No, kids, it’s perfectly okay to have sex with a married man if you two were destined to be together.
October 13, 2004
Okay. So we’re four weeks in here and I have a beef. A big friggin’ beef with The Gilmore Girls writers. Why is no one treating the whole Rory/Dean thing as the scandal it is. Instead everyone’s tiptoeing around it as though Dean was simply going steady with Lindsay. He was effin’ MARRIED, people! Geez! We shouldn’t be so quick to forgive him. Or Rory. When Rory asked him this week if he would’ve left Lindsay even if they hadn’t had their little tryst, he said yes. Jesus, Rory, wake up and smell the cow crap he’s shoveling. No one “was gonna” get divorced before their affair. Why isn’t anyone saying this to Rory? Not the sensible if CRAZY Paris. Not the extremely sensible and just a little neurotic Lane. Certainly not Lorelai. God damn it! This is wrong. And I don’t like that the Palladino’s are trying to pretend that Rory and Dean are soul-mates. I don’t buy that crap for a second. I wish they’d get off their asses and create a new romantic interest for the young and beautiful junior Miss Gilmore and have her put this whole sorry mess behind her as the horrible mistake it was.
Only once in the whole episode was there a fleeting glimpse of reality. When Dean blew up at Rory about not wanting to parade their relationship around and rub Lindsay’s nose in it. Finally, a shred of common decency and sense. But no, that blows over so he can be the charming guy, proud of his relationship, uncaring of what the citizens of Stars Hollow might think if they kissed in front of the gazebo. All is forgiven. So sorry, Lindsay. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred bucks. Welcome to Dumpsville, population YOU.
Okay. Breathe, Dave.
Anyway. This episode as a whole was kinda meandering and relatively pointless. Taylor’s lording his power as Town Selectmen over the town as usual, this time deciding that Jackson’s greenhouse is too close to his property line and therefore must be torn down. In retaliation, Jackson runs against him in an election cooked up seemingly exclusively for this episode. As those who read my Sopranos reviews last year will recall that I am very big on continuity with the so-called “soap” shows, a category that The Gilmore Girls sits smack dab in the middle of. Things like an election which, since it happens in episode four, one assumes was on the writers mind since writing episode one, should’ve been established earlier instead of simply showing up out of nowhere. So Lorelai and Sookie spearhead a silly campaign that ultimately only proves that no one in Stars Hollow really likes Taylor. And with good reason, after he loses the election we knew he was gonna lose ‘cuz he’s a jerk, he calls for a recall election.
The Luke and Lorelai story doesn’t advance much this week. Lorelai’s neurosis with having to eat breakfast at Luke’s rather than in her kitchen cooked by Luke is quite amusing and the interplay between these two characters is delightful as we see them falling more in love. Just a shame they had to be tied down to this farcical plot.
The only other interesting thing to happen is that Lane, in the middle of a post gig party, tells Zach about her feelings for him in exactly the calm, collected and level headed way that makes one wish she’d beat some sense into Rory “It’s okay that he left his wife for me” Gilmore. Damnit, got on that topic again. Sorry.
The dialogue cracks as ever and still a wittier show on television I doubt I’ll find, but can we grow up a little and have a real adult plot here? Bill Prady, writer of this week’s episode, while he wrote Muppetvision 3-D for Disney’s MGM Studios (and I adore that show), should probably stick to his gig of producing Gilmore Girls and leave the writing to the far more talented Palladinos. Oh, and call Jane Espenson and beg her to bring her talented ass back into the fold.
Not that I’m complaining or anything. Three out of five cookies for this lackluster episode.
Geek Pop Culture reference of the week. Lorelai explaining that Luke never came in all night, just stood outside the window holding a boombox over his head playing “In Your Eyes.”