supercooladieu

[supercooladieu]

The Lorelai's First Day at Chilton

Episode 2! Full disclosure: I've had 2 glasses of wine so I'm tipsy but just short of seeing pink elephants (iykyk).

Lorelai painting Rory's toenails red is such an iconic scene. So short but perfection nonetheless. Uh oh! Lorelai slept in! The fuzzy alarm clock didn't purr! Lorelai's Paul Frank pjs are so quintessentially early aughts. All the alt-cool girls wore Paul Frank merch.

I can understand why Rory is freaking out but like, if it were that important, why would she not have checked on Lorelai before 7:10? And how Lorelai possibly not have anything to wear except the cutoff jorts and tie-dye shirt. She has tons of clothes. Hell, one of Rory's outfits would've been more appropriate for the occasion.

Chilton... I know it's supposed to be intimidating in this scene but it absolutely fills me with the warm & fuzzies 🥰 Lol why does Rory need Lorelai to go with her? After kindergarten, my parents never accompanied me on my first day of school.

Headmaster Charleston comments on how warm his office is but he has a fire roaring in the fireplace? I thought the people at Chilton were supposed to be smart... if your office is warm, put out the damned fire. And they're so insistent that Lorelai takes off her coat, but then she leaves like 15 seconds later. Why couldn't she have left her coat on for 15 more seconds?

What happened to Rory's interest in political science? Headmaster Charleston is so condescending. Rory is clearly thrown off by Headmaster Charleston not fawning all over her like every other adult she's ever encountered.

Are there lizards in Connecticut? I don't think so.

"I need coffee in an I.V." So quotable.

Lorelai's phone rings for so long, where is her answering machine?

Who is this English teacher? He looks like the Zodiac Killer. Where is Mr. Medina?

Paris is right, Rory never would have never been able to catch up to Paris to become valedictorian.

Michel and Lorelai's chemistry is palpable. They really missed an opportunity there back when they were still pretending Michel was straight.

I used to think Tristan was so hot but I guess I'm old now because nowadays, Jackson looks way better to me 😅 ....so does the Chilton dad 💀

Rory! Be careful opening that locker! Why wouldn't Paris just tell the history teacher what happened? And how would the history teacher not be gobsmacked that Paris didn't have her project?

I love Babette. Kirk is "Mick." I don't know why the name Kirk seems so right and Mick seems so wrong when they're very close but Mick is just so, so wrong.

Oooohhh Rory gives Paris her famous "withering stare" after beating her to the Martin Luther questions. Why does Lorelai think it's appropriate to yell at her mother at the hair salon?

As a parent of a child in school, I can say unequivocally that Lorelai would not be able to park her Jeep anywhere near that close to Chilton. There'd be medicated, passive-aggressive, bottle blonde soccer moms sitting bumper-to-bumper in their Mercedes and BMWs around the block.

Another great episode (as are all the episodes in the first season). Though it has just a minuscule amount less re-watchability than the pilot episode, it's still very solid. 9.9/10

[supercooladieu]

Pilot

Eek! The first episode. Full disclosure- the first season is my absolute favorite and always will be. I just love it. It always takes me back. The opening song “There She Goes” transports me to the earliest naught and makes me incredibly nostalgic for my childhood. Ugggggghhhhhh I love it.

The way Luke looks at Lorelai... 🥰💗💕 He’s feigning annoyance but you know he’s harboring this longtime, intense crush. 🔥🔥🔥 Whew! How he can be so smitten with her while she wears that hat is confounding but nonetheless... I wish a man would look at me like that. 

Luke’s baseball cap has an American flag on it which is weird.

The Independence Inn! I love the Independence Inn so much more than the Dragonfly. Sorry, not sorry. Drella was such a waste of a character. I love Alex Borstein but I am so glad that Melissa McCarthy got the role of Sookie and I honestly think Drella was completely unnecessary. 

I really love the way Michel and Lorelai play off one another in this scene. Their chemistry is so good, I wish they would have kept writing Michel’s character this way instead of the direction they ultimately went in. They really did the snooty, obnoxious Frenchman thing to death but he could have been so much more.

This might be an unpopular opinion but I actually like Rory’s oversized sweater look (or as Lorelai put it, her muumuu). 

LOL I cannot picture Lane listening to Eminem. Crazy Carrie is the Stars Hollow High English teacher. 

I know this has been said by many people before but it’s ridiculous that Sookie is supposed to be this amazing, experienced chef but she is such a disaster in the kitchen. The way she chops those peppers? Where are her knife skills?? She has the audacity to correct her bilingual staff on their English grammar but has absolutely no idea how to safely operate a kitchen when she is supposedly this incredible cook? What a joke. She starts a fire on the range and the other chef just puts a lid over it but doesn’t turn off the burner? I know, I know. It’s supposed to be humorous, but still...

One of Michel’s best, most relatable and most quotable scenes. “People are particularly stupid today. I can’t talk to any more of them.” I literally feel this in my soul every day at work.

There are so many plants in Lorelai’s house! She doesn’t seem like the type that can keep houseplants alive. How are Lorelai and Sookie so put together and responsible? They’re both single women in their early thirties and they both own their own homes. How is that possible? Was it just because this was pre-2008 housing crisis? I am so jealous of Lorelai’s house. 

Emily looks 10 years older in the pilot than she does in every subsequent episode. How did she age in reverse? Oh, Richard 💔 He’s kind of a garbage person throughout much of the series but he has those few redeeming moments which somehow more than make up for all the shitty things he does. I can't help but love him. And miss him. I know I’m getting old AF because I just caught myself thinking that he looks handsome in this episode 😱 He’s just so tall and masculine. His cheeky, smug grin when he says, “So, you need money.” 😍 Okay, I’m officially creeping myself out. 

I love first season Rory + Dean. They’re so cute. Teenagers do not talk to each other like that but it’s completely endearing even if it’s not 100% believable. Dean is so open and vulnerable with Rory right off the bat. No 16-year-old boy talks like that to the girl he has a crush on. Not any of the ones I’ve ever encountered, anyway. 

Lorelai and Rory are both eating salads at Luke’s. Weird! Oh, okay Luke brought them burgers. That’s more like it. But I feel like they definitely would’ve forgone the salads altogether in later episodes. The money Lorelai puts on the table to pay for the food falls on the floor and neither of them bother to pick it up. I always find it weird that Rory/Lorelai and Lane don’t acknowledge each other when they pass one another on the street. Not a nod, not a wave, not a half-smirk, nothing.

So when Lorelai realizes that Rory doesn’t want to go to Chilton because of a boy, Lorelai is understandably emotional. However, she literally says, “You are me,” and then proceeds to try and control Rory- doing exactly what Emily would have done in that situation. She doesn’t try and understand things from Rory’s perspective outside of how the situation could go badly. I honestly would have probably acted the same way, but Lorelai prides herself on being this “cool mom” who does things differently from her own controlling, suffocating mother. However, when she’s faced with Rory having a difference of opinion and acting like a moody teenager for once in her life, Lorelai’s first reaction is to “play the mom card” and fault Rory for falling for a boy. She basically tells Rory that she has no say in the matter and will be going to Chilton regardless of how she feels rather than talking things through. Again, I know she is just reacting to a situation in which she feels like the rug was pulled out from under her, but it’s funny to me that she reacts in the same way I would expect Emily to. And even though she acknowledges how similar she and Rory are, Lorelai reacts in a way that she would have totally resented if she were in Rory’s place.

I always thought it was weirdly out of character for Richard to fall asleep at the dinner table. He wasn’t that old- he would’ve only been 57 at that point.

Emily and Lorelai’s fight is so frustrating because I can understand where both were coming from. The two of them would have really benefitted from therapy. If Tony Soprano was doing it, why couldn’t the Gilmores?

I think Luke looks less attractive when he’s clean shaven and dressed up. It’s too jarring. He’s one of the very few men that look better to me with a baseball cap on.

Oh, the song they play at the end of the episode while it zooms out on Lorelai and Rory in Luke’s window from outside! Absolute perfection! Perfect opening song, perfect closing song. Great music choices all around in this episode.

Such a good pilot! I really, truly love it. I’ve watched it a million times and I could watch it a million more. 10/10.

[supercooladieu]

A Preface

Hey there! I have been wanting to do this for awhile. Let me give you some background:

I have been watching Gilmore Girls since it originally aired on the WB way back in the year 2000. When I first started watching, I was younger than Rory; now, I am older than Lorelai in season 1 (and seasons 2, 3... I’m going to stop before I get depressed). Gilmore Girls was my favorite show back then, and no matter what I had going on in my life, if it was Thursday (or later, Tuesday) night at 8 o’clock, I was sure to be at home with my butt parked firmly in front of the TV. 

About once a year, some kind of internal clock goes off inside of me and tells me it’s time to re-watch the series. I have seen every episode of the OG series about a million times (A Year in the Life just twice) and my opinions of the characters, storylines, and just about everything else have changed and evolved with each viewing. I used to relate to Rory, then to Lorelai, and now... well, I’m not really sure.

I used to believe the titular girls could do no wrong. These days, however, I see things a bit differently. I’m going to be rewatching the series and breaking everything down for your enjoyment. You might agree with me or you might think I’m crazy--but either way, if you’re a fan of the series (or even if you’re not), I invite you to join me on this journey as I break the series down as someone who has already seen it way, way too many times. 

As the incomparable Jody says in Take the Deviled Eggs (Seas. 3, Ep. 6), “Hey, what are we all sitting around here for? Let the games begin!” (Just kidding. Jody is a nobody loser whose voice is incredibly irritating.)