1x12 Double Date

[7.3/10] So much of show’s like Gilmore Girls come down to execution. There’s something about the “coincidence” that Rory and Lorelai both happen to be going on double dates on the same night that instantly makes me roll my eyes. And yet, even if the premise is contrived, the show uses that structure to create fun scenes and tell compelling stories to where, by the end of the episode, I’d essentially forgotten how the constructed quality of the premise annoyed me.

On Lorelai’s side, it helps that she and Sookie make for a wonderful comic pairing, Sookie’s relatable anxiousness about going on her first date in years, and Lorelai’s smart remarks and support make for a great mix. The actual date was pretty silly, and the rudeness of Jackson’s cousin Rune was too broad, but it had a good throughline. Sookie is out of practice and worried so she’s scared to be assertive. Lorelai nudges her, and it gets Sookie to not only nail down a date with Jackson, but ask him to stay at Luke’s when Rune wants to go. It’s a small arc, but a satisfying one, that sees our dear Sookie being understandably nervous but standing up and going after what she wants.

(As an aside, it’s shocking to me that the show is reputed to play “will they won’t they” with Luke and Lorelai forever because they push that button pretty hard here. Still, I can understand the show trying to stretch the romantic tension as far as it will go because the two of them have fantastic chemistry, and it just exposes how tedious the whole deal with Max was.)

I like the premise of the Lane-focused half of the episode that Rory’s enmeshed in. The idea of “loving” someone from afar and then realizing they’re not for you once you actually talk to them is a very sixteen-year-old epiphany. That said, like Rune, Todd is a little too exaggerated as a dumbo for my tastes. Plus, Rory’s affrontedness when Dean is leery about setting them up perturbed me a bit, but as my wife pointed out, it’s probably an accurate reaction for a teenager.

But what really bumped the episode up a notch is the story with Lorelai and Lane’s mom. It went with a familiar tack that I really like on Gilmore Girls -- Lorelai stands on principle with one person but then gets to the heart of the matter with another. In the episode with Rory’s dance, Lorelai told her mom that she shouldn’t pressure Rory to go, but in private with Rory, Lorelai encouraged her daughter to give it a chance. It’s a nice way to show that Lorelai understands what’s right in terms of “procedure” for lack of a better term, but isn’t skimping on the substance of the issue.

The show returns to the same move here. When Lane’s mom catches her daughter out with boys, she drags Lane away, and Lorelai, while not quite so fiery, takes Rory to task over her being selective with the truth in describing their outing with Dean. I loved Lorleia’s exclamation that Rory is truly her daughter after realizing that she left out details so that Lorelai wouldn’t have to lie to Lane’s mother and break the “mom code,” and her affirming that she wouldn’t lie to Lane’s mom for that very reason.

But then the episode follows it up with a great scene between Lorelai and Lane’s mom, where Lorelai affirms Lane’s mom’s right to raise her daughter the way sees fit, but implores her to see that she’s already done a great job with Lane and that she’s a good and responsible young woman. There’s some comedy in bridging the philosophical divide between the two women, but it’s a nice back-and-forth that gives both sides some solid points, understandable concerns, and frank admissions.

That’s one of the best things Gilmore Girls does -- take wacky sitcom premises like a daughter’s reluctance about going to a dance or a coincidental double double date (quadruple date) and turn it into a heartwarming than harrowing exploration of the generational relationships among mothers and daughters, or potent reflection of the unspoken camaraderie between moms (even moms with starkly different views on parenting), or the universal anxieties about impressing someone you like and standing up for getting to spend time with them. Nice to see the execution outstrip the premise here.