Second-to-last Gilmore Girls Musing

Like I said a week ago, the plug has been pulled on Gilmore Girls. And, as I said last week, I'm still not sure how I feel about that.

But enough of my vacilating opinion. Let's talk about the second-to-last episode which aired this past Tuesday.

First of all, we have the big proposal. Logan pops the question to Rory only to have her turn him down. I was a little surprised, but also very relieved, when Rory turned him down. Even though we don't know what's going to happen to Rory in the future, I prefer her to face the future untethered. Not only that, but part of me dreaded even a hint of a double-wedding ending for the show (you know, Rory is engaged to Logan, Luke and Lorelai get back together, hinting that at some point, both couples would wind up getting married). Now I don't need to worry about that anymore. It stinks that Logan made it an "all or nothing" deal, but Rory is better without him.

Second, and while this is small, we have Kirk-in-a-box. It was short, it was weird, but it was perfect. It was a step in the right direction and helped me realize why I wasn't as satisfied with the show this season. The townsfolk were largely missing. Perhaps Amy Sherman-Palladino was able to juggle the competing storylines better than the current crop of writers, but we didn't see much of the other denizens of Stars Hollow this year and it made the rest of the show lacking. Seeing Kirk in a box helped me realize this. We should have caught even momentary glimpses of his other bizarre schemes. We should have had more town meetings. We should have seen more of Taylor. We should have definitely seen more of the Troubador than just him wandering through Taylor's maze.

There is one other issue that's bothering me about the way this is playing out, and that's the fact that next week's episode isn't a true series finale. Instead it's a season finale that's been promoted. Rather than work up to a true ending to the series, we have the show working up to what would have been the end of a season. There's a big difference. With a true series finale, we could have put a more definitive cap on some of the issues.

For example, I would have loved to see some sort of final reconciliation between Lorelai and her parents, even if it was in the form of a permanent cease fire. I would have loved to see Hep Alien strike it big. I would have loved to see Kirk declare his undying love for Taylor. Well .... maybe not that last one. But you get the idea. Instead of getting the final resolution, we're instead getting a half-hearted resolution that will just have to be good enough.

But what really has me cheesed off about this is the fact that they weren't able to bring Amy Sherman-Palladino back for the ending. If they had planned this better, made it a true series finale and not a rush job, they could have brought Amy back and let her write the ending she always envisioned.

I don't remember where I saw this (probably in one of the interviews on the DVDs), but Amy once said that she knew what the last words of the show would be and that she's always known. I would have loved to see the final episode that Amy would have written. I want to know what those final lines would have been. But even if she reveals them in an interview now, it won't be the same. I would have wanted to have heard the words coming from Lorelai and Rory (because that's obviously who would have said it), not read about it in the pages of Entertainment Weekly or on some blog somewhere.

Oh well. You can expect one more post like this sometime after next Tuesday.