Luke Danes Gets Picked As A TV Character You Would Date
October 24, 2009 by Maria Diaz
Just a personal note: as some of you know, the regular writer of this blog, Arieanna, is on maternity leave, which is why me and Jeanne Dupuis have been filling in for her. You’ll be happy to know that Arieanna and her husband welcomed their baby boy into the world late last night! Please feel free to send well-wishes to the new momma in this comment thread!
Now, back to regularly scheduled Gilmore Girls News. Commenter Celine pointed out that not only did Rory and Lorelai Gilmore get voted by EW readers as two castmates with the most chemistry, but Luke Danes was also voted as a TV Character EW readers would most like to date!
The list of men was in no particular order. Reasons he’s be great to date: he cooks, he let Lorelai shop for him, and as we saw in the episode “Forgiveness & Stuff” he is there when times are tough.
Would you date Luke? Or are you more of a Christopher fan? Or.. a Max fan?
Image: TheWB.com
Congratulations, Arieanna! Hope you and your family are all well and enjoying the moment!
As for the question …
I definitely think this Luke Danes fascination is a physical attraction and objectivity is not the issue here. He was horrible to Rachel and Nicole (and apparently Anna) and the number of times he blew up at Lorelai, called her horrible things, and ignored her — and borrowed a gift from Logan that is NOTHING like Lorelai would wear (or ever did in the series) does NOT make him a good date in my book.
All the crazy efforts to make Luke the “perfect man” were so ridiculous. He admitted he was a “trade school” student but in Season 4 he can quote Tolstoy. He supposedly didn’t watch movies but could suddenly quote “Pretty in Pink.” He can cook pastry and gourmet meals in Season 5, something even most chefs can’t do. And of course he can waltz – NONE of this was established in seasons 1-3. It was almost a joke (not a good one), like this was a “chick” show, as Amy said, and to balance it out they had to come up with this absurd idea of a jock with a gruff personality who dresses the same all the time who suddenly has all these talents that make him more romantic.
Christopher WOULD have been fun to date, but the writers made him dumber and dumber as the series went on in the worst writing of the series — writing him off with a soap opera storyline then continuing to use him in ways it’s hard to imagine any woman being attracted to him after all of his mistakes. In Season 1, he was supposed to be smart (hard to believe that Richard would say this over and over just to be mean), someone who called Rory once a week but a free-spirit, but the writers clearly decided to make him a screw-up in a very shallow contrast to a very stereotypical idea of what a “real man” is. And by Season 6 he was turned into a spoiled wealthy child, and let’s not even talk about Season 7.
Max was interesting but I could never get past his hair!
Lorelai needed someone better! Like Michael Vartan … I would have loved to see those two actors together!
Congratulations, Arieanna!
Congratulations, Arieanna!!! Hope your boy loves GG as much as you do. I would date Luke and maybe Christopher. I would defenetly date Jess and Logan and Dean.
Marie i disagree with you
CONGRATS A!
Welcome to the new Gg fan.
Piper
Like I said it’s not objective . We don’t need reason!
If you’re attracted to him, that’s perfectly understandable. He’s a handsome guy.
But did you notice that Lorelai had more dates with other people that were shown to be fun and only ONE with Luke where he was mildly charming? And they dated for two years!
She had several fun dates with Max, with Jason, with Alex, even with Christopher (even if you just count Season 2 where they were together they had fun before disaster set in).
And the writers could only come up with ONE date between Luke and Lorelai. ONE. What does that tell you?
And that’s not counting all the “fun” times they had together when Luke yelled at her for no reason. My favorite – when she tried to help him with April and he called her a cartoon character and barked at her.
Personally, I would have said “Stop. It’s not appropriate to use that tone with your fiancée. Period.”
But if that’s what you see as a fun date, that’s your privilege.
Congratulations Arieanna! enjoy parenthood, its crazy hard but awesome.
i can see why luke got voted in, he is such a man’s man with a sensitive edge. his grumpiness was often upsetting for me too, and i’m not sure i would put up with being treated the way he treated lor, sometimes just plain rude. but i think at the end of the day the good things about him outweighed the bad, esp all the amazing generous things he did for lor and rory. im sure as he got older his character ould have mellowed more, what with being a father and all.
i personally really liked max and lorelai together, he was the wittiest of the lot, but alas not enough unresolved romantic tension for a long term r/ship in tv land. he is probably the one i would be most likely to date myself. chris was sweet and good looking but immature – total turn off.
Congrats Arieanna!!
Congrats on the new addition, hope he takes more after Rory, than Gigi…
You can’t go wrong with Luke and Lorelai, but Max wouldn’t have been a bad fallback. Hey and how come no-one’s mentioned ol’ Digger Stiles ;O)
OMG…thant’s an awesome news!!!! (Arieanna one) I’m soooo happy for her! *__* Congratulations to her and her husbund!!!
Congratulations Arieanna on your new blessing. Motherhood is a wonderful and challenging thing. Enjoy your little one.
I would definately date Luke. He is more my type. All of the men were gorgeous but my personal favorite was Luke.
Congratulations Arieanna.
I think Luke won the vote because until the disastrous seasons 6 and 7, he was shown as someone thoughful, who was always ready to give up what he was doing to rescue Lorelai and Rory… he was very nice.
His gruffy style made him even more lovable. He didn’t want to show his feelings and I don’t think that’s a drawback. Many people are like him.
Mary, I don’t mean to offend you but every time I read your comments I wonder how come you like Gilmore Girls because you criticize so much… Nothing seems to be good in your opinion.
Congratulations Arieanna!!! I wish you all the bestfor your new family!
Marie – I agree entirely. The inaccuracies with the consistency of Luke’s character drove me crazy too! I did lke Luke and Lorelai at certain points but as time progressed I found it almost painful to watch them together; there is no sense of intimacy between the two characters besides maybe two scenes. I hated the way that they rarely touched/kissed yet when she was with others she was extremely tactile.
I’ve heard Lauren Graham mention in the past that she prefered to do scenes with David Sutcliffe than Scott Patterson and I wonder if at some point this started to show on screen.
Along with many people here though – I did enjoy Lorelai and Max as a couple (the hair did not offend me lol!)
Congratulations!!
Agree with Mac, I really liked the character of luke up until the last couple of seasons then somehow his personality changed and this irritated me. As before he was a very likeable guy.
Congratulations, Arieanna! Glad to hear everyone is happy and healthy!
Lol had forgotten about Jason – he was so gross, WHY did she ever date him? That separate rooms thing was just too weird, and they had no chemistry whatsoever.
Marie, no offence but I kind of agree with Mac- your posts stress me out a bit with their negativity, you dont seem to really like Gilmore Girls that much? Of course it’s good to read all sorts of opinions and you make some great points as well, so keep going with your own style if you like.
Congratulations Arieanna! All the very best for you and your family!
To Mac and Isha,
Sorry if my post caused you stress!
I certainly am a fan of the show – or was through Season 4. As I hope I have said before, the character of Rory to me was incredible to see on screen, a young girl who not only believed in studying and hard work, something we rarely see, but also who showed patience and love for both of her parents, for all of their flaws. And Lorelai is absolutely charming and entertaining, but as an adult and a woman, I find the comedy in it from her embarrassments and her troubling behavior.
I do think it was a great comedy until Season 5, when the show, perhaps under pressure to be more successful, focused only on the soap opera. Rory’s studies became pure background for the show and her return to school was highly unrealistic, not to mention her studies had nothing to do with everything she said she wanted to be through Season 4. And as a comedy, I think it became more tragedy. At the end of Season 3, she said she wanted to be her mother – and when it came to relationships, this was a disaster. But maybe Amy thought that was funny, considering how she left the show, she shares, it seems, much of Lorelai’s persona.
On the topic, though, where we disagree, maybe this is what you find with stress, is that I don’t think marriage is a fairy tale, and the selling of Luke & Lorelai as a couple was intended to be so. Amy made many comments (at least when I was in the US more often and could read it) saying she did NOT promise that they would end up together or would have a happy relationship.
And Mac, if you identify with Luke, maybe this is also why the criticism displeases you.
I do sympathize with the character for the trait you emphasize (his shyness, or struggle with emotion). And I think Scott Patterson was amazing in the role with Jess. The two stories he had in Season 2 and 3, accepting Jess back after much pain, and then defending his own hard work and beliefs against Jess’ horrible behavior were very emotional. And it is clear he was very loving toward Rory and attracted to Lorelai.
But as a woman, I find his behavior appalling, and many people may think his kind of behavior is good for relationships, but I absolutely do not.
In the first four seasons, we rarely actually SAW Luke on his dates or in relationships, but we heard from the women how horrible his relationships were. He was closed off with Rachel and very defiant about expecting her to give up her career to stay with him. He was horrible to Nicole, cleaning up to romance her and almost at a point where he looked like he had given up caring about himself once married. He screamed at her. He didn’t live with her. And as with Rachel, spent more time with Lorelai then with her. And when she turned to another man for affection, Luke attacked the man’s car and acted as if he were the victim. And the way Anna described his behavior was no better.
If you want to believe he was only waiting for Lorelai and would have changed, that’s an easy explanation. And Lorelai might have told herself the same thing. Afraid she would be alone, she let him romance her.
But then she got to see what he was like in relationships. He screamed at her. He neglected her. He called her names. And he went off to do something he should have done (caring for April) but did the same to Lorelai that he did to Rachel, Nicole, and probably Anna.
If you think Luke’s character was ruined over the course of the show, I don’t think we were watching the same show. In this respect, I think Amy got it exactly right. His behavior toward women in relationships was clear, only we only saw the effects and women like Rachel and Nicole, and later Anna, explaining why they had to leave him. Clearly, Rachel and Anna came before Lorelai, so pining for her cannot be his excuse.
The character of Luke has many admirable qualities, but the way he treated women in relationships was not one of them. To make the relationship believable, Amy and Dan went over the top in the from the middle of Season 4 to Season 6 to make him “the perfect man”, but to me, that was where the character was not true to the man we saw for 4 years. What happened at the end of Season 6 was no surprise to me.
I know most Gilmore fans are Luke-Lorelai fans so maybe I should not post on the board to say anything negative about Luke. So I apologize if this is inapprorpriate, but I did want to explain that I do admire the show, but then again I am also a fan of Ingmar Bergman, and his SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE, I think is extremely realistic as a portrait of marriage where spouses treat each other as Luke and Lorelai treated each other.
Marie,
Please do keep posting your views. You bring up good points.
Anita
Thank you Marie for your post.
I’m very open-minded so please keep sharing your views!
Like I said I didn’t mean to offend you or criticize your point of view. I was just curious to know how you related to the show.
I don’t identify with Luke at all. He’s just the kind of character I like. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I don’t blame him for his relationships that went wrong before Lorelai. IMO, it was more due to them than to him. But then again I guess that’s were we differ and that’s good!
See you on the next thread.
I have to agree with Marie here. Rachel, Nicole, Lorelai. Not a good pattern. With all due respect to Mac, I totally don’t see how Luke gets less of the blame for what happened with Rachel and Nicole.
What did Nicole do that was so wrong? She only cheated after Luke stopped living with her, stopped living at their house, stopped just being nice to her. She clearly loved him to keep trying and trying. Wanting Rachel to give up her career? And Anna’s description, pre-Lorelai, was of a pretty scary guy.
@ Mac, if you like Luke, that totally explains not seeing the pattern. “Like” can be blind too.
I just know if I treated a date (or spouse) like that, I’d be kicked to the curb.
@Isha, with Lauren and Scott, it might not have been all Scott’s fault if the producers had him dress that way and never shave. Ouuuch! As a gay guy, I have to say I’ve had my face torn up with that kind of stubble. Not fun. Come on, man, that can hurt!
Thanks for your post Marie, I appreciate you taking the time to respond so thoughfully:)
@Josh, hey did someone say they didnt like Luke’s stubble? wasn’t me anyways, i am quite the stubble fan on guys – nice and manly.
I am not too fussed about Luke’s previous r/ships cos I’m not sure we got a real look at any of them. I do think Luke had some relationship issues based on the detail we saw in his r/ship with lor – i was so shocked the first time they broke up over that stupid stuff chris said at the wedding, nothing to do with them at all really – and this so soon after saying he was all in! so in a way i think the writing changed a guy who was more attractive the first few seasons before they got together, then kind of stretched credibility with how he behaved with someone he supposedly loved. i guess we should all write a tv series ourselves before judging too harshly tho!
Congratulations. Wonderful news. So happy for everyone.
Keep up the good work on the blog ladies you are doing a great job. And oh yeah, totally date Luke Danes. No question there.
I would pass on Max or Jason.
As for Chris, I didn’t like him with Lorelai because it interferred with me wanting Luke and Lorelai together but Chris would surely be fun to date too.
Okay, so I read through all the previous comments and here are my thoughts:
First off (as a disclaimer): Lorelai’s the best character on this show by far and anything stated below does not change that in my opinion.
a) Luke is definitely one of the most likable characters on the show. Yes, he’s a very flawed character (which wasn’t really ever hidden from the audience or, for that matter, Lorelai). I mean, he’s gruff, insensitive, emotionally distant on a good day, stubborn, and, he said it himself, bad at relationships. That being said, he’s also kind to a fault, loyal to family and friends, humble until provoked (such as when Jess mocked his diner before getting kicked out for good), looked out for Rory no matter what crap Lorelai was pulling that particular day, and brought out the best in Lorelai.
b) All of Luke’s relationships missteps were half his fault. For instance, Luke loved Stars Hollow too much and was too stubborn to move and obviously (because who wouldn’t) wanted Rachel to live there with him. That being said, she didn’t have to leave so abruptly and without a proper good-bye the first time. So, clearly they weren’t right for each other. With Nicole, he was clearly trying to get over Lorelai and sure he tried but his heart wasn’t really in it. He probably stayed with her out of a lack of other options honestly which is probably unhealthy. But did she have to cheat on him? No. As for yelling at her: she yelled back. Oh, and he yells at everybody. What’s wrong with yelling? As for Anna, she seemed bitter and the whole backstory was a little flimsy so I have no comment on that one.
As for Lorelai: Yes, he was distant, stubborn, and all of the above with her as well. But, frankly, she never stated that she was all that unhappy until her epic ultimatum and subsequent overreaction (“Oh hi, Chris. Wanna do it?”). Had he known just how unhappy she was, prior evidence shows he would have at least done something differently. Was it still gonna blow up? Who knows.
c) More on the Lorelai-Luke connection: Okay, sure, it’s a little story book but not completely. Story book would be Lorelai being swept off her feet by a dashing, sophisticated guy who could make all her dreams come true with little or no effort. Yeah, that’s not really Luke. He’s that rough and kind of dirty guy that you’re only really going to like if you look beyond the surface. I mean, come on, she’s the owner of a very successful inn by the end of the series and he’s still running that diner. Yes, the notion of her “not noticing what was right in front of her” is very cliche’ but I’ll let it slide because, honestly, he was the only guy Lorelai dated that clicked beyond a surface connection and the ONLY one where she really felt like she lost something when it ended.
Oh, and as a side note: their individual issues (which are actually strikingly similar come to think of it) were ALWAYS present in their relationship. Think about it. Luke was distant in Season 5 and hid things and so did Lorelai. But they worked through it like normal people. The second half of Season 6, however, these problems all of a sudden became too much to handle and they both just crumpled. Yeah, my personal theory is that ASP was thinking “Fine. If I’m getting fired then this show is going DOWN.”
d) As for the other guys: You all might hate me but I prefer Digger to either Max, Chris, or Alex. He was funny, quirky, off-center and could actually keep up with Lorelai. Max was well-read and all that but he was a little boring for Lorelai. Chris, while he could keep up, was weak from the beginning (none of this “But he got sooo much worse as the series went!” stuff). And the whining: acting like fate was the only reason he never got together with Lorelai. Yeah, couldn’t have been because she didn’t want to be with you or anything. And Alex…oh wait, he’s gone already.
That’s about it. Sorry it’s long and with probably a multitude of errors.
Thank you for the kind words everybody.
To Ryan, I think you make many great points in defense of Luke, but a few of them prompted some response.
What’s wrong with yelling? A lot. I’ve never known any therapist or relationship counselor who has ever said that the amount of yelling Luke did is wise. In fact, the emotional toll it usually takes is high. As someone who processes divorces every year, I’ve never seen couples who last when they scream like Luke Danes does. And if anyone considers that kind of yelling something everyone should put up with in relationships, I wish them well and would not be surprised if it led to relationship failure.
Yelling can certainly be fine when it’s justified. While Luke has a loving side with Rory and Jess and Lorelai the friend, his rage is constant, unprovoked, and often extremely hostile and hurtful, and his pattern of neglecting women after courting them is undeniable. As Isha says, blowing up at Lorelai for Christopher’s behavior was just one example. And he did it over and over. And Nicole certainly yelled back, but clearly out of justified frustration over Luke’s marriage to her when he was not committed to her, as Josh says. It’s easy to blame her for cheating, but in most relationships, as in that one, it’s a symptom, not a cause of the relationship problem. Nicole tried and tried and was, from what I saw, a model of patience until she broke.
As for your feelings about her relationship with Christopher and especially continuing your theory about the Palladinos, from everything I’ve read, the theory about the end of Season 6 is just not borne out by the facts. It comes from frustration with the Palladinos and upset over the fairy tale ending not happening but the date on the leaks of that storyline in columns came weeks before the network’s final decision on the Palladinos contract. The Palladinos have denied and on this I believe them.
It’s more plausible to me that Lauren Graham pushed for it to happen because of concerns about what life with Luke Danes would have been like. Lauren Graham, who is probably closer to the character than anyone, was very disturbed about the effect the Luke relationship had on her character. You can see it in Season 5 as this independent became more and more submissive, beaten down by someone constantly yelling at her.
And if you are extremely fond of Luke, which you are and certainly have a right to be, you’re of course going to look past a lot in the show and see it as skewed toward Luke (who was originally written to be a woman and not designed to be Lorelai’s love interest). By my count (before Season 7), Lorelai said that she loved someone only twice. She told Rory she would always love Christopher, and she said it about Luke (and yelled it at him). And she specifically told Christopher she DID want him (“It Should’ve Been Lorelai”) and had been waiting for him for her whole life into Season 2. To say “she didn’t want to be with [him] or anything” is contrary to the text, the character’s own words and the overall pattern of her behavior. You have to really inject your own fantasy into the story to explain away six seasons of behavior.
As Lauren Graham has said in interviews about the movie idea, the reason she does not see it in part is that people who break up more than once do not end up together, or end up together well. And she’s right based on my experience. It is beyond storybook to think it does happen. And has been said somewhere else, look at the films Amy Palladino has venerated in the series. The Way We Were. Casablanca. Broadcast News. All films where people with difficulty do not end up together, not Hollywood cliche.
At the same time, to say that Lorelai slept with Christopher without regard for his feelings or Luke’s would be a shocking blow to her character, reducing her to someone cruel to both. As others have said, it’s hard to believe Luke’s postponement was enough to push her over the edge. It seems to me it was her own knowledge that she proposed to him when she was angry about Rory, her doubts about their conflict, and her mixed feelings for Christopher that led her where it did.
It may just be my own belief, but rather than hating Christopher irrationally, I think it’s entirely possible she loved them both, as the Lorelai the character actually said she did. She broke off two engagements for him, calling him at her bachelorette party and sleeping with him knowing he considered her his soulmate. She went back to Christopher too often and flirted with him and tried to establish a relationship without sleeping with him to just want him for sex.
Do I think the relationship would Christopher or Luke would have lasted? I doubt it. But her person was clearly affected by Luke’s behavior all the way back to Season 5, as it affected Rachel and Nicole in deeply devastating ways.
And I know no woman, or man, who loves to be yelled at the way she was.
Because we feel we actually get to know and like Lorelai, Rory, and Luke in the first three seasons when the storylines were a little simpler, more uplifting, and tightly written, we tend to give them more leeway and overlook their episodes of rediculously aberant behavior over the last 4 seasons and not hold them responsible for their actions in the same way that the rest of the characters are routinely cross-examined.
These episodes of behavior are explained as something along the lines of blame shifting to ASP or the writers or some other lame extenuating circumstance. In real life of course no matter how much we like them, we would never put up with all the nonsense they produce and would force them to wake up or eventually walk away from them because the cons so outweigh the pros. Thankfully they are only characters so we can selectively enjoy parts of the story as a guilty pleasure and discount the parts we do not like or choose to disbelieve!!
Actually when you think of most of the guys who passed through the girls lives, they generally started out somewhat positive and were degraded by the plotline over time, sort of the inverse of the usual fairy tale where the princess kisses the toad to generate a prince. In GG the wanna-be princes slowly were devolved into toads. Thus, it is a bit amazing to me that any of the guys were considered dateable by the end of the series. Nothing like a little selective denial to make the world go round.
luke Danes as rough around the edges he may be, he is a good person, who loves with all his heart and is loyal. He was there for Lorelai in some of the toughest times ( and before anyone springs that season six crap up, i am not ignoring it, but Luke was doing what HE thought was right, he saw Chris stay out of Rory’s life and in a way i guess he might be proving to lorelai as well that he was not that, a deadbeat.)When Lorelai’s dad was sick the first and 2nd time he was there to help even though he was not asked. He wasn’t together with Lorelai the second time but did alot more than her husband.
anyways thats my 2 cents.
belated Congrats Arieanna, hope you and the baby are doing well!
Luke Danes always struck me as a person that did not know how to deal with his emotions in a mature way. I feel like he had this idea of what a man should be which was emotionally void. I think he yelled at most of the people in his life because he does not know how to communicate his feelings in a effective manner. With Rachel, didn’t they say in the Bangles episode that she broke his heart? several times? when someone does that to you doesn’t that leave some kind of lasting damage to your psyche? I feel like that may have made him more withdrawn and introvert in terms of his feelings as a way of self-preservation. The Nicole thing to me was basically the writers way of having Luke move on from Lorelai because its not natural to pine for someone for so long “hoping that they will fall in your arms and notice you” like Jess remarked-it was a failed attempt because clearly like someone else said, his heart wasn’t in it.
I feel like no matter what, he has always been unconditionally in love with Lorelai regardless of their relationship status. My only fault with him is like one of the other commenters had said, they gave his character contradictions that were not even expressed in the first couple of seasons only to put him on the same level as Lorelai. In addition, he didn’t handle things well at all with Lorelai and I think a lot of that could do with the fact that he had never been in a relatively speaking good relationship that plus his own personal flaws like his decision-making skills led to its downfall. However, whose fault was it that Lorelai didn’t speak up about having to take the backseat to April? Lorelai. I think if she felt so strongly being reserved wasn’t the answer. clearly. especially with someone as thick-headed as Luke sometimes was.
If I had to pick a relationship between all those guys I couldn’t. They all had good points but they also had major flaws, imo, none of them seem good enough for her. However, i will admit that her chemistry with Christopher was undeniable but that doesn’t always lead to a stable happy relationship.
On an unrelated note: when choosing the best relationship for Rory sadly, I’m pretty sure no one would look as closely at her relationships because the consensus on this board seems to be for Jess.