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In the Gilmore Girls Season 5 finale, ‘A House is not a Home‘, Rory’s extreme reaction to Mitchum’s proclamation of her journalistic talent continues. Rory seems convinced that the top newspaper guy in the country has seen through her and knows she can’t cut it. “He said I can’t do it, so I can’t do it.” Rory, who only after a while realizes she was actually arrested for stealing the yacht, seems like she’s in a state of shock.
During her final, Rory is completely unfocused. And when she goes to meet with Lorelai later at Weston’s, we know why. Rory wants to drop out of Yale. She no longer knows what she wants to be and claims it has nothing to do with Mitchum (yeah, right). Rory calls it a break from Yale, and from school in general. She seems unfocused for the first time in her life, always knowing before this of what she wanted to do. What Mitchum said seems to have hit Rory right to her core.
What drove Rory to drop out of Yale? Why did she take Mitchum’s proclamation to heart? And if she isn’t dropping out of Yale because of what he said, then why is she? Is there some underlying reason that is driving Rory to re-examine dreams she’s taken for granted for her whole life?
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528 days ago
It is all logan’s fault!! Actually no, I just hate him. But, Rory is used to people praising her saying how good she is,so she knew that what she was doing was right. As soon as she gets some criticism, she breaks down and thinks that if she isn’t good at it, she must be making the wrong decision. Rory is a perfectionist and not used to criticism.
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528 days ago
Most people gravitate towards activities that interest them and that they are good at so Rory’s progress at Yale and the paper was expected by all who knew her. Once a person she over-respected highlighted her correctable deficiencies and cast doubt on her aspirations, she panicked and froze up instead of taking a deep breath and considering the quality and motivation of the criticism. That the criticism could distract her into temporarily underperforming is class is reasonable, that it could cause her to “go rogue” and then drop out of school is tough to buy. Rory had run into walls before and figured out how to work around them, why pick this time to whine and bang her head against the wall until it collapsed on top of her.
The only obvious reason for this overreaction was to set up a plot direction which split the “girls” apart. That concept has some dramatic merit but why not pick a plotline that is believable, say in addition to the relatively minor roadblocks in Rory’s professional path include that big bogey in her personal life, the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy [which turns out to be negative]. If anything sould immobilize her and make her re-evaluate her life path, as well as scare the H out of Lorelai and the grandparents this would be the big one that turns everything inside out.
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528 days ago
As mentioned before Rory does not take well to not being the best at everything – look how badly she reacted to the D grade at chilton. The D grade saw Rory working even harder than normal however, given that Mitchum one of the most powerful and respected in the field had told her she wouldnt cut it she probably wondered what the point was.
Add to that the fact that he is logans father and she was probably just little embarrased as well, hence the need to escape.
Im with others here in saying I find it a little unbelieveable that it would have split her and Lorelai up in the way it did though.
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528 days ago
Rory has never failed so far or when she did it was for a short period of time and managed to work things out. But everytime she confided in her mother and asked for her help.
For the first time, she completely shuts Lorelai out and doesn’t even try to understand her mother’s concern about losing her momentum (Lorelai is a 100% right BTW).
I’ve always been amazed how Rory is easily influenced whether it’s by men or people she looks up. Yes, she’s smart but she can pretty stupid when it comes to important things in life.
Maybe Mitchum was right about her not having it but she should have tried to work harder or find another calling instead dropping everything. That’s really not what her mother taught her.
In a way, Rory was a spoiled brat but so far she had always shown a certain sense of responsibility.
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528 days ago
Mac
I agree with you totally about rory being spoilt – I thnk the way she has turned out is a great credit to Lorelai – had she been brought up by richard and emily I think she would have been obnoxious.
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527 days ago
I think that Rory was a very smart girl but stunted social and not the hardest of workers. Whenever something did not come naturally to her she was really thrown for a loop.
I also don’t know how she got over Logan not disagreeing with his dad. Logan said that he shouldn’t have told her that way but he never once said that she was a good reporter or was up for the job. To me that is worse than what his father did, at least Mr Huntzburger had personal motives to hurt Rory but Logan knows how much she put into the intership and into the Daily News but still apparently didn’t think she could hack it as a journalist.
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527 days ago
Rachel, I am so with you! I’ve never thought of Rory as a hard worker (or particularly bright, but that’s more debatable). Her mum/grandparents/town helped her out so much that Rory really didn’t have to be a hard worker (eg, Lorelai looking around town for summer jobs for Rory, grandparents paying for school/car, Christopher stepping in financially, mum bringing home takeout every night, Rory buying lunch at school every day). I don’t know that the girl had a single chore.
I think she dropped out because she realized that she wasn’t quite as perfect as she thought she was.
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527 days ago
Honestly, her behavior doesn’t surprise me all that much. It’s called the imposter syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_Syndrome
Suffering from it myself, I know that if an expert in my field said what Mitchum said to Rory, I’d probably drop out, too (and for me, that’s 5+ years post college and months from my PhD).
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526 days ago
@Katie I think that is a fascinating viewpoint but it gives the writers a little too much credit. Based on the next 5-10 episodes, I think they were flailing in the dark. After all, the meetings with the shrink were completely pointless.
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525 days ago
[...] never been able to decide if Lorelai was doing the right thing by Rory, after Rory decided to quit Yale. In ‘Fight Face‘, I think we’re shown just how immature both Lorelai and Rory [...]
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520 days ago
is lorelai acting immature? – I take your point but not sure if lorelais actions are because she loves rory and her relationship with her so much that she is frightend of loosing her.
Lucy – so true! always made me laught when rory picked up the tab at lukes or bought her mom a book or some other pressie – erm given that there was never any mention of an allowance from chris or the grand parents – wasnt that money that lorelai had given her in the first place???
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508 days ago
This is the first time rory may have heard some constructive criticism, Even when lorelai tried talking to her about the dean situation she didnt wanna talk or hear what she had to say. Even will the logan thing. rory didnt wanna hear lorelais opinion on her going to logans house for dinner. Rory couldnt stop michum from giving her that advice. She had to take it.
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