2 DVD
22 EPISODE
Background
Lorelai's conflict with her wealthy parents is central to the back-story for the series. Tension with her controlling mother, Emily, and her father, Richard, recurs throughout the show. Lorelai's troubled childhood came to a head when she became the teenage mother of Rory at the age of sixteen. In addition, Lorelai refused to marry the baby's father, Christopher Hayden, much to the dismay of her parents. Instead, the rebellious Lorelai ran away to Stars Hollow, a small town near Hartford. There she met Mia, owner of the Independence Inn, who gave her a job as a maid and acted as a surrogate mother to both Lorelai and Rory. Lorelai eventually becomes general manager of the inn, her position at the start of the series. She and Rory lived in a converted potting shed behind the Inn for about ten years before moving to the house they live in during the show. Lorelai consistently tried to minimize her parents' contact with Rory until (the first episode of the series) Lorelai approached them to fund Rory's elite prep school, Chilton. In exchange for the financial support Lorelai received for Rory’s education, her parents established a new weekly tradition. They asked for weekly Friday night dinners. These dinners helped foster a better relationship between Rory and her grandparents, especially her grandfather, as well as Lorelai and her parents.
Lorelai's romantic life
Lorelai's various romantic entanglements also played a role in the show, which hooked viewers from the start. Her relationship with local restaurant owner Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) gradually grows from a playful, but close friendship. It is made more obvious as the series goes on that the entire town knows of Luke's crush on Lorelai, except her. In the fourth season, however, the two finally become romantically involved. In the fifth season, they go through a rocky patch when Lorelai's parents don't approve of the pairing. Emily tells Christopher to make a move on Lorelai and the love triangle comes to a head at the renewing of Richard and Emily's vows, when Christopher tells Luke that his relationship with Lorelai is just "for now" and that Christopher and Lorelai are destined for each other, and "everyone knows it." Luke sulks out of the party and when Lorelai goes after him he tells her that he "needs time." She winds up pushing him and he breaks up with her. When Emily, hurt by her daughter's cold shoulder, goes back to tell Luke she will stay out of the relationship he gets back together with Lorelai. They get engaged in the sixth season premiere after Lorelai sees how much Luke cares for Rory when he finds out she's not going back to Yale. When Luke finds out he has a daughter named April, he wants to slow things down with Lorelai. After a number of incidents, including a discussion with April's mother, Anna, she grows frustrated and finally gives Luke an ultimatum: she tells him they need to marry immediately or the relationship would be over. Stunned and feeling cornered, he is unable to give her an instant answer. Lorelai walks away and effectively ends the relationship, seeking out Christopher for comfort and ending up in bed with him.
The seventh season opens the day after their fight, and Luke goes back to plead to Lorelai to go away with him, but she informs him she slept with Christopher and he promptly leaves to go punch Christopher in the face. During the Spring Fling (one of the town's many festivals), the two meet in the middle of a hay maze, and both apologize for their behavior regarding the end of their relationship, thus beginning a new, tentative friendship. In the series finale, Luke moves mountains to throw Rory a graduation/going away party in the town square. When Sookie tells Lorelai that Luke painstakingly put the bash together, with the help of most of the townfolk, Lorelai decides to thank Luke for his thoughtfulness. Luke tells her that he just likes to see her happy, they embrace, and kiss. In the final scene of the episode, Lorelai and Rory are seated at Luke's Diner for an early breakfast before Rory must leave for her first job after graduating from Yale. When Luke asks Lorelai what she would like to eat, she says that she needs a minute as she can't decide. Luke smiles and tells her to take all the time she needs. Also, in this scene Lorelai is wearing a necklace that Luke gave to her as a gift. This last scene of the series mirrors the last scene of the first episode, where Lorelai and Rory are eating in the diner with Luke behind the counter.
Max Medina (Scott Cohen), Rory's Chilton English teacher, is briefly engaged to Lorelai. Luke, after learning of their engagement, makes Lorelai a chuppah, and when he presents it to her they talk. Luke observes that "you only get married once," then at her bachlorette party her mother talks about when she was about to marry Richard and that she would put on her wedding dress every night. This results in Lorelai's unexpected call to her maybe not so former lover, Christopher Hayden. These things make Lorelai realize that she does not truly love Max, and she ends their engagement by leaving for a spontaneous road trip with Rory early in the morning a week before her wedding. Max shows up again in the third season, but nothing serious happens between them.
For a while in season three Lorelai casually dated Alex, a divorced man with two kids who was starting his own coffee shop. He took her coffee tasting, fishing and to New York for a show and then, after Max Medina came back into town, he was no longer on the show.
Jason Stiles is Richard's much younger business partner and a childhood friend of Lorelai's; he once went by 'Digger', but does not wish to be called that anymore. She initially dated him to bother her mother, who she knew would disapprove of their relationship. However, when the relationship became more serious, she feared telling her parents. Jason and Lorelai's relationship was exposed when Jason's father hired a private investigator to follow his son. They broke up when Jason filed a lawsuit against Lorelai's father after Richard fires Jason. Lorelai eventually chose her father over Jason. In the fourth season finale, Jason comes to the test run at the Dragonfly to try to win Lorelai back. He becomes annoying by the end of the night (especially to Luke, who is unclear on the details of his and Lorelai's relationship status). At the end of the episode Lorelai adamantly tells Jason and Luke that her relationship with Jason is over. After which Jason is never seen again, although it is mentioned that Sookie and Michel called him and told him that his condo was on fire. That ends up being the night Luke and Lorelai first kiss.
Lorelai periodically reconnects with Christopher Hayden (David Sutcliffe), Rory's father. As their subplot develops, it becomes evident that Lorelai always expected to reunite with Christopher, but he was never prepared to commit seriously. In the first season when we meet him for the first time they go to Friday night dinner with both their parents. It ends up turning into a big fight and Chris and Lorelai end up on the balcony where they held many high school memories, including the initial conception of Rory. After much reminiscing, they find themselves having sex. The next morning Chris spontaneously proposes, but Lorelai knows he can't be a family man. When Rory asks if she loved him, she says, "I think I'll always love your dad." Christopher begins dating Sherry in season two, but after they break up, he and Lorelai begin to rekindle their relationship, until Sherry reveals that she is pregnant and Lorelai gets dumped. Christopher and Sherry get engaged and have a daughter named Georgia (Gigi for short). Shortly afterwards, Sherry runs off to Paris for her job, abandoning Chris and their baby. At this point Lorelai was already romantically involved with Luke, although Christopher tried to win her back at Richard and Emily's wedding renewal vows. He messes things up with Lorelai and Luke and makes Lorelai even more irritated with him. They remained platonic until the final episode of the sixth season, when Lorelai goes to Chris for comfort after breaking up with Luke and again they end up having sex. In the seventh season, they take a romantic trip to Paris and decide to elope. During the November sweeps 2006, they are a married couple. However, soon into their marriage they break up again due to conflicts over lack of sincere devotion to their marriage on her part and her lingering feelings for Luke, as well as his inability to work through conflict. Lorelai tells Christopher, "I want you to know that you're the man I want to want."
Rory's romantic life
As with Lorelai, Rory's romantic attractions also run throughout the show.
Rory meets Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki) in the first episode of the series. He first approaches her by telling her that he has been "watching her." She helps him attain a job at Doose's Market. Rory shares her first kiss with Dean after he offers her a soda, then kisses her. They finalize their official dating status after a dance to which Dean escorted Rory. They fall asleep in Miss Patty's studio. Lorelai finding out that they were together all night made Lorelai resent Dean for a while, but after she gets to know him, she ends up really liking him. Rory maintains a relationship with Dean for almost two and a half years. He breaks up with her briefly in the first season, when she isn't able to reciprocate his statement, "I love you." In the season one finale Rory finally admits to Dean that she too loves him. Eventually, Rory renews her relationship with Dean and they remain a steady couple until the third season, when Dean decides to call it quits because he is convinced that Rory is in love with Jess Mariano, Luke Danes' nephew. They do not reunite until much later, when she loses her virginity to a now-married Dean in an unexpected fling, which ultimately ends his marriage and creates a short-lived rift between her and her mother. Rory and Dean break up when he decides he can't compete with her life at Yale and her new Yale friends including Logan Huntzberger.
Tristan Dugray (Chad Michael Murray), a Chilton classmate with whom she has a weird relationship. Tristin always shows signs he likes Rory. He initially calls her Mary, as in the Virgin Mary, because he thought she looked like a "goody-goody". She shares a kiss with him at Madeline's party, shortly after she and Dean had broken up. Tristin reminds Rory of this when he and Rory must share a kiss via reenacting the last scene from Romeo and Juliet. He purposely brings it up to annoy Dean who is watching the rehearsal. This also indicates he might be jealous of Dean for being with Rory.
Jess Mariano (Milo Ventimiglia), moves to Stars Hollow in season two to live with his uncle, local diner owner Luke Danes. During season two, Rory is torn between her attraction for Jess and Dean. When Jess goes off to New York, Rory follows him. He shows up at Stars Hollow prior to Sookie and Jackson's wedding. Rory spots him, and kisses him. Realising her mistake she promptly tells him to not say a word. Jess asks to live with Luke again, and reunite with Rory. Rory and Jess remain together the rest of the third season. However, their relationship ends abruptly when Jess drops out of high school and leaves Stars Hollow without telling Rory. He goes to California to seek out his father —- his life there was potentially going to be a Gilmore Girls spin-off but this never materialized. In season four, Jess reappears after several months and confesses his love for Rory, imploring her to leave Yale to run away with him to New York but Rory is unwilling to do so. In season six, Jess makes an unexpected appearance at Rory's grandparents' house and the two briefly reminisce about old times. Rory and Jess make plans to have dinner together to further catch-up with each other but Logan turns up unexpectedly, ruining the "date" by getting into a heated exchange with Jess, causing Jess to walk out before he starts a fist fight. Outside the restaurant, Jess angrily questions Rory about her lifestyle and her apparent fascination with Logan, who Jess claims is exactly the type of person he and Rory "used to make fun of." He asks Rory why she dropped out of Yale, telling her "this isn't you." Although he spends most of this scene scolding Rory, it is implied that his love and support are the catalyst for Rory turning her life around, as their relationship was built on similar intellectual ambitions and personalities. Later in season six, Rory takes an impulsive trip to visit Jess in Philadelphia where she and Jess share a romantic kiss after he writes a book and tells her all his success is due to her urging him and believing in him. This is cut short however when Rory realizes she doesn't want to betray Logan and walks out. Jess is never seen again in the series.
At Yale, Rory becomes involved with Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry), a chronic underachiever whose wealthy family owns a newspaper empire and immediately disapproves of Rory. Logan's father, the infamous Mitchum Huntzberger, hires Rory as an intern. His crushingly negative evaluation of her work leads to her leaving Yale temporarily at the end of the fifth season. (The scenes of Logan's house are filmed at Doheny mansion on the Mount St Mary's campus ). In the sixth season premiere, Lorelai and Rory are estranged and Rory is living with her grandparents. She is taking time off from college and serving community service for stealing a yacht with Logan. Eventually, an intervention from Jess makes Rory regret her actions, and she reunites with her mother. Logan gets upset at Rory because of Jess' appearance and leaves without resolution. Rory then returns to Yale for the spring semester of the 2005–2006 school year. Rory's relationship with Logan is particularly tumultuous after she attends the wedding of Logan's sister, and discovers that he had sex with all of the bridesmaids during their brief break up earlier in season six. In the next episode, Rory takes Logan back, although she has not forgiven him. Logan then leaves for three days on a Life and Death Brigade event, although Rory had expressed her concern. During his absence, Rory visits Jess at his new bookstore and kisses him, apologizing and fully confessing her feelings for Logan. Logan is seriously injured on the trip; but Rory takes care of him after his accident, and their relationship is repaired. In the season six finale, Logan graduates and leaves for London. In the seventh season, he relocates to New York City to start his own Internet company, which becomes a financial disaster. Logan has a breakdown and heads to Las Vegas, where he parties frequently. Rory and Logan fight over his irresponsible behavior, but eventually make up. Their relationship continues to strengthen when Logan comes home with Rory to Stars Hollow. There, he asks Lorelai for Rory's hand in marriage and reveals his plans to move to San Francisco. When Logan reveals his intentions to Rory at her graduation party (held by her grandparents), she replies by saying she "needs more time. " After her graduation, Rory tells Logan that there is so much in life to pursue now, and that being married would change that. She attempts to convince him to give a long-distance relationship a try, but he tells her that it's "all or nothing." She gives the ring back to Logan and he ends their relationship that same day. Logan still plans to move to San Francisco without Rory.
Although she never dates him, Marty (Wayne Wilcox), one of Rory's best friends at Yale, has a crush on her throughout his role on the show. It is when he asks her if she has a boyfriend during Asher Fleming's wake that she goes to check on things with Dean. His noticeable rivalry, however, is with Logan Huntzberger. He is with Rory when she meets Logan for the first time, and Logan and his friend heckle him about his bar-tending job and, according to Rory, treat him like a servant. He tells Rory "I kind of hate those guys", and starts to distance himself from Rory as her relationship with Logan develops. In season five Marty goes out for dinner with Rory, Logan, and some of Logan's friends, and at the end of the night tells Rory, "I like you, and I don't want to be just friends with you", to which she responds, "I like Logan". In season seven Rory makes some new friends, Lucy and Olivia, two eccentric drama and art students at Yale; Lucy continues to mention her boyfriend, but only ever refers to him as 'boyfriend'. When Rory finally meets him she is shocked to discover that it's Marty, who pretends not to know her. At Lucy's 21st birthday party Rory confronts Marty about his behaviour, and they decide to act normally again. However later on at the party a very drunk Marty confesses he still loves her, and their decision isn't enacted. This pretense continues until Rory, Marty, Lucy and Logan have dinner together. Logan, who is aware of the situation, is asked by Lucy how he and Rory met; he then proclaims he isn't going to lie, and that Marty introduced Rory to him, and that Rory and Marty were very close friends in their first year of college. Lucy storms off, with Marty fast on her heels. Despite Logan's actions Rory later forgives him, and he reveals that he was jealous. Rory also tries to apologize to Lucy, but neither she nor Olivia will speak to her, leading to Rory writing a letter of explanation and apology. After this, Rory and Lucy make up, but Lucy and Marty break up, and he is never heard of again.
Rory's friends
Rory's friendships with long-time best friend Lane Kim (Keiko Agena), a second-generation Korean American from a strict background, and Paris Geller (Liza Weil), a Jewish friend/rival at both Chilton and Yale, are also themes in the show. At the end of the sixth season, Lane marries Hep Alien band-mate Zach van Gerbig (Todd Lowe), a sweet and slightly clumsy rocker. At the beginning of the seventh season, Lane discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant and gives birth to twin boys (Kwan and Steve) later in the season. In the seventh season, Paris is accepted into Harvard Medical School (Harvard is the school she has wanted to go to for years, as her family are all alumni, but was not accepted for the undergraduate program during the third season). In season four, Doyle McMaster (Danny Strong) storms onto the show as the Yale Daily News editor. He and Paris start dating in the fifth season, after Paris' relationship with a much older Professor Asher Fleming (Michael York) ends with his sudden death .
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