Gilmore Girls: Kiss and Tell Rewatch

November 13, 2014 9:35 PM - Season 1, Episode 7

Rory gets kissed and Lorelei loses it. Then Dean gets invited over and Rory loses it.

They watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and get to know each other better.

posted by Margalo Epps (7 comments total)

I'm afraid once your heart is involved, it all comes out in moron.

That's in the running for my favorite quote from the series, and I find it to be far too applicable in my life.
posted by PearlRose at 8:08 AM on November 14, 2014 [3 favorites]

I love how Lorelei suggested everything when she realized she messed up, but Rory finally admitted there wasn't actually anything that could fix it. I think Lorelei has a really hard time trying to be a different kind of mother from her mom; she doesn't have a role model for what to do.

Some of my favorite exchanges:
Luke: "So you passed the need for an actual person to talk to several minutes ago."
Lorelei: "Oh yeah, before the gelato stand."
Luke: "You're an amazing woman."
Lorelei: "Thank you for noticing."

Rory: "He's the boy that I like!"
Lorelei: "I know, I tried to find one you hated, but it was really short notice."

Lorelei: 90% water and 10% caffeine.

Also, is it a continuity error or is Dean lying when he says he doesn't have a motorcycle? (Or when he talks in later episodes about working on his "bike" often with a friend, does he actually mean bicycle? Is that something you would work on frequently? It's not like we ever see him riding either kind of transportation.)
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:29 AM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I really liked the whole "I want to like you ... and I usually get what I want" line from Lorelei to Dean. I like that as much as Rory is growing up, so is Lorelei.
posted by darksong at 10:47 AM on November 14, 2014

I love this episode a lot but that private talk Lorelai has with Dean is extremely annoying. She comes off as a bully trying to be really clever and witty and it's all just dumb. She can act like a proper parent and assert her authority without making bullying, aggressive comments. But the whole hang out was somewhat creepily unbelievable from the start and then made weirder when Lorelai flips a switch on herself, and then Dean acts like he knows it all and is taking her bullying behavior in stride as if that's how a normal concerned parent acts. I realize Stars Hollow is supposed to be a very different world, but still. A remotely normal boy would have justifiably been creeped out and ran out the door, not had this "mature" witty back and forth banter that shows how mature he is and how much he gets it.

I mean what is with how she keeps repeating "she is not going on your motorcycle". If someone's mom said that to you? Talk about creepy! ICK!

And I also thought the " I want to like you...and I usually get what I want" to be creepy and bullying and stupid. What kind of adult says that to a teenage boy? I would have been so scared of her.
posted by Blitz at 11:46 AM on November 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Also, is it a continuity error or is Dean lying when he says he doesn't have a motorcycle? (Or when he talks in later episodes about working on his "bike" often with a friend, does he actually mean bicycle? Is that something you would work on frequently? It's not like we ever see him riding either kind of transportation.)

He later mentions in s1e15 that he has 'an 86 Suzuki' in a conversation about motorcycles, although given that we also learn that one his hobbies is restoring non-functional vehicles it's possible that he 'has' a motorcycle that he can't actually ride. But given the show's propensity for ignoring continuity whenever it feels necessary (see also: the multiple names and jobs of Kirk before he becomes Kirk) I would lean towards either continuity error, but lying by technicality ('I don't have a [rideable] motorcyle') or simply timing -- that he doesn't have one then but gets one later.

I think Lorelei has a really hard time trying to be a different kind of mother from her mom; she doesn't have a role model for what to do.

Very much agreed. Partly because of that, I think, she sees herself as a friend or a sister as much as a mom, and you get the sense that, up until the start of the show, there's been nothing to cause her to question whether that's going to change as Rory gets older. She frames the invitation to pizza as a thing a friend would do; as a thing she's doing as a friend, not as a mom; and Dean is 'just a friend,' which is less worrisome than her daughter dating (although she does later acknowledge this, to Rory and to Dean):

RORY: And now he's forced to come over and sit with me and my mother and eat crap and watch a movie?
LORELAI: Well I just invited a friend of yours to hang out. What's the big deal? I mean what if Lane had done it?

The whole Lorelei-speech-to-Dean sort of felt apace with that insofar as the episode is a spectrum of Lorelei trying to cope with how he relationship to Rory is changing as Rory gets older (and starts holding back information from Lorelei -- the titular lack of telling about the kiss). That it came off as awkward and immature and maybe a bit too aggressive is intentional, I think -- it's trying to show that Lorelei isn't entirely comfortable being a parent, doesn't entirely know how to navigate that situation, any more than Dean does. I did like that he called her out somewhat on the parent/friend dynamic:

DEAN: I need you not to hate me. If you hate me then I don't have a shot in hell with Rory.
LORELAI: Rory has her own mind.
DEAN: Yeah but you're her best friend and what you think means everything to her and you know that.

That said, it didn't feel particularly plausible for him to say that, but I thought it was a nice touch.
posted by cjelli at 9:35 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, I don't have a fully formed thought on this, but I liked the callback in that conversation to a much earlier scene:

LORELAI: Curfew will be enforced. You will not detract from her schoolwork, and you're going to start handling those lemons better.
DEAN: What?
LORELAI: Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking.

Referencing:

LORELAI: Oh look at him. Look how smug he is.
LUKE: He's bagging groceries. It's hard to be smug bagging groceries.
LORELAI: Oh look how he just handled those lemons.
LUKE: What are you talking about?
LORELAI: He threw them in the bag. Not tossed them or placed them but threw them like they were nothing to him.
LUKE: They're lemons.
LORELAI: They're symbolic.

She pauses her litany of actual demands for a joke that the audience will get but Dean can't, and when he expresses understandable confusion she pushes past it to make a non-joking point. It's clever? I enjoyed it? But it's also feels a bit cleverness-for-the-sake-of-cleverness; I'm not sure there's any deeper meaning there that we didn't already get with the earlier discussion.

Although "they're lemons" vs. "they're smybolic" is a nice encapsulation of how Lorelei/Luke each think about problems.
posted by cjelli at 9:40 AM on November 18, 2014

"My role model, ladies and gentlemen."
Hey, Lorelai, you are literally sitting NEXT TO THE MUFFINS. Why don't you just go grab one?
Way to stuff your crotch, Luke.
"It's time you became one of us!" ONE OF US, ONE OF US, LET'S BREAK OUT THE CULT BEHAVIOR
"My mom's not wearing any underwear!"
Yes, Lorelai, go get your own damn coffee and muffins!
"Don't sit on any cold benches." Point to Luke for that one.
There's a sign that says CRANBERRIES ON SAIL. O RLY?
"I got kissed. And I shoplifted."
"I'm not going to make that noise again. EEEEEEEEEE."

Wow, Lorelai is practically Blue Screen of Death-ing over this hidden kiss thing. (Did enjoy the General Hospital rundown though. Ah, Lucky and Liz....) I guess that's justified when you got pregnant at 15, in a sense.
So then she...asks Dean out. Wow.

"I looked for one that you hated, but it was really short notice!"
I love the idea of telling jokes to a weeping willow to cheer it up. That's really adorable.
So is Sookie Lorelai's date? Is it a double?
"Sweetheart, the whole TOWN is watching you." That's officially more threatening than the mob.
Dean is a bit sharper than I was expecting.
"I usually get what I want." Except the fridge fixed and your mom to get off your back.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:06 PM on September 28, 2016