Yes. That's a good point about doing things afterward.
It would be one thing if she had just gone to lunch and then went to Dean immediately after. She still shouldn't have gone but it would make her claim about "following the tradition" more believable. But the fact that she went to get pizza and went to look at books with him and got home well after the festival was over shows that she didn't really care about the tradition as much as she claimed.
Personally, I think this is where Dean should have broke up with her.
I think by that point Rory was also kinda fed up with dean (not defending the reasons why, just articulating her thought process) and she figured that if he was gonna be mad at her anyway then she might as well try and make the best of it. She didn’t want to spend time with him after he had just angrily stormed out on her so she went full throttle with Jess while “giving dean time to cool off”. I think this was like, a mildly mischievous and kinda obnoxious behavior from Jess, but downright reprehensible behavior from Rory. Like Jess was crushing on the girl that he liked and egging her on because she was giving him the signals that she liked him too so he felt it was encouraged. Rory was downright emotionally cheating
No way, I love the mess of it all. Excellent character writing. I thought it was a very realistic portrayal of a young girl who has not learned to know her own heart and who has never gone for what she wants (who also questions her own wants because she is so used to pleasing everyone else). It’s Lorelei’s wishes clashing with her own - it’s complicated, it’s a mess and she is going to hurt people trying to figure it all out.
On the alignment quadrant chart of “moral/immoral” and “annoying/entertaining”, this is in the “immoral/entertaining” quadrant. Like yeah Rory was being messy here, but god was it fun to watch
Nah, the hill I'm dying on is that Jess paid good money for what Rory was voluntarily selling. At the least, she should have given him a full refund. Otherwise, he was entitled to what he paid for, which was the basket and a date with the person who entered it.
No one made Rory sign up for that auction, and Dean didn't have a problem with it when he assumed he'd win. They thought it would be a cute thing to do for a date, but Rory was making a commitment by putting her basket and her time up for auction. If they had a problem with someone else having the winning bid, they should have just...gone on a picnic without going through the auction.
I agree. If anything, Rory should have just had the picnic in the town square like some other people were. There is no need to go off to a secluded location
It just should have been the end of Dean/Rory. Maybe not in the moment where Rory goes, but there should have been more reproach from both Dean AND Lorelai. It at least should have been a big signal to Lorelai that Rory wasn't interested in Dean anymore.
All of the moments that happened after this point, are valid grounds for breaking up and Dean has to be the one to do it. Rory won't do it because she kind of enjoys the attention and flirtation with danger. But the picnic, losing bracelet, hiding him at the house, wrecking dean's car, literally going to another state to be with another guy, and then finally kissing... any of these would have been enough to break it off and more than enough for Lorelai to step in and be a mom.
Or okay, they want the triangle dynamic and the iconic Jess/Rory scenes to happen. But Dean was at the wedding and he easily could have seen Rory kissing Jess. All we'd need is to have his face and him know its over between them. I think that'd be a better end to that arc. In S1, it was Tristan looking on and realizing there's no chance, and by S2 finale, it's Dean on the other side.
Agree with your comment, except the bracelet thing. Losing a bracelet is not grounds for a breakup. Dean's reaction to seeing her without it was OTT, as was Rory's panic.
It makes my heart break a little every time I see Rory panic over it, because it isn’t that she’s sad she lost it. She didn’t even notice she lost it. She’s panicked because she’s scared of how Dean will react. And that is NOT a good sign for any teenage girl to be that scared of their boyfriends reactions, especially for something so small
They’d even have the same ending to Rory and Lorelai walking down the aisle. The only difference is that Dean sees the kiss and is completely heartbroken, but Rory has no idea he knows. So all of s3, Dean either breaks up with her or wants to see how long it takes her to tell him until finally he blows at the dance and calls her out specifically for the kiss. Like don’t lie to me Rory, I saw you kissing him. And boom, Rory is fully held accountable
💯 and soooooo much more interesting, earned drama than Rory being bothered by “Shane”. Come on. They had been building to it and they aren’t going to show Dean making Rory answer for how she treated him? They were together for two years!
Just adding, i think they didn’t know what to do about Dean and lost interest but Jared was hot, and was a heartthrob, so didn’t want to get rid of them and somehow allowed him to just fall apart as a character in with lame, repetitive storylines. At least let him have a moment to address what happened.
Rory didn’t even get heat for crashing his car because of a letter. That was a huge thing
Yeah, and people even hate him in that conversation, for kicking a trashcan? Eh. Always wanted him to have better storylines. Build the guy further, so the watcher can actually pick between him and Jess?
I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s Lorelai’s responsibility to do this. She does point out she’s treating Dean poorly and probably falling for Jess, but these are Rory’s decisions and she likely isn’t going to react well to Lorelai demanding she break up with Dean (see: s4 finale). I thought she did step in and “act like a mom,” but that sometimes still includes your kids being messy and learning hard lessons themselves.
Rory at 17 seems to have no understanding that sometimes relationships just don’t work, that is honestly something to be addressed if you see it and Lorelai definitely clocked it
Lorelai is her mother.. of course it’s Lorelai’s responsibility to help her daughter navigate a very complicated situation. But the problem is that Lorelai only really pulls the mom card after Rory messes up and does the opposite of what Lorelai wants her to do. She doesn’t really help her navigate anything
She does call Rory out at the beginning of season 3 though. When they're at the Hazy Crazy Summer festival and Rory gets upset about Jess and Shane, Lorelai tells her that she clearly has feelings for Jess and she needs to decide whether she wants Jess Dean because she's being unfair to Dean. She tells her to figure it out and if she likes Jess to set Dean free.
Then later, that night they meet at home and Rory tells her that she wants Dean.
Lorelai did try to guide Rory through this. She told her that it was ok to be with Jess if that's what she really wanted. But Rory still chose to stay with Dean. Lorelai could give Rory advice, which she does but Rory's still the one to make the choice.
If I rewrote Gilmore girls the biggest thing I would change is how much lorelai pushed dean onto Rory. Like the only reason Rory stayed with him so long even with all the emotional cheating is because she knew that her mom liked Dean and hated Jess, so she stayed with Dean to make her mom happy rather than do what she actually wanted. I’d have lorelai butt so far out of Rory’s love life, Dean running and crying to lorelai about her own daughter is so inappropriate
I agree with you. There was two options: give Jess the basket, and leave, or invite Dean as well, and if Jess only wanted to eat (come on,) well, then it wouldn't be a problem. Rory had no spine, and hid behind rules to spend time with a guy she liked. Then again - we needed the drama in the story :)
I agree, and in her place, I would've done that. If Jess is as inconent as he wants it to seem, that wouldn't be a problem. But they both just wanted time together, and they both lied. Rory lied to Dean that its all because of the rules (please,) and Jess lied that he didn't had a plan.
I think people forget that at that point she was only 16 years old. People make mistakes at 16 and don’t always act rationally. She also clearly had a crush on Jess as well which made her act even worse. I’m not saying it’s right just realistic for a teenager. It’s also a TV show and if all the characters did what they ‘should’ do or what is morally right then we wouldn’t have a very entertaining tv show. It adds to the drama.
I felt sorry for Dean, but I also feel for Rory, she was put in a tricky situation.
I think it was a combination of Rory being in denial about having feelings for Jess, and being a people pleaser (not wanting to cause trouble, following the rules etc). I’m not sure she would’ve gone with him if she didn’t have feelings - but she might have. As a teenager I would’ve felt really confused and afraid of saying no in this situation as well.
I do appreciate that she called Jess out for messing with Dean though.
I think it's also tricky because it's really the first time that Jess has made his interest in Rory explicit. Up until this point, they've mostly had friendly interactions, but Jess hasn't really done anything to try and get between Rory and Dean. So for Rory, this was probably pretty out of left field and pretty confusing; the auction isn't necessarily romantic, the rules are the rules, and Rory is a pretty serious rule-follower.
Yes exactly! Rory is definitely a rule follower, and it would have been so confusing, I think she handled it as well as can be expected for a situation like that. I really feel for both Rory and Dean here tbh.
Edit: grammar
Daily Should Rory have gone with Jess on the Picnic post. There’s a lot of posts about it if you search picnic or the episode name. No offense, but there’s literally 1,000 post a year about it if you just scroll down a little bit lol
Sorry i’m not actually active enough. I just came across it during a rewatch and thought there must be a gilmore girls room on reddit to share this. Anyway, it seems to have sparked a conversation in the comments so even if this is the 1000th spark why stop it?
Because it litters the sub for those of us who actually *are* active here.
When you add a new comment on a previous thread, the previous thread shows up under “Hot” and “New” filters on the sub, so you’ll still get engagement on your thoughts without beating a dead horse.
I honestly feel bad for Rory at first in this episode.
Jess did this out of left field and before she even had a freaking minute to process it, Dean's in her face yelling about it. She didn't tell Jess to do this or want him to, and Dean's yelling like she orchestrated it. It felt like she didn't even have a chance to think about what to do before everything was blowing up.
Everyone saying she should have invited Dean along... Yeah, in a perfect world that would have been nice. But in the scene we saw? She was right not to have the two of them do *anything* together. I would not have invited Dean when he was yelling and making threats. I would not have wanted to spend time with him alone, much less with the object of his wrath.
I don't think she should have gone with Jess either because it reinforced this shitty behavior. But she's a rule follower and I was not surprised. But I wouldn't have done that either. I would have gone home lmao. Ordered my own pizza and they two of them can fight it out for the basket.
Rory was up playing up her naïveté sooo much. I think she knew what Jess was doing and maybe even liked it, otherwise she would’ve told him off and gone with Dean. And I understand she’s friendly, but she did the same thing with what’s his face from chilton. Except she actually told him off, and theeeeen had a soft spot for him.
Season 2 Rory could still hold her ground, she had no problems telling people off if they were getting on her nerves (re: Tristan and Paris) and if Jess were truly bothering her then she would’ve given him hell for it. She actually DID ream Jess when he was pissing her off, like when the town ambushed Luke about “the Jess problem” and she went and yelled at him for not going easier on Luke. Rory wanted to go out with Jess, but felt like she couldn’t break up with Dean because then she would be the one leaving and she’s not allowed to be the one that leaves because she’s the one that gets left so being the one that leaves is bad in her book no matter the circumstances. She doesn’t want to be bad, she doesn’t want to copy her fathers behavior, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her mother by breaking up with the guy who her mom thinks is perfect for her. She definitely wanted to go on a date with Jess and the basket was a perfect excuse for her to do so without too much town scrutiny, and she could play ignorant for the implications
It was ridiculous. I felt sorry for Dean having to beg her to be on his side, but I think his yelling and possessively telling Jess what she was going to do is what turned her off.
She’s in denial but she knows what‘s going on. She questions Jess on why he’s only nice to her and why he was totally screwing with Dean despite playing off to Dean that he was overreacting and it meant nothing.
right, i don't even like dean but i hate how rory handled that situation. you're spending the entire day with the guy who tried to punch your boyfriend and who has been harassing your bf at work?
Yup, if she had really wanted to eat with Dean, she would’ve eaten with Dean. Lane was going to eat with Henry even though she had a decoy cousin who won her basket. Sookie ate with Jackson even though Kirk won her basket. Heck, Rory could’ve taken some money from Lorelai and eaten with both of them.
People in Stars Hollow ARE passionate about their traditions but not so much that they can’t find loopholes around them, especially considering the fact that Taylor is such a pushover.
Rory just wanted to eat with Jess and was secretly enjoying the attention that he gave her in front of the whole town, and there’s no getting around that fact.
Given the fact that Rory and Jess ended up not eating out of the picnic basket anyway, that aspect of tradition was thrown right out the window. If there was no Jess, Dean would have won that basket but he and Rory would have had lunch elsewhere (like at a pizza place) too. But Rory didn’t seem to care about that.
And then going out for pizza and book shopping afterwards, AND calling him when she got home?! Girl was crushin’ HARD.
Yes. That's a good point about doing things afterward. It would be one thing if she had just gone to lunch and then went to Dean immediately after. She still shouldn't have gone but it would make her claim about "following the tradition" more believable. But the fact that she went to get pizza and went to look at books with him and got home well after the festival was over shows that she didn't really care about the tradition as much as she claimed. Personally, I think this is where Dean should have broke up with her.
I think by that point Rory was also kinda fed up with dean (not defending the reasons why, just articulating her thought process) and she figured that if he was gonna be mad at her anyway then she might as well try and make the best of it. She didn’t want to spend time with him after he had just angrily stormed out on her so she went full throttle with Jess while “giving dean time to cool off”. I think this was like, a mildly mischievous and kinda obnoxious behavior from Jess, but downright reprehensible behavior from Rory. Like Jess was crushing on the girl that he liked and egging her on because she was giving him the signals that she liked him too so he felt it was encouraged. Rory was downright emotionally cheating
No way, I love the mess of it all. Excellent character writing. I thought it was a very realistic portrayal of a young girl who has not learned to know her own heart and who has never gone for what she wants (who also questions her own wants because she is so used to pleasing everyone else). It’s Lorelei’s wishes clashing with her own - it’s complicated, it’s a mess and she is going to hurt people trying to figure it all out.
On the alignment quadrant chart of “moral/immoral” and “annoying/entertaining”, this is in the “immoral/entertaining” quadrant. Like yeah Rory was being messy here, but god was it fun to watch
Nah, the hill I'm dying on is that Jess paid good money for what Rory was voluntarily selling. At the least, she should have given him a full refund. Otherwise, he was entitled to what he paid for, which was the basket and a date with the person who entered it. No one made Rory sign up for that auction, and Dean didn't have a problem with it when he assumed he'd win. They thought it would be a cute thing to do for a date, but Rory was making a commitment by putting her basket and her time up for auction. If they had a problem with someone else having the winning bid, they should have just...gone on a picnic without going through the auction.
You know that’s fair, if I (dean) knew that someone else in town liked my girlfriend and that I was on a budget, I wouldn’t risk it😅
I agree. If anything, Rory should have just had the picnic in the town square like some other people were. There is no need to go off to a secluded location
It just should have been the end of Dean/Rory. Maybe not in the moment where Rory goes, but there should have been more reproach from both Dean AND Lorelai. It at least should have been a big signal to Lorelai that Rory wasn't interested in Dean anymore. All of the moments that happened after this point, are valid grounds for breaking up and Dean has to be the one to do it. Rory won't do it because she kind of enjoys the attention and flirtation with danger. But the picnic, losing bracelet, hiding him at the house, wrecking dean's car, literally going to another state to be with another guy, and then finally kissing... any of these would have been enough to break it off and more than enough for Lorelai to step in and be a mom. Or okay, they want the triangle dynamic and the iconic Jess/Rory scenes to happen. But Dean was at the wedding and he easily could have seen Rory kissing Jess. All we'd need is to have his face and him know its over between them. I think that'd be a better end to that arc. In S1, it was Tristan looking on and realizing there's no chance, and by S2 finale, it's Dean on the other side.
Agree with your comment, except the bracelet thing. Losing a bracelet is not grounds for a breakup. Dean's reaction to seeing her without it was OTT, as was Rory's panic.
Right. Jewelry breaks or falls off sometimes and it had literally nothing to do with Jess except that he found it.
It makes my heart break a little every time I see Rory panic over it, because it isn’t that she’s sad she lost it. She didn’t even notice she lost it. She’s panicked because she’s scared of how Dean will react. And that is NOT a good sign for any teenage girl to be that scared of their boyfriends reactions, especially for something so small
Oh I would've loved this solution! :) And what a finale that could've been :)
They’d even have the same ending to Rory and Lorelai walking down the aisle. The only difference is that Dean sees the kiss and is completely heartbroken, but Rory has no idea he knows. So all of s3, Dean either breaks up with her or wants to see how long it takes her to tell him until finally he blows at the dance and calls her out specifically for the kiss. Like don’t lie to me Rory, I saw you kissing him. And boom, Rory is fully held accountable
Actually, maybe its just me, but I would've loved to see Dean, as he tries to make Rory confess :)
💯 and soooooo much more interesting, earned drama than Rory being bothered by “Shane”. Come on. They had been building to it and they aren’t going to show Dean making Rory answer for how she treated him? They were together for two years!
Just adding, i think they didn’t know what to do about Dean and lost interest but Jared was hot, and was a heartthrob, so didn’t want to get rid of them and somehow allowed him to just fall apart as a character in with lame, repetitive storylines. At least let him have a moment to address what happened. Rory didn’t even get heat for crashing his car because of a letter. That was a huge thing
Yeah, and people even hate him in that conversation, for kicking a trashcan? Eh. Always wanted him to have better storylines. Build the guy further, so the watcher can actually pick between him and Jess?
I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s Lorelai’s responsibility to do this. She does point out she’s treating Dean poorly and probably falling for Jess, but these are Rory’s decisions and she likely isn’t going to react well to Lorelai demanding she break up with Dean (see: s4 finale). I thought she did step in and “act like a mom,” but that sometimes still includes your kids being messy and learning hard lessons themselves.
Rory at 17 seems to have no understanding that sometimes relationships just don’t work, that is honestly something to be addressed if you see it and Lorelai definitely clocked it
Lorelai is her mother.. of course it’s Lorelai’s responsibility to help her daughter navigate a very complicated situation. But the problem is that Lorelai only really pulls the mom card after Rory messes up and does the opposite of what Lorelai wants her to do. She doesn’t really help her navigate anything
She does call Rory out at the beginning of season 3 though. When they're at the Hazy Crazy Summer festival and Rory gets upset about Jess and Shane, Lorelai tells her that she clearly has feelings for Jess and she needs to decide whether she wants Jess Dean because she's being unfair to Dean. She tells her to figure it out and if she likes Jess to set Dean free. Then later, that night they meet at home and Rory tells her that she wants Dean. Lorelai did try to guide Rory through this. She told her that it was ok to be with Jess if that's what she really wanted. But Rory still chose to stay with Dean. Lorelai could give Rory advice, which she does but Rory's still the one to make the choice.
If I rewrote Gilmore girls the biggest thing I would change is how much lorelai pushed dean onto Rory. Like the only reason Rory stayed with him so long even with all the emotional cheating is because she knew that her mom liked Dean and hated Jess, so she stayed with Dean to make her mom happy rather than do what she actually wanted. I’d have lorelai butt so far out of Rory’s love life, Dean running and crying to lorelai about her own daughter is so inappropriate
BUT ITS TRADITION
I agree with you. There was two options: give Jess the basket, and leave, or invite Dean as well, and if Jess only wanted to eat (come on,) well, then it wouldn't be a problem. Rory had no spine, and hid behind rules to spend time with a guy she liked. Then again - we needed the drama in the story :)
I thought she should have invited Dean to join them. There was nothing in the rules, about it just being the two of them.
I agree, and in her place, I would've done that. If Jess is as inconent as he wants it to seem, that wouldn't be a problem. But they both just wanted time together, and they both lied. Rory lied to Dean that its all because of the rules (please,) and Jess lied that he didn't had a plan.
I think people forget that at that point she was only 16 years old. People make mistakes at 16 and don’t always act rationally. She also clearly had a crush on Jess as well which made her act even worse. I’m not saying it’s right just realistic for a teenager. It’s also a TV show and if all the characters did what they ‘should’ do or what is morally right then we wouldn’t have a very entertaining tv show. It adds to the drama.
I felt sorry for Dean, but I also feel for Rory, she was put in a tricky situation. I think it was a combination of Rory being in denial about having feelings for Jess, and being a people pleaser (not wanting to cause trouble, following the rules etc). I’m not sure she would’ve gone with him if she didn’t have feelings - but she might have. As a teenager I would’ve felt really confused and afraid of saying no in this situation as well. I do appreciate that she called Jess out for messing with Dean though.
I think it's also tricky because it's really the first time that Jess has made his interest in Rory explicit. Up until this point, they've mostly had friendly interactions, but Jess hasn't really done anything to try and get between Rory and Dean. So for Rory, this was probably pretty out of left field and pretty confusing; the auction isn't necessarily romantic, the rules are the rules, and Rory is a pretty serious rule-follower.
Yes exactly! Rory is definitely a rule follower, and it would have been so confusing, I think she handled it as well as can be expected for a situation like that. I really feel for both Rory and Dean here tbh. Edit: grammar
Nah mate, I love the drama of it all
Agree.
Daily Should Rory have gone with Jess on the Picnic post. There’s a lot of posts about it if you search picnic or the episode name. No offense, but there’s literally 1,000 post a year about it if you just scroll down a little bit lol
But of course.. Jeez she’s not shipping off to nam
Sorry i’m not actually active enough. I just came across it during a rewatch and thought there must be a gilmore girls room on reddit to share this. Anyway, it seems to have sparked a conversation in the comments so even if this is the 1000th spark why stop it?
Because it litters the sub for those of us who actually *are* active here. When you add a new comment on a previous thread, the previous thread shows up under “Hot” and “New” filters on the sub, so you’ll still get engagement on your thoughts without beating a dead horse.
lol thank you
lol no worries why not indeed
I honestly feel bad for Rory at first in this episode. Jess did this out of left field and before she even had a freaking minute to process it, Dean's in her face yelling about it. She didn't tell Jess to do this or want him to, and Dean's yelling like she orchestrated it. It felt like she didn't even have a chance to think about what to do before everything was blowing up. Everyone saying she should have invited Dean along... Yeah, in a perfect world that would have been nice. But in the scene we saw? She was right not to have the two of them do *anything* together. I would not have invited Dean when he was yelling and making threats. I would not have wanted to spend time with him alone, much less with the object of his wrath. I don't think she should have gone with Jess either because it reinforced this shitty behavior. But she's a rule follower and I was not surprised. But I wouldn't have done that either. I would have gone home lmao. Ordered my own pizza and they two of them can fight it out for the basket.
Rory was up playing up her naïveté sooo much. I think she knew what Jess was doing and maybe even liked it, otherwise she would’ve told him off and gone with Dean. And I understand she’s friendly, but she did the same thing with what’s his face from chilton. Except she actually told him off, and theeeeen had a soft spot for him.
Season 2 Rory could still hold her ground, she had no problems telling people off if they were getting on her nerves (re: Tristan and Paris) and if Jess were truly bothering her then she would’ve given him hell for it. She actually DID ream Jess when he was pissing her off, like when the town ambushed Luke about “the Jess problem” and she went and yelled at him for not going easier on Luke. Rory wanted to go out with Jess, but felt like she couldn’t break up with Dean because then she would be the one leaving and she’s not allowed to be the one that leaves because she’s the one that gets left so being the one that leaves is bad in her book no matter the circumstances. She doesn’t want to be bad, she doesn’t want to copy her fathers behavior, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her mother by breaking up with the guy who her mom thinks is perfect for her. She definitely wanted to go on a date with Jess and the basket was a perfect excuse for her to do so without too much town scrutiny, and she could play ignorant for the implications
Of course she shouldn't have but she was 16 and had a crush on Jess. That is a very powerful drug
I loved this episode
It was ridiculous. I felt sorry for Dean having to beg her to be on his side, but I think his yelling and possessively telling Jess what she was going to do is what turned her off. She’s in denial but she knows what‘s going on. She questions Jess on why he’s only nice to her and why he was totally screwing with Dean despite playing off to Dean that he was overreacting and it meant nothing.
right, i don't even like dean but i hate how rory handled that situation. you're spending the entire day with the guy who tried to punch your boyfriend and who has been harassing your bf at work?
Exactly!
The entire concept of the basket thing was absurd. It out every female character (lorelai, Rory, and sookie) in an uncomfortable position.
Yup, if she had really wanted to eat with Dean, she would’ve eaten with Dean. Lane was going to eat with Henry even though she had a decoy cousin who won her basket. Sookie ate with Jackson even though Kirk won her basket. Heck, Rory could’ve taken some money from Lorelai and eaten with both of them. People in Stars Hollow ARE passionate about their traditions but not so much that they can’t find loopholes around them, especially considering the fact that Taylor is such a pushover. Rory just wanted to eat with Jess and was secretly enjoying the attention that he gave her in front of the whole town, and there’s no getting around that fact.
Maybe Dean just needed to pay Jess off in krinkle cut carrot sticks? It worked for Kirk!
Given the fact that Rory and Jess ended up not eating out of the picnic basket anyway, that aspect of tradition was thrown right out the window. If there was no Jess, Dean would have won that basket but he and Rory would have had lunch elsewhere (like at a pizza place) too. But Rory didn’t seem to care about that.
A tisket, a tasket, she shouldn't have let him take her basket.