From Contrived Bitch to Lovable Psycho

Alexis Bledel and Liza Weil in “Gilmore Girls”

As much as critics used to goof on Dawson’s Creek for its high school characters who all talk like 30-year-old script writers in therapy, most people nevertheless seemed to like the age-inappropriate dialog along with the rest of the show. The same hasn’t been true, though, for the dialog-intensive Gilmore Girls, in which even the lowlifes are better read than most literature professors and everyone talks like they’re in The House of Yes.

Which is too bad, since the show, which has had its ups and downs, has recently gotten funnier — and part of it has to do with Liza Weil’s graduation from contrivedly bitchy recurring character to amusingly neurotic regular character. Sure, the rest of the show is off-puttingly saccharine at times, and there are several characters on the show I would love to see meet with fatal accidents, but Liza’s sympathetically angry psycho bit actually has me looking forward to watching the show now.