In ‘I’m a Kayak, Hear Me Roar,’ we see a big shift in Emily Gilmore. Richard isn’t the only one shaken up by his heart attack - it seems Emily has had to face some fears of her own. One of those appears to be her independence and how life would be if Richard were to die.

Emily, while on one hand babying Richard to make sure his diet and health will be perfect, on the other hand is struggling to keep up his finances. Richard is avoiding work, but his corporate taxes need to be done. In a panic, Emily calls Lorelai for help.

Lorelai drops the “Chris and I broke up” news to Emily, but Emily is gracious about it. She moves on. Very un-Emily. And later, a little tipsy, Emily talks about how life is a canoe and that, with Richard “dropping the paddle”, her canoe is spinning in circles. I think she’s saying she feels lost without Richard by her side. Meanwhile, Emily nearly praises Lorelai, calling her a “kayak” instead - because she can do ‘all this’ (life, business) on her own.

For perhaps the first time, Emily is looking at Lorelai and seeing her independence as an asset to her. She respects Lorelai more. Perhaps this is why Emily is not freaking out about the break-up with Christopher? Perhaps she’s realized that Lorelai doesn’t need to be married to do well with her life?

For me, Season 7 provided some amazing moments between Emily & Lorelai, and I was proud to see their relationship develop. What do you think?

Watch this episode of Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

In the episode ‘Knit, People, Knit‘, we start off with Chris and Lorelai over for dinner with Richard, Emily & Rory. The whole big Gilmore gang. Richard & Lorelai have a gift for the newly-wedded couple… and it’s a painting. The painting, by real artist Kiki Smith, is called “Wolf Girl”. The original painting was done by Kiki in 1999 for her series “Blue Prints.”

What research I’ve done indicates that Kiki was known for her “reflection on human existence” and on “women’s anonymous creativity throughout history.” In addition, she covers “rites of passage” in her art - perhaps rites like marriage. I’m not an art critic, so I don’t know what “Wolf Girl” is supposed to say about Lorelai & Christopher. Do you have ideas?

But I will ask - if Emily & Richard were going to give Luke & Lorelai a house… what does the painting say in comparison?

Watch this episode of Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: Kiki Smith, used for informational analysis only

In ‘Lorelai’s First Cotillion,’ Lorelai confesses to not having told Emily directly about her breakup with Luke. She’s worried Emily will be mean about the news. However, when Lorelai drops the news, Emily disinterestedly says “that’s too bad,” while Richard only says “Hmm.”

Photo: Scott Humbert/The CW ©2006 The CW Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The conversation moves so quickly from the topic of Luke that Lorelai seems almost affronted. Mad that they didn’t fight her. She tries to bring it up, to get it all into the open, but Emily & Richard say they’ve moved on. Lorelai gets even more offended. Later, at home, Lorelai admits that she may need her parents’ freakouts to “know I’m doing what I wanna do”.

Does Lorelai need Emily’s anger to justify her actions towards Luke? Should Lorelai be questioning her likes and dislikes because of her new revelation that they may be based on doing whatever displeases her parents? And how, if at all, does all of this lead to Lorelai returning to Christopher?

Watch “Gilmore Girls” ‘Lorelai’s First Cotillion’

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

As kind of a nice break, ‘Driving Miss Gilmore‘ somewhat breaks up all the tension between Luke & Lorelai by adding some crazy Emily Gilmore moments. So I thought we’d take a break from talking about relationships and instead talk about the Rory Gilmore building!

Early on in this episode, Emily & Richard announce that they’ve decided to take Rory’s Yale tuition, which is now being paid by Christopher, and donate it to Yale in Rory’s name. Whether they’re just upstaging Christopher, I’m not sure, but what they’ve done is create a fund towards something, like the Rory Gilmore auditorium. It may be some other building, but with Rory’s name very central.

We don’t see until the next episode that they’ve decided on “The Rory Gilmore Astronomy Building”. But here’s my question - what happened to it?? Did they ever finish it? Or is this something that maybe we would have seen in the future of the series, if it had continued (it does take a while to build something, after all!). What do you think?

Watch “Gilmore Girls” ‘Driving Miss Gilmore’

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

In ‘Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting,‘ Rory seems very happy to be ungrateful to her grandparents after they took her in and supported her when nobody else would. Sure, they were overbearing and difficult, but why is this news to Rory? So, now she’s decided to let them find out on their own about Christopher paying for Yale without telling them how or why. Even Lorelai thinks this is harsh, and decides to tell them herself. Lorelai tries to tell them it’s not a snub and they are just happy Christopher is trying to be a dad.

Lorelai tries to tell Rory to take the first step with Richard and Emily - to break the ice, like she never did after her own fallout. Lorelai tells Rory that they should go to Friday dinner. When they arrive, Emily snubs them to paint the moon and Richard is stand-offish too. They both laugh at how convenient it was for Christopher to become Rory’s “father” now. The rest of the night continues with many perspectives and many fights, about everything from Rory not leaving a note, to being emotional, to Lorelai reminding Emily they didn’t listen to her about Rory, the DAR, and even Lorelai’s teen pregnancy. In between, there are moments of laughter and calm - it’s the best fight scene of the series, IMHO.

The Fight Scenes:

So, how did the fight help? Was anything resolved? Did they just need to vent? And how come they all managed to stay so calm and collected during it?

Watch ‘Friday Night’s Alright for Fighting’:

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

In ‘The Prodigal Daughter Returns‘, Rory has decided to take positive steps towards her future. And that first one - moving in with Lane. Weird, right? After Rory had her big revelation in the last episode, I really expected her to run right back to Lorelai and apologize. But maybe the stubborn Gilmore genes are kicking in and Rory needs to prove to herself - and her mom - that she’s got her plans in order. That would be a very Rory-way of thinking. But I’m getting off-topic - what I want to talk about here is honesty.

To me, this episode is all about honesty and trust. About Rory being honest with herself about who she is and what she wants to do. About Emily confronting her own self-worth, when Rory leaves the life that was just like Emily’s because it wasn’t good enough for her. About Lorelai being honest with Luke about Christopher calling - something he becomes irrational about, thinking Lorelai is hiding more contact with him. This jealousy, this mistrust, between Luke and Lorelai ends up in a big fight, one that results in Luke saying they need to be honest with each other all the time, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

So, while Rory is pursuing her future, trying to get a job at a paper, firmly convinced she can do it, Luke might begin to fight his own internal struggle. He learns that he may have a daughter when a girl comes to him for some DNA testing for her science fair, to find out “Who’s My Daddy.” And yes, that girl, April Nardini, is his daughter.

And out comes just how honest Luke is able to be with Lorelai - he doesn’t tell her about April. Instead, when Rory returns home - with a job, and plans to return to school - and Lorelai tell shim they can get married now, he simply looks stunned. Luke now has a lot to be honest with himself about - about being a father, being a husband, and about finding out who he is again in all this.

After seeing the rest of the season play out, it makes more sense to me now why Luke wasn’t able to cope with any of this. It wasn’t just about a new person in his life, but about a fundamental change to who he was as a person. It just took him a long time to realize that. What do you think?

Watch ‘Gilmore Girls’ ‘The Prodigal Daughter Returns’:

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

We move on in our Gilmore Girls discussions, choosing today to talk about how the worlds of Rory & Lorelai are slowly realigning in ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse‘. I was really tempted to stop talking about the girls and talk instead about Taylor and why he was so mean to Lorelai in this episode, but too much is happening for our girls! We can talk about Taylor another time.
In this episode, Emily gets mad at Richard for not telling her that he went to visit with Lorelai. It’s clear that Emily is missing Lorelai, though Richard seems more unhappy about Rory’s current life choices than Emily does. Emily begins to passively aggressively send Lorelai stuff from the house as a means to trigger a conversation, perhaps.

Rory gets a ridiculously expensive bag from Logan, which Emily imbues with significance about their relationship. Richard, digging for information about Rory’s future plans, makes Logan think they’re being prepped for marriage. Though Emily thinks Rory should get engaged, Rory and Richard both think she’s too young. Rory is getting annoyed with her grandparents overlooking her relationship with Logan.

That said, Rory decides it’s time she tell Logan she loves him. Logan just gives her a “wow”, but it does seem like Rory’s thoughts are moving forward. She’s realizing what makes her happy and what doesn’t. Which is soon to realizing she made a mistake leaving Yale and fighting with Lorelai.

Emily is the catalyst here that will bring Lorelai and Rory back together. She’s annoying both girls so much that they are practically being pushed together, though I’m sure that wasn’t Emily’s intention.

What do you think? Can you feel the reconciliation yet?

Watch “Gilmore Girls” ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

Emily & Richard Gilmore have always thought very highly of the Huntzberger family. In ‘We’ve Got Magic To Do‘, Emily goes so far as to remark, “There’s people, then there’s the Huntzbergers.” It’s like Emily is putting the Huntzberger family higher up the social ladder than the Gilmore family. And yet, when Emily & Richard finally realize that the Huntzbergers mistreated Rory, they seem offended that their “precious family” wouldn’t accept Rory.

When Emily confronts Shira Huntzberger, she is told to consider their discrepancies. That there’s “your money, then there’s our money”, to which Emily reminds Shira that she married “up” into the Huntzberger family herself.

So, just how blind were Richard & Emily? How much did wealth cloud their thoughts? Could it be that they were more willing to forgive Rory of her mistakes, of dropping out of Yale, because she was dating Logan? Why were they so ready to believe everything was a misunderstanding?

Rory herself seems to realize that she may not have dropped out of Yale if it weren’t for what Mitchum said. She seems near to regretting her decision, to basing it on the opinion of someone she clearly dislikes. Perhaps she too was blinded by his wealth and power.

Now, seeing Rory after her successful DAR event, Richard looks disappointed in her. Like having Mitchum to blame for crushing Rory made her dropping out of Yale so much worse than it was before. Which is silly, don’t you think? Why is he only now seeing it for the mistake it clearly was?

Check out Gilmore Girls on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

In ‘So… Good Talk‘, Rory continues her obligations of Friday Night Dinners, but she gives Emily the cold shoulder. I’d like to know if you think she was being rude, and if she was, was it fair?

When she arrives at the dinner, Rory gives Emily a limp hug and light conversation, but is very animated and outgoing when talking to Richard. It takes Emily a while to realize she’s being cold-shouldered. Rory is not being overtly rude, but she’s still making her feelings clear.

Emily accuses Rory of letting Lorelai influence her attitude, which she thinks is unfair. Desperate, she even reminds Rory of her ‘contract’ to be pleasant at the Friday dinners. Rory only responds, in reference to the casual postcards Emily has been sending to Lorelai (like nothing was wrong):

“What did you expect? Ten Acropolis postcards and I forget the fact that you broke up Mom and Luke? Now, I respect our contract. And I will continue to come every Friday night and eat dinner with you. But I won’t guarantee an attitude that will please you.”

Here was the trailer for this ‘hostilities’-filled episode:

This attitude of Rory’s clearly shocks both Emily and Richard. And maybe it helps Emily see that she can’t win, not in this fight. Lorelai can’t be forced into a relationship not of her choosing. But, that aside, I wonder - do you think Rory was too rude? Was she disrespectful? Or was her calm explanation of her cold behavior an act of respect for her grandparents, though she disrespects Emily’s actions (if that makes sense)?

Check out this episode to watch in full (for a limited time) on TheWB.com here.

Image: TheWB.com

In Gilmore Girls episode, ‘Come Home‘, it’s Richard’s jealousy of Simon that seems to help him reconcile things with Emily. Emily went on a date with Simon - a date that went well, but which reduced her to tears later. When Richard sees Simon flirting with Emily at an event, he smashes into the back of Emily’s car and yells at Simon to go away.

Richard reasserts himself as Emily’s husband and vents about Emily dating while he never dated Pennilyn. When they arrive home, Richard tells Emily he doesn’t want to go to the pool house. Emily tells him, “come home,” as simple as that. And it’s not long before their kissing and planning to renew their wedding vows!

So, was jealousy the trick? And is jealousy a Gilmore Girls theme? Remember when Jess dated Shane to make Rory jealous? I know Emily wasn’t purposefully making Richard jealous by dating Simon (or was she?), but it seemed to get her what she wanted - Richard back. Who else can you think of as using the jealousy trick to get what they want?

Watch “Gilmore Girls” ‘Come Home’