In ‘Emily Says Hello‘, Christopher ignores Rory’s request that he stay away from Lorelai. Instead, when Sookie brings up Chris, Lorelai realizes she hasn’t heard from him in a while and decides to call him (I’m going to say this is just being a good friend). Though he tries to blow her off a bit, Lorelai is super nice and concerned on the phone. When Lorelai suggests that Chris bring Gigi by sometime, he accepts. Even names a date. So they plan a lunch.
Should Chris have ignored Rory on this? Should he have told Rory that Lorelai called him and he was planning to see her? Rory was bound to find out, after all. Or was it unreasonable for Rory to presume that her parents, friends for her whole life, would suddenly stop talking to each other?
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I think the answer is probably no, he should not have accepted the invitation — because the way the question is correctly framed, he would be blamed no matter what he did, for staying away or coming as requested, and because ultimately he has been reduced (as a character or person) to a punching bag for the Gilmores, and probably was from the very beginning.
The inexplicable tone of Rory’s “request” — and that’s a VERY kind word for it — comes out of nowhere. The last we saw Christopher in Season 3, Rory had been in touch with him, and she was understanding about Gigi, wanting to see her sister born. And Christoper seemed to have departed the series in a way that Rory — who was once ALWAYS forgiving — understood completely. The last time Christopher was even mentioned, by Jason, I believe, Rory showed no animosity at hearing his name at all, even excited to hear how nice he was.
Now suddenly in Season 5, she is full of hate and judgment, accusing him of things that have not happened with Lorelai — which is very odd considering how she slept with Dean while he was married and acts like a victim when she is spoken to in the same way for actually having done what she is accused of doing. As I and others have said, she completely rewrites history in her “request,” claiming that every time he comes back Lorelai ends up heartbroken, when it is exactly the OPPOSITE that is true — that every time he has come back, Lorelai has broken HIS heart, ran away with his daughter, sleeps with him and tells him she was just drunk, and waits until it’s too late to start to love him. Sherry had made it clear to Christopher she would give him a chance if he did certain things, and he proved he was capable of it. Lorelai kept pushing him away until he was a “success” while it was okay for her to be a maid and work in a hotel.
And here Rory has judged him for it all, and she even says “if the black hat fits” making it clear somehow she has made him into the villain — with Luke, presumably, the “white hat” hero. The one thing Rory gets right here is that Lorelai cannot stay away from Christopher, at best is more than just being a “good friend”, at worst is using him because she knows how much he will always adore her, and that whenever she wants she can call him and get him to come to her. And we know the lengths she’ll go to do that in the very end of the series, knowing how much he loves her.
What Christopher should have done in this episode is that he should have declined the invitation and told Lorelai that Rory had come to see him and told him to stay away from her. He should have said no and that he didn’t want to “hurt” Rory, because Rory seemed really unstable with emotions — which we know is true, considering her affairs, her explosions, and her imminent dropout from Yale.
Instead, because he tells Rory he didn’t want to tell Lorelai what she had said and done — to which Rory is too angry to appreciate — and because he doesn’t want to be cold to Lorelai, he finds himself stuck trying to be nice to them both and gets abused for it.
As funny as this episode is in so many places (especially Emily and her date), it is really hard to watch how it ends. Rory, finding out she was wrong in releasing so much bile on Christopher, does not apologize to him after Lorelai admitted that she invited Christopher. And Lorelai, having unwittingly caused the problem, ignores Christopher’s call even after Luke tells her it’s okay.
And then of course they will seem shocked when he doesn’t stay in touch — again. This is of course how Lorelai has treated him his whole life, and now he has two people doing it, and they wonder why he finds it easier — as he says in Season 1 — to stay away. If only he had done so here.
I have to say I agree with this comment.
I don’t understand why everything the girls do is spun in the best possible light (Rory just made a request, Lorelai is just being a good friend), and the question is put on Christopher’s head, as if it’s his fault for accepting someone else’s invitation. Even his attempt to not accept right away is dismissed as if it’s insincere.
Rory is completely ugly here as a character. I already lost sympathy for her earlier in the season, and this made it worse.
Lorelai is remarkably cool and calm here, all things considered. Although I think we see considering that she will use Christopher for her breakup with Luke, even marrying him when apparently her heart isn’t it, do we blame Christopher for that too?
I guess when we get there we’ll ask “Why did Christopher open the door for Lorelai?”
Marie-I totally agree with what you’ve said in that Rory was completely out of line. She shouldn’t have acted like that at all, even in her “defense” of wanting her mother’s relationship to work out with Luke. Maybe she went there not because of Christopher’s interest in Lorelai, but vice versa. She knew she couldn’t get away with talking to Lorelai like that, telling her to stay away from Chris, so she went to Chris and had her attitude there. It worked (kinda) because Christopher is still carrying around the guilty card for being gone from Rory’s life. I’m a Luke-Lorelai fan but even I get uncomfortable when Lorelai starts wondering what Chris is up to, mostly because the pull of having someone utterly adore her for 20 years seems too strong for her to have some sense and break away from.
As for Chris accepting the lunch invite, he should have just came clean to Lorelai right there on the phone. I mean, I know they didn’t raise their child in the same household, but it seems that competency in parenting a child comes from open communication from both parents. And yet (Sorry GG clan!) we all know the problems with communciation basically everyone on the show had.
The only thing that bothers me and I’ve noticed this on the site before is everyone’s seemingly quick attitude to jump Lorelai for being a maid. I mean, yeah, she was a blue collar worker through her teens and early twenties. But propelling herself single-handedly from maid at 16 to executive manager at 32 and then later the owner of an inn while raising a child alone IS success, in my book. Besides, knowing Lorelai came from money and still worked a menial job she felt she had to lends her some of my respect. So Lorelai’s unhappiness with Christopher’s work ethic IN HIS 30′s doesn’t seem too far off. Do I expect everyone to know exactly what they want to do at 30? No. I’m not that far away and am working in a field completely unrelated to my degree. But most people at that point are either able to keep a steady job while working towards a goal or at least find something that’s stable and can pay the bills, instead of drifting…especially when there’s a child involved. I don’t think anyone should have to give up their dreams of having it all, but the reality is when an unexpected child comes along, sometimes dreams either have to be pushed off to a later time or change.
End Season 2 is Lorelai’s mistake? I think Cristopher’s mistake.. In season 7, end marriage I think more mistakes made Cris.. Or Christopher’s “right things” – buying dictionary for Rory, or Friday dinner with Lorelai, Rory, Gilmores and Haydens in Season 1 part 15.. Or Rory’s Graduation on Chilton.. Or Season 3 part 2..
@ Marie
I agree with what you said on that he should have told Lorelai frankly about Rory’s “request”
Though hmmmm, I’m not sure I agree with the part about Lorelai being the one who constantly ran away from Chris – yes she did after Rory was born, though I always saw that as turning down the entire life plan her parents had for her, which then also implied a marriage with Chris
But also, wasn’t it him who left her during Sookie’s wedding? I don’t wanna accuse him of that or put any value on it whatsoever, of course Sherry was pregnant and he wanted to make up for what he missed with Rory, but still he left Lorelai quite brusquely and in the heat of the moment
It may be a bit off topic, but I’m not surprised he wasn’t especially consistent in following Rory’s demand. It always felt to me that Rory was more a means for him to get near Lorelai; that he never primarily cared for her as his daughter
Okay, he did try hard at times to show care for Rory, eg with the expensive dictionary, but there were scenes every now and then that made me wonder about his real intention behind it all
One of them was during the Gilmore’s vow renewal, when Rory joined him on the sofa in that backroom. Maybe they had had an extended hello during the party that wasn’t featured on screen, but it looked to me like they hadn’t met so far – yet he’s only giving her a short casual “hey kiddo, take a seat”. It also struck me as very weird when he told her that the greatest day of his life was when he got the first kiss from Lorelai. Sure, he was maybe a bit tipsy and fired up by the whole Luke/Lorelai situation – but nevertheless, shouldn’t the greatest moments of your life be kinda linked to the birth of your children anyway?
Another scene is about him meeting Lorelai telling her frantically about his inheritance – he does raise Rory swiftly at the start and somewhere in between, but foremost focuses on Lorelai and all the various things he might pay for her
And a final one – I forgot exactly when and where – is about him cutting Rory off with some phrase like “Hey kiddo, I knew her (Lorelai) first”
I found these parts especially symptomatic of his stance towards Rory – to be perfectly honest, I don’t envy her for this, and it makes you wonder how much of her warped behaviour relates to living a life where she’s not the first priority in her dad’s life
(Just to make sure, I’m not against Chris per se, like any of the key characters I found he had his valid point in the series, but that doesn’t mean his behaviour was fine to me)
@Marie
Glad to see you’re still around! As much as I criticize the Palladinos, I think if you pressed Amy she’d say that she was trying to show that these were flawed women. One of the quotes I posted way back is that she forecast Luke and Lorelai breaking up for reasons that have nothing to do with Christopher, and I think the tendency among people who love Lorelai and Rory so much is not what was intended.
@ Paul
It’s not a question of fault at the end of Season 2. No one is saying Lorelai got Sherry pregnant! The problem is the way she handled it all before it ever got to that point.
As Rory rightly points out in this episode, she called Christopher drunk at her bachelorette party while she was going to marry a man she didn’t love. What was she expecting, for Christopher to come and declare his love for her and ask her not to marry him? This is after telling Christopher when she slept with him she was drunk then, too. (Uh, maybe she should stop drinking then?)
So many people fault Christopher for coming running when Lorelai calls, but there he didn’t. He DID call Rory to check in, to try to get a sense of what Lorelai was trying to say. And he held his dignity and said he wasn’t going to fall for it, and did the same again when she flirted with him after the cotillion.
It was only THEN when she saw that Christopher could actually hold down a job when Sherry didn’t expect anything more of him that she finally told him how she felt. THEN she had the nerve to tell him she sabotaged her relationship with Max because she was waiting for him? COME ONE. How manipulative and cruel can she be? She had just turned down another in a line of marriage proposals from him, denied her call at her bachelorette party was interest in him, denied to his face what having sex with him meant to her, and once he was in a committed relationship, only then does she confess her feelings for him and blame him for her screwed up marriage to a man she told Rory she didn’t love? Too bad Rory wasn’t there for THAT discussion.
If Lorelai had just owned up to it all and said what Jessica says — I don’t expect you to be a success, but stop trying to make it big and just be here for us — and if she admitted that she was waiting for him, he might not have gotten serious about Sherry.
This is why Emily says that Lorelai could have had that effect on him but she pushed him away. As ASP said in her commentaries on this season, Emily’s the voice of truth if you’re paying attention. If Lorelai had owned up to her feelings BEFORE he and Sherry got serious, Sherry never would have gotten pregnant.
@ Arieanna
I think it’s absolutely fair to say her call to Christopher here was trying to just be a good friend, but in the context of her tease and baiting of Christopher, there’s always an edge in what she does. He never should have called her for advice about Gigi, even in a panic (how lame!). But after this whole episode, not to mention the blowup at the wedding and saying she’ll never see him again, to sleep with him again and marry him because she’s mad at Luke?
Rory’s not wrong about this. Unfortunately, like Emily, her tone is so nasty and judgmental, the truth gets clouded. And considering that Emily didn’t have an affair or commit a felony, her self-righteous attitude dropped her below Emily in respect in my book.
@Josh
Lorelai wants man with “full package”. In season2 she understand that – Christopher is not man with “full package”. That she says, but Christopher misunderstood she. Is not manipulative. Lorelai was not a very happy choice of words.
I agree with Emily’s voice, but one thing is love, and second thing is life/marriage. She 17 years wants from Christopher one thing – responsibility. When is responsible he wants Sherry (cottilion). But in season 5 and season 7 Christopher says Lorelai and I belong. Why Sherry?
@ Arieanna
Rory had right. When Yale accept she saw Lorelai abandon her dreams (Dragonfly). She saw that Lorelai is happy with Luke, not with Cristopher. She wants so as Lorelai happy. And Rory had true – when Christopher come back, Lorelai cries (post Emily’s and Richard’s wedding).
Seems like when Rory first made her “request” that Chris was too shocked to respond. He probably should have waited a few days to let it sink in and for Rory to cool off and then taken her up on the offer to watch Gigi. Then when she came over they could sit down and talk like adults, work things out, and thereby avoid having the conversation they had later when Lorelai left the table. But by doing nothing, Chris leaves himself in the can’t win zone as there is no chance he will stay out of the girls life for good.
As to the Rory bashing for “rewriting” history, her “always” remark struck me as hyperbole or even selective memory that occurs in the heat of the moment; i.e. when we are really angry or happy with someone we tend to call back only bad or good memories that we associate with them. It’s only after cooling off that we admit there are both sides to the equation.
However, as to Rory’s demeanor with Chris at the Inn, it calls to mind some of Emily’s most heinous rants; judgemental and unexpectingly vicious. There were some earlier comments about Rory always being forgiving in the past but I think that mode of behavior went out the window once she got emmotionally crushed when Jess left at the end of her time at Chilton. In her mind this was her first real failure and it is questionable if she ever fully recovered from it. From that point on she was much more brittle, self-protective, and occasionally reactive to the point of pettiness to things that were outside what she expected or wanted [i.e.: she was starting to mimic some of Emily's less attractive attributes].
@ Mcityrk
I think that mode of behavior went out the window once she got emotionally crushed when Jess left at the end of her time at Chilton. In her mind this was her first real failure and it is questionable if she ever fully recovered from it.
I was hoping you might say more on this! I instinctively think you’re right; but I’m struggling to say why! I don’t remember a specific scene where Rory considered Jess’ exit as her failure; did you mean the overall feel to season four? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick and you meant her regrets that she’d left Dean for Jess which she expresses late four/early five?
From that point on she was much more brittle, self-protective, and occasionally reactive to the point of pettiness to things that were outside what she expected or wanted [i.e.: she was starting to mimic some of Emily's less attractive attributes].
Thinking about it, that makes it an interesting set-up to season six where she and Emily are finally put together without Lorelai.
@Lathany
It seems like through most of the first 3 seasons that Rory was surrounded by a strong support system,; her mom, Lane, Luke, the grandparents, and even most of the townsfolks. While she had challenges [albeit, relatively easy ones] to overcome she always had useful advice to help work through them and for the most part was successful in everything she did. Jess was a different matter. Because he was so mercurial in his behavior, she never knew for sure where she stood and any outside advice was more likely to hurt than help. But in spite of this risk, she really wanted this relationship and busted her tail to make it work, even planning for him to be her first lover. Then because of circumstances beyond her control, the whole situation blew up, her hopes were dashed as she never really knew why he left, and she was left wondering if she could have prevented this. Finally when Jess kept calling without speaking, she gives him the “I quit” speech and points out that she is going to move on and protect herself from his behavior. I think she took this very personally as a failure that she wished she could have reversed. Whose fault is was was beside the point.
And this attitude of the possibility that now she can fail at something important to her with the resulting loss of confidence it entails, certainly transferred over to her entire time at Yale as challenges were to be at a much higher degree of difficulty and her previous support system was largely missing or even erratically unpredictable. As evidence I would point to several season 4 episodes; her almost pathologically needy behavior for Lorelai’s continuing presence on her first day at Yale, the [funny] overreations to the Paris/Asher pairing, the consistent misreading of how professors and editors were viewing and grading her work, her shame at not being able to talk to Richard about her scholastic problems that caused dropping a class, and failing even to the point that she feels her only recourse is to call a previous boyfriend to bail her out numerous times. Not exactly the behavior of a successful person firing on all cylinders. And the longer Rory got stuck in this cycle [including the wasted season 4 summer and the early part of season 5], the easier it became for her to rationalize close-minded self-protective behavior instead of the open, friendly, forgiving behavior of her high school days.
One final thought, when you look at Rory’s request to Chris to avoid Lorelai for all reasons and Emily’s request to Chris to do something before the Lorelai/Luke marriage occurs, you would almost swear the dialogue is being spoken by the same person.
What happened to the GGN site? Now all I get is a transfer to Crushable website with no links to get back to this site. Did the b5media buisness model change so much that GGN is being discontinued? Thanks
Just curious, see that the GGN site has been transferred to crushable site. Does that mean that GilmoreGirls News website has been discontinued?? Thanks