Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
The Gilmore Guys podcast started as a simple idea with modest ambitions. Two dudes, Kevin T. Porter, a huge Gilmore Girls fan, and Demi Adejuyigbe, who’d never seen it before, would watch the entire female-centric series together and talk through their responses to each episode. Then the podcast took off, leading to sold-out live shows, special guests, and even interviews with Gilmore Girls cast and crew members.
Decider caught up with Porter on the eve of an important shift to his show: The guys had just wrapped season six, and were about to wander into the unchartered territory of season seven, which they’ve since begun. The seventh season of the beloved show was produced without the involvement of creator and showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, and, as such, Porter had always avoided it. Like Adejuyigbe, he’d be watching for the first time, with no idea what to expect. Also looming on the horizon: the highly anticipated Netflix revival, with Sherman-Palladino back in the driver seat, which brings its own sense of the unknown. All in all, it’s a very exciting time to be a Gilmore Guy.
When Porter and Adejuyigbe embarked on season one, it was with no thought that the podcast might turn into anything. “My expectations were that my mom would listen to the podcast. That hasn’t happened yet,” Porter said. “Most podcasts have less than a couple hundred listeners. I thought it’d be fun to make the best show we possibly could, and maybe a few people would tune into it at some point. No one starts a podcast for the money. Go be a lawyer or something. I’m not trying to be like, falsely, ‘We had no idea,’ but we truly didn’t. So everything that came out of it from the business perspective was a surprise.”
A confluence of factors put the podcast in the spotlight. A write-up in The Atlantic gained them some initial wider notice. A special guest appearance by Scott Patterson, who plays Luke on the show, sparked the first rumors of a possible revival, which quickly spread. The power of social media played a big role as well—there is a large, passionate community surrounding Gilmore Girls, and they soon took notice.
Not to be overlooked is the podcast itself: Porter and Adejuyigbe are funny and engaging, combining insight into the show with overall pop-culture acumen. “We wanted to make a comedy podcast first,” Porter said, “and Gilmore Girls was kind of the format for that. It was important for us that we make it entertaining not just for Gilmore Girls fans, but also for people who maybe weren’t interested in Gilmore Girls to begin with.”
Just because they clearly love the show doesn’t mean they always go easy on it. Porter said that he and Adejuyigbe are “critical just like the way you can make fun of your friends, because you are friends with them, and it’s okay because you love them.” Issues like homophobic dialogue, lack of diversity, and continuity problems are brought up throughout the podcast.
But all this intense analysis has not lessened Porter’s love for the show, or his enjoyment in making the podcast. “Deep dives make the flaws stick out a lot more, but it makes the good stuff really pop, because you get to go over it. I think it is joyous to be analytical and study it,” he said. “I do look forward to the day where I can just enjoy the show purely. Right now it is Pavlovian: Gilmore Girls equals work. And so that’s the feeling when I watch the show, but the work is great. It’s not like Gilmore Girls is like doing my taxes.”
One of the biggest benefits of the podcast’s success has nothing to do with going on tour (including a stop in Boston on June 18th), selling merchandise, or speaking to Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore), which Porter called “just beyond my wildest dreams.” “One of the things I’m most grateful for is the legitimate friendships that have come out of doing the show,” he said. “Like Keiko Agena [who plays Lane] has pretty much become a friend to both Demi and myself, which has been so lovely.”
“I think the best part about doing the show is connection. That’s connecting people back to the show they loved in the first place. That’s connecting Demi and myself to each other. That’s connecting with our guests over what we have in common. That’s the connection to our listeners and having conversations with them about the show. And that’s us connecting with the show itself too.”
The connection with listeners happens beyond just the podcast. With 20,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 30,000 on Twitter, Porter and Adejuyigbe have built up a sizable following of Gilmore Guys fans or, as they’re called on the podcast, Gillies. These Gillies know everything about Gilmore Girls, aren’t afraid to send in corrections, and have very strong opinions about the show.
Among Gilmore Girls fans, one of the biggest debates is which guy Rory (Alexis Bledel) should end up with. The most vocal sect of Gillies is firmly Team Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), the quasi-bad boy choice who fights for her affections against first love Dean (Jared Padalecki) and rich boy Logan (Matt Czuchry). After originally being against Jess in the podcast’s first seasons, the guys have recently conceded that they’d come around.
“I think ultimately the writers gave Jess the most juice as far as his storyline went as the show went on. Jess just ended up having some of the best stories,” Porter said. “I don’t think the Palladino’s ultimately wanted Rory to end up with Jess, but I think that they just really liked writing him and writing his change.”
Looking ahead to watching season seven for this first time — and needing to podcast about it — Porter said he wasn’t sure what to expect. “Pretty much I’m going to know what it feels like to be Demi and to not know what’s coming,” he said. “So there’s kind of a thrill to that, and it kind of injects the show with a new energy and a new life near the end of the podcast.”
In comments he’s made on the podcast, Porter has sounded predisposed to being disappointed by the seventh season. He’s aware how this could impact the tone of his show. “My big kind of nervousness is that my vision from the get go was a podcast that celebrated Gilmore Girls. Now we’re getting to a point where I don’t know if I’m going to love this stuff, so I’m really fearful [because] I don’t think being snarky for snarkiness’ sake, or being cynical or negative just for negativity’s sake is fun or cool.”
Porter says the podcast is “built so much on the trust that we love [Gilmore Girls] so much, and the earnestness and the sincerity of our discussion. I don’t want to trash it for twenty episodes. I struggle with the idea that I want to keep the show fun and energetic and encouraging and positive, and we’ve been building [season seven] up like it’s this black cloud or plague. I know given what our initial expectations are that season seven won’t actually be that bad.”
Which naturally leads to the recent announcement of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, a Netflix revival set for later this year. Porter understands now more than ever why Gilmore Girls has stayed popular, relevant, and unique in a culture currently more focused on high-concept shows.
“One of the secrets to why the appeal has remained so large is because people can’t stop seeing themselves in what the show is. It’s done in this hyper-stylized way: lots of talking, long takes, big stories, but it’s done with super-grounded characters,” Porter said. “It’s Howard Hawks’s screwball comedies from the 40s. But it’s also a Jane Austen novel. But it’s also Dawson’s Creek, kind of a little bit. It’s kind of like Felicity, but not really.”
The show being so grounded has nullified a lot of Porter’s concerns going into the revival. Though he still has some totally plausible fears (“I’m scared we might see Mr. Kim. I don’t need to see Mr. Kim”), most of his worries have to do with the track record of other revivals. But he doesn’t that’s going to be a concern for Gilmore Girls.
“I have a nervousness like I do with any revival because it just feels like asking for trouble on some level. Like, hey you remember lightening in a bottle? Go get it again. That just seems like a fool’s errand,” Porter said. But with Gilmore Girls, “there’s been no other revival of a TV show ever that’s had these circumstances, where there was a vision that didn’t have the opportunity to be executed. There was not another show where the creator said I know what the ending is down to the last four words and unfortunately I didn’t get to do it because I left the show under terrible circumstances.”
And, he points out, it doesn’t hurt that “literally everyone who could possibly come back is coming back. Even the fact that Melissa McCarthy is coming back, and that she did not Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen her way out of this one. I think that it’ll be the very first television revival that has a reason for existing and is going to be actually terrific.”
Stepping back from podcast episodes that have passed the three hour mark and the opportunities he’s had to travel, meet fans, perform live, and build a social media following that is surely the envy of any millennial, Porter is simply amazed by this year-and-a-half long ride he’s been on.
“If you had told me five years ago you’re going to have a job that’s going to be talking about Gilmore Girls for a living, I would’ve been like, ‘Okay that’s weird, I don’t think that’s true, stay away from me.’ But that has ended up being the case,” Porter said. “We have tried to stay true to what excited us about doing a podcast about the show, and it has remained very, very joyous for both of us. I’m very grateful for that.”
[You can listen to Gilmore Guys on iTunes or SoundClound]
