Hmm, it sounds like I'm in the minority at feeling a bit let down by this ep. It left me with more questions than answers about Lorelai's past, as it really only showed a few key moments in Lorelai's pregnancy and Rory's birth. For example, when young Lorelai and Christopher are looking at Rory in the nursery, he says "I guess we should get married now." I would have liked to have seen when Lorelai decided not to marry him and his reaction to it. Was he relieved, mad, hurt? I also wonder if Chris had anything to do with Lorelai and Rory in that first year. Did she tell him when she ran away? I think these things would have had an impact on their later relationship. I'm also curious about whether Lorelai ever considered not having Rory or placing her for adoption. While I can definitely see her making the decision to have and to raise Rory, you would think that at least in the beginning a 16 year-old girl might be confused about what she should do. I also share the sentiments of an earlier posting, where they said it didn't show how Lorelai made the decision to leave her parent's house. I guess this would be too much to ask of an hour ep, which also had to work in all the stuff with Gigi's birth as well as other storylines. Still, it did leave me wanting to know more.
One thing I found interesting about this ep was the early conversation between young Lorelai and Chris in which he convinced her they should skip college and go to Europe. I always think of Lorelai as the really rebellious one who didn't want to do what her parents told her, but in fact at first she was the one telling Chris they had to go to college. It doesn't sound like Lorelai completely rejected her parent's lifestyle and expectations of her until she decided to leave home.
This ep also gave me a better impression of Emily than in other eps. Considering the social circles she was in, she was surprisingly supportive of Lorelai (that is in her own annoying Emily way). You would think she would have thought like Christopher's mom and wanted to send Lorelai away so no one would know. But instead she kept Lorelai at home and helped to raise Rory in the beginning. It was pretty enlightened of her for the 1980s where things were still less liberal than now (and even now this would be fairly shocking in rich social circles I think.)
I didn't really love the actors playing either young Chris or Lorelai. The girl didn't quite feel like Lorelai to me, but I think it would be hard for anyone to capture the Lorelai-ness that Lauren Graham does so well. All things considered, she did a decent job. I agree with what's been said that young Chris looked nothing like older Chris (David Sutcliffe is much better looking!), and his acting was so-so.
