'Gilmore Girls' & 'Hamilton's Glorious Connection

One of the most wonderful things about pop culture — besides its ability to take over everything in one's life until you're simply a husk of your former self spouting lines from your favorite TV shows and knitting your cats Gryffindor scarves — is when two completely different moments in pop culture intersect. Case in point, according to Entertainment Weekly, America's glorious pop culture history features a pretty amazing connection between Gilmore Girls and Hamilton .

Yes. The only exciting actors to show up on Gilmore Girls before they were famous weren't just Jon Hamm and Nick Offerman. It turns out that we also got to see a young Leslie Odom Jr., the actor who plays Aaron Burr in Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit Broadway musical Hamilton. In Gilmore Girls Odom played that "pompous Princeton guy" named Quentin Walsh in an episode called "Bridesmaids Again," which was Season 6, Episode 16.

In the episode, Lorelei and Christopher attend a Young Voices of Journalism panel at Yale at which Rory, Quentin, and a few randoms — all editors at prestigious collegiate newspapers — discuss their thoughts on journalism and use a lot of big words, some of which I may or may not have had to look up.

Quentin came out the gate seeming like that annoying kid who always answered questions too fast before anyone else could. In fact, he answered a question from the moderator before the moderator even got to finish. As soon as the words were out of his mouth — "The ramifications to the scandal to which you obliquely alluded" — viewers knew we were going to be annoyed by this guy, as did Christopher and Lorelei. His awkward laugh certainly doesn't help matters.

One can't help but compare Quentin Walsh to Odom's current character, Aaron Burr. He follows the rules, waits patiently, and constantly disagrees with Alexander Hamilton (or Rory in Quentin's case). I don't think Quentin would go as far as to shoot Rory in a duel like Burr versus Hamilton, but who knows what some people will do for prestigious journalism positions?

Quentin only got two redeeming moments: One, when he agreed with Rory that he, too, would only put a picture on the front page of Princeton's newspaper of the university president getting pied in the face if it was for a political statement, to which Rory responded, "Quentin you agree with me! I didn't know you were capable." His second golden moment was when he shook hands with Rory at the end of the panel. A lesser man would have been offended at her statements, but not Quentin. He handled it like a champ.

Thank you, pop culture universe, for this glorious intersection of wonderful media. This revelation is the perfect type of news for folks who want to go see Hamilton but cannot get tickets or afford it. All we have to do is put this part of the episode on mute while listening to the Hamilton soundtrack and it will almost be like we're sitting on Broadway. Isn't that great news?

Images: Warner Bros. Television Distribution/Netflix (4)