Watched Mitchum talking with Rory with my wife, and she said...

"Mitchum was right!"

...now, this isn't me asking for relationship advice, because I thought he was right too, and it's always good to see that we're still on the same page about the crucial issues after 20 years of marriage. (If you don't know this story arc, quit reading! spoilers ahead).

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So, I know it's been a bone of contention on this sub whether Mitchum's evaluation right about Rory, whether he could have been nicer, and whether he gave her a fair shot. Well, we just binged right up past there. Between the re-watch and talking with my wife, I'm even more certain now that Mitchum was right, AND moreover, that he did right.

Let's review the facts. Rory was blindsided by Mitchum's father and wife, who clearly expected Logan to marry a woman who had been raised to be a "corporate wife," as Lorelai once described Emily. Someone who'd manage the household, the charities, the social calendar, etc. NOT a career gal. What we don't know is whether Mitchum agrees or if he just disapproves of how rude they were about it.

Either way, he goes out of his way to drop by at Yale and apologize to Rory face to face. Well, he tells her "You deserve an apology," but never actually says he's sorry. Instead, he lets his actions speak, and does that rich people thing where they don't say their apologies, they pay them. In this case, with a valuable internship.

But then does Rory actually fail? Yes, and how!

a) Day one, he tells her to shadow him while he's in town. Clear instructions: stick with him, see what he does, and learn the ropes [of HIS job, a newspaper exec]... but she botches it. She loses him right away, for one (granted, that's probably a bit of humor, but it's also a Chekov's screw-up), but then she won't even follow him into a room! After a few *days* he literally has to invite her into the meeting room behind closed doors. Some shadow...

b) A few days in, and she's set up... a cubicle where she's helping everyone out as a gopher (a lackey you send to "go for" this or that). A very organized gopher, but a gopher nonetheless. It's low-level work, even for an intern, but especially for someone meant to shadow the boss. The CEO doesn't hide away in a cubicle, and certainly not someone who might become a Huntzberger.

c) She gets one last chance at a staff meeting, where she meekly sits in the corner, dutifully taking notes. To test her ambition, Mitchum sets up a juicy beat for any young journalist: The newspaper needs someone to cover the arts scene in freakin' New York City. It's not a question of funding, Mitchum sees to it right there in front her. He shooes away a staffer who says he can do it, and TURNS AROUND to look at Rory while he does so, saying they could "go to universities, Yale, whatever," for volunteers to cover it... "Those kids jump at the chance." She's one of "those kids!" He couldn't have telegraphed "This is yours, kid, take it" any more clearly without spelling it out.

d) It was right after this meeting that he sits down to tell her that it isn't going to work. The link is that clear. If she's going to pass up sweet, juicy low-hanging fruit, she's not going to strive for the hard-to-reach stuff higher up the tree. That's all he needs to know.

e) Should he have been more explicit? No. When you don't give people instructions, the true nature of their ambition comes out. It's like when people get drunk--- they forget life's instructions and their true selves emerge. In vino veritas. Rory's true nature was to wait for things to come her way. But the thing about journalism is: You can't reply on your reporters to wait for people in charge to spell things out, or sit around for opportunity to land in their lap. They have to see the opportunities nobody wants to show them... and TAKE them. Especially if they want to be reporters on serious geopolitical issues. Even for the small-time local puff pieces, or the arts scene. But you have to AT LEAST be the kind of person who pushes first until there's push-back, if not further. If you pre-emptively shy away from conflict, you are going to fail as a serious reporter.

Mitchum tells Rory she'd make a great assistant, because that's what he *observed*: She thinks about what would make other people happy, sometimes even before they do--- like when she used her inside info from Logan to... make sure Mitchum's afternoon coffee was decaf. We could ALL use a great assistant like that. Even after this, at the DAR job, she works to scoop out intel to make her grandmother happy.

Was Mitchum fair to Rory? We thought so. But even if you think otherwise, was it fair that she was even given the internship? Unfairness giveth, and unfairness taketh away.

My wife pointed out that Paris would not have blown this chance, and that seals the deal for Mitchum being right. Paris would have kicked down the door that the editor shut in Rory's face on day one. She would have never consented to just moving papers around without improving them to everyone's chagrin. She wouldn't have had to be asked twice to jump in at the staff meeting. Hell, they would have had to fight to make sure she didn't steal THEIR beats, too. She wouldn't be everyone's friend, true... let's be real, she wouldn't be *anyone's* friend. But good reporters go where they aren't wanted. Otherwise they're just doing PR. Paris on the religion beat at Yale almost got restraining orders put against her. Doyle... was so proud of her as an editor.

So all told, Rory was handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter and she blew it. And honestly we should have seen it coming. Like from day one at college, when she paged her mom in a panic to come back barely 30 minutes after she had left her at Yale. Even for a nervous college student, that was ridiculous. She even bemoans this fact at that time, that Christiane Amanpour [her role model] wouldn't call her mommy from the trenches. But it's who Rory is, and that's partly why we love her.

Mitchum was right about Rory, and he did do her a favor by ripping off the bandaid like he did. She just "don't got it" when it comes to being a hard-nosed reporter. Personally I think she would have been fine as the editor of a small-city newspaper, not just an assistant. Assigning beats, organizing logistics, keeping everyone calm at every level of the organization, that sort of thing. Or nowadays she'd make a wonderful podcaster. But she's no Woodward or Bernstein.

Anyways, maybe you agree maybe you don't, but my wife and I agree with each other, so we're all good.