The Terrible Relationship Lessons Gilmore Girls Taught Us
The Terrible Relationship Lessons Gilmore Girls Taught Us
Maggie watches Episode 125: "Bridesmaids Revisited"
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 125: “Bridesmaids Revisited”? OMG these romantic relationships are all so unhealthy! I cannot believe we took in this show as adolescents!!!!
By Maggie
I adore two things about this episode: a rare glimmer of old Rory, speaking confidently on issues of journalistic integrity and ethics as the editor of the Yale Daily News at a campus event, and Rory and Paris finally making up, or at least recognizing they need each other because boyfriends don’t last forever (alas). However, the rest of the storylines can go all the way to hell for probably contributing to my inability to have a healthy breakup, well, really like ever in my life.
Case in Point 1: Lorelai is still cool with Christopher. And not even just in an OK, he’s paying Rory’s Yale tuition, he can also attend school events, way. But in a, we’re going to kiss on the cheek and sit next to each other and flirt by making cynical little comments back and forth to each other about how annoying these other college kids are at this school event, and oh yeah, I will also offer to babysit the child that broke us up several years ago.
I know, I know. Lorelai is feeling some sympathy for Christopher because Sherry left him and Gigi. And yes, she has a gaping hole in her life where Luke and her planning her future married life should be, because Luke has decided to ditch her for a daughter he doesn’t want her to know. But OFFERING TO BABYSIT YOUR EX’S/ABSENT PARENTING PARTNER’S OTHER CHILD, especially when you have absolutely zero relationship with this child is an extremely bad judgment call and a breach of any normal person’s sense of boundaries. Not to mention that Christopher tried to break up Luke and Lorelai through abusive and misguided tactics not that long ago and she just forgave him because, he’s rich now?
The fact that Christopher actually takes Lorelai up on her offer to watch Gigi is just proof of what scum he is. Then to yell at her when Lorelai tells him that Gigi is having some serious behavior issues is further evidence. I don’t even care that he calls later to apologize. He’s a gaslighter, a manipulator, and he’s extremely immature and needs to learn to be a grown up and a dad. Go to therapy Christopher!
Lesson: When something is going badly in your own relationship, you should definitely go looking for another person (preferably an ex) who needs/wants you and hang around that person until you hurt your partner and yourself.
Case in Point 2: Rory dumps Logan for cheating on her while they were maybe probably broken up? Hoo boy, Honor’s wedding! For some reason, Honor brings Rory back to the bridal suite to help her get dressed with all of her bridesmaids, because she insists they will all get wasted on champagne and be of no help at all. (Fun friend bashing!) These girls somehow have no idea that Rory is Logan’s girlfriend. Which is absurd, of course they would all know who Logan’s girlfriend is. At one point, one of them says: “Oh, you’re Rory-Rory.” As though everyone knows approximately 25 girls named Rory.
Anyway, when discussing who the various bridesmaids will want to hook up with after the wedding, Logan’s name comes up, and it turns out that three of the four bridesmaids have had sex (or “messed around with”) Logan. And that a lot of this “messing around” happened around last Thanksgiving, the exact time when Rory thought that she and Logan were just “taking some time,” and Logan thought they were “broken up.” I totally get being super mad and grossed out at Logan for not giving you a head’s up that he had hooked up with people you were about to hang out with (also the fact that he fully dissed all of them by calling them a “brigade of moronic bridesmaids,” before she found this out speaks volumes about Logan’s level of humanity). While Rory is partially right that to be broken up you should probably have had a conversation about being broken up, they were definitely acting broken up, so I don’t know we can categorize this as “cheating.”
Remember when Rory had completely moved on from Logan? How he was sending her fruit and flowers and balloons and he hired her a coffee cart and went and begged her mother to convince her to talk to him again? They were broken up. The problem with all of this is that when she decided, after a letter from Lorelai, to just say, sure we can go to dinner, and they never actually discussed the problems in their relationship that led to the breakup — or apparently what had happened during the break — she was setting herself up for this semi-truck of reality to crash into their attempt at just smoothing things over and pretending it never happened!
Lesson learned: Better to never have a difficult discussion with your partner about things you need to work on and just break up every time you have a fight.
Case in Point 3: Lane and Zach are engaged. In an even more ridiculous example of the above case, Zach and Lane have not spoken to each other (and actually it seems that no one in the whole band has spoken to Zach or Lane, which feels very unfair to Lane) since the breakup/night of the show when Zach detonated his toxic masculinity all over the band’s chances of getting a record deal. However, when Zach finally goes to speak to Lane again, he doesn’t apologize or even ask to speak in private or do anything to show any emotional maturity or growth from his mistake, instead, he tells her how breaking up doesn’t “make him feel good,” (keyword, him) then he pulls a ring from his pocket that he got at a pawn shop and proposes. Lane, for her part, giddily accepts?
This entire situation is so confounding and I’m sorry I still don’t see what she sees in Zach? Can’t she and Gil and Brian go start their own band? Can’t she go off and funnel all that angst about Zach into a badass music career? Why is marriage what she thinks will fix this? JUSTICE FOR LANE.
Lesson: When all else fails, plan a wedding together! It will be great.
9 Other Things Wrong With This Episode:
I literally cannot with all of the just totally normalized diet culture talk in this episode. Kirk is on a juice cleanse? And hanging out at a diner?? Honor’s bridesmaids tell her she looks like a “skeleton” in her dress (as a compliment!)? Then there’s a dig at the Olsen twins’ weight. And Paris making up the fact that there is a group of people at her apartment because she didn’t want the delivery person to think she was “a hog.”
Weird ableist jokes about Luke’s “meat guy’s” family?
Why is Doyle in the Yale Daily Newsroom at all? He graduated already!
Logan is downing Scotch (or some brown liquor) at 2:00 in the afternoon. I get that he’s a college student headed to his sister’s rehearsal dinner, but then the joke about his friend “flasky” is making me very concerned that Rory can’t see alcoholic behavior!
When Zach goes to try to “get the band back together,” he again cannot be bothered to actually apologize to Gil or Brian, but he does make sure they know him trying to tell them he misses them is not some kind of “Brokeback Mountain” thing. Why do we care about Zach again?
Logan makes a super fun and misogynistic reference to Josh’s wedding day as equivalent to being executed, or at least, imprisoned. So that’s fun.
Honor’s bridesmaid’s are named Alexandra, Megan, Claude and Walker (omg these WASP names!!) Also Walker calls herself a very ableist slur when she realizes Rory is Logan’s girlfriend, which was definitely not OK ever, but also I’m pretty sure was widely known as not a cool thing to say by 2006.
I actually like Rory getting drunk at the bar after the wedding shit show… and Alexis Bledel does a better job of acting drunk here! Then her running into Doyle who is also drunk because Paris kicked him out is kind of funny until you remember that Paris is having a mental breakdown and no one is helping her! And then Doyle kisses Rory’s neck when they say goodbye? And like. God. I am having flashbacks of being around drunk men in college and that’s not fun.
Christopher and Gigi need to go to therapy. Lorelai needs to stop answering his calls. Also, as someone with a toddler who enjoys drawing on floors. She really shouldn’t have had a permanent marker within reach of Gigi!
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