Gilmore Girls: Run Away, Little Boy
January 30, 2025 9:37 AM - Season 2, Episode 9 - Subscribe

Rory plays Juliet, with Paris as director. Lorelai goes on a date with a guy from her business class. We all say a fond farewell to Tristan.

Lorelai walks into the kitchen to find Sookie and Rory hiding something: a late-arriving wedding present for Lorelai and Max, and with no note besides! Lorelai chooses this moment to have a fit of conscience, but since they can't hope to figure out who sent it without opening it first, they do, and find a nice Italian ice-cream maker. With still no clue as to who it came from.

At Chilton, a Lit professor who is notably not Max - even though I'm pretty sure Rory said Max was still her lit professor this year but whatever - assigns the class groups to stage and perform individual acts from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Rory is assigned Act V, and is grouped up as always with Paris, Madeline and Louise (though Paris at least lampshades how this always happens.) Rory talks with Henry for a moment to try to facilitate his relationship with Lane, but Paris wants to get started on this project right away.

At home, Lorelai is calling all of her extended family to try to find out who sent the gift, but getting nowhere, as they all seem to be crazy, hyper-judgmental of her, and/or dead. I'm not certain, but I don't think she ever considers that the ice cream maker might have come from one of Max's relatives. Rory tells her about the school project and how Paris had her go through twenty-something takes of screen tests. Rory acts as a go-between so as to get Henry and Lane on the phone together.

At a break during her business class, a handsome young dude named Paul flirts with Lorelai about vending machine burritos and asks her out, but her schedule's pretty crazy, you know? But when Sookie later points out that the ice cream maker nonsense might be because of Max-related hangups, and that Lorelai hasn't been on a date since the breakup, Lorelai gives Paul a chance.

At Chilton, the group (which now includes Brad, from Third-Period Shakespeare) awaits Paris, and when Rory brings up the question of what their interpretation will be, Paris arrives, stating in no uncertain terms that it will be traditional Elizabethan.* Brad will play Romeo, since he's the only boy in the group. That is, until poor-man's-Ryan-Phillippe Tristan walks in a moment later to confuse the issue. Paris's position: Tristan is notoriously unreliable. Louise's position: Tristan is hot. Louise wins this round. Rory will play Juliet, as according to Paris, "

(Tristan, it seems, has just gotten back from a suspension after disassembling a teacher's car and reassembling it in a classroom. He's hanging around a couple of doofuses who everyone recognizes as bad news for him, though this is all to explain his absence and his getting into trouble, neither of which anyone was wondering about.)

Paris books Miss Patty's for a rehearsal space, meaning that Tristan will be coming to Stars Hollow, which means trouble for Rory because as you'll remember one time she and Tristan kissed for like a second while she and Dean were broken up and then she started crying and left. Dean can't be expected to handle such news (as Lorelai hilariously demonstrates while play-acting the conversation with Rory) so Lorelai advises her to keep a lid on that one.

When Tristan arrives in town, however, he immediately seeks out Dean at the market to start some shit. Dean decides that he wants to be present at rehearsals, which only makes Tristan more aggressive, and so Rory has to send him away after Tristan reveals their super-meaningful kiss back at Madeline's party.

We don't see Lorelais' date with Paul, but apparently it wasn't a match. She's excited that she was abe to go out on a casual date, though, and seems to be in good spirits about the matter. Unfortunately, Paul was more enthusiastic about how things went, and shows up in the diner, looking way younger than we'd seen him before outside of his "business class" outfit, accompanied by his parents, introducing himself to Luke as Lorelai's date from the other night. Seeing that he's not in his late twenties (which Lorelai was already kinda wary about) but rather his early twenties is embarrassing for Lorelai, and makes Luke significantly crankier than usual.

It's the end of the week, so time for the big Shakespeare Production, and Tristan is nowhere to be found. Paris tells Brad to start memorizing his new part as Romeo. When Tristan shows up, it's to give his news that his dad took him out of school after he was caught breaking into hid friend's dad's safe, so now his planet needs him. And Brad has apparently left Chilton in the moments after Paris assigned him his new role.

So Paris steps up and fills Romeo's role herself, in a wonderful scene that hopefully got the team their A, and almost certainly filled up some AO3 pages.

Sookie tells Lorelai that Luke is transparently super into her, and for once it appears that Lorelai actually hears this, so she goes to the diner to talk to him about being bad at dating and how there are only a few people that she can count on to always be an important part of her life, and that he's one of them. It's not them getting together, but at least it's something.

*This is delightful for any number of reasons. First, because Paris swooping in and making hard and fast decisions could be its own show. Secondly, because being sick of clever new interpretations of Shakespeare is extremely relatable. Thirdly, because relatable or not, it totally bucks the point of the assignment itself. And lastly, because she drops a broadsword onto the table as she announces it.

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

Soundtrack: None

Random Guest Star Watch: While we lose Chad Michael Murray as Tristan after this episode, we gain the occasional presence of Adam Wylie as Brad. Tristan might be hotter, but I think almost everyone can agree that this is the show trading up.
posted by Navelgazer (2 comments total)
 
Another pretty modular episode (I think the only thing that ties this down to any particular point in any Season 2 story-arc is that Lane and Henry are still making a go of it). And once again, nothing that happens here matters much at all (Tristan is gone now, but we hadn't seen him at all this season before now anyway, and no one missed him.)

Still, this episode introduces Brad, whose little background character arc is one of the most delightful running gags in the series, and features a lot of Top Quality Paris Material, so it's a light and inessential episode, but a very fun one.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:41 AM on January 30


See ya, Tristan. You will be completely forgotten about overall.*

I love Adam Wylie as Brad because he's one of those minor characters that seems to have a complex inner life. He exists even when the main characters aren't on screen. And we all kind of knew a Brad in high school, right?

Maybe Max Medina (Max ... Medina ...) had already left to go teach at Stanford or whatever? Who knows? Consistency isn't necessarily this show's strongest point.

The whole male aggression stuff between Tristan and Dean is so tiresome and not appealing. Dean being a meathead doesn't make him attractive and I get annoyed at how much this show leans on that. That doesn't seem like something Rory would like (and sure, that's kind of the point since she's got the hots for the tortured Jess) but it's still exhausting.

There has been plenty written that Rory and Paris are the true love story in Gilmore Girls so ... yes.

The stuff with Lorelai and her date is funny, honestly. I also like Lorelai play-acting Dean.

It's maybe not the most pivotal episode but at least we start to hate Dean more and we got rid of Tristan. Those things are pretty good.

*Spoilers but ... I kind of suspect Logan was meant to be Tristan except, unpopular opinion, Logan is much more likable -- or at least more interesting -- than Tristan ever was.
posted by edencosmic at 5:52 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]


« Older King of the Hill: A Man Withou...   |  Person of Interest: The Devil'... Newer »

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