HAVE YOU HEARD? RICHARD AND EMILY ARE MANIPULATIVE!!!!!!
Maggie watches Episode 103: "So... Good Talk"
Welcome to Gilmore Women: Two journalists discuss everything that’s wrong with every episode of Gilmore Girls & why we still love it
What’s Wrong With Episode 103 “So… Good Talk”? I’m getting Bored Of All This Sustained Drama
By Maggie
Megan and I are fond of pointing out continuity errors in this show, but I’ve been thinking lately about how the opposite can also be a problem: i.e. the same thing happening over and over and over. At some point, we get it, Richard and Emily are manipulative parents! Do we need to keep seeing in detail every way this is enacted on Lorelai’s life, or can we just, like, move on to something else now?
Maybe this is on my mind because I’m in the midst of writing a book for the first time, which, it turns out, is a much different storytelling process than writing a magazine article or a newsletter, and I’m thinking a lot about how to sustain people’s interest in story. Or perhaps it’s because television has just changed so vastly since Gilmore Girls first aired, and I’m sad about shows that get canceled on Netflix (RIP Babysitter’s Club) because streaming services just want us to binge shows instead of enjoy them for years. Or maybe because I’ve been really loving when a show is just a miniseries and I know I won’t have to invest in it for years. (I just finished watching Under the Banner of Heaven, which was brilliant. And I felt the same about The Chair).
At the same time, we’ve discussed before how it does seem like television shows of yore, Gilmore Girls included, were allowed to go on too long, eventually forcing writers to run out of material, to become awkward caricatures of themselves, or to “jump the shark” and simply become unwatchable because of false, drummed up dramatics aimed at getting people to turn their televisions on at an appointed time. But I have been wondering if we’re losing something important in terms of longform television storytelling when everything gets canceled after 2 or 3 seasons now. After all, there’s a reason I turned on Gilmore Girls the night Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, or when I went through a bad breakup in college, or after a particularly stressful period in my early 20s. Being around characters you love and are familiar with is comforting.
Which all brings me to say “So… Good Talk,” is an all-around good episode. It’s directed by Jamie Babbitt, one of our faves. The costuming is early 2000s gorgeous (Velvet blazers, embellished cardigans, and those satiny lace camisoles were WORKING this episode. Hell the skinny eyebrows were even looking good!), there’s a brilliant monologue by Kelly Bishop while wearing a fur coat to Luke’s Diner, Lane gets a meaty storyline, Rory’s obsession with Logan makes sense for the moment, and we even get Lorelai and Sookie friend time. And of course, there’s the gorgeous dramatic Luke running back to Lorelai moment while “The Man That Got Away” by Judy Garland plays. A+ music and drama pairing. But at the same time, I just felt … tired by the end of this one.
While I love that Rory does actually seem a bit more grown up in this episode, and isn’t afraid to stand up to her grandparents at Friday Night Dinner, (yay! Character growth!) the level of parental manipulation in this episode is both over the top and … boring? I think we get it: Emily and Richard feel they know what is best for Lorelai. But, like, have they not learned not to be THIS OBVIOUS about meddling at this point? Richard is basically twirling his mustache in the kitchen while explaining his plot for how to get Lorelai back in their lives to Emily. We have now had years of little moments of growth for the elder Gilmores, or tiny bits of connection between Lorelai and her parents that seem so promising. And Emily is a smart woman, does she not realize she is just repeating her unhealthy patterns that pushed Lorelai away in the first place?? And OK, maybe she doesn’t. Maybe it is realistic that these two people are so awfully manipulative, but I just don’t feel like we need to see it anymore.
Speaking of different storytelling methods: I’ve been watching Better Things, an FX series that has recently ended, created by and starring Pamela Adlon as a single mom of three kids and a working actress, with a strained relationship with her mother who lives nearby. There are actually a lot of parallels to Gilmore Girls. But here’s the thing that makes the show a balm to my currently very world-weary soul in a way that my current rewatch of Gilmore Girls is not: the episodes are all self-contained arcs.
I don’t know how else to explain this, but the characters develop and relationships shift AND the writers don’t feel the need to show that in a linear narrative way. Instead you drop in on this family from time to time, and you see what’s happening at that very moment. Just because Sam (the main character) fights with her mother in one episode, doesn’t mean that same exact fight is going to continue on into the next episode (or the five successive episodes!!). And I’m finding this actually extremely refreshing, and somehow more realistic than the constant sustained drama that these later seasons of Gilmore Girls are getting themselves into (and whoa will there be a lot more high drama coming soon!).
I came across a tweet recently extolling the virtues of long television seasons because then you can enjoy “episodes that don’t matter.”
While I love me a good storyline, and while Megan and I have openly criticized episodes that don’t matter in this very show before, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t some truth to that after all. I mean, I’m not advocating for more episodes based on Rory failing at finding a place to study at Yale, but maybe the drama with Emily and Luke and Lorelai and Christopher could have just ended after the vow renewal and we could move on to something equally emotionally loaded but without the artificially sustained drama?? Maybe it’s just the constant different stress we’ve all been exposed to in recent years (Pandemic! Police violence! Sexism! Racism! Climate change! Mass shootings! More mass shootings! Monkeypox!! Formula shortage! Fascism! ETC.), but I feel like this style of unsustained narratives more about exploring relationships and emotions, could be a more realistic one for some kinds of television... After all, we may remember the big fights we have or the ways we’ve been wronged, but the relatively mundane moments we have with others reveal a whole lot about ourselves, too.
11 Other Things Wrong With This Episode
Why must Lorelai sexualize the mailman!? Just let him wear shorts!! She also tries to call the insurance person on the phone “stud” and just … come on Lorelai, we’ve been over this! That’s not professional and is probably sexual harassment!
Lorelai acts totally mystified as to why Sookie is asking so many questions so she can plan her maternity leave at the inn, but it seems prudent to me!
Rory is somehow broke this week, despite handing Marty a wad of cash for an expensive dinner she dragged him to with Logan last week. She tells Lorelai she’s broke because “there are no good jobs at Yale.” But what happened to your card swiping gig, Rory? Also why is she ordering a caramel macchiato? Has she ever ordered anything but a black coffee before???
Logan calls it a “cute-meet” but the term is MEET-CUTE. Go watch some Nora Ephron, Logan. (While I’m on Logan: I am happy that Rory wants to read his ethics paper because that feels VERY true to Old Rory’s character. But then Logan literally says Hemingway’s “silly wife” and how could the red flags not be waving for you, Rory!)
Why would Richard and Emily buy Rory “Leaves of Grass” in Greek? And it is supposedly 100 years old, but would Whitman have been translated into Greek by 1905? Perhaps, but why would Rory want an American book of poetry in Greek? Why not a Greek writer in the original language? The Iliad? The Odyssey? A collection of Plato or Sophocles? I know she loves the book, but this does not compute for me.
I love that Sookie and Lorelai are hanging out, but Sookie insists she’s taking Lorelai out for the evening and then doesn’t have a plan? Also how would Sookie not have known that Lorelai goes to Weston’s for breakfast now? And on that note, why doesn’t she just go to the inn and have Sookie make her breakfast now that she doesn’t go to Luke’s?
There were SO MANY Pushkin books at the bookstore. We get it, that was the name of an episode recently. How many people in Stars Hollow are regularly reading Pushkin???
Sookie has to ask Jackson’s sister about watching her kids for a weekend so she and Lorelai can go away together, like… she can’t leave her two kids with THEIR FATHER for a weekend????
Zack says that he remembers the day he met Lane and he liked her immediately which doesn’t feel super accurate because there was ZERO chemistry between these two at the beginning. (REMEMBER DAVE!?!?) And Lane responds by saying: “I probably looked like a pig. I need more clothes.” And was this line written by some auto word generator for young women of the year 2005 being complimented by a boy??? This is so not a Lane Kim line!!
The whole thing about Lane and Zack and whether Lane wants to have sex is interesting, and truly rich material to explore here — yes, sometimes it’s OK to not want to have sex, or to want to wait, and sometimes our conservative upbringings around sex can influence what we think is OK in this regard, but also I wish there was more actual exploration of this topic and not just the implication that just because Lane thinks that she wants to wait until she is married then that is definitely how she will always feel? Consent is an ongoing conversation, Lane! It’s OK to change your mind! Also a lot of use of the word “slutty” that I don’t care for!
Rory has this whole awkward conversation with her mom implying she and Logan have had sex (which, again, this show really likes to just tiptoe around!!) and then says that she wants to go back to telling her mom “everything.” And like, no you don’t Rory. You’re 20 and your mom doesn’t want to hear about your sex life. Also, she doesn’t even tell her that she’s going back to Yale THE NEXT DAY because Logan has come back early, Lorelai just figures it out!
Gilmore Women is a weekly newsletter from journalists Maggie Mertens and Megan Burbank examining everything that’s wrong with Gilmore Girls. All of our weekly episode issues are free, but paid subscribers get special BONUS newsletters — like our most recent, from Thulasi Seshan on the electoral politics of Stars Hollow.
Questions? Comments? We love to hear your thoughts. You can also reach us at gilmorewomennewsletter@gmail.com, tweet at us @gilmore_women, or follow us on Instagram @gilmore_women for all of your early-oughts pop culture needs.
Like this newsletter? Share it with someone who buys you a rum ball instead of a shot.
Our banner art is by Sarah Mirk.
Seconding your praise of the Judy Garland music moment. A Star is Born would totally be one of Lorelei’s comfort watches.