POOR RORY

I wanted to blog last week about the season finale of The Gilmore Girls. I thought it was very thought provoking and, even though it portrayed a character making a bad choice, it was a very responsible and poignant portrayal.

Gilmore Girls is one of the only shows I actually watch with any regularity just for enjoyment. It's a fun show in which the characters are quirky and over-the-top in a O'Connoresque kind of "better than real" mode. I also love the relationships between the various mothers and daughters in the show. Particularly the main characters of Rory and her mother are fun to watch because they are so close that they commuicate on a level most people will never achieve.

So, after a couple of years of leading up to it, in the season finale, Rory ended up sleeping with her former boyfriend Dean, who is currently married to someone else. Lorelei stumbles onto the situation, and the ensuing dialogue bewteen mother and daughter was really amazing for primetime television. "It's adultery, Rory. And that is always wrong." Is pretty much Lorelei's position. She is thoroughly disappointed and even shamed by her daughter's action. Rory countered weakly with the argument, "But we really care about each other. Doesn't that count for anything?" Lorelei's response was strong and clear. "No. He doesn't belong to you...You are 'the other woman', Rory. This isn't who you are." There was really some great stuff in the exchange.

But best of all, at the end, when Rory finally storms out, there was a lovely closing moment in which she ends up alone on the back porch. She breaks down into sobs - we presume not only because of the fight with her mother, but also because of the sordidness of her sin. She doesn't know herself anymore. In the background, her mother's feet appear quietly behind her. They make a move toward her and then stop. The scene fades out. It was a great visual about love, and the isolation of sin, and also how things will never be quite the same for Rory and her mother now. Fabulous stuff.