too. Emily sits silently as Lorelai begs the loan officer for a solution, which as Emily has known all along, is to have someone co-sign the loan. 

Emily graciously agrees to be the co-signer.

But when they leave the bank, does Lorelai thank her mother for saving her house? Does she show her any gratitude whatsoever?

No. She attacks her. 

But the worst is yet to come. 

When Lorelai meets up with Rory at the town square after leaving the bank, she tells Rory she got the loan. Then she gives Rory a speech about how Rory needs to trust her, that she's never had to do without something she needed, and says "the reason for that is me." 

She doesn't tell Rory her mother co-signed the loan, and that she wouldn't have gotten the loan otherwise. She doesn't apologize to Rory for giving her the silent treatment or yelling at her for telling Emily about the termites and the loan issues. Nor does she explain how she would have gotten the money if Rory hadn't told her mother about their issue.

Lorelai lies to everyone, and even Lorelai's daughter and so-called best friend can't depend on being told the truth by Lorelai.

Edited June 27 by TwirlyGirly

[SJC]

Lorelai is indeed an  incredibly ungrateful, arrogant & self absorbed user.
Emily could have given her a million dollars & she still would not have appreciated it.

[Anela]

She didn’t want a million dollars, and everything her mother helps her with, comes with conditions.  That’s why she didn’t want to ask.  She doesn’t help lorelai, just for the sake of helping her daughter.  
she has also shown empathy to her mother. 

Edited June 28 by Anela

[chessiegal]

14 minutes ago, Anela said:

everything her mother helps her with, comes with conditions.

Yes! Starting with the Pilot episode when Lorelai asks for help with Chilton. Richard was happy to just write a check, but Emily insisted it had to come with Friday night dinners. Remember when Lorelai says to herself - "So close."? When Rory asks the grands for help with Yale, just Rory will be keeping them involved. When Rory tells Lorelai, Lorelai says, those are strings, Pinocchio.

[Katy M]

On 6/28/2024 at 1:06 PM, Anela said:

She didn’t want a million dollars, and everything her mother helps her with, comes with conditions.  That’s why she didn’t want to ask.  She doesn’t help lorelai, just for the sake of helping her daughter.  
she has also shown empathy to her mother. 

As for the Chilton loan, there have been debates about how much the tuition was on this forum, but definitely a sizeable amount.  And they're probably never going to see any of that again.  2 hours a week to eat dinner for payment doesn't seem that crazy.  Why give that much money to someone who only deigns to see you on holidays and even that begrudgingly?

[Taryn74]

On 6/28/2024 at 12:31 PM, chessiegal said:

Yes! Starting with the Pilot episode when Lorelai asks for help with Chilton. Richard was happy to just write a check, but Emily insisted it had to come with Friday night dinners. Remember when Lorelai says to herself - "So close."? When Rory asks the grands for help with Yale, just Rory will be keeping them involved. When Rory tells Lorelai, Lorelai says, those are strings, Pinocchio.

I don't hate Lorelai or anything, but I was definitely on Emily's side with that one. It's not like Rory needed life-saving surgery or anything that would have made Emily truly heartless in that moment. There's nothing wrong with putting a relatively small condition on loaning your daughter tens of thousands of dollars to send your granddaughter to a posh private school.

I do wish they had written that initial storyline slightly differently, though, to make Lorelai look less like she was so unprepared as to never think of how she was going to cover Rory's tuition for Chilton. I think I've argued this scenario before, but it would have made perfect sense for Lorelai to assume Rory would get a scholarship for Chilton (one of the Chilton parents makes a snarky remark about scholarship students early on in the show, so that was definitely a thing) and then have the school inform her that no, the scholarships are reserved for students who actually need the financial help to attend there, and the Gilmores could certainly afford to send Rory without any assistance. That would put Lorelai in the position of having to deal with the fact that yes, she IS still a Gilmore even though she hasn't been a part of that world for sixteen years, and carrying the Gilmore name comes with certain assumptions and responsibilities whether she likes it or not.

[Anela]

On 6/29/2024 at 5:39 PM, Katy M said:

As for the Chilton loan, there have been debates about how much the tuition was on this forum, but definitely a sizeable amount.  And they're probably never going to see any of that again.  2 hours a week to eat dinner for payment doesn't seem that crazy.  Why give that much money to someone who only deigns to see you on holidays and even that begrudgingly?

Because it was for Rory. 

[Katy M]

18 hours ago, Anela said:

Because it was for Rory. 

So?  They barely knew Rory.  This "condition" was to remedy that.

[Anela]

13 minutes ago, Katy M said:

So?  They barely knew Rory.  This "condition" was to remedy that.

They still loved her. They still wanted her to have a good life.  Wouldn’t you?

[chessiegal]

Richard and Emily were attached to Rory, even if they only saw her "on days the banks were closed".  There are many instances where this was shown. 

[scarynikki12]

My first thing about the termite episode is Lorelai's issue should have been getting nothing but bad offers rather than no offer at all. Second, even though she ended up going with Rory's suggestion to involve Emily she was right to be upset with her for bringing it up after expressly told not to. That was one of those moments that demonstrated both how little Lorelai put up boundaries where Rory was concerned (in both good and bad ways) and how easily Rory had already become accustomed to the Gilmore way of life. To Rory the solution was simple: ask the rich grandparents to pay for it. To Lorelai it was complicated: asking her parents for more financial help would come with more strings. And Emily did add more strings in the form of moving her regular DAR meetings to the Inn. Those meetings aren't a big deal to us because we watch the show and know Emily does love Lorelai and has trouble showing it but Lorelai doesn't have this perspective. She thinks her parents look for any way to control her life and she has a point because they always attach something to their generosity even if it's a meeting that Lorelai doesn't have to attend.

I wish Lorelai had managed to get the loan on her own. Maybe indirectly due to her parents in the form of meeting with a young loan officer who doesn't know the Gilmores personally but is aware of them being important clients and assumes Lorelai's doing a rich kid thing where she's Trying To Make It On Her Own and indulges her before revealing he gave it to her because of her name after all. Once the papers were signed I think Lorelai would take the loan but hate herself immensely and there's some comedy to be mined from it.

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, Anela said:

They still loved her. They still wanted her to have a good life.  Wouldn’t you?

And they gave it to her.  While giving themselves a chance to get to know her.  I'm not sure why you think Lorelei is just entitled to all that money without having to only speak to her parents on holidays.

[Anela]

16 minutes ago, Katy M said:

And they gave it to her.  While giving themselves a chance to get to know her.  I'm not sure why you think Lorelei is just entitled to all that money without having to only speak to her parents on holidays.

I’m not sure why they were entitled to keep her in their lives, when they wanted to control her life. And I’m going to stop right here.

Edited July 3 by Anela

[Katy M]

11 hours ago, Anela said:

I’m not sure why they were entitled to keep her in their lives, when they wanted to control her life. And I’m going to stop right here.

They weren't entitled.  They made an agreement.  Lorelei was capable of saying no if she didn't want to spend 2 hours a week with her parents.