I Am all in Again. Let's you.
I Am all in Again with Scott Patterson and iHeartRadio Podcast.
Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all in Podcast, one of them productions iHeartRadio Media. I Heart Podcast, Season two, Episode six presenting laurl I Gilmore Air date November six, two thousand and one, and today I am joined by three incredible women from a different TV universe. They also happen to be major Gilmore Girls. Fans. Please welcome Laura Layton, Daphne Zaniga, Courtney thorn Smith, whom you'll no doubt remember
as Sidney Andrews, Allison Parker, and Joe Reynolds from Melrose Place. Ladies. Welcome. I am thrilled that all three of you are here to dive into season two, episode six.
Thanks thanks for having us, Scott.
It's just it's a pop culture mind blowing situation. It's really fun. Okay. So Rory surprisingly accepts Emily's request to make her society debut at a Debutante Ball. But here's a catch. Her father, Christopher is supposed to present her. Meanwhile, Laurai decides to contact Christopher and ask him to make the visit. Directed by Chris long written by Sheila r. Lawrence Ry's Coming Out to Society. Emily decides to debut Rory after her dar friends express interest, seeing Rory as
the perfect candidate. Rory agrees once she recognizes how important it is to Emily, but Laurai tries to explain the deeper meaning behind being a debutante. Emily is enthusiastic about preparing Rory for the debutante ball, ensuring she presents herself perfectly, and ultimately reveals her regret that Laura I was never formally presented to society ladies. Given that Emily has not decided to debut Rory on her own, do you think she decided to because her friends believe Rory need to
come out to societies. This was her chance to make up for not debuting Laura I.
Well, I definitely think it's her chance to make up for not having had the experience with Laura I. But also she's in this episode, she's so caught up in like missing all this social stuff that Richard's been blowing off or whatever, so like she's so anxious to get back in the social scene, and it's just like this
perfect opportunity. And I think It's so sweet that Rory's so willing to do something that would otherwise be against sort of what she would normally do, but just because for the love of her grandmother, right right.
Is very funny.
The larealized point of view of it all is very sort of is very feminist and modern day. And you know, I don't want to be a part. I don't want you to be a part of this. It's like putting yourself out there, like you're for sale or something. And and Rory, her daughter, doesn't see it that way. She sees it like, you know, pleasing the grandma, but also like it's just an event. It's just kind of she doesn't lay all the layers into what it means actually, you know, in a feminist point of view.
And you know, she says, other than the fan.
Dancing, you know, I think she had in the fact that her dad showed up.
I think that was all.
So it's personal versus sort of meta, you know what it means culturally and society wise. So you see the different generations, which is cool. You see the mom, you see the you see the grandmother, you see the mom, and you see the daughter.
All see it differently and it's so sweet because Rory doesn't have the intent. The mother daughter relationship is so complicated, and you see so clearly this episode that Rory doesn't have that like it'll make grandma happy, why not do it? And Laura I and her mom's relationship is so fraud And I haven't seen the show for a while.
I'm a huge fan.
Maybe want to start again. From the beginning, and from the opening scene the two of them bantering, Laura I and Rory, I.
Was like, oh, that's right.
The sweetness of their relationship, and because they're so connected, it makes her be able to say, why not do this for my grandma?
Right?
Because she's so loved and seeing I can't wait. I can't wait to start at the beginning again. This is reawakening for Gilmore girls.
I never watched it in the pass so good to hold that against.
Me, But I never watched this, and I had I hadn't either, since I didn't know it.
Was Amy Sherman Palladino missus Masel.
I didn't.
It was this brilliant dialogue.
So every scene you're like, wait, I would I would rewind Wait what was that? And they're timing all of them really learned how to do this kind of wonderful banter.
Yeah, so it was really, yeah, we got very lucky. We got very lucky. It was really you know, it was really like doing theater, and you know, especially those diner scenes. It was like we we wouldn't do wonners. But it was like the cover of the Master was like, you know, if it's ten pages, and they're just like they set the camera in the corner and just let us go. And sometimes they're like that's good, we don't really need to pop in on coverage. Let's do it
anyways to please Amy. But then we'd see it and it's like it just worked as a steady camera or wanner, you know, and it sounds so fun, but it was like you can't write no, but it was. It was a lot of the times it was really exciting to come to work because you knew you were going to get into the rehearsal and it was like, oh, yeah, we're going to have we're gonna we're gonna you know, we're going to figure this out in rehearsal chemistry, right,
And that's the fun of it. That like finding the blocking and they'd give you the time to do it. I mean, it wasn't just like hey, staying there, staying there, stay Amram's going to be there, all right, go ahead, go back to your trailers. No, it was like, we're going to figure this out together, and it was just such a luxury, and it was so fun to do it, and then to actually film it those first couple of takes. It was thrilling to work on that show.
Oh that's amazing.
Did you have that though?
Because I was thinking, like I was watching the scene when Laurels walking back and forth and Rory's there with their boyfriend and she's on the phone, and I just thought it, I'm glad you said theater.
Because it felt like a play.
But it felt like a play in that the timing felt so organic, as if it had been done so many times that people weren't even thinking about it.
Now. Part of that is I don't know.
How people got so many lines down so quickly. But do you feel like you had more time? Were the days just super long? How could you have time to hurst I've done a lot of episodic there's no time to rehearse, So how did you find that time?
Well?
I I we demanded it, you know it.
Was like, well, but there's only so many was it eight days per episode?
Yes?
Yes, So here's here's the beauty of Amy Sherman Palladino. She gave us the time. She knew what she had, she cast it right, right, and she knew what she had. She knew she had these sort of high octane racehorses in the gate ready to go. And you know, one of the signs of a great CEO is they hire the right people, trust them, let them do their thing, don't micromanage, you know, and they'll bring you a result
better than what you had envisioned. And I think Amy kept getting the better results, like wow, wow, wow, so we proved. And also her writing lends itself to that a pace and all of the you know, picking up the cues so quickly because that's what they demanded. And you know, you just learn how to do it right if it's if it's the only notes we ever got were faster.
Go faster, amazing love.
How with that same dialogue, the grandmother is her name, Emily, the character you know you can tell like she comes, she's been around, she's like probably legendary and she's probably done tons of theater and she does it a certain way, like the scene where she's fighting with her husband coming down the stairs. So theatrical, yeah, okay, well she hits this dialogue like it fits like a glove. And then you have you know, Lauren Graham, who does it perfectly
in her way for that generation. And then you have Rory, that young actress who says it more subtly and sort of deadpan, but she says the same type of bantery dialogue in her own way, and it all three styles hit.
It's so great. We haven't done the Diner yet.
Know It's it's really in the writing. It's in the writing, and it's like you get this, you know, it's a lot of black ink and very few scene descriptions. It was sort of naked for you so you could you could build it yourself. So it wasn't any sort of impositions, you know, lifts hands, but you know, it wasn't any none of that stuff except when it you know, you had it right.
Yeah.
But I just we were just so lucky and we get these pages and we were like, oh yeah, and it was just sort of like, I mean, I haven't done a lot of Shakespeare, but I've done a little and you know there's an emotion emotional because how am I going to memorize all this? Well, once you start doing it, there's this emotional logic to it. So actually it gets easier to memorize the more you do it. And Gilmore had the same quality, It had the same meter,
it had the same rhythm to it. You know, it's like this music, as Lauren likes to compare it to music. And it was just great, Like the writing was so good that it was kind of easy to remember. Amazing it wasn't. And so because you think, like, how does Lauren do that? Right? Because you guys know you're pros, and you know she's like doing there's a chunka there's a monologue here, and then another one right after, and then another one right.
It's like, how does she do it?
She just because she did it.
And because it's good and just right. It just she owns it.
She embodies it. And I saw that in Parenthood. I watched every episode of Parenthood after this, and I just saw that.
You know, she just knows how to do that.
So we were in the very first week because we shot the pilot in Toronto, and then we will we then we were shooting at Burbank, you know, the back lot at Warner Brothers. Very first week, six am in the makeup trailer, Laurena and I getting ready to do a scene and they came in with an entirely new scene with twenty minutes beforeward rehearse, and it's ten pages
and it's just black ink all over the place. And we look at each other like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But we did it and once, but once we did that, and we were both terrified. I think I was probably a little more terrified than she was. She was probably acting terrified to make me feel better.
I love that when they do that.
Right, right. But we pulled it off. So from that moment on, we knew we could do it and if we had any kind of time to prep, we'd be good, you know. And I just I felt bad for guest stars that came in with big resumes and theater resumes and Broadway resumes.
Man, it was tough.
They would freeze a lot and just like look at us, like how do you do this?
And wow?
And it was so fast because they demanded the speed. Yeah, the speed of it.
Yeah, So being a guest star is so hard anyway, when you come into a really well established group, it's already terrifying, but like to have that demand, Like Scott, I have a.
Question for you.
So this is the beginning of season two and there's just a quick scene with you and Loralai and my love in the beginning, and I was like, oh.
He's here.
That's exciting.
So when did they realize you guys had such great chemistry because here we're focused on Christopher in this episode, trying to remember where in the series they really started to go, oh, we have something here with the two of you.
So I had a very easy path to this show. I didn't have I was a guest star in the pilot. I had one audition and I got the job. That was for ten days up in Toronto shot it. The chemistry was obvious. My manager said, well, this is a chemistry check. They could replace you, you know if it doesn't fly right. So she said, listen this The pilot script opens with the diner, ends with the diner, so obviously it's a pretty important character and this is probably
a very very impactful relationship to the show. And then they offered two shows and she said no, and I'm like, what take it? Take it because I wasn't working. And then they offered four shows, and she called Gavin Palone and said, go get them a deal. Go get the money, go to Warner Bros. And go get the deal. And he did. And so she invited me to lunch and handed me an envelope said there's your six year deal. Why you're on the show?
Chemistry a check.
So do you think that they thought from the no, were they thinking of friendship chemistry?
Are they thinking from the beginning this could be.
A romance because they really let that build solely when you guys finally kissed. I think I replayed that scene ten times, like, for.
The love of God, it was it was such a.
Good scene, right, But do you think they had a sense that this relationship might be that or do they think friendship chemistry?
Or did they know or did you know right away?
Well?
Yeah, I think it was always meant to be a romance thing.
Yeah, yeah, Well I think it shows you know the fact that the pilot was like the audience sees it already is like, oh, this is the cute couple that I want to watch, And then the brilliance of it is how long that they took to make it happen.
We on our show, by the way, looking at you, Courtney with Billy and Allison, We've just finished our first year and we're like, when are you two going to get your act together and get together?
And then I was like, oh, yeah, you have to have a show. We didn't wait as long as you.
At the end of season one were like, let's do it. Luke and Laurel ized slow Burn is like, but did you live with Lauren because we had that on our show too.
You guys kept it professional, Andrew and I did not, but whatever, Oh.
No, no, we kept it professional.
For the record, you were in a small town. We were in Melrose Place.
Yeah.
When I got the job, I was forty one, so I'd already lived life.
Yeah you're a grown up.
You were a grown up.
Yeah I knew, Like, no, you don't want to do that.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty smart.
I did that in our twenties, right, I'm that's all. Let me just try that and see what happened. What's the worst thing could happen?
I actually did. I did that on a pilot. I don't know, and man, thank god that thing never got picked up.
I think that's a podcast right there, because it's just a bagon.
Idea. Really, there's a lot of stories to be told.
Yeah, that's so funny.
Speaking of going there, Uh, Christopher and I'm not saying that they hooked up. I don't think they did on the show. In fact, I know that. But Christopher returns to town with a steady job and evolvo man but still rocking out the two yeah, I mean learns of laurela Is canceled engagement. Laura I asked him to present Rory at the DEBUTANMP ball. He agrees. They share a nostalgic moment Rory and Christopher, and Christopher even helps Dean tie his bow tie. Laura I appears to be glad
to have Christopher around. I'm like really glad to have him round, and suggests he drops by more often, but he shares that he is, you know, ultimately at the end of this episode, like I'm dating.
Someone, I'm living with someone, right.
In true Palladino style, you know, wait wait wait.
Yeah, get a little kiss in there and then tell her huh.
So, lorele I gives a fantastic model trying to convince Christopher to present Rory. Do you think having Christopher present her will mean more to Rory or to LAURAA, and is there a chance could mean something to Emily as well? The whole bring Christopher in the mix.
I think I think Murray the most. It means the thing means everything to Rory.
Yeah.
I love that line where.
She's like, Rory says to her mom Laura Lai, so he definitely said he's definitely coming and she said definitely.
Oh so there's a fifty to fifty chance. I don't know, he's pretty sure. I'd say sixty forty.
So that shows like how he's like bailed in the past and you know, not very reliable. But it was wonderful to see David Stutcliffe. I don't know if Laura Courtney's worked with him. I did a wonderful It was great working with him on a Christmas movie and it was so great. That's what I mean, Like I get to see all these people I've worked with in the past.
But I love that kind of like, you know, he really does show up and you know what a flake he's been in the past.
Right, But this begs the question, how does this absent father returning only for the big moments affect everyone involved, both positively and negatively. You guys personally characters on the show, what do you think me?
I thought it was hopeful for the future, like maybe he'll do more than just just the big things. Maybe he'll show up a little bit more, be more responsible.
He has a car, he has a job, he has you know what I mean? Now, where is it supposed to take place? I'm sorry for the fans. I'm Connecticut, so it's not that far from Boston.
It's an hour right right, stars Hollow, Connecticut. It's near Hartford. It's about twenty I don't know, maybe a half twenty minutes outside of Hartford.
It's Weathersfield.
I think in real life, Weathersfield is a town that's probably about twenty minutes from Hartwin right.
I think it's Washington Depot. I think that's yeah. Really, that's the town that Amy and Dan visited and sort of got this inspiration like these places actually exist, let's write about it. Yeah, Because I know when they were pitching all of their ideas and scripts, and that they'd already written to the networks every day all everybody passed on everything, and then one day, I mean, the story goes the legend goes that that. Amy said, well, what
about this. You know, we're just driving through this little town. It's a mother daughter, she's sixteen once thirty two, and you know had her when she was sixteen. What do you think about that? And I said, write it.
We love that.
Mm hmm.
So they got it so great.
Yeah, isn't it great?
Well?
I think that like Chris coming back here is is
sort of dreamy like that was. I think the brilliance of the writing is that even though we have this like Luke and Laurel I thing on the on the burner all the time, there's I think a brilliance to having Chris b They have such good chemistry too, right, and so it can be both for Laura I and the idea of being an intact family becomes really attractive in this In this moment we get shots of it, like where all three of them are together, and I think, you know, Emily has that idea of like, oh, this
all came together and for all appearances sake, my family did the right thing, right. I've got my beautiful granddaughter and both of her parents and nobody fell down, and nobody got drunk, and they you know, they they presented it correctly. It was really Richard who was the only one that went off the rails. But I just think that this episode was a really good example of how they kept how Amy was able to keep other relationships
also appealing or a possibility. Like even though you know we're rooting for Luke and Lorelei all the time, Chris comes in and he sort of wins her over in a really big way by he's got his car and he's being responsible and he's done the right thing and he showed up for Rory, whether or not you know he will in the future, which we know, you know, but do.
You think he's really changed or is he just sort of presenting himself that way now?
I mean he looks like he changed, and I think that's the fantasy, right, like, oh, he will become the guy, the bad boy will be the good boy shows up in a family car with a dictionary in the trunk for the love of God, for his daughter, and he's got a good job, and it's like, oh, wait a minute, he's become this guy who she could see as her husband. And in that scene where you talked about where she
sort of says, maybe you could stay longer. Lauren is so good at being authentic and vulnerable in the moment, and you're so with her. And when he says, she covers, but oh, the fact that she covered so well made it all the more brutal because and he waited too long.
By the bye, he waited too long she did.
Yes, he should have told her right away because it left her time the whole episode to create this fantasy and see him showing up, as you said, Laura, as this guy who could be your husband and Rory's father all of a sudden, she had time to build this up.
And then he waits, yeah right.
It's almost as if he's rubbing it in her face as much as he can, and then delivers the final yeah.
I think that's her in and then and then drops that bomb.
But as writer, as a writer, you want the audience wants to get sucked into that fantasy.
So she's not going to like blow it by.
Him being responsible and saying nothing can happen because I live with somebody. But I think, just as a writer, you want to fall into that. But I also think, like intentionally, I mean initially, maybe he goes, okay, I'm going to show up it's the right thing to do.
But then I think being there and the whole dancing practice, and then you know, actually being there and bringing that new dictionary for her, his bookish daughter, and being there in the present time, I'm sure he sees that, oh, this really does mean something. It means something to me, me being here.
So initially I think he's going through the motions, and then he shows up and it affects him being there, right, And that's why I have hope, Like, and now that I know that Boston's like an hour away, Pops, it's not like we're talking about across the country or anything, and he should then I think that he will be there more often because it added something to him.
Right. So to reference the dictionary, it's it's it's from an earlier it's from season one when he visited and he wanted to buyer that dictionary in Stars Hollow and his credit card had no money.
His credit card even better than.
So then he made up for it with them.
He's really coming to be a man.
But you know, that's a very good point, Daphne. You know, the Paladinos didn't want to break the tension by giving us that information that he had somebody, right, and they sacrificed that character because he looked like kind of a jerk. And you know, he is not well liked as a character in this whole thing. I mean, there's some people that really like him and they love the chemistry and all that stuff. But there are a lot of fans that hate Christopher. I mean, there's a whole kind of a movement.
Is he like a debt?
I mean to me, he seems like a dead, dead beat dad quote unquote too much.
Yeah, so that's a hateable character. He's a fair weather dad.
Right, and they know that and they sacrifice that character in that way. All right, let's get Let's get to Emily and Richard. H Richard's in a snit. He's through the whole episode. He's critical of Emily's decision to have Rory come out of society. He's really, you know, acting out of character here. You don't know why. Uh. Those two are fighting a lot and you know, larel ized enjoying the heck out of it. Uh. It's later revealed
that Richard is facing challenges at work. He's been removed from an account he's handled for decades, and he's being beginning to feel like he's getting phased out because, as he said, he invented the phase out at his company. In this particular storyline, he is being phased out right
maybe of his job, passion, his careers, community, all that stuff. Right, So while Rory's being forced into hers right, So do you think Richard watching Rory begin her life is adding to the sadness of stress that he may be losing his.
I didn't. I didn't read anything into that.
I I that was a very touching monologue that he had, though, when he finally says to his wife invulnerability, you know, which is how you really need to communicate with your spouse, as opposed to the reaction of like fighting fighting, they start out fighting fighting, fighting, And then I just thought, oh, he's really he's the patriarch, you know, and he's saying they're gonna get rid of me because am I am
aging out of this? And his terror about that and his whole identify identity with what he does at that company, and I so I just felt like he was on a journey of his own fighting and then drinking too much and pissed at everything and no one ever listens to my problems.
And then he finally says his and she listens. He looks at him for the first time. I didn't really see that he was doing it.
In relation to well, he is sort of resenting all that stuff, all the social obligations. He just feels like that's you know, a byproduct of being this successful, you know, wealthy family. That social stuff is just so meaningless, and how he's you know, diminishing the importance of it, but like it's just not important to him when something much bigger is going on. Their whole existence and lifestyle is being threatened by his job loss and.
Stuff, and every one of those events cost him one hundred grand, you know, or fifty grand, I mean, just to buy a table to show up.
It's not just like it's a couple hours out of his life.
It's expensive to stay in that lifestyle and he can't afford it.
Maybe forgets such a huge shift potentially.
I was relieved because it's been long enough since I've seen the whole show that I thought is he having an affair because he was sort of discounting and separating himself an edgy. So when he said it was work, I was like, oh, thank god, thank god, is just going to lose his job.
Oh thank god, he's just.
Going to lose his job.
But I you know, you know, we're all working people, so we've been at that point where the money's not coming in in the same way, but people have the same expectation of you to spend it, and it's it's very, very stressful when you see money going out and money isn't coming in. So I knew why his nerves were afraid. When he finally said it, it was like, Oh, of course, Yeah.
It stresses out relationships for sure. Yeah, yeah, it's tough, tough.
I do think now that we're getting into that storyline. I love where we end with Laura I and her mom.
We'll get to that scene. It's lovely. It kind of ties everything up. But did we have that with her dad? Did we have that Richard that moment.
I know that he says what he's really feeling, and we understand what's going on with him really why he's so tense and being a jerk. But does someone ever come to him and have a kind of like closing that up and going we'll get through this or something. I support you, dad, no matter what. I don't remember, isn't softened very often.
No, yeah, right, I don't know. I mean I've only watched it one time through in my whole life.
Yeah, well, anyway, I like that.
I think there I think there probably is. I can't want to say yes that I think that there probably is.
Well, I think it actually does turn into everything that Richard was fearing. Right, he loses his job after this, and it's a big turning point into like what his life is because doesn't he like he goes into business, he does.
This whole Jason styles, Jason styles things. He comes in and like kind of kicks him out of his own company.
I think so.
Yeah, so this is really the beginning of a significant storyline where everything hear, everything Richard fears, is coming true.
So it is it's not just half for this up that, you know, there's always after that that threatening ending.
There's alway is something else.
And now we're we're at this moment she comes down the stairs, she's presented Christopher's there. Uh, there's this camera shot of the fan dance right from the debut, Laurels standing and Laurel I standing in front of it. And then that's when Emily says, tor that could have been you out there. Nothing is turning out the way it's supposed to be.
Girls in our white ball gowns, girls waiting fans round in a circle.
It's so weird.
Here's my opportunity to smash my daughter again.
It was so funny.
Yeah, those two.
But it is I love I love that that was a really like heartfelt moment from Emily, like she really was living out her dreams for Laura l I through in this moment. But the irony of having the fan dance in the background, for that, it's really because it's absurd.
It really wasn't a slam at her daughter. I think it was just real open, honest pain coming out in a moment and wasn't meant to hurt her daughter. It was just like almost like some heal my pain somehow. Yeah, daughter, Do you think Lorlai regrets it not having not gone through that, Not at all.
I think that she.
I think that's a chasm. You know.
What would bring her closer with her mother would have been into all that Daughters of the Revolution traditional stuff that they have, and even to be a you know, at this point, she'd love her to come to these garden parties and have her own little you know, foundation or something. I don't know.
I think the wistfulness is more like the relationship between Emily and Rory, Like that Emily's being able to have this reallytionship with Rory and it seems sort of successfully and it's like that that's a relationship that was missed between Laura and Emily. And that's what I get the sense of Laurai's wistful, her take on that it's like almost proprietary, like, oh, this is my daughter, but you're having this experience with your granddaughter the way maybe it's just complicated.
Yeah, I read it.
I heard it a similar way Laura, which is it's that her mother would her mother still can't see her right to say this could have been your She still can't take her in and say you made this different choice.
What a beautiful life you have. She still is saying, wouldn't it have been better if you did this thing? That's what I wanted for you.
Yeah, that's what I saw.
I think.
One of the things I love about this show so much is Laura Lai's willingness to keep showing up for her mom and her parents, even though it's endlessly disappointing. In some profound ways and letting Rory had this beautiful relationship. I think it's just this sweet, like you get to show up for imperfect family relationships with an open heart. And it's such a sweet thing about this show. I can't wait to watch it again.
Right, especially that final scene of this episode.
Very touch yes, yes, such a beautiful.
Because you get that glimpse into the future, like my mom's getting old, I'm gonna have to take care of her, and I'm going to take care of her because I love her still and we don't even have to talk and we don't have to understand each other, but she's my mom and it was it was really like a choke up moment there.
Yeah.
Well the scene before when she's talking to Rory, lorel I says, you know, it's so nice that I have someone I can talk to, and of course her daughter goes, yeahoo, she's like very funny, shecky, and but they it shows the friendship that they have, you know, and makes her think my mom doesn't have that she has a husband and they bicker and they fight, and that she doesn't.
Have what I have and my daughter.
So I want to go be that from my mom, and then she just shows up and just says, I'm here if you just want to talk, you know, as her mom's clipping those flowers, right, and it just ends like a lovely possibility for the future, you know, like maybe they will, you know, we don't have to talk.
I'm just here. I'm just hanging. She's like, you're what I'm hanging?
What do you mean?
What's that?
I'm just going?
Is here?
You want to say anything?
You know.
So it's just the beginning of something I'm emerging.
Hopefully, and it's and Richard Emiley, it's it's a depiction of a real marriage, you know, warts and all right, instead of this idealized, you know, false marriage. But this is this is you know how it is. You know, we're all I've been through this all right. Closing scene in in that final scene, and you would think that's a perfect ending to the episode. I thought that's when the episode it was ending with just hanging, hanging, Yeah, hang, silence.
I thought, Oh, episode's over, I'm gonna se Amy's name flash up a single card. Nope, there's more. Then we get that closing scene they're getting burgers at Luke's. Lorela and and Rory after the men peel off. You know, Dean is exhausted from the old thing, and Christopher has to get back to his lady. Uh there and burgers and and we have that wonderful little Now she's back in her real world, her comfortable world, right, her ordinary world where it's wacky.
And you know it's real. It's casual flannel shirts, right, and.
Yeah you can be you right. And Luke is being a dad to that kid like Milo. Yet it together, get up there, you know, yelling at the kid, and I say, yeah, we're back, We're back where we belong.
Relief.
And it's what are your thoughts on, Jess, what is he? What does he bringing to the table here?
The kid?
Is that miloh?
Okay, First of all, I just have to say I played Milo's mother on American Dreams.
For for the last season.
I was a playboy, was a playboy playmate, well supervising bunny, and he was my single mom.
He was my son.
Yes, she wasn't just a bunny, she was a supervising bunny. Thank you for clarifying.
Additional qualifications are needed.
She's just older. I think she's a supervisor. She's older. She's not a little bunny.
She's a mother bunny anyway, she was a single mom with Milo was my son.
It was so fun, but it was so great to.
See him here and I loved and this scenery shows up looking just like you, like, you know, like my Metallica T shirt. We didn't talk about that scene, but that ugly T shirt and then he shows up looking like you and you.
Feel mocked, right, Luke looks like, yeah, very funny. It was great.
It was a great move for jests.
And he's he's just appeared on the scene at this point, right, So, like I I found him very charming and appealing and.
Like I knew he was trouble and I liked it, you know, like I was.
I was. I was open to it, even though we're supposed to really like, you know, sweet, perfect seeming dean and worried together. I was totally open to the jests of it all. And it was at that point it was fun.
I felt very sorry and I hated myself for it.
I know, I like, I know, this is.
I hate myselff for but he's so adorable and he's so sexy and their chemistry was so good. But they made him like a stinker at first, Like he was such a stinker at first, but you're just kind of like, yeah, maybe you don't stay there, but do it for a bit, like like I didn't want because Dean is so sweet.
Yeah, and he seems so good at that point. So when Jess comes in and he's clearly acting out so.
Many ways, you're like we said, but he's he's smart.
They can talk about books like I.
Want it to play out.
At that point, I know, I guilt a little bit bit of a guilty.
I mean, it's like.
He's the bad boy.
He's gonna be the bad boy, and that's every girl you're supposed to have. The good, good, handsome guy goes to the Debutan Ball and then there's this jazz you know.
I mean, right, he didn't know what Luke was when he was younger.
You know, he didn't really cross the line, though. Jess just messed it all up, like all right, too much Bundy, Like.
From right away he did, Yeah you got you got Marlon Brando and the Wild Ones Hybrid with James Dean and there's Jess right y, like those two had a kid, Jess Trump.
Yeah, they really let him act out. I admire that about the show, that they really let people be complicated. Like you said, the marriage Richard Nermley's marriage is a real marriage. That's a fight in a long term marriage. They really allowed you guys to be messy, mad, frustrated, like so that the audience you kind of felt like, I don't know how far this is going to go. You don't have that sort of safety net of this
is a good character. They won't make mistakes like people make mistakes all over the place.
Right, So, since I'm the only one who haven't seen it, what are we talking about Jess doing after this episode? He did every way to screw it up.
He screwed it up.
Okay, so he got someone pregnant, he I don't think he did that.
And he crashed her car, I think, And and yeah, he was just a jerk about it too, Like everything that he did, he was also really like entitled jerk about it.
Right.
I was like that was disappointing. It's like, come on, I thought you were just going.
To toe the right bad boy line and then he just crossed it.
All.
Right, let's let's talk about Melrose Place.
Oh, okay, speaking a bad boy and our podcast still the place now we talk about that too, Still the Place.
Every Monday, and then we have a Melrose Minute on Thursdays. Yes, go ahead, Scott.
So as you're watching Melrose Place, are you're all seeing it differently now than you did? And what really stands out to you? Mm hmmm.
We're fans. We got to see we get to see now thirty something years later. What I get to see I'll speak for myself, Daphne as Joe. I get to see what the fans liked about it, you know, because when we were shooting it, as you know, you just get in, you have all those lines, you're like working, you're in the trenches. And now we get to sit back and oh, it's just really fun to be in a relaxed way, watch the stories and you know, reveal themselves. It's really that's what I like about it.
It's I get to be a fan of the show. It's a really well written show for what it is. That's what I have found.
Did you watch it as you were filming it?
Not much?
No?
No, no, you can't.
Also, I'm self conscious now thirty years later, can you imagine ever watch it?
But do you feel it's like a different I watched this now because I never watched it when I was shooting because we were there so much. And you know, it's like I always said, I make the sausage, I don't want to eat it. No thanks, it's not for me. But now that I'm watching it since like two thousand and one, it's like a different person. It's a time capsule, it is, and I feel okay watching it because I don't rely to that guy anymore. He's like a different guy.
So I get this, so I get to watch it, enjoy it, and be a little more objective about it.
That's exactly what's stuck out for me is that it is such a look at our youth, like it's captured on film and we're just like, these are super young kids and we're just you know, so much has happened and so many years of appen and since then that it is like watching somebody else. And I also thought about that watching Gilmore Girls, that for Alexis it must be so weird. It was like her.
Childhood because she was she.
Was eighteen and she just grew up in front of the camera and on this show and it's captured and it's like it really happened that way for her, and so what a what a weird.
Unique and wonderful thing to have, like to look back on. Yeah, we weren't that much older. I mean I was twenty four we started my road.
But the distance maybe between when we did our show and now is much greater.
So I mean definitely seems like a way back to what.
You were doing, what we did in ninety two. Ours was ninety two, so we're cars. We're almost a full decade before we started shooting in ninety two. So that's what we're watching right now, the first season. So we were this is thirty what someone do the math? Well thirty five forty years ago, so long ago, thirty thirty three.
Yeah, So fashion wise, like I as we're talking about it, like I didn't even notice watching your show the clothes because they're so normal and everybody look normal, Like we have huge shoulder pads and voluminous pants, and well you're Alison did stuff.
Her character did terrible problem with shoulder pads.
Yeah, so there's not as much of that. Like your show feels really current. Goimore Girls feels very current. Also, the writing was so ahead of its time that that's going to stay current forever. We feel very nineties. Melrose feels of very dated in nineties, very nineties.
Yeah, so fun, right right right? Where would you all like to see your Melrose plays characters?
Now?
What do you think they ended up?
Well, half of us would have to come back from the dead to answer the question. Well, I maybe not half of us, but I'll just.
Raise my hand.
How did you die? How they killed you all?
They killed me off at the end of my contract at the end of season five. I was hit by a car in the season finale, in the last shot of the episode, I was finally getting married and finally finding happiness, and I was in my wedding dress and I was hit by a runaway car in another storyline. Those two storylines collided and my body, the stunt woman's body went tumbling over the roof of the car and splatters on the ground and the crane shot pulls up and that was my that was my?
Was there blood light coming out of your head? You remember?
Probably that Caro, there might have been. I just remember that you're lying down. I had like to stick It was nice, right, Laura, Like probably two in the morning was probably horrible, and it was sticky. Yeah, it was the middle of the night.
I just do remember I had to like twist my legs in a weird way to make it I had just been smashed.
But the weird thing was.
A couple Well about ten years later, maybe not quite no, not quite ten years later, I was at a at an elementary school like assembly event, and I realized, wait, I've been inside this church before. My kid was going to the elementary school within the like the property where this church was, and out on the lawn where my character had had her.
Demise were Oh my gosh, my kid ended up going to school.
There's very Yeah, there was no plaque, nothing to commemorate since no plaque.
Oh my god. Small world.
So okay, so let's there's final question. Okay, because we got to wrap this up and I don't want to, but we have to. What character on Gilmour can you relate to the most Daphne? Go ahead?
You know, I my parents divorced when I was six, and my sister and I grew up mostly with my mom. And I realized watching the show I was my mom was young, very young, and more like a friend.
To my sister and me.
So I mean, I remember sitting at home in my dining room when I was in high school and looking at my mother in the kitchen and going, how come she doesn't feel like a mother?
How comes she feels like a friend? I mean, I had that thought. So I relate to this dynamic and this this the age of these So I mean I relate most to Lourlai.
I do because I've also you know, I just I can't relate to Rory because right, she's too young for me.
But I do.
I was that Rory character as a kid.
I would have to say Courtney, Yeah, I feel like Daphne.
I feel like Loralai and Rory. This is the thing with great characters, right, Like I have the earnestness of Rory, but I feel like Larela is just so relatable. And I think too, it's kind of aspirationally relatable, Like I want to be that funny and charming and quick talking like.
And wear those dresses every single day and look amazing.
Yeah, be that adorable. I think the truth is I probably am more like Rory, but I want to be more like Laura. I So that's probably the truth of it, law, And.
I think I relate.
Yeah, I certainly relate because I came to the show later. I didn't watch it in real time because I was having babies and just busy doing that that I and then my older daughters weren't quite old enough to be watching the show when I was, so I wasn't watching it. So I came to it later when my daughters were old enough, and so I really watched it through the mom lens, and so I of course relate to Laura. I also also grew up I had a single mom,
and so that relationship is really familiar to me. But I also I am such a fan of the Emily character, and I see her as another mom with other like sort of mom issues that I have such a soft spot. I love the character. I don't know if it's related to as much as I just adore the character.
Laurel and Courtney Thorne Smith Daphne's Anita. Thank you so very much. It was a thrill to talk to you, getting to know you. I've never met anybody. I've never met you before. Please come back on the podcast, check in with us. Well, let's do another episode together, And thank you for your time and know how busy you are. Thanks so much, joining us my pleasure and that is going to wrap it up here. Best fans on the planet, keep the cards and letters, comment, and remember where.
You lead, we will follow.
Uh.
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