Most of Lane’s drama on Gilmore Girls was driven by one thing — her rebelling against her very strict, very religious upbringing. Mrs. Kim abhorred basically every part of modern Western society, from makeup and music to skirts and fried foods. Too bad that Lane was a regular American teenager who wanted to listen to secular music and eat pizza with Rory. With Lane rebelling against her mother’s harsh house rules, I often wondered where Lane’s dad was throughout Gilmore Girls. Did he uphold the rules that Mrs. Kim was laying down in the Kim house? Was he a little softer? SPOILERS for Episode 2 of the Netflix series: Well, Mr. Kim was finally revealed in the Gilmore Girls revival, and fans learned… not that much.
The reveal was just that — a reveal. At a Stars Hollow global food festival, Lane was selling bulgogi and other assorted Korean treats, and Rory sat down to join her and chat a bit, as friends do. They were sitting there, talking, when Lane proclaimed, “Oh, hey, there’s my dad," and there he was — the camera panned to an ordinary looking man, who smiled and waved at Rory and Lane before continuing on with his conversation with whomever he was speaking to. And that was it! Short, but sweet. He seemed pleasant enough, but what did we learn? Nada!
I wanted to know more about Mr. Kim because I need to know about his personality in relation to his wife’s. Mrs. Kim is clearly not an easy person to get along with — she has her very strong opinions on what the world should be like, so I’d love to see where Mr. Kim’s opinions fit into their life together, should he be allowed to have any. And what does he do for a living that he’s never around? Maybe he just crunches the numbers at the antique store and Mrs. Kim does the selling. But why haven’t we seen him at any of their holiday celebrations?
The evolution of Mrs. Kim and Lane’s relationship over the course of Gilmore Girls was particularly interesting to watch — they went from mother and daughter to enemies to allies, especially after Lane had her two kids. I felt like Lane understood Mrs. Kim a little bit more after she had the twins, so where does Mr. Kim fit into that? Mr. Kim’s reveal on Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life answered just my question of what he looked like, but I’m afraid now I have many more things I need to know.
Images: Saeed Adyani/Netflix; giphy
