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Summer overcomes some very shoddy pacing to deliver another entertaining and moving episode of A Year in the Life. It's kind of funny that after seven seasons, audiences barely got to see Stars Hollow in the summer. Summer was usually seen very quickly or skipped over all together.

Because of this, there's an undeniable appeal to spending a whole episode at Stars Hollow during the off-season. And it begins pretty much as expected, with Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) lounging by a pool. Unfortunately, they are at their most unbearable. Rory continuously snaps at people who are genuinely happy to see her. And, along with Lorelai, she ridicules everyone for not being as perfect as they are. And the casual body shaming is off-putting and a bit odd. At one point Rory actually looks like she will throw up from the sight of an overweight man without a shirt on. But as usual, the show mistakes their callous cruelty for humor.

Summer also brings another face from the past, the unfairly maligned, April. (Vanessa Marano) Although it's hard to argue that she was introduced as a glorified plot device, she didn't really deserve all the hate she got. Back in Season 6, things seemed to be going too well for Luke (Scott Patterson) and Lorelai so April was brought in to cause some trouble for Stars Hollow's favorite couple.

But she eventually became a compelling character in her own right. And her upbringing bore more than a passing resemblance to Rory's childhood. As time passed, she became a nice addition to the cast and showed Luke in a different light.

Because of this, it was a welcome surprise to see her having dinner with Luke, Lorelai and Rory. Her appearance in the episode is barely more than a cameo but it's handled very well. It also shows that a little can go a long way.

Marano gives a winning performance that feels like a natural progression for the character. Looking back on the precocious young girl introduced in Season 6, it seems natural that she would grow up to be a German-silent-film-loving college student. She's still very strong willed and a bit awkward. And seeing her bonding with Rory was especially nice and touches on the recurring theme of things coming full circle.

The show always understood the importance of the town and its residents. They gave Gilmore Girls an added sense of verisimilitude. And the town meeting is a perfectly executed example of this. It, surprisingly, became one of the episode's highlights. The scene sets up the two major story lines of summer but never felt perfunctory. Taylor introduces the idea of a Stars Hollow musical, which drives Lorelai's narrative in this episode. And he also informs the crowd about the Stars Hollow Gazette closing. Rory finds this particularly distressing, and saving it becomes her driving mission in this episode. It would have felt too choreographed if it weren't executed so well. The residents talk over each other and bicker. Their interactions are so lively and natural that it almost seems like they just filmed an actual town meeting.

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