Stopping by Stars Hollow: A Critic’s First Watch of 'Gilmore Girls' - Season 1, Episode 15

Here we are on the eve of a brand new culture critique website: They Have Thoughts! Why am I shamelessly plugging an exciting culture critique website that dives deep into the reasoning and failings of a multitude of cultural influences? Because I’m a main contributor to said website. So if you like what I’m writing here, please go check it out! We’ve put a lot of hard work into this site and I guarantee you’re gonna like what you read.

Anyway, let’s stop the plugfest and stop by Stars Hollow!

Season 1, Episode 15: “Christopher Returns”

Ladies and gents we’ve got a contender!

Remember how I spent paragraph upon paragraph complaining about how Max and Lorelai’s relationship didn’t have enough meat to warrant being a threat to Lorelai and Luke’s dynamic? Well, Amy Sherman-Palladino has answered my prayers in the form of the blue-eyed, motorcycle riding, leather wearing ghost of Christmas past: Christopher.

Christopher is Rory’s father and Lorelai’s longest relationship and friendship. That’s the kind of deep, meaningful relationship riddled with shared history that could challenge (and possibly decimate) the “meant-to-be” relationship of Lorelai and Luke.

This episode is a good episode for it gives us the feeling of sitting on a top of a roller coaster looking down. The charm of Christopher’s character plus his chemistry with Lorelai with the hopes that Christopher has cleaned his act up have us rooting for their success, however, integrated in their storyline are multiple warning signs that nothing has changed and that everything is going to crash and burn. What makes this so good is not just the dramatic irony of the audience knowing that something rough is coming (though it does add to the experience). What makes this episode so good is that it makes us root for Christopher and Lorelai within the first fifteen minutes.

If Sherman-Palladino had put in as much detail to the dynamic of Max and Lorelai as she did with the dynamic of Christopher and Lorelai we’d be playing a whole different (and more exciting) ball game right now. Max overall has had more episode and screen time under his belt than Christopher and yet Christopher is the stronger character. Why is this? Because Christopher's character is actually dynamic.

Max is Rory’s hot and smart English teacher who finds Lorelai attractive. Christopher is Rory’s father and Lorelai’s longtime love. Now Christopher’s definitely got the better foundation, but what really pushes him over the edge is the likability of his character and his view of Lorelai as much more than a sex object. Max’s character interactions with Lorelai seemed to be less about getting to know her and falling in love with her heart, soul, and mind and more about the passion between them. Perhaps having Max and Lorelai share more tender moments rather than lustful moments would have strengthened this, but we’ll never know because the amount of thought put into Max’s character never went past: hot piece of ass.

Also special shout out to that fight between Christopher’s parents and Lorelai’s parents. That was some great tension and some very realistic dialogue between the six of them. It was such a solid and dark moment that really grounded the episode, if not this season as a whole. So far Lorelai’s teen pregnancy and raising of Rory on her own has been approached lightly without showing all of the messiness that comes with the situation. This fight shows the incredibly complex nature of the Gilmore family dynamic and why Christopher and Lorelai’s outcome happened the way it did.

Let’s hope this momentum of great storytelling continues to build as we move…

Onto Season 1, Episode 16: “Star-Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers”