Why Is Dean
Megan Watches Episode 79: "The Incredible Sinking Lorelais" (Or Is it "Shrinking"?)
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What’s Wrong with Episode 79: “The Incredible Sinking Lorelais”? Dean Is Back and Somehow He’s Even Worse
By Megan
What’s wrong with this episode, “The Incredible Sinking Lorelais”* is so obvious it makes my brain hurt: Dean! What is Dean doing? Dean, who is MARRIED to a perfectly nice lady, spends this entire episode insinuating himself back into Rory’s life, first by calling her to tell her he’ll be working construction on the Dragonfly Inn. There is only one reason he would do this and it’s not because Rory is ever at the Dragonfly. In fact, the entire premise of this episode is that she isn’t! Rory and Lorelai are struggling to even get each other on the phone, much less spend any time together in person, because they’re too busy having meltdowns over life and work and school and somehow this becomes an excuse for Dean to… shoot his shot with his ex?
*Or is it “Shrinking Lorelais”? Different places say different things!
This is exactly what he does! When a miserable and hyper-anxious Rory runs into him in her quest to find Lorelai, deeply upset about having to drop a class (which might seem like a silly reason but I definitely cried about the exact same thing when I was 19, AMA), Dean doesn’t even wait for a cue from Rory before he starts finding excuses to touch her. Thanks, I hate it!
He physically moves her outside the building, and immediately starts gripping her shoulder “supportively” with his creepy little paws! I PHYSICALLY RECOILED at this moment, which Rory doesn’t even really acknowledge, because she’s too upset, which is normally a good indication that it’s not really time to get fresh, my dude!
That’s right: As soon as he realizes she’s upset, Dean takes advantage of Rory’s distress to get close to her physically. This is not a friendly moment of support. This is like… Joe Goldberg behavior.
Many moons ago, when I first watched season four, I was horrified at what happens between Rory and Dean, and watching now, I’m even more horrified, because Dean seems to orchestrate all of it. I’m not even sure we can blame Rory for the very bad decision she’ll eventually make with her tragic sexual debut, not when Dean is making up excuses to call her, and interpreting SADNESS as permission to get handsy. What a nightmare! (Also, Jared Padalecki is a handsome man, but what’s happening with his hair? It’s very round. I have questions.)
Dean’s creepiness is all the more obvious because this episode treats us to a not-very-inventive parallel storyline conceit, in which both Rory and Lorelai are having a Hard Time, and are comforted by men we’re supposed to read as helpful. And while I struggle to view Dean as anything but a grabby, abusive stalker, Luke does offer Lorelai genuine support in a moment that’s almost identical to the Rory-Dean scene.
Lorelai, who is struggling financially and shouldering the burden of all things related to the Dragonfly opening, has a rare messy moment in a speech that—as a person who lives alone, runs a small business, and has been through a lot of deadlines recently—I found deeply relatable:
LORELAI: You know, there are very few times in my life when I find myself sitting around thinking, "I wish I was married," but today, I mean—I'm happy. You know? I like my life. I like my friends. I like my stuff. My time, my space, my TV.
LUKE: Yeah, sure.
LORELAI: But every now and then, just for a moment, I wish I had a partner, someone to pick up the slack. Someone to wait for the cable guy, make me coffee in the morning, meet the stupid sink before it gets sent back to Canada.
LUKE: What happened?
LORELAI: Um... I just thought I had everything under control, but I didn't, and the inn is just falling apart. This has been my dream forever, and I have it, and it's here, and I'm failing. I can't handle it. I just spend every minute running around and working and thinking. And I thought I would have help, but Sookie has Davey, and Michel has Celine, and I'm—I can't do it all by myself. And I don't even have time to see my kid, and hell, forget see her, just even talk to her. And I miss her. And I sat there in my parents' house just listening to my grandmother basically call me a charity case, and I couldn't even argue with her. I couldn't even say anything, because I am. I'm running out of money, and I don't know what to do about it, and I was gonna, I was gonna ask you for $30,000 at dinner tonight. That's how pathetic I am.
The Celine Dion reference here is ROUGH, but Lorelai gets her point across. She is struggling. She needs help. Does Luke see this as a good excuse to immediately grab Lorelai? No! You can see him CHOOSE to put his arm around her, or really more on the bench, in a move that is tentative, awkward, and clearly friendly—it’s obvious he’s trying to provide comfort, not to see how much Lorelai he can get ahold of before she has the chance to compose herself.
Lorelai is the one who escalates the physical intimacy of this scene: Only when she slumps her head on Luke’s shoulder does he reach out and hold it, in a gesture that reads as caring, and built on years of trust and kindness, not opportunism. Luke, like Dean, is married, and that does complicate their dynamic, but I don’t actually see this as line-crossing behavior. Comforting people we care about when they’re crying is an important life skill, and it needn’t be creepy! What makes the Dean/Rory dynamic so dark isn’t just that Dean is married, but that he doesn’t wait for Rory’s cues and respond to them. As usual, he’s not interested in what she needs or wants at all.
Maybe it’s because I watched a lot of the stalker/serial killer show You recently, which is essentially all about how guys who present like Dean can do horrible things with no consequences, but revisiting this episode reminded me of all the ways Dean manipulates Rory over the course of Gilmore Girls, whether he’s gunning for a junkyard seduction (yikes), love-bombing her with a car, yelling at her on numerous occasions, showing up at her home unannounced, acting obsessed with her right before he marries someone else, or, now, attempting to rekindle their romance when what Rory really needs is a friend.
So many behaviors framed as romantic on TV in the early 2000s are… very bad things to do. (See also: Paris and Asher, a storyline I cannot stand.) I’m glad that more recent television correctly portrays these dynamics as dysfunctional, but seeing Rory’s actions through the lens of Dean’s control, I kind of don’t blame her for anything that transpires with him in the back half of this season. Because a person who acts like THAT when he’s still married, casting himself as a shoulder to cry on and clearly waiting to see what’s in it for him—hell, a person who acts like that EVER—is not a safe or trustworthy person, and Rory is smart, but she’s not too smart to fall for it. Because no one is! That’s real, too!
This is who Dean has been all along, but the way the show is written, we’re supposed to find him romantic, the perfect first boyfriend. In a way, I like that he’s really a man made out of red flags—who among us has not dated that person—but his terrible behavior in this episode is never acknowledged as such, which leaves me feeling gaslit by nominal feminist Amy Sherman-Palladino.
Even worse, the episode’s structure conflates the Rory/Dean and Luke/Lorelai dynamics, when they’re really distinct. Implying that they’re somehow similar, when one is obviously predatory and the other is an act of care, sends a pretty awful message about what we should consider romantic.
What’s really upsetting, though, is that Lane just moved back to Stars Hollow. Rory tells Dean how much she misses Lane, but Lane is right there! Why couldn’t Rory have gone to her for support? She could just as easily gone looking for Lorelai at Luke’s. Then our favorite best friends could’ve had coffee and commiseration, and gone back to Lorelai’s after Lane’s shift, where they could watch a Patti Smith documentary and shit-talk Paris and eventually decide that the two of them should just rent a place together away from Rory’s annoying non-entity roommates, and we could finally have Rory and Lane under one roof, because Dean is the worst, and that cheese house sounded awesome.
9 Other things Wrong With This Episode
Remember when Paris was Rory’s strident but occasionally very human rival classmate? Remember how, even though she was heightened and weird and could be straight-up cruel, she also had moments of kindness or humor? Remember the queer subtext? She was mean, but she was nuanced! Now she’s just going around making out-of-character decisions and horrible remarks about Janet’s “behemoth boyfriend,” as if this show has any more room for error when it comes to body-shaming. Kleebold is cute! I miss the old Paris! And I blame this season’s writing. Liza Weil’s performance can’t be faulted. She’s doing her level best with shoddy material.
Throughout Janet and Paris’ argument over Paris’ rude objections to Kleebold, Janet says Paris must be jealous because she doesn’t have boyfriend and “Who do you have besides your poster of Noam Chomsky?” Listen, this line is perfect. And honestly a better option than Asher Fleming! See above point re: the unjust, implausible devolution of Paris Eustace Geller.
After Jason and Lorelai take work calls from bed (bad sleep hygiene, u guys), Lorelai quips that “We’re the all-business corporate couple.” Jason responds with “Brought to you by Marriott,” and Chris Eigeman’s line-reading is… cute? It’s one of many moments that almost sells me on the Lorelai-Jason storyline, a relationship that is never quite convincing. We spend a lot of Gilmore Girls treading water while we wait for Luke and Lorelai to get together, and I wish more of Lorelai’s love interests could’ve actually been interesting. This is low-stakes and it’s boring.
Sookie’s strangely feathered hair is giving me flashbacks to the early 2000s flippy bob, a look best personified by the by-then-already-dated haircut on Alice Cullen in the Twilight movies. Why did we do this?
Lorelai and Sookie get into a huge fight in this episode because Sookie is flaking out on some of her Dragonfly duties. This is all blamed on Sookie having a baby, but we’ve always known Sookie isn’t good at logistics! She’s said as much to Lorelai in earlier seasons. Sookie is not a person I can see getting really into tracking expenses in Quickbooks and putting together a budget. She is a loving, creative chaos muppet and a culinary genius. Her strengths lie elsewhere. Maybe bringing in someone with an actual business background would’ve been a good idea? Maybe Mrs. Kim could’ve helped!
The hotel where Michel is temping is apparently called the Talleyrand. The Talleyrand is the name of a real-life diner in Burbank, CA that serves giant cinnamon rolls. This is a perfect reference for Gilmore Girls. No notes.
Richard’s mustache is an abomination, and does look like a cocaine decision.
Lorelai’s styling continues to be weird, but let’s focus on the delightful Bon Jovi ballcap and this cozy autumn jacket, which I am pretty sure I had in high school. Never mind that it’s still winter in Stars Hollow.
Red (Lorelai’s Version) Between this and Rory’s new Anthropologie aesthetic, it looks like the wardrobe on this show may no longer be coming from alloy dot com (for better or for worse).
When Lorelai and Sookie are talking about how much they love the inn’s new horses, Michel says “I do not care for the animal kingdom.” This show can never decide whether Michel (a) hates animals and would kill them if given the chance or (b) is a big softie who loves his puppies and only hates people. Make up your minds!
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