Episode Report Card Pamie: D | 11 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Pilot
By Pamie | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 10.04.2000
Cut to the school. Just as some kid goes by in a Razor scooter and some girl is about to ask Rory a question, my cable goes out. It won't be out for long, so I want to take this opportunity to get all paranoid on you. Clearly, someone knew I'd be recapping this show. Either that, or they wrote it in hopes that I'd recap this show. There's too much me in this show so far to make me think it's purely coincidence. First of all, my parents are in Hotel Management. In fact, it's where they met. I often lived in hotels and knew the Reservation Manager by name, and had desk clerks help with homework and knew bellmen's names and all of that. My mother listened to Carole King's Tapestry every night before she'd go to bed, and "Where You Lead" was one of the songs that we'd sing together in the car. My friend is the crazy-wacky harp lady. The show is set in Connecticut, which is where both of my parents are from, which is where they met while they both worked at a hotel. Change Hartford to Stratford and you've got the makings of my life. This can't all be the work of Saint Clare. This is hard to recap, people. I'm used to cracking jokes and wailing and cursing and generally snarking the shit out of a recap. I've got nothing so far. Nothing! My only solace is that I have the reputation of being the MBTV Kiss of Death, so this show will certainly go down in about five episodes. And since it's Family Funded and on opposite Friends, certainly the WB agrees with me. They just want to bring back Young Americans for me, I just know it.
Cable's back. Rory is walking to school with her friend. I don't know what they just discussed. Sorry. Call Time Warner Cable in Austin if you've got a complaint. From what I can gather, Rory's friend has to go on a date (at a hay-ride) with a sixteen-year old future doctor and his older brother because her parents want her to date him. Rory says she doesn't understand the appeal of hay-rides, since you have a "bundle of sticks up your butt." Rory and friend pass a boy with hair in his eyes and he watches Rory walk up the stairs.
See? This school has classes. This is the opposite of every show I've ever recapped. The teacher is telling the students they can either read the end of Huckleberry Finn or start on the essay. The girls in the back rows are passing around a bottle of nail polish and each just painting one stripe on one finger. They snicker in Rory's direction and ponder whether she's working on a love letter, a diary, a slam book, or something juicier. One girl leans in and expresses her disappointment that Rory's working on the assignment. They all get grumpy and face forward. Rory gets a self-satisfactory grin and goes back to her writing. I guess from that we're supposed to guess she's not popular, but really if she weren't popular, they would have totally ignored her while they each painted a nail.