The Deer-Hunters originally aired October 26, 2000.  It was written by Jed Seidel and was directed by Alan Myerson.

In this episode, a deer hits Lorelei’s car while Rory drives to Chilton.  It causes her to miss a Shakespeare exam, which could have disastrous consequences for her GPA.

This is one of the more memorable episodes of Gilmore Girls…all because of a deer.

We start off with Rory shopping for school supplies.  Rory needs serious school supplies, because she’s going to a serious school.  Lorelei, of course, has to make fun of Rory for this.

Rory gets a bad grade on an essay, and starts worrying about her Shakespeare test.  She, of course, gets shit from Paris.  From there, we go to the Independence Inn, where Lorelei reads a review about the restaraunt at the inn.  I love Sookie’s reaction to her magic risotto being described as just fine.

I just love Mrs. Kim.  Every time I see her, I can’t help but laugh.  The way she says things just cracks me up.  And Drella playing Black Sabbath (I think).  Very funny.

We meet Max Medina, one of Rory’s teachers, at a parent-teacher meeting.  I like Max, and I’m glad he sticks around for a while.  This is when Lorelei finds out Rory got a bad grade on an essay, and Rory’s behavior afterwards makes much more sense to Lorelei.

No episode is complete without going to Luke’s.  Rory’s studying, and Luke feeds her.  They talk about Rory’s essay and how humiliated she felt.  Rory doubts herself and her ability to catch up at Chilton.

Sookie has Lorelei taste-test several different risottos and is totally freaking out.  It’s nothing unusual from Sookie.  She even talks to one of the waiters, trying to figure out what happened.

Lorelei helps Rory study, and she eventually falls asleep while studying.  She wakes up late, drives to school…and on her way, a deer hits her.  She doesn’t hit the deer, it hits her while she’s at a stop sign talking to Lane.  She arrives late for her Shakespeare test and isn’t allowed to take it.  She has a melt-down in class, yells at Paris and Tristan, and gets sent to the principal’s office.

Back at the Inn, Sookie discovers that the restaraunt critic ordered the wrong wine with the risotto.  Lorelei goes to Chilton to talk to Headmaster Charleston and Mr. Medina and has a freak-0ut of her own.  Headmaster Charleston refuses to change the rules and says that if Rory can’t handle the pressure, she shouldn’t be at Chilton.

Sookie goes to the critic’s house to serve him the risotto with the proper wine.

Rory and Lorelei talk about Rory’s future at Chilton while looking for the deer, and Rory decides to stay at Chilton.  Max calls and leaves a message for Rory saying that there is an extra credit opportunity for Rory that will make up for missing the test.

Pop culture references: Black Sabbath, B-52’s, Saved By The Bell, Flash Dance

Favorite lines and scenes: Rory and her multiple trips to get all her stuff off of the bus.

Rory and Lane playing Marco Polo at Kim’s Antique’s so Rory can find Lane.

Rory, to Tristan: “And the name is RORY.”

Final Thoughts: I like this episode.  It’s the whole getting hit by a deer, but everyone thinking she hit a deer that makes it memorable.  Rory’s still adjusting to Chilton, but I think she feels better about attending by the end of the episode.

The Deer-Hunters gets 3 mugs of coffee.

The Loreleis’ First Day At Chilton originally aired October 12, 2000.  It was written by Amy Sherman-Palladino and directed by Arlene Sanford.

In this episode, we see Rory’s first day at Chilton, where we learn you get extra points for singing the school song in Latin.  And Chilton is not a place where cutoffs and cowboy hats are considered fashionable.

This episode gets off to a funny start, with Lorelei waking up late because her fuzzy alarm clock didn’t go off.  The cutoffs and cowboy hat?  It’s because she woke up late, couldn’t pick up her dry-cleaning, and thus had nothing to wear.

The rodeo comment by Rory was hilarious.

Of course, we get our first look at Chilton a few minutes into the episode- it definitely looks like an elite prep school in New England.  Or at least, what I imagine an elite prep school in New England to be.  I love how Lorelei starts to go off on tangents when they’re meeting the Headmaster- and what I love about the series.  It’s just full of tangents.

I love the crap Lorelei gets for wearing shorts for Rory’s first day at Chilton.  Part of me would love to go to Chilton, because it doesn’t seem like your typical school.  I don’t know what what’s going on with Chilton, but it seems like they have majors.  In high school.  And with the classes and the class schedule, it seems more like college than high school.

I forgot how annoying and high-strung Paris was in high school.  She’s just like that, period, but much more amplified at Chilton.  The Rory-Paris relationship is an interesting one, and it starts off a little bit hostile.  Don’t worry, though, it changes.

Jackson cracks me up, and I love the relationship he has with Sookie.  I love them on their own, but when you get them together, hilarity ensues.  And Michel is hilarious.  Babette is one of my favorite characters.  Actually, I love the colorful people that populate Star Hollows.

We meet quite a few characters in this episode- Paris, Madeleine and Louise (who I can never tell apart), Headmaster Charleston, Tristan, Jackson and Babette.  And Mick, who later turns into Kirk…which is one of those weird continuity errors and a tale for another episode.

Pop culture references include The Shining, Alice In Wonderland and The Dukes of Hazzard.  Plus a few I probably missed because I wasn’t on the look-out.  I really need to pay attention to these things.  What I did notice, however, was the first reference to Al’s Pancake World.  Spoiler alert- for all the time Al’s is mentioned, we never actually meet Al or see Al’s Pancake world, which is a disappointment.  That’s one place and person I’d love to see.

Favorite line: From Emily: “Do you want a ride or is your horse parked out front?”

Miss Patty, to her dance class: “you don’t want to drop harry potter, then he’ll die and you’ll never know what happened.”

Final thoughts: I liked this episode.  It’s introducing us to a lot of the people and places, which continues for at least one or two episodes (if not more).  And that seems like a really low estimate, but it’s the first season and all, so it’ll take time before we meet everyone.  Especially with the huge cast that Gilmore Girls has.

This episode gets 3 out of 5 mugs.  I liked it, but it’s average.

The pilot episode originally aired October 5, 2000, was written by Amy Sherman-Palladino and was directed by Lesli Linka Glatter.

In this episode, Rory gets accepted into Chilton, an elite prep school in Hartford.  Her mother Lorelei has to make amends with her parents in order to borrow the money for Rory’s tuition.  But it comes with strings attached- in the form of a weekly Friday night dinner.

Seeing this episode was such a trip.  It’s not as fresh in my mind as some of the other episodes, and seeing how different a lot of the characters looked (in comparison to the series finale) was a little startling.  It was also strange to see how different some of the sets looked, especially Luke’s Diner, Emily and Richard’s house and Lorelei and Rory’s house.

So much is set up in this episode- we see a lot of the places and meet a lot of characters that will stick around for the rest of the series.  I’ve already mentioned Luke’s, Lorelei’s house and Emily’s house, but Chilton will be a pretty important location over the next few seasons.  Same thing with the Independence Inn and Miss Patty’s.  Plus a few other locations that we’ll see over the course of the series.

As for other characters (besides the Gilmore’s anyway), we meet Sookie and Lane, who are Lorelei and Rory’s best friends, respectively.  We also meet Luke, Miss Patty, Mrs. Kim (Lane’s mom), Michel and Dean.

One thing I really love about this series is the different relationships between Rory, Lorelei and Emily.  And really, that’s what the series is about: mother-daughter relationships.  You get a pretty good sense of the kind of relationship between the three of them…but I’m a big fan of the series, so that might be coloring my perspective a little.

I love the humor and pop culture references.  It’ll be fun to try to figure them out.  In this episode, references include West Side Story, Rosemary’s Baby, Moby Dick, Flo Jo and RuPaul.  One interesting thing to keep in mind for this show is the fact that their scripts were double the length of your standard hour-long drama.  Most are around 4o to 45, I think, but Gilmore Girls was usually somewhere in the 80-page range.

Funny lines and scenes: “RuPaul doesn’t need this much make-up.”

Lorelei persuading Luke to give her more coffee at the beginning of the episode…complete with her very own mug.

There’s a scene were Lorelei goes to her parents house, and they’re trying to figure out what holiday it is.  It kind of implies that she only sees them during the holidays.

Final thoughts: For a pilot episode, it’s pretty good.  I have the feeling that if it were to air today, it probably would be cancelled way too early.  There aren’t as many good one-liners as I remembered, but it was fun to watch.

Let’s see…rating time!  Given how much Lorelei and Rory love coffee (as do I), I think I’m going to rate things on a scale of 1 to 5 coffee mugs.  And this episode gets 3.5 mugs.