Gilmore Girls: Sadie, Sadie...
January 27, 2025 3:58 PM - Season 2, Episode 1 - Subscribe

Lorelai tells (almost) everyone about her engagement. Rory brings Dean to Friday Night Dinner. Lane packs her bag.

So, Season One didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger - Rory & Dean are back together, which is the opposite of drama, and Max has insisted that Lorelai take some time to consider things before answering his proposal, so that's not really a ticking clock, either. Nonetheless, we pick up the morning after where we left off, with the thousand yellow lilies distributed all around the town square.

We meet new Townie Bootsie the Newsstand Guy as Lorelai is teased by a wall of bridal magazines. Miss Patty appears out of nowhere, confirming that the town rumor mill is in full operation and that they best get over and tell Luke the news before he hears it from somebody else. Luckily, he hasn't, even though the entire town has gotten distinctly yellower outside his window over the course of the morning. Still, he reacts with utter lack of surprise, which of course sets Lorelai on edge.

He also reminds her that there are any number of conversations that one might expect reasonable adults to have before discussing marriage which Max and Lorelai have, in fact, not had.

In Hartford, Emily opens the door seeming almost drunk she's so happy. They've heard some big news through the Chilton grapeline and it's that Rory is in the top 3% of her class. Of course, Rory and Lorelai already knew this, and Emily's face falls a little, but they agree to have a Rory Night for the next dinner, and that Rory may invite a friend along.

(Meanwhile, Lorelai ducks out for a few minutes to call Max and ask a few things like "Where would we live?" and "What do you imagine our shared life would look like?" Max evades all of these questions but says that the fact that she's asking them makes it sound like she's saying "yes." Lorelai comes back in, shares a look with Rory, and they squeal and giggle, but tell the folks that they're just excited about Rory's class placement.)

Speaking of Rory's friends: Lane is being shipped off to Korea for the Summer with no return ticket and a bag so huge it implies that she might be flying there in the luggage compartment. But rather than bring her along to Friday Night Dinner while there's still a chance, Rory uses her +1 on Dean.

Emily is surprised to see him there, but after some none-too-subtle hints from Lorelai, Emily is nice to him. Richard is a different story though, grilling the kid about his grades and future prospects and more or less tearing him a new asshole for having the gall to date Rory and not be, himself, spectacular. It's uncomfortable for everyone to watch someone have a passionate reaction to Dean, and the Stars Hollow clan heads home feeling kind of dejected. Rory is livid at her grandfather, with whom she had a very warm relationship throughout season one, and Lorelai tries to give her some perspective that his outburst wasn't about Dean or even about Rory, per se, but about the longstanding wounds and fears that Lorelai left them with seventeen years earlier.

And back in Hartford, Emily and Richard are still arguing about his behavior at dinner when the phone rings. It's Sookie calling to give Emily the deets about the engagement party. For the engagement nobody had bothered to tell her about yet.

Welcome to Season 2!

A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman In Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh

Soundtrack:
"I Found Love" - The Free Design
"I'll Be Your Mirror" - The Velvet Underground and Nico

Random Guest Star Watch: None that I noticed.
posted by Navelgazer (3 comments total)
 
I did tour the WB backlot when I was in LA. I wanted to do a studio tour and at the time, I'd watched a bunch of movies filmed there. It's so startlingly recognizable the more movies & TV shows one watches. (I guess they did whole Gilmore Girls thing this past holiday season?)

(I would've counted Brian Tarantina as Bootsy as a guest star. Because for all of this show's flaws -- said with love -- it grabbed some great character actors.)

I actually enjoy the scene where Max is describing rings to Rory and she's in turn describing them to Lorelai. That's pretty cute.

Richard was in the wrong here, certainly, but also, Dean showed up to that dinner wearing that necklace so he kind of deserved it (even within the boundaries of early '00s fashion).

(Lorelai's slip dress is ... questionable.)

I adore that despite Emily's obvious hurt from not being told about Lorelai's engagement (or even that she was back with Max), she still told Richard off and said he needed to apologize because she has the emotional intelligence to know what kind of permanent rifts that can cause. (I really wish we got more of a backstory on Emily. There was a rumor at some point there was going to be a series about Emily's teenage/college years, but that could've just been wishful thinking.)
posted by edencosmic at 6:16 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I really enjoy Tarantina as Bootsy. The only reason I didn't include him in the Random Guest Star Watch is that he's around for pretty much all of Season 2, I believe, while RGSW is mostly for me to mention the weird one-off characters played by recognizable faces that pop up so frequently in this show. But he's great.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:38 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]


I'll say that one thing I love here is that, when Lorelai and Rory have their little freak-out about Lorelai saying yes, and both of them just instinctively keep it secret from Emily and Richard, it doesn't require any explanation. From everything we know about these characters and their dynamics, that just makes total sense in the moment. It's still deeply thoughtless, and the way that it hurts Emily is very real and understandable (even if Emily's way of handling it in the following episode is purposefully cruel. (Rather than unintentionally so, as we know Lorelai is being here. After all, Lorelai and Rory straight-up lie about it in this scene, so from Emily's perspective it's hard to see this move as anything but spiteful.)
posted by Navelgazer at 9:19 AM on January 28


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