The Sad Ballad Of Lane Kim or That's What You Get Folks For Makin Whoopie

By Tina

She never even got to play CBGB.

When Amy Sherman-Paladino created Gilmore Girls, she gave Rory a best friend based on her own best friend, Helen Pai (Lane's band even bears her name, after a fashion), but when ASP was absent from the show for its questionable final season, Lane's storyline went a bit astray.

Lane Kim grew up hiding who she was and what she loved from her mother. She did not want to be a good Seventh Day Adventist and marry a Korean doctor like her parents wanted. (Parents? Where is Mr. Kim?) She wanted to be a drummer in a rock and roll band. And then suddenly she was.

She found a band, they lived together, they even got Mrs. Kim to come around and plan a tour for them.

Then it was the final season and suddenly she was married, had two kids and couldn't follow her husband when he was called up to be a substitute guitarist for Vapor Rub because she had to stay home with the babies. She was relegated to a groupie and then not even able to get on the bus.

The last we hear of Lane's dream, she's explaining to Zack why she has to put it on hold.

I can't accept that.

I have to imagine something more for Lane. I imagine that after she tells Zack that touring with babies is impossible, he rallies the troops. Mrs. Kim plans a way to make it happen, because Mrs. Kim can make anything happen. Brian comes on the tour as a nanny, he's great with the kids after all. Gil convinces Lane not to give up on her dream the way he did. He models loving his family and still loving to rock.

For months Zack, Lane, Brian, and the babies travel the country. Zack performs every night and Brian and Lane work on new songs for Hep Alien. One night the drummer is too drunk to go on.

And suddenly Lane's onstage again, where she belongs.  And she never leaves again.

In my head, that's how it happened, and I need that to be how it happened.

When Gilmore Girls comes back for its Netflix season, I have no doubt that Lane's ending will be corrected. The show got Lane's ending as wrong as it got Rory's right, and we all know that. But I hope that her ending was not delayed. I hope that when we see Lane again, she is a star. I don't want to watch a harried Lane recover her dream, I want my belief to be confirmed. I want Lane to never have lost it.

About the author:

Tina blogs about She-Hulk at jenniferwaltersesq.tumblr.

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