Through a Glass, Darkly

Soon and very soon, Gilmore Girls is coming back. (Veronica Mars, too, and I’m probably more excited about that one, but I don’t write about it, so this is a Gilmore-centric post.) Next week! And . . . I think I’m looking forward to it. Even after the craptastic episode that was “Merry Fisticuffs.” Why is that?

After having some time to think about the first half of the season, I feel more optimistic than I did at the beginning of December. Let’s recap what happened this season, shall we? Lorelai and Luke split up, she became a cloying, insipid version of herself, and she impulsively married Christopher.

All the happy smoochy stuff was what was bugging me. Was Lorelai actually happy? Was she just wanting to be happy? Was she going to convince herself that she was happy? What were we, the viewers, supposed to be seeing in those scenes? With a little distance between me and “Merry Fisticuffs” (I, like Luke, need processing time), I have come to believe even more firmly that the first half of this season was just setting us up for Lorelai and Christopher’s relationship to fail. I must confess that I was espousing a certain view (Luke and Lorelai are going to get back together) when, at times, I didn’t believe it myself. But I believe it now. I think that the cracks that I have been seeing in Lorelai and Christopher’s relationship (or claiming to see when my faith in Luke and Lorelai was wavering) are going to become more and more evident, to the point that Lorelai is finally going to have to do some serious soul-searching about this situation. I think that, finally, we are going to see her realizing what I have been saying for a while - she married quickly because she thought that any man would do, that what she really wanted was just to get married. That getting married would finally mean she had “the whole package.” But, instead, she is going to see that what she wanted was to be married to Luke, and that Christopher is a poor (poor poor) substitute for what she really wants.

Did you notice that I called Lorelai and Christopher’s “marriage” a relationship rather than using the word “marriage”? Well, let me give you my theories about the second half of the season.

-First, we know that, in real life, one must be a resident of Paris for something like 40 days before getting married there. In real life, Lorelai and Christopher’s marriage wouldn’t be legal. When Emily started talking about having Lorelai and Christopher exchange vows at her fancy party, my theory developed like this: Lorelai and Christopher find out that their marriage isn’t legal. Emily encourages them to exchange actual vows at her party. Lorelai declines. Christopher whines. She kicks him out. Birds sing, flowers bloom, and Kari cries tears of great joy.

-Second, April is going to be part of what brings Luke and Lorelai back together. Perhaps his custody battle will have something to do with this? But, seriously. Good storytelling requires it. April pulled them apart, she brings them back together. At this point, it would be a total cop-out to have April just move to Arizona and be forgotten. Instead, she’s got to play a part in fixing this.

As far as Rory goes, I’m not really sure. If this is the last season, I’d like to see her break up with Logan. I have long thought that Rory should end the show single, and I can’t really articulate why except that, for so long, Rory was so dependent on her mom. I would like to see her being more independent, and, for Rory, I think that would mean being single for a while. We haven’t really seen her single except in season 4, when she basically felt so lost without her mom and without a relationship that she turned to her married ex-boyfriend. So, in light of that, I am hoping that the future (grad school?) takes her and Logan down different paths. Also, I’d like to see him get hit by a bus. (I had such high hopes for that LDB accident last season.)

We need to spend some more time with Lane and Zach (and Mrs. Kim). I miss Michel. And Sookie and Jackson. And Paris. Too much of this season has been wasted on Christopher. Let’s get focused and go out on a positive note.

That’s all I have for now. I really think this is going to be it for the series, so things are going to have to move quickly so that we can finish on track. But I think things are looking up. Here’s to next week.