In our first episode, we delve into the pilot of Gilmore Girls. We cover thoughts on Stars Hollow, unique mother/daughter relationships, and where to find the round cakes.
In our first episode, we delve into the pilot of Gilmore Girls. We cover thoughts on Stars Hollow, unique mother/daughter relationships, and where to find the round cakes.
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@inmyqueuepod • @adinaterrific • @karaaa_powell
Send us comments/questions on Gilmore Girls, or suggestions of shows to watch via email: itsinmyqueuepod@gmail.com
Adina: [00:00:00] Welcome to it's in My Queue, the podcast where we talk about TV pilots. I'm Adina.
Kara: And I'm Kara, and we feel qualified to talk about TV because we watch a lot of it.
Adina: In each episode of this podcast, we will discuss the pilot episode of a different TV show, some familiar, some new to us. But we'll try to react with fresh eyes and discuss what makes us wanna keep watching the show or not.
Kara: Obviously, there will always be spoilers for the first episode, but you can feel free to watch along with us. It's only a one episode commitment.
Adina: Full disclosure, neither of us have formal television expertise, but we have become interested in writing for tv. So we're looking at it with a new eye, trying to learn what works and what doesn't about the shows we know and love, as well as shows that we've been meaning to watch for ages that have been stuck in our Queue.
Without further ado, please enjoy our first episode.[00:01:00]
Kara: Great. Also, did we, we didn't introduce ourselves.
Adina: We did not introduce ourselves yet. Maybe we should have done that first. So, my name's Adina. I am a Scorpio. I like, as I said, a lot of urban fantasy shows, a lot of sitcoms because who doesn't? Although I would say I watch a lot of different genres of tv.
I just watch a lot of TV in general. Basically anything that has. Dynamic female characters that drive the story. I can get on board with that.
Kara: I'm Kara, I'm a Virgo. I think I also watch a lot of tv. I have this like vivid memory of the day. I feel like the day that I saw the very first episode of the Office I ever saw, which was it was when we had a little TV in our kitchen when I was, I, I must've been like in high school like a freshman or a sophomore and it was the "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" episode.
And I was like, haha, this is quite funny. And then I think I just happened to be watching it 'cause my [00:02:00] dad had it on while he was sitting in the kitchen, so I was like, well, I'll watch this too. And I feel like I. Then when I realized that you could stream things on Netflix, which I know for a fact was in the 10th grade, because the first thing I streamed on Netflix was season one of Downton Abbey.
I realized, oh, there's so much TV for me to watch that isn't just at a certain time every week. Wow. This, that was, that was pretty exciting for me. And now I watch a lot more TV because I realized at some point in my watching of the Office when Mindy Kaling was acting, I was like, oh, I wanna do that.
But then I also found out that she wrote for the show, and I was like, oh, you mean I can do both? Which was a very exciting find. So now I'm like, but now I'm at the point where I'd like, well, I'd much rather write it. So I feel like my excuse for watching more TV now is that it's like, well, if I'm gonna write it, I have to know how other people write it and how they do it.
Adina: Now I guess we can start talking about the show that we have watched for [00:03:00] this week. We decided to start off with a show that we both know very well and that a lot of you probably know as well, which is Gilmore Girls. Mm-hmm. Gilmore Girls, as you may know, is an hour long show about a mother and a daughter who are more like best friends than they are, like mother and daughter, and it stars Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore.
And it ran on the WB, which then became the CW from 2000 to 2007, and it had seven seasons. So it was like pretty iconic to network television in like the early two thousands. Even if you didn't watch it, you probably saw some scenes from it. You probably were like, why are these people talking so fast?
That's the one thing that everybody knows about the show, but maybe, maybe we should talk about like our individual relationships with the show. I have two older sisters and they were obsessed with the show as it was airing. I was like [00:04:00] five to 12 years old, whatever, when it was airing. Yeah. So I wasn't that into it at that time, but it was like always on in our house as it was airing every Tuesday night when it would air, like our house had to be silent so that we would not miss any of it.
My sister would yell at us if we made any noise and we o owned all of the seasons on DVD as soon as they came out. My sister would rewatch them a lot. So I like absorbed a lot of it as it was airing just because it was there. But it wasn't until I got older and like got into high school that I actually sat down and watched it all the way through, like in order and, mm-hmm.
I liked it. I mean, I, it's, it's a fun show, I think, and as I've then gotten older than that, I've come back to it a little bit more critically and I'm like, Hmm, I don't really like these characters that much anymore, but it still holds a special place in my heart, I would say. What about you?
Kara: My mom watched Gilmore Girls while it was airing. And I, I remember specifically, I just remember the, once there's this one scene, it's like a few [00:05:00] seasons in, it's whenever Emily and Richard renew their vows, lane's exchange student asking, "but why" talking about she's, but all I remember is her just going, but why? And rory being like, because they love each other and her just, "but why?" She just kept going, "but why, but why?"
And that was all I knew about Gilmore Girls until freshman year of college, which is when I watched it. Fun story, but not really fun because actually it was kind of scary. We had like a lockdown randomly.
Adina: Oh, I remember that
Kara: one morning since we couldn't leave our rooms.
I said, well, I guess I'll start Gilmore Girls. And I did. I started it during a lockdown. I remember that exact lockdown day. Oh my God. I also
randomly remembered as I was rewatching this that a couple summers ago when I was in New York doing an internship that I briefly had the idea where I was like, wow, Rory had so many boyfriends and guys were always so into her, which was something I don't think I ever really
understood.
I was like, she's,
Adina: I mean, she's played by Alexis Bledel, who is very attractive.
Kara: That's true. But [00:06:00] Rory, but the personality wise, Rory was like a lot for me sometimes, so I kind of was confused about it, even if she was very pretty. But I randomly wrote a whole outline for a fan fiction where Rory was the bachelorette that I never wrote.
Adina: I think you should write it. I think you should come back to it after this episode. I. I do not have time. I just don't have time. Anyway. Now you guys know like where we are both coming from when we talk about this show. Now we are gonna pretend that we haven't watched all of it. Uhhuh sort of pretend.
We did go to school for theater, so we'll do our best. And we re-watched the episode this week with Fresh Eyes, trying to imagine what it's like if we were watching it for the first time on October 5th, 2000, which is the date that this pilot episode aired.
Kara: Oh, wow. So also, I will say I hadn't remembered much of it, so it really was as though I was watching it for the first time as I was rewatching.
Adina: I remembered it surprisingly well. I think I've rewatched feel more girls a lot more times [00:07:00] than I realized just because since it got added to Netflix, I just put it on sometimes when I want something in the background and I mm-hmm. I remembered it a little too well. I was like, how many times have I seen this?
So yes. This is go More Girls. Season one, episode one. The title is Pilot. Aired on October 5th, 2000 on the wb. It was written by the series creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and it was directed by Leslie Linka Glatter who is, she's directed a lot of different TV shows episodes for different TV shows, including Homeland, the Walking Dead, Pretty Little Liars, Mad Men, and many others.
So she's a pretty accomplished director. The description of this pilot episode from IMDb is, "Rory is accepted into the Elite Chilton Prep School. Bad news for Lorelai. She must make amends with her parents to borrow the money for Rory's tuition. The money is available with strings attached."
Oh, that sounds so ominous.
Yeah, it's, it makes the show sound a lot more ominous than it is from that. Yeah. Like if I had not seen it, I would be [00:08:00] like, Ooh, is this like a, like a thriller or drama? Like I don't, I don't know. Yeah, that sounds so threatening. So, yeah. So the concept for the show, I find it interesting that the description on IMDb, I guess they assume you know what the show is already, but that this description does not mention that Rory and Lorelai are mother and daughter, which is kind of the whole point.
How this show came into being, this is how Amy Sherman-Palladino describes it. She went into a pitch meeting with a WB and she pitched a bunch of other shows, which they were not interested in at all. And she was kind of like, at the end of her rope, at the end of the meeting, they were like, do you have any other ideas?
And she said that she made, made up one sentence about this show, and then they bought it on the spot and that she had to, oh, She had to then go and write the show based on the one line. So this entire TV show that I would say was like pretty influential, just came off of Amy Sherman-Palladino said a random sentence that some executives liked.
Now that we've done a lot of background, I, I have more fun [00:09:00] facts, but we can sprinkle them throughout our discussion of the episode.
we start watching the episode, the first thing we see is the little sign that says, welcome to Stars Hollow. Which for us, because we've watched the show, we know what Stars Hollow is.
But if you're someone viewing it for the first time, you don't, and you just know, okay, it's like a weird small town, I guess. And then I think it showed the title card pretty immediately right after that, it said Gilmore Girls, and then it zooms in on the diner, on Luke's Diner. So that's kind of, they, they introduce us to the setting first and then the characters, and then we see Lorelai Gilmore.
And the, the first thing she says is, please, please, please, please. She's pleading with this gruff man who we learn is Luke Daines, the owner of the dad, and she's begging him for coffee and he doesn't wanna give it to her. Well, so rightfully now she's had five cups already. Yeah. My God. The first thing we learn about our main [00:10:00] character, Lorelai Gilmore, is that she drinks an absurd amount of coffee, which is a very important trait to her character as you learn throughout the entire show.
It's kind of her shtick. And the very first interaction is Luke doesn't wanna give it to her, but she can convinces him. So we also learn right off the bat that she is very charming and really goes after what she wants. She doesn't take no for an answer, which turns out to be both a strength and a flaw of her character in a lot of ways.
Kara: Yeah, and I also think it kind of tells you a little bit about Luke. As you very quickly learn that he's like, he knows Lorelai well enough at this point that he is like, I'm gonna
Adina: lose. So he just, he loves to say no, but he also can't say no to Lorelai in particular, he says no to a lot of other people successfully.
As you learn later in the show, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but he can't say no to Lorelai. Funny thing about Luke, that character was originally conceived as a woman. Amy [00:11:00] Sherman-Palladino wanted the diner owner to be a woman, but then was told by the executives that there weren't enough men on the show.
So she had to replace, replace it with a man. And it was also originally going to be just a guest role. But after seeing Scott Patterson's chemistry with Lauren Graham in the pilot, they decided to make him a series regular right after that. So, It was pretty smart. Yeah. And it worked. It worked out well.
So yeah. So we see Luke and Lorelai is actually the first interaction we can get in the show. But then shortly after that, Lorelai goes to her little diner table and she talks to this random dude in the diner, Joey, and he is hitting on her. And you know, he's not a bad guy, but he's just coming on a little too strong and she's trying to give him a no.
He accepts the hint and goes away, but then a few minutes later he's hitting on Rory and then Lorelai comes over and tells him, don't hit on her. She's my daughter. And so that's how we [00:12:00] learned that Lorelai and Rory are mother and daughter, which that's one of those moments where like, I have to pretend I haven't seen the show or like, don't know the concept.
Like, and I have to try and imagine like if, would that line be surprising to me if I was someone really seeing this for the first time, would I be like, Because, 'cause they showed that guy's reaction. He's like, you don't look old enough to have a daughter and you don't look old enough to be a daughter.
Kara: Yeah. I don't know. I feel like that's so hard because the first time I watched it, I fully went in knowing the concept. Yeah. So like I knew that they were mother and daughter and I, I don't know how they advertised it back when it first came out, but I would assume I had just assumed that they advertised it that way.
Adina: Yeah. So I guess it's not really like supposed to be a twist per se, but it's a moment that's supposed to highlight for us, I guess, that they don't have much of an age difference and also that they don't really act like a mother and daughter when they're out together. Yeah. So it's kind of a moment for us, the audience to also have that same reaction as that guy and be [00:13:00] like, oh, it's a little unusual, but they are a mother and daughter.
Mm-hmm. So that's like a fun little way to get that. Exposition and that reaction out of the way, and oh my God, that that poor, that poor man.
Kara: Oh, wow.
Adina: And he still has that moment. He still has that moment when he's like, oh, I'm, I'm going on a road trip. Like, I, I have a friend. Do you guys wanna come with us?
And then Lorelai says she's 16 and the guy's like, bye. Which that's, that's a good joke. Then, then we get the, the theme music, the iconic theme music for this show. I'm obsessed with the theme music. It's Carol King, where You Lead, which was an existing song, but I'm pretty sure I didn't look this up, but I'm pretty sure I've heard in the past that this version that they used for Gilmore Girls was ano a version that Carol King recorded with her daughter.
Yes. Especially the show. I, I've also heard that, that's very sweet. If that isn't the cutest thing ever. I, I don't know what is Also, for those of you that have seen Gilmore Girls, Carole King, later guest stars on the [00:14:00] show, she plays Sophie, the music store owner and a she, she's in like three or four episodes maybe.
And I just love that. I love Carole King. She's great. But yeah, so they do the theme music in the pilot, which shows don't always do. Sometimes they wait until the second episode to, to do their theme music. I also thought it was interesting that they had the little title card at the beginning and then also had the full theme.
I didn't thought that, but I mean, I love the, the theme, so I'm not complaining.
Kara: Yeah, it's a very fun one. It's super catchy. Great piano.
Adina: So we, we met Lorelai and Rory, and we met Luke's Diner, basically. Mm-hmm. Right after the theme, we then go to the Independence Inn, which is where Lorelai works. The first new character we meet at the Independence Inn is Michel, who is the, is his title Concierge? No, I feel like he has a more impressive title. He's like the day manager or something. Is that his title?
Kara: Yeah. I think so. I can't remember, but I love him.
Adina: Yeah, he's basically, [00:15:00] he's the front desk manager basically at the Independence Inn, and he's very French and he has very little patience for people.
Mm-hmm. And he has this great opening scene where he's on the phone with a customer as many of his great scenes are, and he's begging the customer to ask for a different date because we're fully booked. And he says, please, please ask me for any other date. And then the customer does, and then he checks and says, no, we're completely booked.
And the show has a lot of gags like that, that feel very, I don't know what the word for it is, but like, they're just, they're just like witty, like quick little gags. And as I was reading up on the show Amy Sherman-Palladino listed as some of her influences for the show were like 1930 screwball comedies.
Hmm. And like Dorothy Parker and like that kind of vibe. And that's, I. I, I get that vibe from this scene, and it feels like a very, like, old timey, like old movie type gag. It's very, it's like the, the humor is just in the situation. It's not like [00:16:00] inappropriate humor. It's not like, you know what I mean?
Kara: Yeah, yeah.
I totally get that. And I do get that vibe from the entire rest of the show. So that's cool that that's where she thought of it from.
Adina: Yes, we meet Michel. Oh, and then the next character that we get introduced to who's just a side character is Drella The Harpist. So there's this very rude woman Drella, who plays the harp at the Independence Inn because they're a fancy inn and they have a harpist apparently in the lobby.
But the reason I mention her is because that she's played by Alex Borstein, who you listeners may know as the voice of Lois from Family Guy, or as Susie Myerson from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Also an Amy Sherman-Palladino show. But the interesting thing is that Alex Borstein was cast as Sookie. In the pilot Sookie, who we'll meet in a few minutes, and she was fully cast and they actually filmed the pilot with her as Sookie, but she gets to play Drella, this very, very unhappy and rude harpist who is one of my favorite side [00:17:00] characters, even though she's only in like two episodes.
But yeah, basically the, I think the point of these Independence Inn scenes, the first couple ones is not only so we get to know that setting and the characters that Lorelai works with, but also we get to see her doing her job as manager. And she's very good at dealing with people. She's very charming and she's good at dealing with people like Michel and Drella who are maybe difficult to work with, but she gets the best outta them sometimes because she's very charismatic.
What else do you think about our introduction to the Independence Inn?
Kara: Yeah, I like it a lot because it gives us a really good picture into, into Lorelai as like, A working woman, working mom sort of thing. And I feel like she, and then later we get there, there's like a lot of stuff later that then gets brought up some more about her job.
But she really has kind of, you kind of see her in this moment where she has worked her way up and she's like really proud of what she's doing and how she's [00:18:00] gotten there. So yeah, I like that. A little bit about her.
Adina: Yeah. Yeah. They take care to establish right off the bat that she is decently successful for being a single mom and she's good at her job and she seems to like her job.
Yeah. But then we see the next scene is Rory outside talking to her best friend Lane, who is another one of the series regulars who we're now meeting for the first time. And our first introduction to Lane is that she has very strict parents that don't know she listens to rock music or eats french fries.
Or does any of these rebellious things. And that's just like first, like two or three lines. They tell us that, they show her like changing out of like a wool sweater into like a band t-shirt or something and have her talk about she's going, her parents set her up on this hay ride with a Korean future doctor or something.
Mm-hmm. So it like very quickly just tells us everything we need to know about her family situation. Why do you think they gave Rory a best friend [00:19:00] with like, such this different family situation? Like, what's the point of that?
Kara: I think that it's, I definitely think to set up the contrast of how, maybe, in my opinion, how abnormal Lorelai and Rory's relationship is.
Mm-hmm. I think it's, it's so. Like, I love my mom, but I could never be with my mom the way that Lole and Rory are, you know? Yeah. It's just, and I guess that also might just be the thing that they're so close in age, and I think that maybe Laura as a young mom probably lost out on some chances to have friends when she was younger.
So I feel like it's maybe, wow, I'm just thinking of this fully on the fly, but maybe it's even one of those things where it's like, now that she's got this daughter that was like, who is now her age, when she had her, it's like, well, I'm, I gotta try and [00:20:00] be like living through you almost.
Adina: Yeah. I I think you really hit on something there that comes up throughout the show and even a little bit later in the pilot. But yeah, it's, I think it's not a coincidence that it, Amy Sherman-Palladino chose to start the show when. Rory is 16, which is the same age that Lorelai was when she had Rory. Mm-hmm. Because it is like Rory has reached that point in life when Lorelai's life went quote unquote astray.
And Lorelai definitely has, has a specific plan for what Rory's going to do, which is not the same thing that she did herself. Mm-hmm. And so even though Rory is mostly on board with that plan, it does still cause some tension between them. Yeah. But yeah, so we meet Lane. Another thing about Lane is that her character and her life, I guess is heavily based on one of the producers of Gilmore Girls, Helen Pai, who is also, I think Korean American and had strict parents, I guess. So she drew a [00:21:00] lot from personal experience in contributing to that character. Oh. And then, and then right after that we go back to the Independence Inn and we meet, I. We just met Rory's best friend and now we meet Lorelai's best friend who is Sookie, who is the chef at the Independence Inn.
And I really love Sookie's introduction scene. Yeah. So they show her at work in the kitchen and there's this whole big sequence of her and she's, she's cooking, she's really into it. She's like throwing ingredients in different dishes on the fly, and she's almost killing herself with every single dish that she's cooking.
She like almost burns herself. She almost has things fall on her and all of her, like assistant chefs or whatever you call them, are honestly more focused on trying to keep her from injuring herself with the kitchen where than they are on actually cooking anything. Yeah.
Kara: I wrote down my notes. Sookie is literally a walking accident.
She, because it's like I get nervous watching her 'cause it's like, her [00:22:00] food's amazing, but she just, it's like, She's just always ending up somehow hurting herself.
Adina: Yeah. But the funny part is she's just so gleeful. She just loves cooking so much that she doesn't care or notice any of these things. Yeah.
And I think that's a really great way to introduce a character because it's at once showing her flaw, but also her strength at the same time. And I think, I think that's something I would say in general. Amy Sherman-Palladino does really well in this pilot and throughout the show she creates characters that are a lot, but also you can understand how their strong qualities are both their strength and their flaw.
Yeah. Which makes them interesting because, 'cause that's how real people are a lot of the time. Like it's not like you have all these perfect qualities and then all these bad qualities that are separate. A lot of the time it is the same thing that just comes out to be good or bad depending on the situation.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we meet Sookie. She is just adorable and charming and she's Melissa McCarthy before she took [00:23:00] off and. Like controversial opinion maybe, but I still think Gilmore Girls is like the best thing she's ever been in, or like she did the best acting ever in Gilmore Girls. But that's just it.
Kara: Yeah, I, I probably have to agree.
Adina: Because it's more subtle. Not that I don't like the, the more broad comedy stuff she's done like bridesmaids, but I think she gets to show more range in Gilmore Girls. Yeah, definitely. So then Lorelai comes in and she says hello to Sookie and she asks Sookie to be more careful and not to kill herself because we get the seed of the plot that's going to come.
She says, when we open an in together someday.dot, do I need you to be alive? So that's, honestly, that's the first thing in the whole episode that felt like a seed of a plot for the future. Mm-hmm. Do you disagree? No, I think
Kara: that'd definitely be, that'd definitely be a big one. Yeah. 'cause it's also, I also think it does a good job of kind of establishing. Lorelai and Sookie's best friendship.
Adina: Yeah. Oh my God. They [00:24:00] are precious. But yeah, so, so this whole beginning of the episode, we've kind of just been meeting characters and seeing places, but that's the first thing where it's like, Hey, here's this goal, this event for the future. Which is interesting because that actually doesn't really have anything to do with the plot of this episode, but it becomes a long-term arc for the series later on.
And then we go back to Rory and Lane and we get one of the new settings for the show, which is Kim's Antiques, the antique store that Lane's family owns and runs, and it's also their house. And this, I think is also one of my favorite introductions to a setting ever, because they, they bring you into this antique store that is like the first floor of a house, and it's just, it's full of antiques. It's full of tables and chairs. You can barely walk through it. And it starts off with lane calling to her mom, where are you? And then, The mom's like over here, ed Lane's, like where is that? They play basically this game of Marco Polo, and it's just really funny.
It's, it's a good gag. [00:25:00] Yeah. Eventually they make it to the kitchen and they meet Mrs. Kim.
Kara: Mrs. Kim. I have trouble with Mrs. Kim now because it's one of those things where I'm like, I kind of wonder about like how stereotypical she ended up being, but I think that's just me. That's kind of me watching in 2020, looking back and being like, could, could this have been done a little better? But I, I do remember, like upon first watch, I did find her quite funny. So I think that, so now, now I feel like it's very complicated.
Adina: Well, I think she's a complicated character in a lot of ways. Definitely because of what you said. Is she playing into some stereotypes knowingly or unknowingly, but also because, just purely from the standpoint of like she's a character you don't necessarily wanna, like at first she is, yeah. She's very strict with Lane and I think for a lot of us, especially people that had [00:26:00] parents that were not as much like that, it's easy to look at her and go, oh, she's an awful parent.
She's so mean. But one of my, I will say she's one of my favorite characters, like to see her arc throughout the series. 'cause I think they did a really great job of showing her and her and Lane's relationship evolving over the course of the series. Not to, I could do a whole other hour long podcast just talking about that, but I think they start her off in this place that seems very stereotypical, but they develop it really well and they really show you why she does all the things that she does.
Kara: I think is, this is another one of those things where we get a fully different mother-daughter relationship from Lorelai and Rory and as someone who kind of watched this show and like, I feel like it's framed that we're, I feel like the show is very much framed that Rory and Lorelai's relationship is supposed to be kind of like really cute.
Mrs. Kim in a way is more, like more [00:27:00] quotes around "normal mother behavior" with maybe what people are used to seeing. So I don't, I think, I feel like even though she was kind, she was pretty strict. I didn't super mind it. 'cause I actually, I think she had some pretty funny lines. Yeah. So,
Adina: yeah. So they, they set it up as kind of two different extremes, which I think is nice because Lorelai and Rory are kind of the extreme of like maybe too much closeness and too much freedom. Yeah. And then Lane and Mrs. Kim is kind of the extreme of what if you're too strict with your children. That's something that I think was really smart of them to set up right from the pilot because it gives, it creates the foundation for a lot of interesting plot lines down the road in the show between Lane and Rory, between Mrs.
Kim and Lorelai. So it's, that was a really smart contrast to set up, I think. But yeah, Mrs. Kim has a great introduction. She's got these terrible wheat muffins that like, you can't even, oh my God. Invite to, and she asks Lane, like the first thing she asks when Lane comes home from school is [00:28:00] something like, "did anyone get pregnant and drop out?" yes. Yes. You think she asks Lane that every single day?
Kara: Oh my gosh. I, I honestly, I can see it. Then Rory makes a joke. I, I found this really funny. Rory makes a joke where she's like, well, so and so did look a little glowy today. And Mrs. Kim, like, I, Mrs. Kim's eyes shoot up and she's like, what? And, and lane's like, she was joking, mama.
And then she, Mrs. Kim looks at Rory and just points at her and goes, "boys don't like funny girls."
Adina: I know. That's one of the best lines of the, the entire pilot, I have to say. It's so silly. Yeah. So that's, that's our introduction to Mrs. Kim. And I know we kind of went off on a tangent about like how she goes later in the show, but that's because that's what happens when you set up such interesting characters.
I think that's one of the biggest strengths of this show in this pilot is it gives really rich and really different characters right off the bat, which gave the show so many interesting places to go with them later on.
Kara: Yeah. And [00:29:00] I think that, I think that as we're meeting characters, us meeting them, it goes going by so quickly, but we're learning so much about them in like the brief moments that we're meeting them, that it,
Adina: yeah, it's really efficient. Like, we've already met like six or seven different characters and like three or four different essential locations that will become staples of the show, and it doesn't feel like that. It's, it's been like less than 10 minutes into the episode, so it's very, very, it's wild. Mm-hmm. And then just the ending of that scene I have to mention, because it's also my favorite gag as a customer, walks in and is like, Hey, where are you?
And Mrs. Kim says, over here, and it's Marco Polo again. And he, and she goes by the chair, and then the guy goes, "What chair?"
Kara: It's the most cluttered store. But also, it's so funny because it's like the most cluttered store, but there's actually really good stuff in there. Yeah. So it's like you just have to go looking.
Adina: That's another fun thing that I love about Kim's antiques is like everybody knows that Mrs. Kim is like kind of a bitch, but they also know she's really [00:30:00] good at what she does. So everybody still loves and goes to Kim's antiques, even if they don't like her. Mm-hmm. Then we have another scene back with Sookie in the kitchen.
We get more of her being clumsy and of the, the other chefs trying to save her. And there's, there's a moment that I feel like, I guess I had seen before, but never really processed. Right. When Lauralei walks into the room to. Tell something to Sookie. Sookie just turns and she slams one of the chefs with a frying pan in the face, which is really funny.
It's just slapstick, which I simultaneously love, but also it gave me like a little question mark moment because there's not a lot of slapstick and physical humor in this show, like in general down the road. Yeah. So it does feel a little weird to have so much of it in the pilot when it becomes not such a thing later on.
Mm-hmm. But I, but it's funny, so I, I don't, yes, it's true. She fully nails a guy in the face with a fry pan, and then she [00:31:00] turns, because Lorelai has some news, which it was interesting to me also that she goes and tells this to Sookie first, but she goes and tells Sookie, Rory got into Chilton, which, mm-hmm. Now this is, the plot has firmly arrived.
This is what the plot of the episode is gonna deal with. Rory has been accepted into this private school and they're very excited about it. And then Rory walks in and she's also excited about it and it's yay they have this nice positive moment. The three of them. The other thing that like gave me a question mark in this scene is Rory walks in and she sees Lauralei smiling and she, the first thing she says is, "did you do something slutty?"
Which even, even being as close as they are, like, I'm like, how can you ask your mom that? How can you ask your mom? "Did you do something slutty?" And like think that the answer's yes. And you wanna ask that question? Oh, I'd be so uncomfortable.
Kara: Oh my. I was, I was like, oh. Oh. That's why sometimes that's why the relationship is so confusing to [00:32:00] me sometimes. 'cause it's like, yeah, I guess it's cute, but I'm also like, and you say that to your mother. I also think the other thing of it though is that. Sometimes I feel like maybe this is also kind of like the, the black parent child dynamic is somewhat different from what I have witnessed from like a white parent child dynamic.
So there's so many things that I've seen like white, my white friends doing with their parents that would never, I would never dare to say to like my, my parents and I'm just, maybe it's that. Yeah, maybe it's that.
Adina: That may be true, but as a white person, I would never ask that to my mother and most white people I know. I don't think they would either. I mean, I guess that's part of characterizing their relationship, like it's not painted as a normal mother-daughter relationship. But yeah. Then that's, I believe that's the end of act one of this pilot. Mm-hmm. We've met a lot of characters. We learned about Laura Lyon Suzuki's goal of opening an inn, and we learned that Rory has now been [00:33:00] accepted into private school.
Yay. Everything seems pretty happy.
Kara: Also, I love the part, there's a point where Lorelai in, I, maybe this is just me because I went to private school, but there's just this look in Lorelai's eyes of like, oh my God, private school is so expensive at one point.
Adina: The funny part is it doesn't happen in that scene. It's right when we come back, the first scene after the act break. Mm-hmm. You see the look on her face of "oh shit." And that is then the plot of the episode there. That's the conflict she got. Rory got into Chilton, but Lorelai can't afford it. And one question I did have when I was viewing this was like, did Lorelai not know how much Chilton cost when she was having Rory apply there? Because I feel like most private schools, you kind of know they're expensive, but Lorelai seems very surprised by it.
Kara: Yeah. I also kind of thought that, 'cause it's like, well, for one thing it sounds like Chilton is far more expensive than the school that I went to of like that, that that's. I can't imagine a private school being that expensive.
Like I'm, [00:34:00] I know they exist, but it's, it's, it is interesting to me because you'd think that someone on a budget wanting to send their kid to a private school would kind of look, maybe she thought that there was something about financial aid. I don't know.
Adina: Yeah. Or I think, I think maybe she thought she would have more time before it was due because she says something like, oh, there's like deposit and first semester is due.
Like, I thought "it doesn't give me a lot of time to pull a bank job", is how she puts it. So yeah, I think she had it in her mind that she would, it would be more lenient with like a payment plan or something. Most schools do do things like that. Yeah. I guess Chilton just doesn't, yeah, Chilton's just like, "fuck you," I guess.
Which, which does fit in when we go to Chilton. It does seem like the kind of school that would say that, that, yeah, there's this whole thing of like, they ha Rory has a spot where she could start on Monday, but if Lorelai can't come up with the money immediately, then they might give Rory spot away. So there is this ticking clock.
She has to find a solution immediately or else disappoint her daughter and she doesn't wanna do that. So now, now we have the real plot [00:35:00] of the episode. The real conflict and things are just gonna get tougher from here. So yeah, so we then we get very subtly introduced to a new setting because it then cuts immediately to Lorelai at home.
And this is the first time we're seeing her house, but it doesn't get an impressive introduction like those other settings did. We just kind of see her at home on the phone with the tuition person for, or the bursar or whoever for Chilton. And we only hear her half of the conversation, but she's like joking a lot, trying to do her charming Lorelai thing, but it's not working this time.
The person just says, you need the money. There's nothing I can do. So Lorelai is kind of stressed out and like a little frustrated because her normal way of solving things is not working for her at this time. And then we see her on the porch of the house talking to Sookie and Sookie says like in this very ominous way, like, we know what she's talking about 'cause we've seen the show.
But if you had not seen the show, Sookie says you could try "that option." And Lorelai says, no, no, [00:36:00] no. That is the worst option. I would rather be in a Stephen King novel than resort to that option, whatever that is. And then Sookie, because she's a nice friend, goes, okay, I guess I'll drop it. But it introduces this mysterious thing of what is this option that Lorelai doesn't want to go to?
Yeah. If we know what it is and yes. And we find out in like five minutes anyway, but mm-hmm It creates this little tension. 'cause we don't know what Sookie is talking about. And then Rory's all excited. She's trying on like her plaid skirt and she's like, I love being a private school girl. So we have this, this conflict.
We can feel how tense Lorelai is because she has this problem, but she can't disappoint Rory. Yeah.
Kara: Did we mention that Rory has the dream of going to Harvard, so her getting into Chilton was like this whole thing of bettering her chance of getting in there.
Adina: Yeah. That's a good, that's a good point that Rory has this dream, which, how much is it Lorelai's dream and how much is it Rory's dream? But it seems to be Rory's dream as well, that she wants to go to Harvard. [00:37:00] She's, I mean, she loves school. We skipped over the scene. I totally forgot about the scene where we learned that Rory loves school. It was before when she talks to Lane, I totally skipped over it. Yeah. All the other girls are so disgusted.
But then Rory has this little smile of like, I'm proud to be a nerd. I don't care what you think. Which, yeah, is really cheesy. That scene is really cheesy. But it tells you what you need to know about Rory. She really likes school and she doesn't mind being a nerd.
Kara: Also, to be perfectly honest, Rory Loving School is about where it ends for me, finding her relatable. Okay.
Adina: We could talk for a long time about Rory as a character and why she's complicated, but that's a whole other podcast. So there's, the stakes are high here because Rory's very excited to be going to Chilton and then Lorelai has to resort to this option that she really doesn't wanna resort to.
And I just, I am not like a film camera description expert, but I think the way they transition into this next scene is really interesting because, They [00:38:00] zoom in on this picture on Lorelai's mantle of her standing in front of this big fancy house, her as a child. Mm-hmm. Standing up for this big fancy house.
Yeah. And then it just dissolves right into her standing in front of that same house in the present day, which we learn is her parents' house. This introduction of Richard and Emily is so interesting. I don't What are, what are your thoughts on, on Richard and Emily's introduction?
Kara: I loved the joke, the joke that kept happening with both of them. So like, Emily opens the door and she's like, "Lorelai, is it Easter already?" Yeah. Which I love because they, they don't see each other that all, they don't see Lorelai or Rory that often. And then like later on, Richard comes in and goes, "what is it Christmas already?" So it's like, I think that's a good setup of how strained things are, I feel like I really felt the strain.
Adina: It tells us like five things all in one line. It tells us that Lorelai hardly ever sees her parents. It tells us that it's strained. [00:39:00] It tells us that Emily and Richard are both a little bit sassy and they're kind of pointing out that they don't see her that often and they're kind of starting the conversation in like a standoffish way instead of being happy to see her.
Yeah, that's just the quality of the writing, I guess. It's like, it's such a smart and efficient and quick and funny way to give us all of that information.
Kara: So I wanted to ask you a question, which is I can't, I, I'm having, since I've seen the whole thing, I was having a lot of issues. Trying to like watch this scene with my, I've never seen this before, so I couldn't tell if we're supposed to dislike Emily and Richard at, at this point because I feel like, I feel like a lot of things we're, we're kind of framing them through like Lorelai or Rory's eyes.
And so you can tell Lorelai has this very complicated relationship with her parents and I guess like later on we get, we get more of a picture into it, but this scene right now, I was like, am I supposed to not like them too?
Adina: You know, I think they're [00:40:00] supposed to be presented as a little bit challenging. I don't think we're being invited to like them right away, but I don't think they're trying to get us to totally dislike them either. I think the word that you used as strained, like I think that's the key thing that Amy Sherman-Palladino is trying to get us to take away from this, this one scene. If we take this one scene on its own, it's not telling us right away that, that Emily and Richard are evil.
It's just telling us that for whatever reason, Their relationship with Lorelai is very strained, and we don't fully know why, yet we find out later in the episode, but as of now, we just know they have a bad relationship. They don't talk much, and it's very strained. The other thing that I find really interesting is that Emily, even though she's sassy about it, Emily still kind of treats it as like, oh, just here for a visit.
Let's talk. Even though it's awkward, small talk. But Richard, when he walks in, he goes, "you need money." He cuts right to the heart of it. So yeah, so basically they say they will give the money for Rory to go to Chilton because they're rich. I don't know if we said this, but Richard and Emily are very rich.
They [00:41:00] can easily afford it, and they would love to pay for Rory's education. But the catch is Emily tells Lorelai, you can only have this money if you agree to come to dinner every Friday night and call me once a week and tell me about your life in Rory's life. Which is like a pretty reasonable condition, I think.
But yeah, can kind of tell from like the way she says it that she's a controlling sort of person, like the way she phrases that as like a distinct condition as opposed to just saying, we wanna see you more often. You can tell a little bit about what sort of person Emily is from that.
Kara: Yeah, and I think that, I feel like this is one of those things that I guess we'll learn about Emily later, but I feel like she just kind of, it's like even if she does do it in such a weird way, like with these conditions that she has, I feel like she really just wants to see Rory more often. And also her daughter. Yeah, it's not unreasonable who literally never comes around. It's like her, her only grandchild.
Adina: It's [00:42:00] not unreasonable what she wants, but I think the way she goes about it is sometimes the way, what caused the friction between her and Lorelai? Yeah, definitely as we'll see, they have a lot of friction between the two of them.
But anyway, Lorelai solved the problem. She went and she talked to her parents. She had to make this agreement, but it's done. She got the money for children if only the episode ended there. Oh, the one other thing I just wanna mention before we go onto the next scene is that the Emily and Richard scene introduces us to another very important thing about Lorelai, which is her pride.
She says, "please don't tell Rory that I borrowed money from you," because she doesn't want Rory to know that she couldn't afford it. So that's gonna be very important later.
But then we go back to Rory. She's cleaning out her locker and then she meets Dean who is a boy.
Kara: Yes. Oh Dean.
Adina: He's a boy and he is very tall.
Kara: He is very tall.
Adina: I don't know what to say about Dean really. The way they connect is that [00:43:00] Rory makes a pop culture reference, and then Dean recognizes it. He says, oh, that's from Rosemary's Baby. And so that's what kind of catches her eye, like, oh, you got my weird reference. Usually only like my mom or somebody would get that because they do that thing where they just insufferably make references every five seconds, which if somebody did that, and like, you can do that with your friends in real life, but if you did that with random people in real life, it's annoying.
Kara: Yeah. And I feel like, I feel like the other thing about it is I feel like enough people have seen Rosemary's Baby. Not that I have, but just the way it's, the way that she looks, acts so, so incredibly surprised that he gets the reference.
Adina: I think it, I think it might be a combination that she's surprised that he gets the reference, so she looks up at him, and then she notices how cute he is. And she gets very overwhelmed. Yeah. That whole scene of like Dean trying to chat her up and she's very awkward, which is one thing I find a little bit relatable about Rory. Like, I like that she's really bad at talking to him. [00:44:00] She has some line, like they start talking and then she agrees to, she, Dean says he's looking for a job and then Rory says she can take him to Miss Patty's, 'cause Miss Patty knows if there's jobs.
So then they go walking around town together and Rory has this one line that's just like, "do you like cakes? We have good cakes here. They're very round." Yes. And then he's like, he's like, yeah, I like cakes. And she's like, "good. Make a note. You wouldn't wanna forget where the round cakes are." Yeah. That bit I do love from this conversation.
Mm-hmm. But yeah, we get this, this scene of them talking to each other and Dean's like, I've been watching you. Not in a creepy way, I just think you're pretty, and I've been noticing you reading and you're so engrossed in your reading that you don't notice what's happening around you, which. I don't love that whole bit because it feels more expositionally than a lot of the other exposition has in the show.
Yeah. 'cause he tells this whole story of how he was watching Rory read, and she like didn't notice that some guy got hit in the face with a ball. And like, I get why that was necessary. 'cause it tells us about Rory [00:45:00] and it also tells us about why Dean likes her. Mm-hmm. But I would say this was one of my less favorite character introductions out of the pilot. 'cause it just, it was less charming and felt more exposition than some of the other ones. What do you think?
Kara: Yeah, I would say so. It was also very hard to watch this scene with my, I've never seen this before. I, I feel like I was a little weird about Dean because there's another scene at the, at the beginning when we meet Lane where he's just standing there.
Adina: Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
Kara: Staring at her as she walks by. So I honestly was, I feel like I was kind of a little weirded out by Dean from the get go.
Adina: Yeah, I think that's another thing that kind of shows how the show's a little bit dated when we watch it now in 2020. 'cause I think when it premiered in 2000, first of all, you just kind of had to have a tall hunky boy character. Like you couldn't, if you were gonna do like a family show on a network, like you had to have that character in the pilot. Otherwise everyone would go, where's the hunky boy? And I also think the [00:46:00] idea that a cute boy was watching her was, was seen as more of like a fun, happy thing that it would be today in 2020, where we see it as creepy today in 2020.
Kara: Him being like, "not in a creepy way." I would then think that's much creepier.
Adina: I think that's just the way perception has changed over the past 20 years. Oh my God. 20 years.
So we meet Dean and like he's very clearly into Rory. It's hard to tell right off the bat if Rory's into him, but she's definitely flustered.
So then we see Lorelai and Rory eating dinner or lunch or something at Luke's. Both of them are very clearly changed by their past couple scenes that have happened to them. Lorelai's kind of, you know, not in a great mood because she had to make that compromise with her parents, but she's like, at least I solved the problem.
She's trying to get Rory excited about Chilton again. 'cause that's what she did it for. And then Rory is now not excited about Chilton anymore because she doesn't wanna leave the cute boy. Yes. I, I [00:47:00] will say one of the things I have trouble with watching this again, is like I sort of buy that as a plot device.
Like Rory becoming hesitant because of Dean, except I don't feel like Dean was shown to be good enough to be worthy of staying.
Kara: I feel that. Also, also, this is the tiniest town ever. She will still see him.
Adina: That's the thing like, like spoilers. But she does go to Chilton and she still does see Dean a lot, even though they go to different schools, like it turns out fine.
But I guess my charitable interpretation of it is that she's just becoming nervous, like in general. And then using that as kind of an excuse to latch onto. Yeah, because like it's normal to feel nervous about going to a new school in the middle of the year.
Kara: Yeah. And she even mentions, oh, but this is far too expensive for you mom. You should like save your money for when you and Sookie open your inn.
Adina: Oh yeah. And she's like, this must be costing you a lot. And then Lorelai says, you have no idea which, ugh. Again, that's [00:48:00] just so efficient. 'cause it reminds us of what both of those characters have at stake and why they're both not gonna back down about this argument. And so they get into a fight, which is great because we've been introduced to these, this mother and daughter that are weirdly close and they never fight. But then somehow in the pilot, the middle of the pilot, we already have them fighting. So that's just good plot development and good plot movement.
I think we're already questioning the things that we had been given about this show. They have this pretty epic fight that starts in the diner and then kind of, they kind of get quiet as they're walking home. And then they walk by Miss Patty, who mentions Rory's male friend, and then Lorelai clicks into, oh, that's why she doesn't wanna go to Chilton because she met a boy.
And then their fight reignites as they walk home and they get into an even bigger blowout when they get home. And now it becomes not just about Chilton, but it becomes about Lole basically. Because she's like, you're 16 and now you're throwing your life away. You're throwing away this opportunity for a boy, which is what I did. I got [00:49:00] pregnant at 16. Don't make the same mistakes I did like a, you're gonna regret it, basically.
And then Rory's like, you don't run my life or something like that. And then it's like, but she's your mom. Well, yeah. Then she plays the mom card. She says, "I know I don't do this often, but right now I'm playing the mom card. You're going to Chilton because I say so." And that ends their argument in a very unhappy place. But it does end the argument. And then there's that moment where both of them are really upset and like slam their doors and they both put on the same song to listen to what they're, I love that.
Kara: It's like, it's so silly because it's like, think that something that we see throughout the series is that when Rory and Lorelai have their disagreements, it's because they are so similar. It's like they're really just clashing. And I, I think I like that moment a lot where they say they play the same song because it's basically just showing like they're so similar.
Adina: Yeah. It's a great moment. And yeah, I think. The way this conflict was set up is so smart because it's [00:50:00] that whole thing about Lorelai not wanting Rory, like wanting Rory to be like her, but also not wanting Rory to go down the same path that she did. And like wanting to give Rory freedom, but also trying to be a good mom. Like she's right, like Lorelai is right in the scenario. Rory is gonna be better off mm-hmm. If she goes to Chilton than if she stays because of a boy. It's true. But it's hard for her to be that mom who, who says, you're doing this because I said so, and she doesn't like fighting with Rory, but she ultimately does it.
And then obviously the other thing that's, that's also at stake is Lorelai can't back down because she already made this commitment to her parents. About the money. So that's another thing playing into Lorelai's state of mind because she's already given up so much for this decision that she can't have Rory back out on it now.
So then we get a really brief scene of like Lorelai talking to Sookie being like, I'm still fighting with Rory, but we never fight. Like I don't know how we're gonna get past it, [00:51:00] just to tell us that they're still fighting basically. And then we go into the Friday night dinner scene. Yeah.
So for those of you that know Gilmore Girls, you obviously know that Friday night dinner becomes a very staple routine of the show because of this deal that Lorelai made with the parents. She has to keep going there for dinner every Friday night as long as Rory goes to Chilton. And it's where a lot of the drama of the show happens because it's Lorelai and Rory together with Richard and Emily, and they're always fighting about something. It doesn't matter what's going on, they always find something to fight about.
But this is the very first one and they're starting it off on a bad note already. 'cause Lorelai and Rory aren't talking to each other. But Lorelai says, "just please try and be civil through dinner." Rory still doesn't know why they're having dinner with the grandparents, so for her, it's just very out of left field.
And then they, they go in. So this is the first time we get to see Richard and Emily talking to Rory. And they love her. They love Rory. They think she's basically the perfect grandchild. They're very excited [00:52:00] to, to like see her because they don't get to see her very often. I love Richard's reaction to her.
He just goes, yes, you are tall. "How tall are you? Five seven? Emily. She's tall."
Kara: Yeah. I love that. I, I did write that down as a, as a line I thought was really funny.
Adina: Things start off kind of okay, still tense, but nothing blows up yet. Yeah. Like you can tell that no one's that happy, but they're getting through it and then they sit down to dinner and things start to go a little bit awry because I think it's actually Richard who starts making the passive aggressive comments.
'cause he asks Lorelai "how are things at the motel?" And she corrects him. It's an inn, not a motel. And then it's also like, it was surprising to me to watch this again and realize that it is Richard who really ignites things and not Emily. 'cause I feel like we, we tend to think of Emily as being the one who's really undermining. But Richard is the one who's really mean to Lorelai at first. 'cause he also brings up [00:53:00] Christopher. We don't quite know who Christopher is at first, but he says Christopher's doing very well and then turns to Rory and says something like, your father is going to be a very successful man. So we learn that, oh, that's Rory's dad, who's clearly not in the picture, but he's off somewhere being successful. And Lorelai gets very upset at the mention of him. And storms off into the kitchen.
Kara: Yeah. I, I do think it's interesting that, that Richard did start being weird at first because like you said before, I feel like we all kind of think, oh, Emily's the one that did it. And I feel like I've been trying to think about it. Richard, I feel like is very wishy-washy on Christopher throughout, like, yeah.
Adina: That was also surprising to me that he said nice things about Christopher right off the bat. 'cause I was like, doesn't he hate Christopher?
Kara: Yeah. It's like, I feel like it was very passive aggressive and then I feel like, I feel like I'm watching this with my, I I've seen this too many times eyes now. Yeah. Because I feel like it felt passive aggressive. And I do [00:54:00] get why Lorelai was upset, but I also still felt like it was maybe an overreaction, but who am I to say? Because I don't know what that's like.
Adina: Well, Lorelai, she gets up and storms out, but I, I got the sense that she's doing that to try and avoid blowing up in his face. So she's like trying to self-regulate. One of my favorite things about the whole episode is she gets up and she goes to the kitchen and starts washing dishes, which I just think is a really great coping mechanism. 'cause it's interesting. It's not what you expect to see her doing. You expect to see her like lighting a cigarette or like pacing or something.
But you cut to the kitchen and she's in there scrubbing at the dishes. And also, like, it's not fully mentioned, but like, I have to wonder if that has to do with like her past, 'cause she, oh, we do learn it in this episode that she worked as a maid after running away from home. Yeah. So like, she's done, she's done a lot of like manual labor and like blue collar work in her life, which her parents definitely have never done.
And so for her, that's kind of something she takes comfort in is doing something like washing the [00:55:00] dishes. Whereas for Emily, it's like, that's so embarrassing. Why are you washing the dishes?
Kara: Yeah. I also think that, I feel like this sets up this, this also the conversation to come sets up this whole interesting dynamic with how Lorelai feels about money. Because you can tell that she feels very uncomfortable about the fact that she grew up comfortable. It's like she like actively hates it. And it seems like, I think maybe that's another reason she avoids talking to her parents because they're still so steeped in their wealth and they li they enjoy doing that and that's just, yeah. She doesn't like it.
Adina: Yeah, that's a good point. And this, this next scene when Emily comes into the kitchen to get her is actually where we get like 70% of the backstory of the entire show. Mm-hmm. It's another case of like real efficiency. This entire argument is basically just Lorelai and Emily talking about Lola's entire childhood and past.
But they get that information to us in an interesting way because they're fighting about it. You can tell from the way they argue that yes, they're saying things [00:56:00] they both already know, which normally is like bad writing when you have characters saying things they both already know. But in this case it works because you get the sense that they've had this same argument.
So many times, yeah, they probably have the same argument every single time they see each other. But it also works really, really well to tell us the audience what the past is here. Because like you, you get the sense from it. Like they definitely talk about this all the time and they never get anywhere new with it.
But they still have this same fight about Lorelai got pregnant, ran away from home, ruined her whole future, and then Lorelai fires back like "you were stifling. I didn't like it here. I built a life for myself. I didn't need help from anybody." So that pride thing comes back and that's one of my favorite, one of my favorite moments of the whole episode is Lorelai says, I got where I am without any help, which like is impressive. She raised a child on her own. She owns a house as a single mother. She has a great job. That is impressive. Emily fires back. 'Yes. And think of where you'd be if you had accepted a [00:57:00] little help." Whoa.
Kara: Yeah, it's it's a moment where, You get to see how both of the characters feel about it. And that's, it's the moment where you really get to see why their relationship is so complicated.
Which is another interesting thing. And I, that's one of the things I really like about this scene a lot is they see the world so differently and everyone in the, all of the Gilmores are so, so stubborn. They're like, you have to see it my way, or There's no other way. That's kind of how there are a lot of their arguments go, which is what probably sparked Lorelai leaving. But I also really like that you can see how it really act. Like you can kind of tell that Emily is hurt by the fact that Lorelai just kind of up and up and left.
Adina: Yeah, yeah. Which, yeah, it's not just that she wanted to control Lorelai, which is part of it. Like she wanted yeah, her daughter's life to go a certain way so she could be proud of her. But it's also that she was hurt because her daughter left her and cut [00:58:00] off all contact. And like that's another thing that I like when we get to see that later in the series. Yeah. There's a few moments in a few different episodes where you really get to see Richard and Emily, but mostly Emily's like true level of hurt that when she realizes like how much she failed her daughter.
And she never really says that, because she's also very proud and would never like admit that she failed and that it was her fault. But you get little moments where you get to see that she's very hurt and upset that things turned out that way between her and Lorelai. Mm-hmm. That fight I think is just a really great scene.
Yeah, for sure. And then it cuts to Richard and Rory sitting in the dining room and they can hear everything. They just hear all the shouting from the other room and they're sitting there in silence and you get to see Rory's reaction when she hears that Lorelai came and begged for money. 'cause that's the first time Rory is learning of it.
And you can see the change on her face immediately when she gets that piece of information. And I also love after the argument when [00:59:00] they come back out and Richard's just asleep. I mean, it started this whole fight. It was all his fault, and now he's just asleep.
Kara: Yeah, that's why, that's why it's like, I feel like I had, I couldn't decide, I, I couldn't decide whether or not I was supposed to, like who I was, how I was supposed to feel about these characters, because I felt like one, they would do something where I'd be like, oh, that's so rude. But then they'd do something super funny the next moment.
Adina: I think, again, I think that's one of the strengths of the show and the writing is that they give you challenging characters. They, but they don't give you villains. There's like, there are characters that do things I disagree with for sure, but I think they do a good job of showing where every character's coming from and also giving every character some moments when they're being insufferable, but also some moments when you really love them.
So there's nobody that you're like, "oh my God, get this person off my tv. I hate this person. I will never sympathize with them." Like, even when you're feeling very frustrated with Richard or Emily or, or Lorelai or [01:00:00] Rory, you still, there's still enough redeeming moments for all of them.
So then that's the end of the Friday night dinner. And now that Rory has learned the truth about where the money came from, she has a moment where she apologizes to Lorelai. She's like, "I'm, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you did all of this to get the money. And I realized you're right. Like, I will go to Chilton. I'm sorry for being annoying about it", which is good. Like, that's pretty mature of her to be able to, to apologize in that situation.
Yeah. And then that's almost the end of the episode. Then there's just the one more scene of them going back to Luke's and they order coffee and chili fries after dinner and they kind of apologize to each other and they're back to their normal state.
And Lorelai asks Rory, oh, tell me about the boy. Luke, the, the last line of the episode, which I'll just get outta the way 'cause it's kind of cheesy. Luke says, "don't eat this crap Rory, or you'll turn out like your mother." And then she goes "too late," and then credits roll, which like is a great ending for the pilot, given that that's the premise of the show.
But it also is very [01:01:00] cheesy,
Kara: That is so cheesy. Okay. And I feel like it might've been cheesy back in, what, what was it? 2000, 2000. 2001? Yeah. Yeah. 2000. I would've found that cheesy in 2000. I was four.
Adina: It is the pilot, you know, it's fine. I understand. But the thing I really wanted to talk about from that scene is they show Luke in a button up shirt and not with his baseball cap.
And Lorelai has a reaction to that. She says like, why are you all dressed up? And he says, I had a meeting at the bank. Mm-hmm. And then she kind of reacts to him being dressed that way. Which to me is a weird scene on, for a couple of reasons. If you've seen much of Gilmore Girls, you know that Luke is pretty much always in the same outfit, which is some kind of flannel and a baseball cap. He wears that all the time. There's very few scenes when he's not wearing that, but one of them is in the pilot. Why do you think Amy Sherman-Palladino decided it was important for us to see Luke in a different outfit in the pilot?
Kara: Huh? Wow. That's a good question because in my, [01:02:00] because now that you've said the thing that he was just gonna be a side character, this seems random, huh?
Because this was a scene where, this was a scene when I watched it originally. I do remember being like at the, at the very end of the episode when she like commented on his outfit, I was like, oh, okay. I ship this. But hearing that he wasn't necessarily supposed to be on the show all that much, it does feel slightly out of place.
Adina: Yeah. So I wonder, because my reaction to it is it also felt like it was supposed to be like a ship building moment. Like suggest that he's going to be a love interest. And I wonder if maybe, maybe like as they were working on the pilot, they decided to make him a regular, so then they added that scene like as they were working on the pilot?
Maybe. Yeah. 'cause I can't think of, I agree with you that I can't think why they would do that if he was just gonna be a guest character. A not love, trust. Yeah. But the other reason it's strange to me, which is shallow, but whatever is, I [01:03:00] don't think he looks good in that outfit. I think he looks better in his flannel, frankly.
Yeah. I do like a lot of sense as like a moment to be attracted to him.
Kara: Yeah, I agree. I feel like, I feel like Luke is at most attractive in his backwards baseball cap and his, yeah. Plaid
Adina: and like he has some moments in later seasons. Spoiler alert, if you haven't seen Gilmore Girls, but after he starts dating Lorelai, when she gets him some nice clothes and proper clothes, like he has a couple sweaters that he looks good in, but that button down, it's just really not flattering to him and his hair. Like you can just really tell his hair is thinning. It's not styled well. It's not a good look for him.
Kara: But I also think that that kind of adds to how Luke sees himself and what he feels the most comfortable in. Because he does look, he does look kind of uncomfortable because when he mentions that the bank prefers collars or whatever he has, he's like, I couldn't, 'cause it's like that's, I guess that's true about banks, that they, people don't take you seriously at a bank if you don't dress properly.
Adina: But yeah, that was, that [01:04:00] was one question that really struck me as I was watching it again, I was like, that's weird that that scene is in the pilot.
Kara: Very interesting. But I do like that they end, I do kind of like that they end at Luke's because they're literally always at Luke's, and I feel like it establishes how important the diner is to them, and you also kind of see how important Luke is to them and how important they are to him in a way.
Adina: Yeah. Yeah, I think I definitely agree. I love that it starts and ends at Luke's because it is one of the most important settings in the series. And also this is a thought I'm just having now. I feel like they really did a great job of characterizing what each of those essential locations means to the series in this first episode.
'cause they showed us, Luke's is where we get kind of our fun moments with Rory and Lorelai, but also maybe some real moments with them too. It shows us that at the Gilmore's house is where we're gonna get a lot of drama intention, which is what we always get there. Mm-hmm. It shows us that Mrs. Kim and Kim's antiques is gonna represent kind of a foil to Rory and [01:05:00] Lorelai's House.
Yeah, it shows us the Independence Inn. It shows like Lorelai thriving, basically her thriving and her work life and her friendship with Sookie. Like it really characterized all the essential locations as much as it did the characters, which I think is really good.
Kara: Yeah, and I feel like, yeah, the locations really do make this show.. I feel like this is one of those shows where I think about the locations as much as I think about the characters.
Adina: Yeah. 'cause the Town of Stars Hollow is a very important aspect to this series. I feel like we didn't actually talk about that that much yet. It's a real small town that Amy Sherman-Palladino visited while she was trying to write the series. And then she thought, this is fun and this is quirky, and it's like 3000 people and their form of government is town meetings. And that's basically why she decided to set the series in a town like that.
And one of the things actually that I, one of my next questions I was gonna ask is, because we have seen the whole series, what are your thoughts on things that you think are iconic to the series that weren't [01:06:00] shown that much in the pilot?
And for me, I feel like there wasn't as much of Stars Hollow in the pilot as I almost expected there to be. Like, they obviously go on to characterize the town a lot, but I felt like a lot of the things that I think of as iconic were not really shown yet. They're like town meetings and like a lot of the other quirky locations in the town, a lot of the key characters like Taylor and Kirk just don't exist yet. But like they will.
Kara: And Taylor got a mention 'cause Ms. Patty does mention him.
Adina: Oh she does, yeah. She mentions Doose's Market. So you get the sense that it's a little bit of a quirky town, but not as much as you later go on to find out how quirky it is. It was only a small taste.
Kara: Yeah. I feel like my, my favorite thing about Gilmore Girls is Stars Hollow and the residents of Stars Hollow. Like I would never wanna live there myself, but they're such silly people. Honestly, I think the side characters are some of my favorites and I kind of get that there really is no pla there really, even though as I'm thinking about it, I don't feel like there's really a place for [01:07:00] like a town meeting or a chance for us to meet many of them.
I do love the side characters. They're my favorite. I love Kirk.
Adina: But I mean, it's also kind of nice I guess, that we don't get all of that in the pilot. 'cause it leaves room for the show to grow. As we get to know it, it lets the world kind of slowly grow and expand. As we get to know each new character, we then get to meet Lorelai's neighbors, Babette and Maury, who are super weird. Yeah. And then we get to meet a town meeting and we get to meet Taylor who kind of runs the town and then we get to meet, there's other businesses in town and there's a town troubadour and you kind of get that slowly doled out to you over the season. So it keeps the interest.
Kara: Yeah, I definitely think we met a lot of characters in the pilot, so it would've been overload to have some more.
Adina: Are there like other, other things that you think of as like iconic Gilmore Girls things that weren't really in the pilot?
Kara: Hmm. I'm thinking, well, it does, it makes sense that we didn't get any Chilton in the pilot. I feel like the things that weren't in the pilot were things that it makes sense to me why they weren't there. Besides [01:08:00] like, I would've loved to see more of Stars Hollow, but I get why we didn't.
Adina: I thought of Chilton as well slash Paris. Just, Paris has a character who becomes a series regular throughout the entire series, but we can't meet her yet because she's at Chilton and we're not there yet. The other things I was thinking of is it didn't dwell much on Lorelai's love life, which does become a major, major thread in the series. . It talked about Rory's love life and like maybe got that weird flirty scene with Luke, but not really. Mm-hmm. And it didn't talk much about lo lie dating or wanting to date somebody, which I'm okay with. I don't think they necessarily should have. But yeah, I just found it interesting that that wasn't really brought up at all in the pilot, but I think it was the right call though, because she had enough other things going on, and I feel like trying to shoehorn in stuff about her love life, it would've felt awkward.
Kara: I think Pilot was like, the biggest thing they wanted to show was like, this is this woman and she is a mom and she is working. And she does not wanna take money from her parents, but she must. Yeah. So I feel like those were the things we [01:09:00] wanted from her for this.
Adina: Yeah, I think it's, I think the pilot is a really good, the main focus of the pilot is setting up Lorelai as a character, honestly. Like, yes. Her relationship with, with Rory, but mostly Lorelai as a character. Sure. And yeah, for sure. Even though though they both go on to be main characters, like Lorelai always carries it a little bit more, I think because she is an adult and like Rory's plot lines are mostly just about her going to school, which is only so interesting.
Yeah. But Lorelai gets to make actual life decisions, so I think it was a smart choice to have it be more focused on establishing Lorelai, because if we as an audience can get on board with her, even if we don't always like her, but if we can get invested in her as a character, then we'll stick around for the series.
Kara: And watching it again. I feel like now, as a person who has trouble watching much of gilmore Girls over at this point in my life, this, the pilot still really holds up. It does a really good job [01:10:00] establishing everything. And I did watch more than one episode during that lockdown we had freshman year, so I do know I kept watching.
Adina: Yeah. So, yeah, I guess that that is the fundamental test for a pilot is after watching this first episode, would you wanna keep watching the show? So for you it's clearly a yes. Yes, because I did for me, like, I, I can't technically answer that because I just grew up seeing random episodes like out of order. It was never like I started with the first episode and then made a conscious decision. But I think if I watch this today, I would, I would keep watching, like, yeah, it's clearly, it's the, the quality of the writing is clearly high. Like I can tell. The writer knows what she's doing. I can tell she's gonna write good dialogue.
That's something like we didn't even talk about much because I feel like everyone already kind of knows it, but maybe we should mention like Amy Sherman-Palladino has a very specific style Yeah. Of dialogue that anyone who's watched her shows knows it's very fast paced, it's very wordy. There's a lot of pop [01:11:00] culture references, and her scripts typically are one and a half to two times the length of other scripts for the same length of show because she just packs in so many words.
And then just, she literally tells the actors they have to talk faster in order to get all those words in. Like, like actors on her shows have said they're, they had to practice talking fast and she also like demands that it's always word perfect and it's a very distinct style. Yeah, for sure. Which is not how anybody talks in real life, but it is kind of fun to watch.
Kara: It's like, It's real life, but then because of the way they're talking, it's like heightened real life.
Adina: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, and I think it's interesting on Gilmore Girls especially because another quote that I found from Amy Sherman-Palladino talking about the show is she talked about she wanted to focus on family relationships, especially because there's always drama there. No. Like you never solve the drama with your family, it's always gonna come back. Mm-hmm. But also, she didn't want the plot to be too, like event heavy. She [01:12:00] wrote something about like, I, "I'm very stingy with events." She wanted the pace of events to be very slow, but to find the drama in small everyday things.
And I think doing that, but then pairing it with a very heightened dialogue actually works super well because it, you take something that shouldn't be that interesting on its own, but then you find the interest with the dialogue and the character interactions and the picking a part of the details.
And like on that note, another thing like, remember we were gonna, one of the things we were gonna talk about is like pretend we hadn't seen this show before. What do we think based on this pilot is gonna happen in the first season? So, for me, one of the things I would expect if I, if I hadn't seen Gilmore Girls that line about Lorelai and Sookie wanting to open an inn, if that happened in the first episode of a show, I would kind of assume they're gonna be trying to open their inn by the end of the first season.
And maybe the first season finale, it's gonna be them opening it. But having watched Gilmore Girls, spoiler alert, they don't do that until season four. Mm-hmm. [01:13:00] They start working on it as early as like season two and they start planning and it takes a really long time, which is kind of realistic, I think.
Yeah. But I also think a lot of other TV shows would try and get to that a lot faster. But then I, I thought that was interesting that, that Amy's philosophy is kind of make it go slow, find the drama in every single part of it instead of just jumping to the end.
Kara: Yeah. That's really interesting. I actually like that a lot. That's like a good thing to stick to. And I feel like I, like as a myself, as a writer, I like, I also like those just little moments. I mostly write comedy, so I feel like the way that I like to get my jokes across is to just have like little moments of the characters just doing something completely normal and then like one of them will say something really silly.
Adina: That does happen a lot on Gilmore Girls. Even though a lot of the dialogue is not like things that I would really say to people, some of it is very realistic.
Kara: One of my favorite scenes in [01:14:00] Gilmore Girls is So there's this like running joke that Miss Patty's punch is the strongest punch on the planet, and you should not have that much of it. So there's this one scene where Rory, Paris and Lane are all really mad at their boyfriends and they're all really drunk on Miss patty's punch. So they're like screaming and kind of like really erratically emotional about it. And Paris literally has no shoes on and she just goes running around looking for a phone because she's like, "I have to call my boyfriend. I have to call him." It is so silly, but it's like I can totally see that happening and like to anyone.
Adina: Paris is such a great character. And now I can also share another fun fact, which is that Liza Whale who plays Paris. She originally auditioned for the role of Rory and was decided she wasn't right for it. But then the role of Paris was written specifically for her. Wow. So that's power. That's so cool.
And I mean, and she does a great job with that character, so like, yeah, it makes sense. But mm-hmm. Yeah, she, she got [01:15:00] that series regular job and stayed with the show for all seven seasons and it was written for her. So good for power.
So, so our final stance on Gilmore Girls, based on this pilot, we would keep watching. We would watch again.
Kara: Yeah, we would keep watching. Definitely.
Adina: I think it's a very excellent pilot. For all the reasons we've said. And there are di divided opinions about where the series went after that. But that's another podcast that's not this one right now.
Kara: Thanks for listening. We wanna hear from you now. If you have any thoughts about the Gilmore Girls Pilot you'd like to share with us or suggestions for shows we should watch, you can email us at itsinmyqueuepod@gmail.com. In future episodes, we hope to share and call out some listener comments from the email. So don't hold back,
Adina: and in case you want to prepare for the next episode discussion with us, the next pilot we will be watching is Glee. So go ahead and watch or rewatch that episode so you'll [01:16:00] be ready for our thoughts on it next week.
Kara: If you like what you heard, please rate, review, subscribe, and tell your friends to listen. You can also follow us on Twitter @inmyqueuepod or on our personal Twitters.
Adina: I am @adinaterrific..
Kara: And I am at Kara with three a's underscore Powell. Thanks for listening, and we hope we've helped you clear out your queue.