Hello! Welcome to Return to Stars Hollow - a spoiler-free, retrospective podcast about Gilmore Girls! This is the podcast for Season 4, Episode 6 - An Affair to Remember.
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The next podcast will post on Thursday, June 2, 2016 for Season 4, Episode 7 - The Festival of Living Art.
This is totally a tangent, but I stumbled on this while searching for the unaired pilot out of curiosity.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/218mah/i_am_lauren_graham_actress_author_ask_me_anything/
If you scroll down far enough, she admits that Scott Patterson is a good kisser, so there ya have it. :D
First things first: why is the episode title "Festival of Living Art" when Taylor repeatedly refers to it as the "Festival of Living Pictures?" Why is there a statue in a festival of pictures? And does anyone else keep thinking of that episode of Arrested Development?
ReplyDeleteI thought this episode held together really well because they managed to tie 3 plotlines together (the band, the festival, the pregnancy). It helped that they kept all the action in Stars Hollow (no Yale, no Dragonfly, no Gilmore Mansion). It also helped that all 3 plotlines were on the same level of GG Insanity: they involved secondary or tertiary characters who function in a heightened, zany reality. The midwife feeling "anti-midwife energy" was pitched at the same level of weird as Brian naming off things Gill was old enough to remember, which is the same level of weird as Kirk preaching in the town square.
I'm not sure why they threw in that scene with Nicole and Luke - it took me out of the rhythm of Stars Hollow nuttiness. We're supposed to take Luke's romantic travails seriously and Nicole is not the least bit zany. So besides wanting to yell "NO just get divorced and never see each other again", I felt like it hurt the episode.
Small things I enjoyed:
-Lane's entrance at the top of the episode, particularly how she flicks her braids after soaking her head in the sink.
-Taylor modestly stroking his beard after Lorelai calls it sexy.
-Sookie kind of winking at Lorelai when Jackson says "Colgate or Davy" because he still doesn't know it's a boy.
-Lorelai's ferret voice.
There is some damn fine comedy in this episode.
I really liked this episode even though nothing super ground-breaking occurred (yet). The Festival of Living Pictures actually seems like a really cool event, especially to be in. I was a little confused though, are the real people just doing face-in-the-hole, or do their whole bodies make up the picture?
ReplyDeleteLast week you guys mentioned Kirk's newfound confidence and hoping that spilled over into other aspects of his life, and that was definitely present in this episode. I love how he took on the method acting style in such Quirky-Kirk fashion, but also carried a new air of confidence. He's not pitiable in this episode like he so often is presented, but still maintains his original Stars Hollow wackiness. I'm excited to see Kirk continue to grow as a character, and hopefully really mature into an independent man.
I really like the new band member Gill. He reminds me of an older version of Zack, which I think will make for a fun dynamic moving forward. The band dynamic as a whole should be interesting, especially because Lane made a major, spontaneous decision about bringing Gill into the band. I hope this doesn't create negative vibes between them and that Zack and Brian can come to accept Gill. Does this mean Lane is the new leader, or will they remain a democracy like U2?
Speaking of new dynamics, I'm excited to see how the new bond of motherhood impacts Lorelai and Sookie's relationship. As Lorelai has to let her child go (kinda), Sookie will be dealing with the huge change of brand-new motherhood, and I think that will make for an interesting element in their friendship. They will both be working mothers and can be even greater support systems for each other because of that shared experience. Of course, Lorelai won't have a newborn to balance with the new inn, but she has experienced that, as a single mother at that, so I hope she will be able to really support Sookie through these changes.
Lastly, Beau seems much better than Rune, mostly because I love Nick Offerman, but does Jackson have any non-annoying family members? Though I did love Beau calling Jackson a "big city phony"
I never realized that Digger calls Lorelai Umlaut. I could never understand that word, because first of all, I wasn't expecting him to say a german word, and secondly, because his pronounciation is so different. And then I had to check the german version, which I haven't watched in a while, to check if they translated it differently and it is indeed Umlaut there, too. But apparently I never picked up on that one. Maybe because the word Umlaut usually refers to the whole letter/sound and not just the two dots and I didn't make that connection. Anyway, that nickname is really gross and now that I know what he's saying, I hate Digger and this scene even more.
ReplyDeleteThis is another favourite of mine, in terms of I like to watch it and it's very memorable. Even though I realized now that neither Rory nor Lorelai have much of a storyline here. But the Festival of Living Art is one of my favourite Stars Hollow events and it's nice to have an episode again that features so many of the townspeople in this many scenes. Especially Taylor and his sexy beard are on fire. I love that he calls the other guy "the Taylor Doosey of Woodbridge".
Kirk taking his role to heart and going full Jesus is definitely on my list of favourite things Kirk ever does. Maybe in third place so far. And yay for Lulu being Kirk's girlfriend. He's so adorably proud.
The scene between Lorelai and Sookie with the baby box is so sweet. I love that they mention details we actually saw in the flashback of Lorelai going to the hospital, like Nena's 99 Luftballons.
When Rory moved out, I said that that's a huge change for the show. I'm surprised that that hasn't really been the case, at least so far. They managed to keep the feel of the show pretty much the same because the dynamic and the banter between Rory and Lorelai hasn't changed that much. They're talking on the phone, of course they still meet at friday night dinner, we've seen Lorelai visit Rory at Yale and Rory has come to Stars Hollow three episodes in a row now. And apparently she has all the time in the world to participate in the town event this week. It makes sense that they wouldn't want to drastically change the foundation of the show, but I do hope that we see at some point in the future that Lorelai and Rory's relationship has indeed changed with her moving out, that they can't constantly be together and what that really means for both of them.
Oh, and a fun fact: This is the only episode of Gilmore Girls that ever was nominated for and received an Emmy, for outstanding makeup. They deserved that, it looks really great. I'm always impressed how great the "pictures" look and how they pulled that of.
Midwife plot - I'm overly sensitive to this topic because I had my second baby at home (she just turned two yesterday!) but I feel like the show is trying to make a point about how gross it is to have a baby at home. Part of the midwife's job is to do clean-up anyway. And Bruce the midwife is so much a caricature and punch line. It's a stupid thing to be irritated about but I hate how birth and breastfeeding is always a joke in this show. (The saving grace is that - sorta spoiler - the birth is fine and they don't need to make an emergency trip to the hospital to save the baby, like so many other shows do.)
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where Sookie goes to Lorelai's house at 1am and freaks out, her fake belly is bobbing all over the place unnaturally and it really distracted me, but otherwise it was a very touching scene. I loved that her talking about all the fuzzy happy things about new babies helped Sookie calm down.
I find the living pictures thing itself to be kind of boring. Kirk's method acting is the highlight for me.
And UGHUGHUGH on Nicole and Luke dating while married. Go away, Nicole!
A final comment sorta on the last episode - I am in the minority but I don't hate Digger. (I really wanna know where that nickname comes from.) Not that I would go on a date with him, but I find his character interesting. At least he isn't wooden and boring like Alex, right?