Gilmore Girls Season 8 Episode 2 Review: Spring
Christine Laskodi
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Rory slept with a Wookie.
On Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life; Spring, Lorelai and Emily embark on therapy, Rory and Logan's romance seems doomed, Liz and TJ joined a cult, and we finally met the most mysterious man in Stars Hollow.
Let's get right into it.
Lorelai: (whispers) How much time do we have left?
Emily: Stop asking that.
“Spring” brings Emily and Lorelai to new levels of discomfort in therapy. Neither woman is ready to give in and compromise, truly share feelings, or actually heal.
They're much more alike than either will ever admit.
Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop are doing some of their best work in these therapy sessions, specifically Graham's performance describing Richard's last words, "Get the hell away from me!"
This sudden heart attack caught everyone off-guard, Lorelai and Emily especially. And now they're both unsettled. They both had different expectations of Richard's death, and how it would happen.
Emily is moving forward, though. She's doing her best to connect to Luke, to show her love by ensuring that Lorelai won't be left alone in the same scenario that she is.
I found it interesting that Richard left money specifically to be used to expand Luke's into an empire. Sure, he once mentioned franchising Luke's, during that hilarious golf game they played together. But the subject was never broached again.
So to discover that one of Richard's long term plans was to keep Luke moving forward, thus taking care of Lorelai, was really surprising. Richard really did think of everything.
And Emily is just doing her best to make sure that his wishes are carried out.
If something's good, keep it the same.
Luke
Luke is complacent. There's nothing he wants to change about his life. Except for maybe the fact that he's got to figure out how to get his sister and her husband out of the vegetable cult their joined by accident. (An interesting and effective way to keep Liz and TJ off-screen, but still be a part of the story.)
That is, unless you count the fact that Lorelai is growing distant from him, and that she's lying to him about therpay.
But then, he's lying to her as well. He hasn't told her that he looked at expansion properties with Emily.
Lorelai has other problems that are keeping her preoccupied.
Stars Hollow tourism is fading. The Dragonfly Inn can't book A-List celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence. They only get B-List kids from Law & Order, and hipsters who don't order food.
Even Rachael Ray's soups and sammies can't help boost the Dragonfly.
That's right. In Sookie's absence, a slew of celebrity chefs have taken over her kitchen. She's been away for 2 years, on a short-term sabbatical that turned into a full time job growing fancy vegetables.
And do you know who's getting antsy? Michel.
What's the point of living if we are never going to bag Jennifer Lawrence?!
Michel
I love that Michel has a real story in this revival, one that doesn't involve his mom or a dead dog.
Not only that, we finally learned that Michel is gay, and married to his husband Frederick.
While I'm not terribly crazy about the “lack of gays” in Stars Hollow being made the butt of the joke so many times during “Spring,” I do like that Michel's sexuality, which was in question for years, is stated very plainly.
There's not grand coming-out for Michel. It's just another facet of the character.
And even better, he and his husband are adopting kids. Michel is going to be a daddy.
Lorelai: Michel, he's for me what Paris is for you.
Rory: Your angry friend?
Lorelai: My angry friend.
I never made the connection until just now. Paris and Michel are very similar characters.
Now that I think about it, I'd like them to have a storyline of their own. Perhaps Michel and Frederick should head to Paris' clinic to find a surrogate.
And speaking of Paris...
A return to Chilton shows us that she's falling apart. She misses Doyle. She still feels like she's a teenager who isn't good enough.
Encounters with Tristan (No, not Chad Michael Murray,) and Francie send Paris spiraling back to her teens years, having a panic attack in the bathroom, and forcing Rory to calm her down.
Paris has become her mother. Her kids love her nanny more than they do her. She places unrealistic expectation on everything she does. And she's cracking under the pressure of her divorce.
If this is the last we see of Paris, it will break my heart. Paris' outcome leaves me sad. She was going to take on the world. And now it seems like the world is taking her down.
Rory: Someone's coming to town?
Logan: Kind of.
Rory: Odette?
Logan: Kind of.
Rory: Right. So I guess I'll go.
Odette.
Logan is engaged, because Rory can't catch a break with guys. (Though, she keeps forgetting to break up with her boyfriend, Paul.)
This story feels like a repeat of what happened between Rory and Dean in Season 5. Dean was a married man, Rory had an affair with him, and her heart ended up broken.
This story feels like it's headed in exactly the same direction.
Logan's doing his family duty by marrying Odette, or at least, that's what it seems like. Logan's clearly very much in love with Rory, but hides their friendship from his father. But then again, it's not like Rory's being very upfront about it with Lorelai.
But Rory's career is more concerning than her red-flag romance.
Though she's being courted by an on-line magazine, has an offer to teach at Chilton, and has options in front of her at GQ, Rory isn't content to settle down and take a small job.
She wants that big job. The one with notoriety. She's been published by the New Yorker, don't forget.
I'm just a big, fat, Wookie-humping loser.
Rory
So when the small stuff starts to fall through while she waits for something bigger, including her book, we see Rory begin to fall apart, all the way to having a one-night stand with a Wookie she met in line doing a story.
Rory moving back home feels right at this juncture. Maybe she'll find everything she needs in Stars Hollow.
Maybe Rory was never built to be a big-time journalist after all.
Oh, hey! There's my dad!
Lane
It happened.
We finally met Mr. Kim. With one simple wave, the biggest mystery man in the history of Stars Hollow was finally introduced to us.
I have to be honest: I hated it. The running joke was better.
For some reason, seeing Mr. Kim only left me with more questions, like where the heck he was all this time? Like, why wasn't he at Lane and Zack's wedding? Or there when Lane moved out? Or when she had babies?
Some things are better left as a joke. This is one of them.
Did “Spring” meet your expectations? Are you surprised that Logan is engaged? Should Lorelai and Luke sit down and have a big talk? Will Michel REALLY leave the Dragonfly? Was seeing Mr. Kim a little bit of a letdown? Sound off below!
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is streaming now on Netflix.
