Gilmore Girls: Love, Daisies and Troubadours
January 27, 2025 11:57 AM - Season 1, Episode 21 - Subscribe
Tristan gets Rory tickets to P.J. Harvey. The Town Troubadour gets some competition. Max gets Lorelai some flowers. (Season 1 finale)
We start with Lorelai waking up to some sort of banging of unknown origin, and her waking up the sleeping-fine Rory, and then discovering the source to be Luke fixing her porch handrail of his own volition at 6:30 in the morning. She yells at him a lot, locks herself out of the house, angers Babette of all people, and once an annoyed Rory opens the door for her, Luke is nowhere to be seen.
It's a weird (if funny) cold-open that plays like Lorelai is having a Luke-related hallucination, which wouldn't be surprising or anything, but as the episode goes on it's clear that, no, Luke is just showing up at the Gilmore house to fix things without being asked. What's more, Rachel can't seem to find him. This escalates from the porch, to the roof, to straight-up breaking into the house (and leaving behind his toolbox, which Lorelai names "Bert.")
At Chilton, Tristan surprises Rory with P.J. Harvey tickets, an act made all the more surprising because 1.) Tristan has paid enough attention to know that Rory is a P.J. Harvey fan but not enough to know anything about P.J. Harvey, including that she's a woman, and 2.) because Rory is so disinterested in Tristan that she refuses the tickets in order to keep away from him. Undeterred, he traipses right over to Paris, Madeline and Louise to brag about how he's taking Rory to the concert, because he doesn't want miss a chance to stir up some shit for no particular reason.
Rory finds the Dean Box that Lorelai put in the closet, is grateful that her mom disobeyed her orders to throw it away, and goes to Dean's house. There she meets his little sister Clara* but bolts when she hears Dean coming to the door.
At the town meeting, the Town Troubadour (who we've seen a number of times by now but with no explanation given nor requested other than "Stars Hollow is weird") raises a stink about a competing Town Troubadour stepping to his turf. Rory, who's been making eyes towards Dean throughout the meeting, makes a weird impromptu speech that barely even tries to be about the dueling guitarists and is really about wanting to make things right with her ex-boyfriend, but at the end of the meeting, Dean has dashed off (and we don't even get to see his flaily-arm run.)
Luke gets back to the diner just in time to see Rachel leaving for good (that's unfair - they make a point that she waited for him so as to tell him goodbye.) It's because she sees the same palpable chemistry with Lorelai that everyone else sees, and she tells him not to wait to long to act upon it, and for once, he at least tacitly acknowledges that she's right.
So Luke heads over to the GiImore house again, right before Max arrives for a date with Lorelai. The two men puff their chests at each other while kinda pretending to be civil, and Luke leaves without his toolbox again. Max asks what's going on there, Lorelai says nothing, they get into a minor fight, and Max proposes out of nowhere, which pisses off Lorelai for presumably any number of reasons, but the one that she communicates is that he did it all wrong, and that there should be music and a subtle build-up and a thousand yellow daisies and candles and a horse and on and on.
At Chilton, Madeline and Louise are icing Rory out, and Rory has to pull teeth from Paris to find out that it's about Tristan and the damn P.J. Harvey concert. Paris refuses to believe anything but the worst, no matter how much Rory objects, and promises to make them working together on The Franklin (the school paper) a living hell. Tristan shows up to badger Rory into saying yes to their date, gets whiny and entitled about it, and holds her damn books hostage. Rory sees Dean and runs to him, but Dean can't read body language and gets all angry about Rory clearly being with Tristan now, so Rory finally says "I love you" to Dean in order to cut through the bullshit. They make out a lot by Dean's truck, and a defeated Tristan mopes away.
At the Inn, Kirk and Michel argue about a flower delivery that Michel didn't make, and Lorelai enters to find a thousand yellow daisies. Dumbstruck, she calls Max, who proposes again over the phone, and asks her to think it over. Lorelai brings one of the flowers to Luke (everyone in town gets one, she says) but doesn't tell him what's up, since she "needs to tell Rory first." We end on the two women running to each other to share their exciting news.
*How Rory has never met Dean's sister is beyond me, and she even seems surprised to learn that he has one. This raises a lot of questions that aren't quite interesting enough to ponder on because Dean, and Rory's relationship with him, are fundamentally uninteresting. That said, this scene is probably Alexis Bledel's funniest one on the series so far, with her interactions with Clara finding new facets of weird, awkward, and unintentionally creepy with every line, culminating in her hilarious arms-flailing run away at the end.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"One Line" - P.J. Harvey
"My Little Corner of the World" - Yo La Tengo
Random Guest Star Watch: Dave (Gruber) Allen as The Second Troubadour. I have no idea how much of a recognizable name/face he is for the general public, but as someone who watched Freaks & Geeks a million times back in the day, he'll forever be known to me as Mr. Rosso the Guidance Counselor.
We start with Lorelai waking up to some sort of banging of unknown origin, and her waking up the sleeping-fine Rory, and then discovering the source to be Luke fixing her porch handrail of his own volition at 6:30 in the morning. She yells at him a lot, locks herself out of the house, angers Babette of all people, and once an annoyed Rory opens the door for her, Luke is nowhere to be seen.
It's a weird (if funny) cold-open that plays like Lorelai is having a Luke-related hallucination, which wouldn't be surprising or anything, but as the episode goes on it's clear that, no, Luke is just showing up at the Gilmore house to fix things without being asked. What's more, Rachel can't seem to find him. This escalates from the porch, to the roof, to straight-up breaking into the house (and leaving behind his toolbox, which Lorelai names "Bert.")
At Chilton, Tristan surprises Rory with P.J. Harvey tickets, an act made all the more surprising because 1.) Tristan has paid enough attention to know that Rory is a P.J. Harvey fan but not enough to know anything about P.J. Harvey, including that she's a woman, and 2.) because Rory is so disinterested in Tristan that she refuses the tickets in order to keep away from him. Undeterred, he traipses right over to Paris, Madeline and Louise to brag about how he's taking Rory to the concert, because he doesn't want miss a chance to stir up some shit for no particular reason.
Rory finds the Dean Box that Lorelai put in the closet, is grateful that her mom disobeyed her orders to throw it away, and goes to Dean's house. There she meets his little sister Clara* but bolts when she hears Dean coming to the door.
At the town meeting, the Town Troubadour (who we've seen a number of times by now but with no explanation given nor requested other than "Stars Hollow is weird") raises a stink about a competing Town Troubadour stepping to his turf. Rory, who's been making eyes towards Dean throughout the meeting, makes a weird impromptu speech that barely even tries to be about the dueling guitarists and is really about wanting to make things right with her ex-boyfriend, but at the end of the meeting, Dean has dashed off (and we don't even get to see his flaily-arm run.)
Luke gets back to the diner just in time to see Rachel leaving for good (that's unfair - they make a point that she waited for him so as to tell him goodbye.) It's because she sees the same palpable chemistry with Lorelai that everyone else sees, and she tells him not to wait to long to act upon it, and for once, he at least tacitly acknowledges that she's right.
So Luke heads over to the GiImore house again, right before Max arrives for a date with Lorelai. The two men puff their chests at each other while kinda pretending to be civil, and Luke leaves without his toolbox again. Max asks what's going on there, Lorelai says nothing, they get into a minor fight, and Max proposes out of nowhere, which pisses off Lorelai for presumably any number of reasons, but the one that she communicates is that he did it all wrong, and that there should be music and a subtle build-up and a thousand yellow daisies and candles and a horse and on and on.
At Chilton, Madeline and Louise are icing Rory out, and Rory has to pull teeth from Paris to find out that it's about Tristan and the damn P.J. Harvey concert. Paris refuses to believe anything but the worst, no matter how much Rory objects, and promises to make them working together on The Franklin (the school paper) a living hell. Tristan shows up to badger Rory into saying yes to their date, gets whiny and entitled about it, and holds her damn books hostage. Rory sees Dean and runs to him, but Dean can't read body language and gets all angry about Rory clearly being with Tristan now, so Rory finally says "I love you" to Dean in order to cut through the bullshit. They make out a lot by Dean's truck, and a defeated Tristan mopes away.
At the Inn, Kirk and Michel argue about a flower delivery that Michel didn't make, and Lorelai enters to find a thousand yellow daisies. Dumbstruck, she calls Max, who proposes again over the phone, and asks her to think it over. Lorelai brings one of the flowers to Luke (everyone in town gets one, she says) but doesn't tell him what's up, since she "needs to tell Rory first." We end on the two women running to each other to share their exciting news.
*How Rory has never met Dean's sister is beyond me, and she even seems surprised to learn that he has one. This raises a lot of questions that aren't quite interesting enough to ponder on because Dean, and Rory's relationship with him, are fundamentally uninteresting. That said, this scene is probably Alexis Bledel's funniest one on the series so far, with her interactions with Clara finding new facets of weird, awkward, and unintentionally creepy with every line, culminating in her hilarious arms-flailing run away at the end.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"One Line" - P.J. Harvey
"My Little Corner of the World" - Yo La Tengo
Random Guest Star Watch: Dave (Gruber) Allen as The Second Troubadour. I have no idea how much of a recognizable name/face he is for the general public, but as someone who watched Freaks & Geeks a million times back in the day, he'll forever be known to me as Mr. Rosso the Guidance Counselor.
Maybe if one watched this show week by week rather than binge-watching model we watch it by now, Rory's love for Dean would've felt more ... apparent? The episodes after their breakup, Rory was sad, sure, but I never really felt like she was pining for Dean or realizing she actually loved him.
(Dean's whole conniption when he shows up at Chilton is so exhausting. As is Rory's "Because I love you, you idiot!" Do you, really? And I hate that this scene uses one of the songs off my favorite PJ Harvey album.)
And yeah, it was 2001, but apparently they was no Internet so Tristan couldn't look up who PJ Harvey was (I've been online since 1995, though ...). Also, Tristan continues to be the worst. Part of it is that his character is so underwritten but it just seems like he wants to prove he can have Rory more than any sort of real attraction. When he was initially calling her "Mary," that was one thing. But he doesn't actually seem to like her.
Amy Sherman-Palladino & Daniel Palladino seem to like male aggression especially as a representation of some kind of possession of loyalty, which is why we have that scene between Max and Luke. I think that gets more and more exhausting as the show continues.
(Once again, this is Gilmore Girls world but I'm not sure how 1,000 yellow daisies were that easily found, but I'll let it go. This show isn't meant to be real.)
I do feel like Rachel was good to "nope" out of there because good for her, but also, it just seemed like a quick way to get rid of a character who just a few episodes ago was all "I want to stay here!!!!!"
I agree the Clara stuff is funny and the show never quite knows how old Clara is supposed to be. Dean's whole family life is constantly a mystery throughout the series.
Dave (Gruber) Allen is one of my favorite character actors. He shows up, does his weird thing and it's always good. Apparently, he was only in 4 episodes of this show but I always assumed he was in more. That's how much of a presence he has.
posted by edencosmic at 6:02 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
(Dean's whole conniption when he shows up at Chilton is so exhausting. As is Rory's "Because I love you, you idiot!" Do you, really? And I hate that this scene uses one of the songs off my favorite PJ Harvey album.)
And yeah, it was 2001, but apparently they was no Internet so Tristan couldn't look up who PJ Harvey was (I've been online since 1995, though ...). Also, Tristan continues to be the worst. Part of it is that his character is so underwritten but it just seems like he wants to prove he can have Rory more than any sort of real attraction. When he was initially calling her "Mary," that was one thing. But he doesn't actually seem to like her.
Amy Sherman-Palladino & Daniel Palladino seem to like male aggression especially as a representation of some kind of possession of loyalty, which is why we have that scene between Max and Luke. I think that gets more and more exhausting as the show continues.
(Once again, this is Gilmore Girls world but I'm not sure how 1,000 yellow daisies were that easily found, but I'll let it go. This show isn't meant to be real.)
I do feel like Rachel was good to "nope" out of there because good for her, but also, it just seemed like a quick way to get rid of a character who just a few episodes ago was all "I want to stay here!!!!!"
I agree the Clara stuff is funny and the show never quite knows how old Clara is supposed to be. Dean's whole family life is constantly a mystery throughout the series.
Dave (Gruber) Allen is one of my favorite character actors. He shows up, does his weird thing and it's always good. Apparently, he was only in 4 episodes of this show but I always assumed he was in more. That's how much of a presence he has.
posted by edencosmic at 6:02 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
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• Both of our leads end the episode by getting together with personality-free obvious Baxters.
• In Lorelai's case, they even gave the "real" romantic interest his own storyline where he almost makes his big play.
• Last-Minute setting up for drama to come next year (see: Paris vowing to make things awful for Rory for no really good reason)
• Just a hint of too-cute self-congratuation (it's not especially grating to me, as these things go, but the Town Troubadour subplot feels a bit like, I dunno, a victory lap for having made it to the end of season one? Like the Palladinos want to point to how they sprinkled the Town Troubadour in earlier in the season without explaining him and then accept their gold star for it? Whatever, Grant Lee Phillips is a fun presence and Dave (Gruber) Allen's cameo can forgive any number of things.)
But really, I think it's the "ennui" scene that while funny, goes absolutely nowhere. In an episode pretty stuffed with Big Plot, this roadside attraction comes across like it was someone's writing-room-darling that kept getting cut from earlier episodes, and they were finally allowed to shoehorn it in here. Also, it gives Sookie something to do here (whereas Michel has the scene with Kirk at the end, and Emily & Richard don't appear at all, I don't think.)
posted by Navelgazer at 12:57 PM on January 27