Thursday, October 27, 2016

Podcast #90 - S4E19 - Afterboom

Hello! Welcome to Return to Stars Hollow - a spoiler-free, retrospective podcast about Gilmore Girls! This is the podcast for Season 4, Episode 19 - Afterboom.


You can direct download the episode here: S4E19 Podcast
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The next podcast will post on Thursday, November 3rd, 2016 for Season 4, Episode 20 - Luke Can See Her Face.

10 comments:

  1. I haven't watched the next episode yet, but I wanted to comment quickly on one of Cordia's comments on this podcast. Really great point, Cordia about Mrs. Kim being much more inflexible than Emily in her relationship with her daughter. You're so right - Mrs. Kim wasn't confronted with anything near as difficult as teenage pregnancy with Lane and responded by kicking her out. Emily and Richard did nothing of the kind - and many teen pregnancies do end with the girl's homelessness, and often due to the parents kicking her out. So that was a really great point that I didn't consider.

    Emily's sarcastic comments to Lorelai in the vein of "Yes, yes, you were terribly abused in this house" and her refusal to acknowledge Lorelei's points of view make even more sense when I compare her against a "traditional" response. She was not kicked out, Emily and Richard would clearly love to financially support her and Rory, and Lorelai - for all the poverty that she lives in - does it extremely willingly. She could pull the rip cord at any time. It may be morbid but I've wondered before what Lorelai thinks about when she thinks about her parents estate. What DOES she plan to do with it? She's an only child, she can't think she and Rory won't inherit it. What does she plan to do? And regardless of how independent she is, we shouldn't underestimate the security that knowing that safety net is always there provides.

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  2. Interrupting everyone here because I found this today

    http://www.lukesflannel.com/

    General spoiler warnings for the whole show. I think it's mostly pictures of Luke but I'm sure things can be inferred if you haven't seen the whole show.

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    1. What a fabulous site. Beautifully done with great quality images. So much fun, and I was amazed at how many shirts had appeared on the show. Thanks so much for posting this, Meags!

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  3. I don't know how I could pick a favorite scene from Luke Can See Her Face. I love almost everything. The ONLY thing that doesn't work for me is the actual self-help tape. It's really really stupid, and I can see it being a ridiculous parody of self-help tapes, but the "can you see her face?" bit and Luke going "Whoa" does NOT work for me. Are we really supposed to believe that Luke didn't know he had feelings for Lorelai until then? I knew it from the second episode. I could see maybe that he was attracted and didn't realize he was in love with her, but I just find it so hard to believe those particular lines from the tape would make him realize it. (Also, this fictional Philip guy choosing between 3 women? Gross.) Everything else works for me. I love the interactions between Luke and Jess, where they kind of rehash the issues between them. Lots of great comedy moments, I particularly laughed at the bookstore scene when Luke asks if Andrew thinks he brought his own porn in to buy.

    Lorelai's through-line of being stressed about the Dragonfly also worked really well, and was organic as we get closer to the opening, particularly that Sookie and Michel are also adding to the stress and having their own stressful moments. I liked the scene in the zucchini patch a lot.

    I don't love the Paris/Asher C plot, but I felt like it was a nice little story. It makes their relationship less weird to me (although we can still argue about the imbalance of power), but I like how he tells her she is free to make her own choices about the relationship. And Rory gets put in her place a little with her judgment calls. They like to use angina as an illness in this show - it's what put Richard in the hospital back in season 1. Makes me think that Amy must have had a relative with angina. (Or maybe she picked up a medical textbook and just stopped in the As? Ha.)

    The next two episodes, guys. I don't have a favorite season of Gilmore Girls, but the last few of season 4 and first handful of season 5 are my fave. So excited for the next several podcasts! It will keep me going until Nov 25. (Are you going to do one last special spoilery episode before the revival?)

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  4. I was really excited about this coming up, but then watching it, it really isn't the greatest overall.

    I need you to discuss how out of character it is for Luke to buy a self-helf book. Several self-helf books, even! Because I think it is and they really don't give a real reason why he would do it and why now. The whole thing only works for me because Luke remains Luke and very crotchety while he's listening to the tape. Also, does the do you see her face? tape assume that the love of your life is already in your life, you're just not aware of it? Because that's weird.
    Of course I'm excited that things are finally happening between Luke and Lorelai. Though, as I have said before, at this point, I'm kind of over the will they/won't they of it all and there was nothing in the last few episodes that changed my opinion. So, I'd be happy if they finally got together, but at this point, I don't feel like I'm desperately waiting for it. We'll see how this develeps. I might get back on board. And Luke asking Lorelai out was cute, even though she doesn't understand what's happening yet.

    My favourite scene is probably the one between Luke and Jess in the diner. It's so refreshing and great to see them talk so openly about what they're feeling. I love that he tells Luke that he was the reason he came back, because it was important to him. These two have come so far. Jess is obviously completely wrong in his view of the situation with Rory. But Luke starting to talk like the self-help book and Jess' reactions to it are hilarious. Who the hell is Judy?!

    TJ is having an annoying week this week. I do love the talk about the lap being an illusion though. It's true. And can we talk about Jess, sitting in a strip club, reading a book?

    I'm curious which future event Celeste was talking about that colours her view of Asher. I think this episode makes it very clear that we're supposed to view this as a good thing and that Asher's relationship with Paris is different from the ones he usually has. Ok, that speaks for this relationship, but not for Asher in general who's just sleeping with college students because he can.

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  5. Hey guys! I’m really late to the podcast party, because I live under a rock, and I didn’t know such things existed until recently. I just finished binge listening to the Buffy Rewatch podcast (which I loved!) over the course of a few months, and I was super excited when I got to the end to hear that Cordia was planning to do a Gilmore Girls podcast! I love Gilmore Girls, and this podcast is the perfect thing to fill the Buffy Rewatch shaped hole in my heart.

    I don’t have anything to say about the current episode because I’m working on catching up to this point, so I just wanted to say hi for now, but I think once I get a bit farther along in catching up, I’m going to listen simultaneously to old episodes and the new ones so I can comment on current episodes even though I'm still working through earlier episodes. All through listening to the Buffy podcast, I was sad that it was all over and it was way too late to comment, so I’m glad to be able to be part of the conversation for this one. I’m loving the podcast so far, and I’m looking forward to future episodes!

    P.S. (And this doesn’t really have anything to do with Gilmore Girls, so it’s not really something to read on the podcast, but I thought I’d add it anyway.) I’m also really happy to listen to a podcast for a show I feel less conflicted about, because as much as I love Buffy, everything that happens with Spike after the musical episode makes me depressed, and I love that my preferred love interest in this show is an awesome, sweet diner owner who (as far as we know) has not murdered thousands of people. I’m also happy beyond words that the favourite moments discussions for this podcast will never have to include the phrase, “You went for the death, and I went for the rape.” (Which is nothing against Robin, of course, only that episode of Buffy.)

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    1. I live under a rock too - I also only recently discovered podcasts and am doing the listening to old ones/commenting on new ones thing. I have started to actually DREAM about Gilmore Girls, so I think I might need an intervention.

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    2. Ha, this comment, coupled with the fact that I rewatched Seeing Red yesterday, inspired me to go back and listen to that episode of the Buffy Rewatch again. And then I remembered that my first comments on that podcast happened around that time and I went looking for those. I can't believe it's been three years. And Robin's "Have fun with that name"? Still funny.

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  6. I didn't love this episode overall; I felt like there wasn't really that much to say about it.

    So we will have some dissension here re: Luke buying the self help tape. Was it out of character, or was it a sign of character growth? Let's be real here - for someone to grow as a character you have to, at some point, do something that is out of character for you. We have seen Luke go through SO much emotional stuff, and I, for one, was immediately able to believe that underneath it all he has been ruminating on his role in all these recent failed relationships. So it may have seemed abrupt because we didn't get any dialogue or anything about the fact that he was thinking things through, but I didn't need to see any of that come out of him - that would have been out of character.

    And frankly Luke DOES need to grow before he's able to be in a healthy relationship, and I really appreciate the show acknowledging that. It never struck me as unbelievable that Lorelai didn't think Luke was into her. He harangues her for her life choices as his defining character moment in episode one, and it never really stops. She's able to roll with it and turn him into this lovable, gruff character in her life, but that says a whole lot more about her than it does about him. His fears of turning into his uncle (Louie?) rang very true to me. The show does a very good job of showing him being helpful and kind, so I always believed that he was, while simultaneously completely understanding why Lorelai thinks they have no future together. The self help thing was on the nose, but it was played hysterically. Luke's grudging acceptance of it, and then him repeating it back to Jess was literal gold to me.

    Paris and Asher ... meh. The only thing I gleaned from this is that Rory's throwaway line to him at the end of her plot last episode was coming from a place of "I just can't stand you". How Rory can manage to be so snotty about all the other women who are attracted to Asher (or she thinks are attracted to Asher) while exempting Paris from that attitude is ... I don't know, male logic at its best? Stop it Rory; just stop it.

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  7. Re the last podcast: Rory says "Annie Sullivan, look at you!" because Anne Bancroft played Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. And won an Oscar for it.

    Normally I wouldn't nitpick the podcast, C & C, but I feel compelled to advocate for accuracy regarding Mrs. Mel Brooks. :)

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