Best Wishes, Howard and Non-Mia!

I think in general, in thinking and writing about my shows, I'm guilty of concentrating on the things that don't work and not paying enough attention to the things that do.  For instance, even though the series finale of The O.C. reduced me to tears, I mostly wrote about how annoyed I was with the plot contrivances of the first half.  I similarly fixated on the flaws in the resolution of the rape mystery on Veronica Mars, ignoring the stuff that was really good about it. 

I'm going to try to reverse that trend here and report on how good Gilmore Girls has been for the past few weeks, while noting -- briefly! -- one tiny, temporary, but really notable problem. 

I feel like the last handful of episodes have returned the show to its emotional core, by giving us good, nuanced stories about the central familial relationships.  The fall-out from Richard's heart attack has been funny and broad, but at the same time, pretty believable.  (In a weird life-imitates-art moment, I was nursing a death flu with a bowl of miso at the exact same time Richard railed against miso as part of his invalid diet.)  The storyline has provided some great Lorelai-Emily scenes, including this week's stunning return to the Emily v. Mia, mother v. surrogate mother conflict.  (Here's my problem, though: it was super-distracting that Kathy Baker and her mullet were playing Mia.  What the Hell happened to Elizabeth Franz?  She was lovely.  Mia's kind of a bullshit character, anyway, but I liked Franz.) 

Lorelai's mediation of the Lane-Mrs. Kim battle last week was pretty awesome, too.  One of my favorite things about Mrs Lane is that, unlike most of Stars Hollow, she doesn't worship Lorelai and Rory, and yet it was pretty sweet when Mrs Lane gave Lorelai that -- assumedly very valuable -- doorknob at the end.

The Luke stuff is also good.  It's clear that Rosenthal and company's agenda is to rescue Luke's character from the horrible, horrible beating it took last season, and I have to say they've been very successful.  I really enjoyed the twist last night's subplot with Lane and Zack took; Scott Patterson had a couple of nice, dry line readings.

So there -- that's almost 100% nice, isn't it?  -- Peter

Comments

[rachel]

I liked last night's episode a lot too. As for faux Mia- aparently the real Mia is doing a play and couldn't make it to filming.