Last night was finally a new episode of Gilmore Girls, after a five week hiatus, during which time there were re-runs being aired in the U.S. on the CW Network, but here in Canada, Global was running other shows. Bah humbug to this! Last night's episode was entitled "Hay Bale Maze," a nod to the maze of hay bales that Taylor builds in lieu of the town's annual Spring Fling. The maze takes up the entire town, blocking Luke's Diner, and even the town gazebo is removed.
I will go straight to my commentary on this one since not much happened in the show plot wise.
I don’t know what to make of this episode exactly.
On the one hand I liked that the townies were back in full swing. Miss Patty with her little dancers dressed up as bulbs to perform the dance of the daffodils was cute, Babbette and Morrie’s salty nuts stand, Gypsy wanting to know when she would have a booth so that she could start squeezing her lemons, Taylor having spent all of the budget on the maze and then later complaining about hay fever season, Kirk dressed up as whatever creature then walking on stilts to man the maze, Michele and Sookie fighting over where to place the programme for Spring Fling, the troubador being back, plus Paris and Doyle’s argument about whether or not he was lactose intolerant and the reasons why Paris has 6 types of milk in the fridge, etc., there was a lot going on with the townies, which I always like.
We also learn the name of Zach and Lane’s twins in this episode, but in a very offhand, casual manner. There was no mention of how the names (Steve and Juan — or maybe it was Kwon, which is a more Korean name and would make sense) came to be. I am also disappointed in the names. I expected more of rebel Lane and her laxadaisical husband to choose more offbeat or musically inclined names for their kids. Or to take a page out of Sookie and Jackson’s book and decide to give their second child (who was supposed to be their last), all of the names they liked so that she has like 10 names that belong to both boys and girls. I have a friend who comes from a very conservative Chinese family. But even still her older sister just named her first daughter (and the family’s first grandchild/niece) Bowie, for David Bowie, because she and her husband are that big of fans. I expected something like that from Lane, to name at least one of her sons after a member of The Ramones. Not something run of the mill like Steve.
But on the other hand there was something not right with the “rhythm” of the show. It made me think of when I first started learning to drive a standard vehicle — lots of jerky movements, lots of stop and go that didn’t lead to anywhere particularly.
This was especially true of the relationship between Lorelai and Rory, which has always been the focal point of the show. Last night it felt off. I can’t pinpoint if it was just that it had been about 5 weeks since the last episode or if it was the bad writing, though. Like when Lorelai told Sookie that she didn’t feel like it was her place anymore to intervene in Rory’s relationship with Logan. Maybe this would be true in another show that a mother wouldn’t intervene or offer up her opinon about her grown up daughter’s relationship, but certainly not on GG. The crux of this show has always been that Lorelai and Rory tell each other everything and are first best friends then mother/daughter. Lorelai even says this in an episode to her mom when she wonders why they can’t have the same kind of relationship. Then the awkwardness of Lorelai coming home to find Logan cooking in her kitchen — it looked and felt like Lorelai was a stranger in her own home. Not to mention when Lorelai made separate beds for them in her room — this from the mom who knows that Rory had sex for the first time with Dean in that bed and who surely isn’t stupid enough to think that while at Yale the most Logan and Rory do is “make out.”
Then there is the Lorelai/Luke relationship. So we see the awkwardness of Luke and Lorelai when they run into each other at the town meeting. Okay, so clearly the writers are committed to continuing to slowly get the couple back together. Fair enough. But then fast forward to their run in in the maze and from that awkward moment at the town meeting to a few days later Lorelai’s suddenly apologizing in five words or less for sleeping with Christopher? It seems to be a bit of a leap for me.
Where I found the Palladinos writing to be subtle, I find the writers this season do one of two things: They either hit you over the head of the obviousness of things or they put something in that apparently should be obvious but isn’t. The maze thing to me was the former. It was clear that the maze wasn’t just some fun Stars Hollow thing, but that it was supposed to symbolize the maze of feelings and obstacles Luke and Lorelai went through from the beginning of their relationship and at the end when Lorelai apologizes and then Luke gives her directions out of the maze, that the “maze” of their love was over and that they could finally walk a straight line together.
And on another level, the maze symbolized Logan coming out from his family’s thumb and finding hiw own way, and making his own path.
After last night’s episode, I hope that this will be the last season. Especially with this lot of writers. More episodes like this and I will stop watching my beloved show, which is now a ghost of its former self. (This is something I never thought I’d say! But the hiatus really hurt it and then the bad writing didn’t make things better or remind me anymore why I like the show so much.)
Labels: Gilmore Girls
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