Previously: Rory had her first kiss and then her mother awkwardly arranged (and attended) her first date.
—
Love and War and Snow
Karina: Oh hey, it’s great to be back in Snark Squad HQ and it’s even better that Mari let’s me ramble about one of my favourite Gilmore Girls episodes.
Sweeney: Mari’s out with a case of having the world’s most inhumanly absurd schedule, but I agree that she is very great. (K: I have been wondering if she has a time turner somewhere.) Gif dance party for Mari in the comments. I’ll start:
Karina: So let’s begin, shall we?
The episode opens with a town meeting, oh these are the best things. (S: The quintessential Stars Hollow So Quirky locale.) Lorelei enters with junk food, because it’s a day that ends in “y” at the Gilmore’s. Stars Hollow’s mayor takes up the podium to deliver a rather funny story about snow and war reenactment which is a weird thing for this German girl because we don’t glorify war in any way shape or form as we were kind of responsible for starting two world wars back in the day. Anyway, Luke gets really upset when the mayor talks about the Battle of Stars Hollow. AND THEN LUKE EXPLODES to the glee of the Gilmore Girls. I guess he does that every damn year because Luke is a creature of habit.
So back in 17-hundred-something, twelve guys stood outside in the snow and nothing happened. And this is something the town celebrates every year with the first snowfall.
Sweeney: Even as an American, I don’t actually know enough about New England to know if small towns in New England are actually deeply obsessed with their colonial legacy or if this is just a thing I know from pop culture and by pop culture I mostly just mean Gilmore Girls.
Karina: Good question and one I surely can’t answer.
Cue title sequence. I love the titles. Oh how I love this title song. Moving on.
Lorelai is in bed, the wind howling outside and she gets up, goes downstairs to open a window and breathe in the cold night air with a smile on her face. I second that smile because there is not a whole lot better than smelling cold air when it’s ripe with the promise of snow. Lorelei moves over to the sofa while listening to Max’s message on her answering machine. Apparently they keep missing each other. Also, he leaves damn fine messages if you ask me.
Max askes her out for the hypothetical date they talked about.
Rory is woken up by the replaying of the answering machine and Rory and Lor have a snow talk. The very first of the show I think. Part of the reason Lorelai loves snow so much is because the best things in her life happened when it snowed; her best birthday, her first kiss, Rory’s first steps.
Lorelei seems to be some snow oracle, postulating that the snow will hit the following day so she and Rory set up their first walk through the snow of the season. Bless them. I’ve done that first snow walk as well some years, only I do it alone but it is still magical, let me tell you!
Sweeney: Snow is the devil’s sorcery, looking all pretty but actually destroying lives. I enjoy how much Lorelai enjoys it, though.
Karina: Don’t you badmouth snow! It’s glorious and cold and white and fluff and amazing.
Rory leaves her mother to possibly die of frostbite in their own living room while listening to Max’s message over and over.
Cut to Michel at the Independence Inn complaining about snow because it’s Michel. (S: ALSO BECAUSE SNOW IS COLD & INCONVENIENT & AWFUL.) Pfffffff. Lorelei is still ridiculously excited about snow while Michel is having none of it. I’m still siding with Lorelai here, also it must be a ton of fun to annoy Michel.
Rory and Lane enter the Independence Inn, Rory in her school uniform and Sergeant Lane Pepper is sporting a hideous band uniform. Are hideous band uniforms really a thing in the US? Rory seems to not be paying much attention to her bff who is going through some boy trouble because she is more interested in finding her chemistry book. Poor Lane. The book magically turns up at the inn and Rory pretends for a hot second she cares about Lane and Rich Bloomenfeld, but in Sookie’s kitchen Rory is all about some cookies because Dean likes them and she wants to give them to Dean and so Lane’s troubles are forgotten once again.
Sweeney: Lorelai and Sookie have an adorable moment of sing-songy teasing Rory about this, in which Lane, in spite of being totally ignored by her bff right now, is visibly in solidarity embarrassment with Rory. It is all-around cute.
Karina: Very cute indeed. Lane and Rory time is cut short when Dean meets them at the bus stop and you can tell Lane feels like the third wheel. Dean read a Jane Austen novel and they bicker about how he didn’t expect to like it. Maybe it’s just me but Dean is painted more intelligent in the first season than he continues to be when the show progresses or maybe that’s just my perception.
Sweeney: You are not wrong. Dean definitely gets character assassinated when The Great Contrivance Spirit decides his time has come.
Karina: Good to know it’s not me then. Lane leaves the lovebirds all sad.
Meanwhile Lorelai informs us that snowfall has started, she monologues to no one but herself (and us I guess) when the phone rings and it’s her mother. So much for the peace and quiet snowfall usually brings. It’s actually a cool monologue.
Emily tells Lor that a bad storm is hitting Hartford and it’s aiming towards Stars Hollow so she sent for their driver to pick up Rory, and since the weather is really bad, Lorelai can’t come to Friday Night Dinner. I’m sure Lorelai is devastated with those news.
Sweeney: Snow never seems to do me any solids like this. It only ever keeps me from places I do want to be.
Karina: War reanactment time. Luke tries to talk the guys out of standing in the freezing cold for hours but without any luck. Mayor Harry informs us that Luke’s father was also a reenacter. Lorelei walks behind them looking absolutely adorable in her dark coat, blue scarf and woollen hat. I could never wear a hat the way Lorelai does which to this day brings me sadness whenever I try. Lorelai and Luke bicker about tradition and it’s sweet. Also, we get more snow backstory from Lorelai. When she was five years old, she had a bad ear infection so she wished really hard that something wonderful would happen and the next morning it had snowed. She thought it was all for her, which is the absolute cutest. (S: True.) To this day, she always sees snow as a present for her even though she technically knows it’s not.
Cut to Lane and even more kids in hideous band uniforms. This may be an epidemic. A band guy comes running towards them and I think this is Rich Bloomenfeld, Lane’s current obsession. He stops right in front of her, kneels down to get out his instrument and Lane runs her fingers through his hair without asking. WHOOPS! The other kids start laughing so she runs away. Poor, poor Lane. She really is having a rough time.
Sweeney: This moment gives me so much secondhand embarrassment it is physically painful. I just want to take Lane into my arms. And then buy her lots of ice cream.
Karina: Team Feels would take good care of Lane at Snark Squad HQ, I’m sure.
More snow walking for Lorelai when she runs into Max Medina at the auto shop where his car broke down. BOOM. SNOW PRESENT!
How convenient that Rory is stuck at her grandparents so Max and Lorelai get to finally go on their first date.
At the Gilmore residence, dinner won’t happen because the cook can’t come due to the snow. Rory saves the evening by making frozen pizza. It’s actually a great bonding time between the three of them. What I can’t get behind however is how they will not be hungry after dividing one lousy frozen pizza by three. But okay. (S: FOR REAL. One frozen pizza does not a meal for three make!) Also, Richard is the sassiest, lol.
Back in the Hollow, Lorelai and Max are getting takeout, doing some first date talking while they’re on their way to the movie theatre.
Cut back to Hartford, Rory wanders into Lorelai’s childhood room and goes through some of her mom’s things. She finds a photo strip of her parents and it’s cute. They really were in love at some point. Then Rory gets a pager message, at least I assume that’s what it is, never having had such a contraption for myself. (S: Blast from the technological past!) She calls the number and it’s Lane who’s at Rory’s home. Lane complains about how Rory isn’t around anymore because of Chilton, her grandparents, Dean etc. Good for Lane for speaking out, but before they can resolve anything, the phone dies because of the snow storm. Of course it does.
Emily comes rushing in because the oven timer is buzzing and she can’t turn it off.
Karina: It really does feel odd to me too and that moment never sat quite right with me.
Cut to Lorelai and Max at the movies, watching some old movie and they talk through it because of course they do. And then they kiss.
Friday Night Dinner of the Poor. Emily and Richard’s foray into frozen pizza is a success so Rory gets bolder and asks about some pictures she found in her mother’s old room. They range from baby pictures of Lorelai, Emily’s sister Hopi, Emily’s and Richard’s wedding picture and one of Lorelai in preparation for her coming out dance. Every coming out I ever participated in, draping myself in a rainbow flag would have been more appropriate but that’s just me. (S: Sound way more fun.) Emily and Richard get all stonewall about the picture because Lorelai never had the coming out party since she was pregnant with Rory. Well that was a mood killer.
In Stars Hollow, it’s snowed quite considerably already and Luke, always the heart of gold, offers the freezing “soldiers” hot coffee but they refuse at first. Luke then sees Max and Lorelai kissing in the streets, HOW DARE THEY?! JK. Lorelai shows Max her house but she has concerns about letting Max in because she never let a guy she was dating inside in order to protect Rory. Eventually she lets him in though because Rory is away and also she isn’t 10 anymore.
Inside the house they’re trying to make coffee but get distracted by kissing and making their way upstairs for possibly sexy times when Max spots Lane. AWKWARD! Lane feels terrible so she blasts The Cure, which is a very appropriate musical choice, so Lorelai tries her best to comfort Lane. Lorelai’s Mom Mode is pretty good here. She lets Lane explain her humiliating situation and then gives her a different perspective with some sass. Moral of the story, everyone screws up in high school (and beyond that, though that’s my personal addition) and that’s natural and okay. It’s important how you handle your screw ups not that the screw ups happen in the first place.
Karina: Lorelai tells Max that Lane needs to stay with her tonight because she had a crappy teen day and Max knows he won’t get any that night so he stays on the couch.
Next morning, Lorelai gets woken up from a car driving by, it’s Rory being delivered so Lor stops Rory outside to inform her about Max being on the couch. WHOOPS. They have a whisper convo about Rory’s English teacher being in her living room.
Lorelei broke her self-imposed dating rules and as upset as Rory is she isn’t really mad at her mom for dating Max. This marks a new era though because Rory gives Lorelai the absolution to bring guys home from now on because she isn’t a little kid anymore.
Sweeney: This is a small-but-huge moment and really cool because it’s a big thing to navigate in the life of a single parent, and as much as I live for Lorelai’s parenting wins, it’s also lovely to see Rory being supportive of her mother.
Karina: Lane comes out of Rory’s room and the two have a talk where Rory admits to having been a shitty friend lately. Rory promises to be better from now on and they hug it out.
After Lane leaves, Rory sees her mom talking to Max on the couch and she looks a bit hurt because it seems her parents truly are over. She takes the photo strip out of her jacket pocket and broods over it while we cut to the end credits.
Next time on Gilmore Girls: Rory attends her first dance but stay out too late in S01 E09 – Rory’s Dance.
I'm a 30-something safety engineer dreaming of finding someone to support my habit of shipping badass women in media with each other. Love running and singing and also self-depricating humour.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
