Gilmore Girls: Paris Is Burning
January 24, 2025 8:06 AM - Season 1, Episode 11 - Subscribe

It's parent-teacher day at Chilton, and Lorelai doesn't want to go. Paris' parents are getting divorced, and it's all anyone is talking about. Sookie has a question for Jackson.

So this is the one where Lorelai breaks up with Max Medina even though she really likes him, because Rory likes them being together, and Lorelai is worried about what a break-up would do to Rory. Or something. In truth it plays out a lot more like Lorelai doesn't know what she wants and is using Rory as an emotional shield/justification for all of her actions, which of course only ends up hurting Rory.

This episode leans hard on the "Rory is really the parent/Lorelai is really the teenager" dynamic. Lorelai goes on a hot date with Max, borrows a book from him, freaks out when Rory suggests that he come ice-skating with them, ghosts him and asks Rory to return the book for her (which Rory, being the sensible one, thankfully refuses to do), goes to Parents' Day to break up with him, hooks up* with him in the classroom instead, then meets up with him at the coffeeshop where she lied about liking rap, where they successfully break up. For now.

It's all very frustrating, not least because Max, as an under-written season 1 Baxter, has very little chmistry with Lorelai, and Lauren Graham basically has to sell the emotional investment entirely on her own (which she succeeds at very well in her talk with Emily about it.) I'm currently up to early season 3 in this, my first watch through this series, and already I know that it's kind of a theme that this show will present us with romantic leads that I don't like and who aren't good enough for our heroines, and then get me angry about how unfairly our heroines are treating them. It's wild.

On the Rory/Chilton front, Paris' parents are going through an ugly, public divorce, and it's all anyone at school is talking about. We see a brief scene with her mother, who is awful. When Paris sees Max and Lorelai in the classroom, she tells the whole school about it and changes the news-cycle, which of course hurts Rory, as was also probably intended. Rory confronts her and they come to an icy-but-thawing reconciliation of sorts. It's funny how Paris does the only truly malicious thing in this episode, and is still probably the most sympathetic character within it, as her need to change the story feels deeply realistic and relatable.

Oh, and Lorelai make an unintentionally cruel crack to Sookie about how long Sookie has been single (to Lorelai's credit, she immediately and profusely apologizes for it), which spurs Sookie to ask out Jackson, who is into the idea. Melissa McCarthy is absolutely adorable in this scene.

*Or kisses him or whatever, but later she says that she's "the one who turned is NC-17," which raises the question of what, exactly, Paris saw going on in there.

A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Women in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh

Soundtrack: Nuthin'. Sorry.

Random Guest Star Watch: Ann Gillespie as Paris' Horrible Mom, I guess? I never watched 90210 so I don't know whether that really counts.
posted by Navelgazer (1 comment total)
 
There's a lot about this episode that feels like we're missing the most interesting stuff by following Lorelai and Rory around. Paris' story most notably, but also Max to a degree. I'm not the biggest fan of Max, but I don't hate him either, and I very much wish we'd gotten to see Headmaster Charleston call him on the carpet about his relationship with Lorelai rather than hear him tell us about it afterwards.

Thinking about this: there's a Terry Rossio column about Point of View on the Wordplayer site which imagines a parrot holding the camera in a story, having to flit around to follow different characters, making the point that there's a benefit to limiting the number of characters that we can reasonably ask the parrot to follow around. I'll be curious to watch for this in this series going forward, because I feel like they've made kind of a conscious decision about this here, really following Lorelai, Rory, Sookie, Lane, Luke, Emily and Richard. We get tracking shots around the inn or the town where we check in on, say, Michel or Miss Patty absent any of our "followed" characters, but those shots generally land on one of the chosen ones by the end (I think.)

In any case, some of the most interesting scenes in this episode happened off-camera, which is unfortunate, but also hints at the world being bigger and more interesting than just Lorelai and Rory, which is to the show's benefit.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:31 AM on January 24


« Older Movie: Jazz on a Summer's Day...   |  Movie: Crimes of Passion... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster