فصل 18

18

SEASON FOUR

In the second episode this year, that’s our dialogue coach, George Bell, playing Professor Bell at Yale. One of my favorite pieces of dialogue actually happens a few episodes later, in this exchange between Kelly and me regarding my logo sweatpants:

EMILY: You have the word “juicy” on your rear end.

LORELAI: Well, if I’d known you were coming over, I would have changed.

EMILY: To what—a brassiere with the word “tasty” on it?

Getting my makeup done for “The Festival of Living Art” episode every day for a week taught me that I would never want to be in an actual Festival of Living Art. Torture. However, our makeup artists won an Emmy for this episode, which was pretty darn cool.

Times were different: Rory realizes she wrote her Yale moving-in date down wrong when she double-checks her Filofax day planner.

Fashion and hair: The season opens with Lorelai and Rory returning from their backpacking trip through Europe. I’m proud yet horrified to tell you that the entire outfit I’m wearing in the first scene—the kelly-green EVERYONE LOVES AN IRISH GIRL T-shirt, the Ireland soccer jacket, and the oversized knit pom-pom hat with the word DUBLIN on it—were all from my personal closet. Oh, and the gold clover necklace was mine too. I was really hitting the Irish thing hard.

Not sure what I did to my hair in Episode 15, “Scenes from a Mall,” but it’s suddenly Grand Ole Opry–level voluminous.

What I love: This was a great season for hunky Milo Ventimiglia as Jess facing off against hunky Jared Padalecki as Dean. They are both so talented and equally compelling as suitors, I can see why “teams” formed. I love Michel’s devotion to his chow-chow too. This was probably the year Amy and Dan got theirs, to whom they were also extremely dedicated. I also love little clever things, like Rory waking up with a Post-it on her head that Lorelai left as a reminder, and that a tipping point in Lorelai’s feelings for Luke is the discovery that “Luke can waltz,” embellished with lots of eyebrow wagging on my part, for emphasis.

Season finale: In general, I remember being worried about what would change when Rory went off to college and Lorelai and Rory didn’t live together anymore, but I think it was handled well. By the end of this season, Luke and Lorelai (finally) kiss, and Dean and Rory reunite, although he’s still married, which is the start of trouble between mother and daughter. All our guys are at bonkers hotness levels this season. And it was so much fun to have my New York–based friend Chris Eigeman, who played Jason Stiles, in town for a while.