Warning: Spoilers follow for some episodes
of the hit new original show Gilmore
Girls, specifically the end of season two.
I am now
through two seasons of Gilmore Girls,
and some of my basic opinions have not changed. The two biggest and most
controversial – That both of Rory’s boyfriend options are horrible, and that
Stars Hollow is so stupid and unbelievable too much of the time. Tackling them
in order…
As season
two goes along, it becomes increasingly clear to the audience that Dean and
Rory are going to break-up. Beyond Rory’s dalliances with Jess, pretty much
every scene she shares with Dean is “ugh.” He’s kind of presented as a
concrete, dull thinker, and while there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with
that, he’s ill-equipped to deal with the machine gun thought fire provided by a
Gilmore girl.
Worse to me,
there is a weird, aggressive undercurrent to a lot of Dean’s interactions with
Rory. When she’s in a cast and telling him about wrecking the car, via a
letter, he seems thisclose to hitting her. Instead, he kicks a cooler. I don’t
know if they were going to do an actual domestic violence angle at one point
and then just decided that was (justifiably) a bad idea, or if there simply
isn’t enough breathing room in the show’s runtime to give Dean more of a
personality.
So, with
Dean kind of a dud, we are left with Rory obviously falling for Jess. He’s
dreamy and mysterious, but he’s also safe in a TV sort of way. Only on TV can
the teen menace that his absentee mom has foisted on her brother to take care
of have a thing for Faulkner and Russian literature! It kind of reminds me of
Patton Oswalt’s bit about
romantic comedies. (Warning: Definitely NSFW.) Jess is the male, sanitized TV
version of a rebel teen.
Jess is so whatever
to me, obviously. Maybe I’m just prematurely annoyed because I’m imagining that
this Jess-Rory drama is going to stretch out for years. It’s like how I’m annoyed
about the 2020 election and it’s still four years away, but I can see it
looming on the horizon.
Dean and
Jess are both poor choices for Rory, and the only correct choice is Paris. She
and Rory are more amusing and have more chemistry together than all of Rory’s
dudes. However, I imagine that if Gilmore
Girls had a same sex relationship involving one of its leads, I would have
heard about it by now. Plus, you know, it’s not like Rory has expressed an
interest in dating ladies either.
The other
horrible aspect of the show continues to be Stars Hollow. I’ve watched a few
episodes into season three, so unfortunately, I know this doesn’t get any
better either. Almost everyone in the town is a ridiculous caricature that
completely ruins the flow of the show for me. The more time we spend in Stars
Hollow, the less time there is at school with Paris, Madeline and Louise, or at
the Gilmore mansion with the third Gilmore girl.
Kurt occasionally
makes me chuckle, and Luke is mostly OK, because he’s usually presented as the Only Sane Man
of the town. (Heck, he’s even listed without comment on the TV
Tropes page for live action.) Taylor is the absolute fucking worst. I
realize he’s supposed to be annoying, but he has “go away” heat with me. Every
plot he’s involved in is farcical and stupid, and causes me to lose
intelligence points.
Other random
notes:
- Paris is
still completely baller, but don’t sleep on Louise or Madeline either. One
unfortunate thing that happened as season two continued and they focused more
on the town was that we got less of the bit players from school.
- Lane is
riiiiighttt on the border between annoying and enjoyable. She’s usually
pleasant enough, but her mom is probably the second-biggest unbelievable
character behind Taylor, and she tends to dominate most of the Lane storylines.
The show is set in the 2000s, not 1960, and the “oh she’s a strict Korean!”
thing only goes so far with me. If she’s so god damn strict, why are they in
America? Why not actually send Lane back to Korea? Her behavior is farcical,
when it would have been easy to just dial it down a smidge and have it be much
more believable.
- I continue
to over-analyze the background elements of the show, which continues to annoy
Karen. The newspaper parts especially amuse me, as someone who works for a
newspaper and has ran a high school newspaper. Paris regularly seems to be
calling staff meetings and ordering the kids around on her own, which is
usually a pretty big no-no at most high schools. Occasionally, there is a
female teacher sitting in on the meetings, and she also seems to run the debate
team, but Google can’t even help me determine who it is.
My other
favorite background aspect – the signboards and prices at various shops. Taylor’s
grocery store is always having a sale on carrots, and Luke’s special omelet
does make it on to the “specials” board, in a nice bit of continuity.
- Season two
ends with Jackson and Sookie getting married, although for some weird reason,
we don’t actually get to see them say “I do” on camera. Why Gilmore Girls, whhhyyyy? These are two
of the more amusing side characters, and they have a sweet romance that’s
catalogued on the show. If you wanted to end the episode on the “shocker” of
Rory kissing Jess, that’s easy to do – have them do it after the ceremony is
over.
- The subtle
rebuilding of the relationship between Lorelai and Emily, and Lorelai and
Richard by extension, is good. It’s slow and gradual, which feels more
realistic. That’s also why it feels so jarring to me to have everyone in Stars
Hallow playing things up
to 11. The episode where Lorelai briefly becomes Richard’s secretary, and
where he thrives in opening his new consulting business, is a really good one.
Anyway! I’m
now getting into season three. In order to burn through the episodes before the
new ones release at the end of the month, Karen and I are watching them
separately. As a result, you can probably expect more Gilmore Girls posts than normal. And, sorry if you were really
hoping I’d have belated takes on Luke
Cage and The Next Generation, which
have been pushed down my priority list as a result.
Want to support Steve’s blogging? Then
purchase something via the Amazon clickthru link for Your Parents Basement, Steve’s other
project! To read all of Steve’s past Inexplicable Movie Reviews, click here! For Inexplicable TV Reviews, click here! For Inexplicable Video Game Reviews, click here! And for Inexplicable Book Reviews, go here!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Try not to be too much of an ass, unless completely necessary. You are subject to tyrannical moderation.