2x20 Help Wanted

[7.5/10] Another kind of slack and slight episode, presumably before we have even more drama in the penultimate episode in the finale. But everything was enjoyable enough, so it’s a perfectly nice, almost “slice of life” style episode of the show.

The best of the storylines is Lorelai filling in for “Margie,” the secretary who isn’t following Richard to his new venture. There’s not much to it, but it’s a nice slice of a pairing between Lorelai and her dad where they’re actually in sync. As the prior Richard-focused episode showed, they don’t have much in common, so it’s nice to see Lorelai taking charge, helping out her dad, and proving that she can fit into his world to where he’s reluctant and even a little stung to have to replace her.

I think I do a disservice to this story by calling it slight, when in reality it’s just a little more subtle about what it’s going for than a lot of Gilmore Girls plotlines are. That’s not a knock in either direction, it’s just easy to take any plotline where there’s not an intense emotional declaration as the show going for a pleasant mood than for character development. But instead, the Richard-Lorelai story is simply all subtext, which makes it work on a different level when exploring the father-daughter relationship at play.

Regardless, it’s a treat to see them so in sync for a little while. And when the two have retreated to their neutral corners, but still take joy in Richard having “bagged a Swede” it’s a nice indication that the two of them, who are rarely on the same page, have found a bit of common ground and understand one another a little better.

The slightest story of the episode is Lane wanting to play the drums after admiring them in Carole King’s music store. There’s not much to it. Lane sees the drumset. Lane wants to play the drumset. Lane eventually cajoles Carole King into letting her play the drumset. It’s kind of cute, but it should probably have been one scene rather than a whole story.

The last, semi-cheesy, but at least character-informing story is Rory going around and realizing that no one gives her guff for what happened with the car accident because everyone thinks Jess is scum so blames him. Even Dean is clearly pissed but takes it in stride. (And again, poor Dean, continuing to suffer through and tolerate Rory having an emotional affair. I was really hoping he’d dump her then and there. We’ve definitely reached the point where Rory doesn’t deserve him.)

And that frustrates Rory for two reasons. For one, she thinks that Jess is good at heart, and so it bothers her that everyone in town writes him off so easily. For another, it’s kind but also patronizing to her, in the way that no one in town sees her as a well-rounded enough person to believe that she could make a bad decision on her own. It leads to the aforementioned intense emotional declaration with her mom, which is fine, but what’s better is the finish to the episode. It’s quieter, but Luke’s subtle acknowledgement Rory had a hand in this too, and with that acknowledgement, an affirmation that Jess isn’t all bad, gives them some common ground too.

Maybe I liked this episode better than I thought. It’s a little on-the-nose at points (mainly in the Rory storyline) and a little trifling here and there, but it does some interesting work for both Lorelai and Richard as well as Rory and Luke, and that’s definitely worth something.