Gilmore Girls: Christopher Returns
January 25, 2025 7:33 AM - Season 1, Episode 15 - Subscribe
Emily and Richard have Christopher's parents over for dinner. Lorelai slips out onto the balcony. Christopher tries to buy Rory a book.
Rory's dad Christopher is in Stars Hollow for the first time, and it's the talk of the town. Jackson thinks he looks like Billy Crudup. Miss Patty flirts with him while appearing even more day-drunk than usual. He tells Lorelai about how his new business venture is finally working out for him, and now that he's all responsible, he finally wants to be a bigger part of Rory's life. Rory takes him to Dean's softball game, and then they go to the bookstore, where he tries to buy her the Compact Oxford English Dictionary but gets his card declined.
Emily invites them all - and Christopher's parents Straub and Francine - over for the Friday Night Dinner, but the evening never makes it to the dining room. Straub and Francine - who haven't seen Rory since she was a baby - are almost immediately hostile, and blame Lorelai for Christopher not going to Princeton like "every Hayden male" (and notably refuse to put any of the credit for Lorelai's pregnancy on Christopher himself.) Richard gets physical with Straub over all this and kicks them out of the house. Then, these wounds all re-opened and bleeding everywhere, he turns around from defending Lorelai around other people to berating her in private.
While Emily and Rory eat in the kitchen (and Emily tells Rory that no matter how angry everyone is, her existence is not something to be regretted), Lorelai and Christopher escape out on the balcony off of Lorelai's childhood bedroom, sip some tequila straight from the bottle, and have sex in apparently the same spot where Rory was conceived. The ride home, and goodnights before Christopher retreats to sleep on the couch, are super-awkward, and Rory knows something's up*.
Oh, but in all the yelling and canoodling, Lorelai totally spaced on helping Luke paint the diner. Luke is stoic about it, but he's been touchy since seeing Christopher with Rory at the softball game, and clocks what happened more or less immediately.
Christopher asks Lorelai to marry him, which she resolutely refuses, but she does ask him to make his presence known more often, for Rory's sake. Lorelai breaks into the diner overnight to paint the place and surprise Luke with it. Christopher rides his motorcycle off into the sunset, and Rory is sad.
This is a huge episode in terms of drama, by the standards of Season 1, at least. Christopher is a very sharply-drawn character from the jump - handsome and charming with a real spark with Lorelai (notably missing from her interactions with Max) that turns them both into teenagers again. He's someone who clearly play-acts at being an adult, who craves the rewards of parenting but shies from any of the work of it, who has spent the last sixteen years repeatedly fucking up but always having a safety net for it, while Lorelai's self-imposed independence forced her to learn how to be responsible (even if she's still fundamentally immature.) He's both inherently likable and a walking set of red flags, and he feels very, very real.
His parents on the other hand feel like a plot contrivance. I believe that they would have long-simmering resentments about him and Lorelai. I just don't believe that WASP-y-ass Connecticut blue-bloods like Straub and Francine would let them boil over in the way that they do. They would be icy and passive-aggressive, yes, but not this directly and openly rude. In an episode that mostly feels very true and natural, this is the one beat that feels false.
Thankfully Emily's very sweet scene with Rory steals the episode as a whole.
*Alexis Bledel plays this beat really well. Rory is old enough to put two and two together, after all, but beyond the normal aversion to thinking about one's parents gettin' it on, my read is that she doesn't want to get her hopes up, which adds a nice note of melancholy to everything here.
AV Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"Need to be Next to You" - Leigh Nash
Random Guest Star Watch: Once again, nobody. Peter Michael Goetz, who plays Straub, was apparently in Jumpin' Jack Flash, which the episode makes an oblique shout-out to, but that hardly counts here.
Rory's dad Christopher is in Stars Hollow for the first time, and it's the talk of the town. Jackson thinks he looks like Billy Crudup. Miss Patty flirts with him while appearing even more day-drunk than usual. He tells Lorelai about how his new business venture is finally working out for him, and now that he's all responsible, he finally wants to be a bigger part of Rory's life. Rory takes him to Dean's softball game, and then they go to the bookstore, where he tries to buy her the Compact Oxford English Dictionary but gets his card declined.
Emily invites them all - and Christopher's parents Straub and Francine - over for the Friday Night Dinner, but the evening never makes it to the dining room. Straub and Francine - who haven't seen Rory since she was a baby - are almost immediately hostile, and blame Lorelai for Christopher not going to Princeton like "every Hayden male" (and notably refuse to put any of the credit for Lorelai's pregnancy on Christopher himself.) Richard gets physical with Straub over all this and kicks them out of the house. Then, these wounds all re-opened and bleeding everywhere, he turns around from defending Lorelai around other people to berating her in private.
While Emily and Rory eat in the kitchen (and Emily tells Rory that no matter how angry everyone is, her existence is not something to be regretted), Lorelai and Christopher escape out on the balcony off of Lorelai's childhood bedroom, sip some tequila straight from the bottle, and have sex in apparently the same spot where Rory was conceived. The ride home, and goodnights before Christopher retreats to sleep on the couch, are super-awkward, and Rory knows something's up*.
Oh, but in all the yelling and canoodling, Lorelai totally spaced on helping Luke paint the diner. Luke is stoic about it, but he's been touchy since seeing Christopher with Rory at the softball game, and clocks what happened more or less immediately.
Christopher asks Lorelai to marry him, which she resolutely refuses, but she does ask him to make his presence known more often, for Rory's sake. Lorelai breaks into the diner overnight to paint the place and surprise Luke with it. Christopher rides his motorcycle off into the sunset, and Rory is sad.
This is a huge episode in terms of drama, by the standards of Season 1, at least. Christopher is a very sharply-drawn character from the jump - handsome and charming with a real spark with Lorelai (notably missing from her interactions with Max) that turns them both into teenagers again. He's someone who clearly play-acts at being an adult, who craves the rewards of parenting but shies from any of the work of it, who has spent the last sixteen years repeatedly fucking up but always having a safety net for it, while Lorelai's self-imposed independence forced her to learn how to be responsible (even if she's still fundamentally immature.) He's both inherently likable and a walking set of red flags, and he feels very, very real.
His parents on the other hand feel like a plot contrivance. I believe that they would have long-simmering resentments about him and Lorelai. I just don't believe that WASP-y-ass Connecticut blue-bloods like Straub and Francine would let them boil over in the way that they do. They would be icy and passive-aggressive, yes, but not this directly and openly rude. In an episode that mostly feels very true and natural, this is the one beat that feels false.
Thankfully Emily's very sweet scene with Rory steals the episode as a whole.
*Alexis Bledel plays this beat really well. Rory is old enough to put two and two together, after all, but beyond the normal aversion to thinking about one's parents gettin' it on, my read is that she doesn't want to get her hopes up, which adds a nice note of melancholy to everything here.
AV Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh
Soundtrack:
"Need to be Next to You" - Leigh Nash
Random Guest Star Watch: Once again, nobody. Peter Michael Goetz, who plays Straub, was apparently in Jumpin' Jack Flash, which the episode makes an oblique shout-out to, but that hardly counts here.
Every character on Gilmore Girls has the same musical taste and pop-culture knowledge as Amy Sherman Palladino. It's sort of annoying. And Christopher sucks.
posted by Clustercuss at 1:51 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by Clustercuss at 1:51 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
I ... don't hate Christopher. At least not at this point. He's that charming dude who can get away with most things because he's charming. His "rebellious" streak is a clear appeal for Lorelai -- he has the life she may have wanted, at least on the surface. That Chris is also a big fat liar also feels true. But I think Chris, at least at this point, was trying. Or at least wanted to.
I like Rory's adoration of him. Lorelai is also the "fun" parent but they see each other every day. Chris can just indulge her whims (or try to). That feels real for a teen girl who rarely sees a parent and only ever sees him when they get to have fun.
posted by edencosmic at 7:37 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
I like Rory's adoration of him. Lorelai is also the "fun" parent but they see each other every day. Chris can just indulge her whims (or try to). That feels real for a teen girl who rarely sees a parent and only ever sees him when they get to have fun.
posted by edencosmic at 7:37 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
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posted by Navelgazer at 7:40 AM on January 25