Rory Goes To Chilton

(Season 1, Episode 1-4)

We’ve come to the first four episodes of Gilmore Girls’ Season One, the main events of which are Rory going to Chilton Prepatory Academy and the new dynamic she and Lorelai suddenly have with Emily and Richard Gilmore, their wealthy and emotionally distant forbears.

It can’t be underestimated how impressive these early episodes are from a writing standpoint. So many shows just try things out with their characters in the first episode and the first season, so shows often look markedly different between the first season and the second, provided they get that far. Gilmore Girls’ characters are well-formed and well-presented, flaws and all, but we’ll get to that.

Pilot (Originally aired on October 5, 2000)

We find out so much about Lorelai, Rory, and their world just in the first five minutes. Lorelai loves coffee and drinks it constantly. She’s quick-witted and has a lively rapport with Luke Danes, the diner owner, who seems to know her really well. She also has a witty repartee with her daughter, Rory, who is revealed to be sixteen when two guys try to pick them up (she’s actually fifteen, but whatever). Lorelai and Rory share everything, including makeup and music taste.

When Rory gets into Chilton and Lorelai decides to ask her parents for money, we learn another slew of facts in a short amount of time. Emily and Richard conduct themselves almost like royalty, they resent that Lorelai left home to raise her daughter by herself, and they only see their daughter and granddaughter on holidays. Friday night dinners are a huge change in this relationship.

Also, has anyone seen the unaired pilot? It’s about ten minutes shorter than the one we all know and some of the actors are different. Spoiler alert: Rory’s future boyfriend Dean is kind of a creeper in his original form and Alex Borstein as Sookie is a little too jaded for the character’s good. Thank goodness these roles were recast.

The Lorelai’s First Day At Chilton (Original air date: October 12, 2000)

Ah, new beginnings. Lorelai and Rory’s first day at Chilton gets off to an interesting time when Lorelai’s alarm clock doesn’t purr on time and she has to rush off in a T-shirt and shorts. Everyone notices, of course. Emily tries to engineer Rory’s experience by outfitting her in all the Chilton gear, including a parking space at the school. Rory doesn’t have a car, but who cares? Lorelai balks at all of it, of course, especially the DSL.

Rory starts to rethink her life choice when the boys call her “Mary,” a girl named Paris gets in her way, and one of the teachers hands Rory a binder full of notes the size of an Oxford English dictionary.

Lots of debuts in this episode, but here goes: Jackson, Babette, Morey, Paris, Madeline, Louise, Tristan, Headmaster Charleston, Headmaster Charleston’s secretary, and Sean Gunn, only he’s called Mitch instead of Kirk.

Kill Me Now (Original air date: October 19, 2000)

Fore! In more ways than one. While Rory and Richard go golfing at the club, Lorelai is embroiled in planning a wedding for identical twin divas who are marrying identical twin brothers (One has to wonder what their kids are going to look like). The ladies fight and argue, their mother is frazzled, and Lorelai is cool as a cucumber, although she does stagger into Luke’s one day and demand a giant cheeseburger. We can only presume the wedding is on a weekday, given the timing of everything.

This is where we see Lorelai and Rory’s world really begin to merge with Emily and Richard’s and the nice rapport between Rory and Richard kicks off. We also see just how unconventional Rory and Lorelai’s relationship is (Who argues about bra size with their own mother?).

On a side note, look for Melendy Britt, best known as the voice of the original She-Ra, in a cameo role. We first see her driving a golf cart and everyone refers to her as “the most odious woman alive” behind her back. Oh, and Sean Gunn also has a tiny role as the guy who delivers the swans for the wedding.

The Deer Hunters (Original air date: October 26, 2000)

Are there real private schools like Chilton? I don’t know because I’ve never been to one, but Chilton is quite the adjustment for Rory, who’s woefully behind in her new house of academia. How these students find time to take reams of notes in every class period is a mystery, but none of them seem to break a sweat.

Rory is shocked and bummed when she gets a D on a paper, and in a desperate bid to redeem herself, she stays up all night cramming for a Shakespeare test, after which she oversleeps and a deer hits the family Jeep.

This is when Chilton English teacher Max Medina makes his debut, and those of us who are familiar with the series know where that goes, but more to come later.

Four more episodes next week, of course…

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Gilmore Girls is currently streaming on Netflix and Hulu. Rated TV-PG.

My grade: (Season, 1, Episodes 1-4): A

Principal Cast: Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Keiko Agena, Scott Patterson, Yanic Truesdale, Kelly Bishop, Edward Herrmann, Melissa McCarthy, Sean Gunn, Liza Weil, Liz Torres, Jared Padalecki, Matt Czuchry, Milo Ventimiglia, Jackson Douglas, Michael Winters, Sally Struthers, Emily Kuroda, Todd Lowe

Series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino.