The 15 Most Shocking Moments From The ‘Gilmore Girls’ 15th Anniversary Reunion

Along with Sean Gunn, who played Kirk, Melissa McCarthy was the only regular cast member missing from the reunion action on Saturday night. While fans thought it odd, it was nothing personal after all as McCarthy was busy promoting her new movie Spy — now the top box office hit. Sherman-Palladino still had wonderful things to say about McCarthy and her beloved character Sookie St. James, including how hard she fought to get her on the show.

Pitch after dead pitch, Sherman-Palladino was at a loss for what to do until husband (and later, co-executive producer) Dan told her “to just write something.” What Palladino then pitched to Warner Brothers was a show about a mother and daughter who are really more like best friends. “‘That’s it, write that,'” Sherman-Palladino said the execs told her. “Only I didn’t know what it was,” she admitted.

In both of our interviews with Kelly Bishop and Scott Patterson, neither cast member kept up with the series when it was still on the air and they don’t seem to have time to revisit it now, even though all seven seasons are on Netflix. During the panel discussion, only Amy Sherman-Palladino revealed that she’ll catch it when it’s marathoning on ABC Family, but that’s as far as it goes.

“Oy, with the poodles already,” “Copper Boom,” and “You have ‘Juicy’ written on your rear end,” are all precious lines of dialogue to Gilmore Girls fanatics, but often go right over the actresses’ heads when fans regularly quote them. Alexis Bledel laughed when asked why those lines meant so much, “I don’t remember! Why those words?!”

Sherman-Palladino put together a deeply moving mashup of the late Edward Herrmann‘s most memorable moments from the series, leaving not one dry eye in the house. The cast also left a vacant chair for their friend. (Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye out for the video).

Don’t worry, we didn’t get the invite either. Lane’s band Hep Alien held a secret show in Austin the night before the series reunion and featured all of the original members (save for Adam Brody) playing a cover of Carole King’s theme song.

Strong, who played Paris’ college boyfriend on the series in Seasons Three-Seven, not only went on to write The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I, but also HBO original movies Recount and Game Change as well as Lee Daniels’ The Butler and the hit drama Empire. Jessica Shaw acknowledged Danny Strong‘s “tremendous success with Empire,” only to be interrupted by an always joking Sherman-Palladino who added, “I love how between this and The Butler, Danny has become the voice of black America.” Strong responded with a deadpan, “Word.”

After the red carpet hug seen around the world, Milo Ventimiglia and Jared Padalecki were buddy-buddy at the reunion, gushing over who they really wanted to end up with Rory. “Sometimes Jess was a dick,” Ventimiglia admitted of his own character before admitting, “Listen, I’ve always been very vocal about this… I’m Team Dean.”

Liza Weil, famous for her portrayal of neurotic yang to Rory’s yin, Paris Geller, actually auditioned for the lead role once upon a time. “I went in and read for Rory, and met Amy and Gavin [Pallone],” Weil explained, “Then I got a call and they were like, ‘They really liked you but they don’t think you’re quite right but if it goes, they’ll find something else for you to do.’ Then they wrote Paris. And you know, the younger version of myself was really freaked out that that’s what they wrote. I couldn’t fathom that they would think that I could do that. Now I think it’s very flattering.” One thing is for sure, we’re dying to know where that audition tape is located on the Warner Brothers studio lot.

During the round-robin discussion of where they think their characters are now, Yanic Truesdale (who’s delightfully cheery in real life, unlike his permanently grumpy Michel) took the mic and started giggling, “That’s a tough one because I never really understood how he ended up in that town in the first place.”

Of course, the unsatisfactory ending of the series was discussed at great length, including how let down Lauren Graham was with her character’s limbo. The actress, however, is hopeful in Lorelai’s undying love for Luke and the town of Stars Hollow. “I think Luke and Lorelai are together 100%,” she said matter-of-factly to a rafter-shaking eruption of applause from the audience.

After some back and forth discussion between Shaw and Scott Patterson, who planted the seed about a movie reunion, Sherman-Palladino revealed that no, there’s nothing in the works as of now. But that’s not to say there wont be: “If it [a movie] ever happened, I promise we will do it correctly,” she said.

After Jessica Shaw’s Q&A with the cast, she opened the floor to fans — who literally climbed over each other to run to the mics set up in the aisles. One fan shared that she learned English by watching the series but admitted she sometimes had to use subtitles when their fast-paced dialogue reached dizzying speeds.

Sherman-Palladino and husband Dan explained the struggle in knowing when the time was right for their TV daughter to have sex. “At the time,” Sherman-Palladino explained, “everybody who was under eighteen on television was just fucking. I’m all for a bunch of little whores [laughs] but you know, not my girl. And we weren’t trying to make a statement or anything like that, but we were trying to play to the truth of who she was. It’s a decision she’s not going to make lightly. I didn’t want her to get drunk at a party and be like, ‘Whoo! What happened?!’ It got to a point where the studio and the network were like, ‘She’s gonna have sex, right? What is she, a nun?’ When we did our storyline, I wanted it to be Dean and I wanted them not to be together at that time.”

Prior to the reunion, Sherman-Palladino hosted a solo panel for her fans to discuss all things Gilmore Girls and her cancelled-too-soon ballet dramedy, Bunheads. The enigmatic creator shared that while things seem to have been quiet for her these days, she’s actually working on a pilot for “the delightful Amazon company,” but wouldn’t go into detail. She’s also currently writing a book to a accompany a musical “based on a movie nobody would have seen.”

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!