The second episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life opens up on the therapist’s couch. Outside the window, we see that spring has arrived but it is frosty as can be as Lorelai and Emily try to outlast each other. Finally, after saying nothing, Lorelai gets up and goes to leave, but not before Emily guilts her into returning next week with her ‘grieving widow’ plea. Still a trap, Lorelai!
In Stars Hollow, the International Food Festival is taking place. Taylor and Kirk wanted every single country to be represented and are fretting because some people have bailed at the last minute. Lane and Mrs. Kim (yay! Mrs. Kim!) are representing Korea and several other countries, with Rory also sitting at their table. We also see Jackson very briefly, and Rory and Lane wave to…Lane’s dad! A running gag from the series was that you never saw Mr. Kim. He apparently does exist, as we see him for two seconds. There goes the theory that Lane was immaculately conceived.
Lorelai and Luke are watching the basket bidding at the gazebo, in a throwback to one of the best episodes ever. She bids on a nice young woman’s basket that isn’t getting any bids, and I suddenly also miss Sookie and her crazy gourmet basket that Kirk really wanted back in the day.
Rory is fending off phone calls from a young woman who runs a website called SandySays, and she very enthusiastically wants Rory Gilmore to join their team. Rory is waffling about this, holding out for Conde Nast (they are still delaying her interview). Back in London after another crazy lunch with Naomi (Alex Kingston), Rory and Logan are getting dinner at a swank restaurant when in walks Mitchum Huntzberger. I can tell you right now that he is still an asshole! Shocking. He offers to make Conde Nast pay attention to Rory and reminds Logan about his fiancé, Odette. She is a French heiress and she lives in Paris most of the time. Now, not only is Rory cheating on boyfriend Paul but Logan is cheating on his fiancé. Great.
In town, Lorelai and Luke are attending a town meeting and Taylor wants to host a gay pride parade, but there aren’t enough gays. He wanted neighboring towns to “lend us your gays” which is pretty funny, and Babette questions whether every gay in Stars Hollow has been asked. Meaning we’ve all thought that fussy Taylor, who is unmarried, is gay and in the closet for many years now. He doesn’t take the bait, however, and we are still left to speculate.
Later, Luke is on the phone with Liz and TJ, who we don’t actually get to see in A Year in the Life, but have accidentally joined a vegetable cult when they thought it was a vegetable co-op. This is something Liz and TJ would definitely do. Lorelai later has a dream involving the real Paul Anka! She should tell the therapist about her weird recurring dreams. Back on the couch, Emily seems to recall some sort of cruel letter that Lorelai sent her on her birthday, which Lorelai insists has never happened. While Emily is still upset that Lorelai took an infant Rory and left all those years ago, Lorelai never wrote her an angry letter (mostly because Lorelai is not a letter-writer). They leave things in a huff.
Rory is grumpy too – Naomi is angry with her as a co-author and Logan basically asks her to vacate the apartment since Odette is coming to visit. No one likes you and your slimy ways, Logan! And wtf is Rory doing with him, anyway? I find my patience for her waning. There is a reason she did not marry him a decade ago. Luke is also about to be quite grumpy, as Emily calls and wants to have dinner alone with him to discuss something. Turns out that Richard has left him a lot of money for “Luke’s Diner Empire” so he can franchise and “take care of Lorelai” – something that further annoys me, since we all know that Lorelai can take care of herself just fine.
In the best scene of “Spring,” Rory and Paris return to Chilton for an alumni career day. Paris has given the school $100,000 and keeps asking Headmaster Charleston how her money is spent. Charleston tells Rory that she should get her master’s degree and come back to work for Chilton, offering her a spot on the faculty anywhere she would like to teach. That is very generous! Rory declines, saying teaching is not her passion. Which I believe, but it is nice to have options. The greatest moment comes not from a chat with Charleston or a their classroom lectures, but when Paris sees Tristan and literally flees into the bathroom. She still has a crush on him after all these years and her badass surrogate empire! My favorite part is her lunging to hold the bathroom door shut with her foot, in stilettos no less. We even get a brief cameo from Francie, her former nemesis. All of which is wholly enjoyable and very well done.
Rory further irritates me when, in a panic about her future, calls Logan in the middle of the night and asks if Mitchum can put in a good word for her at Conde Nast. Nooooo! Stop using Logan for his dad’s connections. The meeting goes well enough and Rory decides to write about one of their ideas – why people stand in line for the next big thing. This leads to her and Lorelai bouncing around Manhattan for a bit, and we get cameos from Mae Whitman and Michael Ausiello, both of whom I am excited to see. However, Lorelai goes back to the hotel room and Rory sleeps with a guy dressed as a Wookie in her first one night stand. She is then insulting to comic book/scifi fans when telling Lorelai what happened. I remain displeased with you, Rory Gilmore.
Since Lorelai encourages Rory to take that interview with SandySays, Rory finally caves and does so. She is not prepared with any content pitches, and brings up the Wookie one-night-stand and says she can write about “girls who sleep with characters” and Sandy replies “loser girls?” I am not sure if they mean fake geek girls or if this is just tone-deaf coincidence on Dan Palladino’s part (he wrote and directed this ep), but I was frowning during this entire exchange. Sandy dismisses Rory in an obvious “oh I have a meeting I forgot about” way and then calls her in the elevator to tell her the position has been filled internally, which everyone knows is a lie. Sandy also calls out Rory’s three-cell-phone strategy, saying she is hard to get in touch with. Rory then throws out all her phones and moves back home.
Aside from the ending, I actually really loved this episode. But I am not sure what in heaven is going on with Rory. Any ideas, fellow Gilmore fans? This is so not like her! Pretty much everything with Paris is gold, however. Plus Emily’s declaration that “after six sessions” Lorelai is “no different” which is very hilarious. I like how Emily thinks therapy is going to change who Lorelai is as a person, which I am sure many people expect out of therapy but it doesn’t work like that. And poor Luke! He never wanted to franchise anything. Emily expects everyone to change to suit her, just as always.
Stay tuned until tomorrow, when the Summer will be posted! Until then, tweet and post your thoughts, I would love to hear your thoughts!
it just dawned on me when reading the milo/jess comment from the golden globes interview…she also slept with a wookie! i always wondered why they included that lovely bit of not necessary to the show and there it is…baby daddy none of the three (or 4 if you or rory can remember paul)!!! geez. talk about let down! but i’ll bet that’s it!!!! :< :<