Sol

[4.4/10] Like some other episodes penned by Daniel Palladino, this one is a bit all over the place. It doesn’t so much have storylines as it has little snippets that coalesce into some strange hodge-podge. So many things here violate the continuity of the show in non-nitpicky ways, and there’s a number of outright weird narrative choices as well.

Let’s start with the weird telegraphing, once again, of an inevitable conflict between Luke and Lorelai. So Lorelai has a pregnancy scare, the basis of which is her having a hankering for an apple, and the settling of which is her having a later craving for junk food. That alone is silly to begin with. But the whole thing feels, once again, like a very obvious means for the show to deposit in a declaration from Lorelai that she likes being a single adult woman for the first time in her life and doesn’t want to be tied down.

Again, the only purpose for any of this, very glancing, underfed storyline is to telegraph some issue between Luke and Lorelai down the line, which is compounded by a similarly blunt scene where Luke declares his disdain for New York City and big cities generally, just cementing the fact that he wouldn’t want to travel with Lorelai when she’s inevitably offered this quickly-appearing globe-trotting job.

The other half of that is Luke jostling with Kirk, of all people, for the right to buy the Twickam house. I’ll admit, I kind of like the idea of this one, despite the fact that it’s more setup for a contrived “Luke wants to settle down/Lorelai wants to uproot” storyline that feels really forced. The idea that Kirk has been living at home, working “15,000 jobs” and saving every penny with his idiot savant investing skills is an amusing side bit. But Daniel Palladino tends to have such a goofy, broad sense of humor that it turns into a bunch of town elders taking a shvitz and making weird declarations about Luke pining for Lorelai and “wanting it more.” This show can get cartoony at times, and I don’t necessarily mind it, but it’s too much and again, too heavy-handed with the Luke/Lorelai material.

The other major storyline, which is too abbreviated, is Rory getting a setback in her newspaper aspirations. I like the contrast this one delivers, where when the episode starts, Rory seems perfectly in sync and integrated at the Stamford paper, and then toward the end, she’s told by Mitchum Huntzberger that she just doesn’t have what it takes because she plays it too safe. Like I said with the last episode, I like Rory having to struggle for the things that she wants, and not just being delivered her dreams on a platter a la getting into every college of her choice. It’s an interesting idea from a Gordon Gecko-looking dude that however scrupulous and bright Rory may be, she doesn’t have a killer instinct or the urge to push and that may keep her from making it in her chosen field. It’s a tough dose of reality, and hopefully it eventually gives Rory the resolve to fight for what she wants rather than just give in, but I like it as an obstacle for her.

I’m less on board with her reaction to it. It is, perhaps, human nature that she’s in a bad mood and so projects her frustrations out on Logan. And it’s not crazy that she has a bit of anomie after working so hard and being told it won’t get her the career she wants for reasons beyond her control. But however literary the impulse, there’s something odd about her nabbing Logan and wanting to hijack a yacht, though I’m willing to wait and see where it goes.

What I’m not willing to wait and see on is the Lorelai/Emily storyline here, which I have real problems with. I have fewer issues with the plot thread itself, which sees Emily “sponsoring” a local ballerina or ballerino and Lorelai getting involved in evaluating them. My bigger problem is that it violates some significant continuity and elides serious character concerns.

For one thing, just a few episodes ago we had a big thing where Lorelai sacrificed her big story in a magazine to spare her mom’s feelings. Now, all of a sudden, the story is in the magazine anyway, and Lorelai doesn’t seem to care or doesn’t ask the editor what happened and why the change of plans and we’re just supposed to forget the small but significant gesture from not very long ago.

Worse yet, despite the ugliness that led to “You and me are done,” and the clash at the Logan dinner that ended on bad terms, Lorelai is apparently not only back and attending Friday night dinners, but is playfully jousting with Emily again. Don’t get me wrong, I love their dynamic together, but that is really disappointing. The show spent a great deal of time driving a meaningful wedge between Lorelai and Emily, reinforcing it along the way, and now they’re just fine again, while not even addressing the unpleasantness that happened in the prior episode and never really pointing them back toward being okay again prior to that either.

The plot thread itself is fine I suppose. It’s a good laugh that Emily’s Russian ballerino takes offense to Lorelai comparing Emily to Stalin. But the way it takes something that seems like it would add fuel to the fire of the Lorelai-Emily feud and instead throws water on it is a severe missed opportunity.

Then there’s all the nonsense with Sookie’s delivery. For one thing, it makes no sense that Rory is so grossed out by Sookie going into labor, considering (a.) she was presumably around for Davie’s birth and (b.) she was definitely around for Sherry going into labor. So what we get is a hackneyed joke that violates what we’ve already seen from the character.

At the same time, I hate to admit it but I was a little mortified by Sookie effectively ordering Jackson to get a vasectomy. I don’t mind the show taking something reasonably serious and playing it in a light way. That’s often Gilmore Girls’s M.O. when it comes to comedy. But the other side of the coin is that it’s pretty offensive for Sookie to not only unilaterally declare that they’re not having anymore kids without any debate or discussion between two equal partners in a marriage, but to also then immediately direct her husband to have a medical procedure without consulting him or even giving him a say. For an episode that carefully skirts its way around any mention of abortion, the way it glosses over the notion of Jackson having any bodily autonomy feels particularly offensive.

Overall, this episode is perfectly watchable, so I feel a bit bad rating it this low. But the other side of the coin is that basically only one of its storylines works, and even that promises to go off the rails a bit going into the next episode. Everything else is either broad and/or offensive comedy, something that violates the continuity of the show or elides major character issues that were previously established, or is setting up for a forced future clash that nobody wants.

[7.6/10] You could rename this episode “The one where people have mature, adult conversations for once.” That’s probably overstating things, but for a show that likes to up the drama factor when it can, it’s nice to have an episode about characters being introspective and honest with one another about their feelings and the problems they’re facing.

But before we can really do that in earnest, we have to have a dog funeral. Ah the eternal dilemma. Michel is one of the show’s most enjoyable and underused characters, but when Gilmore Girls does use him, it sticks him into underwhelming, broad storylines that tend to go nowhere. I suppose Michel mourning his dog is meant to be the comic relief in an otherwise heavier episode, but his devotion to this memorial service, and disgust for how less-than-seriously Lorelai and Sookie are taking it, pays next to comic dividends.

Still, it turns out alright at the end. It’s not much, but Michel’s little bit about eating a hamburger at Luke’s (thereby violating his strict diet) in honor of his deceased bet who loved the grilled-up treats, is a sweet note to end a pretty ridiculous story on. And hell, Zach again seems to be on his best behavior in offering his condolences to Michel, and even does a pretty damn melodic cover of “My Heart Will Go On” (thereby continuing the gag about Michel’s love of Celine Dion) on acoustic guitar. It’s not much, but it sends an empty plot out on a nice note, which is enough.

Then you have Rory getting all twitterpated by her dreamy new Econ T.A. who’s filling in while Richard recovers. Full disclosure -- I was cringing like mad through all of this, as it felt like Gilmore Girls was sending us through yet another tedious love triangle. But I was pleasantly surprised at the results instead.

There’s a realness to Rory sitting down with Logan and admitted her flushed feelings at the sight of this T.A. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and, after the deal with Marty that spurred the confession in the first place, possibly damaging. But rather than being fodder for a contrived break-up, Logan says it’s no big deal, apologizes for overreacting to the Marty situations, and affirms that minor crushes are not something that matter -- how you feel deep down and what you choose to do are. It represents the show veering away from melodrama and into a mature, healthy relationship for one of its leads, which is a breath of fresh air.

So is “Farewell My Pet”’s approach to the Lorelai Chris situation. I’ll admit that here too, I feared the worst, when arguments at the inn between then went badly and it felt like the same tired back and forth we’ve heard a thousand times.

But then Lorelai has a conversation with her best friend, one of those revealing and frank conversations that you need to have with the important people in your life in order to figure things out, and she has an epiphany. Lorelai realizes she’s fighting the wrong battle. Chris is fixated on Luke and any unresolved feelings Lorelai might have for him, and Lorelai admits that to some extent he’s right. It was less than a year ago that she and Luke were engaged, ahd that it’s not like her warm feelings for Luke have disappeared. But she also states (correctly, in my estimation) that Chris is wrong. Luke is not a problem because while she’s still coming to terms with the leftover of her relationship with him, she chose Chris, and she has been 100% committed to Chris.

Sookie, however, is the voice of reason, and asks the question that many viewers had to be asking at this point as well. Even if Luke was not a part of the equation, would Lorelai and Chris make sense together? And when she stops and thinks about it, Lorelai has to admit that the answer is no.

I think that’s all I wanted from this arc. This season has spent so much time trying to sell us on Chris and Lorelai working, presumably to make this fall more tragic, and not nearly enough time hinting at the ways they just don’t work. It wants you to buy into them as a pairing, so that you’re not just yelling “why?” at the screen for forty minutes at a time. And it never really worked.

But this does. It works when Chris admits that he always thought their problem was timing, and so when an opportunity presented itself, he seized it, arguably much too soon. It works when Lorelai admits that, even apart from Luke, she and Chris just aren’t right, and her weeping confession that Chris is the man she “wants to want” even when she doesn’t hits that believable note of beautiful tragedy this season has had trouble with elsewhere.

In the end, I appreciate what Gilmore Girls has been trying to do with Lorelai and Chris this season, even if the execution left plenty to be desired. It comes into focus in this episode. Lorelai was presented with someone who was nigh-perfect for her, but whom she perceived to not want to marry her, and was wounded by that. So she turned to someone who was always wrong for her, but who wanted her, who had always wanted her, who had proposed to her multiple times in the past and, in that, gave her the one thing Luke couldn’t seem to by the time they ended -- the sense that your partner really wants to spend the rest of his life with you.

Lorelai hoped that feeling of being wanted, that her shared history with Christopher, would be enough, or maybe she didn’t even realize until now that it’s what was motivating her. But either way, she figures it out, and for once, she and Chris have an open and honest conversation that lays it all out on the table, and sends them to their separate corners once more.

I haven’t loved this romance arc. It’s full of too much build and not of enough signs of cracks in the foundation as the show brings Christopher and Lorelai together. But for once, the show seizes on a genuine reason for two people to break apart and discards the red herring beef between Lorelai and Chris. Rather than breaking them up with another overblown fight, or some dramatic gesture, “Farewell My Pet” just has two adults, speaking honestly with one another, recognizing what’s there and what isn’t.

In its last year as a regular series, it’s hard to know whether to call Gilmore Girls a mature show, but its two title characters have finally figured out how to approach their romantic lives with a level of maturity the audience has rarely, if ever, seen before.

[7.1/10] This is basically a Lorelai/Logan episode, which we’ve never really gotten before. I appreciate the show finding pairings and character clashes that, five episodes from the series, are still fairly new. The confab between the two of them is, in some ways, the last hurdle to overcome before Logan can be in this thing for the long haul.

And credit the show here. It manages to have Lorelai be fairly negative on Logan while granting her daughter her agency, to having lukewarm but still present approval of him, and all it takes is one late night quest for pie and/or water.

Lorelai admits her concerns -- that Logan seems unconcerned with his mistakes, that he’s not used to having normal people concerns, and that he’s too sheltered and privileged to be good for her daughter. And Logan comes up with good response to each worry: that he’s very aware of his mistakes but wanted to downplay them in front of his girlfriend’s mom in the hopes of impressing her, he’s ready to work and wants to work hard, and that he thought Lorelai of all people would understand giving up the life of luxury to pursue your own goals and your own values your way since she did it herself.

Lorelai seems taken aback and unexpectedly satisfied with these answers (the last one being particularly flattering and satisfying) and goes from basically trying to avoid Logan to wanting to share some pie with him, the ultimate sign of Gilmore affection.
The other storyline in the episode is Rory turning over whether to take a job at a newspaper in Rhode Island or hold out for a prestigious-sounding fellowship. It’s a kind of confusing decision for a layman like me. Rory says that it’s only a six-week (paid) internship, so presumably she’ll still need a job after those six weeks are finished? And presumably if it’s that prestigious, the newspaper that offered her a job would still take her after those six weeks are up?

Who knows. What’s clear is that the show has established this as a “take the safe route and take the job or be adventurous and go for the internship” choice. And while I’d love to see Rory try for something big and fail for once, I imagine when she takes Logan’s advice and follows her dreams here, she’ll end up being one of those four. I don’t want to prematurely criticize the show for leaning into wish-fulfillment, but that does seem where we’re headed.

Still, there’s some good to come out of this, as Logan tells Rory to make the decision without him, which Rory initially interprets as lack of commitment, but then quickly realizes is Logan saying he’ll follow her wherever she goes (where she leads, if you will). It’s another sweet note for Logan, whom the show has turned into a nigh-perfect boyfriend. (And at a juncture in the maze, they look like they’re about to walk down different paths but end up walking down the same path together. Hooray for metaphors!)

I like Logan, mostly because he seems ultimately good for Rory, but we’ve got a formula now. Logan screws up, Logan apologizes and realizes the error of his ways, and then Logan is redeemed. At some point, he becomes too good, or at least too good at wiping away those mistakes, to be believed.

Speaking of fixing things too perfectly to be believed, we get a scene between Lorelai and Luke here that’s basically meant to patch up the lingering bad feelings from their relationship. Lorelai apologizes for sleeping with Christopher, and it’s a good look for her, and if the show had left it at that with some slight warming between the two of them, it’d be fine. It needed to be said, and it has the appropriate amount of awkwardness as Lorelai and Luke run into one another in the ridiculous, eponymous hay bale maze.

But then Luke starts apologizing for his behavior too which, look, he needs to do. But (a.) it’s all very quick and (b.) it feels like the show has now invented reasons to justify his prior behavior that conflict with what the character said and the show said at the time. Now look, I can totally sympathize with Season 7 doing its best to wipe away the stink of that storyline from Season 6. And recontextualizing Luke as thinking he needed to fix his life as a father before he could embark on his life as a husband makes a lot more sense than the weird, frankly nonsensical “You can’t meet April because she’d like you more than she likes me” reason he gave.

It’s just not what the show was positing before. And hey, maybe a retcon is in order, but the show needed to explore that more if that were the case, rather than just giving the pair a quick conversation to tidily dispel everything that happened in the prior season, give Luke another on-the-nose statement about the way that April is growing up so quickly leading him to realize how much things are constantly in flux and not able to be “settled” like he might have hoped before, and transparently laying the groundwork for Luke and Lorelai to reunite.

Maybe I’m more negative on this episode than I thought. It’s perfectly pleasant for most of the way, but when you stop and think about it, outside of the stellar Lorelai/Logan scene, it’s mostly founded on T.V. nonsense to get you to the desired destination. A little nonsense isn’t the worst thing though, especially if you’re trying to undo the damage done from a storyline everyone would like to forget anyway.

[6.0/10] Ohh this episode has problems.

Let’s start with the most obvious one. Zach continues to just be the fucking worst. He is a whiny, idiotic, petulant child, and for all the missteps big and small that this nevertheless great show has made along the way, pairing up him and Lane may be the biggest one. He writes off Lane’s concern when she expresses some minor frustration with him writing countless songs using other girls’ names, he throws a temper tantrum and ruins Hep Alien’s big shot when Brian starts writing a song with Lane’s name, and he’s all around a big baby about this. Why Lane doesn’t just break up with him and move on, I don’t know.

Speaking of break-ups, there’s the interesting tidbit that Logan considers him and Rory to be broken up, and Rory seems hurt by this when she just thinks they were “on hiatus.” That said, I imagine this whole thing will be a big misunderstanding, and he thought she broke up with him, and they’ll reconcile nicely.

On the subject of reconciling, the episode does well to make up for lost time with lots of great Rory/Lorelai banter in this one, as the two Gilmore Girls have saved up months worth of repartee to get out of their system. It’s the best thing in this one, and a treat to have back after 9 episodes with the two of them on the outs.

And hey, I was even okay with the Christopher stuff in this one. I like the idea of history repeating itself where now Rory wants to get out from under Richard and Emily’s thumb. And Luke’s right, it is good of Christopher to finally start contributing something to Rory’s life after years and years of Lorelai effectively doing it on her own. It’s the most I’ve liked Chris actually. Sure, he’s now just wealthy and unrealistic, but he seems genuinely happy to be able to help Rory in some way, and it’s a good look.

But in an episode featuring one absentee dad making a very good decision, “He’s Slippin’” also features another absentee dad making bad decision after bad decision. Oh Luke. It feels really out of character for Luke not to tell Lorelai about this. I could totally understand him wanting to let Lorelai revel in the fact that she and Rory are back together, but the clock is ticking, and him just pretending that it didn’t happen and they didn’t have their whole big “no secrets” conversation (which Lorelai held up her end of the bargain on in this episode) is stupid and dishonest as hell.

I don’t necessarily mind characters acting stupid or dishonest, but it feels out of character for Luke, who’s always been an honorable guy, almost to a fault. You can squint and kind of see the show trying to suggest that he’s got this thing he’s always wanted and so is loathe to do anything, even in these extraordinary circumstances, to upset that, but it just doesn’t feel like him, which hurts this already headache-inducing storyline.

The fact that he tells Liz (who you just know is going to spill the beans in some unsuspecting moment) is even dumber. And again, I totally understand him not wanting to disrupt the lives of Anna and April when they’ve apparently gotten along fine for twelve years without him, but it again seems out of character for him not to write a letter or something to let them know that while he doesn’t want to invade what they have going, he’s there if they need anything.

You can throw your characters in a lot of wild or wacky situations, and not all of them will work perfectly, but all will be at least passable if you can just make the characters’ reactions to those crazy circumstances feel genuine and true to who they’ve been. For all my grief for Zach, his childish fit on stage is entirely in keeping with who is and who he’s always been on this show. (The real mystery is why Lane sticks with him.) But the Luke who is keeping things from Lorelai and not trying to be a part of his (granted, very new-to-him) daughter’s life does not feel like the man we’ve gotten to know over the last 5 1/2 seasons, and that hurts this episode and this arc considerably.

[8.3/10] A lot to unpack here. This is a pretty big deal episode given what’s happened so far, with a lot of facets, so let’s take it a bit at a time.

For starters, I love that Rory stands up to Emily. There’s something passive aggressive about the way that Rory dutifully shows up for Friday night dinners, but is utterly cold to her grandmother, while being warm and friendly with her grandfather. As Mrs. Bloom pointed out, there’s something very much descended from Emily in that sort of tack. And to top it off, I love Richard and Emily mouthing encouragements to one another, and Rory being fed up at Emily playing dumb, telling her grandma that she’ll follow the letter of their agreement but not the spirit, and then bolting. Rory is generally so accommodating and forgiving of her grandparents that it really signifies the way Emily has crossed a line and done something beyond the pale.

I also love the before and after of it, which gets played more for comedy than drama. Lorelai instantly hanging up on her mother (with a nice use of the rule of three), or referring to her as “Adolf” gets some good comic mileage. And it’s a nice touch that Lorelai and Richard find themselves unexpectedly closer through this. Just as Lorelai lit up when Emily complimented her inn to the Alex Borstein character, you can tell how much Richard’s honest praise of the Dragonfly means to her. And his willingness to help her out with an insurance policy (which is adorable in how he lights up at insurance-related matter) and belief that she could make a lot of money selling but still running the place provide the nicest interactions between the two we’ve gotten in a while.

They also make for an interesting conclusion on the Lorelai/Emily feud front. I love how miffed Emily is that Richard is the favorite. She’s perfectly petulant about it. She’s not wrong to say that Richard’s enjoying getting to be the favored grandparent, and RIchard’s not wrong to say that it helps maintain a connection between the elder Gilmores and their daughter that might let them ease her back into the fold someday. But you can tell that Emily is frustrated to have been effectively excommunicated by the two most important women in her life, and impacted enough that she’s willing to debase herself, to do something she disagrees with, in the same of restoring order.

I’ll admit, I let out an audible “Oh snap” when she walked into Luke’s diner. She’s been there before, but there’s just something about upper crust Emily waltzing into Luke’s greasy spoon that tells you as a viewer that things must be serious for her to set foot in there. The way Luke too gives her the cold shoulder creates interesting parallels with Rory. But I love Emily’s final monologue, the one where Emily admits defeat, however pointedly, however much she may think this is the wrong choices, and effectively gives into Luke-Lorelai in the hopes of getting her daughter back. It’s the closest thing to humility we’ve ever seen from Emily, encouraging Luke to go to Lorelai, and it’s a testament to how important preserving and restoring her relationship with Lorelai is.

That walk-in from Luke, there to contrast Judy Garland singing about growing old and life passing you by and all the spinster references in the episode, is a pretty magical moment. It’s hard not to have your heart warmed by their reunion kiss, or to not be glad that the uber-couple of this show is back together.

And yet, I have my issues with it. Despite the momentary glory of that reunion, Emily’s promise to butt out doesn’t really solve the underlying problem. Yes, the concern about the elder GIlmores meddling was part of what drove Luke away, but just as problematic was the fact that Lorelai not only didn’t warn Luke beforehand that she was going to be up all night drinking tequila with her ex, but that she lied to him about it afterward. Emily had nothing to do with that, and while perhaps that’s an issue that will be worked out in the episodes to come, it feels a bit unsatisfying, upon reflection, that the show glosses over that in slapping the two of them back together.

Then again, maybe it’s just a reflection of real life, where sometimes people miss each other, feel their lives unwhole without that special someone, and ignore the things that bothered them before in the name of getting that feeling back. I still find Luke and Lorelai’s end-of-episode reconciliation a little too incomplete upon consideration, though nothing less than heartwarming in the moment, but maybe that’s just how people come back together.

The episode certainly posits that they’re feeling one another’s absence. There’s some pretty broad comedy on that front, which might otherwise undercut the power of that closing scene. Luke is in a grim mood, burning food, tossing dishrags, and throwing customers out of his restaurant, but it’s too cartoony to feel like a meaningful reflection of him being upset at the situation with Lorelai. (Though I’ll admit to getting a big kick out of Kirk’s love for the messed up food.) By the same token, the bit with Sookie trying to give Lorelai a night out, but being incapable of doing anything because of the fact that she’s late in her pregnancy, doesn’t accomplish much comically or character-wise either.

Still, there’s good stuff on the margins even apart from the major fireworks of the episode. As inconsequential as the Rory-Logan stuff seems, it’s noteworthy (a.) how cute Rory and Logan are in this one...I might be fully coming around on them, and (b.) the fact that Rory is now having the talk with her mother after sleeping with Logan. It’s a nicely complex emotional scene, where Rory is enthused at her new relationship and trying to have another chance at continuing their openness about this sort of thing after the unpleasantness with Dean, and Lorelai is unhappy with the fact that Rory is dating Logan and even less happy with the fact that she’s sleeping with him, but trying to be supportive and noncombative for fear of driving her daughter way. It’s a short, but really well-done scene.

And little as I care for Zach, and as much as it seems odd for rock and roll Lane to have a “chastity until marriage principle,” I actually really enjoyed how Gilmore Girls played that storyline. The notion that this isn’t necessarily something Lane wants, but that is instead just something that’s been instilled in her whether she likes it or not, and her frustrations and insecurity about that, is a really interesting angle. Sometimes we take things from our parents regardless of whether we intend it, and Lane having to contend with that, to the point of yelling “you’re in my head!” to Mrs. Kim is a really promising storyline to explore.

Overall, I have my issues with some of the comedy in this one, and with what the episode elides when reconnecting its major couple, but there’s too much good here: in Rory’s stand, in Lane’s predicament, in Richard’s delight, in Emily’s Waterloo, and in that kiss, to be too bothered by anything else..

[7.2/10] There’s a line from The Simpsons where Homer tells Bart, “When a woman says nothing’s wrong, that means everything’s wrong. And when a woman says everything’s wrong, that means everything’s wrong.” It’s a bit sexist, but I think Gilmore Girls is gesturing at the same idea here. Both Lorelai and Rory have nominally resolved any issues with their significant others, and things are supposedly fine, but you can tell in the wounded look behind Lorelai’s eyes when she finds out about the bag from Anna, and in the vacant way Rory lies about why she didn’t answer Logan’s calls, there is rot in the wood of both relationships, even if it hasn’t made it to the surface yet.

There’s interesting layers to that tack. It puts Rory and Lorelai in the same boat. For Rory, she has to admit that Logan is right on some logical level -- that he very likely believed that they were broken up when he slept with Honor’s friends and that he would not and has not been unfaithful to her, at least based on his own understanding of their relationship status. But some of the best conflicts come when there’s a clash between what is rationally true and what is emotionally resonant.

Rory can’t necessarily fault Logan for what he did. After all, it’s believable that someone as new at relationships as him would (a.) interpret a big fight as a break-up rather than a bump in the road (not to keep reverting back to Friends for this “on a break”-style fight, but Chandler had the same issue with Monica in one episode) and (b.) seek comfort in his old habits when he thought things had ended. But at the same time, she also can’t deny her own feelings of being hurt by it, of being almost unable to look at Logan, to speak to him, even as she puts up a front of normalcy.

Her friend reunion and reconciliation with Paris is sweet, and her hallway confessional from Logan seems to set things right, but there’s emotions at the bottom of this that can’t be swept away by Logan’s facts, which is what makes things so difficult and so interesting when two major figures in a show are acting so in character and yet at such cross purposes.

There’s a similar vibe for Lorelai here. She is trying with all her might to be cool about this whole long lost daughter situation, even as it results in she and Luke having to postpone their wedding. She doesn’t want to pressure Luke about it, she doesn’t want to snoop in on Anna, and she tries very hard to shut Rory down before even inching down that path.

But when she tells Luke that he needs a new duffel bag when chaperoning April’s field trip, and he, as is typical, brushes the suggestion off, only to show up with a new bag from Anna’s show when he returns, Lorelai is, understandably, a bit miffed, even if she tries not to show it. And like Logan, Luke has a reasonable explanation for this (much much lesser) offense -- that he didn’t ask for the bag, that it was sent to him without his knowledge, and that he’ll get rid of it if it bothers Lorelai.

Lorelai, like Rory, wants to be okay with this, doesn’t want to be the fiancee who gets precious about her future-husband’s luggage, but it’s another brick in the wall of Lorelai’s understandable discomfort with this situation. She too is pretending that everything’s “OK” when there’s real issues bothering her that would be better let out rather than kept behind that veneer.

Issues like the fact that it’s been months and Luke still hasn’t properly introduced Lorelai to April. I mean, what the hell Gilmore Girls. I can totally buy Luke wanting to give April a little time to acclimate to having a new parent in her life before he starts introducing a step family into the picture. And I can totally understand him wanting to ensure that he gets some quality one-on-one time with her so that they can make up for lost time and really bond. But what I cannot buy is a version of Luke who would not introduce the most important person in his world to his newfound daughter, and I especially cannot imagine a version of him who would not, at the very least, explain to Lorelai why he’s doing what he’s doing rather than just expecting her to butt out quietly. This storyline continues to be entirely out of character for Luke, and it means the show is laying the groundwork for a break-up a flimsy and unsatisfying foundation.

He’s not the only one acting out of character in this storyline either. I can totally buy Lorelai not wanting to make a fuss, and not wanting to confront Luke about why she’s been firewalled from April’s life. As Mrs. Bloom pointed out, that’s in keeping with a lot of her behavior regarding her daughter with respect to boys Lorelai didn’t approve of like Jess or Logan. But the other side of the coin is that Lorelai is something of a schemer, and so even if she wouldn’t come at Luke directly about this, she seems far more likely to say something like “Hey, Miss Patty is having a winter pageant for kids next week, why don’t you and I take April to it, that way we could all get to know one another better?” rather than just staying mum this entire time.

Again, the issues the show is dealing with are real and compelling in their own way, but don’t fit the characters as we know them, which makes the entire conflict feel false.

Speaking of people acting out of character, I was disappointed that Mrs. Kim didn’t cast Zach off into the bowels of hell when he expressed his desire to marry Lane. She was supposed to be our last line of defense against Zach saddling Lane with his idiocy for the rest of forever. But at least the show laid the groundwork there, with Mrs. Kim gradually finding a tolerance for her daughter’s different way of life, and she and Zach finding common ground and the basis for a mutual understanding over Lane’s glasses.

The bit with Mrs. Kim insisting that Zach write a hit (and showing a surprisingly strong understanding of melody and catchiness -- presumably from her girls’ singing group days) in order to show that he can provide for Lane is a cute one, though. And while I still wish she’d banish Zach to the ends of the Earth rather than welcome him into her family, it’s still touching when she coaxes him to (re-)propose, and gives the couple her grandmother’s ring to seal the deal. It’s a bit of fun and sweetness in an episode otherwise founded on couples trending in the wrong direction.

But this episode leans more into the fun and silliness for most of its run than it does into the heavier stuff. In fact, it’s a remarkably old school episode of Gilmore Girls in several ways, with Lorelai and Rory gallivanting about Stars Hollow, freaking out about a visit from Richard and Emily (which proved expectedly hilarious), and crossing swords with Michel at the inn.

That, however, just makes “I’m OK, You’re OK” a meta-example of its own idea. It’s an episode where both Luke and Logan are mostly absent, with only a conspicuously ignored ringing cell phone to hint at their presence. It’s an episode full of comedy and mother-daughter fun and the usual cheery banter that makes everything seem like business as usual on the show. But there’s those hints -- the cell phone, the bag, the briefly pained looks in the Gilmore Girls eyes -- to show that dark clouds are on the horizon, however bright and funny things seem right now.

Buck's problem is that he constantly worries he's a burden and that he's not needed (or wanted), so he goes big, larger-than-life personality, and does too much to "earn his keep". It makes him seem arrogant and annoying (and he can be annoying), but what looks like arrogance is actually insecurity. Which is why this episode is a success - Buck is reminded that his life DOES matter, he does have positive impact on the people around him. Right down to the shower of get-well gifts that greet him at the apartment... he is wanted and he wants to be there to be a part of that big family he now has.

As for Chimney and his father, gaaaaaah, love it! That note about pride and stubbornness making both father and son not reach out to each other in the past, that is so SO accurate and recognisable. It is that much more powerful when they gently try to connect and make room for each other.

I'm the biggest sucker for family bonding themes, 9-1-1 and its sister show have been consistent in that area.

9/10 - for the "lightning and the thunder" and a life saved. The music set the mood.