Célèste's Review of S1E17 "The Breakup, Part II"

“The Breakup, Part II”

Season 1, Episode 17

Original airing: March 15, 2001

My Rating: 69

The Good:

•  Rory’s reaction to the breakup feels very in character and it’s nice to see various different characters try to take care of her in their own ways. I especially enjoyed Miss Patty’s request that Lorelai give her hug (“You don’t have to say it’s from me”) and Luke’s cavemannish attempt to keep Dean out of the diner.
• The Sookie/Jackson scene was hilarious as always.
• “Paris needs no embellishment.”
• I really enjoyed Lorelai’s rambling speech to tell Max she misses him.

The Bad:

• As much as I’m happy to see Max again, the way he’s integrated well into this episode underscores the clunkiness of mentioning him in the last episode. Here, Lorelai says she hasn’t been thinking about him at all, which would have made sense and explained the lack of mentioning Max in past episodes, except that she had clearly been thinking about him last episode. Also, Rory asks Lorelai how long it took to get over Max, but last episode she was basically expecting Max to call any moment. The inconsistency here (though it’s mostly a problem with the previous episode) is distracting.
• I just don’t buy any of the scenes with Tristan. The actress who plays Summer is terrible and all of those scenes feel really overplayed. The kiss is maybe something I could buy if it had been built up to more slowly.
• Lane says “parents,” but we’ve only seen her mother. Does she have a father in the picture? Why haven’t we heard anything about him yet? I feel like such basic information should be clear by now, and I can't blame a writer for mucking it up because the creator wrote this episode. 

Favorite Moment:

Lane freaks out about falling for a guy her parents would approve of

The Bottom Line:
A pretty good episode if you fast-forward through the Tristan scenes