Directing and writing credits:
Written by Amy Sherman-Palladino, directed by Nick Marck. This is a quintessential ASP episode: tons of pop culture references, junk food, good music, an inappropriate gay joke, and a smidge of townie action. It's a somewhat frustrating episode, but one of my favorites from Season 1.
This is the only episode of "GG" directed by Nick Marck. He's worked on many other great teen shows, though: "The Wonder Years," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Veronica Mars," and "Greek." Over the weekend, I binged "The Good Place" and am very happy to see Kristen Bell as a lead on the small screen again. I would love to see Sarah Michelle Gellar in a similar lead role on a show that actually doesn't suck (I'm looking at you, "Ringer").
Most batshit crazy outfit:
This award goes to Rory's hideous, earth-tone ensemble and ponytail scarf. Yeah, you read that correctly...ponytail scarf. Her green cargo pants aren't flattering at all (flap pockets on the ass never are), but they have the potential to look really cool with a slim fit t-shirt and some Doc Martens. Unfortunately, she pairs them with a drab, subtly ombré, horizontally striped dark orange sweater that she wears layered over a lighter orange long-sleeved top. When she throws on her brown, lumpy jacket with the shearling collar, she really tips this ensemble from hideously ugly to unforgivable. Sadly, Rory is best dressed when she's wearing her Chilton uniform. Private school was the absolute best thing to happen to her wardrobe.
I'm into Lorelai's silvery nail polish and half pulled back hair.
Other wardrobe notables:
- Lorelai's rainbow shoulder sweater, which I kind of like. It's about 3 sizes too small and very short, but it fits her personality.
- The zip-up hoodie Max wears when he answers the door. It looks supremely comfy and is something I wouldn't mind owning.
- The red top Lane wears to Madeline's party. The rosette neckline is super 90s, but the color is dynamite for her complexion.
Most irritating Rory or Lorelai moment:
Lorelai's attempts to force Rory to wallow seem to come from a good place, but are annoying.
Lorelai: Oh yeah, get back in your pajamas, go to bed, eat nothing but gallons of ice cream and tons of pizza, don’t take a shower or shave your legs or put on any kind of makeup at all and just sit in the dark and watch a really sad movie and have a good long cry and just wallow. You need to wallow.
Just let Rory live her life and stop trying to control how she deals with her emotions, Lorelai. If you were a good mom, you'd get Rory a therapist so she has someone trustworthy to turn to when she wants to talk about her feelings.
Number of times Rory or Lorelai treat their bff like shit:
None! Lorelai even tries to calm Sookie down and make her realize how annoying she's acting when Jackson is just trying to do something nice for her.
Best literary or pop culture references:
Lorelai: One day, one day of pizza and pajamas. I’ll rent "Love Story" and "The Champ," "An Affair to Remember," "Ishtar."
None of these are movies I would want to watch post break-up, but I appreciate Lorelai's strategy. If my boyfriend broke up with me and I wanted to wallow in devastating sadness, I would probably just watch "The Before Trilogy" and call it a day. Or maybe "Amélie" and "When Harry Met Sally."
Stars Hollow weirdness:
Even though the breakup just happened the night before, the whole town already knows about it. Luke actually fights Dean whenever he tries to come into the diner for some coffee. This is pretty immature behavior on Luke's end, but I hate Dean so much that I'll let it slide.
Sharpest insult or one-liner:
Lorelai: You’re going to a Chilton party?
Rory: Yes I am.
Lorelai: Honey, why don’t you just stay home and read "The Bell Jar"? Same effect.
I'm with you 100%, Lorelai. Although I feel this way about almost all parties, so...
Books mentioned/books Rory is reading:
Along with Lorelai's mention of "The Bell Jar," we see Rory reading "The Art of Eating" by Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher at the party. I wish I could get away with this antisocial behavior more often, but my friends typically call me out on my shit and don't let me get away with reading books alone at parties. Playing in the corner with cats is a different story, though.
Best song of the episode:
There are so many good songs at the party, but I have to go with Ms. Jackson by Outkast. We see Lane dance with Henry to this song and it is amazing.
Thoughts:
This episode perfectly illustrates Rory's emotional stuntedness. Instead of telling Lorelai about what happened with Dean, she gives this vague explanation:
What happened here is we broke up. He didn’t want to be my boyfriend anymore, end of story.
Uh, ok. Yeah, that totally checks out. The night before, Dean was willing to blow what I'm sure had to be like 6 months of his bag boy salary to take you out to a nice dinner, but apropos of nothing, he just decided he wasn't into it anymore. I understand being upset and telling Lorelai something like, "We can talk about it later because I'm too upset right now," but not walking around in a huff and trashing Colonel Clucker and her brand new sweater with zero explanation. Rory and her mom are supposed to be best friends, but this exchange shows the relationship isn't quite as open as either of them thinks. And Rory isn't as mature as the show would like us to believe.
Later when Rory meets Jess and falls for him, but continues to string Dean along, we'll see more proof of her inability to identify and express feelings. Everyone always talks about how emotionally unavailable Jess is and blah, blah, blah, but Rory's just as bad (and in "AYitL" she's actually worse). More often than not, I get the feeling that Rory has no idea how she actually feels about anything. Remember when she dates Dean again after his marriage falls apart but then loses interest once Logan comes onto the scene? If Rory had a good therapist, that probably wouldn't have happened.
As irritated as I am with Rory's reaction to the break up, I'm even more annoyed with Lorelai's forceful suggestions to spend the day wallowing. I understand where she's coming from, but goddammit, Lorelai... just let Rory do her own thing for once. Throughout the series, Lorelai constantly complains about Emily's need to control her and cites it as one of the reasons why their relationship is so strained. It's hysterical to me that Lorelai doesn't realize she does the exact same fucking thing to Rory.
To her credit, Lorelai is supportive enough to do Rory's stupid 6AM errands and she doesn't push back too hard when Rory says she wants to go to Madeline's party. She's not a total monster and it's obvious she does want to do what's right for Rory, but she's just not self-aware enough to realize her faults/hypocritical behavior, something that is consistently grating and makes it impossible for me to like her.
I don't want to judge Lorelai's Max hookup too harshly because I've totally been there, but it is pretty pathetic. There has been zero mention of Max since they decided to take a break SIX episodes ago. I don't really get the sense that Lorelai has been lonely and missing him. If she had been, wouldn't she have mentioned it to Sookie or Rory? Also, Max is the dullest person alive and I refuse to believe sex with him is enjoyable. It's probably just missionary position and occasionally subpar oral. Whenever his jaw hurts and he needs to take a break, he probably whispers Shakespeare sonnets. During his climax, he screams lines from Proust. Cool...
While Lorelai is fucking Max Medina, Rory is at Madeline's insane party in an enormous mansion with possibly the best high school dance soundtrack ever. Beck, Elvis Costello, Outkast, Billy Bragg, Grandaddy... is Madeline's taste in music really this good? If parties like this happened in high school, maybe I would have actually gone to them instead of staying home on weekends and watching movies with my mom.
Random observations:
- A restaurant has never wrapped my leftovers in a tin foil swan and now I feel cheated.
- Rory takes this whole, "I must throw away everything that reminds me of Dean" thing a little too far. Do people really do this? I still have and wear a pair of earrings from my 10th grade boyfriend. He broke up with me because I couldn't decide which Red Hot Chili Peppers song was my favorite, but the earrings never personally wronged me, so...
- Who the hell wants to do boring errands at 6 AM on a Saturday morning? Rory is such a fucking nerd.
- There’s a cat in the trash alley! It’s a beautiful orange fluff ball with white feet. If it belonged to me, I would name it Cheeto.
- Toaster pizza is actually pretty delicious. My mom used to occasionally buy it back in the day and it made a great post cross country practice snack.
- I shouldn't be surprised by Max's weird chest hair, but I am.
- Where can I get one of those enormous tubs of Ben & Jerry's? At the end of the episode, Rory has two of them and they have to be at least 2+ gallons each. I imagine they're like $80 minimum and that Lorelai pilfered them from the Independence Inn.
- Throughout the "GG" series, there are at least two references to "G.I. Jane," a 1997 Ridley Scott movie I had completely forgotten about until just now.
- Rory's suggested post-errand activities are all pretty solid: "And to make it interesting, we should come up with, like, a reward system so once we’re done with everything on the list we could go get manicures or we could go to the Swiss place for fondue for dinner or we could stuff our purses full of sour patch kids and milk duds and go see the Stars Hollow elementary school production of ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf.’"
- I watched this episode with my boyfriend. This was our conversation during the diner scene:
Me: Rachel is way too cool for Luke.
Boyfriend: Luke is cool, too.
Me: How?
Boyfriend: He owns a small town diner and is cranky. Also, he has a giant penis.
Me: How do you know?
Boyfriend: I can just tell.
