Stopping By Stars Hollow: A Critic’s First Watch of 'Gilmore Girls' - Season 2, Episode 8

How amazing would it be if you could be carried around on a bed all day like Cleopatra? Like just have a bunch of oil, handsome, nubile slave boys carry you on their shoulders and feed you cheese and grapes… that would be so superb right now.

The air is thick and humid leaving my allergies going haywire and my body feeling like a dumpster baking in the Georgia heat. This has also given me the energy level of a bear mid-hibernation. However this bear has to wake and stop by Stars Hollow before falling back asleep til spring.

Season 2, Episode 8 "The Ins and Outs of Inns”

I love this episode. I really, really love this episode. This is a great character development, world development, and plot development episode: especially for Lorelai and Emily. But before we get into these meaty developments for the two Gilmore matriarchs: let’s investigate the relationship developments between Jess and Rory.

Oh boy do I love a bad boy falls for good girl and changes his ways narrative; however, with Jess, I think it’s gonna be a while until this happens. The push and pull between Rory and Jess is both addicting and frustrating to watch. I could watch Rory berate Jess while Jess sasses her back for hours on end. Actually, I would definitely watch it for hours on end if it meant I’d never have to hear her and Dean have a nothing argument ever again. It’s also great to see how far Rory and Lorelai will go to help Luke. They’ll take on the whole town if they have to. Jess’s presence in the show has helped define and strengthen Rory and Lorelai’s relationship with Luke to the point where there is no denying that Luke is definitely family.

Speaking of family: my goodness, did we get to see some development between Emily and Lorelai. With the appearance of Mia, watching Lorelai struggle with the guilt of wanting to start her own inn while having to leave the Independence and causing is closer is so realistic and wonderful to watch. This true to life performance showcasing the everyday difficulties when choosing between your personal life and work life helped to paint Lorelai as a true working woman whose goals often contradict with her loyalties. Watching Lorelai struggle, however, was not my absolute favorite part of that episode. That award goes to Emily Gilmore and her interaction with Mia.

Never has one exchanged, nay, one sentence, defined a character so completely than Emily’s “I would have sent her home” in response to Mia’s claim that if Lorelai had been her daughter, she would have wanted someone to take her in and make sure she was fed and warm. Throughout season one, the audience was almost conditioned to empathize with Emily Gilmore, but here in this exchange, we see her true nature: Emily Gilmore loves control. She feeds off it; protects herself by it. When Emily Gilmore doesn’t have control of a situation, she is lost and feels helpless—even worthless. This exchange shows that no matter how nurturing Emily is to Rory, she will always be cold and rigid on the inside.

This coldness is only further brought out by the presence of Mia, a character that we have only seen in this episode. Mia is what Emily could have been if only she had learned that control isn’t everything. Mia is still a strong woman with having to keep putting people beneath her. Mia gives a visual goal of what we want Emily to someday belong, but with the phrase :I would have sent her home” we know she will never be.

Let’s hope for more breathtaking character development as we move…

Onto Season 2, Episode 9 “Run Away, Little Boy”