A Sad Dad Movie Starring Christopher

We Watch Episode 142 (Together!): "To Whom It May Concern"

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What’s Wrong With Episode 142: “To Whom It May Concern”? We Are Concerned By All These Men’s Rights Storylines

Christopher, Rory, and Lorelai are leaving Friday Night Dinner at the elder Gilmores. Richard is sharing a silly joke and Lorelai says now Christopher is "officially part of the family."

Maggie: As though he's never been to the Gilmore house before!

Megan: Yeah, this is really weird.

As they compliment dinner, we find out they were served something called "Quail Mazatlan," and Emily says she's so sorry but she can't make their meeting to go over the seating chart for the party because she has an emergency DAR meeting.

Maggie: An emergency DAR meeting! What could that possibly be about?

Outside the house, Christopher, Rory and Lorelai insist they must all find some way to get rid of the Quail Mazatlan they have apparently ALL smuggled out from dinner because it tasted that terrible!?!?! Opening credits!

Maggie: I would think they would like quail?

Megan: I know it didn't sound that bad to me.

Maggie: No. Quail isn't that weird. It's just like a little chicken? Or I dunno, a little bird!?

Megan: Yeah, sometimes I think the writing becomes a little sitcom-y this season. Ha. Ha. Situational comedy!

Sookie shows up at Lorelai's door apparently before Lorelai has gotten out of bed. She has coffee and freshly baked muffin tops. Lorelai is grouchy about being woken up, as usual.

Maggie: What an amazing thing to wake up to, why is Lorelai so unhappy? She does not deserve Sookie!

Megan: They're muffin tops! Remember muffin tops?

As it turns out, it is before 7AM, and Sookie and Jackson were supposed to go skiing. Meaning a cozy day of reading for Sookie while Jackson skis. But their babysitter has fallen through.

Maggie: Reading all day at the ski mountain? That sounds amazing.

Lorelai agrees to take care of Davey and Martha. Soon it comes out that the coffee, which Lorelai remarks is very delicious, is from Luke's. "I'm sorry, is that weird?"

Megan: No! Of course it's from Luke's! Where else would she have gotten it? There's nowhere else!

Maggie: Truly, although I do assume Sookie could make her own good coffee at home.

Christopher enters, making many loud exclamations about how there are freshly baked goods in the house and obviously they were not made by Lorelai! She tells him she'll be babysitting today and Christopher says it will be great that she is off there and Gigi is off at her grandmother's so that he can install the new flatscreen TV. Sookie asks to borrow some magazines in case she finishes her two pulpy mystery books she's bringing.

Megan: Why can't he help out with the child care?

Maggie: Because he is useless and has masculine things he needs to take care of around the house, like manual labor.

Megan: They're just going skiing for the day? That seems like a lot of books to read in one day.

Sookie is extra effusive in her thanks to Lorelai on the way out and starts to cry.

Maggie: Oh no! Is Sookie pregnant again!?!? UGH.

Megan: Yeah. It's the reproductive coercion storyline. It's so fucked up.

Christopher remarks on how good the coffee is and Lorelai says, "It is, isn't it? It's from Luke's. Is that OK?" Christopher is huffy.

Maggie: It doesn't matter if it's OK! It's fucking coffee!!

Megan: I would drink coffee from the coffee shop of my enemy, you know? If it was good!

Lorelai tells Christopher that Sookie used the muffin bottoms to make a pie, "like an Indian using all the parts of the buffalo."

Maggie: Nooo!!! Wow what year was this?

Megan: 2007. Not a great thing to say!

Rory is back at Yale, and we see her put the letter to Lucy up on her door. Meanwhile, Christopher is unpacking the new flat screen TV he ordered: "Isn't it beautiful?" He makes some comments about wanting to watch football on a giant television. "You're gonna love it!"

Megan: I do feel like they made him dumber.

Maggie: It's also really weird that in 2007, flat screen TVs were this weird new technology....

Megan: I remember when we got one, and I was actually upset. I missed our older smaller TV.

Lorelai kisses Christopher goodbye and tells him he smells good. It turns out he's using her conditioner. She likes to share, though, she says, because "I'm married now."

Megan: Actually, that would really upset me, because my conditioner is really expensive.

Maggie: I know, right?

Megan: He should be able to get his own conditioner.

On her way out, Lorelai tells Christopher that she "loves that you're using my conditioner. And I love that you're putting up this jumbo TV and I can't wait to come home and watch flat sports with you."

Maggie: No! Why are you saying this Lorelai? You actually don't like these things!!

Megan: She's in denial.

Cut to the mediation room where Anna and Luke are having their custody case decided. Luke has arrived early. He has a very boring conversation with his lawyer, asking questions as though he has no idea what he is walking into purely for exposition reasons.

Megan: I don't think he understands how court cases work.

Maggie: I don't think he understands how anything works anymore. His character is just a shell of a man. Shouldn't he have had this conversation before with his attorney?

Anna arrives. Luke is kind to her and tells her they are running behind and not ready for them yet.

Maggie: How do you feel, Anna? Dragging this nice man who wants to have partial custody of your child to court?

Megan: Also I'd like to shout out Elizabeth, that one reader who reached out to us and actually did practice family law and shared her insights with us.

Maggie: That was amazing!

Anna starts telling Luke what a waste of time this is because he has no chance in winning and he never should have hired an attorney, because he'll never win because "Look at yourself, you're you." She also calls him a hermit.

Maggie: It's his child!!!

Megan: Yeah, this is not good.

Maggie: "You're you"!?!?!!?

Megan: A hermit!? A hermit living over a diner!

Maggie: He's literally in the community every day, speaking with people.

Megan: He has an extremely social job.

Anna continues riling him up telling him his "history with women" will certainly play against him.

Megan: What history with women? He's a serial monagamist who's had some bad luck.

Cut to Paris and Rory's apartment. Paris has created a war room of sorts in their living room. White boards with long check lists surround the space.

Megan: Aww, a Noam Chomsky poster! That actually makes me sad because "Manufacturing Consent" is very relevant right now.

Paris explains the white boards. It’s "Operation Finish Line," essentially all of the fellowships and jobs they need to apply for and tests they need to take in order to have the best chance at their next steps in the real world after they graduate in five months. She shows Rory that the oceanography fellowship on her list is due Feb. 28. Rory insists she does not want an oceanography fellowship. Paris says the system is to keep all of their options open.

Maggie: But how is Rory just graduating on time? She took so much time off!

Megan: They never really explain it well.

Cut back to Stars Hollow. Lorelai is at Sookie and Jackson's house to babysit. Sookie is getting dressed so Lorelai and Jackson chat. Sookie comes out in one outfit and asks if she looks OK and immediately goes back to the room to change, dramatically.

Megan: Women are hysterical!!

Maggie: Especially when pregnant!!

Sookie comes out another two times crying about her outfit, then insists she can't leave the children because it will be too hard. Jackson practically drags Sookie out of the house. Lorelai plays a special game with Davey where he wears "magic socks" and kicks to the imaginary place they want to go play.

Maggie: I love it when they have Lorelai interact with little kids.

Megan: It's very cute.

Cut back to Yale where Richard is now apparently a professor of economics. He tells a student visiting him for office hours that he can also email him but he doesn't use it very often.

Maggie: OK. But like, he had a job. In the real world. He knows how to use email!

Rory appears at Richard's office hours to ask if he would set up a meeting with a dean for her and Paris, because of Paris's "Operation Finish Line" plan.

Megan: Please do some nepotism for me, Grandpa!

Maggie: This show loves nepotism! Speaking of, I still don't understand how Yale allowed this insurance guy to teach economics. Does he have a secret econ PhD?

Suddenly, Rory is spilling her problems with Lucy to Richard.

Maggie: Why is she telling her grandfather this? It really seems like not the kind of thing you would share with them.

Megan: Especially Richard. He's not a very emotionally intelligent person.

Maggie: No!

Rory gets emotional. Richard says, "Oh honey, anybody who knows you knows you would never do anything to purposely hurt someone's feelings."

Maggie: Uhhh, would anybody? Rory's so perfect that she could never hurt anyone's feelings!!

Jackson and Sookie get home very early. Lorelai is embarrassed because she hasn't cleaned up the kids' mess yet. Sookie says the day went terribly because Jackson spilled her hot toddy all over the table at lunch and wouldn't "let her order another one." Jackson says "drinking isn't appropriate at lunch." And then when Sookie asked to ski, Jackson also wouldn't "let her."

Maggie: UGGHHHH! Divorce Jackson!!!!

Megan: This is so upsetting!

Lorelai pushes Jackson to tell her what's going on. Then she says Sookie is acting the way she acted last time she was pregnant. Jackson says, "Maybe." Lorelai reminds him he was supposed to go get a vasectomy after Martha was born. "Oh, so she says go get a vasectomy and I'm just supposed to go get a vasectomy!" As it turns out, Jackson did not go get the vasectomy, and didn't think it was a problem because Sookie was still on the pill. However, she stopped taking the pill the month before and hadn't told Jackson because she thought he'd gotten the vasectomy. Now, Jackson knows Sookie is pregnant but Sookie does not because this is not a possibility in her mind given the information she has been given. Lorelai and Jackson continue to argue in a joking manner about letting Sookie in on "the good news."

Maggie: This is SO fucked! This is SO fucked!!! This is not funny!!

Megan: This is really bad.

Sookie is so angry (understandably) to have been coerced into becoming pregnant by her husband that she leaves the house and tells Jackson that by the time she comes back he should "have that taken care of, or I will."

Maggie: Oh my god. This is horrifying. I really blocked all of this out.

Back in the court room for Luke and Anna's mediation, the argument is made that Luke was a terrible father who was never there for April and that the man who drove her school bus has spent more cumulative hours with her than Luke.

Maggie: That cannot actually be true. He was going on school trips with her and hosting her birthday parties and sleeping over at his house and stuff! Was she on a school bus six hours a day?

Megan: Maybe she has a really long commute. Maybe she goes to school in Boston.

Sookie is livid on her walk with Lorelai. She keeps huffing and puffing and not finishing sentences while power-walking through town. Lorelai tells her "You know you can't walk off a pregnancy right?"

Megan: No, but you can have an abortion!

Sookie says having another kid would be "too much," and she doesn't have time "to baby a grown man!"

Maggie: Yes, Sookie! Divorce him!

Megan: This is why most people who get abortions get abortions, by the way.

Sookie says that she had counted and there were less than 4,000 diapers left in her future. For the last year and a half she'd been changing 20 diapers a day.

Maggie: 20 diapers a day!? Maybe like 4 or 5. That seems insane. Even for two kids. Davey is like a preschooler!?

Lorelai tries to convince Sookie that there are good things to babies too, because Sookie is obsessing over the bad things.

Maggie: At least they got Sookie a real winter coat.

Megan: And it looks like it fits! That's progress.

Maggie: Why is Lorelai trying to talk her into having the baby? Why isn't Lorelai saying "Hi, I will help you do what you want to do with YOUR life! I will help you call a clinic if you'd like."

Lorelai seems to convince Sookie that having a baby will be wonderful and Sookie is suddenly excited by the idea. Lorelai also says she and Christopher have talked about having another kid. Sookie says, "I hope it's a girl! Ooh, or a boy!" Lorelai says "Chances are pretty good it'll be one or the other."

Maggie: Maybe!

Megan: Maybe not!

Paris and Rory are meeting at the dining hall. Paris is pushing Rory to apply for a poetry fellowship. She tells her Richard is looking into setting up the meeting with the Dean. When Rory keeps looking over at Lucy, Paris confronts Lucy and demands she forgive Rory now that she's read the letter. She says a lot of really nice things about Rory in a very Paris manner. Rory asks for a few minutes alone with Lucy. Lucy tells her she thinks she understands and that she and Marty broke up. She also says she has to run, but she'll call her.

Maggie: I love Paris being so ridiculous and over the top and having this entire thing planned out. But I also feel like she wouldn't be so scattered. She'd have one or two very solid plans for graduation.

At the Gilmores' house, Christopher is setting up the flatscreen TV.

Maggie: It's still just so gross to me that they're in the house that Luke remodeled for Lorelai.

Cut to family court! Anna is explaining what a nice life she’s providing for April in New Mexico. "Your honor, we don't contest that Miss Nardini will make April's transition to the new living situation as seamless as possible," says Luke's lawyer. "We contest the part where she cuts the child off from her father."

Maggie: Yes!

"A father she barely knows, who does not have — let's face it — the most sterling personal history," says Anna's lawyer in response.

Maggie: It doesn't matter! You have rights!

Luke defends himself rather feebly.

Megan: Please let your lawyer talk.

Maggie: Don't worry, they put two Black people in that scene who were both unnamed.

Megan: Meanwhile, Christopher is skulking around!

Maggie: Snooping!

He finds Lorelai's letter about Luke.

Megan: It's Santa's secret stuff!

As Christopher we reads, we hear Lorelai's voice-over: "I'm a single mother, and I raised my daughter by myself, but once Luke Danes became my friend in this town, I never really felt alone. Luke and I have had our ups and downs over the years, but through it all, his relationship with my daughter, Rory, has never changed. He's always been there for her no matter what. He was there to celebrate her birthdays. He was there cheering her on at her high school graduation. Luke has been a sort of father figure in my daughter's life. With his own daughter, Luke wasn't given the opportunity to be there for her first 12 years, but he should be given that opportunity now. Once Luke Danes is in your life, he is in your life forever."

Cut back to family court.

Maggie: Why does Luke look terrible in that suit? He usually looks great in a suit.

Megan: It's not tailored very well.

Maggie: And his hair doesn't look good.

Megan: Well, they don't really know what to do about him because he's balding.

Christopher is stress-drinking. He confronts Lorelai about the letter. "I mean obviously you still have very deep feelings for the guy," he says.

Maggie: Yeah, and you whisked her to Paris and convinced her to elope while she was still breaking up!

Megan: He basically coerced her into marrying him, and he's like "Why isn't this working?" Yeah, I wonder why.

"I can't believe I just had coffee from his place," says Christopher dramatically.

Megan: Once again, I would totally drink coffee made by my worst enemy if it was good.

"This is a ridiculous conversation," says Lorelai. "Okay, I have a history with him. Yes, I was engaged to him. Yes, when I married you."

Maggie: But, why, Lorelai? Why?

"I should've known. I mean, all the signs were there... The fact that you didn't want to leave Stars Hollow, that you were dead set against redoing the wedding, that you didn't want to have a baby with me," says Christopher.

Megan: You already have a baby!

Maggie: You guys have too many kids, truly.

Lorelai insists that she loves Christopher.

Maggie: Why are you doing this, Lorelai?

Christopher says he can't be her second choice.

Maggie: Good thing you already moved you and your daughter into her house!

Megan: If you didn't want to be a rebound, you should not have tried to MARRY a rebounding person!

Maggie: Yes, literally, eloped with her in Paris!

Time for a Project Finish Line check-in! "Okay, I will check out the Poposaurus project at the Peabody, but there is no way I'm signing up for the LSATS," says Rory.

Maggie: You probably should take the LSATS.

Megan: Honestly a good idea.

Paris insists on the LSATS, because nontraditional training is good for a journalist, didn’t you know Sanjay Gupta is senior medical correspondent at CNN?

Megan: That is not a good argument at all

Maggie: No, unless you're really into science journalism.

Time to go tray-sledding!

Maggie: Rory's actually wearing a snow jacket. This is a first!

Megan: I think it's the first time since the very early seasons. Paris is wearing suede, though.

Maggie: Yeah, that's not gonna fly.

Lorelai wakes up to wistful la-la-las of heartbreak.

Maggie: Ugh, Lorelai, why did she marry Christopher?

Megan: Because she was drunk.

Maggie: Because she was sad… Bye!

Megan: His car is gone!

Maggie: What are you gonna do with all of Gigi's things that you just moved into Rory's room?

Luke calls: He won shared custody!

Megan: Parental rights. They're real!

Maggie: Literally you are her biological father! So boneheaded of Luke. He just broke Lorelai’s heart over April.

Cut to Richard's economics class.

Maggie: I hate that Rory takes her grandpa's class. Why would you ever? I would never want to be in that position.

Megan: I don't think I'd want to take a class taught by a relative. Maybe if my dad taught, like, an economics class. But even then I'd just audit.

Suddenly Richard is having a heart attack. Rory says they need to call 911.

Maggie: Uh-oh, oh, I forgot about this! Oh, no! Go, Rory go! Go, Rory, go! Oh, my God, I forgot that that happened. Another heart attack!

Megan: It's his second. I mean, he has heart disease.

Maggie: Poor Richard. Poor Rory. It really does just feel like they're just throwing it all at the wall, like, we have got to finish this show! I hate thinking about what happened to Gigi.

Megan: Yeah, Gigi is like the collateral damage, and it's very sad. She's just gonna have a lot of stuff to work through in therapy if she doesn't already have major abandonment issues. I do like the letter that Lorelai writes.

Maggie: It's beautiful, and it's also perfect, because Christopher is mad supposedly, because it's proof that she still loves him, but it's really proof that Luke was more of a father to Rory than he was, and I think that's really what Christopher is realizing.

Megan: It's true. He's much more present in Rory's life than Christopher is, and I think that really gets to him.

Maggie: "I can't believe I drank his coffee!"

Megan: That line is so goofy and campy and melodramatic. "I drank his coffee!"

Maggie: And why do we have to have a Sookie pregnancy again?

Megan: Because Melissa McCarthy was actually pregnant. They wrote it into the show.

Maggie: They could have done that in so many other ways also.

Megan: Also, you can just go the Sarah Jessica Parker route and have a lot of strategically placed bags and floaty costumes.

Maggie: So many people do that. Zooey Deschanel did that for a season of New Girl too.

Megan: I think it would have been better to just not write it in.

Maggie: Also because they never made her look actually pregnant before!

Megan: No, they never did!

Maggie: It's so fucked up.

Megan: It's really fucked up and dark, because it introduces this storyline that basically is reproductive coercion, which is not okay.

Maggie: Yes, 100 percent.

Megan: It's so fucked up to do that, and it is actually a form of reproductive coercion: letting someone think that you have some kind of long-acting birth control and you don't. It's so messed up.

Maggie: Yeah, and then, like, especially disgusting that he is like, Oh, I know she's pregnant, so I'm like, smacking a hot toddy out of her hand but not telling her.

Megan: I think I didn't realize that the first time I saw that episode, and I thought he was just as confused, but watching it this time, I was like, Oh, this is sinister. He knows exactly what's going on. But he doesn't want to tell her, and so he's withholding information from her about her own body.

Maggie: This is the end of the devolution of Jackson.

Megan: I mean, he's pretty bad, like, after the first couple seasons.

Maggie: But this is worst.

Megan: If someone did this in real life, I just don't understand how you would stay married to that person. They should be getting divorced. They should not be making it work.

Maggie: It's so bad. And then Lorelai is trying to convince her, like, No, it'll be great. You love babies, before she's even been to a doctor's appointment, knows for sure she's pregnant, taken a pregnancy test, talked about her options–nothing.

Megan: And it's not even about asking Sookie how she feels about it, which is kind of an important thing. When someone is pregnant and they have an unplanned pregnancy, you want to figure out how they feel about it, because that's how they can decide what they're gonna do. Your job is not to be like, well, “You should just cheer up and it'll be fine.”

Maggie: “Babies are great. They're so cute.”

Megan: “Who doesn't love babies?”

Maggie: Can they afford another child? They already have two kids. They both work. They must be paying for child care somehow, I suppose, unless Jackson watches them and runs his quote, unquote farm, wherever his farm is.

Megan: I don't know where his farm is, because they just live in a normal house. Maybe he commutes to his farm?

Maggie: Who is watching their children? Jackson is not.

Megan: Three kids is really expensive, especially like when you think you're done. More than half of people who have abortions already have children and that's what this situation is. If this happened in real life, she would be probably getting an abortion.

Maggie: Or at least entertaining the possibility.

Megan: Thinking about it, yeah, because she doesn't want to be pregnant. She is not happy about it.

Maggie: Also she was surprise-impregnated by her husband. That is just so fucked up.

Megan: It's so dark. It's so dark. I really hate that that is introduced into the show, because even though Gilmore Girls has some bleak stuff in it, and it's weird about sex and pregnancy in general, I feel like this plotline is extra upsetting.

Maggie: And because it's this whole brand new group of writers, it just doesn't feel in-universe. It's so tone deaf to make it a joke. It's supposed to be funny, right? Is it supposed to be funny?

Megan: I don't even know if it's supposed to be funny. My read on it is that Melissa McCarthy was pregnant, and they just had to come up with a storyline, and in the previous season, Jackson had had a vasectomy written into the script, and so I feel like they had to, in order to incorporate the pregnancy into the story, they had to undo that. But also, honestly, it could just have been a failed vasectomy. That happens, too. It didn't need to be him just being a huge jerk.

Maggie: They could've been like "oh, shit," together. It happens, too, especially with people who have two little kids, or, like, maybe I didn't go to the follow up or forgot to schedule it, or whatever. That would be interesting.

Megan: And also, I would have empathy for him in that situation.

Maggie: And I have no empathy for him now.

Megan: But instead, it's like he's this devious men's rights activist, who's like, my wife told me to get a vasectomy, but don't want to get one, so I'm just not going to get one, but I'm not going to tell her, because it will personally inconvenience me too much to get one. And then she said she was on the pill, and that's really an inconvenient thing to have to be on, so I feel like he just should have taken one for the team and gotten a vasectomy for real.

Maggie: Yeah, I mean, come on! So much happened in this one episode. Okay, so we're at 12 or halfway through the season. So they spend the whole first half of the season married. We don't have to hang out with Christopher anymore. Thank God.

Megan: Yeah, that's the 12th episode, so it takes half the season to get rid of Christopher.

Maggie: I feel like we made it over the hump.

Megan: I kind of wish they had done it in like the first episode. They should have just been like, Well, that was stupid, because sometimes that happens. They'll change the plotting really abruptly. I also hate that Christopher is like I was okay being your second choice, but it turns out I'm not, when forced her to marry him. He was really manipulative! He's like "I don't understand how I tricked you into marrying me, but I don't feel happy!"

Maggie: "I thought that was gonna be good for me! And it's not so now I'm mad at you!"

Megan: "And I don't want to drink Luke's coffee!"

Maggie: "I just want to drink this Scotch your kitchen." I wonder if he took the flat screen with him.

Megan: Probably.

Maggie: Uninstalled it on his way.

Megan: "You don't deserve a flat screen!"

Maggie: I wonder if he packed any of Gigi's stuff, or if he's just going to send someone or burn it all and make her start over again? He's a horrible father.

Megan: It's like there's a depressing spin off that's Christopher and Gigi having a terrible time, living a nomadic existence, the bleak parallel universe version of Gilmore Girls.

Maggie: Yes, have you seen Kevin Can Fuck Himself?

Megan: No.

Maggie: It's like half sitcom, but then it's like what the sitcom wife would really be like. There's this dramatic side, I could see that happening.

Megan: Or there was that Sofia Coppola movie called Somewhere. Have you seen it?

Maggie: No.

Megan: It's Elle Fanning and Stephen Dorf, and he is a moderately successful movie star who's living at the Chateau Marmont and recovering from an injury, and she's his 11 year old daughter, who comes to stay with him. That movie has some lightness to it, although it's very sad too. But that's the kind of thing I'm envisioning: a tragic Sofia Coppola movie.

Maggie: Sad dad movie! This is the sad dad movie episode.

Megan: Yeah, it really is. Also the point of view is so focused on the men and their struggles. It's very men's rights. Luke needs to have time with his daughter and his ex partner is ruining things, and then Christopher is having his heart broken because he tricked a lady into marrying him. And then Jackson—oops—got his wife pregnant because he lied about getting a vasectomy.

Maggie: To not handle the birth control that was his responsibility to handle!

Megan: He's red pilled.

Maggie: Although I will say it's nice to have an episode just about Rory dealing with friends,

Megan: Yeah, I like that scene with Lucy.

Maggie: I like that Paris was also just like, okay, just be direct.

Megan: When she's right she's right.

Maggie: That's true.

Megan: I like that scene. I also like that Lucy is reading Our Town.

Maggie: Yeah, that is cute. I think it's only gonna go up from here, Megan

Megan: I don't know, I think that's true.

Maggie: Because Rory and Logan are kind of drifting apart, and Luke and Lorelai are kind of drifting back together.

Megan: And Rory's finishing college.

Maggie: And wanting to go be a journalist. These are good things.

Megan: And the last episode is nice.

Maggie: It is.

Megan: It's a good ending. They really do some messy things.

Maggie: They're left with a big mess.

Megan: And then they make a lot of messy choices to get it to a place where it's more aligned with the earlier seasons before the big swings in season six. And then I think they kind of get it to a reasonable place, so I think that we will have a better time with the rest of the season, but it's a bummer about the reproductive coercion that happens.

Maggie: It is a bummer.

Megan: And all the missing misunderstandings of family law.

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