#sam rewatches gilmore girls 2022

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“you’re the man that i want to want”

god ;-;

i know i’m in the minority here but i don’t hate chris or lorelai x chris. i think they actually match each other’s energy and charisma and wit really well, and it sucks that their timing has never worked out. 

but i do love their last conversation before deciding to end their marriage because it reminds me that they’re not just husband or wife or lovers or even rory’s mom and dad. they’re also friends. like. their relationship is very much rooted in knowing someone knows you so well because of how old of friends you are. and it’s so so sad to me that people can’t see that regardless of the conflicts they get into, lorelai and chris will always care about each other. because even if they aren’t right to be together, They Are Friends.

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lane’s storyline while pregnant about freaking out about her loss of agency and people treating her like an object now that she’s pregnant and her music dreams dying make me so sad. i mean. i feel like it’s played for laughs or like she’s being overdramatic but it’s just actually literally what happened. and she was so bright and just as ambitious as paris, just about different things, and she deserved better. god.

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finished gilmore girls a while ago and my final thoughts are honestly that rory likely terminated the pregnancy and chose to write about it in her book in a full-circle way. and then also goes to therapy bc it makes her unpack a lot of intergenerational trauma! i think this likely caused another strain or rift with lorelai, not because she’s not pro-choice, but because she so recently thought about having kids again and knows how hard it would be for her at this stage of her life, so there’s a sense of jealousy.

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something i thought about a lot on this rewatch also was that. i know there are a lot of dicussions about rory’s privilege and how financially privileged she (and lorelai) actually are. so maybe throwing my thoughts into the ring is a moot point.

but like! as many people have pointed out, rory didn’t grow up wealthy in the same way that logan did. but i also think it’s pretty likely that she didn’t even Know or Comprehend how wealthy her grandparents were until quite a few years into childhood. we learn from emily’s dialogue in the flashback were lorelai leaves home that lived with them for a year after having rory, so obviously rory wasn’t old enough to really be forming memories yet. lorelai reveals at some point (can’t remember when, sadly) that she didn’t accept her parents invitation for their christmas party that first year after she left, and she wonders how their relationship could’ve been different if she had.

but we also learn through emily’s dialogue in the pilot that on the rare occasions they did visit, it was a holiday - “it’s not every day that i have my girls here on a day the banks are open.” so they clearly did start going for holidays at some point, at least some of the time.

point being that once rory was old enough to understand that their house was a Wealthy Person’s house and get to know her grandparents even little, i’m sure she clued in.

but she grew up at first living in that small shed at the inn without the same options and resources she had once her grandparents were more seriously involved in her life. this is very all over the place but i guess my point is, yes, rory in her teen years and beyond has a lot more privilege than many do, but i think we would be remiss to think that her childhood and history doesn’t affect her relationship with money, privilege, or how she sees the world.

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you know there are Points at which i feel ayitl is being a little too on-the-nose at trying to like. keep up with the times and use lots of slang and references that would have been super relevant and hot-button in 2016. but one really poignant moment to me is when lorelai is telling her therapist about when she got the call that richard died and how she was using her calculator before and how when the call ended it just... went back to being a calculator. technology is so pervasive and ingrained in our culture that the same tool that tells you your father is dead is also just. the thing you use to help you balance your books. and that you carry around in your pocket all day. and the fact that, for lorelai, that shift really sort of happened in the ten years between the end of the og show and ayitl is both a little chilling and also extremely realistic and reminiscent of real life.

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honestly, a year in the life makes sense and is somewhat enjoyable if you subscribe to the ideology that in terms of genre gilmore girls is a tragedy for the modern ages.

anyway, there’s something very interesting about lorelai, stressed by sookie’s leaving, firing (rather callously) all of her replacements, like emily firing all her maids. destined to repeat the sins of our parents and all that, made especially tragic/ironic for the fact this is something lorelai has repeatedly and vehemently criticized emily for.

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nothing has ever resolidified my belief that mitchum was not speaking from an unbiased perspective when he told her that she “didn’t have it in season six” more than the dinner they have in 7.15 wherein he tells her that he’s glad she’s been helping logan get on the right path and that they’ll “take care of her”, too. his opinion of her abilities clearly fluctuates based on what he thinks of the influence she has on his son.

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god, this show does metaphors really well sometimes. lorelai and rory running out of gas in the car for the first time ever as lorelai is telling her about splitting up with chris is poetic cinema, actually. a relationship built on desperation and desire not to be alone and that was never quite on but never quite over until they got married, and then to finally get the timing right… or so you think. and eventually, you just… run out of gas.

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i actually find the whole rory/marty/lucy/(&logan) conflict in season 7 fascinating and a relatively realistic portrayal of a ultimately sort of small conflict that nonetheless results in big hurt feelings amongst friends. like!! that’s a thing that happens. but i do think it could’ve been executed a lot better.

rory’s the one part of the equation that i don’t actually have much issue with? i mean, i definitely don’t think it was Right to go along with marty pretending not to know her when lucy introduced marty as her boyfriend but it was a really awkward siutation for her to be put in. and comparatively to some of her other big mistakes especially, this one is pretty understandable! like, i absolutely understand how she could just be taken by surprise and go along with it. and like yeah, after the fact she probably should’ve talked about it to marty and come clean to lucy right away, but sometimes we get put in weird situations and it’s hard.

marty is... oof. i’m definitely not in the majority when i say that (at least prior to season seven) i don’t dislike marty. i thought he dealt with rory not liking him back with relative grace (ik it’s a low bar but he didn’t really lash out or anything after she told him she liked logan and not him, he just basically said they needed space and they grew apart.) but like! as much as i’ve seen others say that they wish for once rory could have just had a male friend without they’re being Feelings involved. and i agree! but they also very easily could have made this season seven story arc about rory and marty reconnecting after him getting over his crush. if they really wanted to keep the conflict, they could even still have him pretend not to know her out of sheer awkwardness / because he’s embarassed that he used to be insecure about his status and comparing himself to logan and whatnot or that he let his feelings get in the way of a friendship. i feel like his story is just full of wasted potential.

lucy is one of my favorite late season additions so it is with a heavy heart that i say i feel like her actress played her reaction way too over-the-top. i mean, i get that lucy as a character is a kind of dramatic person but i just feel like this is the kind of reveal that wouldn’t cause you to shout and burst out of dinner. i just think it would’ve played better if the reaction was... quieter. and this is not me saying she has no right to be upset! i think she does. but to me, this story is about a small thing blooming into something bigger because of the reasons behind it. so i think her getting quietly upset, maybe declaring she’s lost her appetite or something, and just leaving without the storming would have been a better acting choice. and last but not leasl... logan!

my feelings about logan in this conflict are... complicated. because i know he’s a bit jealous and if that’s really the reason why he tells lucy then that’s not good. but i also... don’t really get that vibe? he’s a little awkward around marty and at dinner but he’s polite. and he actually really seems to get along with lucy, he smiles and laughs and engages with her jokes and stories* . so i really believe him when he just says she’s a nice girl and he doesn’t want to lie to her. and the fact is, as much as rory was put in an awkward situation, so was he? he didn’t agree to lie to her or sign up for it. she asked him a direct question and pretending rory didn’t know marty would have meant he had to lie answering it. so he didn’t. i mean, maybe he didn’t have to go on the way he did, but at that point the hat was out of the bag. and yes, arguably it’s not his place to tell her, esp in such a public and awkward way, but that’s why her friend or boyfriend should have told her. if not before this episode, then definitely before dinner with all four of them, where it was bound to come up. tldr; logan’s execution wasn’t great but i think it’s fair that he didn’t want to lie to lucy.

anyway! idk i know people hate this storyline but i’m fascinated by the interpolitics of these kiddos

(* i really enjoyed their interactions and i’m not gonna say i SHIP them bc there’s unfortunately not enough lucy or lucy/logan moments for me to say that... but i also don’t not ship them. having fun imagining they dated at least for a little while post-canon)

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i don’t care what anybody says i love the life and death brigade section of ayitl. like YES there are undoubtedly more important things they could have focused on, but since it’s here anyway!!

and just like. we’ve seen rory struggle throughout all of the reboot and admit that feels lost and floundering and yes, there are life responsibilities to tend to and whatnot but sometimes. you just need to have fun!! and the fact that her friends and logan all came from wherever they were to cheer her up with silly outfits to boot to the tune of “i get by with a little help from my friends” ?? ADORABLE

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little details about established dynamics like finding out jess lived at the diner for sixth months sometime after the show but before ayitl make it so much more fun!

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look, i won’t act like rory doesn’t get up to some bad stuff in ayitl, but it always bothers me when people act like rory ‘turned her nose up’ at headmaster charleston suggesting she become a teacher when it’s not... really true?

yes, she declines, but she seems to genuinely think about it and has a very honest conversation about not thinking its what she wants while still being completely polite and thanking him.

i know later she freaks out a bit but i really don’t interpret that as her thinking she’s Too Good to teach it’s more like. she’s been drifting since richard died and is trying to figure out what she wants, and the fact that someone suggested something she knows she doesn’t want but could maybe be pretty good at is just. throwing her for a loop! which happens.

a lot of rory’s inner conflicts seem to boil down with ‘what should i want?’ vs ‘what i do want?’and having charleston suggest the safety and relative security of teaching at chilton is disorienting! bc she knows she doesn’t want it, but should she? would it be the smart thing to do since she’s struggling with her writing career?

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emily and lorelai’s fight in the first ep of ayitl is. sooo bad.

like, i get that lorelai sounded a little callous when trying (and failing) to think up a wholesome richard story. but like… she was surprised and has never been great with this kind of emotional pressure! and emily knows that.

she stayed with emily at the funeral when rory left and drank with her and seemed to do everything in her power to try and be there for her, but the second she makes this one mistake emily basically accuses her of not caring that richard died!

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ha now that i have Graduated colege and currently jobless (i worked over the summer but it was a short term contract) rory’s freakout over her eminating future hits a lot Harder.

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logan being so excited his dad actually wanted to do something for his birthday ;-;

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i’m obsessed with lucy btw