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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Inexplicable TV Review: Gilmore Girls, episodes 10 to OMG THE BREAKUP

Warning: Spoilers follow for some episodes of the hit new original show Gilmore Girls.

The thing about Dean from Gilmore Girls is that he’s really just a crappier version of Rider Strong from Boy Meets World. I think they kind of look alike, although Dean has a tiny bit of Fulton Reed in him too. (Side note – I didn’t realize at all that Foggy Nelson and Fulton Reed were the same guy! God, I’m a horrible TV aficionado.)

But anyway. Dean seems like the cool, tortured type who’s secretly an intellectual, but at least through THE BREAKUP, we don’t really learn that much about his background. Well, except that his mom stays home and cooks, from the episode where Rory channels Donna Reed. He seems like a nice enough guy, but pretty undeveloped as a character, and his reaction to Rory not saying “I love you” back seemed unrealistic to me. It’s fairly well-established that Rory is inexperienced when it comes to relationship things, so it’s not outlandish to me that she would freeze and need to think about that. Her reaction to her first kiss was “thank you,” after all.

THE BREAKUP episodes produce the most cringe-worthy moment of the first dozen or so episodes for me, which is Rory sucking face with Tristan. Yes, he had a humiliating breakup of his own that humanizes him slightly, but I still considered it something of a stretch that Rory would be vulnerable enough after her own breakup to have that happen.

I enjoy about 75 to 90 percent of Gilmore Girls, but the parts I don’t like are when it becomes a conventional TV show. At certain points, you can really see the seams when it comes to the writing, since the traditional TV tropes seem out of place when confronted by otherwise rational folks.

The most jarring example to me in the recent run of episodes we watched was Rory volunteering their house as a hotel for her motorcycle-riding dad. Rory is 16, she can drive, she’s dating a dude. It struck me as ludicrous that she would think it’s OK to have her dad – her mother’s ex – stay at the house for a couple days. It felt like a heavy-handed Traditional TV Plot, especially since Lorelai runs a friggin’ inn.

Other thoughts:

* Paris is a bright shining star and steals every scene that she’s in. Although I’m sure that there will be absolutely no fallout from Rory and Tristan kissing. And hold on, let me try to pick up my eyes, now that they’re done rolling out of my skull.

* Madeline and Louise kind of get the somewhat thankless role of being Gilmore Girls’ version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. However, even minor roles like theirs get some humor and savvy imbued in them, as they’re consistently taking jabs at the anti-social Paris. In the first few episodes, it seemed like Paris was a Regina George, Queen Bee type, but as the first season has gone along it has established better that she’s more of an intense, focused nerd who’s forced to socialize.

* Max Medina is still kind of oily to me. I can’t explain entirely why yet though. He just seems… meh. I don’t trust the dude.

* Luke is slowly growing on me. You see, he’s gruff, but he has a heart of gold. (What a unique concept!) However, I like that they actually had him makin’ time with his ex, instead of just turning her down and pining for Lorelai.

* Emily and Richard Gilmore are still hot fire. Richard dressing down Lorelai at the end of the episode was a Grade A “the reason you suck” speech. And I’m excited to see the next episode, which has Richard’s mother, apparently the one person in the world capable of making Emily frazzled.

* Melissa McCarthy, Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop (Emily) are still the best actors on this show by far.

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!