And Just Like That - Dec 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I am still unsure about the reviews of the last two ‘Hawkeye’ episodes, (let alone anything else, cough), so while I have the chance, let us talk about something different, (genre speaking). Let us talk, however briefly, about ‘And Just Like That’.

This particular mini-series – so far, there’s only 1 season, with 8 episodes, and two of them were aired already – is a reboot of the much earlier ‘Sex and the city’, and that is already a problem. Why? Well, let us rewind a few years back, in real life, to the ‘Gilmore Girls’ reboot, called ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in Life’, or something like that. Not unlike SATC, this seemed to be a solid hit, since the GG series had had a secure fan following back in the heyday, but instead…

…But instead, it was discovered that the entire GG franchise has not aged well, and that keeping in mind that its’ characters/actors kept their actual ages out of focus. They had plenty of problems – such as the fact that Rory seems to have become an entitled brat, her mom, Lorelei, isn’t too far from an average Karen, and that the entire four-part revival is a mix of ASP’s original epilogue, (never aired), and the conclusion of the original series’ S7, and the two main components didn’t mix well… The result is that the GG fandom has sunk back into slumber, having been briefly woken in a manner of a hibernating bear, and not unlike a prematurely awoken hibernating bear, the result was more negative than positive, but what about AJLT?

Why, it is the same problem, as GG – the material didn’t age well, nostalgia alone isn’t enough to placate or to satisfy all of the critics or the audience members, and so instead of having an easy journey, team AJLT is dealing with an increasingly dissatisfied and fracturing fan base, which may – or may not – pull the entire franchise down under instead. This has happened before, just look at the SW Sequel trilogy or at AoS, but unlike them, AJLT does not have Disney’s gold parachute to keep on going; instead…

…Instead it has an albatross of its’ own, one that GG did not have – the fight, (such as it is), between SJP and Ms. Cattrail. Everyone is downplaying it, but the fight did happen, and as such, SATC’s character Samantha is not in AJLT at all; since she was one out of the big four, her absence is really glaring, and the way it was handled on screen? It was just pitiful, Ms. Cattrail’s fans are outraged, (and they are not in the wrong), and so are her character’s. What was that about a fracturing fan base that we were talking about?

And then came the death of Mr. Big, (played by Mr. Noth) – and it hit… team Peloton right in the balls. I have been half-following Peloton through the years – first it was their ‘Peloton family’ ad misadventure, one where a husband gave his wife a gift – a Peloton cycle, (or something like that) – and she was happy. Supposedly. Instead, the actress fungled the role, (sort of), and everyone began to compare the ad to a ‘Black Mirror’ episode and things like that; the company’s stock tumbled.

In swooped Ryan Reynolds, who gave ‘the Peloton wife’ a new role – one that promoted his own personal brand of booze, and the woman made a fortune. Nothing like that happened to her male counterpart, but hey, that is the modern values; you either roll with them, as RR does, and you prosper, or you don’t, as Chloe Bennet hasn’t, and you don’t prosper.

…No, this is not about AoS, not entirely. Earlier this year, Ms. Bennet made it clear, that she was not a part of the Live-Action Powerpuff girl remake, nor was she going to return as Daisy Johnson/Quake in the upcoming Marvel ‘Secret Invasion’ franchise, and Disney/MCU were looking for someone else to play the latter character. Considering that Chloe Bennett was THE actress to play Daisy, this is strange and weird, in a sad and disappointing sort of way. My only theory is that Chloe didn’t go with the flow; while working at Disney/MCU, which is increasingly about representing the various social, racial, sexual and other minorities in the American society, Chloe Bennett… well, identified herself as Bennett, rather than as Wong, (seriously, look at her Wiki page), and didn’t look, or behave, very Asian-American – and we got the message that Disney/MCU were looking for a female Asian-American to play Daisy Johnson/Quake… ouch!

Of course, AoS has also the honor of being Disney/MCU’s subtlest failure: among other things, it was supposed to introduce several new heroes to MCU, including Deathlok and Mockingbird, with the latter being important as being Hawkeye’s ex. There were rumors of Mockingbird, (in MCU, she’s Bobbi Morse), coming to Hawkeye…I mean, ‘Hawkeye’, but those rumors were quickly squashed: apparently, AoS and all that is associated with it can stand buried and gone, (or as Britney Spears has told Diane Sawyer, ‘she can kiss my white ass’). What is left?

Ah yes, AJLT and the Peloton. After the Peloton family misadventure… and another misadventure – apparently, another Peloton ad made some children believe that the Peloton exercise bikes were indoor jungle gyms or something; some children, not surprisingly, got hurt and the company suffered; well, this time, after Peloton got associated with AJLT in a big bad way, Peloton was ready: they contacted RR, and he quickly made them a new ad, one were a very much alive Mr. Big is enjoying himself with his Peloton instructor, (played by a RL Peloton personality), and that’s it, really. Peloton had had enough with being the butt of the business world, and is striking back; AJLT is not likely to suffer from this fallout, but the fact that they have killed-off another major character may. Even GG didn’t go that far – Richard Gilmore died because his actor died for real – but then again, AJLT is just getting started, maybe it’ll be able to shake-off its’ lackluster – to put it mildly – beginning and shine for real. I am not rooting for it, though – the original series were fun enough, but the movies not so much and the cast was proportionally younger and more vibrant back then as well due to the obvious reasons…

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon.

Insatiable - July 24

So, ‘Insatiable’. Why take two cents on it?

Because it is reminiscent of the SW and its’ post-merger-with-Disney problems, that is why.

What did we see?

A trailer, which starred the main character of the upcoming show – Debbie Ryan. At first she is in a fat suit and everyone hates her; then her character loses weight over the summer, (got into a fight over food, acquired a broken jaw and had to fast all those weeks), and became ‘hot’. As in ‘sexy’. So?

Firstly, this story sounds already tropish and clichéd. The concept of an overweight, or a fat, woman, losing her bulk and becoming sexy, has been in use for a long while now, especially in various soap operas and the like. None of them use this concept as a fat-positive thing…because it is not. It is fat-negative, pure and simple, so for the ‘Insatiable’ crew to declare that their TV series will be so is either a lie, a straightforward one, which is bad, or their (first) trailer was just poorly designed and has currently shot the entire upcoming series in the foot, which isn’t very good either. In the trailer, to elaborate, we see Debbie’s character Patty decide that rather becoming a brand-new person, she would have revenge on everyone else, and we see footage of her punching another girl in the face at one moment and in another pouring…something (it can booze, or pee, or gasoline), over a sleeping boy, (after the two of them had sex). How exactly is this positive anything? It would make more sense to assume that Patty was always an unpleasant person, only now that she’s thin nobody notices it – not at first – and so she’s free to do whatever she wants, which is to say – be an unpleasant and a bad person. How is this positive?

…Meanwhile, Netflix airing another TV series, about another heavy young woman named Sierra, and this series is very different; it is another variant of the Cyrano story. In the original version, Cyrano was a very eloquent, but ugly man – he had a big nose, rather like HP’s professor Snape, but unlike the latter, he was very meticulous about his looks, (inasmuch as it could be helped), and a master duelist as well, so fewer people wanted to fight him than they did Snape…before Snape became a Potions’ Master, an Animagus, a Death Eater, and so on. He certainly had no problem in whipping Lockhart back in HP&CS either, but then again, we are talking about Lockhart here, so yeah. Where were we?

…One of the main plotlines of the Cyrano story was when he was helping another nobleman – a handsome man, who was as dumb as a rock…basically, a stereotypical rock – woo a maiden by being Cyrano’s mouthpiece – and the same we see in the Sierra’s trailer, where she uses one of her classmates – a pretty girl who is failing her classes – to act as Sierra’s mouthpiece to win over another one of their classmates…a handsome jock. How exactly this is more radical and fat-positive than ‘Insatiable’, exactly?

Actually, it is not. ‘Insatiable’ is the more radical one, ironically, but it just is not fat-positive. The word itself, ‘positive’, has a bunch of associations tied to it by now, and people know how to use them in a story, especially in a visual one – in a cinema, on TV or on a YouTube channel, to name a few sources. You try to subvert them…and you might succeed, or your followers might, where you have failed.

This is where that SW make an appearance. After their merger, Disney did not make a complete reboot of the series, rather they are continuing in the general direction of GL, but due to a series of surprising decisions (from Disney) that were discussed at another time, they were able to split their fanbase into a number of fractions, and it isn’t the case of a vocal minority – a single one; rather, this is a case of several fractions, all of whom are vocal and also warring with each other: the best case for scaring away new fans as well as for losing old ones. Both Disney and SW are media juggernauts, but their latest movie – ‘Solo’ – brought only tens of millions of income rather than hundreds, as expected, especially by Disney, so now Disney & SW are keeping a low profile as they are possibly figuring out what to do without appearing to be submitting to the fans’ desires of – whatever they want, for that would be a bad weakness, you know? Of course, this is also how democracy works – the people want something and they force it out of their politicians – but these days in real life USA has issues with democracy too, so let’s leave Disney & SW be… for now.

Back to Netflix? With ‘Insatiable’ and maybe similar TV series/movies/etc., they are trying to do what Disney did with SW, only go further and subvert the tropes in new ways. This actually will not be new, as the semi-reboot of ‘Heathers’, (appearing on various TV outlets earlier in July 2018), has already done – and it is already meeting with disapproval…which hadn’t stopped it from being aired, not entirely. Donald and his presidential achievements come to mind – they too are met with disapproval, and it had not stopped them, not entirely. How is that for a discussion topic on the U.S. society?

Back to Netflix again? As we discussed at the beginning, ‘Insatiable’ doesn’t come across very fat-positive; neither does Sierra’s series, but there Netflix isn’t subverting the tropes, but rather playing them in an old-fashioned way, and as a result that series is already being compared to ‘Insatiable’ in a favorable manner. Good for them…perhaps this is all a plot by Netflix to boost Sierra’s ratings for this and the future installments, while dropping ‘Insatiable’ off post-S1, (or sometime around that). In that case, where does it leave Debbie Ryan and the rest of her droogs? Probably pissed-off at Netflix and looking for some revenge.

More likely, however, is that Netflix is venturing into an unknown territory without a map and already getting some things wrong. That is not a problem, all they still need to do is to figure out when to cut their losses and retreat, or at least – re-think their strategy, just as Disney & SW might be doing right now. Otherwise, Netflix will arrive where Disney &SW currently are – in a position where they seem to be losing money rather than anything else.

Again, this is not exactly new territory for Netflix, as their misadventure with the ‘Gilmore Girls’ indicates – sometimes they actually do not succeed and need to do something. When the ‘Gilmore Girls’ reboot didn’t succeed, they quietly shelved any potential follow-ups, while ASP is currently running a different TV series entirely – and a successful one, just as the reboot was not. Sometimes all you need is to end something and start an entirely new thing instead. Good luck to her.

And equally good luck to Netflix with ‘Insatiable’, too. I don’t know what is going on with the series – maybe ‘Insatiable’ is going to be a great series and what we have here is just a badly made trailer – but until it comes forth, (August 10, 2018), we’ll just have wait to see how it develops.

This is it for this time; see you all soon.

Defenders - August 20

Marvel’s ‘Defenders’ got released on the Netflix earlier this week. And-?

And so far reviews are somewhere between ‘fair praise’, ‘damning’, and a cross between the two limits. Basically, ‘Defenders’ was a good show, but kind of rushed, since the first season was only 8 episodes long, and you cannot go too far or too complex with this sort of thing.

Yes, the ‘Gilmore Girls’ revival was only 4 episodes long…but, honestly, most people agree, that this revival wasn’t all that good in itself, and if ASP & husband have another go at it, they have a hard road ahead of them, too.

Longer seasons are not a solution, of course, and ‘Fuller House’ has its own problems, but its’ reviews are more mixed, FYI.

Back to ‘Defenders’. The show does work – as a part of a greater whole, in tandem with the rest of the mini-series, including, yes, ‘Punisher’, whose first season is coming some time in the future, and all the others, including ‘Iron Fist’. People still did not warm-up to the Flower Knight in this incarnation, but you know, give them time – Ser Tyrell is not going anywhere, you know? So let us just enjoy the show – and the audience/viewers, in general, did.

What else? Well, the plot was not that complex, and the villains did not appear to be up to speed with the heroes, not even Alexandra, (played by Sigourney Weaver, BTW). Electra/Black Sky appeared to be the ‘Big Bad’ at the end, and there were dragon bones, so yes, there were some issues in integrating NYC with the Orient – something that caused problems with ‘Iron Fist’, but now there was an added challenge of much more characters appearing in fewer episodes – just 8, to be more precise. Yes, everyone got a piece of screen time, Misty Knight even got set up to be potentially a superhero known as the ‘Bionic Woman’ – just kidding, but she does end up with a bionic/cybernetic arm in the comics, and she gets to be both a hero and a villain there too… where were we?

‘Defenders’ tried to do too much in too little time, that’s what. Hence why the story feels incomplete, (in a bad way), rushed and not quite satisfactory. Yes, the future seasons of the other shows, (including ‘Punisher’) will fill the gaps and move the plot forwards, and this is actually impressive: this little corner of Marvel (MCU?) has, at last, created an interconnected… ‘mini-verse’ (for the lack of a better term), one that works – the rest of Marvel is not as good, although FOX and X-men and the associated mutants seem to be heading in this direction too, (especially the X-men movies and co).

No, seriously, they do – and very smoothly too, from one ‘universe’ to another, but ‘Defenders’ aren’t a part of it, they belong to a different corner of Marvel and are here to stay. You may like them, you may dislike them, but ‘Defenders’ got staying power, and unless you replace Rand with Jake Paul (or someone like that), stop complaining about him! ‘Iron Fist’ is here to stay as well.

Gilmore Girls III

So, back to GG. Firstly, I want to apologize, I got them wrong – it is the Palladinos, not whatever I have written down the last time. Sorry for the gaffe. Now, since we are back on the GG topic, let us get back to it.

Where does it stand in the term of TV show mechanics? ASP is a very strong-minded, very driven woman – and it is possible that the titular heroines are various aspects of her personality…sort of? Never mind.

On one hand, that is good, for the obvious reasons, on the other, in various interviews and the like ASP came across as a Mrs. Kim kind of person instead: ‘It’s my way or the highway!’ She does not really care what the other people think, she does not really compromise, especially when it comes to her vision, (whether it is GG or anything else), but neither does she try to convert anyone to her P.O.V., especially if she does not need to. Basically, she does not play well with others.

And now imagine her, and her husband, working on the GG revival with Melissa McCarthy and other important names in Hollywood. How will this work out? Considering that any further revival of GG is not very likely at the moment, it had not.

However, I did write about this earlier – the actors were not very enthusiastic about the GG revival – they have their jobs at ‘This is Us’, or ‘How to get away with Murder’, etc. They do not really need to invest into GG – and so they do not. ‘Fuller House’ is experiencing the same thing with the Olsen twins – they do not need to get involved with their old haunts and coworkers for any reason, and so they do not. (And their sister is busy working with the rest of the Avengers in the MCU, yeah).

So, where did it leave the viewers? Disappointed, and still divided as to whether Rory should be with Logan, or Jess, or whoever else. Sadly, the Palladinos either chose to ignore the previous, seventh season of the GG, or pretended to do so; Paul, Rory’s official boyfriend is…what? How Rory’s treatment of Paul is better/different from Logan’s treatment of Odette? Oh, Logan is actually in a relationship with Odette and remembers her, unlike what Rory is going/doing with Paul, (rather than to Paul, BTW).

Here is the thing. It is possible that Logan was going to be Rory’s ‘Christopher’, plus there was the entire British & French vs. the U.S. dynamic when you add Jess. Jess and Rory stand for the U.S.A., especially, while Anglo-American U.S.A., because they live in New England, as opposed to Texas or California, for example. Logan and Odette are Europe, Jess and Rory – U.S.A. For the initial six or seven seasons of GG, this could be very cutting stuff, but – hello, real life. In real life, the face of the U.S., its’ 45^th president is the Donald Trump, whose latest peccadillo involve ignoring Angela Merkel’s attempt to shake hands – as a sign of politeness. Trump is not Russia’s puppet because Putin has his own problems and he never meddled in the U.S. politics anyhow, this is something Trump’s opposition invented by themselves and it just makes the situation worse – just ask Robert Reich.

No, really, listen to the man – the way he is describing the situation in D.C. is chilling, which kind of relates to GG: at the end of S7 Rory went off to be a part of team Obama – and this was never mentioned in the revival; in fact, another point of contention was that team Palladino largely ignored the real world and tried to create some sort of a self-contained world instead – and it’d been noticed before, this world could be quite mean and nasty in a petty, politically incorrect way. Hello, Mr. President! How is your tower?

Yes, this is not entirely the Palladinos fault – they probably did not take into account that the Donald would win the election, but still, in this case, if they assumed that Hillary would win instead, they should’ve ‘updated’ their vision of America…but they didn’t, and the end result was much more Trump-like than people like to associate with GG – and maybe that was the intended result; it is unknown for whom did ASP and her husband vote, but her views are more Republican than Democrat, so that’s that…only no. These days, people are sore at the Republicans and ASP’s attitude probably does not win her any favors, not so much among the GGs’ viewers, as among its cast and crew – most of Hollywood was largely Democratic then and now…

And so, this is it. The GG revival has come and went and has been largely assimilated by the viewers, the audience, the fans. The fan base of the GG ‘dom still remains strong. The GG will go on with the times – but any more revivals’ of the original show do seem to be unlikely.

Gilmore Girls II & co. - March 17

What to talk about? Well, I could talk about ‘The Catch’ – it was good in S1, now, in S2, it is even more exciting, in a good way: the cast and crew at that series has invested effort and enthusiasm into the series, and there is plenty of imagination to go around as well.

How is this important (in greater detail)? Just look at ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ restart and compare it with ‘Fuller House’. Both shows tried to play on the nostalgia of their former fans but while ‘Fuller House’ had enough enthusiasm in its cast (and crew) to create endurance for the show, ‘Gilmore Girls’ didn’t. Both shows had flaws, but ‘Fuller House’ is going to have S2 – actually, it had had S2, ‘Gilmore Girls’ probably will not. Yes, its’ humor was sometimes somewhat racist or otherwise abusive, (especially by modern standards than by the 1990s standards); yes, the plotlines had plotholes, and the character development of the titular characters (and others) was often flawed, but so’s the case of ‘Fuller House’ – it may not be exactly racist, but neither was it perfect, period. So?

Okay, firstly the racial issue (sort of). Earlier this month, there was a new viral video, a very short one. Professor Robert Kelly was interviewed for BBC from his home, when his daughter (3-4 years of age) walked in, followed by his son, (a baby, 1-2 years of age) in his baby walker, and then his wife (Kim Jong-A) rushed in and got them (the children, the professor was left behind to finish his interview) out. The whole thing took less than a minute, (judging by the length of the clip), and personally, I think that the mother’s actions were the most distracting and messy. What next?

Next, BBC released a full online interview with Robert Kelly and his family, and there were also plenty of other online clips that showed the family in question. As the audience can see, this an interracial family, probably bilingual as well, (Kim Jong-A has some problems with speaking English, and since Robert Kelly works at the Pusan National University, he probably has a good grip on the Korean language), and progressive/liberal in their views, at least when it comes to raising their children: they are given the run of the house and trouble began after their mom forced them out of the room, (which is apparently their room with their toys). What is this has to do with GG?

Enter Lane Kim, (who is a Korean), and her husband, Zach, (who is Anglo-American). They are either some of the main characters, or some of the most important secondary characters, take your pick. Moreover, the Kims are probably the only Asian-American characters of GG, just as Michel was the only African-American character there, so, while GG probably were not racist, neither had they tried to make their show more racially diverse, in keeping in touch with the current socio-political times…

No, seriously, Trump’s approach to the racial issues is as incompetent as it is to everything else…and Obama’s was not better, (remember all those racial riots throughout his presidency?), but this is not just about the 45^th president of the U.S., (or his cabinet, or the 44^th president, or etc.). Rather, it is about the fact that by now, the Americans like to think of themselves as interracially integrated people and GG failed to reflect this.

Of course, neither does ‘Fuller House’, but ‘Fuller House’ is centered around a single family, (although a very big and unconventional one), whereas GG is centered around an entire town instead. These are two different scopes, you know? Would it kill ASP and her husband to integrate at least some POCs into the town – as background, episodic characters? Since there really were not any, apparently yeah, it would.

Instead, there was the line of the Star Hollow not having any gays, so shall we export some from the next town? It was said by Taylor Doose, (I think), who is not always a positive character, but still, with the Donald in power, this sounds slightly too much as what the 45^th president can say under some circumstances or other, because it was tasteless. And that is a problem for the U.S. – it is not that the 45^th president is incompetent, it is that he is tasteless and vulgar, and the same goes for his cabinet, and – for his critics, who often just spew vitriol from TV and computer screens without caring as to whom they can really hit. By now, the Americans themselves are tired of this sort of criticism, so it is going down, but do not worry – the anti-Russian hysteria and wiretap accusations and similar topics going around will compensate for that sort of thing nicely…

And with its’ government divided, does the U.S. think that it can take on North Korea and China, should it come to WWIII? Yeah, the odds right now are not in the U.S. favor: first resolve the inner division between each other, (I am talking Republican and Democratic parties here, plus every other third party involved), and then go back to adventures abroad.

If we get back to GG, the truth, again, is that they didn’t try to be deliberately racist, or openly insulting towards fat people – various reviewers felt that Melissa McCarthy/Sookie St. James had views regarding this, and she’s a prominent actress in Hollywood these days and she and the Pellegrinos possibly had a talk, so between this and her fee no wonder that Melissa-Sookie didn’t stick around for the new show.

However, enough with the conspiracy theories for the moment, the fact is that GG do not feel racist, they feel sloppy, slothful or lazy – people just did not want to get involved/invest their effort into it. Milo Ventimiglia, who played Jess Moriano, was openly unenthusiastic in his interview regarding the ‘next’ next installment of the GG saga, and without Jess the GG dynamic just falls apart so either Milo will change his mind, (for an appropriate amount of cash), or no more GG – and considering that the backlash of ‘A Year in the Life’ was already rather damaging to the original series, this doesn’t look good for GG…

And that is actually my next point: team GG did not put too much effort or imagination into the show’s revival because there was no enthusiasm, or at least – not enough enthusiasm, you know? ‘APB’, ‘Powerless’, ‘Making History’ ‘Time after Time’ and etc., have their flaws, but they also have enthusiasm, and consequently, they make plenty of effort to counterbalance for these flaws. GG did not. Hence – the fallout.

The same goes for the dilemma of ‘For Honor’ – sort of. As far as I’m concerned, ‘For Honor’ did deliver mostly what it promised to deliver – a very good fighting game, not unlike that of ‘Battlefield 1’, save that it is set in the Middle Ages…sort of. Whatever option you choose, you still get plenty of good fighting – and nothing else. Apparently, when it came to the campaign mode in foiling Apollyon’s plot, this was not good enough, and that is a real problem. Oh, it is not the only one, but most of the other problems are technical; ‘For Honor’ should fix them easily enough and keep on going…or fail to do so, and vanish into obscurity forever, as it deserves to. A bad story, however, is not fixed as easily, and ‘For Honor’ is ‘purely’ a game; it cannot be redesigned and reset with the same ease that, say, a TV series can…

Facepalm. What I meant to say here is that ‘For Honor’ will need to back away from all the intensity it had generated this February (2017) and revise its’ campaign story mode big time, so that the next edition/release/whatever has something different. After all, the conclusion of the campaign mode is kind of depressing: Apollyon died, the wars continued, almost everyone else died, there is no peace and the matter of honor is hanging in balance as well. Yeah, after the disastrous 45^th presidential election this is just what the U.S. society needs – more doom and gloom. Maybe this is how the creative team of ‘For Honor’ thinks to introduce the new classes/characters/etc., but as I have written before, this probably is not the good/right idea that they think it is…

And that is that for today’s installment. GG is done, at least for the moment, ‘Fuller House’ is not, and neither is ‘For Honor’ (hopefully). See you next time.

Gilmore Girls gone wrong AU - March 3

For a change, here's a very rough draft of how post-main series 'Gilmore Girls' could've gone so wrong. (Maybe one day I will even flesh it out some).

1. Rory and Logan’s relationship never recovered and neither did Rory’s career (part 1)

In her years since graduating, Rory Gilmore became a truly entitled Republican, the Bohemian version. For months, if not years, she enjoyed being Logan Huntzberger’s mistress – and nothing more. As a result, her personality and skills deteriorated, and eventually Logan kicked her out – in part because of his family’s prompting, but in part because Rory herself no longer resembled the girl that he befriended, (and more), in college. He grew up. Rory just grew out.

2. Rory’s daughter grew as ‘something else’

Stephanie Cari Lorelai Gilmore II grew up as someone else. She was named after her grandma Lorelei Gilmore I, (Rory tried to mend the fences with her mum at the time), and there were some physical similarities but otherwise? Whereas Lorelai had loved her daughter and cared for her, Rory not so much. Her personality continued to deteriorate and she would often take it out on her daughter – who reciprocated it, but also copied her mother’s behavior as well. As a result, while Rory, (due to her grandparents’ will) did inherit a certain amount of money that allowed her to live comfortably and some degree of respectability, her daughter’s behavior was much more white trash.

3. Rory’s attempts to restart her career with the book backfired (part 2)

Rory’s attempt to restart her career as a writer by writing the book about her, her mum and grandmum backfired. The problem was in her writing skills – she was equally bad as a writer as she was a journalist. People largely ignored her book, gave it bad reviews, or demanded their money back. The publishing house who released Rory’s work had a ‘no money back’ policy, so there was a slew of minor online scandals and bad publicity. Consequently, Rory’s relationship with her mother and grandmother deteriorated further – neither of the women enjoyed the fact that Rory depicted their family as some sort of a classless rich…or worse, but they still tried to keep in touch – sort of, at least for a while…

4. More about the book (part 3)

The book itself did became famous, or rather infamous, for some time – but mostly because of the publishing house’s ‘no refunds’ policy. People took to complaining and trying to sue the organization in question, which launched a defence of its’ policy and a threat of a defamation suit. As a result, they gained the reputation of hard-liners and loyal to their clients, but also of being rather unscrupulous and unpredictable (in a bad manner) as well. Rory’s book became a representative of ‘bad attitude’ and Rory herself became infamous and unpopular, some sort of an anti-feminist or a pseudo-feminist, and it did not do her any wonders; her mother, grandmother and daughter got caught in the fallout as well.

5. Christopher got involved

Christopher, Rory’s father and Lorelai’s ‘first love’ got involved at this point, as the mess of the publishing house prompted his new family to force him to do so. Christopher tried to interfere, but in an inept, high-handed way, causing Lorelai’s ire to go onto him – in a bad, explosive way. The pair re-remembered why they disliked each other so much to begin with, and when the dust settled, Christopher de-facto disowned Rory and her girl, and cut-off all the ties with the Gilmores. What’s more, Luke had not been very amused by Christopher’s interference, and Lorelai was not amused by Luke’s involvement, so the pair put some distance between each other, as Luke remained in SH and Lorelei went to her mother’s new home in Nantucket.

6. Emily

Emily took it hard – the fact that her great-granddaughter is white trash, her daughter is vulgar, and her granddaughter is a spoiled brat (or worse). Her health began to deteriorate, so Lorelai used is as an excuse to move in with her mother under the excuse of taking care of her, and making distance with Luke. Consequently, her relationship with Luke withered, and Emily’s health also deteriorated: Lorelai’s unhealthy eating habits caught up with both women and their weight exploded, (with Rory, it was mostly post-pregnancy weight and she had it somewhat under control). Before long, both of the older Gilmore girls were overweight and out of shape, and Emily’s age finally caught up to her. (The caretaker they hired eventually had to take care of both of them instead).

7. Paris and Doyle

Paris and Doyle were initially on team Rory – tentatively so, more because they disliked Logan than liked Rory (still). More precisely, Paris was on team Rory – Doyle has largely distanced himself from Logan and Rory a while back (he was that sort of a person). When Rory’s book got published and Paris saw Rory’s depictions of herself, Doyle and Logan, she joined the group of people who did not want to associate with the Gilmores anymore, and she made her peace with Logan and his new wife. She and Doyle also made-up, sort of – they are not really married anymore, they just live together and raise their mutual children. Sometimes they dine with Logan and his wife. They do not talk much about Rory and the rest of the Gilmores anymore.

8. Zach and Lane

Zach and Lane got hired to run the Gilmores’ household – the new one, in Nantucket, at first. Mrs. Kim was that good and had that sort of influence with Lorelai Gilmore still. For a while Zach and Lane were reluctant, to say the least, regardless of their initially bad financial situation, (recession and all came to SH at last). But then, as Lorelai grew fatter and more despondent and spoiled on one hand, and Emily grew older, heavier and weaker on the other, the influence of the Kims grew and they realized that working for the Gilmores was not so bad – especially after Mrs. Kim ‘the original’ moved in and became the real head of the household, with none of the Gilmores being able (or willing) to stand up to her. To simplify matters when it came to the will, (and the bulk of Emily and Richard’s fortune actually went to the Kims, cough), Zach himself adopted ‘Kim’ as his last name, and this has helped his mother-in-law to become the matriarch of the family once more. These days the Kims own most of the Gilmores’ old property, including their old property in SH.

9. Sookie and Dragonfly Inn

Sookie was not bothered by Rory’s novel, because she did not read it. She did not really remember Rory, or Lorelai, or the rest of SH at all. She did become a successful chef due to having a competent and amazing manager, and she is quite rich – rich enough to own part of Dragonfly Inn, when Luke tentatively reached-out with this offer: after he and Lorelei drifted apart, their finances suffered – and Sookie came through, or rather her manager did. Sookie never realized what she was doing or what she has done; she has forgotten SH and it has largely forgotten her. At least Rory and her kid are running the Kims’ old antique store, (and are actually good about it, if they are not getting all very well with each other).

10. Jess

Jess tried to win Rory back after Rory returned to SH but Rory did not want him; she did not want to get married to anyone, it seemed. Her daughter’s father remained unknown and Rory just did not appear to want to settle down. She always backed down before Mrs. Kim the elder, but so did everyone else, including Emily, once she got old and feeble enough. After her book was published, Rory and Jess had a confrontation, and Jess left, SH, for good. Where is he now, who knows?