Season 1, Episode 15
Christopher Returns
(Original air date: 3/1/01)
Christopher, Rory's father and Lorelai's ex, comes to visit the Gilmore girls in Stars Hollow for the first time, bringing with him a host of mixed emotions from Rory and Lorelai. Rory is thrilled and wants him to stay. Lorelai is guarded and knows that Christopher is not a family man.
Emily catches wind and arranges to have Christopher's parents over for Friday Night Dinner. Old feelings resurface for everyone: the destroyed relationship between the Haydens and the Gilmores, everyone's real feelings about Lorelai's Teen Pregnancy, and lingering feelings between Lorelai and Christopher. The dinner ends with yelling and threats of violence.
Lorelai and Christopher take refuge in Lorelai's old bedroom, where they reconnect. The next morning, Christopher expresses his desire to rekindle a relationship with Lorelai. When she rebuffs him, he makes the decision to leave Stars Hollow, much to Rory's disappointment.
Tropes
- Amicable Exes: Lorelai and Christopher, though Christopher makes it clear he'd like to be with Lorelai again.
- Berserk Button:
- Strobe insulting Rory's intelligence causes Lorelai to say insulting things about Republican presidents.
- Pretending they are "one big happy family" angers Strobe to the point that he leaves.
- Blatant Lies: Lorelai tries to make up a "family emergency" excuse for forgetting to paint Luke's diner, but gives up.
- Calling Me a Logarithm: Lorelai pretends to think Luke is calling her an oxymoron. He was referring her phrase, "manly curtains."
- Captain Obvious: Emily calls Chris on his cell phone while he's in the diner with Lorelai and Rory. When she asks to speak to Lorelai, she immediately informs her that Christopher is in town. As usual, Lorelai hangs a lampshade on it and says she had no idea, but she's currently sitting across from a very realistic hologram of him.
- Casting Gag: Luke is bad at playing baseball. Scott Patterson was a professional baseball player in the eighties.
- The Charmer: Christopher is naturally charming, getting along with the townsfolk Rory introduces him to and falling into a rhythm with her and Lorelai easily. But there's more to life than being charming, as Lorelai ends up telling him.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Lorelai and Christopher have known each other since they were children and their families were close until Lorelai got pregnant.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Rory invites him to a softball game, Chris thinks she means that she plays softball. Rory and Lorelai find the idea hilarious.
- Commitment Issues: Christopher has them. Lorelai sees them, and knows he won't stay. Rory hopes he will and is ultimately disappointed.
- Dinner and a Show
- Disappeared Dad: It's shown how much Christopher is this. He doesn't know anything about Rory's interests; he doesn't know any of her peers; he doesn't even come prepared to buy her an expensive gift like many a real-life Disappeared Dad. Rory seems to recognize him, so he must've visited sometime, but it's clear she's a stranger to him.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: It's treated as this that Rory takes it personally that her grandparents keep referring to her as "that baby" and accuse her of ruining her parents' lives. Lorelai claims that they meant to direct their anger at her, which would be dramatically missing the mark.
- Double Standard: Christopher's parents accuse Lorelai of ruining Christopher's life by getting pregnant and then not getting married, ignoring that it takes two to tango and that Lorelai never asked for a thing from Christopher and he's essentially had the last sixteen years to himself.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Jackson introduces himself as Jackson Melville. Later it will be Belleville.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Averted with Al's Pancake World. He switched to international cuisine a few years ago, but had already printed a lot of stuff with the old logo.
- Exact Words: Richard claims that Rory has inherited Christopher's musical talent. Lorelai objects that neither Christopher nor Rory have any musical talent, technically confirming what Richard said.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Chris claims to be mature now, right before accusing Rory of ratting him out when he learns that Lorelai knows about his credit card being rejected.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Lorelai and Christopher on the balcony outside Lorelai's childhood bedroom. This is also apparently where Rory was conceived.
- Manchild: Christopher clearly has always had a good heart, but he's simply never had to do something really hard. He's paid no attention to Rory growing up - never even paying child support or visiting - and thinks parenting is simply a case of showing up. Mentally, he acts like a teenager. It's for these reasons that Lorelai rejects the chance to get together again, even if she still cares about him.
- New Parent Nomenclature Problem: Or rather, grandparents. Rory hasn't seen her paternal grandparents since she was an infant, and asks Lorelai what she should call them.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Chris knows all is not right when Lorelai declines coffee.
- Pun: Kirk thinks Luke and Dean should go on the road as "Zero Zero," seeing as they both score zero points on the baseball field.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: It's shown that Christopher's parents are about as wealthy as Lorelai's - AKA mansion and country club wealthy. But despite coming from such wealth and not looking after or even properly visiting his daughter for sixteen years, Christopher is still really struggling to make a business work.
- Right Behind Me: Jackson shares his opinion about Christopher just as he and Rory step out of the bookstore he's standing in front of.
- The Scapegoat: Strobe and Francine Hayden, and to an extent Richard and Emily Gilmore, blame Lorelai for getting pregnant, but not Christopher for getting her pregnant.
- Serious Business: Lorelai and Christopher get into an argument about whether or not Christopher is mature enough for the two of them to get married by arguing over who's better, Metallica (Lorelai) or The Offspring (Christopher).
- Sex with the Ex: Lorelai and Christopher.
- Shout-Out:
- Kirk calls Luke "Alfalfa".
- According to Lorelai, in Dickens novels they eat cold Pop Tarts all day.
- Jackson finds Christopher to be more of a George Clooney than a Brad Pitt.
- Andrew thinks Christopher is more of a Billy Crudup.
- Rory dreams of owning a copy of The Compact Oxford English Dictionary.
- Chris thinks it's like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Chris can play "Smoke on Water" on guitar.
- Richard is a Chuck Berry man.
- Richard feels Chris could have written "Suppertime" from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when he was ten.
- Lorelai claims her and Christopher's parents had big Citizen Kane plans for them that they screwed up by getting pregnant.
- Chris comments that Lorelai not wanting coffee means all is not right in Whoville.
- Lorelai thinks Richard had a Fred Mertz shirt in college.
- Lorelai thinks liking The Offspring is a sign of immaturity.
- Christopher thinks Metallica is a Black Sabbath rip-off.
- Lorelai comments that Christopher's proposal is very Fiddler on the Roof.
- Lorelai says of Christopher that she knows him so well.
- Stealth Insult: The Haydens deliver so many of these to Rory that it's practically a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- That Came Out Wrong: Luke is not used to discussing teen pregnancies and ends up saying Chris did a good job.
- Unexpectedly Dark Episode: It's notably more serious than anything else prior and deals with some pretty heavy material, particularly around the impact of Lorelai's Teen Pregnancy (and subsequent running away) had on those other than her and Rory. It's revealed the Haydens and Gilmores were long-time friends, but the pregnancy—and Lorelai's refusal to marry Christopher—ruined that. Christopher's parents blame the pregnancy for destroying Christopher's future and refuse to call Rory by her name; they all but call her a mistake. Richard defends his family, but tells Lorelai later that he is still embarrassed and disappointed that Lorelai became pregnant at 16, and that Emily became depressed when Lorelai left with Rory a year later.
- It also deals with the impact of Christopher's absence in Rory's life. Rory is usually the grounded, realistic one in the mother/daughter dynamic, but in this episode, she is a little girl who clearly misses her father and wants him in her life; she is excited to show him off and hopes he'll stay. We also see shades of Rory wanting her parents to be together in this episode, which had not previously been explored. Lorelai is the realist here and insists that Christopher isn't ready to settle down. She is correct. It also, for the first time in the series, addresses the complicated dynamics between Lorelai and Christopher, and it's all shades of gray.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: Played as such, though Christopher and Lorelai were never married.
- When She Smiles: Christopher has this effect on Lorelai.
