I don’t mean to reduce “Gilmore Girls” to a teen romance show and have my analysis of Season 2 (2001-02, WB) read like a review of “Gossip Girl” or “The O.C.” Certainly, Season 2 features serious issues like Lorelai and Sookie planning to open their own inn, Richard dealing with retirement, and Lane trying to find an identity that she doesn’t have to hide under the floorboards.
Rory and Jess
But just as Season 1 was about Rory and Dean, I can’t escape the notion that Season 2 is about Rory and Jess. (Although the love triangle will continue into Season 3, it’s clear well before the end of Season 2 that Rory has chosen Jess in her heart, if not officially.)
And just as Season 1’s “Kiss and Tell” perfectly captures the butterflies of Rory’s first date with Dean (we imagine the characters’ butterflies so well that we have sympathetic butterflies as viewers), “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” gives us another feeling in the pit of our stomach, like butterflies mixed with nausea: At the end of that 13th episode, Rory retreats to her room and calls Jess to talk about “The Fountainhead.” She is hooked.
“Gilmore Girls” Season 2 (2001-02)
WB, 22 episodes
Creator: Amy Sherman-Palladino
Stars: Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Scott Patterson
Jess is only a slightly better match for Rory than Dean is – he reads Ayn Rand at her recommendation, and she reads Hemingway at his urging, an intellectual back-and-forth that Dean wouldn’t be interested in. But that’s all it takes, and the fact that Jess seems like a boy in need of saving (note episode 17, where Rory drags Jess around the diner to get him to help) is the clincher.
This love triangle also stands out because “Gilmore Girls” risks giving us a reason to dislike Rory for the first time in a season and a half. Yet we can’t dislike her, just as we couldn’t dislike Lorelai for essentially leaving Max at the altar and running off with her daughter to a cat-wallpapered B&B and an impromptu Harvard tour for a lost weekend in episode 4. Likewise, I don’t dislike, or even root against, Dean or Jess. The writers and actors allow us to see the perspectives and feelings of all three characters.
I don’t know if Season 2 is as good as Season 1 episode-for-episode, but the addition of Jess undeniably spices up the show, and “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” in particular is a masterful exploration of the wonders and cruelties of love: Jess is a winner at this strange game, as are Sookie and Jackson, who decide to get married. Luke and Lorelai draw another millimeter closer to couple status when they share a picnic on a park bench.
Lane ventures into relationships
And while Dean is stuck in the horrible waiting period before getting crushed by Rory (their inevitable breakup is delayed all the way until Season 3!), Lane gets dumped by Henry, who likes her but doesn’t like the sneaking-around necessary to date the daughter of Mrs. Kim.
The only flaw in the episode is that the racist Mrs. Kim keeps asking “Are you sure he was Korean?” while Lane is experiencing her first heartbreak. It would’ve been nice to get at least a subtle hint of Mrs. Kim questioning her harsh parenting style and sympathizing a bit with Lane. (And the glaring flaw of the season is the lack of a Lane-centric episode. Her experiments with cheerleading and drumming are the background noise of Season 2, and she deserves better.)
Season 2 also should come with a warning, because it could set up false expectations for a naïve male viewer. Jess makes it look so easy the way he attracts Rory simply by being into books. The Friend Zone doesn’t exist on “Gilmore Girls,” though (at least not until Rory brutally friend-zones Marty during the Yale seasons).
This is TV land, and we male “Gilmore Girls” fans should probably look in the mirror and note the lack of resemblance to Milo Ventimiglia or Scott Patterson. Or Jared Padalecki — and even he didn’t get the girl.
Here are my rankings of the 22 episodes of Season 2:
1. “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (episode 13, written by Amy-Sherman Palladino)
Like I noted above, it’s a near-perfect treatise on the vagaries of love.
2. “There’s the Rub” (16, Sheila R. Lawrence)
Both Jess and Paris become likable in this episode: Jess because of how he debates classic literature with Paris, and Paris because she lies to Dean in order to get Rory out of a tough spot. This episode marks the start of the Rory-Paris friendship as – in a great deleted scene on the DVD – Rory opens up a bit about her feelings for Jess to Paris, something she hadn’t done with her mom up to this point.
A lot is written (by teleplay writers and essayists) about Rory and Lorelai being best friends, but (if that deleted scene is canonical) we see that’s not entirely accurate: Rory does – healthily, I might add — hold back a few things for traditional friends.
3. “Lorelai’s Graduation Day” (21, Daniel Palladino)
While Rory isn’t honest with Lorelai when it comes to Jess, Lorelai has picked up the gigantic clues (such as Rory skipping class to see Jess in New York), and she says “You might be falling for Jess.” The eating of street-vendor hot dogs and perusing of vinyl records in the Big Apple are iconic Rory-and-Jess moments. Also of note: “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane guests as a classmate of Lorelai’s who hates rich people. (Palladino wrote for both shows, which is probably how this casting came about.)
4. “Teach Me Tonight” (19, Sherman-Palladino)
If you put yourself in Jess’ shoes, this is a winning episode for him as his combination of almost-annoying persistence and intriguing literary smarts wins over Rory, who suggests they go out for ice cream and lets him drive her car (which Dean built for her). I love the dim lighting in Luke’s with the chairs up on all the tables except where Rory and Jess are studying; it sets the mood perfectly for Jess to continue to steal Rory’s heart.
As a bonus, this episode includes “A Film by Kirk,” which has a notable “Napoleon Dynamite” vibe two years before that film came out. Kirk performs a dance for the parents of his date – “24’s” Mary-Lynn Rajskub! — thus symbolizing the metaphorical dancing people have to do in society.
5. “Back in the Saddle Again” (18, Linda Loiselle Guzik)
If you pause the Rory-Dean relationship just right during the final scene of this episode, you can pinpoint the exact instant Dean’s heart breaks in half: “She likes Jess, doesn’t she?” Poor Dean. The A-plot is also fun, as Richard serves as class advisor on Rory and Paris’ entrepreneurial project and realizes he wants to start his own business.
6. “Richard in Stars Hollow” (12, Frank Lombardi)
It’s possible to carry a premise too far (see the episode just before this, “Secret and Loans”), but this one hits the sweet spot thanks to the fish-out-of-water notion of Richard spending the day with Lorelai. And we get the classic Richard-Dean exchange: “How tall are you?” “Why, you wanna dance?” “No. I appreciate the offer though.”
7. “Dead Uncles and Vegetables” (17, Palladino)
This is a sweet Lorelai-and-Luke episode as she helps him deal with the stress of his uncle’s funeral, going so far as to run the diner and try out some restaurant lingo. I love the inappropriate joke of not being able to close Uncle Louie’s casket, although technically I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “Lou Gehrig rookie card.”
8. “Road Trip to Harvard” (4, Palladino)
Along with the absurd level of whimsy via the Cheshire Cat bed-and-breakfast, we also get a nice glimpse into Rory’s future as she sits in at a Harvard lecture and participates in the discussion right away.
9. “I Can’t Get Started” (22, Sherman-Palladino and John Stephens)
Rory’s impetuous kissage of Jess further illustrates her theory from episode 21 that she is not acting rationally around Jess. She thinks it’s a stroke, but it’s clear to viewers that it’s love, and it’s a nice final note to the season. I had forgotten how close Lor and Chris were to getting back together in Season 2; it’s thrown off by word from Sherry that she’s pregnant.
10. “Help Wanted” (20, Allan Heinberg)
This is another strong Richard episode in a season with several of them. Here, he launches his consulting firm with a significant assist from Lorelai. The more heavy-handed B-plot is that Rory hears everyone around town blaming Jess for the car accident from the previous hour. (While the town’s idea of Jess is inaccurate, Jess DID bring it all upon himself. He came to Stars Hollow with a fresh start and immediately acted like a jerk and committed petty crimes and vandalism around town.)
11. “The Bracebridge Dinner” (10, Palladino)
It should be a better episode considering the premise of cramming all of Stars Hollow into the Independence Inn for one night. Still, it has its moments, including Richard revealing his retirement to Emily, and Jess stealing a carriage ride with Rory. She sees he vandalized a competing snowman, she smiles, and from here on out, Dean has no chance.
12. “Lost and Found” (15, Sherman-Palladino)
Jess starts to think Rory is worth the effort as he agrees to clean out the Gilmores’ rain gutters and even tries to make small talk with Lorelai. He’s awful at it, which is humorous considering how his smooth/annoying approach works so well on Rory.
13. “Like Mother, Like Daughter” (7, Joan Binder Weiss)
This is the Puffs episode, featuring “The Rage: Carrie 2’s” Emily Bergl as the leader of a Chilton sorority to which Rory finds herself pledging after encouragement from her guidance counselor. Then the Puffs (and Rory) get busted, Rory goes off on an epic rant toward Headmaster Charleston, and by episode’s end she’s back to contentedly reading and listing to the Shins on her headphones during lunch, as it should be.
14. “Run Away, Little Boy” (9, Stephens)
The fact that Rory gives the benefit of the doubt to everyone is never more apparent than here, where she gives a genuine farewell to Chad Michael Murray’s Tristin, even though he tries to get a rise out of Dean throughout the episode. I won’t miss Tristin, but I don’t hate the guy either: If he could’ve toned down his jackassery enough to date Rory, I have no doubt she could’ve turned him into a better person.
15. “Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy” (5, Sherman-Palladino)
I was surprised to discover that Ventimiglia plays Jess as a flat-out jerk (he even smokes cigarettes, TV code for “bad boy”) every step of the way in his debut episode. He earns every bit of being pushed into the lake by Luke.
Jess will gradually become more likable as the season goes on (the fact that Rory likes him makes us like him), and Ventimiglia will parlay his popularity into playing variations of Jess in “Boston Public,” “American Dreams,” “The Bedford Diaries” and the sixth “Rocky” movie before the apparently career-stalling “Heroes.” (So maybe Dean won in the end: To this day, Padalecki has a steady gig on “Supernatural.”)
16. “The Ins & Outs of Inns” (8, Palladino)
This is a somewhat odd episode because we meet the important character of Mia, who saved the Gilmore girls by giving Lorelai a job and home as she raised a young Rory, and Lor and Sookie start aggressively thinking about their own inn. Yet the plot fizzles, at least as far as Season 2 is concerned.
17. “It Should’ve Been Lorelai” (14, Palladino)
The punchline is so telegraphed that it’s right there in the title, and that takes the suspense out of the hour: Of course Emily, upon learning that Chris is dating Sherry (Madchen Amick), is going to tell Lorelai it should’ve been her. The chipper, literal Sherry doesn’t fit in the “Gilmore Girls” world; that’s the point, but it also makes for awkward viewing.
18. “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore” (6, Lawrence)
This season’s reinvention of Christopher as a responsible Volvo-driving guy who wants to spend more time with his daughter is introduced in this light episode where Rory participates in a debutante ball at her grandma’s request.
19-21. “Sadie, Sadie …” (1, Sherman-Palladino), “Hammers and Veils” (2, Sherman-Palladino) and “Red Light on the Wedding Night” (3, Palladino)
“Gilmore Girls” introduces its pattern of continuing each season’s storyline where the previous one left off rather than taking a “summer vacation” like most high-school-set shows do. I like it, because we don’t feel we’re missing any of the girls’ adventures. However, there’s also a sense of inevitability that Lor’s gonna dump Max before the writers’ move into fresh Season 2 stories.
22. “Secrets and Loans” (11, Guzik)
“Gilmore Girls” doesn’t have any outright awful episodes, but it can dip down to mediocre territory. This is one those, as Lorelai goes way too far in her refusal to let Emily help her in any way whatsoever with her house’s termite problem. The Onion AV Club calls this the worst episode of the first six seasons (the reviewer really dislikes Season 7), and it’s hard to argue.
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