A Christmas Episode About Getting Divorced

We Watch Episode 142 (Together!): "Santa's Secret Stuff"

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xoxo

Maggie and Megan

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What’s Wrong With Episode 141: All This Holiday Cheer Has a Very Gloomy Subtext

Oh, dear.

Previously on Gilmore Girls...

Maggie: “Santa's Secret Stuff”? That's a terrible title! Sounds like they're talking about sperm or something.

Megan: Maggie, this is a family TV show!

Lorelai and Gigi are playing because apparently now Lorelai is a stepmom. *GROAN* Rory is for some reason returning from the airport and Lorelai is very angry that she didn't ask for a ride even though Rory parked at the airport.

Maggie: Where was she?

Megan: I don't remember!

Maggie: Ooooh, she went to London!

Megan: Ooooh OK.

Rory says "hi little sister" to Gigi.

Maggie: Weird that they just have a relationship all of a sudden!!!

Christopher and Lorelai get in an argument over who ripped off whose joke about driving on the other side of the road. Lorelai says, "That's like saying Lenny Bruce rips off carrot top or Woody Allen gets his material from what's his name — the guy with the watermelons."

Maggie: Boooo, Woody Allen reference.

For some reason, Lorelai gets angry that Rory clearly celebrated Christmas with Logan in London (ostensibly why she was there) when they promised to wait to do Christmas together.

Maggie: Look at Rory's TINY eyebrows!?!?!

Megan: They are so little!

Maggie: They're perhaps the tiniest they've ever been!! Also, they are fighting about it being Christmas and not snowing but it is clearly summer in LA right now.

Megan: And I've seen this set now, so when I see it on the show, I realize that's just astroturf!

Lorelai tells Rory she did an "anti-snow" dance to ward off the snow until she arrived.

Megan: Well, they wrote it into the script. At least they're aware of it.

Later, Christopher is carrying seven Christmas trees inside because they were able to buy them for $1 a tree, since it is now nearly one week after Christmas. Christopher thinks they are ugly trees. Lorelai is telling Gigi all about their decorations and claims she used to do Santa's dry cleaning.

Maggie: It's just very weird that Gigi just suddenly lives in their house!!

Lorelai asks Rory what happened in London, and if everything worked out alright with "the Marty and Lucy dinner debacle." Rory says he apologized a lot and admitted he was a little jealous. "Well that's good," Lorelai says.

Maggie: Is it? Is it good, Lorelai!?

Christopher tries to hang up mistletoe and Lorelai and Rory tell him they put it on a ceiling fan upstiars so that the "kissing is more like a sport," and then they tell him all their quirky Gilmore Christmas traditions, like pretending to bake cookies and getting candy cane coffee from Weston's, and putting red and green M&M's in their cereal.

Megan: I love this! I do think that this episode does a good job of establishing Christmas traditions that have never been introduced before on the show. I think they're all pretty plausible for the characters, too.

Christopher insists they need new stockings and that they should go caroling to start new traditions! He then begins singing "Gloria, in excelsis deo" in a terrible faux bass.

Maggie: No! You cannot go caroling! It's after Christmas! Ugh! Just get rid of Christopher already!!

Megan: Yeah.

Luke comes into The Dragonfly to find Lorelai. Michel tries to make small talk but instead just makes fun of Luke and then insists they just stand in awkward silence while they wait for Lorelai.

Maggie: I feel like Michel and Luke would actually be friends. They're both so particular and grumpy.

Luke tells Lorelai that Anna is moving to New Mexico with April and that she won't let Luke have visitation with her on weekends or during the summer. "In fact, Anna won't let me see April at all right now." So Luke says he has to fight for custody, go to court, get a lawyer, etc.

Maggie: That is actually absurd and I don't think he wouldn't be allowed to see April during this process. Like if anything they encourage dads to contact regardless. It's not like Luke has a record or something.

Megan: Maybe he does, and that's the real reason all of this is happening.

Luke asks Lorelai to write a character reference letter for the judge. She immediately says yes. He awkwardly shakes her hand as he leaves.

Maggie: Shake hands! Yeah, you used to love him. You probably shouldn't have married Christopher, dumb-dumb.

Megan: Yeah, I think this episode does a good job of kind of getting them back on track.

Lorelai is eating strawberries at The Dragonfly and telling Sookie how stressful the character reference is to write because there's so much pressure. Sookie agrees and says, plus it must be hard since it's Luke, and all the feelings, etc. and Lorelai insists that no, it's just about making sure Luke doesn't lose his kid. She wants to write the Gettysburg Address or the I Have a Dream speech of character references. Weird.

Maggie: She has time to just sit around doing this at work?

Megan: I mean, that's what I always do on the job, I just sit around writing character references and eating strawberries.

Maggie: Oh, no, I forgot Lane is pregnant.

Lane is working at the diner and someone asks "is it twins?" She goes off on them about how assuming someone is pregnant just because they're "plus sized" and "carry weight in their belly" is offensive. Then chastises another customer for tipping her 50%: "I'm pregnant, not homeless!"

Megan: That was a weird interaction!

April arrives at the Diner. She immediately mentions how Lane "is gigantic!" Then she tells Luke she lied to her mom about where she was so she could see him. They go upstairs to have tuna fish sandwiches and exchange Christmas gifts.

Lorelai and Rory and Gigi are making popcorn garlands and discussing how there are no guidelines to the character reference and how everything she writes comes out very hokey.

Maggie: Why are they using buttered popcorn to make garlands? That seems like a bad idea!

Megan: But also seems like something they would do.

Maggie: True. Also Rory's hair looks good! This is a good haircut for her.

Lorelai starts to tell Rory why she can't just write whatever comes to her mind and edit it later because her mind "is a wild jungle full of scary gibberish." She gives an example citing everything from what she was wearing to that she should be driving a hybrid car to: "Hockey puck. Rattlesnake. Monkey, monkey. Underpants."

Megan: This is actually a really good depiction of Lorelai's stream of consciousness.

Lorelai tries to convince Rory to write the letter for her, but she refuses. She says this is something Lorelai needs to do for herself. Lorelai says maybe getting her electric typewriter out will help.

Megan:Why does Lorelai have a typewriter?

Maggie: I dunno. I think she would have used one in high school probably, right?

Megan: That's possible.

Lane comes home, looking very uncomfortable, angry, and pregnant. Mrs. Kim and Zach have conspired to buy groceries that are good for Lane and both start peppering her with questions about her physical body, what she's consuming, whether she's urinating enough, if she wants compression pantyhose to help with her circulation, etc. It is not great!

Maggie: Lane's baby bump is very fake looking!

Megan: Yeah, it's just like they’re treating the entire idea of pregnancy as a joke.

Maggie: It's like literally a balloon under her shirt.

Megan: It's like a character in Willy Wonka. The girl who turns into a blueberry!

When Lane sees that Zach has put her drum kit in the closet to make room for baby things she's livid. He questions whether she can "even play ... in her condition." YIKES.

Megan: They're making pregnancy look like the most monstrous thing that can happen to you.

Meanwhile, at Weston's Lorelai is very upset that they are no longer selling candy-cane coffee as it is after Christmas. Rory is trying to convince her to just write the letter for Luke. She also asks why Lorelai seems to be hiding the fact that she is writing this character reference for Luke from Christopher.

Megan: I want candy cane coffee.

Maggie: Me too.

Maggie: Do they not know about the fist fight?

Megan: I guess they don't?

Lorelai explains that if she cannot be honest with Christopher about this because "Things with Dad are great. They're better than great."

Maggie: No they're not.

Megan: Yeah, they're bad.

Lorelai divulges to Rory that there's some tension because Christopher saw her holding Liz's baby with Luke there, and the "not a wedding party" Emily is throwing. Rory tells her mom that she doesn't have to pretend to make a magical Christmas anymore for her. "But you still believe in Santa, though, right?" Lorelai asks. "Your best dry-cleaning client? Of course."

Megan: I really love all of their interaction in this episode.

Up in Luke's apartment, Luke and April are exchanging Christmas gifts. April tells Luke all the recent drama about swim team, while Luke tries to convince her that the New Mexico swim team will probably be great. April is not having it.

Megan: I also like their vibe more.

Maggie: Yeah, Luke is doing a really good job of being a good parent here.

April opens a rock polisher from Luke, but it turns out she's already gotten one from her grandma. She tells Luke all about her rock collection and how she's been biking out to Beacon Falls to look for rocks with a friend. Luke tells her that if she's interested in arrowheads, New Mexico "is an incredible place" to find them. But April cuts him off.

Megan: Beacon Falls is a real place!

Christopher walks in when Lorelai is working on the letter in her bedroom to ask about the Christmas lights. She hides what she's working on and when he asks, she says "Just some of Santa's secret stuff."

Meanwhile, at band practice, Zach is talking about all the ways to hold a baby: The belly hold, he says, “is really great for gassy babies.”

Megan: It's good that he's sort of trying to prepare.

Maggie: It is definitely good, but annoying for Lane who wants to not be a mom.

Megan: Yeah, it's too bad that abortion doesn't exist in this universe.

Gil arrives with a child in tow, due to babysitter problems, and greets Lane and Zach in the most disgusting way possible: “Check you out, Lane. You are some kind of serious fertility goddess. Zach, nice work, man.”

Maggie: Gross, ew, hate that!

Now Gill is talking about how formula and breastfeeding are both good options for feeding babies: “Yeah I mean, some people go with the formula deal, which is cool, too. Actually, for baby number two, we did use formula.”

Maggie: This is kind of good?

Megan: Yeah, it's very normalizing.

Gil continues, and things get weird again: “I mean, if you use formula, the old lady can smoke, drink, eat as many tacos as she wants — no problemo.”

Maggie: You can also eat tacos while breastfeeding. I don't know why that's a problem!

Megan: I like that he says either formula or breastfeeding is fine.

Cut to Lorelai and Rory doing their belated Christmas shopping.

Maggie: So they're celebrating Christmas with everyone else late too?

Megan: I guess so. It's always weird to me when they're in a real space.

Lorelai and Rory run into Luke and April, and April is delighted by the knowledge that Rory is just back from visiting Logan in London. “Meeting a lover in a foreign city — how glamorous,” she says. “I can't wait to be grown up and glamorous and make my own decisions about where I go and when. Being a kid is the pits sometimes.”

Maggie: I love April.

Megan: She really grows on me in this season. I feel like she's written in a much better way.

Now we’re hearing about all the boring or unicorn-focused gifts Luke has ever bought Rory.

Maggie: They really turned Luke around in this episode.

Megan: Yeah, he has a good personality now.

Meanwhile, Lane is being tortured by her mother and husband who are being obnoxiously solicitous about her pregnancy.

Maggie: It's also the worst to be treated like you're disabled when you're pregnant—like you just can't do anything for yourself and you're not allowed to carry anything.

Megan: Yeah, I kind of hate her storyline.

Zach is trying to talk Lane down from her parenting fears by saying Mick Jagger “has like 18 kids and he still goes out and rocks.”

Maggie: Yeah, he's a man. Please get an IUD, Lane. I don't know about Zach being a good guy.

Megan: I just hate their storyline.

Maggie: Yeah, it's just forcing Lane into a husband she doesn't want and not being able to actually do the things she wants to do.

Megan: I know. It's really sad. It's really a tragic storyline.

Maggie: I hate that she's living with the dudes still.

Back at the Gilmore House, it’s time for Lorelai to secretly write Luke’s character reference.

Megan: She really does have an old-fashioned typewriter.

Maggie: Is she hiding her typing a letter on a typewriter from Christopher?

Megan: Oh, look, she has “Wolf Girl” there!

Maggie: Because it is something she'd have in her house.

End credits.

Maggie: You put this whole family together and you're just gonna rip it apart again. You did it without thinking at all. Augh! I hate this. I mean, like I'm glad whatever this is like the new writers finally coming around to getting the narrative to get to where they wanted to go, but I hate it also. I hate that we're in season 7, episode 11.

Megan: Episode 11! We have so many more to go! This episode, though. I kind of like it, because I like all the stuff with Rory and Lorelai. And I feel like Alexis Bledel seems more comfortable and doing a better job.

Maggie: She's really funny.

Megan: Yeah, she's goofy and weird.

Maggie: And also we don't have to see Logan.

Megan: Yeah, no Logan, and then I also like that they're able to create all of these Gilmore Christmas traditions that we've never seen before, and yet I buy all of them.

Maggie: Yeah, they totally make sense. Yeah, I like it too. I like it. It just hurts for what the characters have had to get through to get to this point.

Megan: I know. And the stuff with Lane is like a tragedy. It's like watching a tragic storyline, but it's somehow like on this cute family show. Meanwhile Lane has been forced to give birth to twins and not enjoy her young adulthood after growing up in a repressive household. It's so sad.

Maggie: And the only way that she might have a break sometimes is by allowing her extremely repressive mother into her home to help raise her own children. I don't love it!

Megan: No, no, I hate what they do to her character.

Maggie: And like, the pregnancy talk is just the cherry on top of that. That is absurd. She does not look realistically pregnant at all.

Megan: I feel like on this show like Sookie is pregnant, and they really don't make her look pregnant at all. It's like they can't conceive of a person in a larger body being pregnant, but then with Lane, they're like, oh, well, you know, she's petite and she's having twins so she's going to look like she literally has a balloon under her shirt.

Maggie: Yeah, it's very, very upsetting. It's very upsetting. I guess I'm probably most sad for Gigi because I'm like she's in this nice home, this nice family. And it's not like they carry on a relationship with Gigi, or ever did originally. Which is absurd because she's Rory's sister. They never tried to have a relationship with Gigi. And now she's part of their family, but Lorelai is about to blow it all up.

Megan: In a way I kind of like that you get to see what it would be like for them to actually try to be a family together. Because that's something that's been teased over the course of the previous seasons, but yeah, I agree, it's upsetting when you actually think about what that would be like, to be like, Oh, we're finally going to do this for real and then to just have it fall apart again.

Maggie: Yeah. They fully uprooted her. They moved from Boston.

Megan: And think about how much upheaval she's had: her mom got pregnant, and they weren't married. And so then they got together because she was going to be born. And then, her mom fucked off to France and doesn't see her anymore. And so she has this inept single father. And then now she has this momentary stability with this nice stepmom and her half sister. What's gonna happen to Gigi?

Maggie: Yeah, truly. Gigi must be mentioned in the revival. Is she living in France or something? She definitely isn't in it, right?

Megan: No, I don't think so. But it is wild that they introduce this person who is Rory's biological half sister and then they're just like, "Yeah, I don't know. She's kind of bratty. We don't really talk about it."

Maggie: Yeah. "We don't like her. I guess we can live here, because we are married haphazardly.” I don't know, man. It is a good episode.

Megan: It has its moments, for sure. And the next episode is kind of nice too, because it's when they have the character reference. Oh, also as stupid men's rights-y as all the Luke stuff is, I do like his relationship with April better in this.

Maggie: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like it's a messed up presentation to be like, ‘Oh, they always say that the mother wins,’ so you know, you are gonna have to do this. Like you're not allowed to see her right now because that's not typically how it is. Usually full custody will go to the mother but taking away visitation and whatever from the father is actually almost never done. It's very hard to do. And that is driving me a little nuts.

Megan: I know, they are just kind of implying that his parental rights —

Maggie: That he has no parental rights.

Megan: Which is not true, he's her biological father.

Maggie: He never was told about her! The family was very messy and effed up, but I don't know. I want Luke to be good again, and he is good in this one.

Megan: I think he is. I think this is where he stops being a terrible person, I think for pretty much the rest of the season.

Maggie: Because they have to bring Luke and Lorelai back together.

Megan: Yeah.

Maggie: I think there's just something so depressing about like being in the middle of season 7 and just watching them pick up the pieces and try to fix everything. And I'm like, Okay, but why didn't they do this two seasons ago? It just makes me sad.

Megan: Yeah, no, it is sad. It's sad. And it's also just like Season Six is such a mess. But it's like they're left with such shitty pieces that they have to put back together.

Maggie: Yeah, it takes so long.

Megan: And it almost feels kind of inert, I think, as a result because it doesn't have the energy of the prior season.

Maggie: Because it hasn't moved forward, because they had to go back and redo everything basically, instead of actually advancing. I mean, it's the same thing with A Year in the Life. It's like you just kept everyone in stasis for 16 years and then animated them and now this is what we have to watch? No, again, it's the problem with the inability for the characters to develop on this show. Come on, just let people grow!

Megan: Or just change, even if they get worse. I always maintain that there's the option to just make them worse, but like, you need to do it in a way that makes sense where it's like, I don't think that Luke's evolution makes sense at all.

Maggie: Or Rory's.

Megan: Or Rory's. Or Lorelai's. The characters all become really unlikable, and they do things that don't make sense. And you can do that. You can write people who are unlikable, and messy. Like Yellowjackets is full of women who are unlikable and messy. But in that show, you understand their motivations all the time. And they're rooted very well in their characterizations and their dramatic backstories. And in this, it's just like we just don't know how to write a character consistently.

Maggie: Yeah, yeah.

Megan: “Santa's Secret Stuff”!

Maggie: “Santa's Secret Stuff”, turns out, is Lorelai trying to divorce Christopher.

Megan: That's really dark. This is a Christmas episode about deciding to get a divorce.

Maggie: It did make me want candy cane coffee, though.

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