"Oh, I am not unbreakable. I am breaking right now. I need to be unbreakable, somehow. It's never, or now."
So sings Violet, the star of the new Stars Hollow town musical. And the lyrics to her song resonate with Lorelai, whose resurfacing existential crisis is at the center of the "Summer" episode of "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life."
We open with lighter fare, though. Lorelai and Rory are hanging out at the town pool. They make jokes about pool hygiene and the less-than-stellar physiques of some of the townspeople, including "Backfat Pat of the Maryland Backfats." I'm pretty sure I'm one of the Maryland Backfats. Hey, body shaming!
Lorelai is reading "Wild" in a nice bit of foreshadowing. I thought that this particular plot point felt awfully Cheryl Strayed, and was going to comment on that. Leave it to the show to cut me off at the pass. I'm not knocking that, by the way. I love Cheryl Strayed. The town is a frenzy after someone vandalized the pool's "floaty hut," which Luke secretly paid for. Individual townspeople continually approach Rory to welcome her back to town, but she insists "I'm not back," in one of the episode's running gags. Another such gag involves the Thirtysomething Gang, a group of people in situations similar to Rory's, who love Paul Thomas Anderson films.
Later, Lorelai, Luke and Rory have April over. She's as eccentric as ever, stating at one point, "I only watch German silent films." The family movie night plans lead to a very meta conversation about binge-watching shows. April confides in Rory that she's struggling with confidence, and frankly tells her that seeing Rory back in her childhood bedroom is serving as a cautionary tale as to what could happen to her own life. Hurtful.
While Rory comforts April, Luke tells Lorelai that April has a chance to go to Germany later that year, and that he'll pay for it. Lorelai offers to pitch in, but Luke rebuffs her. Their collective insistence on leading separate lives will come up again before the episode ends.
At the next town meeting, Taylor announces "Stars Hollow: The Musical," a production that he is spearheading. Tourism income is down, and he thinks that a musical might be exactly the right thing to draw people back to town. "If Taylor really wanted to pack 'em in, he should get up on that stage and dance around in his floppy Taylor underpants," Lorelai chimes in. "Book and lyrics by yours truly," Taylor proudly announces. He conceives a musical advisory committee, which Lorelai agrees to serve on. Miss Patty and Babette will help out with casting.
In addition to the musical, Taylor announces plans to shut down the Stars Hollow Gazette, after the retirement of its editor, Bernie Roundbottom. Rory sees an opportunity and offers to step in run the show there. At least while she's back/not back in town, she'll have something to do with her free time.
Michel is back from his sabbatical, and he is looking for more money. He tells Lorelai that he needs more money, that he and his husband have a baby on the way, and that he needs more than she and the Dragonfly can give him. "I'm leaving. ... Doors are open to me. ... I can't just stay in one place forever," he says. Lorelai's life is feeling increasingly uncertain.
There are bumps in the road as Rory settles in at the Gazette. She needs Lorelai's help to deliver the paper all over town, and Doyle calls her, upset that she didn't care for his dissertation on African colonialism in the middle of a movie review.
Still, Rory has time to check in on Emily, who is sleeping in until noon, and has a TV table in her living room, still not sure how to move on with her life post-Richard. After some encouragement from Rory, Emily decides to start going back to her social club, and reacquaints herself with Jack Smith, an old friend of hers and Richard's.
While Emily reconnects, so does Rory. Jess stops in to visit her at the Gazette, and suggests that she abandon that and any work that's not fulfilling her. "You need to find something to write that you're passionate about," Jess says. "Find that thing that makes you feel, so that your readers feel it," he says, and suggests that she get to work on a book telling her life story. After taking a potshot at The Mysteries of Laura ("Is that a show?"), Rory agrees on the suggestion.
Lorelai heads to Emily's house, where Jack is going to drive them to the cemetery to see Richard's new headstone. She realizes when she arrives that Jack might be looking to Emily for more than friendship. "She has a boyfriend," she tells Rory on the phone. "New Daddy Jack."
Rory meets her mom and grandmother at the cemetery, and Rory tells Lorelai of her new book idea. "It's about me and you," she says. "And do we fight crime?" asks Lorelai. As Rory explains, it becomes increasingly clear that Lorelai is not on board with the new project, and doesn't want Rory to go ahead with it. "Because it's my life," Lorelai says. "You don't have my permission. It's my life, Rory. I went to all this effort for many, many years, making sure people only knew what I wanted them to know." "I did think this through. I am not a kid," Rory says, and insists on going ahead with the project.
After fighting with Rory, Lorelai goes to the diner and ends up fighting with Luke. She's upset that she had to find out from Emily that Luke went to look at commercial real estate. Likewise, Luke is upset that Emily told him that she and Lorelai weren't going to therapy together any more. "You know, we struck a deal. That you've got your life, and I've got mine," Luke says. "That's how two people who are partners are supposed to be?" Lorelai asks incredulously. "You set it up," Luke says.
As Lorelai and Luke fight, Rory calls Logan, looking for emotional support. She realizes, unfortunately, that he isn't capable of providing that to her. That becomes crystallized when he suggests that she should stay in a hotel the next time she visits him, since his fiancee has moved in with him. "So that's it, we're breaking up? Except we can't break up. Because we're nothing," Rory tells him, ending their relationship.
As opening night for the musical approaches, Lorelai agrees to stop by Miss Patty's to advise Taylor on one last minute addition to the show. After panning each earlier incarnation of the production, Lorelai is ready to tear the final song to shreds. Instead, she is deeply moved by Violet's rendition, and especially the lyrics urging her to confront her mortality and fix herself.
With Michel's news, and Emily moving on with her life, and Rory doing things that she knows will make her life uncomfortable, Lorelai is restless. And being with Luke but still living separate lives, and with seeing her therapist serving as an understudy in the town musical, Lorelai feels that no one outside of herself can settle that feeling of restlessness. She feels that she's breaking, and she needs to fix herself.
She tells Luke that she's going away for a while, "to do 'Wild,'" she says. Luke tries to dissuade her, reminding her that the Pacific Crest Trail is outdoors, in nature.
"It's never, or now," she tells Luke.
While I think that "Summer" ended on a strong note and left me anticipating the finale, it was also the first episode of the revival that felt like it was too bloated. There wasn't 90 minutes worth of story here, as evidenced by the full musical number in the heart of the show.