The Real First Scene Of 'Gilmore Girls' Is Perfect

When I think of Gilmore Girls, more than coffee, or diners, or quick witted banter, I think of both Lorelai and Rory. In fact, when I look back on how it all started, in the first episode of the first season, my mind focuses more on the matriarch of the happy twosome. In the beginning, Gilmore Girls was very much Lorelai's story until Rory came into her own and got her own agency away from her mom. But just because Lorelai leads by example doesn't mean the show technically started with her, however bizarre that notion may seem. On Wednesday, a new Gilmore Girls featurette was released, and, in it, Keiko Agena reveals what the first scene of Gilmore Girls that was ever shot was. Surprisingly, Lorelai has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I know what you imagined the first scene of the pilot was... the actual first scene. Lorelai stepping into Luke's diner and ordering a cup of coffee, right? Yeah, me too. But guess what? We are all quite wrong. Two girls did get the Gilmore Girls ball rolling, but, in the featurette, Agena says that she and Alexis Bledel were those girls. She explains that she and Bledel, "shot the very first scene of Gilmore Girls," making the two wide-eyed teens the true, unsung pioneers of the Star's Hollow universe.

The clip shows a flash of the scene, which, by all accounts, should be pretty unremarkable: Lane and Rory are walking through the Star's Hollow town square. But the thing is, it is remarkable. It makes so much sense to the show as a whole. The fact that the first scene of the series not only started with Rory — the Gilmore legacy — but with Star's Hollow itself – the unofficial third main character of the show — feels almost fated.

What that clip also doesn't show you is that this walk culminates in the indirect introduction of Rory and Dean. Rory, lost in a particularly on brand conversation with Lane about her "evil rock music" and potential "Korean doctor husband" as they walk into school, brush right past Dean, who appears to be almost instantly smitten. And, while I am most certainly not on Team Dean, nor am I even that big a fan of his character (that's an understatement), even I can't deny that Dean was pivotal to Rory's character development. His appearance in the first ever scene of the show that was shot speaks to his character's importance as Rory's coming of age catalyst.

This doesn't undermine Lane or Lorelai or anyone else's platonic influence on Rory. In fact, Dean's influence really has nothing to do with romance at all. It's that, with Lane and Lorelai, Rory was firmly in her comfort zone, one that Dean essentially ripped her out of. (Well, that and her leap of faith in the scary but transformative Chilton. But let's leave the assessment of Chilton's impact on Rory for another day.) Dean caught Rory at time in her life when she was restless and ready to actualize her potential — at least, academically. He just gave her that extra push in the personal life department.

In essence, this shot ending in Dean's introduction is an unintentional but perfect foreshadowing that this pilot was the first day of the rest of Rory's life. Her new one.

Images: Netflix