All the errant observations this writer made while watching the first episode of Netflix’s Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Hi, my name is Selina. A year ago, I had never seen a single episode of Gilmore Girls.
But one of the bright spots of 2016, for me, was the decision we made on Hypable’s flagship podcast Hype when we found out that Netflix was reuniting the cast and crew for a series of revival episodes: We decided to watch and podcast about all seven seasons of the series in order to prepare for A Year in the Life, and we just made it!
Now I’m watching the revival episodes, and believe it or not, but I’m still spoiler-free, having only watched and podcasted about “Winter” so far. You can listen to that discussion right here:
While I was watching the original run of Gilmore Girls, I would often take to Twitter to entertain/annoy (annoytertain?) my followers by sharing my immediate reactions to everything that happened. Obviously, that wouldn’t be very nice of me to do for “Winter,” since some fans might not have watched it yet, so I decided to save all my immediate reactions for later! And now is that later.
Here are all the 55 things I wanted to tweet during the first episode of the ‘Gilmore Girls‘ revival
- …Is Lorelai dead? What’s with this scary dark opening montage?
- WAIT, ARE THERE NO OPENING CREDITS? But I wanted to sing along! ?
- Rory’s voice is different. I can’t really SEE that she’s gotten older, but I can hear it. Weird.
- What’s with the creepy ballet music — is that Miss Patty?! ?
- Does the out-of-focus ballet studio with the very dark interior represent death? Why do I keep thinking about death?
- Not gonna lie, I fully expected Dean to still be working in Doose’s market. It’s weird how everything feels exactly the same, except the characters have just aged 10 years overnight. Of course this might also be because I literally finished the original series a week ago.
- Hey! It’s Lane! …In Stars Hollow, which means she’s probably not a famous rock star like I’d hoped she would be. ?
- “Ooooooooooober.” ? (Also, Kirk having a pet pig is the best thing that has ever happened to me.)
- You know… I was wondering if Paul Anka would still be alive. I’m glad he is.
- I’m also relieved Rory’s room is still her room. (Though I guess my theory about Lorelai and Luke already having a second kid was wrong.)
- …Wait, Paul? There’s a Paul now? Okay, #TeamPaul I guess.
- Ugh! Paul saying “I will follow” is just a sad reference to the missing opening credits. #TeamPaul is cancelled.
- Rory’s reaction to Paul saying they have a two-year anniversary is pretty awful. Stringing him on like that is just cruel. And buy some damn underwear wtf is wrong with you Rory.
- Happy sigh. I love how settled and content Luke and Lorelai are. (This revival better not break them up I stg.)
- “Do you think it’s because of grandpa?” ? I was wondering if they’d show the funeral, but I guess it’s been a little while.
- I really want that giant fridge bow.
- “People are dumb” would 100% be my LiveJournal signature if I still had a LiveJournal.
- Clearly, the only sensible way to deal with someone’s ridiculous “you need to control your woman”-comments is to throw bagels at them.
- OMG Paul! I totally DID forget about him just now — and then I forgot about him again when he went to the bathroom! This is brilliant.
- Michel having a husband is wonderful in its understated glory and I almost don’t want to say anything about it because it should just be a natural un-noteworthy thing. But it’s nice to (finally?!) see that non-straight sexualities exist inside the snow globe, as something other than the butt of a joke, so yay.
- I know Lorelai is acting out because she misses Sookie and all, but we’re 100% supposed to make the parallel between Lorelai’s attitude towards the auditioning chefs and Emily’s attitude towards her string of maids here, right?
- Revelation: Maybe Emily once had a maid friend like Sookie and she quit, and she’s been firing maids ever since cause it just was never the same? This is a prequel waiting to happen.
- Kirk singing in the car. Lorelai’s little smile. The water jug. Everything about this scene is my favorite. For some reason it feels like the revival didn’t really find itself until this moment — and it feels a little like home. I’m so happy I found this fandom.
- Confession: I didn’t realize Emily wasn’t speaking to Lorelai at all in this scene when I first watched it because I’m so used to Emily ignoring Lorelai’s quips and snapping at her.
- “This is what I want.” “I swear it can’t be!” Alright Lorelai. You know I’m team you always, but who cares if Emily made a mistake? Back off, the painting isn’t even that big.
- Oh, so they are showing the funeral. I wasn’t prepared for this. ?
- The juxtaposition of Emily alone and Rory/Lorelai together says so much about the show. Also the camera pan ending on Lorelai just hammers home that at the end of the day, she’s the show’s central POV character. Am I wrong?
- Well, Digger must be Paul’s dad cause I totally forgot he existed, too. Oops.
- I bet his dog didn’t live to see the revival, what with being confined to a life staring into a wall and all. #stillmadaboutit
- I always loved Luke, but nervous house fixing in this scene just makes me love him even more.
- What is with this maid storyline? We really should have moved beyond pulling stereotypes for laughs like this, Gilmore Girls.
- This might be the closest we’ve ever gotten to an Emily/Lorelai hug…? And it’s so sad cause of what is probably gonna happen next.
- …Oh, Lorelai. On one hand, it would be nice for her to take the high ground in this scene and swallow her own feelings to give Emily a nice moment. On the other, I totally get it. Lorelai just lost her father, and she’s feeling a wealth of conflicting emotions, all heightened by her being drunk and tired. One of my favorite things about the show is that it allows its characters to be flawed — their flaws are not traits they need to atone for, but just part of what makes them complex humans. And I actually loved that she did the ‘wrong’ thing here. Because sometimes, people say crap they shouldn’t say and immediately regret it afterwards. That’s life.
- “What did you mean to do, Lorelai, break my heart in public?” speaks volumes about Emily’s egocentric personality. It’s not only about your pain, have some compassion.
- “I just lost my husband.” “I just lost my father!” “And you couldn’t care less.” Wow. Just wow, Emily. Yes, both Lorelai and Emily are hurting and both of them are clearly in the wrong here… But if you’re making the argument that Emily can’t be expected to act rationally in this situation, you have to make the same allowance for Lorelai. To me, the difference is that Lorelai immediately is sorry for hurting Emily, and actually acknowledges her mother’s pain, whereas Emily completely dismisses the validity of Lorelai’s perspective, and eviscerates her completely without remorse. Just like always. ? #fightme #nodontfightme #thisisjusthowIfeelaboutit
- So anyway… does the ambiance foley feel too loud to anyone else?
- Note to self: “That’s the kid” is not a great way of telling someone you want to have a kid with them.
- Is having a kid at 48 too late? Of course not! Plenty of men have kids at that stage in their lives so women should, too. As long as Lorelai doesn’t want a kid just because she thinks Luke wants one, this would be great!
- lol Paris, it’s pretty rich to condemn studying Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s effect on the feminist agenda considering you literally married bizarro!verse Jonathan.
- Would Neil Patrick Harris be okay with children that didn’t look good on camera? I mean, it’d really ruin his Halloween photo op tradition.
- RIVER SONG! No one told me River Song was in this! She’s even stealing food from the “darling Doctor,” you guys.
- Ooh who’s Rory talking to? Ugh, it’s Logan isn’t it? I was hoping it’d be Jess or Dean, that would have been a way more fun surprise.
- Don’t get me wrong, Logan is fine, but I’m beginning to feel like Rory hasn’t evolved at all in the past 10 years and this just adds to that weirdness.
- “There are two arm-wrestling breeders here” is an amazing out-of-context quote.
- Taylor’s devotion to Stars Hollow and his rant in the diner made me realize that I really haven’t appreciated him enough. ? And I think Luke realized the same thing. That scene was very cute!
- Is that lady singing on the street someone I should know?
- Zack has a whole Doc Brown from Back to the Future thing going on these days, huh?
- Okay so Hep Alien is NOT a superfamous rock band, which makes me sad. On the other hand, it’s wonderful to see them still going strong!
- Hmmmmm Rory isn’t telling Lorelai about Logan. Is she embarrassed?
- To be honest, I haven’t been a Gilmore Girls fan for long enough to truly appreciate the magnitude of Emily wearing jeans.
- I appreciate Lorelai saying “nothing is gonna bring you joy right now” and wanting her to not make decisions right now based on her current emotional state, because it’s just really useful bereavement advice.
- Oh Emily, why you gotta throw another dig at Lorelai about the validity of her and Luke’s relationship and prove my point further? I really want to understand why everyone seems to love you.
- So, I’m not sure how to feel about the surrogate situation right now. It feels like Lorelai actually DOES want a kid and is sad it’s not happening? Will it happen? I guess this a mystery that “Spring” will have to clear up for me.
- It makes me so sad that Lorelai is so happy and grateful for Emily saying thank you… and then Emily is just conning her into therapy sessions. #EmilyWhy
- Cute ending song, but WHERE IS MY THEME MUSIC? Oh well, maybe next season!
Follow Hype Podcast on Twitter to catch our discussion of episode 2, “Spring,” and read Hypable’s full Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life review.
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