In the Season 6 finale of Gilmore Girls, ‘Partings‘, was both one of my favorite episodes of the season and also one of my least favorite. I loved the explosion of troubadours in Stars Hollow, but so much went wrong with the relationships in this episode. Lorelai realizes she needs to either push to get Luke or she needs to walk away – and in the end, she walks away… and into the arms of Christopher. And Rory, meanwhile, must take her own parting from Logan, who is going to London for the year.
What I want to discuss is… did Lorelai get good advice from Carolyn, the psychologist Emily tried to fix up with Christopher? Lorelai talked about her fears of being married and of her communication issues, but how she feels stupid now for believing she would get her wedding. She wants that – to start the next phase of her life, and Carolyn says:
“Only you can make you wait. Nobody else can. You need to decide what you want and what you’re willing to give up to get it, and then you got to be okay with that, or you got to be okay with waiting….
You won’t get anything unless you ask for it. And if you ask for it and you don’t get it, maybe it wasn’t worth having in the first place. Some things are just never meant to be, no matter how much we wish they were.”
So later, Lorelai pushes Luke into a confrontation, giving him an ultimatum. Considering she’s never spoken a word about her anxiety and her wants, that’s a lot for Luke to handle. So, did Lorelai push in the wrong way? And, when that fails, why does Lorelai go to Christopher?? I know that’s outside the discussion, but I had to put it there. ;)
Just for fun, here’s a video of the Troubadour sequences from this episode. Loved that:
Watch “Gilmore Girls” ‘Partings’
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Luke is pinning for Lorelai for many years and Lorelai seems oblivious. Luke buys a self help book to work up the courage to finaly ask her out. They do good in their relationship, until Rory drops out and Lorelai is in desperate need of some stability, hence the proposal to Luke. (was he ready for marriage?) She says no wedding until Rory is back, he agrees. Then April happens and Luke is insecure about the whole situation. Lorelai was always a little egoistic, she doesn’t want to share. She gets triggered to act out in her manner by this advice. – It’s all a problem of bad communication on both sides.
Like Lorelai told Max, all she wants is a man who tells her everyday how adorable she is, he should otherwise not interfere with her or Rory’s life. (when Max asks what he should do if Rory came home drunk she tells him to do nothing, she would handle it) Lorelai sees Luke the same way.
The advice was suitable, but Lorelai has other issues.
I agree with martin that Lorelai seems to be hypocritical with her relationships. She expects Luke to be completely understanding about her relationship with Rory and gets highly defensive whenever anyone tries to interfere. Yet when Luke is trying to deal with the relationship with his own daughter, Lorelai can’t wait. She should have told Luke how she was feeling earlier and then they could talk about and work through it. Instead she closes herself up, leaving Luke oblivious to how hurt she is by being left out, and then blames him for how she’s feeling. Even if they had eloped, I don’t see how that would have solved their problems; April would still be in their lives and Luke would probably still be hesitant to share her with Lorelai. Anna may have been more lenient but there were still those issues between Luke and Anna anyway that a marriage certificate wouldn’t solve.
As for why Lorelai went to Christopher… It seems like Chris has always been Lorelai’s “what if.” I don’t know if she could have ever been truly satisfied with Luke until she got closure with Chris. She had to give that relationship a try to know that she needed to be with Luke. The fact that she felt she needed to walk on eggshells with Luke about Christopher shows how there’s going to be some tension between them because she feels there’s something to hide (i.e. making it a big deal whenever she tells Luke about seeing Chris, trying to hide Chris’s answering machine message).
The advice was good, Loreali’s handling of the advice was poor and her reaction to Luke’s no elope answer was horrible.
In response to Martin’s post, I agree with almost all he said, but I don’t think Lorelai’s problem with the April situation was an unwillingness to share Luke. It was Luke’s unwillingness to let her be involved in what was a major part of his life. Besides hurting her feelings, it is untenable. She doesn’t want to run the Luke/April relationship, but she has to have some relationship with April. If Luke and Lorelai marry you can’t have Luke’s wife and Luke’s daughter in two separate and unrelated worlds.
I loved the talk because for the very first time we get to hear Lorelai that the only man she’s ever been in love with is Lule (In your face Christopher! Sorry :-) )
But at the same time I feel like Carolyn gives the wrong advice by telling Lorelai she should fight for what she wants.
As a result, Lorelai has not told Luke how she feels for months and all of a sudden everythin falls onto him. He probably didn’t see it coming.
He’s not the spontaneous kind of guy and she knows that by giving him an ultimatum she’s gonna lose him.
She should have talked to him a lot earlier and stopped pretending everything was fine.
They has things to sort out but they could have made it work.
When Lorelai asked him to wait to set a date until things are right with Rory he didn’t ask any questions. Now that she’s good with her life and her daughter, everything should go according to her schedule.
That was quite selfish of her.
However I do think that making her sleep with C. the same night she broke up with Luke is big mistake of the writers. That is quite out of character.
Sure she has always seen C. as a “wonderful possibility” (It should have been Lorelai) but she’s not the cheating kind of person.
So bottom line, she handles the advice very badly and then acts very stupidly.
Not to mention C. who, once again, took advantage of her vulnerabilty that night…
Can we get an editing for season 6 and first half of season 7?! :-)
I was just watching “Partings” tonight and I had to stop 10 minutes before the end. I couldn’t take it again…