A quick note before we begin: First of all, if you haven’t read Megan’s newsletter from last week yet about Gilmore Girls and abortion, you really should. It’s always an honor and a pleasure to do this project with Megan, but this piece in particular is why I wanted to do this newsletter with her, so smart, thoughtful, and cuts to the heart of why feminist critical analysis of pop culture is so important.
Also, you may have noticed that we’re not quite at our usual publishing pace this summer. We both have quite a bit on our plates work-wise at the moment, so we’re going to take this summer easy, which means there won’t be a newsletter every week, but don’t worry! We are still here, and if you really miss us, might I recommend going back to visit some of our earlier episode recaps?? Thanks, as always, for reading. —Maggie
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 104: “Pulp Friction”? I Know It’s Not Rational, But I Just Want Old Rory Back, OK!?!?
Maggie Mertens
My youngest babe just turned 8 months old, which means I’m suddenly lost in a web of feeling like his entire life has already been a blur. This weekend we took a walk on the beach around the time he usually takes his last nap of the day. Unlike his brother, he’s not been a big napper on the go, but this time, he snuggled right up on me in the baby carrier and snoozed for a good half hour and I was just melting with nostalgia for the tiny baby days again. Somehow, it already feels like those days are so long ago that I can barely remember them. I say all this because this week’s episode had me all nostalgic for the old Gilmore Girls seasons. I think I have to admit that we are officially beyond the point that I would typically keep re-watching this show were it not for this newsletter.
To put it bluntly: I’m bored. I’m having to suspend disbelief way too often in one episode. And I am really really really tired of the offensive jokes!
Let’s review the central tensions in this episode, shall we?
Rory and Logan are not exclusive! (which we already knew) Lorelai worries this is “not Rory.”
Lorelai can’t find a dress to wear on her first date back together with Luke!
Luke can’t use his cell phone’s voicemail!
Kirk wants to move out!
Michel was on The Price is Right!
Anyone riveted yet? And as has happened before with this show, when the plot thins out, the only thing left standing are: strong acting performances, and terrible (sexist, racist, anti-fat, anti-trans, homophobic, etc. etc. etc.) jokes. Unfortunately, not even Lauren Graham’s ability to deliver a perfectly-timed Godfather reference, nor Kelly Bishop’s ability to shroud Emily’s disappointment in anger toward her maid, nor even Sean Gunn’s impeccable deadpan seriousness about Kirk collecting the town’s Lorelai and Luke breakup ribbons so they can “finally start to heal” could save this episode from the amount of terrible jokes and completely boring plotlines.
The majority of the drama of this episode focuses on Rory and Logan’s “non-exclusive” dating situation. While Lorelai acts completely scandalized by this fact, it feels to me, pretty normal? And while yes, it’s not the way that 20 year old Rory has previously dated (when she was a teenager!), it’s pretty standard behavior for 20-somethings. I actually like that Rory is trying to pretend to be OK with the situation, even agreeing to go to a party with another guy because so long as Logan is dating, she will, too. I like that you can tell that this isn’t what Rory really wants, and that Logan’s behavior at the party upon seeing her with another guy is so hideous that it feels like Rory might actually see that she and Logan are all wrong for each other.
LOGAN: So I didn't know you knew Robert.
RORY: I met him at the Life and Death Brigade gathering. And the poker game.
LOGAN: Oh. Right, right. Well, he must have made quite an impression.
RORY: He just asked me out, is all.
LOGAN: Sure. [Takes another drink.] He's kind of a jerk.
RORY: Excuse me?
LOGAN: Robert. He's kind of a jerk. Haven't you noticed he's kind of a jerk?
RORY: Nope.
LOGAN: Huh. [Drinks.] Night's young. Okay, come on.
RORY: Where are we going? Logan! [He grabs her wrist and pulls her into a corner.]
LOGAN: You look great. RORY: Thank you. [He kisses her forcefully. After a moment, she pushes him away.]
RORY: Logan, stop.
This is all clearly yuck behavior from Logan, “forcefully kissing” her and all… and while he is at the party with Whitney! And I guess I appreciate that Rory insists she needs to go back to Robert because he’s her date (even though, yes, he also does seem like a jerk!). But she doesn’t seem to get a message about Logan’s bad behavior here, and instead uses his jealousy to try to manipulate him into wanting to date her more? I don’t love this! It’s Rory growing up, yes, and growing more confident, and yes, sometimes this phase of empowerment gets kind of ugly, but it just feels like baby-voiced Rory who only cares about Logan has completely taken over here and I just want socially-awkward, heavy-book-in-her-purse, mostly-worried-about-her-finals Rory back.
Which I guess is what Lorelai probably wants too, and what she means when she says she really wants to say something to Rory about this whole Logan non-exclusive thing, but she won’t. This is actually smart because she knows firsthand that moms meddling in your relationship doesn’t really ever work out as they anticipated — alas even this little parallel will feel quite heavy-handed by the end of the episode, with Emily saying to Lorelai exactly what Lorelai wishes she could say to Rory: “As your mother, I have the right to be concerned. Especially when it looks like you're taking your life down a completely disastrous path.”
I know why it’s going where it’s going. I know they’re just setting up the upcoming Rory-Lorelai split — but these storylines suddenly all feel so forced to me, where Rory’s surly teenage self and Lorelai’s young sometimes naive mom of the earlier seasons just didn’t. I can’t really explain it!
Then there’s the way this episode ends just as the terrible one before it did, except instead of Emily and Richard’s meddling behavior being way too hyperbolic, in this episode it’s cranked up even more! After a discussion that seemed fit for a Vaudeville show between Richard and Emily in which they refer to Luke as both “filthy” and an “imbecile,” evil evil Emily comes to Luke’s Diner (again!) to harangue him (again!), this time about how he is too dumb to understand that she intended for him to get back together with Lorelai.
EMILY: What on earth is wrong with you, besides the obvious lack of fashion sense?
LUKE: What are you –
EMILY: I told you to get back together with Lorelai! I told you exactly what to do and exactly what to say. What do you need, a cheat sheet?
LUKE: Emily –
EMILY: Some flash cards, some Sesame Street characters to sing a song about it?
LUKE: Look!
EMILY: Do you think that it was easy for me to come to you like that? Do you think I enjoyed it? Like I was just sitting around my house thinking, hmm, what shall I do tonight? I know. I can drive to Stars Hollow and humiliate myself at the local greasy spoon!
LUKE: Okay, I am in the middle of –
EMILY: I don't care what you're in the middle of! My family is being torn apart because for some reason you are incapable of taking simple instructions and putting your relationship back together!
Luke sneakily calls Lorelai on his cell and she shows up in time to tell Emily off for her meddling.
LORELAI: Mom, go home. You have no right to barge in here and cause a scene.
EMILY: I have something I want to say.
LORELAI: No! We don't want to hear what you have to say! We just want you to please butt out of our lives!
EMILY: Our lives? So there's an ‘our lives'? Are you two back together?
LORELAI: Yes, we are.
EMILY: So you did go to her. Just like I told you to.
LUKE: We got back together because we wanted to get back together.
And it’s that line “we wanted to get back together,” that I wish this episode had actually been about, instead of rehashing the meddling behavior and trying desperately to foreshadow Rory and Lorelai’s impending biggest fight ever (which I’m already DREADING). Or better yet, Rory realizing Logan is not worth all of this energy and snuggling up with her copy of Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, and worrying about the paper she has to write about it.
I know you can’t ever go backwards…and I know that looking back on earlier episodes, as with looking back on your kids’ earlier days, can be seen with a sense of nostalgia that makes it seem better than it was in the moment, but this is one of those episodes that just really makes me want the early warm fuzzies of the show back.
11-ish Other Things Wrong With This Episode:
Kirk physically chases Lulu down the street to remove her ribbon, and ends up with her entire cardigan and comes back to the diner panting and I don’t really love the physical force implied here just for a joke!
In the same scene, we have one of this show’s other favorite things, calling people mentally ill for laughs.
LUKE: You know, if someone opened a store in this town selling giant butterfly nets, they'd make a fortune.
LORELAI: Come on, the crazy need love too.
I get that Logan’s dad is a media mogul, but why would Tony Kushner hang out with his mom? This feels kind of like one of those “all rich and famous people must know each other” things. And maybe that’s the joke? It just doesn’t track for me.
I actually like Logan using his gross amount of money and privilege to sneak Rory into the dining hall after hours, which she actually appreciates very much. But Rory’s insistence on paying for the Cocoa Puffs she takes is so not worth the laugh line and just makes my heart hurt because it’s always people who don’t have money who feel guilty about not paying for things, never rich people who actually don’t pay for anything.
Why did Michel get Sookie “He’s Just Not That Into You?” Is this a swipe at Jackson? Sookie is married and pregnant with her second child? Does he not know this? Is this just a very lazy continuation of the joke about them having several copies of that book at the inn?
The amount of talking on cell phones while driving in this show is flabbergasting in the year 2022. I can’t believe we all used to just think that was fine behavior!
The thing I really hate the most about the motor home that Michel won on Price is Right being delivered to the inn is it’s just one more way that this show seems to imply that Michel has no actual home? No identity. No personality except being very closeted and French and one of the only people of color on the show!
Also the implication from Hal the photographer that they had a window of literally like 30 seconds to take the exterior shot of the inn while “they had the light” is so absurd. Then he says, “It's too late. I can take some interior shots just for the hell of it.” As though the magazine feature the inn is being written up in (“Top Ten Inns in Connecticut!!”) is entirely up to whether he gets this shot in this 30-second window or not, which, I hate to tell you, is not how magazine features like that work. Plus, later, Lorelai is like “oh he just rescheduled.” So why was he so dramatic about it??
Finn DOESN’T REMEMBER Rory, despite the fact that they have met several times now? Sorry, but Logan’s friends have zero redeeming qualities.
Lorelai telling Luke she won’t use bowls for the ice cream because she doesn’t want to wash them, OK, fine. But it is so incomprehensible to try to eat ice cream with plastic spoons out of the carton!! She even says that they’ll need four because they tend to break! Just eat your ice cream with a real spoon, Lorelai!
Finally: An Incomplete List of Questions I Had About the Parts of This Episode That Just Did Not Age Well!!! (CW: anti-fat; anti-trans; racism; sexism; sexual assault; etc. etc.)
Why did we have to have a Renee Zellweger gaining weight joke? Why did we have to have a joke about Lorelai NOT being fat even though she only has dessert in her home? Why did we have to have a Quentin Tarantino themed party and a Harvey Weinstein reference in one scene?! Why did Rory have to dress up like an Asian character for the party? Yellow-face is not cool! (I get that she already had the skirt, but she also went out and bought a wig and a chain mace … so she could have gone as someone else? Get an Uma Thurman jumpsuit, Rory!) Why does Lorelai have to describe her dress as “slutty” (especially when it is … very chaste)? Why does Lorelai spend SO LONG making fun of Reggae??? Why must we have a cross-dressing father joke end in a punch line about a boy wearing nail polish?? WHY WHY WHY.
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.
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