Gilmore Girls: Presenting Lorelai Gilmore
January 29, 2025 11:51 AM - Season 2, Episode 6 - Subscribe
Rory's upcoming debutante ball brings Christopher to town. Jess changes his clothes. Emily does some gardening.
A new maid greets the gals at the foyer to the Hartford House, and Lorelai messes with her for a moment before clocking how terrified she looks and inviting her to hide in the kitchen from the unusually loud fight that Emily and Richard are having. Richard is sick of going to all of Emily's social functions, seems to be the gist of it.
At the diner, Luke is pissed off because Jess isn't there helping him, but then Jess shows up wearing a Metallica t-shirt and Luke sends him back upstairs to change, because I guess this is what passes for scandalous in Stars Hollow. (Lorelai is still sticking to her guns about apparently liking Metallica, even though she agrees that the shirt is bad.)
After school, Rory drops by the Hartford House, where Emily is catching up on all the gossip she's been missing lately on account of Richard's antisocial streak. Her friends see Rory and decide that she simply must debut at the D.A.R. cotillion in (of course) like a week. At home, Lorelai is horrified by this prospect, but agrees to help*, and calls up Christopher, certain that he'd want nothing to do with this, because Lorelai is forgetting that Christopher is all about any opportunity to take credit for Rory without having to do any real parenting work for it. Christopher seems excited to be there.
Rory has to convince Dean to wear a tux (ahem, white-tie and black tails, as Lane corrects her.) Christopher arrives, with a new job in Boston and a Volvo and a belated copy of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Miss Patty takes Rory and Dean through some ballroom dancing lessons, and Lorelai and Christopher show them how it's done. Lorelai seems quite taken aback with this new version of Rory's dad.
Meanwhile, Richard continues to be an absolute tool to Emily. Lorelai tries to get her mother to open up about what's going on, but doesn't get anywhere. In the cotillion dressing room, Rory meets another girl who packs a flask of midori sour and is making this her fifth "coming out" of the season in the hopes of landing a husband. Rory grins and bears it with the serenity of a girl who knows she'll never have to interact with any of these people again. Emily and Richard arrive at the ball separately.
Dean shows up looking good in his tux and tails, and wishes Rory good luck. Midori Sour sees them and is all "you're totally getting married" and it's weird, but Christopher (who can also wear a tux) arrives to escort Rory down the staircase. As the ceremony begins, Richard is getting tipsy and loudly talking through it all while Emily tries to get him to behave appropriately, and Lorelai takes them both out of the ballroom.
It turns out that Richard is out of sorts because he's being "phased out" at work, which is no excuse for how he's treating his wife but at least explains it a bit - his work is his identity and he sees Emily's constant social engagements as what will replace that soon and he hates it. He's still an inconceivable dick in this episode, though.
Rory interrupts this scene to tell them that she's up next, and we see Christopher escort her down the staircase in a poorly-lit, poorly-blocked, and poorly-soundtracked fiasco that nobody else seems to notice.** Dean is beaming waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs (maybe his love of archaic gender roles overcame his aversion to dressing in something other than cargo jeans and a puka necklace?) Emily says that it should have been Lorelai up there and that nothing is turning out the way it was supposed to.
Back in Stars Hollow, Lorelai, Christopher, Rory and Dean all seem to have had a fun time and agree that none of them ever want to do anything like that again. Rory runs into Luke's as Lorelai and Christopher hang back to flirt a little bit. They kiss, there are some sparks, and when she pushes him to stick around a little longer, he admits that he's got a girlfriend (Sherry) in Boston, and that it's getting serious. In the diner, Jess has changed his clothes to, essentially, a Luke costume, which enrages his uncle.
Realizing how lucky she is to have a strong relationship with Rory, Lorelai drops by the Hartford House to just hang out with Emily in the garden, and let her know that she's there in case Emily wants to talk about anything at all.
*I honestly love this scene, because I feel both of their positions so strongly, and because they make a point about just how low-stakes and inconsequential this whole thing is to them. Lorelai's right in that debutante balls are hella weird and antiquated to say the least. I remember going to my sister's when I was a kid, and I think some of my friends in High School attended them (I very vaguely remember this) but it was a much bigger deal for their mothers - for the girls it was "well I get to wear a pretty dress and have a moment in the spotlight, so why not?" So I totally get Rory's position of "This means a lot to her and I don't care either way, so sure." That feels extremely accurate to me.
**Seriously, the lighting isn't entirely unrealistic of anything - they're being spotlit and that creates harsh shadows to be sure. But considering the spotlighting, the show (and the cotillion) should have blocked this so that Christopher was on her right when descending the staircase. I've done some theatrical lighting design in my time and this scene just bugs the shit out of me, and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" does nothing to make it better. I'll say that this must have been a stupidly-expensive episode for how little anything in it matters, and that I enjoy it for the most part, but I love the bit where Emily complains about the baby's breath and folding chairs and everything else they had to skimp on in order to bring this episode in on budget.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh (In which we mourn the loss of the pre-enshittification A.V. Club)
Soundtrack:
"Du Hast" - Rammstein
"The Way You Look Tonight" - Frank SInatra
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" - Maurice Chevalier (No I'm not linking to that)
Random Guest Star Watch: Not as far as I can tell. Sorry.
A new maid greets the gals at the foyer to the Hartford House, and Lorelai messes with her for a moment before clocking how terrified she looks and inviting her to hide in the kitchen from the unusually loud fight that Emily and Richard are having. Richard is sick of going to all of Emily's social functions, seems to be the gist of it.
At the diner, Luke is pissed off because Jess isn't there helping him, but then Jess shows up wearing a Metallica t-shirt and Luke sends him back upstairs to change, because I guess this is what passes for scandalous in Stars Hollow. (Lorelai is still sticking to her guns about apparently liking Metallica, even though she agrees that the shirt is bad.)
After school, Rory drops by the Hartford House, where Emily is catching up on all the gossip she's been missing lately on account of Richard's antisocial streak. Her friends see Rory and decide that she simply must debut at the D.A.R. cotillion in (of course) like a week. At home, Lorelai is horrified by this prospect, but agrees to help*, and calls up Christopher, certain that he'd want nothing to do with this, because Lorelai is forgetting that Christopher is all about any opportunity to take credit for Rory without having to do any real parenting work for it. Christopher seems excited to be there.
Rory has to convince Dean to wear a tux (ahem, white-tie and black tails, as Lane corrects her.) Christopher arrives, with a new job in Boston and a Volvo and a belated copy of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Miss Patty takes Rory and Dean through some ballroom dancing lessons, and Lorelai and Christopher show them how it's done. Lorelai seems quite taken aback with this new version of Rory's dad.
Meanwhile, Richard continues to be an absolute tool to Emily. Lorelai tries to get her mother to open up about what's going on, but doesn't get anywhere. In the cotillion dressing room, Rory meets another girl who packs a flask of midori sour and is making this her fifth "coming out" of the season in the hopes of landing a husband. Rory grins and bears it with the serenity of a girl who knows she'll never have to interact with any of these people again. Emily and Richard arrive at the ball separately.
Dean shows up looking good in his tux and tails, and wishes Rory good luck. Midori Sour sees them and is all "you're totally getting married" and it's weird, but Christopher (who can also wear a tux) arrives to escort Rory down the staircase. As the ceremony begins, Richard is getting tipsy and loudly talking through it all while Emily tries to get him to behave appropriately, and Lorelai takes them both out of the ballroom.
It turns out that Richard is out of sorts because he's being "phased out" at work, which is no excuse for how he's treating his wife but at least explains it a bit - his work is his identity and he sees Emily's constant social engagements as what will replace that soon and he hates it. He's still an inconceivable dick in this episode, though.
Rory interrupts this scene to tell them that she's up next, and we see Christopher escort her down the staircase in a poorly-lit, poorly-blocked, and poorly-soundtracked fiasco that nobody else seems to notice.** Dean is beaming waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs (maybe his love of archaic gender roles overcame his aversion to dressing in something other than cargo jeans and a puka necklace?) Emily says that it should have been Lorelai up there and that nothing is turning out the way it was supposed to.
Back in Stars Hollow, Lorelai, Christopher, Rory and Dean all seem to have had a fun time and agree that none of them ever want to do anything like that again. Rory runs into Luke's as Lorelai and Christopher hang back to flirt a little bit. They kiss, there are some sparks, and when she pushes him to stick around a little longer, he admits that he's got a girlfriend (Sherry) in Boston, and that it's getting serious. In the diner, Jess has changed his clothes to, essentially, a Luke costume, which enrages his uncle.
Realizing how lucky she is to have a strong relationship with Rory, Lorelai drops by the Hartford House to just hang out with Emily in the garden, and let her know that she's there in case Emily wants to talk about anything at all.
*I honestly love this scene, because I feel both of their positions so strongly, and because they make a point about just how low-stakes and inconsequential this whole thing is to them. Lorelai's right in that debutante balls are hella weird and antiquated to say the least. I remember going to my sister's when I was a kid, and I think some of my friends in High School attended them (I very vaguely remember this) but it was a much bigger deal for their mothers - for the girls it was "well I get to wear a pretty dress and have a moment in the spotlight, so why not?" So I totally get Rory's position of "This means a lot to her and I don't care either way, so sure." That feels extremely accurate to me.
**Seriously, the lighting isn't entirely unrealistic of anything - they're being spotlit and that creates harsh shadows to be sure. But considering the spotlighting, the show (and the cotillion) should have blocked this so that Christopher was on her right when descending the staircase. I've done some theatrical lighting design in my time and this scene just bugs the shit out of me, and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" does nothing to make it better. I'll say that this must have been a stupidly-expensive episode for how little anything in it matters, and that I enjoy it for the most part, but I love the bit where Emily complains about the baby's breath and folding chairs and everything else they had to skimp on in order to bring this episode in on budget.
A.V. Club Review - David Sims
Woman in Revolt Review - Lindsay Pugh (In which we mourn the loss of the pre-enshittification A.V. Club)
Soundtrack:
"Du Hast" - Rammstein
"The Way You Look Tonight" - Frank SInatra
"Thank Heaven for Little Girls" - Maurice Chevalier (No I'm not linking to that)
Random Guest Star Watch: Not as far as I can tell. Sorry.
I agree this is Rory deciding who she is and how she fits into both these worlds. She's fine with doing this because it's not expected of her.
Yeah, I think this is the crux of it. Lorelai is right to hate debutante balls as an institution, but she'd hate them anyway because they're such a part of Emily & Richard's world. Since Lorelai has passed on her values to Rory but not brought up Rory in the same world that she herself grew up in, Rory feels free to find the whole thing silly but doesn't care enough to deny her grandmother this thing. And Lorelai is thankfully mature enough to get that and help Rory go through with it at a time when Emily really needs someone in her corner.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:00 PM on January 29
Yeah, I think this is the crux of it. Lorelai is right to hate debutante balls as an institution, but she'd hate them anyway because they're such a part of Emily & Richard's world. Since Lorelai has passed on her values to Rory but not brought up Rory in the same world that she herself grew up in, Rory feels free to find the whole thing silly but doesn't care enough to deny her grandmother this thing. And Lorelai is thankfully mature enough to get that and help Rory go through with it at a time when Emily really needs someone in her corner.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:00 PM on January 29
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I do love the DAR ladies throughout this series. They show another side to Emily -- she's not a prim and proper upper-class lady but a woman who loves to booze and gossip.
I agree this is Rory deciding who she is and how she fits into both these worlds. She's fine with doing this because it's not expected of her.
(Side note: I find the trope of men not wanting to get dressed up to be a very tiresome one, but I think at this point, we're supposed to find Dean tiresome.)
Oh, look, Chris is doing well for once and has a girlfriend! Which he doesn't tell "Lor" about until he's getting ready to leave.
I have to admit that Libby, who is beside Rory when they're getting ready, is hilarious. When she's talking about her lipsticks, she says "The wrong one and I'll end up looking like a hooker ... or a teacher." That's amazing.
Lorelai's dress seems slightly inappropriate but Lauren Graham looks great.
I do feel like this was an attempt to give Edward Herrmann something to work with as a character. The show figured out what to do with Emily Bishop but they definitely struggled with Herrmann for quite a bit. Richard doesn't come off great here, but he gets better.
posted by edencosmic at 5:11 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]