Inexplicable Gilmore Girls Review: The End of Jess For Now! (And Season 3)

It's okay Barbie, I like Michelle Branch and Matchbox 20.

Warning: Spoilers follow for episodes 19 through the end of season three of Gilmore Girls.

The last couple episodes of season three of Gilmore Girls are pretty, pretty, pretty eventful. First things first, we finally get the big Dean-Jess feud blow-off, after an odd exchange in a bedroom of some kid’s house between Rory and Jess. He pressures Rory to have sex, she turns him down, and then they get into an argument. It’s implied that Jess is feeling weird and pressured because of how horrible things are going for him at school, and because his car is stolen (probably by Luke).

So, Dean hears the commotion in the bedroom, and confronts Jess outside of it. Now, I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure Dean does throw the first punch. This gives further credence to my theory that he is a psychopath. It doesn’t help that a few episodes later, he tells Rory that he’s going to marry his Barbie doll looking girlfriend! I guess he really is going for the Donna Reed lifestyle.

Anyway. One realistic aspect as the season ends – the dissolution of Jess and Rory. It just ends of goes out with a “meh,” with a non-conversation on the bus and Jess prank calling her a few times. At least in my own experience, relationships usually peter out more than end in a verbal combustion, like you see on television. Both methods are equally painful, like trying to decide whether to rip a band-aid off or simply peeling it off slowly.

Jess flees Stars Hollow and takes the bus cross-country to California, to finally converse with and find out the deal with his deadbeat dad. Wikipedia tells me that this was actually a backdoor pilot for a Jess-centered show, Windward Circle. This sounds horrible, so I’m glad it didn’t happen. Jess is petulant and annoying at best, his dad was an older, more deadbeat version of him, and I didn’t care much for his girlfriend Dharma. Since the pilot didn’t get picked up though, I’m positive I’ll see more of Jess and some point, along with *shudder* Dean at some point probably, given that his marriage seems like a horrible idea.

Let me focus on the good – Alexis Bledel is pretty damn good in the last couple episodes of season three. From standing up to Lorelai and forcing her to open her inn, to the graduation speech, and her basically telling Jess on the phone to put up or shut up, she had a strong couple of moments. I usually find her to mostly be along for the ride that is the Wondrous Lauren Graham Carnival, but she held her own and seems to be steadily improving as the seasons continue.

Meanwhile, Lorelai probably had her worst stretch of episodes. Between being kind of dismissive about Emily’s feelings, trying to force herself back on Max and trying to ruin Rory’s deal with her parents, it wasn’t a good run. While I’ve railed against Max multiple times, good on him for realizing that his dealings with Lorelai aren’t positive.

One odd thing that completely slipped through the cracks – We got nothing from the Stars Hollow or Chilton proms. Rory just didn’t go to either one? And, Lane is a prominent character in the first three seasons, and we spent a lot of storyline time on her and Dave trying to go to prom together. We can’t get some prom moments from them? It is like my complaints about not seeing Sookie and Jackson actually saying “I do” at the end of season two. If a story element doesn’t feature a Gilmore girl, we apparently don’t get to see it.

Anyway, final thing – There is a funny bookend to the season, as it essentially ends with Luke having a dream about being with Lorelai. He’s obviously still completely in the bag for Lorelai, and again, I know that he and her officially date at some point, and I haven’t seen that yet. So, I don’t think that he and Nicole are going to be together forever following this cruise. (Spoiler: I’m into season four as I write this, so I know that they’re not together. But anyone watching the end of season three wouldn’t think Luke-Nicole is a permanent thing anyway.)

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