Gilmore Girls: 10 Things You Never Noticed About The First Episode

Gilmore Girls premiered on The WB network in October of 2000. The first episode introduces Stars Hollow and the characters who live there, most importantly, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, the coffee-loving, quirky, fast talking, mother-daughter duo viewers were destined to fall in love with.

The show was an instant success, with ratings skyrocketing for the network in its female and family demographics. Going back to rewatch the pilot episode will take viewers down a very nostalgic memory lane, but it also raises some questions considering where the series will go and how its characters develop.

10 The Setting

There are quite a few exterior shots in the pilot episode that make viewers wonder where the episode was being filmed. The Gilmore Girls set has become one of the most recognizable, with the Stars Hollow town square being the epicenter.

The series was shot on The WB lot in Burbank, California, but the pilot was actually filmed on location in Ontario, which is probably why everything seems a little off geographically and unrecognizable.

9 Luke’s Diner

One of the biggest giveaways to the pilot’s inconsistent location is “Luke’s Diner”. Any fan of the show knows that “Luke’s Diner” sits in the town’s center, on the corner.

In the pilot, the diner seems to be on a quiet, residential neighborhood and is almost unrecognizable from the outside. It doesn’t get much better once viewers see the inside of the diner. It’s small and a little more cluttered than what we’re used to seeing in the series.

8 How Old Is Rory?

The scene that establishes Rory and Lorelai’s relationship takes place in “Luke’s Diner”. Lorelai gets hit on by a young guy passing through town and when she shuts him down, he sets his sights on Rory. Lorelei interrupts the embarrassment by informing the poor guy that they are mother and daughter and that her daughter is sixteen.

The problem is, Rory is actually fifteen. Rory doesn’t turn sixteen for five more episodes and Lorelei makes a very big deal out of her sixteenth birthday, so why didn’t show know how old her daughter was in the pilot?

7 Key Characters Are Missing

The pilot introduces us to a lot of the series’ main cast. We quickly meet Michel and Sookie, Lorelei’s co-workers at the inn. We meet Lane, Rory’s best friend, Dean, Rory’s soon-to-be boyfriend, and we meet Emily and Richard Gilmore, Lorelai’s parents and Rory’s grandparents.

There are so many quirky Stars Hollow characters that were left out of the pilot, like Kirk, played by Sean Gunn, Taylor, played by Michael Winters, and Babette, played by Sally Struthers.

6 Lane’s Backstory

Rory’s best friend Lane is introduced in the pilot, but some of the information she shares becomes confusing later on. When she and Rory are talking on their way home from school, Lane talks about her parents.

She uses the plural of the word, making viewers assume she lives with both her mother and her father, but in this episode, we only meet her mother. The bigger problem here is that we never meet Lane’s father and there’s never another mention of Lane having two parents in the rest of the series.

5 Emily’s Kitchen

Viewers get a very rare glimpse into some off-limits territory in Emily Gilmore’s house during the first episode of the series. Lorelai gets upset at dinner and she storms into the kitchen where she starts scrubbing dishes in the sink.

This is the only time Lorelai uses the kitchen as refuge when things get too heated at the Friday night dinner table. In later episodes, Lorelai makes a quick exit to the door or uses escape methods she established in her teenage years, like escaping through her bedroom window.

4 Sookie Is Very Accident Prone

Melissa McCarthy does an incredible job of playing Sookie, the chef at the inn and Lorelai’s best friend. In this first episode, Sookie’s big quirk is that she’s accident prone.

There’s an entire sequence in the kitchen at the inn with Sookie and her Sous Chefs where they are preventing catastrophic accidents she is causing as she cooks. It seems to be a main theme for this character, but something that dwindles off as the series progresses.

3 Luke Isn’t A Central Character

We meet Luke in the pilot episode as a grumpy diner owner frequently barking at Lorelai for her coffee addiction. It’s hard to believe after watching the pilot that Luke becomes such a key player in Rory and Lorelai’s lives.

Luke’s character was actually just intended to be a small role in the pilot, but developed into something much bigger once the shows creators saw the chemistry between Luke and Lorelai.

2 Richard Gilmore Isn’t Very Warm

The patriarch of the Gilmore family is remembered fondly as being kind and wise and always very interested in his granddaughter’s life and her well being.

In the pilot episode though, Richard seems to be in his own world and shows very little interest when his daughter and granddaughter show up for their first Friday night dinner. The kindest thing he does in this episode is pass Rory a newspaper when Lorelai and Emily’s conversation turns heated.

1 The Gilmore House

Like Luke’s diner, the interior of Lorelai’s house is completely different than the home fans come to know and love throughout the series. In the pilot, Lorelai paces around her living room while talking on the phone with Chilton about the cost of Rory’s tuition.

The living room layout is very different. There’s a visible door leading outside and a lot more furniture than what fans are used to seeing. There’s also not a television set in sight, which is a little jarring knowing that the Gilmore girls love their mother-daughter movie nights.

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