Gilmore Girls Recap: Observations! Questions! Shenanigans! Coffee!

This week, people all over the country sat down to enjoy what many of us have been looking forward to for the better part of a year: No, not Thanksgiving, the return of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. The Girls are a divisive entity, like Brussels sprouts or the music of Nickelback—you either despise them ore you’re all in. I’ve been all in for the Gilmore Girls since about season 3 and it’s been a lonely road at times. Once, while spending two weeks at my parents’ house recovering from minor surgery, my father actually stood in front of the television and said “I love you, but I am begging you to turn this off.” Sometimes, he still wakes up from Gilmore-induced nightmares, shaking and screaming “NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT!!”

But I am a loser; sorry, a fan. I love that show to bits and have been really looking forward to this new season. I just watched the first episode and there is much to talk about, so instead of calling all my friends and hashing it out individually, I’m going to write it all down and send them each a link. Genius!

Recap:

Recaps, if not done properly, are really stupid, so I’ll keep this brief and then move on to Observations, Questions, and Things on Which I Call Shenanigans, which shall heretofore be shortened to just Shenanigans.

The first episode, Winter, opens on Gilmore hometown Stars Hollow, presumably on or right after Christmas Day. Rory has come home for a brief visit and, oh, the talking. Even I had trouble keeping up with this exchange. Something about sewers vs. septic tanks (how is this even a topic of debate in Stars Hollow? Get the sewers, people!) and Ben Affleck. This episode was less plot, more exposition, so let’s blow through it: Rory has managed to become a wildly successful journalist despite having neither an advanced degree nor any time logged on salary at a major publication. She has given up her apartment in Brooklyn because she doesn’t want to be tied to a lease, so she’s living out of boxes here and there. She just wrote a very well-received (especially by Luke) piece for The New Yorker that she is expanding into a book proposal. She’s got a boyfriend who seems very nice but very forgettable; so forgettable, in fact, that she keeps forgetting to break up with him. Some xoJane-like website is courting her heavily but Rory deems that to be beneath her. Oh, and she’s banging Logan again! So that’s Rory: Sleeping on couches, having no-strings-attached sex with ex-boyfriends, and dragging along some poor sad-sack boyfriend because she can’t be bothered to break up with him. Basically, she’s me in my twenties.

Lorelai has been abandoned by Sookie and is running the Dragonfly with Michelle. She keeps firing chefs so the Dragonfly is an inn that doesn’t serve food, apparently. Sounds delightful! She and Luke have settled into the sexless, heat-free, we’re-basically-glorified-roommates existence for which we all knew they were doomed. The big event looming over this episode is the death of Richard Gilmore, which triggered a huge fight between Lorelai and Emily, which somehow triggered Lorelai into proposing that she and Luke have a baby via surrogate. At 48 years old. It’s good to see that Lorelai hasn’t lost any of her delightfully irresponsible impulsiveness. Wow! I’m sounding pretty judgemental! I don’t want it to come across that I didn’t like this episode. I did. I do. I digress.

Observations:

So Lorelai is kind of The Worst now, huh? What the hell was that nonsense at her father’s funeral? You can’t think of one nice thing to say about your father? Not one? I’ll help you: He loved my daughter more than anything in the world and helped pay for her private school and college education. Oh look, that’s three things.

I was definitely worried that the return of the Sherman-Palladinos would mean that this series (what are we calling it? series? season? iteration?) would be really heavy on the cute-factor and self-references (see Season 6). So far, not bad at all. I’m quite pleased.

Kelly Bishop. Holy crap. She just gets better and more talented as the years go by. *slow clapping*

Jason Stiles! I really liked him and I really liked him and Lorelai together. Go ahead and hate, I don’t care!

Lane is still sad. So, so sad.

Lauren Graham is really pale, right?. I don’t think she’s getting enough Vitamin D. I’m concerned.

Questions:

Dear sweet spirit of Florence Henderson, what happened to Miss Patty?? Does she look…good? Terrible? I can’t even assess!

Is this season going to end with the final four words? (I’m not hyperlinking because I’m afraid of seeing any spoilers online about how it ends. Gilmore Girl fans, you know what I’m referencing. Everyone else, why are you even reading this?)

Am I crazy or was that whole exchange about Sookie running off to seek fame a little passive aggressive?

Shenanigans:

Paris is running a surrogacy agency? Really? This is not a trade that is beneath anyone but it is surely work that is beneath Paris Geller. Anything short of Supreme Court Justice is beneath Paris Geller.

That’s all for this one, friends. See you after Spring.