Mr. Medina

When the scene changes to Rory’s English Literature class, the teacher is now Mr. Max Medina (Scott Cohen). However, when Rory first started at Chilton two episodes ago, her English Literature teacher was Mr. Remmy (John Billingsley).

There is no attempt made to explain this away, such as Mr. Remmy suddenly leaving and Mr. Medina taking his place, or Mr. Remmy having filled in temporarily while Mr. Medina is sick (Mr. Medina says they’ve been studying Shakespeare for the past three weeks). It is just retconned as Mr. Medina having always been the English Literature teacher and Mr. Remmy never existing.

You can try to explain it as Mr. Remmy being the English teacher and Mr. Medina taking the English Literature class, except that if you add up all Rory’s subjects that she takes in her first semester, that would give her too many classes to attend. It also doesn’t quite gel with Rory being behind in her reading for Mr. Remmy’s class, and then getting a D in Mr. Medina’s class because she was behind in her reading.

The decision seems to have been made to match Lorelai up with Rory’s teacher, and Mr. Remmy wasn’t going to cut it as a love interest, thus entering Mr. Max Medina. The best-selling novel The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot had just been released in October 2000, which featured a teenage girl living with her single mother, and the mother began a relationship with the heroine’s Algebra teacher. Either this was an influence on Gilmore Girls, or it’s an example of zeitgeist.

Actor Scott Cohen does have some experience at the front of a school classroom: in his twenties he spent some time as a substitute teacher, teaching music to kindergarten children at an elementary school in Queens, New York. He was offered a permanent position, but had to turn them down so he could concentrate on his acting career. He and Lauren Graham, who plays Lorelai, were already friends before they starred in Gilmore Girls as a couple.