2x22 I Can't Get Started

[6.3/10] Oh naive, naive Andrew. I assumed that the Season 2 finale would be the blow off for the Rory/Dean/Jess love triangle. I figured Dean would find out about Rory’s jaunt to NYC, they would break up, and Rory would convince Luke to let Jess come back and on we’d go to a third season filled with a new relationship dynamic.

Instead, it feels like we’ve reached the middle, and I have to admit, I’m not sure how much more of it I can take. I’ll keep watching the show, but man, dragging out Rory’s increasing selfishness about this with regard to Dean becomes increasingly hard to stomach. My understanding is that the love triangle drew good ratings and buzz, and so I can understand the show wanting to milk it for as long as they could. And hey, as a guy in his 30s instead of a teenager, different things are going to appeal to be or get me to react than they would for someone still in high school. But man, it’s just hard to watch this drag on and on with no resolution despite plenty of obvious points to get off the highway.

It’s especially frustrating because Jess’s best work isn’t with Rory -- where he plays the usual warmed over James Dean schtick -- but with Luke. His scene where he shows up at the diner and the two of them have a characteristically taciturn but effective conversations about Jess wanting to come back and knowing he has to do better is the best we’ve seen of Jess, and a good look for Luke too, revealing that he knows more about the gears turning in his nephew’s brain than he lets on. The story of Jess trying to do better to be in a place where he can pursue a young woman he cares for is a compelling story, much moreso than the actual glacially proceeding love triangle.

Speaking of love triangles, Chris makes a major appearance in this one, with he and Lorelai rekindling their old flame and resolving to make a go of it after so many missed connections and each being in the wrong places in their lives for it. Chris reports that things are going down the tube with Sherry, and while it’s still not great for them to be canoodling while he’s still attached (technically at least) it feels better than Rory’s business here.

The problem is just that, yet again, I’m not really compelled by the Lorelai-Chris relationship. Theoretically, I should be. There’s a rich character history there, and the idea of people who have a child together finding the right time in their lives to make things work, only for a monkey wrench to be thrown into their plans is a solid one on paper.

There’s two issues though. The first is that you just don’t feel that between Lorelai and Chris (or at least, I don’t). They try to show Chris is a good match by having him match Lorelai in motor-mouthed repartee, but it just never gets where it needs to go. Something about the pair just isn’t in sync, to where even if you can understand in principle why these characters could make sense together, it’s just not borne out on the screen.

The second is that this episode goes for some pretty convenient drama. Rory kissing Jess is the latest bit of face-palm worthy escalation, and with mention of having to go off the D.C. and not tell Dean, it becomes too much setup for further stories down the road and prep for next season than the natural evolution of the story. The same is true for Lorelai and Chris getting together only to have the bombshell that Sherry’s pregnant. There’s something too soap opera about it, something too easy about how the episode teases the idea that Lorelai and Chris are getting back together and has everyone get their hopes up only to dash them.

None of these things is so bad in and of itself, but deployed so quickly and conveniently, you can see the seams. The storytelling is too obvious, too clearly setting up more dramatic turns later to come without enough truth baked into the art. Gilmore Girls, over the course of its first two seasons at least, is not much of a plotty show. It gains strength from character development and smaller stories rather than trying to tell grand overarching plots. Those major plots it’s attempted here -- the aforementioned love triangle and more Chris drama -- feel like unfortunate attempts to inject that sort of high drama into a show that doesn’t need it.

Thankfully, there’s some nice, smaller comic material to work with. Paris’s run for student body president and self-doubt is amusing (and her conversation with her ladies in waiting about people viewing her as the most competent for the job but unlikable has unnerving resonance in 2017). Lorelai helping to calm Sookie down the night before her wedding is a great scene. And hey, I finally get Mrs. Bloom’s “Oy with the poodles already” reference!

But that’s the icing on a cake with some major problems, ones that seemed poised to up the show’s romantic entanglement drama factor over the more impressive and affecting family and friend stories that provide the lifeblood of the series.

Oh Geez. Where's that Rory's moral compass we've been hearing so much about? All this season she spent embellishing the truth and then outright lying to Dean (i mean, she did it bc he has jealousy issues and she didn't want him to overthink it, but she still lied), she has been emotionally cheating on Dean for, like half the season, which in their time is like half a year... And now she actually cheated by kissing Jess,,, girl, control yourself, use your head. I don't want Dean's heart to be broken, but I kinda hoped that he would see Rory kissing Jess so they would finally break up. I mean, how long will this last? How long will Rory not say anything?

And Christopher... I understand him but if it's not working out with Sherry, then a child won't fix that. Especially because he was going to leave her. I really hope he tells her everything that happened here with Lorelai, she needs to know. It just feels wrong to go raise a child with someone who you don't really love anymore. A really nice way to tie up the will they/won't they between Chris and Lorelai (if the writers don't spoil it)