Monday, June 22, 2015

Podcast #41 - S2E19 - Teach Me Tonight

Hello! Welcome to Return to Stars Hollow - a spoiler-free, retrospective podcast about Gilmore Girls! This is the podcast for Season 2, Episode 19 - Teach Me Tonight.


You can direct download the episode here: S2E19 - Teach Me Tonight

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The next podcast will post on Tuesday, June 30, 2015 for Season 2, Episode 20 - Help Wanted.

6 comments:

  1. Just a quick comment about the last podcast - the population of Stars Hollow is nearly 10,000 according to their population sign. Can't remember where I saw it, maybe on a dvd cover? My town is half that, and we have a hospital right on the edge of town. And since Connecticut is more densely populated, it's possible that there are other small towns nearby that also use that hospital. So I didn't find it too unbelievable that Stars Hollow had a functioning emergency room, but they may need to send people out to Hartford for the more specialized procedures.

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  2. -I find it interesting that people think Lorelai was seeking out Luke to yell at him in the last episode. I have always interpreted that as her going after Jess. In fact, she pretty much ignores Luke's presence when she goes to the diner until he keeps pushing her to tell him what happened, instead she's actively searching the apartment for Jess. I've always been of the understanding that her lashing out at Luke was an unfortunate side effect of not being able to find Jess and yell at him personally. Not to say that she and Luke wouldn't have eventually exchanged words anyway, but I don't think it would have exploded to the degree that it did in that moment. Wrong place wrong time for Luke.

    -Lorelai's actions in the last episode never strike me as unjustified. Motherly instinct has kicked in, and I agree with her argument in this episode that she has the right to be angry with someone who put her daughter in danger, accident or not. It's still difficult for me to take sides in the blow up between Lorelai and Rory though because I understand where Rory is coming from as well. Luke obviously does too. That final scene with him and Rory in the diner was so sweet.

    -Lorelai and Richard working together is so sweet. It gives him a chance to truly see what a good businesswoman she is. She takes after her dad in that respect and I think he has a new admiration for her business intuition and ability to take charge. The father/daughter bonding with these 2 is without a doubt my favorite part of the episode. I actually felt sad for Richard when he realizes that their partnership has to end so that Lorelai can return to working at the inn.

    -I don't think it was on accident that Richard and Emily were absent from the last episode. It makes sense, however cruel it may seem, that they were low on the list of people Lorelai wanted to talk to after the car crash. Quite honestly, as a viewer, I don’t think the drama that would have resulted had they been in the episode was necessary. There was plenty going on already. It fits better in this episode.

    -Lane has drum fever!! So cool to see her kind of have her own story this episode with the opening of the music store. Plus she gets to interact with none other than theme song artist, Carole King. Why am I not surprised that Kirk is trying to get a job there?

    -This was the first episode of the show I ever saw. I have a very distinct memory of watching that opening scene, and not having any idea who these girls were, or what the show was about. My how things quickly changed.

    Old Episodes:
    -2.16-More Paris and Jess please.

    -2.18-in response to your question about the Who's the Boss? reference. The last few eps of that show had Tony receive a job offer to teach at a University in Iowa. Lorelai's suggestion that Richard teaching would be Who's the Boss?: The Later Years I'm guessing is a suggestion that it would be a follow up to that story. So the reference does work.

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  3. Answers to the last podcast:
    As far as I know, take a penny (cent?) pots don't exist here in germany. At least I've never seen one and never knew what that was supposed to be when I watched this episode.
    And the girl on the sticker Lane puts on Rory's cast is called Emily the Strange.

    Lorelai still doesn't acknowledge that she was maybe out of line in what she said to Luke. It makes sense that she wouldn't want to tell Rory everything about that fight. But she's so blasée about the whole thing which tells me that she's not aware of where she went wrong.

    Does Stars Hollow (minus Luke) not get the concept of an accident? They all sound ridiculous in that regard. I like that it was an accident that had nothing to do with Jess as a person and the way Rory describes the situation, it really wasn't Jess' fault and could have happened to anyone.
    So my main problem with this is the way everyone reacts to it. These reactions would make more sense if the accident had happened because Jess wasn't holding the wheel or looking at the road or didn't stop at a red light or something like that. But then, that would lead to another problem in that I'm not sure anyone would be able to forgive Jess at some point, including the audience.
    It's also kind of creepy for the whole town to put Rory on this pedestal where she can do no wrong. I like that she tries to take responsibilty for what happened and stands up for herself at the end because she's fed up with the way everyone's treating her. She brings up a great point: By putting the entire blame on evil Jess, they are implying that Rory is some mindless idiot who couldn't help herself around this guy and who can't make decisions for herself.

    Richard is so cute at the store. It's great to see him and Lorelai get along. The last time they spent more time together was in Richard in Stars Hollow, right? This is a great contrast to that episode and Richard finally sees how competent Lorelai is at the business stuff.

    I love that Lane gets her own storyline here. Since she's found her calling and the store presumably won't be closing again next week, this seems like something that could stick around for a while which is exciting.

    There's no way Dean can read that fast.

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  4. I agree with Mareike: hooray for Lane! It's great that her story is about her wanting something that feeds her soul (as opposed to another story about trying to date behind her mother's back). And unlike cheerleading, we've seen that Lane is obsessed with music from the very first episode. It is creepy that the town puts Rory on a pedestal. We've seen it in previous episodes, and will see it again.

    On a lesser show, Rory might only have been concerned with defending Jess, and the story would have been about Rory being in love with a boy no one likes. But on this show, she's trying to take responsibility for her own actions. Rory is literally trying to grow up in this episode, and no one --- Lorelai, Emily, Dean, Taylor -- is letting her do this.

    Behind the love-triangle story is one about a teenage girl becoming an adult, and how her mother is struggling with this transition. Is Rory liking Jess the first thing that she and Lorelai have ever disagreed about? Is this Rory's first rebellion? Even teenagers who have good relationships with their parents need to separate from them and develop their own opinions. Lorelai is such a vivacious and overwhelming personality, I imagine that younger Rory has simply imitated her for much of her life. But now their lives are starting to diverge, and will diverge further as Rory gets older, goes off to college, and has a life that is very different than Lorelai's. Sometimes Lorelai handles this well (like when she tells Rory that she trusts her and won't lock her away), and sometimes her protective instincts kick in and she just wants to keep Rory away from the big, bad world outside Stars Hollow.

    Just writing that made me want to hug my own mother. Apparently, raising teenagers into adults is a tough gig.

    Oh, and Mareike is also right about Dean: I imagine the letter is written in small, two-syllable words, large font. Or in crayon.

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  5. Help Wanted :
    OH NO ... Luke goes fishing and now we loose the rest of the Man candy :(

    Seems I am not the only one to think Dean was read fast and having to be made to read !! Was Rory not confident on explaining ? Did she thing she would give away more than she wanted ? Where does Lorelia get "Deans even MORE terrific then we thought !!! "

    I wanted to help with the plan to tell the Hungry Diner waitress bad stories after she kept "squee" at the end of each sentence.

    I did like that at the start Lorelai plan to explain the broken arm to Emily and Richard is about bees, which she starts to use at the end when Emily sees Rory !

    YES YES .. Lane has her own story line as a drummer... Lets hope this one sticks ...

    Love that Lorelai jumps in when largy Margy refuses to not help Richard when he is not even going to match her current salary !! Unlike Richard in Stars Hollow - now they are in his world ... He can see how his daughter fits in so well. Its great to see them working together and I love the shopping sequence. Its the fact they are working so well , that he is then disappointed that she has to leave him. But then they jell again at the end on "bagging the Swede".

    Fav: :Lorelai's Tombstone "You where crud and unprofessional"

    Finally - replies to last weeks podcast:
    1. Never heard of a penny pot before i saw the show - assumed it was a Taylor-ism.
    2. The sticker from Lane if Emily Strange !

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  6. I think the writers purposely created ambiguity to make us debate whether or not lorelai & the town was right to blame Jess for the accident.

    because we do see jess driving irresponsibly--- something that dean wouldn't do. but then we're deprived of the scene where the accident actually happens, and its been established that rory sometimes lies, so we don't actually know if it was completely an accident or not, maybe jess didn't see the animal sooner because he was goofing around. plus rory has heart eyes and could possibly see it as purely an accident because she doesn't want to admit that jess wasn't paying enough attention to the road and did have at least a small part of blame.

    so we're left wondering if lorelai is overreacting to be blaming jess or if she's in the right. I think it was a good choice on the part of the writers because it tends to divide the viewers and inspire debate and make things interesting. I for one thing that it was Jess' fault considering how little he is paying attention to the road in the previous scene, but i also think that unless you're drunk most car accidents are still accidents and Lorelai is overreacting a bit.

    Also I HATE thing thing that Gilmore Girls does (and often other tv shows do) where people, usually mothers, go into hospitals and get their way by being extremely rude to the front desk people. Things like this don't happen in real life-- yelling at an employee is a great way to get nowhere, and Lorelai should know this because we've seen her get her way through charm & flattery in the past. It bothers me so much that I often skip these hospital scenes when I re-watch episodes.

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