you paid for this: luke is an...okay boyfriend

Sorry to the people who don't like my Gilmore girls posts, but the people who do outweigh y'all.

Continuing in my bad boyfriend series, we're finally to Luke Danes, the love of Lorelai's life, or so some people think. I'm not one of them, but he beats the rest, so let's get into it!

[Luke "Butch" Danes]

We meet Luke Danes in the same scene where we meet Lorelai and Rory. He's one of the show's most significant characters, and some might argue he rounds out the Big Three. (I'd vote Sookie or Lane. I also think I just made up the Big Three for this show. No one says that.) Regardless, he's a main main main character and there would be no show without Luke.

I struggle with his character the more I watch the show, and I have to admit, a lot of that comes from the fact that this rewatch, I've been pairing it with iHeart's "I Am All In" podcast which is hosted by Scott Patterson, who plays Luke, and a slew of iHeart employees. I could complain for an entire post about how shitty I think the iHeart podcast format is (I listen to this one and "9021OMG"), but I'll save that for another day. If you're a big Gilmore girls person and/or a big Luke Danes fan, I'd recommend avoiding that podcast unless you like yelling in your car and slowly growing a distaste for a character you formerly loved.

That said, I am trying to go into this with my Patterson bias aside, and even doing so, I think Luke is just okay as a boyfriend. He's a really great guy and the exact kind of friend everyone would be lucky to have. In short, he's a better friend than boyfriend. Here's why, using both negative and positive examples:

• His insecurity dominates everything, and it sucks dating someone deeply insecure.
  Not just with Lorelai (though yes, duh), Luke is also insecure around every single one of Rory's boyfriends. world in the lives of those Gilmore girls, but it's a real turn-off and a whisper away from being completely inappropriate.
• He cannot communicate. And will not!
  Luke breaks up with Lorelai the first time because he ~isn't ready to talk~ when she is trying to salvage their relationship after her mother intervened with a drunk and angry Christopher as her minion. At that point in their friendship, Luke should have given Lorelai the benefit of the doubt or at least a conversation before ending the relationship they've finally entered after years of pining. He also buys a house for them without talking to Lorelai about it, even though he knows how much she loves her house! Just another example of his lousy communication, folks. And then, of course, later, the April of it all. (More below.)

• He will build anything and everything for you if he's in love.
  Which I think speaks more to the fact that he's the kind of friend we'd all be lucky to have because, at the end of the day, a boyfriend who will build you a house or an altar or a roof or whatever seems really wonderful but if he cannot have a conversation with you about feelings or the future, those handyman qualities become all that less appealing.
• He's loaded.
  No, money doesn't make someone a good or bad boyfriend, but how they use it does! Luke will bail anyone he loves out of any situation they're stuck in, and oftentimes, being loaded helps bail people out of situations.
• Luke and Lorelai yell at each other a lot, which does not a good boyfriend Luke make.
  And as someone who used to be in a yell-y relationship, it's not a good look for the future of y'all's thing. There's just no reason to be yelling all the time, even if your dad is dead or your daughter is stressing you out or whatever.

• Luke punches people too much, which isn't great for a boyfriend.
  One or two fights here and there, I guess, okay. But the number of times Luke hauls off and punches someone, including Christopher more than once, is exhausting and a big-time red flag. He fights Dean, a 16-year-old, with absolutely no information! The anger issues are just too present for me to think Luke is perfect.
• Luke cannot handle having a daughter.
  I came to Gilmore girls as an adult, so I don't have negative feelings about April, and I find her existence and the entire rollout of her character to be entertaining and believable. But also as an adult, the way this situation is handled is so, so dumb. I think of Elf every time we're introduced to April or anyone debates how Luke handles the situation.
  
  In the movie Elf, James Caan's character, who has been married to Mary Steenburgen's character for assumingly at least 10-12 years based on the age of the child they have together, finds out he has a grown son in his 30s who thinks he's a fucking elf. And when Mary Steenburgen's character finds out about Buddy, later in the same day when James Caan tells her, she says, "Well honey, I think this is great," And they have him over for dinner, and he basically moves in with them. This is an absolutely absurd parallel, but I can't help this is where my mind goes. I firmly believe Lorelai would hit Luke with a, "Well honey, that's great" if he'd brought up April the same day he discovered her, which is what someone in a healthy relationship would do. If someone came into my job tomorrow and said, "I think you're my mom, and here's some science behind it," I'd tell my boyfriend about it by the end of the night, if not sooner. (I get it doesn't work the same.) Luke ruins his entire relationship with Lorelai because he's weird about his kid. He wants to keep April and Lorelai apart because of his insecurity that April will flock to Lorelai, and there will be no room for him. So he doesn't tell Lorelai about April, and she finds out hurtfully. There are secrets and weird feelings everywhere, and it's their eventual downfall.

Lorelai is a nightmare and makes a lot of bad choices throughout all of this, probably more than Luke. But it's very hard for me to believe Luke is the perfect boyfriend based on everything I've already said, especially because of how he handles April. If my partner actively hides me from this massive part of his life and continually refuses to let me into it, he is not winning the boyfriend of the year title!

tldr; Luke Danes is a good guy! And a really, really mediocre boyfriend.

My last hot take here is Patterson and Lauren Graham have decent chemistry, but it's not the end-all-be-all we all pretend it is. I bet she hates him irl!

And...Christopher is up next (and last)!