#i hated the 'they're all connected' stuff because that makes their survivability even less believable honestly

[yashanydoren]

okay….. what on earth was that tess death?? the scene leading up to it with tess convincing joel to continue with ellie was almost perfect (it would have been 100% perfect if they didn't leave out the line "there has to be enough here that you feel some sort of obligation to me" which is way better than the line they chose and makes more sense!!!) but the death???? man, in the game she says "i will not become one of them" - the ferociousness in the way she says it and the emotion in that scene just makes sense for her - and the whole purpose of her being left behind was to go out in her “own way” and that felt really grossly and unnecessarily done and taking away from that choice.

[frazzledsoul]

Kind of thinking about the parallels between the Gilmore Girls kids (Jess, Lane, Rory) were thrown out by their parents/guardians. Rory is the outlier, as she ran to her grandparents where she was not responsible for supporting herself in any way and only reconciled with Lorelai when she did exactly what Lorelai wanted her to do and then there's zero reflection on either of their parts as to why this happened in the first place. Jess and Lane have to struggle to survive and make their own way in the world and slowly reconcile with their parents when they come to accept Jess and Lane's need for independence. Luke goes to see Jess at the open house for the press and tells him he's proud of him. Mama Kim sets up a band tour for Lane and comes to accept Zach. They won't ever fully understand why Jess and Lane are the way that they are and there is some fumbling before the estrangement is ended, but they're willing to step outside of their comfort zones and meet them halfway. We fast forward to AYITL and Jess and Lane are mature, self-sufficient, content adults who maintain relationships with their parents where they're in a position to give back. They've taken some of the values their parents raised them with, rejected others, and found a way to have a balance between the two.

By contrast, Rory is...living the life that I think Lorelai probably wanted if she hadn't gotten pregnant, and sucking at it. Rory is nomadic, rootless, permanently unattached, with no job or boyfriend or community to tie her down. I think that a young Lorelai would have loved to live this way, but OS Rory was so type A, so dependent on routine and organization and positive affirmation from others that she would have hated it immediately. This is why AYITL Rory always seems a bit false to me, because she would never have been content to live so chaotic an existence for close to a decade.

I also think she would have wanted a traditional romantic relationship instead of whatever this thing is with Logan that's somewhere between an affair and the way things worked between them when they were stable, an arrangement where she reaps the benefits of his connections and his lifestyle but nothing else is asked of her, where he's a support system and a sounding board but not quite in the way she needs or wants, because he's always encouraging her to adapt to her situation, not change it. I don't see OS Rory being content with that type of arrangement, but she never seems to want more. I think Lorelai would have thrived with that type of arrangement and probably did.

So what is Rory's true rebellion, her attempt to finally break away from Lorelai? It's unfortunately that damned book. Up until then Rory's storyline is basically the same as it was in season 6: she's unhappy with her life, so she goes off the rails for a bit, enjoys the outward trappings of being with Logan but grows disenchanted with him, finds a new direction courtesy of Jess, and finally breaks away from the upper-class world to embrace her roots. However, in AYITL she does it in a way that pisses off Lorelai and we're led to believe....Rory is in the right because this is her only option, otherwise she might have to continue her education or get a job she doesn't want? (You know, like a normal person. Le horror!)

Lorelai isn't even that critical of the concept itself, but she doesn't want Rory to tell her story and share all of the mistakes that Lorelai made as a mother which is....uh, fair? Lorelai balks at Jess being involved and says she doesn't want to know what he thinks of her, which I do believe has less to do with her hating him and more to do with all the stuff he knows about her personal life at this point. Still, regardless of her reason's it's fair to request that Rory only write about her side of it (after Rory tries the cringe worthy tactic of pitching her mother her own life story which is....honey, she was there, and her memories probably aren't exactly the same as yours. Uh uh. That was gross) and Rory... doesn't seem to care. She even bitches to Lane (and attempts to bitch to Logan, before she remembers she broke up with him) that she's a writer and should get to write anything she wants. Uh....this is a rebellion we're supposed to support? I don't think so.

Still, Lorelai comes around on this subject and I suppose we're meant to believe this is Rory finally growing up and the next stage of her life will revolve around the baby she's carrying. Still, it falls flat for me, even if it's the kind of thing that happens in series finales...and much as I don't quite believe that Rory would evolve into this kind of rootless person in the first place, I'm also not sure this fallout over the book really reflects well on Rory or shows how she's becoming more mature. It just doesn't work the way it did with Jess and Lane in the OS.

It pays to be a side character sometimes, I guess.

[impermanence4ever]

they really fucked this one up imo. should’ve let her go on her terms

okay….. what on earth was that tess death?? the scene leading up to it with tess convincing joel to continue with ellie was almost perfect (it would have been 100% perfect if they didn't leave out the line "there has to be enough here that you feel some sort of obligation to me" which is way better than the line they chose and makes more sense!!!) but the death???? man, in the game she says "i will not become one of them" - the ferociousness in the way she says it and the emotion in that scene just makes sense for her - and the whole purpose of her being left behind was to go out in her “own way” and that felt really grossly and unnecessarily done and taking away from that choice.