Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life: Spring
November 25, 2016 2:30 PM - Season 1, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Somewhat redacted Netflix summary: Rory's book proposal becomes increasingly difficult. Lorelai and Emily go to therapy together.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero (27 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Mr. Kim! I've never been so happy to be wrong!
posted by rewil at 4:38 PM on November 25, 2016 [7 favorites]


On first watch, I think this one was my least favorite but actually I think it might be higher rated on a second watch through, mostly because of how frustrating both Rory and Lorelei/Emily's storylines were
posted by likeatoaster at 6:10 PM on November 25, 2016


I'm gonna spend a lot of rewatches trying to figure out whether it was Emily's plan all along to get Lorelai into therapy without her.
posted by Etrigan at 7:05 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


"a second film by kirk" was not quite the tour de force the first was -- Petal is no Mary Lynn Rajskub -- but the Eraserhead hair was a win. Also of course Morey has that t-shirt.
posted by rewil at 7:34 PM on November 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh god God Rory, just turn up for a writing interview with no ideas and then blame the interviewer because you bombed? Twice? Also, professional writers take assignments. Write the stupid lines article like you said you would. Or write a story about how your Mom schmoozing with a worker turned into coveted pastries which turned into shoes and write about the bartering economy. Maybe your writing career is bombing because you can't be bothered to write anything.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:57 PM on November 25, 2016 [23 favorites]


Part of me thinks this whole thing is a morality tale for what happens when you praise your children too much.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:18 PM on November 25, 2016 [27 favorites]


When I rewatched the original series on Netflix, I came away with the overwhelming feeling that neither Rory nor Lorelei was actually a nice person despite the number of times they're described that way by other characters. This episode certainly does nothing to change that feeling, particularly about Rory.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:18 PM on November 25, 2016 [5 favorites]


Yeah, this is "Rory Gilmore never worked for anything in her entire goddamn life", Chapter the Billionth. I love this show, and so does my 12-year-old daughter (whose name is also Rory, possibly unrelatedly), but we are going to have some serious discussions about what happens when you skate on talent.
posted by Etrigan at 3:48 AM on November 26, 2016 [8 favorites]


My character arc at the moment is pretty close to Rory's (complete with moving home!), but I don't show up to meetings unprepared, am not universally beloved in my hometown for shruggo reasons, and have not yet had any relations with a Wookiee.

So I have feels about all that stuff, but Rory and Lorelei are lying or withholding information left, right, and center and I can't stand that. Glum Lorelei makes me the most sad, but she's lying to herself and argh, argh, argh.
posted by minsies at 8:54 AM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Ugh Rory and Logan. I was always #teamlogan when watching GG because I thought he was the cutest and most fully formed as an actual boyfriend, but they are ruining him for me in this episode. I was hoping after winter that he was single and had been secretly pining for Rory the past 9 years, but nope they are just both cheating cheaters. I'm hoping this resolves in a satisfying way by the end of Fall, but I'm not expecting too much.
posted by ephemerista at 9:58 AM on November 26, 2016


I am not supposed to feel sorry for either of them here, I assume. I do feel for Rory: it's so much *easier* being a student if you're talented. But what has she been doing the past eight years that disaster is only hitting her now?

I am 100% on team Emily Did This On Purpose.
posted by jeather at 7:13 PM on November 26, 2016


RORY GILMORE YOU GET YOUR ROSY LIPS OFF NICK CAVE'S NAME HOW DARE YOU

HOW DARE YOU

oh my god I may not finish this installment never mind the rest of the NETFLIX EVENT.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:13 PM on November 26, 2016 [2 favorites]


Maybe your writing career is bombing because you can't be bothered to write anything.

oh now, it's a bad time in her life, the way cheating on her boyfriend with an affianced man is also a sign of a bad time in her life. the boyfriend and the fiancee, they're probably having terrific lives so they wouldn't understand. this is Rory's tragedy. things just happen to her is all.

HOW Lorelei gets dragged down to the same moral level as her terrible daughter in the common discourse is beyond me. she has redeeming characteristics. plenty of em. several. a few. I have forgotten all the specifics that ever happened in the original run so I will not be surprised if somebody reminds me she cheated on all kinds of people too, but I bet she was waaayyyy better at faking remorse. at least I am sure she would know that it would be an appropriate emotion to fake. and anyway she isn't doing it at the moment. and Luke's absolute spinelessness vis a vis Emily is pathetic although if he were not the kind of man to be walked on he would not be with the woman he is, I suppose. but still, Lorelai telling a white lie about her private therapy is nothing compared to Rory's monstrosity and no worse than Luke keeping his weird mother-in-law situation to himself.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:57 PM on November 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


she has redeeming characteristics.
I think she does. For one, no, she doesn't cheat on anyone. She was pretty appalled the first time she found out Rory was involved in any cheating. Rory never was great with that, honestly. She first kissed Jess when she was dating Dean. (She did the same flustered running off thing that was so adorable/excusable when Dean first kissed her, but was not great for someone with a boyfriend who wanted to stay with him. I might have excused the kiss out of teenagerness if it's what pushed her to realize she was done with Dean and wanted Jess, but she was too clueless for that; Dean had to tell her.) Rory wants to seem nice, but doesn't have much in the way of morals, and I think cares about other people and their feelings as much as Paris does.

Lorelei isn't always nice, but I think most of her meanness comes out with her parents, where anything less gets you pushed into doing things you don't want to do*. And even she got tricked into therapy. And at least Lorelei has morals and notices that other people exist in the world.

*Luke's golfing and buying thousands of dollars of golfing equipment and Rory's debutante ball in particular come to mind.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:23 PM on November 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


Rory, during the show's initial run, was a teenager, not an adult, and was reasonably not held to the same standards as you would expect from an adult.
posted by jeather at 5:52 AM on November 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was surprised by how chill Lorelai was with Rory's revelation that she'd been shacking up with Logan during her trips to London. Logan's not exactly the world's most steadfast person (and neither is Rory), but the most irate I think Lorelai ever got with her daughter was when Rory had sex for the first time with the married Dean.

Engaged isn't married, and I don't think that Lorelai holds Logan in particularly high regard, but still. I thought she would've had a few more things to say, but it's dropped almost as quickly as it comes up.
posted by minsies at 6:01 AM on November 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


Or write a story about how your Mom schmoozing with a worker turned into coveted pastries which turned into shoes and write about the bartering economy.

I thought that's where this was going, and I was totally baffled when Rory sent Lorelai back to the hotel. You need at least three whimsical snow jobs for the story frame, plus wouldn't you at the very least want to see how long she could keep the chain up for? There's at least 5,000 words about the scrappy, resourceful single mother who can talk her way into and out of anything and how it took seeing her mom disappear for five minutes and come back with limited edition Air Jordans and a dozen cronuts for Rory to realize that all of the things she thought appeared by magic throughout her childhood were actually the result of Lorelai's never-ending genius hustle. Then it could transition into Rory becoming a David Sedaris type, writing about her hilarious quirky childhood that is actually, upon closer inspection, a horror show of emotional damage and pain.

But no! She sent her mom, most accomplished line cutter in New York, back to the hotel, fucked a wookie, and then moved back to Stars Hollow. Why haven't any of these characters GROWN even a TINY BIT in the last decade? Why hasn't Rory mentioned the staff writer job she had at IDK Glamour or that magazine about Denver, and how maybe she was wrong and she wasn't ready to freelance? Why haven't Luke and Lorelai gotten married in a quiet civil ceremony and had two kids? (God I WISH they had had two cute kids, because then there could be a story line about Rory being jealous of her siblings' financially stable intact family and because then they could stop hiding Lauren Graham in those knee-length cardigan things and drapey blouses, lest we notice that she only looks better than 96.5% of American women over 40, and not 99.9% of them. My God, the woman practically glows and her hair is like a declaration that God exists.) Why on EARTH didn't Lorelai at least MENTION to the therapist that, actually, they almost did get married one time, they literally had a date and a venue and a dress, but then Luke FREAKED OUT and so now she won't so much as mention the topic lest he bolt like a startled horse AGAIN? Why didn't Luke tell Emily that there's nothing to franchise, really, at the diner, and that he's only able to keep the doors open because he owns the building, and that if Richard wanted Lorelai to be financially secure, they should use the trust money to expand and upgrade the Dragonfly, LIKE LORELAI AND MICHEL DISCUSSED FIFTEEN EFFING MINUTES AGO, because Lorelai is the better businessperson and the more ambitious of the two of them, but that if Richard wanted Lorelai to be with someone who could provide for her financially, they would need to find her a new husband? (Emily: You two aren't married. Luke: Well, that'll make it easier to bring in the next guy.) If not at dinner, then during their real estate tour?

I mean, I guess that's probably where this is going, there's still another three hours, but then I thought Rory was going to write a breakthrough essay about her sort-of-kind-of-not-really-but-it-makes-good-copy disadvantaged upbringing and no dice.

She was pretty appalled the first time she found out Rory was involved in any cheating.

I think that was actually a nice, subtle demonstration of how much time has passed and how their relationship has (hopefully, there's not really any other evidence of it so far) changed. In the first case, Rory is still her kid and Lorelai wants to make sure she is crystal clear about what a shitty, underhanded, cruel and dishonest thing Rory did, and that she shouldn't be proud of it. Now that Rory is an adult, all Lorelai does is gently point out that this will not end the way that Rory wants it to.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 6:43 PM on November 27, 2016 [9 favorites]


> Why didn't Luke tell Emily that there's nothing to franchise, really, at the diner,

Jesus fuck yes and also "this is none of your fucking business, and I am not your child, and I am not leaving my place of business with you." CHRIST.
posted by desuetude at 8:07 PM on November 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


Also, buy a fucking condo, Paris! Jesus god, woman. Buy a goddamn condo.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 10:57 PM on November 27, 2016


The reason I didn't buy it is that (as you say, Snarl Furillo), there hasn't been any other demonstration that their relationship has changed. I didn't expect Lorelai to hit the roof or anything, but I thought her pointing out would've been a little more pointed than it was.
posted by minsies at 5:48 AM on November 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think this was my favorite episode of the four. I loved all the Paris stuff.
posted by DynamiteToast at 10:21 AM on November 29, 2016


I'm really not enjoying this little series so far. I never liked Rory, and she's worse than ever, and while I like Lorelai (while admitting her myriad flaws) I'm with everyone else who is kind of baffled at how little she seems to have grown in these intervening years.

I really loved Paris in the orig series, she was like a delicious, salty little anchovy on a big, cheesy pizza, but I felt like we had way too much Paris being crazy, Paris being overbearing, Paris acting like her children are wooden prop children, Paris lurching around the toilet like a pit fighter. She was fine in Winter, but just whoa, too much in Spring. And why hasn't she left that stupid house if it was Doyle who loved it so? The real Paris would have decamped with the kids and nanny to somewhere better within moments.
posted by glitter at 7:35 PM on November 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


The Fug Girls recap.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:06 AM on December 1, 2016


I don't blame Sandee for revoking the offer, but everyone seems to be reading that scene like Rory came to an interview completely unprepared, and I don't think that's it. I think in her mind, Rory came to her first day of work. She legitimately thought she was starting work that day. When they sit down and she asks if she should have brought her laptop (because there's no workstation for her), and when she makes the comment about how she's wearing the wrong outfit? She wasn't prepared to pitch because she showed up thinking she was already an employee.

Not saying that totally excuses it, THINK ON YOUR FEET JUST A LITTLE, GIRL, but I had a totally different read on that situation than a lot of people, I think.
posted by terilou at 1:22 PM on December 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


Maybe it's wrong, but I whooped with joy when Sandee told it was stupid that she had 3 phones.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:40 AM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


> everyone seems to be reading that scene like Rory came to an interview completely unprepared, and I don't think that's it. I think in her mind, Rory came to her first day of work. She legitimately thought she was starting work that day. When they sit down and she asks if she should have brought her laptop (because there's no workstation for her), and when she makes the comment about how she's wearing the wrong outfit? She wasn't prepared to pitch because she showed up thinking she was already an employee.

...wouldn't that make it even more likely that she'd be asked to have content to pitch? Since that would literally be the job...

Also, c'mon, who on earth thinks that they're an employee without an official offer and a discussion about compensation?
posted by desuetude at 9:59 AM on December 2, 2016


I don't blame Sandee for revoking the offer, but everyone seems to be reading that scene like Rory came to an interview completely unprepared, and I don't think that's it. I think in her mind, Rory came to her first day of work.

I agree, I was torn this whole episode between "goddamn it Rory, prepare a little" and my own experiences of having people basically promise me a job and walk me around the office showing me "my" desk and where the coffee is, and then just abruptly announce "nah, we were always going to hire internally, you weren't really in the running, we don't like your shoes, or whatever."

Like, you should always be more prepared than you think you'll need to be. Always. but also? People are horrible monsters who suck. It would be surprising that Rory made it to age 32 without encountering a lot of monsters, though, especially in publishing.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:22 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


« Older Gilmore Girls: A Year in the L...   |  Gilmore Girls: A Year in the L... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster