[7.6/10] You could rename this episode “The one where people have mature, adult conversations for once.” That’s probably overstating things, but for a show that likes to up the drama factor when it can, it’s nice to have an episode about characters being introspective and honest with one another about their feelings and the problems they’re facing.
But before we can really do that in earnest, we have to have a dog funeral. Ah the eternal dilemma. Michel is one of the show’s most enjoyable and underused characters, but when Gilmore Girls does use him, it sticks him into underwhelming, broad storylines that tend to go nowhere. I suppose Michel mourning his dog is meant to be the comic relief in an otherwise heavier episode, but his devotion to this memorial service, and disgust for how less-than-seriously Lorelai and Sookie are taking it, pays next to comic dividends.
Still, it turns out alright at the end. It’s not much, but Michel’s little bit about eating a hamburger at Luke’s (thereby violating his strict diet) in honor of his deceased bet who loved the grilled-up treats, is a sweet note to end a pretty ridiculous story on. And hell, Zach again seems to be on his best behavior in offering his condolences to Michel, and even does a pretty damn melodic cover of “My Heart Will Go On” (thereby continuing the gag about Michel’s love of Celine Dion) on acoustic guitar. It’s not much, but it sends an empty plot out on a nice note, which is enough.
Then you have Rory getting all twitterpated by her dreamy new Econ T.A. who’s filling in while Richard recovers. Full disclosure -- I was cringing like mad through all of this, as it felt like Gilmore Girls was sending us through yet another tedious love triangle. But I was pleasantly surprised at the results instead.
There’s a realness to Rory sitting down with Logan and admitted her flushed feelings at the sight of this T.A. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and, after the deal with Marty that spurred the confession in the first place, possibly damaging. But rather than being fodder for a contrived break-up, Logan says it’s no big deal, apologizes for overreacting to the Marty situations, and affirms that minor crushes are not something that matter -- how you feel deep down and what you choose to do are. It represents the show veering away from melodrama and into a mature, healthy relationship for one of its leads, which is a breath of fresh air.
So is “Farewell My Pet”’s approach to the Lorelai Chris situation. I’ll admit that here too, I feared the worst, when arguments at the inn between then went badly and it felt like the same tired back and forth we’ve heard a thousand times.
But then Lorelai has a conversation with her best friend, one of those revealing and frank conversations that you need to have with the important people in your life in order to figure things out, and she has an epiphany. Lorelai realizes she’s fighting the wrong battle. Chris is fixated on Luke and any unresolved feelings Lorelai might have for him, and Lorelai admits that to some extent he’s right. It was less than a year ago that she and Luke were engaged, ahd that it’s not like her warm feelings for Luke have disappeared. But she also states (correctly, in my estimation) that Chris is wrong. Luke is not a problem because while she’s still coming to terms with the leftover of her relationship with him, she chose Chris, and she has been 100% committed to Chris.
Sookie, however, is the voice of reason, and asks the question that many viewers had to be asking at this point as well. Even if Luke was not a part of the equation, would Lorelai and Chris make sense together? And when she stops and thinks about it, Lorelai has to admit that the answer is no.
I think that’s all I wanted from this arc. This season has spent so much time trying to sell us on Chris and Lorelai working, presumably to make this fall more tragic, and not nearly enough time hinting at the ways they just don’t work. It wants you to buy into them as a pairing, so that you’re not just yelling “why?” at the screen for forty minutes at a time. And it never really worked.
But this does. It works when Chris admits that he always thought their problem was timing, and so when an opportunity presented itself, he seized it, arguably much too soon. It works when Lorelai admits that, even apart from Luke, she and Chris just aren’t right, and her weeping confession that Chris is the man she “wants to want” even when she doesn’t hits that believable note of beautiful tragedy this season has had trouble with elsewhere.
In the end, I appreciate what Gilmore Girls has been trying to do with Lorelai and Chris this season, even if the execution left plenty to be desired. It comes into focus in this episode. Lorelai was presented with someone who was nigh-perfect for her, but whom she perceived to not want to marry her, and was wounded by that. So she turned to someone who was always wrong for her, but who wanted her, who had always wanted her, who had proposed to her multiple times in the past and, in that, gave her the one thing Luke couldn’t seem to by the time they ended -- the sense that your partner really wants to spend the rest of his life with you.
Lorelai hoped that feeling of being wanted, that her shared history with Christopher, would be enough, or maybe she didn’t even realize until now that it’s what was motivating her. But either way, she figures it out, and for once, she and Chris have an open and honest conversation that lays it all out on the table, and sends them to their separate corners once more.
I haven’t loved this romance arc. It’s full of too much build and not of enough signs of cracks in the foundation as the show brings Christopher and Lorelai together. But for once, the show seizes on a genuine reason for two people to break apart and discards the red herring beef between Lorelai and Chris. Rather than breaking them up with another overblown fight, or some dramatic gesture, “Farewell My Pet” just has two adults, speaking honestly with one another, recognizing what’s there and what isn’t.
In its last year as a regular series, it’s hard to know whether to call Gilmore Girls a mature show, but its two title characters have finally figured out how to approach their romantic lives with a level of maturity the audience has rarely, if ever, seen before.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2018-01-19T19:43:39Z
[7.6/10] You could rename this episode “The one where people have mature, adult conversations for once.” That’s probably overstating things, but for a show that likes to up the drama factor when it can, it’s nice to have an episode about characters being introspective and honest with one another about their feelings and the problems they’re facing.
But before we can really do that in earnest, we have to have a dog funeral. Ah the eternal dilemma. Michel is one of the show’s most enjoyable and underused characters, but when Gilmore Girls does use him, it sticks him into underwhelming, broad storylines that tend to go nowhere. I suppose Michel mourning his dog is meant to be the comic relief in an otherwise heavier episode, but his devotion to this memorial service, and disgust for how less-than-seriously Lorelai and Sookie are taking it, pays next to comic dividends.
Still, it turns out alright at the end. It’s not much, but Michel’s little bit about eating a hamburger at Luke’s (thereby violating his strict diet) in honor of his deceased bet who loved the grilled-up treats, is a sweet note to end a pretty ridiculous story on. And hell, Zach again seems to be on his best behavior in offering his condolences to Michel, and even does a pretty damn melodic cover of “My Heart Will Go On” (thereby continuing the gag about Michel’s love of Celine Dion) on acoustic guitar. It’s not much, but it sends an empty plot out on a nice note, which is enough.
Then you have Rory getting all twitterpated by her dreamy new Econ T.A. who’s filling in while Richard recovers. Full disclosure -- I was cringing like mad through all of this, as it felt like Gilmore Girls was sending us through yet another tedious love triangle. But I was pleasantly surprised at the results instead.
There’s a realness to Rory sitting down with Logan and admitted her flushed feelings at the sight of this T.A. It’s awkward and uncomfortable and, after the deal with Marty that spurred the confession in the first place, possibly damaging. But rather than being fodder for a contrived break-up, Logan says it’s no big deal, apologizes for overreacting to the Marty situations, and affirms that minor crushes are not something that matter -- how you feel deep down and what you choose to do are. It represents the show veering away from melodrama and into a mature, healthy relationship for one of its leads, which is a breath of fresh air.
So is “Farewell My Pet”’s approach to the Lorelai Chris situation. I’ll admit that here too, I feared the worst, when arguments at the inn between then went badly and it felt like the same tired back and forth we’ve heard a thousand times.
But then Lorelai has a conversation with her best friend, one of those revealing and frank conversations that you need to have with the important people in your life in order to figure things out, and she has an epiphany. Lorelai realizes she’s fighting the wrong battle. Chris is fixated on Luke and any unresolved feelings Lorelai might have for him, and Lorelai admits that to some extent he’s right. It was less than a year ago that she and Luke were engaged, ahd that it’s not like her warm feelings for Luke have disappeared. But she also states (correctly, in my estimation) that Chris is wrong. Luke is not a problem because while she’s still coming to terms with the leftover of her relationship with him, she chose Chris, and she has been 100% committed to Chris.
Sookie, however, is the voice of reason, and asks the question that many viewers had to be asking at this point as well. Even if Luke was not a part of the equation, would Lorelai and Chris make sense together? And when she stops and thinks about it, Lorelai has to admit that the answer is no.
I think that’s all I wanted from this arc. This season has spent so much time trying to sell us on Chris and Lorelai working, presumably to make this fall more tragic, and not nearly enough time hinting at the ways they just don’t work. It wants you to buy into them as a pairing, so that you’re not just yelling “why?” at the screen for forty minutes at a time. And it never really worked.
But this does. It works when Chris admits that he always thought their problem was timing, and so when an opportunity presented itself, he seized it, arguably much too soon. It works when Lorelai admits that, even apart from Luke, she and Chris just aren’t right, and her weeping confession that Chris is the man she “wants to want” even when she doesn’t hits that believable note of beautiful tragedy this season has had trouble with elsewhere.
In the end, I appreciate what Gilmore Girls has been trying to do with Lorelai and Chris this season, even if the execution left plenty to be desired. It comes into focus in this episode. Lorelai was presented with someone who was nigh-perfect for her, but whom she perceived to not want to marry her, and was wounded by that. So she turned to someone who was always wrong for her, but who wanted her, who had always wanted her, who had proposed to her multiple times in the past and, in that, gave her the one thing Luke couldn’t seem to by the time they ended -- the sense that your partner really wants to spend the rest of his life with you.
Lorelai hoped that feeling of being wanted, that her shared history with Christopher, would be enough, or maybe she didn’t even realize until now that it’s what was motivating her. But either way, she figures it out, and for once, she and Chris have an open and honest conversation that lays it all out on the table, and sends them to their separate corners once more.
I haven’t loved this romance arc. It’s full of too much build and not of enough signs of cracks in the foundation as the show brings Christopher and Lorelai together. But for once, the show seizes on a genuine reason for two people to break apart and discards the red herring beef between Lorelai and Chris. Rather than breaking them up with another overblown fight, or some dramatic gesture, “Farewell My Pet” just has two adults, speaking honestly with one another, recognizing what’s there and what isn’t.
In its last year as a regular series, it’s hard to know whether to call Gilmore Girls a mature show, but its two title characters have finally figured out how to approach their romantic lives with a level of maturity the audience has rarely, if ever, seen before.