At the First Hint of Fall, My Thoughts Wistfully Turn to the 'Gilmore Girls'

I just noticed the first hints of autumnal color in the leaves on the tops of two trees on my New England street. During the past two days, the temps haven’t made it above 70 and school has begun. As fall gradually unfurls, my thoughts turn to many things, like playoff baseball (Go Sox!), apple picking, making everything I can think of from the apples before they go bad, fresh cider and cider doughnuts, jack-o-lanterns and cozy sweaters.

And I also think about one of my favorite TV shows, the Gilmore Girls, a program which showcased fall in New England quite often. Set in a fictional Connecticut small town named Stars Hollow, about a half-hour outside of Hartford, it began in the fall, in September specifically. Its opening credits display the show’s title across a background of vibrant foliage. On the DVDs (I own nearly all of the seasons), you make episode selections by clicking on a leaf. The ABC Family web site which has a page for the show, is covered in fall leaves. Fall and the Gilmore Girls go hand-in-hand, despite Lorelai's professed love for magical snow.

 

Many memorable, quirky moments occurred in the fall: Rory Gilmore’s birthday was in the fall -- something that was marked during several seasons -- and she received her first gift from her first boyfriend Dean outside amidst the leaves while her mother Lorelai looked on through the kitchen window.

Luke Danes was constantly hounded by the Stars Hollow selectman, Taylor Doose, to festoon his diner with festive fall decorations, given its proximity to the town green where the Thanksgiving horn of plenty resided and where the fall fair was being held.

Rory got her first kiss in Doose’s Market while she was awkwardly clutching a box of corn starch from a Thanksgiving display (a box she inadvertently shoplifted), and then ran across the center of town, stepping around pumpkins and hay bales to share her good fortune with her buddy Lane.

Rory and Lorelai had four Thanksgivings one year when they were emotionally blackmailed and/or cornered by their friends and family and felt as though they couldn't decline the invitations.

The first one at Lane Kim’s house featured tofurkey, the second at Luke’s diner featured Luke’s gruff banter, the third at Sookie St. James’ house was highlighted by Jackson deep frying the turkey and Snooki getting drunk, and the fourth at Emily and Richard Gilmore’s was the site of an argument over where Rory should apply to college. The mother-daughter duo gave everybody a bouquet of fresh fall flowers, cranberry sauce and chocolate turkeys.

When Rory was a freshman at Yale, Emily and Richard insisted on tailgating prior to the Yale-Harvard football game (albeit tailgating alongside a massive motor home, using linens and fine china and the services of a wait staff). Richard got drunk, ran into an ex and, when Emily became jealous that he’d maintained regular contact with a former flame, she took out her anger on Lorelai who’d finagled an invitation to the tailgating soiree at the last minute.

Just a month or so earlier, Lorelai had eased Rory through the college transition by spending the night with her in her Yale dorm, inviting the female students into Rory’s suite as they ordered from all the take-out joints in the neighborhood so they could sample them, that was when Lorelai wasn’t arguing with Luke over his truck in which she’d left Rory’s Yale-issued mattress.

Are there any TV shows which remind you of fall? Any favorite fall-related Gilmore Girls episodes?

Image credits: ABC Family and The WB.



Julie Taylor Pulls a Rory Gilmore

Image credit: NBC

The Gilmore Girls’ Rory Gilmore was the consummate “good girl.” She was smart and became the valedictorian of her academically rigorous private school’s senior class. She dated a nice boy and then a bad boy but never let her behavior veer off into wild gal territory. She was respectful to her mother and her grandparents.But when she began attending Yale, things started going off the rails and Rory started acting distinctly unRory-like.


For example, she had an affair with Dean, her married ex-boyfriend which led to the breakup of his marriage.

Her next boyfriend, Logan, was an affluent, spoiled albeit very smart party boy. She was in his company when she suggested that they “borrow” (i.e. – steal) someone else’s boat at a marina for a joy ride. (Just before the joy ride, she had been told in no uncertain terms by Logan’s media magnate of a father that she had no future in her chosen profession: Journalism.) Following her arrest and probation, she withdrew from Yale, became estranged from her mother and went to live at her grandparents’ home, missing out on a semester of college as she tried to figure out what she was going to make of her life.


Now Friday Night Lights’ Julie Taylor is not Rory Gilmore. She got a tattoo when she was in high school. Her dad, her high school’s football coach, walked in on her when she was having sex with her boyfriend, the team quarterback. She went through a rebellious period, including the time when she went away overnight with her boyfriend in direct violation of her parents’ wishes, and she frequently clashed with them.

But by the time she was ready to head off to college, Julie and her parents were at peace with one another. Her parents were tearful as she pulled out of the driveway.


That was before Julie met Derek, a charming and handsome teaching assistant who took a shining to the college freshman. Derek showered her with attention and flirted until the flirting turned into a full fledged affair. Problem is, Derek was married. And Julie knew it but proceeded to screw around with him anyway.

Julie’s stealing-the-boat moment occurred when Derek’s wife slapped her across the face and screamed, “Julie Taylor is a slut!” in front of a whole bunch of her fellow students. In her shame, Julie fled school and headed home, even went so far as to intentionally smash her car into a brick post so she couldn’t drive herself back to school.

When Julie’s parents Eric and Tami finally learned why she was hiding out at home, why she intentionally totaled her car, they tried to make her return to school, like Rory’s mother Lorelai unsuccessfully tried to make Rory go back to school after Rory was busted. Eric became so irritated, that he tried to physically get her to walk to the door. That was a no-go. Frustrated, Tami drove up to the college to pick up her daughter’s books and assignments so Julie wouldn’t fail out of her first semester of college.


What does this mean for Julie Taylor’s future as a college student? Will she turn it around like Rory eventually did?

Image credit: NBC.