Line #0 Fridge/GilmoreGirls


1	!!FridgeBrilliance
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3	* On at least two occasions, we see Kirk simply insert himself into a job role without permission, even when expressly forbidden. He crashes a staff meeting at the Dragonfly, and later that episode is found working in the kitchen; Sookie assumes that Lorelai hired him. When Luke chaperones April's field trip, Kirk offers to run the diner, to which Luke emphatically responds, "No." A minute later, he takes advantage of Caesar stepping out to start serving people, telling them that he runs the place. Who's to say he doesn't do this all the time? He apparently gets job after job despite being a class A moron and lunatic. What if nobody's hiring him at all? What if he's just walking in and doing job-related stuff, and they're temporarily confused about whether he's supposed to be there (i.e. someone else hired him and didn't mention it)? Then when they catch on, he's tossed out on his ear, and he does it all over again, thus explaining his long string of apparently very brief jobs.
4	** Jossed as of season 5, when he mentions having saved up paychecks to a quarter million dollars (just shy).
5	* It seems odd that Rory would have surpassed Paris in grades to become valedictorian at Chilton after her rough start, until you consider that it's the kind of place where a 4.0 GPA is probably borderline unattainable. Under those conditions, Rory could have outperformed Paris by a small but consistent degree over two and a half years, edging her out of the top spot. Paris' meltdown when she didn't get into Harvard probably impacted her GPA as well.
6	** Also, remember that when Paris started properly dating Jamie during their last year, she had a bit of difficulty with concentration in class for a while.
7	** Fridge moment I haven't had yet: why are we assuming Rory's average doesn't include her grades from Stars Hollow High? And if there's a good reason for that: Paris would have had more classes to divide her grades' sum by, and who's to say she was a perfect A student in her freshman year?
8	* Why does Rory want to be a Foreign Correspondent? She's grown up in a small town with the same people and loves books. She probably was excited to have some adventure and write instead of just read about adventures.
9	* In the first season, Emily Gilmore is totally supportive and even encourages Lorelai to date Luke. However, she later tries to break them up when they actually get together in Season 6. While this is may just be a continuity error, it actually makes sense. In season one Emily and Lorelai just started being a part of each other's lives again and Emily probably wanted back in Lorelai's good graces a bit more by showing she's okay with this. Also, Lorelai wasn't interested in Luke, and it's a lot easier to be supportive of something that is a minute possibility, and Emily barely knows Luke anyway. Most importantly, Emily always wanted Lorelai to end up with Christopher. In the first season, this was barely a possibility as Christopher had been out of the Gilmores' lives for ages, but by the Sixth season he'd been around and he and Lorelai had attempted a relationship multiple times, so Emily believed they had a chance and pushed Lorelai the direction she wanted.
10	* In season five, when Rory is researching the Life and Death Brigade it seemed a little weird that she didn't ask her grandfather about it. After all, he's a Yale legacy and has connections all over campus. But later on, when the Huntzburgers are displeased with Logan and Rory dating, it makes sense that Richard was not part of the Life and Death Brigade and that is the difference between the two families that makes the Huntzburgers think they are better than the Gilmores.
11	* In "Rory's Dance", Rory and Dean leave a Chilton party early, and then spend time walking around Stars Hollow before they accidentally fall asleep in Miss Patty's studio. When Rory returns home the next morning, an angry Emily believes Rory and Dean slept together on Patty's yoga mats. Fast forward to "Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller", and [[spoiler: guess where they have sex for the second time?]]
12	* In the revival, Emily's new life [[spoiler:volunteering at a whaling museum in Nantucket]] makes a ton of sense when you remember that when she attended Smith College for her MrsDegree, she majored in history and was involved with the DAR, an organization in real life dedicated to women in history. She likely has had a lifelong interest in history, but put it on the side when she got married. Now that [[spoiler:she's a widow and no longer involved in the DAR]], she now has some room to explore her own interests.
13	* The development of Rory [[TookALevelInJerkass Taking A Level In Jerkass]] makes more sense when you remember that Lorelai raised her like her friend and not her daughter, and with growing up in Stars Hollow, she's been spoiled by ''everyone''. She's never been really told "No" or disciplined in her entire life as well as being told that she's special and gifted and given everything she's ever wanted. When she tries to strike out on her own in college, that's when she encounters the realities of being told "No" and what consequences are. But because she's never really been equipped or taught how to handle setbacks, she starts lashing out and regressing to the safety of when everything did go smoothly for her.
14	* Rory spent her entire childhood pursuing the goal of getting into Harvard, and most of her college years with the goal of graduating Yale, but after that she had a rather vague "be like Christiane Amanpour, travel and write and stuff" sort of "goal". This could easily be why she hasn't made anything of her life and career yet.
15	* Emily really knew her maids quite well. She could describe the tiniest habits in detail.
16	* The reason Emily couldn't keep a maid was that she couldn't have personal relationships with them. Come ''A Year In The Life'', she has Bertha and Bertha's whole family come and live with her. She treats Bertha as a friend and is thrilled with her. (She also cooks to Emily's taste, which is hugely symbolic in this series.)
17	* Rory [[spoiler:got pregnant]] at the beginning of the Fall episode. She drinks whiskey in the Summer episode, and she wasn't [[spoiler:far enough along]] for it to have happened in the Winter or Spring episodes.
18	** She also drinks champagne during the Life and Death Brigade interlude at the beginning of the Fall episode, so presumably she [[spoiler: conceived when she had sex with Logan that night]].
19	* Meta: Recently realized why people think Rory's birthday was on October 6. When she and Dean discuss anniversaries they say the original anniversary was on the sixth of each month, and on Founder's day Dean said they got together on Rory's birthday. Thing is, they must have amended it to November six, or even [[Recap/GilmoreGirlsS01E07 December six]] since they didn't actually become an item on her birthday.
20	* Libby, one of Rory's fellow debutantes in high school, reappears as one of Honor's bridesmaids.
21	* In the Season 5 opener, Rory decides she and Dean need "a song," and immediately chooses "Candy Man." What movie did Rory and Dean watch on their first pseudo-date, back in Season 1? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!
22	* In season 6, Anna Nardini insists that she doesn't want Lorelai spending time with April because she and Luke are only engaged, and an engagement isn't stable, which seems like a ridiculous and arbitrary line to draw... but listen to what Anna actually says when Lorelai comes to talk to her. She says she's afraid that ''Luke'' isn't going to stick around and this will cause April to get hurt. She's trying to mitigate the damage to April that will happen when Luke leaves, which means that Luke and Lorelai could have gotten married the day that he and Anna broke up, and Anna would still be suspicious of Lorelai... because her attitude has ''nothing to do with Lorelai.''
23	* The only time we ever see Lorelai engage in any kind of cheating behavior is at the end of season 2, when she sleeps with Christopher after he assures her that he is in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend. This explains exactly why she got so upset when Rory sleeps with Dean and insisted it was okay because "things aren't working out with Lindsay" - because Lorelai has previously been burned by the exact same thing and doesn't want Rory to get hurt.
24	* In early season 7, Rory confronts Lorelai about sleeping with Christopher as a response to breaking up with Luke. She angrily tells her mother that if you're heartbroken, you watch movies, eat ice cream, and "get a hideously unflattering breakup haircut"--which provides an interesting explanation for Rory's self-confessed "spur-of-the-moment" ExpositoryHairstyleChange in season 4, given that happened only a couple months after Jess left town.
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26	!!FridgeSadness
27	* Jess's perpetual irritation towards Lorelai and her self-declared "Cool Mom" persona makes a little more sense by the time his mother Liz comes into town. Liz has been described by both Luke and Jess as extremely flaky and negligent in raising her son and a throwaway line at her wedding revealed she had been heavily involved with marijuana use in the past. She even commented during her second pregnancy that she was a binge drinker before realizing she was pregnant with him. In other words, Liz Danes is the completely opposite of Lorelai, so Jess sees Lorelai as a mere pretender and faking her "craziness" when his own mother had been wild and crazy, with the implication that he had a rough upbringing.
28	** Not only that, bear in mind that Jess was basically rejected by his parents because they didn't want to raise him while Lorelai rejected her parents in a fit of teen rebellion. Her attempt to parlay this into relating with him comes off as condescendingly patronizing in hindsight. It would have further exacerbated his irritation at being shipped off to Stars Hollow against his will.
29	** Factor in his HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood and probably crappy experiences with strange guys trying to make nice with him so they could get close to Liz, Jess has a lot of reason to be suspicious of this cheerful woman he doesn't know singing the praises of an uncle he barely knows.
30	** Related, Luke reacts to Jess needing to blast his stereo in order to sleep as an "annoying asshole teenager" thing, but it's actually quite sad if you think about it. Jess's *HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood meant there probably a lot of craziness - his parents fighting and/or partying - in his childhood home that he needed to drown out with music in order to sleep.
31	* Rory and Jess' final interaction in season 6 has a bit of an abrupt ending, showing that the two still have great chemistry but at the time, Rory is still in love with Logan and leaves with Jess looking sadly after her. Seems like a depressing way to end things for them, (especially with all the CharacterDevelopment Jess has gone through), until you learn that WordOfGod apparently meant for them to end up back together had the show run an 8th season. Jess was even supposed to appear in season 7, but then Amy quit as director thanks to ExecutiveMeddling and Jess' actor, Milo Ventimiglia, wasn't interested in working for another director. It would explain why that final interaction between him and Rory was left without closure.
32	** For some viewers, however, this lack of closure made their interaction more realistic. It also fits the way Jess left in Season Three, without closure, but in far more palatable way, showing his growth.
33	* Rory is actually an attention junkie. In the revival I first thought that Paul was really pointless, didn't really bring anything to the plot, and it seemed very out of character for Rory to treat someone like that, but then you realize that growing up she was always perfect and adored and had a lot of attention on her. Then at Yale she blended in a lot more, because everyone is exceptional, and that's when she first started unraveling. So maybe Paul wasn't out of character, she's just used to having people's undivided attention and being admired, but in the real adult world that's a lot bigger than Stars Hollow it didn't just happen to her as naturally as it did in high school and living in a small town. So she used him for an ego boost when her life didn't quite pan out as it was supposed to - her career is at a standstill, even a website she thought was below her didn't want her when she got desperate, and Logan is engaged to someone else and no longer exclusively pining for her.
34	** She probably was extra sad about Logan because she at that point [[spoiler:knew she was pregnant]].
35	*** This explanation gains a lot of steam if you look back at how Rory treated Dean in early season 3. After cheating on Dean with Jess in the season 2 finale, she went away for the summer, where it's heavily implied she spent the whole time pining after Jess and putting minimal effort into answering any of Dean's dozens of letters. When she gets home, all set to get together with Jess, she finds him in a relationship with someone else - so she continues to date Dean all the while very obviously simmering with jealousy, until Dean finally gets fed up with the whole charade and dumps her. She then melts down not because she's sad to have lost Dean, but because she's been publicly embarrassed and now has no boyfriend at all.
36	* The last final words as seen in the revival are [[spoiler:about Rory being pregnant]]. These are the words that Amy Sherman-Palladino really intended to end the show and if Amy really ended it on season 7, [[spoiler:Rory would be pregnant at 22 just as she graduated from Yale. It's not as bad as Lorelai getting pregnant at 16 but being pregnant just after graduating from college is just sad and terrible considering that Rory is getting ready to build her career and get a job, only for it would stop because of that. Also, she's unprepared for being a mother at a very young age. Never mind who the father is (it would still be Logan, who is the next Christopher), how can Rory support her child if she doesn't have a stable job and income? Yeah, she might get support from her mom and grandparents. But she's an adult where she needs to be self-sufficient and responsible and at her age, she had to make her place in society. The final words in the revival makes sense since at 32, Rory is prepared for it despite her failing journalism career, she still has some money left whatever work she had done in the TimeSkip (how else can she travel from America to London) and working at the town's newspaper and writing a book would make amends]].
37	** Logan's probably paying for Rory's travel to London. There's no way she could afford it if she can't even afford to buy underwear for a year.
38	*** Which just goes to show how unprepared for anything, let alone motherhood, that Rory is, when she should have a trust fund to cover her expenses. Apparently she's used it all up already.
39	* When Lorelai is telling Emily about her 13th birthday and Richard taking her to the movies, she says it was "the best birthday [she] ever had" which is a sad commentary on her life pre-Rory, though does that mean that she didn't have a good birthday, say when Rory had that giant pizza made for her and none of her birthdays after Rory were good?
40	** Generally, things that happen to us when we're children are colored with a certain amount of nostalgia - we didn't have to work hard then, and everything was easy. Since Lorelai has been providing for herself since the age of sixteen, it's not unbelievable that the memory of that particular birthday carries a special warm glow just because it happened before she had to grow up and take care of herself and Rory.
41	* When Mitchum tore Rory down in the season five finale, he was trying to kill her ambition and make her the sort of woman that his wife said she wanted Logan to marry during the dinner.
42	* The reason Mitchum didn't think she "got it" could also be that she was too much of a people pleaser.
43	** The revival makes clear that Rory doesn't have what it takes to be a journalist.
44	* A substantial part of Christopher's screen time in later seasons was devoted to his feelings about his relationship with Rory, particularly his regret around not being involved until she was older and feeling disconnected from her life. He is an "executive parent," one who pays for things but doesn't do the day-to-day. He tries to make up for lost time, to Rory's wary approval. At the same time, he's parenting his younger daughter, struggling but not wanting to make the same mistakes. In the revival, not only is it heavily implied he and Rory are estranged, the first thing he does when she tries to talk to him about her life is offer her money. To make it worse, he's repeating old patterns. GG is now a teenager, living in Paris with her mother, and Christopher doesn't seem to know a lot about her life except that she's "got the baguette thing down."
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46	!!FridgeHorror
47	* In ‘How Many Kropogs to Cape Cod?’, Logan states that he’s been swiping knick-knacks from rich people’s houses all up and down the Eastern seaboard for years, and no one ever notices. Emily, naturally, notices that one of her possessions is missing immediately and threatens to fire her maid for stealing. How many other maids were fired as a consequence of Logan’s little prank, and he just didn’t know (or care) that it happened?
48	* When Liz stopped being TheGhost and started being an actual character, the writers kind of...forgot...that in addition to being Luke's sister, she was also Jess's mom. She's supposed to be a ditzy NewAgeRetroHippie of sorts, and her flighty, forgetful nature is supposed to be seen as charming. But her stories about her past--including her multiple marriages, countless other relationships with questionable men, her casual drug use, her binge drinking, and her inability to be a functioning adult--take on a level of FridgeHorror when the audience remembers she had a child to care for. For some fans, this makes her UnintentionallyUnsympathetic, since she never takes responsibility for any of this behavior, and Jess is always portrayed as in the wrong when he wants nothing to do with her.
49	* Related, in "There's the Rub," Jess brings a care package of food to Rory when Lorelai leaves for an overnight trip to the spa. He tells her Luke sent it because he didn't know how long Lorelai would be gone, and he wanted her "taken care of." There is enough food in there to feed 12 normal people, six Gilmore people. As Rory learns later, Luke had nothing to do with the package. And while Jess was definitely looking for an excuse to spend time with her, the sheer amount of take-out and how normal he thinks it is that Lorelai would not only leave Rory home alone for days on end but leave her ''without food'' has some FridgeHorror implications about his life with Liz.
50	* From what we see of Christopher and his relationship with Gigi, it seems to be a like he was a very neglectful parent and now Gigi's living with her mother. Did he ship her off to Paris or did Gigi leave so that she could hopefully find some meaningful relationship with a parental figure that she wasn't getting with Chris?
51	** Crosses over into FridgeSadness: Gigi's only choices for parents both abandoned her at some point in her life.
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53	!!FridgeLogic
54	* After Rory loses her virginity to Dean, she assures her mother that they were "very safe", implying that they used condoms. But their encounter happened on the spur of the moment, ostensibly totally unexpected. Did she have condoms in her room? She was visiting from college and wasn't dating anyone, why would she have stocked up for the summer? The alternate explanation is that Dean had one on him, but given that Dean was married and visiting an old girlfriend, the most logical explanation is that he knew (or at least hoped for) what was going to happen. If that's the case, it wasn't a spontaneous moment of passion, he went there deliberately to cheat on his wife.
55	** It's possible that she was just on birth control, and figured he would have told her if he had contracted an STD. But I also wouldn't be surprised if the implication was supposed to be that he was prepared and ready.
56	** She explicitly makes a condom joke (mentions the Trojan Man) so it seems that it's supposed to imply one of them had a condom... meaning Dean most likely came over intending to cheat on his wife.
57	** Lorelai has an active sex life. Rory probably knows where she keeps condoms and would simply take one.
58	* After Rory is sentenced to complete 300 hours of community service in six months for stealing a yacht, she tells her grandparents that she won't be able to get a job because her community service is "basically a full-time job in and of itself." Except... 300 hours split over the course of six months works out to less than twelve hours a week. That's not a full-time job, that's giving up your Saturday and maybe Sunday every week. Is this an example of Rory being [[SpoiledBrat petulant about her punishment]] or just a case of WritersCannotDoMath?
59	* In season 7, Rory is forced by the bylaws of the Yale Daily News to step down as editor after one year. However, Doyle was Rory's editor-in-chief for both seasons 4 and 5, so this sudden policy of the newspaper makes no sense whatsoever.
60	* So in a span of about 10 years by the time of ''A Year in the Life,'' Paris has not only completed medical school and her residency (which that alone takes up about 7 years), but she has a law degree, is an expert on neoclassical architecture, and a certified dental technician. Plus, during all that she found time to get married, have 2 children, and is now running a world-renowned fertility clinic. Granted, this is Paris Geller, but it seems pretty farfetched for anyone to have accomplished that much by age 32.
61	** Paris's kids are pretty obviously being raised by nannies, and she and Doyle were already seriously committed before the original series ended. In terms of her career, it would be cutting it really close but it's not implausible that she got certified as a dental technician some time during medical school and her residency, and then immediately after her graduation used her trust fund to open the fertility clinic at the same time she was starting a three-year law program. Her husband is a journalist and could have helped her tremendously with promoting the clinic and helping make it successful and well-known. Expertise on neoclassical (18th century) architecture can either be explained by courses she took in college or just a general enduring interest in her (limited) spare time over the last ten years. Yes, it would mean virtually no rest or downtime over a ten year period, but it ''is'' Paris...

Context Fridge / GilmoreGirls