Friday Night Dinner

I’m trying to remember the scene, and I think it’s when Lorelai’s having her bridal shower that Lane DJ’d (somehow?!) up until only 2 hours before her international flight. Maybe Rory and Lane hugged early off-screen because clearly Mrs. Kim was going to be in a hurry to speed to the airport Fast and Furious-style since you’re supposed to GET TO the airport at least two hours ahead for an international flight.

Around the middle of Season 3 Rory just really starts to bug me. It’s earlier than that when Alexis stops enunciating and starts mumbling a lot of her lines, or at least sounding to me like she’s got food in her mouth and she’s speaking around it.

On top of that, Rory never grows as a character. Paris stays Paris, but actually grows as a character through the show. She’s forced to deal with a lot, but she gets through it, and it makes her more interesting. Rory, however, gets nearly everything handed to her, even when she makes stupid decisions, and I think she reacts poorly to the very few hardships she has to face.

She gets to be valedictorian, which doesn’t even make sense from the history of the show; she has Marty, Logan, Dean, and Jess all after her at around the same time; she sleeps with Dean after he’s married because... she’s lonely? I’m not even sure. (I don’t blame her for their marriage breaking up, that was all entirely Dean.) She’s not raised to be a selfish, spoiled kid, but when she’s told once that she “doesn’t have it” by Papa Huntzberger, she throws everything Lorelai’s done for her back in Lor’s face and runs off to be pampered by her grandparents. She reacts like a toddler.

After she’s with Logan, she’s awful. I understand that, from a writing standpoint, she might go after someone who is basically exactly like her absent father. I understand that she has something in her personality where she lets men trample on her a little bit (Jess does it by withholding affection when he’s in a bad place, Dean lets his temper get the best of him a scary amount of times, and Logan only briefly even acts like he respects her as a person.), so it’s not specifically that she makes bad choices in love, but that around this time, she’s somehow forgotten everything she’s ever seen Lorelai work hard for and push through. She should understand the value of pushing yourself and ignoring when people tell you that you can’t do things. That’s who Lorelai IS and I refuse to believe smart Rory is too dumb to have observed this.

She’s somehow not learned a thing from her mother, so she decides that if she can’t make it as a journalist, there’s no reason to do anything productive ever. She’s just going to drink a lot and hang out with Logan and his dumbass friends. Then she’s surprised and annoyed when Emily and Richard start to notice that she’s making all the wrong decisions and they start to push back. She reacts like they’re the crazy ones. Granted, Emily isn’t really handling things well, but again, Rory’s supposed to be smart and observant; she should understand by now that Emily has good intentions even when she’s making poor decisions.

Hi! Thanks!

I’m sure they put the girls in the garage for a reference effect, but it still gets my goat that it makes no sense within the world of the show. I know Stars Hollow is quirky and Rory and Lorelai are wacky, but Chilton is supposed to be pretty upper crust and serious. I feel like, Paris excepted, we’re supposed to find Rory’s school life to be less on the quirky side and more believable. Rory choosing to meet Francie in an empty parking garage just doesn’t really make sense to me.

3x11 - I Solemnly Swear

Trivia:

Jackson is allergic to bee stings; he was stung by one once and “his head swelled up to three times its normal size”

Madeline hates the word “blood.”

Goofs:

Lorelei, you and Rory are at Friday Night Dinner, why are you saying Rory should go back to school “tomorrow” (Saturday) and let Paris stab her?

Thoughts:

Sookie says Jackson must have been lonely before they got together and that he “didn’t live near a good bar.” Makes me wonder if there are any bars in Stars Hollow at all. It doesn’t seem like something Taylor would allow.

I love the mental image of Paris bullying an old lady into giving her a discount on the mansion they want to book for the prom.

I feel like the Gilmores’ phone jumps around the room a lot. Sometimes it’s on the table outside the foyer and other times it’s on the table behind the couch.

Why does the sales guy at the end of the Inn Running class say, “let’s step inside this diamond in the rough” and then switch to a slide of a completely different inn?

Joe asks to see Sookie’s fingers under the guise of admiring her blisters, but I think he was looking for a wedding ring, which she’s not wearing for some reason?

Somehow it’s perfect that Paris is drinking a RedBull. I feel like she overcaffeinates herself pretty regularly.

Francie’s note has Rory pick a place to meet; why the hell does Rory suggest a nearly empty parking garage? Why is there even a nearly empty parking garage near the school? If this is right after school or during school hours (likely) I feel like it would have a lot more cars.

I can’t believe Sookie just LETS Joe dump a wad of greens into whatever she’s cooking? He doesn’t look at it, doesn’t know what it is, hasn’t asked what stage it’s in. Sookie usually goes bananas when someone messes with her food, but she just lets him dump green onions into what might be a pot of water that’s just about to boil so pasta can be cooked or caramel sauce.

Lorelei is wearing the longest scarf in the history of man and it’s not even covering most of her neck.

Aww, Rory mentioning that she and Lorelai have eaten lettuce sandwiches makes me think of young Lorelai trying to raise a tiny Rory but being too broke to buy a lot of food, and wanting to be “healthy” so that’s what she chose.

Francie is stupider than we’re supposed to believe, I think. Why would she try to make Paris believe Rory is going behind her back when Francie’s the one who’s already been a backstabbing jerk.

The teacher is just LETTING this fencing argument go on, even though it’s completely disruptive to the whole class and possibly dangerous? Jeez, Chilton.

I feel like a fancy school like Chilton wouldn’t let the kids use “Give ’till it hurts” as a tag line for a blood drive.

Jeez, Sookie, did you cook an entire lamb for Jackson? That’s a packed plate.

I dig the commentary from iskahmacrae on Luke having Jess do the ordering: “thinking about recent discussions re: Luke learning how to be a parental figure and suddenly wondering if it actually occurred to him that he’d have to show Jess HOW to do the ordering that week…‘cause you couldn’t expect a kid like Jess to admit that he didn’t know how…instead Kirk would end up with a lettuce sandwich” I hadn’t even thought of things from that angle! 

Repeat Guest Stars:

Joe Fria shows up again as an old friend of Sookie, even though when we last saw him, he was playing a waiter at the restaurant where Jackson and Sookie had their first date. 

Recognizable Guest Stars:

I never got this! I only just saw it when I happened to glance at my activity page.

Dumb tumblr.

Agreed! I like to think they got to that point after the show ended.