Inexplicable Gilmore Girls Review: Rory’s Two Horrible Boyfriends and Horrible Stars Hollow

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.

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Inexplicable TV Review: Luke’s coffee and LATER Max Medina!

Warning: Spoilers follow for some episodes of the hit new original show Gilmore Girls, specifically the start of season two.

So! Tuesday, I briefly mentioned that Luke’s pop-ups were opening today across the U.S. Two were in Providence, where I was Wednesday morning, although the line looked imposing from a Facebook Live look-in at one. Thankfully though, the line wasn’t so long at LaSalle Bakery, and you can see some of my Instagrams from the place here.

The free coffee was pretty good, and I had an apple turnover, which was also delicious. The promotion had three aspects – Some signage at the restaurant, cup sleeves with the logo for the new series, and a quote from Gilmore Girls on the cup. Apparently, there were a bunch of different quotes on different cups, and I didn’t even notice until a friend pointed it out. And by the way, I forgot to link to the Stars Hollow website yesterday.

Beyond fun promotional tie-ins, I have watched the first nine episodes of season two. Not in one day – It was like three days, over the weekend, you know. That’s much more respectable. Thoughts!

- Max Medina is pretty much the worst, and I’m glad Lorelai dumped him. I finally figured out what my issue with him is. There is a sort of antagonism behind a lot of his dialogue, and unless they cut a bunch of his scenes, he just seems a tiny bit mean to me at times. I also think that he’s supposed to be in his thirties, possibly even his early forties, but his emotional maturity doesn’t ring true. Then again, maybe that’s why he’s single. Lorelai has similar maturity issues, but we get enough of her backstory over the course of the first season to know why.

- Emily Gilmore is straight-up baller still. We haven’t seen as much of Richard this season, but between the fashion show and the Rory pageant episode, Kelly Bishop gets some standout moments. They also don’t completely abandon her torn feelings about Lorelai raising Rory completely away from her for 16 years, when a lot of other, worse shows would steer away.

- I’m already cringing at the idea of a Dean-Jess-Rory love triangle. Dean is kind of a dud to me, but at least he’s not a Holden Caulfield Troubled Loner clone. Which, by the way, Jess so obviously is, Rory already made a joke about it! Just, blah. Rory can do better than both of them.

- I’m not sad to see Tristen go. He was always a bit… rape-y, for my taste. He leaves abruptly at the end of the play episode in season two, which leads to Paris playing Romeo, with great aplomb. Wikipedia tells me it’s because he was cast in One True Hill, so, good for him. I imagine Jess gets involved in the show because Tristen had to leave, and they had to create that Bad Boy character for Rory to get interested in.

- Sooki and Lorelai have a fight, which is resolved by the end of the episode, in true TV fashion. It was annoying to see them fight, since it felt like a Typical TV Convention that the show usually tries to avoid.

- Everything to do with Stars Hollow is still horrible.

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!

Inexplicable TV Review: The Inefficiency of Stars Hollow (and S1 Gilmore Girls wrap-up)

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

A puzzling thing to me throughout the first season of Gilmore Girls is the commercial viability of Luke’s diner, as well as the other businesses in Stars Hollow, and the various background elements of each episode. The town is portrayed as quaint and tiny, but holy hell, every shot of the Main Street has throngs of people. Which one is it?

Predictably, Wikipedia has an entire page on the fictional town, which has a heck of a lot of stores. It’s a composite of different Connecticut towns, but mostly based on Washington, which has a population of 3,578. My hometown of Charlestown has a population of 7,827, and its main businesses are a Dunkin’ Donuts, three pizza places, a small general store and some specialty stores (a hardware place, a vet, etc.).

So, one of my favorite things to do when watching Gilmore Girls is to check out the various specials and deals on the Luke’s menu, and the background menus of other places. The menu board is a weird mixture of the traditional breakfast stuff, with pies, and boring dinner options like meatloaf. Then there is Luke’s stock room. He has about a million jars of pickles and canned tomatoes down there! Give these background elements a good eye next time you’re watching the show, and you won’t be able to turn it off. And by the way, Netflix is turning a bunch of cafes into Luke’s diners for a promotion, if you didn’t hear via FB share.

But oh yeah, the rest of the show! Karen and I finished watching season one, and we’re halfway into season two. I’ll write about S2 later this week, but the end of S1 was sweet, although I kept getting distracted by one aspect.

Maybe it’s just the feed Netflix is using, but the filming quality for the last episode of season one radically jumps up. My suspicion is that they got picked up for a second season during the middle of filming season one, and because of that, they filmed an entire arc that was broken up over the two seasons. i.e. They filmed episode 21 of S1, then four or five episodes of S2. However, I couldn’t find confirmation of this online.

I should probably listen to some of the DVD commentaries for the show, because some of the production details fascinate me. At various points, you can clearly see boom microphones peeking into the top of the screen – I paused and rewound at one point so Karen could see it. The lighting on the show is also pretty horrible in some scenes, as well as dubbed in dialogue. You can definitely tell that the show started as a low-budget project on the WB.

The actual episode content of the final few of episode one is still solid, just to be clear. The ending is a bit mushy, with Rory getting back with Dean and Lorelai (on the way to) agreeing to marry Max, but it works. Both of the guys are still annoying duds to me, but hey, my suspicion is that neither will be in the picture forever because 1) I don’t really remember them from my past experience with the series and 2) Gilmore Girls ran for seven seasons.

Other random odds and ends:

- Rachel, Luke’s girlfriend, doesn’t wear a bra in about half the scenes she’s in. It’s never explained why not, and I found it weird because she’s working in the diner and not like a super hippie. By the way, I thought she was an intriguing character, but they don’t really ever establish much of an identity for her besides Luke’s Ex.

- The extended cast of Stars Hollow still bugs the shit out of me. The most preposterous thing to me was the troubadour battle at the Town Hall meeting in the last or penultimate episode of the first season. Gaaaagggg.

- One other weird production thing: The title music is REALLY loud as compared to the dialogue and regular music in episodes. After the cold open of each show, we have to lower the volume for the title screen. Also, the song just kind of abruptly ends in the middle, as if the sound editor couldn’t be bothered to sync it to end as the opening credits end. When it comes to WB music, the earworm from Seventh Heaven sticks in my head way more.

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!