We Did It. We Found the Worst Episode of the Series

We Watch Episode 138: "French Twist" (Quelle Horreur!)

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What’s Wrong With Episode 138: “French Twist”? Absolutely Everything. C’est Une Catastrophe!

THIS IS NOT PARIS AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF PLACES TO EAT

Previously on Gilmore Girls... shows a scene of Christopher explaining that Sherry wants Gigi for a few months in Paris. And of when Rory and Marty decided to be "just friends." As the episode begins, Lorelai is quizzing Gigi about what to say to her mom when they see each other in France.

Maggie: Marty episode!!! I love a Marty episode!!! Also, it's very weird that Lorelai is going on this trip

Megan: Yeah.

Lorelai is giving Gigi a whole spiel about flying and airplane food and Paris, and trying to get Christopher to tell her the truth about when the flight leaves. Meanwhile, Gigi is suddenly perfectly behaved. Lorelai never stops talking.

Megan: This dialogue sounds so deranged to me. Like it sounds like she's on a ton of cocaine or something. I know she's not, but it's very weird.

Maggie: Well, I think part of it is her talking with Gigi. Like that's so weird that she's just suddenly like conversing with Gigi. This child who like literally ruined her life, and was supposedly a hellion? And now she's been dating her dad for like a month?

Megan: I know! And now she's like, “I am a cool stepmom.” It's a weird energy. I also kind of hate it whenever this show is in a location that's not Stars Hollow — or Yale, basically.

Meanwhile, at Yale, Rory is being feted in the newsroom for the end of her term as Editor of the Yale Daily News. One staff member says that she has a confession to make. "I only joined the Daily News as a way to meet guys," but after watching Rory handle the job, "I became inspired to become a journalist!"

Megan: *laughing* That's why I joined the college paper too! Wow. Sometimes I'm so glad I went to a women's college.

Paris gives a toast about how Rory was the only one who told her honestly what was going on when there was a mutiny in the ranks during her time as Editor: "Thank you Rory, for being the one person with integrity among a collection of cowardly backstabbers."

Maggie: I miss Paris. Also, here's Rory again in like a formal dress! Why?

Megan: Yeah. I was just about to say. I don't understand what's going on with her belt, either.

The new editor takes the staff to the bar to build some camaraderie, and Rory says "I'm going to pass. New Editor. New regime. I don't want it to seem like I'm still trying to be the boss."

Maggie: You're going to pass? If you don't want to seem like the boss, you should go and show the new editor some deference!

Megan: You're in college!

Paris looks at Rory to say: "Well, now we're both ousted leaders. Welcome to Club Nixon."

Maggie: Except that Rory wasn't ousted!

Megan: But I think Paris wants to make them on the same level.

Cut to Zach and Lane discussing having twins. And Zach, it appears, has been very misinformed about his children in utero. Somehow he thinks they are conjoined twins. Lane sets him straight. She, meanwhile, is stressing about how to tell her mother the news.

Megan: Oh, no.

Maggie: Do people still say "Siamese Twins"? That can't be the terminology anymore.

Megan: Also, how dumb is he that he makes that conflation at all. Like yeah, there's a lot here that's really not working.

Maggie: Okay, I also don't think she would even be showing that much already, even if it was twins. It's been a very short timeline!

Cut to a "PARIS HOTEL ROOM" where Christopher and Lorelai are settling in after supposedly dropping Gigi off with Sherry. Apparently everything went just perfectly, except for the fact that everyone is VERY RUDE because have you heard this is FRANCE?!?! Also, they are very tiiiired because you know, le jet lag.

Megan: Wow it's immediately like we're in France, and French people are snobby!

Maggie: This is SO trite! Also all of this talk about how sweet Gigi is? Wasn't Gigi a freaking terror like two episodes ago!?!?

Megan: Yeah. So I don't know what happened.

Christopher is very IMPRESSED that Sherry had already gotten a booster seat for Gigi for the car! Lorelai says: "Very impressive. By the time I got Rory one of those she weighed 60 pounds and it got stuck on her butt."

Maggie: No! Nope! Not a good joke. Not funny.

Lorelai is suddenly amazed that they are in Paris! And wants to do ALL of the Parisian things. Including take a photo by Jim Morrison's grave for Rory.

Megan: But hasn't she been to Paris? And hasn't she been to Paris with Rory? So like they don't actually need to go to Jim Morrison's grave. Although those pillows are actually actually European size. I miss those pillows. That was the best part of living in France.

Maggie: That hotel is also so fancy. For a Parisian hotel that's gonna be so expensive!

Megan: Because Parisian hotels are not nice. They're crappy and kind of scary with a little continental breakfast.

Christopher tells Lorelai he has reservations for a "beautiful, intimate dinner" but Lorelai just wants to sleep. Christopher implies that they will be able to return to the hotel after dinner for some *eyebrow raising*.

Maggie: Ew! No! I don't care anymore!!!

Cut to Yale, where Paris is stressing Rory out by discussing all of the plans she's making for after graduation, including fellowships, applying for grad schools, etc. She mentions that Rory should have lots of extra time now that she's not working at the paper anymore.

Maggie: Wait, she supposedly quit the paper?

Megan: Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I thought that they just rotated the editor in chief position.

Paris tells Rory about her options for anti-depressant medications and their various side effects.

Maggie: I actually like that Paris is trying to help her! Kind of like in a delusional way but she is.

Megan: Yeah, she's doing her best. You know?

Maggie: If Rory would actually like, let someone be her friend.

Megan: I mean, it's good that they're talking about antidepressants! Good to normalize.

Cut to Mrs. Kim's house, where Zach and Lane are having dinner, while answering Mrs. Kim's questions about their lives. Finally, Lane says they have something to say. Mrs. Kim says she knows they've been avoiding her because they don't have any new music to show her! Lane blurts: "Mom, we're pregnant!" Mrs. Kim says this is a great blessing, then says they will move in with her, to which Zach replies, "Cool."

Maggie: I mean they probably should!

Megan: That's true. I mean they have a roommate...

Maggie: They don't have real jobs, and are about to have two children.

Cut back to "PARIS" where Lorelai is awoken by a French siren!! They have accidentally fallen asleep and now it's 4:00 in the morning. They have missed their dinner reservation. They are immediately bereft that they fell asleep!!

Maggie: This doesn't make any sense at all. 4:00? That's perfect. Just sleep for another hour and then get up! Or get up and read!

Megan: Just go back to sleep. You can even just like lie down for another couple hours and get up. That's actually fine. I don't know why they're framing this like it's a tragedy.

Maggie: You probably do need to sleep for 12 hours after being awake for 32!

Lorelai is apparently STARVING (even though she previously bragged about all the snacks she brought on the plane). She needs a cheeseburger!

Megan: Things are open! You can go to like a grocery store! You could go to like McDonald's. Sorry, this is deranged. This is so silly.

Christopher tries to order room service. Of course they cannot. And the staff is apparently very FRENCH AND RUDE about it.

Maggie: You can't order room service at 4 am.

Christopher suggests they sleep a bit more and go get some French breakfast.

Maggie: This is the most reasonable thing Christopher has ever said. That was very dumb. So contrived!

Megan: Yeah, I think this is one of the worst episodes of the entire show.

Christopher and Lorelai are now WIDE AWAKE in bed and CAN'T POSSIBLY SLEEP. How long has it been? No one knows. But they are IN CRISIS. What will they do!?!? Christopher says he will HEROICALLY find a restaurant still open for Lorelai...

Maggie: Go walk around Paris! It's probably beautiful and there's probably a bakery making something right now!!

Megan: They could just go to a boulangerie. They start baking very early in the morning. And you could go to a café and get an espresso. I don't see what the problem is.

Maggie: The cafés are probably open! It's probably five by now!

Cut to Logan, er, Rory's apartment, where she opens up her Sidekick to call Lucy and Olivia.

Megan: Sidekick!! Ha.

Maggie: Remember when you just used to call friends??

Olivia is making her sister a mobile for her baby. And Lucy is watching Real World Denver.

Megan: Honestly, this sounds like a very standard college night.

When Rory suggests they "do something" Lucy says she is desperate to get off campus and go "to the country" and Rory says they could all go to her house in Stars Hollow.

Maggie: Weird! This is so weird!

Cut to "PARIS," where Lorelai and Christopher are roaming the cobblestone streets looking for food and apparently STILL completely incapable of finding any despite the fact that it is most definitely morning by now in one of the largest cities in the world!

Megan: I hate when they have actual footage of places. It's like, it feels wrong.

Christopher and Lorelai continue to look at the signs in the windows of all the fancy restaurants, expecting, for some reason, one of them to be open! Lorelai makes a very rude crack about French people and weight and Gerard Depardieu.

Megan: That's a rude thing to say!

Maggie: Extremely. *sigh*

They see a man with a sandwich and Christopher runs after him.

Megan: If I were a French person, and I encountered them behaving this way, I would be so pissed.

When they find a truck driver outside of a bakery, Christopher tries to speak to them in French. Lorelai pantomimes being a hungry American, to which the driver simply responds: "Funny Americans! Everybody Loves Raymond!"

Megan: OK, that actually is accurate. But there's a bakery right there. Yeah, it's kind of weird they did a bread delivery to the bakery? Like usually they just make bread there?

Lorelai begins to tell Christopher about the time in high school that she had to make up an exam during lunch and Christopher was her savior for pulling a slice of pizza out of his coat for her when she was done. "Even then, you were so sweet."

Megan: I hope it was wrapped in something!

Maggie: But is he sweet, Lorelai? No. He's never been sweet.

Megan: Stop trying to make us like him. We don't like him. Get rid of him.

Maggie: The retconning!

Megan: Yeah, it's so bad.

Maggie: Suddenly, Christopher and Gigi are just so sweet! And they're Lorelai's new family!

Back in Stars Hollow: Lane and Zach are fighting at Luke's, while Lane works. She is still mad about Zach saying "cool," when Mrs. Kim said they'd move in with her. Then Kirk walks over and puts his hands on Lane's belly.

Megan: Wow, that is creepy, Kirk!

Kirk suggest Lane "drop this little load" at Woodbury Memorial, the hospital where he was born because it allows mothers to hold their babies as long as they want after birth, which is then played off as something gross because ew, mother-child bonding! Then Luke suggests Lane should sit down (while working as a server) and let Caesar carry all of the "heavy dishes" because he needs the workout and she is clearly in a FRAGILE STATE, and tells her to call Liz if she needs any advice about "you know, what's going on there."

Maggie: *growls* I hate all of this.

Megan: It's so bad. It's so bad. The show has always been so bad about any kind of pregnancy conversation, but it's even worse this season. I don't like that! I don't like like weird men like trying to grab her womb.

Cut to "PARIS HOTEL ROOM" where the starving Christopher and Lorelai have satisfied another kind of hunger. And are now talking about how they could "live in this room" but apparently there is still NOTHING OPEN where they might possibly eat.

Megan: No! This is so gross. I don't like.

Maggie: God. Christopher is just THE WORST.

Megan: I just don't want to see any of this happening. Like, just leave it to the imagination.

Maggie: Oh my god. It's gotta be like 7 am by now!

Megan: Yeah, you could totally go get something. This is such crap.

Lorelai says their view from their window is so beautiful she "could eat it." Christopher realizes he can fix this!!

Megan: Is that view, is that literally Notre Dame?

Maggie: Or is it Sacré Coeur?

Megan: Sacré Coeur is super far... but also, I don't think this is a real view at all.

Cut to Stars Hollow, where Rory, Lucy and Olivia are having what appears to be a delightful girls' night. They have foils in their hair and are going through Rory's old yearbooks. Lucy and Olivia extoll the virtues of Marty's hair. Rory asks if it's like Conan O'Brien's. No, says Olivia, it's more like a cartoon character's hair.

Maggie: Conan O'Brien does have cartoon hair!

Megan: He actually looks like a cartoon character.

Searching for a cake pan to make Rice Krispy treats, Lucy and Olivia find a line of Rory height marks: "It's Rory through the ages."

Megan: OK, this doesn't make sense because they moved into that house when she was 11, so it wouldn't go that far down.

Maggie: I do love her just hanging out with girlfriends and doing silly things.

Megan: Yeah, it's nice.

Meanwhile, in “PARIS”: Christopher buys his way into a Parisian restaurant that was closed. Lorelai swoons.

Maggie: Oh, we forgot! Christopher is extremely rich!

Megan: This is so dumb.

Maggie: Also, somehow it's only been one hour!?!?!!?!?!?

Megan: This would not work. You couldn't just call them and ask them to open. It's Paris. That's not a thing.

Maggie: What, these people were asleep and you got them all out of bed?

Megan: Yeah, no. Parisian work ethic is not like that. People in Paris are very protective of their off time.

Maggie: Also how rich is Christopher? He just got a freaking inheritance from his dad. He's not Elon Musk.

Megan: Yeah, no, it doesn't make sense. Also this view? No. I feel like they're supposed to be staying on Ile de la Cité or near it. It's hard to tell, because it's fake TV Paris geography. That is where nice hotels are but this is just so fake. I hate it.

Maggie: They tried to sleep, went for a walk, had sex, and got here all in an hour?

Megan: Yeah, I don't buy that. I think it's really silly and they should just have slept in and then gone to get breakfast, have a nice little tartine and a café crème. This is so dumb.

"I just can't believe people really do this," says Lorelai, wooed by generational wealth.

Megan: They don't.

Maggie: No.

Megan: It's not real.

Christopher says he would've committed "chicanery" for Lorelai. He is trying to be romantic and it’s giving us secondhand embarrassment.

Megan: It just makes my skin crawl when he does stuff like that.

Maggie: I truly hate him.

Megan: Yeah.

Maggie: And I truly don't even believe that he would do any of this. Maybe he would try the grand gesture, but he wouldn't be this nice. He has to fuck up at some point. He's a fuck-up.

Megan: And it wouldn't work. This wouldn't work.

Maggie: And suddenly she's just head over heels for him?

Megan: Yeah, fake.

Maggie: This is also going to fuck up their jet lag so bad. They're having dinner and wine at 5 am? This is not a good choice! "Wow, I'm so glad I'm with a rich, rich dude." Gross! I hate this.

Megan: It sucks. It's really bad.

Meanwhile, at the Gilmore House, Lucy, Olivia, and Rory have given themselves Manic Panic streaks in their hair and are convinced it's time to start a girl band.

Maggie: Yeah, they do have to start a girl band.

Megan: I do kind of like her pink streaks.

Maggie: I like it.

Megan: It's cute. You definitely would not achieve that with a box of hair dye, but that's okay.

Oops, now Rory’s having a meltdown. “Everything's ending,” she says. “I just feel like everything is gonna be over. I'm done at the paper. Soon I'm going to be done at Yale and it's just like I'm standing on this cliff, looking out into this huge foggy abyss.” Lucy and Olivia comfort her, as only people majoring in art and theater can.

Maggie: This is very real.

Megan: Yeah, I like this. I'm into this.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," says Rory.

Maggie: I mean, you just had the most prestigious journalism job in college.

Should Rory go to law school? She doesn't want to go to law school.

Maggie: She would probably be a really good lawyer, actually.

Megan: She would. I like that she has friends who don't have their shit together. I think it's great.

Maggie: She should have had these friends before.

Megan: Yeah. They're smart and thoughtful but they're not overachievers, but they're also not total fucking messes like Logan.

Meanwhile, in “PARIS,” Lorelai and Christopher are still in this restaurant.

Megan: Why are they still in this restaurant?

Maggie: You're delirious, Lorelai.

Megan: It's like she's doing an old-timey movie impression, like [extremely transatlantic accent]: "I'm so heppy. I'm ever so heppy." I hate it.

Maggie: How is she so happy? This makes no sense.

Lorelai makes a reference to Casablanca, which is what we we would rather be watching.

Megan: Oh my god, I hate this. It feels just like a complete affront to actually romantic classic movies. It thinks it's like Casablanca, but it's not.

Christopher says he wants to get married. Lorelai says it's too soon.

Megan and Maggie: Yes, it's too soon!

Christopher insists: “We're ready. We're finally ready.”

Maggie: You're a rebound!

"Rory will be thrilled," says Christopher.

Megan and Maggie: No she won't!

Maggie: He should not be pushing this.

Megan: Yeah, this is not good.

Maggie: That's not cool. He is not respecting her boundary.

Meanwhile, in Stars Hollow, Zach wants to name the twins Marco and Polo.

Megan: Oh my god.

Now that she’s moving in with them, Mrs. Kim says Lane and Zach's home is a death trap filled with hazards to babies, which is probably not inaccurate.

Megan: Definitely true.

Back at Yale, “Boyfriend”'s identity is revealed: It's Marty! Oops, Lucy never mentioned Rory to Marty, so Marty just pretends they've never met. Cool and normal friend behavior!

Maggie: How has she never mentioned Rory before? That's so effed up.

Megan: Yeah, I don't like that at all. It's so weird that he does that.

Maggie: Why does Rory look like she's wearing a prairie shirt?

Megan: Also I don't think Marty's hair is that impressive. It's just kind of normal man hair.

Maggie: It used to be kind of like nerdy and long and curly.

Megan: Yeah. And now it's short and unremarkable.

Cut to Stars Hollow, where Lorelai and Christopher are home from France.

Maggie: Oh, don't worry. They're home from Paris already. What? Were they gone a day?

Also, they’re married. "Welcome home, Mrs. Hayden," says Christopher.

Megan and Maggie: Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Maggie: Aughhhh, god.

Megan: No, I don't like it! This is so bad!

Maggie: Mrs. Hayden? Fuck no!

Megan: So gross. And that's the end of the episode!

Maggie: Oh my god. Megan. I remember watching this at Smith and being like so irate.

Megan: It's an awful episode. It's so bad.

Maggie: It doesn't make any sense at all how he just swindles her into getting married — because she said no!

Megan: She said no very clearly. And he's like, we have to, it's time, and then there's no explanation for why they actually do get married. I guess it's just because they were drinking at like five in the morning and she was really sleep-deprived, and probably that compromised her judgment.

Maggie: Even though she said no! It's so effed up, and they were literally gone for a day. They did not even pretend like there was time passed.

Megan: No and yet they had gigantic suitcases.

Maggie: Huge.

Megan: Yeah, no, it's so stupid.

Maggie: Why would they not have stayed in Paris for like a week?

Megan: No, you don't go to Europe for less than a week. It doesn't make sense to do that, because you have a couple days where you're getting over the time change, and then if you just go home, you're gonna feel crazy. You have to go for at least a week! That's the way it is.

Maggie: Unless you just have dinner at a French restaurant at 5 am, because you have obscene amounts of money and can just pay anyone to do anything within like two minutes of you calling them.

Megan: I'm so upset.

Maggie: That was such an unreal episode.

Megan: Yeah, no, it feels like a fever dream. And also, I hate the depiction of Paris. I hate the implication that they would have a hotel room with a view of what appears to be Notre Dame. Just totally fake.

Maggie: Yeah. And can't find anything open at five o'clock in the morning!

Megan: Paris is a city! When I lived there, you could find food. Not everything was open 24 hours, but I remember there was like a boulangerie that was open 24 hours that I would go to when I was out late, or like, it's a city. They have McDonald's! There are places you can go that are open late! It just doesn't make sense at all as a plot point that they can't go to get food anywhere, and they're staying at a hotel where presumably you could just ask the concierge what is nearby that would be open.

Maggie: But he's too snooty, Megan, because he's French. I also don't understand why she's feeling so romantic towards him when they're literally there to drop off his daughter, who she has no relationship with, despite what this episode tried to show at the beginning. She does not have a relationship with Georgia, and you're just gonna pretend that that makes her not feel uncomfortable by saying like, Oh, you were so great with Sherry, yeah she was just so great. You're just gonna like go over all of that trauma in like two lines and say, Yeah, everything's fine. And now let's just like be moony-eyed with each other. No, none of this makes any sense. And of course, she's still getting over Luke.

Megan: I feel like it's the least romantic depiction of Paris I have ever seen, and Paris is a very objectively romantic place, and it's a cheesy fancy hotel, cheesy stupid restaurant that's supposed to be fancy, but looks terrible. And like the actual romance of Paris is wandering around through the cobblestone streets and having a little like glass of wine while you stand next to a monument and stuff like that and going to a boulangerie in the morning and this is such a sterile Americanized version.

Maggie: Yeah, and they didn't even hire extras or anything. There's like two guys that they interact with. It's such a budget Paris and then it looks like Disneyland when they go to that one bakery. It was so fake.

Megan: Yeah, where they're taking the bread from the bread truck into the bakery, which isn't real. They would just be making the bread there — like I just don't understand.

Maggie: Maybe it was supposed to be he was taking the bread from the bakery and delivering it? But then why was no one in the bakery?

Megan: Yeah, also the bakery would probably just be open. They open pretty early. That was weird. I think it's funny because the show does have kind of a corny depiction of Europe, but it has never bothered me this much.

Maggie: Yes, their other Europe trips, they felt more realistic.

Megan: Even though it's very low-budge, like they had that weird Italian hotel that she was at that was obviously fake. And you noted that they weren't even using correct Italian, but that episode was more convincing. It was really well done.

Maggie: And there was something different about the lighting or something when they were in Europe. This just felt like so blah, like, Oh, we're gonna remind you this is Paris by showing you the literal Eiffel Tower and talking about how snooty everyone is and having a French guy make an Everybody Loves Raymond joke.

Megan: That was the one part where I was like that would happen, because I remember when I lived there, I had this French roommate, who I hope is doing great. He was this delightful French engineering student, and I remember I came home one day and he was hanging out in his room with all of his French friends, and they were smoking hashish, and he was like, "Megane, do you sink zat Michael Jacksahn ees creally dead?" It was really incredible. I could see that. I could see a French person making a weird joke about American culture. Everybody Loves Raymond!

Maggie: I love it.

Megan: But that's the only thing. Everything else is just a stereotype.

Maggie: I'm just disturbed by the Marty situation, mostly because I still have trauma from the original Marty situation. Why did she just ditch him for Logan and then never speak to him again?

Megan: Yeah, it's kind of like the show wants you to believe that men and women can't be friends. She can't be friends with him because you had a crush on her but she likes Marty and really, when you're like 19 years old and someone has a crush on you and you don't reciprocate it, you can then just be friends with that person.

Maggie: Yeah.

Megan: That's how a lot of friendships actually function at that age. There's a lot of that because everybody is just like–

Maggie: Super hormonal!

Megan: And it's so normal. It's confusing, but I feel like that's part of it and would have been a normal thing to depict.

Maggie: If Gilmore Girls was real, or followed anything close to reality, Rory would date Logan for like three months. Tops!

Megan: He's a three months guy, yeah.

Maggie: Realize that someone like Marty, she actually has chemistry and things in common with, not necessarily that she needs to date him even, but she probably would try to date Marty. She would probably dump Logan, try to date Marty, maybe they realized they should just be friends. Maybe they would be in love. Maybe they would get married. I don't know! But he should have remained, because he was a really good partner for her, and her character was able to be herself around him.

Megan: I feel like even if they hadn't gotten together, something that is so classic from that period of time is these sort of subtext-heavy friendships.

Maggie: Yes!

Megan: And I feel like they could've just had — like, I had a lot of subtext-heavy friendships when I was that age, and that's part of it, and they wouldn't even have needed to date, they could have just had a subtext-heavy friendship where you're kind of like, "Is this a thing? I can't tell if this is a thing. Maybe it's a thing, but maybe not." And that would have been so much more interesting. I wish they'd done that.

Maggie: Yeah, which was kind of where they were headed, and then they just cut it off with the kneecaps with freaking Logan and stupid Life and Death Brigade and stupid Finn and Colin.

Megan: When we were talking about Logan with David Sims last week, it actually made me think that our issue with Logan is not so much the character. It's just how long he's on the show, which we've talked about before, and I think that's really true. Because Matt Czuchry is perfectly charming. I like him in other stuff, and you can make a case for him as an interesting character in terms of what he brings out in Rory and how he scares Lorelai, and that's all interesting, but he shouldn't have been around as long as he was, because he's just not that interesting.

Maggie: No, it gets so boring. And you know that Rory is not supposed to be with someone like that, and like David said, they have no chemistry!

Megan: They have no chemistry! It's so weird. It's like—

Maggie: "Oh, he's so romantic," but you don't care. He doesn't talk with you about anything you care about.

Megan: So it's like, you don't have an intellectual or emotional connection, really, and also, you don't have any chemistry with him, so you're not attracted to him. So why are you even hanging out with him? It doesn't make sense.

Maggie: It's another example of the writers of this season really trying to fix the problems from the previous season and being like, Oh, why was Marty cut out? Let's like bring him back in this way that creates drama and tension. Sure, but it isn't necessarily true to the characters. I don't know that Marty would do that. It feels like even in that one scene, he feels very conniving and weird.

Megan: Yeah, it brings a certain meanness to his character that I don't think is there before.

Maggie: Yeah, he was such a weirdo little sweetheart.

Megan: I mean, I think what's what's sort of challenging about their relationship as he has a crush on her and she doesn't reciprocate it and that's awkward, but he's not a bad guy, and this season makes him seem like kind of a bad guy. Because why would you hide having a friendship with someone?

Maggie: Especially on a college campus.

Megan: You could just say, like, we were really good friends sophomore year or whatever. It's not a big deal. That's so normal. Maybe the people who wrote it had never been to college. I don't know.

Maggie: Yeah, maybe they were too old. They don't remember. Or they went before people casually dated or something?

Megan: Yeah, maybe. Because this would've been airing when we were at Smith.

Maggie: Yes, our sophomore year. I remember. I remember specifically being so mad about that last scene and just being like, I cannot believe they married Lorelai and Chris. This doesn't make any sense. I'm still mad about it. I don't understand. I understand bringing Chris back. I understand them having to play out the relationship, but to get married? It just feels so forced to me.

Megan: And I think the way they do it doesn't make sense either, because it's just like why would you get married in a foreign country for fun?

Maggie: I don't think you can.

Megan: I don't think so either. Are they even legally married?

Maggie: I don't know that it would be legal. And the other reason I remember being so mad was that in reality, this would put the nail in the coffin for her and Luke. He would never get back together with her. You just would not. They broke up and like, what, a month later she marries someone else? You don't get back together with that person.

Megan: No, it's really kind of a dealbreaker. It doesn't make narrative sense. It's really bad and I guess I could kind of make a case for it, it's like, you have to get rid of this relationship, and this is a good way to dispatch it, because I think in some ways, the show understands how gross it is, and we're supposed to think that, but also we already felt gross about Christopher. We didn't need it to be taken this far.

Maggie: Yeah, it's strange, I guess. I mean, in some ways, it does make sense like, they would have to just go through all of the motions to figure it out, because otherwise she would just keep sleeping with him at random moments in her life when things are bad. That's just what she's done for 20 years or something.

Megan: Yeah, but it kind of makes sense that she would just continue to do that, and it's not necessarily an indictment of the character that she does that. People do that. That's normal.

Maggie: Yeah. But also he just needs to go away forever. And I guess the way that they thought that he would go away forever. It's just so fake feeling. Paris is fake, and their marriage is fake.

Megan: It also doesn't seem like something that Lorelai would do, given her whole history of hiding her relationships from Rory and being so aware of how Rory would be impacted by things. It just seems like something she wouldn't do.

Maggie: And that's what she says when he asks her. No, what about Rory? I can't do this. Let's not do this, Chris. And then she's Mrs. Hayden?! Gross. Gross.

Megan: I think it only makes sense if she went along with it because she didn't think it was legally binding or something. She's like, "Whatever you say, Chris. Yeah, we're married now. That's great." But there's nothing textual to imply that at all.

Maggie: Unless he just you know, bribed the legal system in France, too.

Megan: Also, it's French bureaucracy. When I lived in France, I had a work visa, and I was supposed to be able to get on some kind of rent subsidy because I was paid a very small government salary, and I remember going to try to apply for this was like the most crazy red tape situation ever, and I never got the subsidy even though I lived there for an academic year. Because that's what it is like to deal with it. To get a Eurail pass, I had to go to a special office like three different days in a row, and I spoke French and I had a work visa and so I had this special pass I could get, so I just don't buy that two Americans who don't know any French, don't know how to find food late at night in Paris are gonna navigate French bureaucracy to get a legal marriage? No, that's fake. That's not real.

Maggie: They're not like in Vegas.

Megan: No, that would make more sense. Ugh.

Maggie: I hate it.

Megan: Yes, that's it.

Maggie: That's all we have to say.

Megan: We'd like to apologize to the entire country of France

Maggie: Truly.

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