I accidentally caught maybe one or two episodes of the “Gilmore Girls” back when it was originally aired. It never made much of an impression on me.
But with my current state of mind, it’s a comforting binge on Netflix. I’m now up to episode 21 of the first season (please, no big spoilers!)
I have questions, though.
The most burning is— why doesn’t Rory have a bedroom upstairs? It’s pretty clear from the establishing shots that there’s a full second floor. Why is her room next to the kitchen? That’s weird.
Where are the tourists? The only way a small town like that can survive economically is with a lot of tourist traffic. There’s no other way that everyone in town can have his or own little thriving retail business. Unless there are a bunch of unseen people involved in some major industry that fuels the economy.
Is it me or is Emily much more likable than either Lorelei or Rory? Okay, so she’s a rich, privileged snob. But she’s not an erratic, selfish flake like her two descendants are.
Doesn’t Lane have a father?
Luke! I immediately recognized him as Elaine’s spongeworthy (but only once) date from “Seinfeld.”
They have cell phones. Why do they also have pagers?
Compact discs were expensive. How does Lane have such a big collection that she can keep secret from her mother?
I think the only things upstairs are Lorelai’s bedroom and a bathroom. The real question is, what bathroom does Rory use? I don’t think there’s one on the ground floor.
No idea.
Emily is far more likable although she does some horrible horrible stuff later on. But in Season 1, she wants a relationship with her daughter and granddaughter and Lorelai rebuffs her at pretty much every turn.
Mr. Kim is never seen in the show. Is he dead, did he run off? Mrs. Kim is the only one who knows and she doesn’t tell.
Cool!
The early 2000s was an awkward time. Minutes were expensive, texting was nouveau and confusing. But, yeah, it’s weird.
Shhhhh. it’s just a show, you really should relax.
I went on a real Gilmore Girls binge earlier this year myself. It’s an incredibly comforting show to watch. I think we all want to live somewhere like Stars Hollow. I would give my eyeteeth to live next door to Babette and Miss Patti, personally.
Though, I can’t believe you didn’t mention the best character of all on Gilmore Girls, Paris! She is a hoot and has some of the best lines.
The tourists keep Lorelei’s inn going. Also Luke’s Diner, though of course townsfolk are regulars there too. And a lot of the shops in town must cater to the tourist crowd (the ones that sell merchandise exclusively cat-related, for example).
Pagers were a thing before everyone had cell phones. I think in the early years of the series Rory only has a pager.
I like Emily a lot of the time. She seems to be stuck in the role that she thought she ought to inhabit (the wife of a wealthy man whose days consist of planning functions and attending meetings of the DAR) but it clearly doesn’t bring her genuine fulfillment. That is one reason she and Lorelai butt heads so often, I think: on some level she envies the kind of life her daughter has. That accounts at least in part for Emily’s rigid adherence to the social rules of her world. If they really are meaningless and empty, then so is her life.
Lane’s father never appears in the original series, as far as I recall. By the way, do yourself a favor: don’t bother watching the recent “Year in the Life” reboot. It was painful.
Lane’s hidden collection includes not just CDs but clothes, books, makeup, etc. How does she afford it all? No clue.
I agree with the previous poster. Paris is a brilliant character.
I loved the first few seasons, but as far as I’m concerned, the show went off the rails about Season Four, when it became apparent that the writers were just having Lorelei and Rory make bad decisions just to keep the show going.
Paris and Emily are my favorite characters.
I too saw some later episodes and am now watching it in order from the beginning. One thing is clear to me, Rory has awful taste in men.
Yeah, I thought Dean was fine but uber-bland, Tristan barely counts but he sucked anyway, Jess was objectively an awful person, and Logan was Jess’s ‘bad boy’ character but rich like Tristan. Just terrible.
Yeah, but the second floor is much bigger than that. Is the rest of the floor just closets?
I find her a bit too quippy so far. She seems like a sitcom cliche, not any kind of rounded out character.
Yeah, but you never see any tourists! The diner and the shops and the central square are always full of locals, at any time of day.
It seems like everyone has a cell phone, Maybe I’m mistaken.
Actually, I saw that first. It wasn’t the best, but I don’t have a lot invested in this show, so it’s not like it can ruin anything for me. Anyway, I quite liked Emily’s story in the reboot. And Rory was a disaster, but maybe she should be a disaster.
And her “secret” closet is massive! Does her strict, religious, controlling mother never look inside?
Emily is quite good in that story. Somehow I feel sad about Richard’s death, even though I don’t really know him well. I loved her odd relationship with the foreign family who spoke the unknown language.
Hm … I’ll have to go back and look. Which episode?
By the way, Michel is gay, right? I mean, he talks about women, but he’s just pretending. Right?
Just started the episode in which Lane asks Rory to pick up records from a record shop near Chilton. It really reminded me of the days when searching out music was a real hobby that took work. You had to have heard about something—in a book or a review or from someone you talked to—and then you would have to start hunting, and unless you lived in a place with great reacord stores you really had to work for it, and then, if you tracked down one of your hunting goals, there was the first time you actually got to listen to it — you’d have almost no prior knowledge about what it sounded like. It was a real adventure and sense of discovery.
I’m several episodes into Season 2 now, and Paris is pretty much the only character that I’m not warming up to. She’s way too cartoony evil. I know that teenagers can be mean, but they are also very fickle and constantly change loyalties. I can’t buy someone who is so dedicated to trying to make Rory suffer.
And I also can’t buy that she gets away with it, especially when she’s practically shouting about it around the school. Like when Rory was late to the first newspaper editorial board meeting because she had been given the wrong time and the blatant hostility that Paris greeted her with. I would expect the faculty adviser to immediately call Paris into a private room and tell her to knock it off. She’s a child, after all.
Fun fact: Liza Weil, the actress who plays Paris auditioned for the role of Rory. Obviously, she didn’t get it, but the Palladinos liked her so much, they created Paris for her.
Yeah, that episode annoyed me too. Chilton staff do not have very impressive classroom management skills. But Rory is the golden child and ultimately all attempts to bring her down will fail for she is the Chosen One and the Perfect Daughter.
edit: S2? That means you’ve seen the episode with one of my favorite Emily Gilmore lines. It’s when she and Lorelai are fighting after Rory showed Emily the shed she and Lorelai lived in at the Inn. “You took her away to live in a shed like a HOBO!” The emphasis that Kelly Bishop puts on hobo kills me. I must have watched that scene 20 times in a row, cackling all the while. No one can deliver a line in that show like Kelly Bishop.
Paris is one dimensional in the early eps. They flesh out the character in later seasons, (with a bit of handwaving in the first season) though she’s never really all that likable.
One unsung character I like is Dean’s kid sister Clara, who you don’t see often.
