How is everyone doing today? Have we all recovered from the post-revival glut of opinion pieces about reviews of opinion pieces of the show?

Time for spring to show that time has passed within the confines of the show!

We start in what I assume is the first therapy session for Lorelai and Judgy WASP Mom except the trees in the background are all in full bloom? Wasn’t it snowing last episode? Lorelai has elected to sit with her skirt spread out on the couch like she’s a Russian aristocrat or just really worried someone will see the stains on the cushions:

So natural.

This episode is written by Daniel Palladino, so already I am prepared to find it annoying and twee.

There’s a food festival in Stars Hollow that Rory can’t stay for because she has to run off and jump on a plane to Smarmy’s Dick. She gets a call from a startup blog that wants her to work for them, but we all know Rory Gilmore is way to good at being a journalist to stop being unemployed and work for a BLOG.

Mrs. Kim shows up because she’s hosting exchange students from Korea and they apparently never experienced electricity before? The hell, show, what the fuck do you think the rest of the world is like? NO ONE BUT AMERICANS HAVE ELECTRICITY AND EVERYONE ELSE LIVES IN MUD HUTS LET’S MAKE A FUCKING JOKE ABOUT IT BECAUSE USA USA USA #TRUMP #MAGA!

Then the worst thing that has ever happened to this show happens – we see Mr. Kim. NO. Nope! Fuck you, show! I don’t ever want to see Mr. Kim in the way that no one ever really wanted to see Vera on Cheers. This also ruins my (amazing) theory that Mr. Kim is doing an extended performance art piece by putting on a Kirk suit and trolling the entire town for decades.

We also get to see Jackson, that awesome character who lied about having a vasectomy and got his wife pregnant with a child she didn’t want! When I think nostalgia and warm feelings, I think reproductive coercion!

When Rory’s in London she talks to that crazy lady about the book she’s supposed to be writing with her. I’ve noticed that a lot of what Rory says is said as if she’s annoyed with the person she’s talking to. Gone is small-voiced unsure Rory, now we have biting, annoyed, better than you Rory. Even when she has lunch with Smarmy she’s annoyed by everything. She also only talks about herself. Nonstop. No one cares, Rory. Shut the fuck up and eat 47 pop tarts or whatever the hell you ordered at this posh restaurant. But Poppa Smarmy shows up to swing his King of the World money dick around and offer to put in a good word for Rory with Conde Nast.

This really is being written like Rory is fresh out of college. As a freelance writer she should be working on several stories at once for several different outlets, or she should be working her way up bouncing from small paper to bigger paper. Instead, she’s complaining that her meeting got pushed and having lunch with her rich friend with benefits. I can’t see anyone who was really serious about being a journalist when they were in college continuing to fuck around the way Rory is doing in their 30s. A lot of people :cough: me :cough: realize that freelancing is fucking hard work and they’d rather have a steady paycheck so they end up taking jobs in ad agencies or in corporate marketing departments. And the ones who do keep freelancing are getting published all over the place because they aren’t sitting around waiting on one outlet to call them back. Or waiting for a rich guy to call a someone on their behalf.

Rory turns down Poppa Smarmy’s offer and then he mentions that Smarmy is engaged.

Rory and Smarmy are garbage humans.

Back in Stars Hollow, the entire town seems confused by the concept of a gay pride parade, thinking that one has to be gay in order to march in it. Straight allies can be in the parade, too! It’s not like you need to show some sort of ID before marching – I marched in one when I was in college and no one kicked me out for being straight. I was interning for a radio station at the time my job was to throw condoms and lollipops at the crowd while walking in front of the station’s float. Why didn’t I get to throw both condoms and dental dams? Unknown.

Back in therapy, Lorelai and Judgy WASP Mom are barely speaking (outside a Trombone Stan moment.) Why isn’t the therapist asking them any questions? She’s just letting them sit there for 45 minutes? Is she the worst therapist? Possibly. Judgy WASP Mom brings up a terrible letter that Lorelai sent her one year on her birthday filled with accusations and abuse. But Lorelai has no recollection of sending such a letter. They fight about it much like the U.S. argues about politics – one party says thing A happened, the other is a crazy disaster that insists facts don’t exist, and then we all give up and go eat tacos.

Later, we get this amazing David Lynch Moment (trademark commenter Mary):

I cackled.

Kirk’s short film made this revival worth it.

This was nice, too:

Guess I should have started a podcast instead of writing all these fucking reviews. 😉

Luke and Lorelai go to dinner at Judgy WASP Mom’s. She only wanted Luke to attend so she could talk about the money Spacey Grandpa left him to turn Luke’s Diner into a franchise. Luke has no interest but he can’t just say no because god forbid anyone on this show act like a god damned human being.

Rory goes to an “alumni event” at Chilton. A high school alumni event. Sure. We’ll pretend that’s a real thing. Paris is there, too, and she gives a speech to a classroom full of students that makes them cry. Headmaster Charleston tells Rory to go get her master’s so she can teach at Chilton, but we can all tell that Rory thinks it’s beneath her because she is a JOURNALIST. Paris gets no such offer and instead melts down when she sees Spiky (Tristan) talking to a girl who we can all assume is his daughter. That is not Chad Michael Murray but it’s ok. It’s a 3 second shot that leads to Paris melting down in the women’s bathroom, which isn’t really necessary but it is fun. So is this:

Lorelai and Judgy WASP Mom are in therapy again and they’re talking about how Lorelai and Luke aren’t married. Why aren’t they married? Wasn’t the entire reason Lorelai ran off to fuck C-Money at the end of season 6 because she wanted to be married and Luke was dragging his feet over April? So they…got together at the end of season 7 and then marriage stopped mattering to Lorelai? Wanting to have “it” didn’t matter anymore?

Judgy WASP Mom doesn’t go to the next therapy session so Lorelai is there alone. Instead, Judgy WASP Mom forces Luke to go look at franchise locations for the franchise he doesn’t want. For some reason, he doesn’t tell Lorelai about it. And she doesn’t tell him about the therapy. I’m SO GLAD THEY DIDN’T FIX THE GLARING PROBLEMS IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP DURING THE LAST 9 YEARS.

Rory gets kicked off her book thing by Jason Mantzoukas. This is weird for me because I’m used to him playing crazy characters that typically devolve into trying to fuck someone or trying to kill someone (see: Brooklyn 99, The League, anything else he’s ever been in) so I kept expecting him to like pull a gun or start screaming about pocket hotdogs.

Since Rory has to do a piece for GQ about “lines,” she picks the most impractical footwear possible to walk around New York in. She also has her mother come with her, because why wouldn’t you do your job without your mom? Your mom who wears a hat after the great She Should Have Learned period of 2000-2005. Rory sits down to interview a dude in a line and she falls asleep.

Rory has always been the worst but now she’s the worst to the 8000th power.

As pointed out on the Gilmore Guys initial thoughts episode, Rory actually WALKS AWAY from the story when she finds a whole line of people waiting in a line for nothing! THAT’S THE STORY! GQ wants the story of why people wait in line – these are people who are waiting in line and they don’t know why! Amazing journalist Rory Gilmore, ladies and gentlemen.

Then she goes and fucks a wookie, who is one of her sources.

She also hasn’t broken up with Paul. Rory,

When Lorelai finds out that Rory is sleepy with an engaged Smarmy she doesn’t seem to really care. I think if I told my mom I was knowingly sleeping with an engaged man she’d punch me square in the face. This is one of the main reasons I’ve never been able to really get into this show the way other people do – I don’t understand Rory and Lorelai’s relationship on a deep level. It’s weird to me. It’s STILL weird to me and I’ve seen more of it than Amy Sherman-Palladino (she didn’t watch season 7.)

Rory decides to go meet with the startup girl, but she’s completely unprepared and wearing a very ugly red dress. That’s your lucky outfit? ‘K. She has no ideas to pitch to the editor, she acts like the idea of writing for the internet is debasing herself, and she, rightly, gets shown the door.

Side note – how does a FREELANCE REPORTER not have any ideas floating around? Nothing? Not one fucking idea? How does former campaign reporter Rory Gilmore not have a least one pitch about politics in 2016?

After a blowup with the editor of the site, unemployed Rory throws a $700 iPhone into a garbage can and moves back home with her mom.

Yikes.

(Also…what happened with that letter Lorelai supposedly wrote to Judgy WASP Mom?)