3.08 - Let the Games Begin

[bingbong]

Luke’s lecture to Jess was fantastic.  It's fun to watch Luke go from being a cheerleader of the Rory/Jess coupling to the paranoid guardian in a matter of minutes.  I imagine that having skipped the formative years of raising a kid it’s harder to just let it be as Lorelai was doing at the end of the episode.  Of course, imo, he’s justified to be suspicious but nonetheless it’s endearing. 

It's sweet in a way that Luke is protective of Rory, but he takes it to an extreme with all of her boyfriends. He's like Richard in this way (except with Logan), but Richard has the excuse of being her grandfather. Luke genuinely likes Rory, but his excuse is the wanna-be lover of her mom. He's an agent of goodness here but it often seems weird the way he looks at her with boyfriends, starting with Dean, as though she's a Virgin Goddess or something. Of course it's different that his not-to-be-trusted nephew is involved this time, so that is a factor. 
 
Luke was pro-active where protecting Rory's virtue was concerned, but he was reactive where Jess' education was concerned. I notice this difference in the way Luke treated two situations where Jess can't be trusted. He always feared the worst about Jess and school but never seemed to find out the ugly details until it was too late. He made efforts before he shipped Jess back to NY, such as the tutoring idea, but this time around it all seems to be on the faith of Jess' word. The sad part is that even if he was pro-active about Jess it wouldn't have mattered because Jess was going to do what he wanted. Maybe deep down Luke sensed that Jess' education was beyond his help, but with Rory-Jess he felt he could exert some kind of effective authority (which didn't have much effect either).

[lessa]

I see it a little differently. Luke has already evolved beyond tricking and manipulating Jess. It blew up in his face when he lied about Christmas with Liz, and it didn't work when he stole Jess's car. Now he's approaching it as an authoritarian, laying his expectations for Jess out in black and white, from the time he said "things are gonna have to change" when Jess moved back in, to giving him strict guidelines for not having sex with his girlfriend. It seemed more like a variation on his speech to Jess RE: Shane in the closet than an attempt to trick him into treating Rory better.

It's way different from what Richard did; if Whiffenpoof called a meeting at FND, made his pitch for applying to Yale, and promised his full support of whatever decision they made, Lorelai would have heard him out, talked it over with Rory, and gone to bed with a Yale pamphlet just the same. After all, he had a good point, and Lorelai used to fantasize about her future at Yale, the same as he did.

Luke was similarly uncompromising and demanding, but at least he came clean about what he thought was needed up front, confronting Jess directly instead of passively slipping beta-blockers in his oatmeal or something.

[laurla205]

I was thinking about Luke’s lecture as it correlated to his relationship with Jess as opposed to with Rory.  I do agree that Luke gets way too overprotective of Rory and it can be strange.  To be fair, the whole town favors her a bit more than is normal.  Luke’s overprotective nature with her is the motivating factor and as a result, as it relates to Jess, he had to use his new strategy. 

Luke was naive the first time around with Jess.  He wanted to believe that Jess could, and had the desire to, do well in the SH environment.  He thought just getting him out of Liz’s house was enough to do the trick and that each talking-to and the simple act of having a good male role model was all it would take for Jess to straighten up.  He said himself that he didn’t realize how bad the situation was when he agreed to take Jess on.  He was, and still is in some ways, clueless and didn’t know how to parent a troubled teenager.  So the second time around he’s trying the structure approach. 

I don’t know, I’m not positive that Loreali would’ve had that reaction had Richard held a pow wow with everyone at dinner.  Richard leaving Lorelai out of the decision to take the trip to Yale was only one of the problems with the situation.  The main problem, and the one it always comes back to, is that Richard has no say in how Rory is raised and doesn’t get to make suggestions.  Plus, the fact remains that the words would be coming from Richard which results in Lorelai automatically shutting them out regardless of the approach.  I think she would have reacted similarly to how she reacted when Rory told her that Richard cornered Rory in the kitchen.  If Rory had let her, Lorelai would have marched back into the house and set Richard straight using the same backup she used when it was confirmed that he’d manipulated them.  I think he was right and if he’d approached Lorelai directly she would have shut him down (that doesn't excuse his tactics).  She might have gone to bed with the pamphlets anyway but I think it would have been just a variation of the same struggle getting to that point.

[lessa]

Lorelai may shout out his exceptions, but Rory never does. And Rory insisted on telling Lorelai about Yale herself because of that. Telling Lorelai about the opportunity Richard presented, (which in no way affects her Harvardian ambitions and really could be helpful) would have worked on the same principle. Rory's wishes are the key to every body block Lorelai gives Richard and Emily when they interfere, and if Rory wanted to take that meeting for Richard, Lorelai would have played along, regardless of her reservations.

Richard's error was not in circumventing Lorelai, it was in circumventing Rory. Gotta hand it to Emily, though, Richard lied to her and kept her in the dark, but she was able to walk up to angry Lorelai and make her case supporting Richard's ambitions clearly. I bet she would have liked to be more prepared, too.

[honkifuluvGG]

I thnik I agree with Lauren on this one.  I'm not sure that Richard would have been successful if his plans were laid out in front at the FND.  As soon as I read that theory, my immediate vision was of Lorelai going into a rage, standing and telling Rory to "meet me in the car".  At which point she would have gone into her "she's my kid" speech.

However if he had divulged the interview with the rest of his plan when he so deviously ambushed Rory in the kitchen it would have gone much smoother.  If Rory was true to her word and would have taken the interview just because he asked, she would have succeeded in convincing Lorelai that this was something that would be a good experience for her.

[laurla205]

However if he had divulged the interview with the rest of his plan when he so deviously ambushed Rory in the kitchen it would have gone much smoother.  If Rory was true to her word and would have taken the interview just because he asked, she would have succeeded in convincing Lorelai that this was something that would be a good experience for her.

That’s the course of action Richard would have been best suited taking, laying all of it out for Rory in the kitchen.  I believe Rory would have agreed to it in the same manner that she agreed to the trip.  Rory wouldn’t have had the chance to talk Lorelai down in front of Richard.  Just like with the car from Dean.  Lorelai might have let Richard finish his spiel but I don’t think there would’ve been any reasoning with her about what he was saying until well after she put him back in his place and she and Rory were back in SH.  In which case they may not have gone to Yale with Emily and Richard on this trip but would have considered taking a (rescheduled) meeting with the dean of admissions on Lorelai’s terms. 

[lessa]

Would that be the end of the world? But no, Richard has to be in control of the situation because he just doesn't trust Lorelai to do what's best for Rory's future. Lorelai, who talked him out of quitting on his new business, Lorelai, who has corralled the same problem staff for ten years, and Lorelai who would have gone to Yale like him. Obviously she knows nothing about planning for the future, she got pregnant at 16. (Ha! Maybe she doesn't, but she sure as heck knows how to plan for a really good start.)

Sometimes Richard's anger with Lorelai does not seem remotely connected to his protectiveness of Emily's feelings. Maybe sometimes he needs a reminder that Emily wasn't the only parent she rejected.

[Gilmore Gyrlie]

I'm glad Rory went and apologized to Dean, he needed to hear that.


Dude was a bit clingy and STALKERish at times, but he truly loved her and didn't deserve what happened.

Richard's machinations didn't suprise me, he must have felt stupid what Rory told him after the "ambush" interview.