#exorcising this from my watchlist now

[eurekavalley]

I fell into a little Gilmore Girls hole when I wasn't sure if I had COVID a few weeks ago and rather than make it everybody's problem, I'm going to make exactly one (1) post about it.

Tone aside, the show has so much in common with prestige drama family dynamics (like maybe this is my Succession). Everything is motivated by trauma responses and family cycles. Every family that gets any focus at all - the Gilmores, the Danes, the Kims, the Haydens, the Huntzbergers, the Gellars, the Stiles - is incredibly fucked up. No one really escapes.

I have zero patience for 'Mitchum Huntzberger was right about Rory'. First of all, how brave to agree with alpha male corporate capitalist figure! But also, he is obviously transferring his fears for his son onto Rory, who he set up in a subservient role to take his abuse. And we never talk about how Rory was right about Mitchum when she called him out for how he treated his son.

AYITL was in desperate need of another edit for taste and length, but it has good bones. Rory's burnout and career low point, Lorelai basically happy but also stuck in some ways, Emily finally changing in ways no one would have expected - it's all so good. I love the theme of change in the face of others' expectations - Emily wants Lorelai to change in specific ways and expresses that at therapy, and they both want that from Rory, even though Emily can say it and Lorelai really can't. But none of them can change for each other, even though they are all undergoing great change.

Seriously, the way Lorelai finds something that makes her feel secure (a house, a car, a relationship stasis) and then tries to maintain it exactly as it is, even replacing the guts of her car and keeping the shell of it, is so fascinating.

I never really cared about Rory's relationships, but I do think the future the revival is pointing toward is interesting And Luke and Lorelai aren't a huge pairing for me, but I like the way that they love matches up. Luke has a need to make grand gestures and do more than anyone even wants from him - except Lorelai, who needs exactly that. It's a little toxic and it's why they are the right match for each other. And it also reflects Emily's need to maintain a role in Lorelai's life with financial entanglements.

Lane's lifepath is great. So many comments are about why Lane never got her big break, but she could have left Stars Hollow multiple times, she could have tried to find another band to play with, and she always chose to stay and play with *her* band (more family enmeshment!). She is where she wants to be, and in the revival she seems happy and grounded, and she is still living an artist's life. Lane is better than fine. And like Rory, the ways she imagines breaking the cycle (becoming a rockstar and getting out from her mother's thumb) and the ways she actually ends up doing it (having a marriage where she enjoys sex and running her mother's business) may not align, and it's still okay.

The pro-birth agenda is real, there are so many unplanned pregnancies, and the only one who says, "I cannot have this baby" is Lane, but it is never mentioned again. The pro-choice poster in Rory's dorm room is a red herring.

#gilmore girls #teevee journal #exorcising this from my watchlist now #also... i really think season seven is pretty good