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What’s Wrong With Episode 119: “He’s Slippin’ ‘Em Bread…Dig?” Did the Writers Get Amnesia and Just Hope We Would Too?

By Maggie

Forgive me, but, I believe that the last time we saw Christopher, he was drunkenly verbally abusing Luke, and threatening Logan for kissing Rory (being kissed by Rory?) and had been sent by Emily to her own vow renewal to try to win Lorelai back as though that was a reasonable thing to do? His actions (and yes, Lorelai’s dishonesty) broke up Luke and Lorelai! In other words, when we last saw Christopher, he was fully and completely, irresponsibly attempting to ruin both Lorelai and Rory’s lives. And suddenly, in this episode, he is speaking completely normally to Lorelai and Rory in a mystery diner, kissing Lorelai on the cheek and telling her how good she always looks? And this is just… normal? OK? I just actually do not understand how this narrative came to be.

It has been such a relief not having to deal with Christopher for the past 18 episodes that I nearly forgot about him! And apparently, Lorelai, Rory, and ASP forgot all about him and his actions on his most recent appearance on this show, too. I can’t come up with any other explanation as to why Lorelai would just agree to meet with Christopher because he “has some good news.” OK, yes, Rory and Lorelai make some veiled references to him being terrible while they have one of their many mother-daughter reunion feasts of this episode. But I’m just really tired of men’s terrible actions not resulting in any consequences!

Sorry, I know Christopher is Rory’s biological father, but that actually doesn’t mean he needs to be in their lives anymore. Especially when he has acted so terrible and unsupportive as a parent that he really does not deserve a relationship with his child. Of course, this would be Rory’s decision. (And IMO a completely justified one). But, alas, Rory has not quite come to this realization yet. However, regardless of their relationship — at this point, Rory is 20 —Lorelai does not need to be an intermediary for Christopher and Rory anymore! She would be extremely justified in simply holding a boundary with Chris and never speaking to him again given his totally inappropriate actions toward her previously.

Instead, Christopher is apparently completely redeemed in the eyes of Lorelai and Rory because he is now “filthy rich,” and wants to share his money with them. Or maybe just because it’s been so long that we all forgot about how bad he is? And sorry, but, what was he before? The guy like didn’t go to college but drives a brand-new car and worked at some tech startup and lives in downtown Boston as some corporate bigwig? Now they’re acting like he’s never had money before?? Christopher being absolutely delighted by his newfound level of wealth is just really uninteresting to me — and, thank goodness, to Lorelai. But this storyline is not just boring, it’s the laziest, most repetitive storytelling. Oh, what, another relative of Christopher’s died? (The last drama with him was catalyzed by his father dying. This time it’s his grandfather…) And what, the Gilmore Girls want to have yet another wealthy patron support Rory’s schooling? We will have to go through yet another round of whoever pays for school is going to attach strings to that financial support!?!?!?!

Sorry, but I am just extremely totally bored by everything about this episode, including Lorelai and Rory supposedly being broke but always having people offering to hand them huge amounts of money! As well as, Luke going from insanely jealous and mad in the last episode about Lorelai’s “dishonesty” (which wasn’t actually dishonesty this time!?) to hiding a HUGE thing from his partner and fiancee because “We're in a good place! You know, this could wreck it” ????

Remember when this show used to be an emotionally subtle character study that bordered on the surreal? Despite some of the fun Megan and I have discovered in the more recent seasons that we’d forgotten about, I’m feeling extra willing to double down on our end of season three suggestion: This show should have ended then. Once we left Stars Hollow as the main location, we lost the whimsy of the contained universe and have fully delved into cliche, soap opera storylines that are somehow both nonsensical and utterly boring. Pass!

11 Other Things Wrong With This Episode

I am still in complete time warp this season, as Rory’s supposed million hours of community service and life in the pool house have felt never-ending, but somehow it is ONLY THANKSGIVING?!?!
I love Lorelai’s new bedroom and bathroom as much as Rory does. I also love the yellow she picked down in the living room, though it is hilarious that the living room was previously yellow, and it took her many many weeks to pick a new color only to get another yellow. (If it works, it works!)
The hat box full of notes that Lorelai wants to talk about with Rory is cute, and classic Gilmore Girls, but … I just feel really weird about all the smoothed over references to their “crappy time apart” because it’s clear they just haven’t had a real conversation about anything still.
Luke telling Rory she “looks good” in this weird “let me look at you” way is very similar to how Christopher creepily tells Lorelai how good she always looks when they meet up later and I just really hate the ever-present male gaze!!!
Apparently one of the big homages of this episode is the fight scene during Hep Alien’s big showcase. According to a 2006 newspaper article, the scene is a recreation from a rock documentary called “Dig!” about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, in which the band fights at the Viper Room club during a show. “Amy and I saw Dig! On DVD when it first came out. The second we saw that Viper Room fight scene, we said the band has got to go through that. We figured out a way to do it. We got Joel [Gion], the real tambourine player [from the Brian Jonestown Massacre]. He’s never acted before, and he was great. He was very funny and very comfortable. In fact, we’re bringing him back for another episode or two, because we find him really, really funny,” said Daniel Palladino. And, OK. That’s fine, but making this big fight about how Zach wouldn’t write a song about Lane, HIS GIRLFRIEND, and keeps writing songs about other women and then telling her she doesn’t understand because she’s not a writer and ruins their biggest chance at a musical career because he’s jealous and can’t express his feelings makes me so sad for Lane. (And why did we have to make Gil homophobic all of a sudden!?!?)
Liz is supposedly making Thanksgiving dinner for twelve people, but she’s baking the rolls the day before? But then she pulls them out of the oven the next day? Were these scenes cut in the wrong order? I’m so so confused. Also, Sookie ends up hosting Liz’s whole Ren Faire crew, and it doesn’t look like anyone else really, so who was Sookie supposed to be cooking for? Just Luke and Lorelai and Rory? Nothing makes sense anymore, but I guess it doesn’t have to!!
“I don't want them to be holding anything over my head. I don't want to owe them anything. There's too much pressure. Too much expected. There are too many strings with these people,” Rory says to Lorelai about how great it will be to not have Emily and Richard pay for Yale because they’d been so terrible… letting her stay with them rent-free for months and supporting her decision to leave college for a while, because they talked to her about her sex life? And now you’re willing to have those strings attached to your deadbeat father, instead? Oh Rory.
When Rory tells Chris he can pay for Yale he says: “So, how do I do this? Do I give you the cash, or do I pay Yale? Do they take checks or does it have to be a money order? What is a money order anyway? I mean, how is it different from a check? Isn't a check a piece of paper forwarding money? What's the difference?” And again, Christopher was not like, poor, before, he was very wealthy! He knows how to pay a school tuition. Jesus.
“Look at Martha’s hands! They’re so white!” Liz Danes says about Martha Stewart. Could she not have said, “clean,” or something? The way she sounds so in awe, while saying “so white” is just, not great!!
Lorelai tells Luke after two times meeting with Christopher that these meetings have happened and not that Luke’s reaction to the phone message was OK, it was not, and I know I know, it’s meant to put Luke in the position of being OK with Christopher because now HE has a secret, too. But uh, I think maybe Lorelai still should have told Luke before meeting Chris that she was going to do that??
Honor Huntzberger calling Rory to tell her they can still “go shopping” at Bergdorf’s even though she and Logan have broken up is peak proof that Rory isn’t Rory anymore.

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, on everything from the politics of Stars Hollow, how Dawson’s Creek and GG compared, and the show’s strange relationship to Judaism.

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We’re Supposed to Just Be OK With Christopher…