Gilmore Girls: P.S. I Lo...
January 27, 2025 9:35 AM - Season 1, Episode 20 - Subscribe

Rory runs away to her grandparents. Lorelai buys Luke some new clothes. Mrs. Kim inspects Lane's new science partner.

Heading into the Season 1 finale next episode, this one is high on emotional stakes and low on plot developments, mostly table-setting for the week to come.

Rory has done her household errands list, her partying and ill-advised rebound kiss with Tristan, her highly-advised wallowing, and her attempts at living vicariously through Paris and Lane's sputtering love-lives, and is now fully into the angry, mopey, teenagery stage of post-breakup malaise. She's not sleeping well, she's distracted in class, and her attempts at avoiding Dean can only be so successful when they both live in the same small town the size of, well, the Warner Bros. "Midwest Street" backlot.

Lane is paired-up with Dean for a science project, and Rory pops in to find them working together, and doesn't take it well. Then, at Chilton, Max Medina offers to talk with her about what she's going through, inadvertently informing Rory that 1.) Max and Lorelai are kinda-sorta back together now, and 2.) that Max knows about the breakup. Lane meets Rory's bus after school with some olive-branch coffee and Rory throws it in the trash. Lorelai catches up to her and Rory lays into her mother, sick of everybody trying to "protect" her. Since Rory doesn't want to go into Doose's Market (where Dean is likely working) she says she'll meet Lorelai at home, and then impulsively grabs a cab up to Hartford instead.

Lorelai accosts Dean about hurting Rory this way, and Dean gives her his version of what happened, which Lorelai takes at face-value because, well, Rory hasn't given her any details about it. When Lorelai arrives home to the empty house, she freaks out, calling Sookie and Luke over to help lead a search party, and gets a call from Emily saying that Rory showed up on their doorstep. Emily won't put Rory on the phone, however, and there's a gloating kind of cruelty that shines through all of her "what's best for Rory" posturing here which might be in its own way Emily at her absolute worst.*

Before Rory's spur-of-the-moment cab ride, Lorelai spent the episode trying to help Luke buy a decent birthday present for Rachel (his attempt on his own netted a cat-shaped pot-holder that meows when you put it on.) Since he hates malls on principle(s), Lorelai goes for him, finding a nice new bag for Rachel to replace the one she's got that's falling apart, but also a new wardrobe for Luke that he definitely didn't ask for. As she's taking him through the fashion show, Rachel walks in, and everyone tries to play it off like it's not weird, but it's weird.

The next day, Lorelai picks Rory up in Hartford, and they hug it out and apologize. They go back to Stars Hollow, and Rory hugs it out and apologizes to Lane. Rory's a good kid and everyone's allowed one bad day every once in a while. Oh, and Max is upset that Lorelai didn't tell Rory about them, but, you know, for his own sake rather than Rory's. Lorelai ends the episode with the phone book in her lap attempting to rectify this absolute non-issue.

*I've noted this before, back in "Paris is Burning," but it's interesting to me that, since the characters in this show largely live in a state of oblivious self-absorption that continually gets in the way of their genuine attempts to be there for each other, the relatively rare occasions where a character crosses the line into malice seem to make them, in anything, more sympathetic and relatable, both because we usually have a sense for what pushed them across that line, and because malice at least shows a level of emotional understanding that allows it to be used to hurt the other person. I feel like that's the case with Emily here.

A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh

Soundtrack: None.

Random Guest Star Watch: None.
posted by Navelgazer (1 comment total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Beyond the logistics of how you find a cab in Stars Hollow, I like that Rory runs away to her ... grandparents. Like she knows no one else to go to. But I think that's actually a good thing. Her grandparents should be a safe space for her and while Emily does gloat over it, I absolutely agree with her that Rory and Lorelai need some time apart from each other.

Lorelai has such poor boundaries with Luke. Buying gifts for him for Rachel is ... well, that's weird, but fine. But her buying clothes for Luke? That's going way too far.

I liked Max when I first watched this show but I like him less and less the more I rewatch it. He really doesn't think about what Lorelai may need but only what he wants.

Dean kind of left out the whole "and I got really mad because Rory wouldn't say she loved me back after 3 months" bit of the story. (I still don't think he comes across all that great, though. Yes, Dean, everyone thinks you were a jerk because you were a jerk.) I also wish Lorelai was more on Rory's side although I like what she tells Rory overall.
posted by edencosmic at 3:32 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]


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