The Gormless Girls
Good lord this show is ghastly.
First, I acknowledge that I am not the intended audience. However, that shouldn’t mean it’s almost unwatchable for anyone outside the target demographic.
Next, this show should have been about Paris, Luke and Sookie and their quirky, funny friends. They’re the only entertaining, redeemable characters in the story.
I’m only in the middle of season 5 and I’m not sure I can finish this series. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I guess the answer is, you need to be under 15 to enjoy this show, though all the cultural references in the overwhelming dialog are obviously for adults.
Lorelai is insufferable. She’s only somewhat redeemable when she’s concerned about Rory. Otherwise, she’s completely self-absorbed and about as deep as a cake pan. (She’s a lot like her mother and daughter.) Her endless prattle about nonsense is meant to be funny or quirky, but instead is endlessly annoying. It may be how she avoids getting close to anyone, but even her own daughter? No one talks like that and no one has the patience to endure anyone who talks like that.
Speaking of annoying, why should we ever care about Rory? What does Rory care about, other than Harvard? And why did she care about Harvard? We never find out. Turns out, she doesn’t care very much. On a dime, she drops that lifelong dream and at the last minute decides to go to Yale instead. Amazing that no one ever mentioned that her grandfather went to Yale any time Rory talked about Harvard— that would have been the first thing a Yalie or anyone related to one would pipe up about as soon as anyone mentioned college. We don’t find out about Richard’s alma mater until she’s already applying to schools.
Rory has the personality of a wet sock. She likes what her mother likes, but has no interests of her own other than “journalism.” Oh wait, she reads. But we never hear anything about how all that reading has shaped her worldview, she never asserts her own opinion about anything other than the most trivial things (take out food, music, or movie choices) and even then, there’s little confidence in any of it. She chooses the worst boys as well. Why does Rory have such low self esteem? Wasn’t she raised in an incredibly loving, nurturing environment where she was encouraged to be anything she wanted to be with all the support of her mother and her village?
(Side note: I read fan pages/recaps and learned that Rory ends up pregnant after having yet another affair, I guess repeating the cycle of single motherhood? Why is Rory so dumb? How did she get into Yale and Harvard? Was birth control and abortion already outlawed in Stars Hollow in the early aughts? Why doesn’t Rory get a better outcome?
Why is ending up pregnant with a stalled career the best the writers could do by this character? Is this what tween girls and young women need? How colossally disappointing. Another story that reinforces women’s value only as girlfriends and mothers, and from a creator who is a woman, but couldn’t understand how depressing this is? Please, do better. She should have had an amazing, exciting life full of all the possibilities, and at least a marginally interesting personality.
After 5+ seasons of “will they or won’t they,” when Luke and Lorelai finally get together, Rory has nothing to say about it. It’s not even a Thing. You’d think, given Lorelai’s challenging dating history and pining away for “the one,” her daughter would be overjoyed that her mother has finally gotten together with the one decent person who lives in that asinine town.
Speaking of asinine, are they all so dumb from inbreeding? How is (almost) everyone so stupid?
Speaking of stupid, when did Lane lose double digit IQ points to become interested in the walking shoe tree, Zach? Why are the women on this show portrayed as so consistently lame?
Speaking of lame, Emily and Richard are repugnant. We’re obviously never supposed to care about these people, so why were they included in the story for so long? To show us why Lorelai is intolerable? They’re so, so awful, I have to fast forward through their scenes.
Paris, Sookie and Luke almost make the series tolerable, but that’s a lot of pressure to put on so few characters. But it’s been fun to see a few young faces before they became so famous. Rami Malek, MiloV, Adam Brody. And love the cameos from Carole King and Sherilyn Fenn.
Another side note: Why is the Firefly decorated like a bed & breakfast, which Lorelai claimed to despise? It looks like the worst recreation of every grandmother’s kitschy house. The plaid furniture, chaotically patterned wall paper and thousands of tchotchkes everywhere — what a mess. Doesn’t seem at all to align with what Lorelai seemed to care about.
Finally, if there’s ever a Paris Peregrinations show, I’ll be the first to tune in.
