Paris Geller
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Paris Eustace Geller | |
|---|---|
 |
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| First appearance | The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton (episode 1.02) |
| Information | |
| Gender | female |
| Age | 22 |
| Year of birth | December 1984 |
| Occupation | Former editor of The Franklin and Yale Daily News, volunteer work, standardized test preparation; double major in medicine and journalism |
| Relationships | Doyle McMaster (current boyfriend), Prof. Asher Fleming (past boyfriend, deceased, S4), Jamie (past boyfriend, S3/S4) |
| Relatives | Unnamed mother and father, Jacob Geller (cousin) |
| Episode count | 96 (as of February 20, 2007) |
| Portrayed by | Liza Weil |
| Created by | Amy Sherman-Palladino & Gavin Polone |
Paris Eustace Geller is a fictional character on the television series Gilmore Girls, played by Liza Weil.
Paris is a child of wealthy parents and Jewish, born in December 1984 (the month is never mentioned, but in a first season episode, her bat mitzvah dress is shown embellished with a menorah, the symbol of Hanukkah). She was raised almost completely by her Portuguese nanny, and speaks fluent Portuguese as a result.
Paris is also lactose intolerant, enjoys soy milk along with other healthy and organic foods, and prefers her pizza without cheese; despite these eating habits, her favorite food is macaroni and cheese, and other kinds of fast food since she and Rory became friends and roommates.
Paris was originally Rory's arch-nemesis at Chilton Academy, partially because she felt threatened by Rory's academic prowess, but more because of the attention that Tristan DuGrey (Chad Michael Murray), the local golden boy/bad boy, paid the new transfer from Stars Hollow High. Her two best friends prior to Rory were Madeline Lynn (Shelly Cole) and Louise Grant (Teal Redmann), who were more concerned about boys and makeup than Paris' focus on her academics.
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[edit] History
Paris was originally created for a three-episode guest arc by series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and executive producer Gavin Polone at the beginning of the show's first season to introduce Rory Gilmore's character to the high pressures, competitiveness and stress of going from the small public high school in Stars Hollow, to the storied and respected halls of Chilton Academy. This character was created in consolation for Weil after a strong audition for the role of Rory (Weil had been known to Polone through her work in Stir of Echoes, which he and his company produced), which eventually went to Alexis Bledel. The character proved to be the proper foil to Rory in time, and the role of Paris in the show was extended and expanded through the first season until Weil became a series regular in the second season.
[edit] The Chilton Years
[edit] Season One
Rory starts attending Chilton in late September of 2000 (her and Paris' sophomore year in high school), and Paris made it known from the beginning she wouldn't back down from the threat Rory posed to her claim as the top student in her class at the school. Before they even meet, Paris reads Rory's Stars Hollow transcript, courtesy of a student worker in the administration office she paid to sneak her the information out the window. The first day with the younger Gilmore ends up challenging Paris, and a few hours after giving Rory a lecture that she wouldn't make things easy, Rory accidentally broke Paris' castle project after tumbling into her because of a stuck locker. Paris refuses Rory's offered help to put it back together, and in spite the new girl answers lecture questions usually tackled by Paris right away. Angered, Paris threatens to make Rory's Chilton experience 'a living hell'.
Relations between the two remain frosty through their first semester as Tristan gave more attention to Rory than to Paris, whom he considered a platonic friend. After Rory earns a D in a literature class as she tries to catch up with her classmates, Paris jokes bitterly the grade would be perfect to apply for work at McDonald's. Later, the comment would come back to haunt her as an annoyed Rory went off on her for calling her a 'loser' during a test she failed to make due to oversleeping. Paris' character was undeveloped beyond Rory's tormentor at this time as the writers tried to get a feel for Weil's performance and whether to keep her in the series.
Paris' backstory is built with each episode after this point. She is forced by her mother to attend Rory's 16th birthday party thrown by her grandparents, and makes it clear doesn't enjoy it. Later, she bumps into Rory at a college fair, and away from the pressures of school and Tristan, she opens up a little to the girl, discussing Harvard and how she hopes to go there one day, as does Rory. Though they don't get along, they agree to disagree and be cordial to each other, noting that Harvard is a big campus and they probably would not see each other again after Chilton.
Her hidden crush on Tristan is a major theme for the first season, and as she sells tickets to the school's Winter Formal, tries to bring up the courage to ask him out when he tries to buy his tickets. However she backs off after he makes a flirty comment about her already having a date. She takes out that bitterness on Rory for not wanting him and yells at the girl as she buys her tickets, not realizing that Rory already has a boyfriend in the local new boy, Dean.
Because she needs a date for the Formal, she is forced after asking her mother to take her cousin Jacob as a date. Paris is able to keep it a secret for at least half the dance, until Jacob asks Rory if he could have her phone number and reveals his bloodline connection to Rory's rival. Though Rory doesn't say anything, Paris ends up jumping to conclusions and yells at Rory in front of all at the Formal in attendance, angered that Rory would divulge such secret information. However Rory had said nothing, and Paris unwittingly revealed her own secret.
Paris's parents then went through a nasty, messy divorce that was the talk of Chilton with many tabloid-like rumors of affairs and plastic surgery flying through the gossip mill, and despite her exceptional success at school, Paris' self-esteem suffered as her home was torn apart with Mrs. Geller replacing all reminders of her husband, and pushing Paris to bring up her self-esteem, be less introverted, and use makeup and topical medications to hide blemishes the older woman felt made her daughter undateable.
During this same period, she caught Max Medina, her literature teacher passionately kissing Lorelai, and spread the gossip to assert herself over Rory and to take the heat off the negative attention she was receiving in the wake of the divorce. After Rory confronts Paris and asks her to explain why she's treating her the way she is when she was nothing but nice to Paris, she reveals some sorrow and guilt over spreading the news and speaks out about how the divorce has affected her. Knowing the girl was in a tough position, Rory tells Paris that if she needs help with anything, she can come to her and talk about anything she might need to.
The girls are then put together for a project in a government class (along with Madeline and Louise), and the four decide to use Rory's home in Stars Hollow as a meeting place for the project, which just happens to be at the same time Lorelai is organizing the town's rummage sale, filling the house with assorted clothes and merchandise. Madeline and Louise seem to want to befriend Rory and are yelled at several times by Paris to keep working, but keep going back to talking about Rory's relationship with Dean, annoying Paris to no end. Later, Lorelai gets an idea upon seeing Rory, Madeline and Louise bond, and invites all four girls to a Bangles concert in Manhattan. Paris declines to go, but is talked into it by her friends, and surprisingly enjoys the music and the band, and then enjoys the unwanted attention Madeline and Louise end up with after sneaking off with some boys to a party nearby, watching as Lorelai becomes authoritarian and lets it known that she won't allow any trouble around Rory. After all of this, she tells Rory that the evening was the best night of her life.
Slowly Paris and Rory become friendly to each other, and Rory tries to help out the girl by asking Tristan to take her out on a date, then help her dress for it. The date seems to be a success, but Tristan remains focused on wanting Rory, and unwittingly reveals that Rory asked him to ask Paris out. She takes offense to this, and again they become distant, Tristan getting in the way of their friendship to the point where he spreads word at the end of the school year that he would take Rory to a PJ Harvey concert. Seemingly, this is the last straw for Paris, and she cuts Rory fully out of her peer circle, using her new power as editor of The Franklin, the school's newspaper to prevent the younger Gilmore from any advancement in position, assigning her to do a menial report about a parking lot paving project to start her Franklin career.
[edit] Season Two
Eventually however, the two girls realize that they work better together than apart, and after a few more underhanded moves to annoy Rory away from her, Paris eventually accepts her as a friend and an unsaid co-editor on The Franklin. Also helping is the departure of Tristan for military school in North Carolina after he gets into trouble and falls in with a bad clique in the school over the summer, which culminates in a failed robbery of a safe belonging to the father of one of his new friends. As his departure took place mere moments from a performance of the last act of Romeo and Juliet Paris was producing, where Tristan was to play Romeo and Rory Juliet, Paris had to step in at the last second to don a male wig, drink the poison, and 'kiss' Juliet before 'he' 'died', though she didn't really kiss Rory.
Rory then found herself about to get into Chilton's most prestigious sorority after being encouraged to be more social, The Puffs, which was led by one of Paris' rivals, Francine Jarvis. Paris had always wanted to get in to this club to as it ensured many guarantees as she went into Harvard (which involved a show-created history where Sandra Day O'Connor was a member), and she asks Rory to put in a good word. Her plan works, and both girls find themselves about to be initiated into the Puffs (which involved a late-night burglary into Headmaster Charleston's office to ring a bell), when Charleston walked into his office with security mid-initiation, hastening the end of the Puffs. Paris doesn't blame Rory for it at all, and continues to allow her to be a friend, through many grade panics and frets through the rest of the season. She also finds Rory teasing her by not revealing her PSAT grade, which annoyed her to no end. She also ends up visiting Stars Hollow several times throughout the year, first as a guest at a holiday dinner at the Independence Inn she enjoyed despite what she thought were anachronisms, trying to score a story for the Franklin, and in a grade panic.
With the departure of Tristan, there was no boy for Paris to be attracted to, and except for teasing a nerdy boy who got on her nerves sometimes (Brad Langford), she focused on her studies and building her college admissions chances. She also made a successful run for student body president in her senior year with Rory as her vice president towards the end of the season, and their reward is a two-month trip to Washington, DC for a Junior Leadership program.
[edit] Season Three
This season starts out towards the end of the Washington trip, with Rory and Paris as roommates and becoming very close. Paris is revealed to be a sleep talker in slumber, having dreams aloud about Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate and Washington Post fame, then dreaming of herself as Bill Clinton during his denial of having an affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Surprising to her (literally), she finds love at the conference with Jamie (Brandon Barash), who was often a partner with her in debates through the summer and took a liking to her assertive and commanding personality. This is proven as she tries to engage Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in a debate, only to be passed onto a confused Rep. Doug Ose (R-CA) during a farewell luncheon.
During the same luncheon, Jamie asks her to have dinner with him to celebrate, and she accepts, but at first takes it only as a friendly invitation. However Rory had seen the entire conversation and knew Jamie liked Paris, so after some explanation to the girl, Paris finally realized she had a date, and when Rory helped her get ready, she fretted over it;
- Paris: I can instantly deduce that when someone hears the name "Paris" in the same sentence with the word "date", jaws will drop, confused looks will cover faces, words like "How?" and "Why?" and "Quick, Bob, get the children in the minivan because the world is obviously coming to an end!" will immediately fly out of people's mouths.
- —Season 3, Ep. 1 "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days"
Thankfully for her the date turned out to be a success, they continued to talk after the end of the conference, and eventually Jamie came to visit her at Chilton, where Paris revealed that she wanted to take things further also.
She and Jamie continued to date for some time (despite the scandal that she was a Harvard candidate falling for a Princeton boy), and Jamie became her first lover. He introduced her to her first Christmas and Jamie's family immediately took a strong liking to the girl.
She tried to hide the relationship from the gossip-happy circles of Chilton, and Rory swore silence to Paris to hide their relationship so she could date in peace. Rory, however, was forced to become a puppet to Paris' long-time rival in school and senior class president, Francine ("Francie") Jarvis. Francine had a vendetta against the two, thinking them the ones who had sabotaged the Puffs.
Rory found herself accidentally divulging Paris' dating status during a secret meeting with Francine. It should be noted that the set up for the secret meeting between Rory and Francine and the subsequent disclosure to Paris is remarkably similar to one of the plot lines in the 1981 movie, Absence of Malice starring Paul Newman and Sally Field. When Paris discovers that her relationship to Jamie has been made public, she confronts Rory in a ferocious fencing match during gym class. Feeling betrayed by Rory's revelation (whom by this point, Paris considered her best friend), the two are divided once again.
Paris' family tradition was Harvard University (five generations according to her), and she had a complete meltdown on C-SPAN while she was supposed to be helping Rory deliver a co-written speech for the Chilton Bicentennial celebration in the wake of receiving a rejection letter from Harvard and losing her virginity to Jamie a few days earlier. Days before, Paris had told Rory first about her having sex, and the two reconciled, just in time as Rory ended up the one after Paris' speech telling her that not getting into her dream college wasn't the end of the world. Rory, too, had intended to go to Harvard, but her infamous pro/con list came down on the side of Yale, partly because of Paris' rejection from the school, but mostly from the Gilmore family's Yale tradition.
Rory would outrank Paris as valedictorian and Brad Langford (Adam Wylie) outranked her as salutatorian for Chilton's Class of 2003. Nanny and the rest of her family would see Paris walk down the aisle to receive her diploma, and though Paris joked that Rory would see bad luck in order to numb the fact she wasn't #1, she eventually accepted the fact that she was not #1.
Paris' college choice would not be revealed until the beginning of season four, possibly to allow Liza Weil to pursue a new series (though the contract she signed before season two was for six years). By July of 2003 it had been learned that Amy Sherman-Palladino wanted her to continue as Paris and Weil wanted to stay on, so Paris would continue to be one of the major supporting characters on the show even after the Chilton years.
[edit] The Yale Years
[edit] Season Four
Rory walks into her Yale dorm room, surprised to find that Paris has decided to attend the school; not only that, Paris had her father pay off the school in order to influence the rooming situation so that Paris and Rory would share a dorm. In their freshmen year they would share this room with two other girls, cross-country runner Janet Billings (Katie Walder) and Tana Schrick (Olivia Hack), a sixteen year-old child prodigy. She also hired a life coach named Terrence (Mitch Silpa) to deal with her emotions when her nanny couldn't take care of her anymore, and took up arts and crafts in an attempt to deal with her anger issues through calm activities.
She ended her relationship suddenly and coldly with Jamie (near his birthday) in the middle of her Yale freshman year, after commencing an affair with Professor Asher Fleming (Michael York), a sixty-year-old Yale literature professor and writer who was notorious for having flings and affairs with much younger women and was also a classmate of Rory's grandfather, Richard, shortly after the Harvard-Yale Game.
Paris would also experience Spring Break for the first time with Rory on an impromptu trip to Florida caused by awful weather conditions and drenching rain in New Haven. The two girls bonded even closer, with Paris paying for the whole trip and their odd way of spending a vacation involving watching a marathon of the PBS miniseries The Power of Myth in their hotel room with pizza and assorted junk food. Paris still found herself bored however, and watching Madeline and Louise (coincidentally in the same resort on their spring break from Tulane) kiss each other to draw the attention of other men, at a nightclub Paris suddenly kisses Rory square on the mouth, trying to use it to not only to show she could be 'wild', but to have Rory gauge her kissing style to make sure she was kissing Asher well. Rory wouldn't elaborate, and the shocked girl made her way out of the club not giving her opinion, only saying that Paris was 'not her type'.
She would become closer to Asher and fall in love with him despite Rory's frowning upon the relationship; still Rory helped her hide the relationship all year from the public.
[edit] Season Five
In their sophomore year at Yale, Paris and Rory would share a dorm alone together, causing much discomfort for them both when either one of their boyfriends were present and they wanted individual privacy.
Her love for Asher would not last though, because Professor Fleming would die of a heart attack while he and Paris were at Oxford University over the summer.
- Rory: Um... it wasn't during, um... was it?
- Paris: No, Rory. This great man was not brought down by my vagina, okay?
- —Season 5, Ep. 3 "Written in the Stars"
As Prof. Fleming's last lover, Paris ended up becoming the executor of his estate, much to chagrin of the Fleming family, who clashed with her at every opportunity. She would acquire a large antique printing press as her inheritance from him, and for awhile displayed it in the common area of her dorm room.
In the middle of the fifth season, Paris started dating Doyle (Danny Strong), editor of the Yale Daily News after attempting speed dating and finding herself wanting more to talk to Doyle than the men at the event (Paris dismisses one of them upon hearing his first line of "Well I'm a drama major", by saying "Ding, ding, ding!!" to imitate the bell that ends a speed date). They would end up having sex hours later and start a relationship fraught with neurotic tendencies and competitiveness on both sides, but still love and mutual respect for one another.
[edit] Season Six
Paris found herself struggling upon the start of her junior year, due to her parents fleeing the country because of the IRS pursuing them on tax fraud and tax evasion charges, exhausting all of her funds except for those in her trust fund and her Yale tuition. This forced her to help Rory out by taking a job with a DAR event where she was a server and having to take small loans from her friend.
In the wake of Rory's crisis after her boyfriend's publisher father told her she wasn't a good writer and her dropping out of Yale, a very upset Paris went to Lorelai as a shoulder to cry on in the panic of losing her 'pace car' in keeping herself focused on school. She visited Stars Hollow and the Dragonfly Inn several times through the summer, much to the derision of the Dragonfly's staff like Sookie and Michel, who consider her bossy and demanding. Lorelai continues to show sympathy for Paris, despite her intensity.
When Rory finally went back to Yale, Paris showed indifference to the happy news of her friend getting back to her old, competitive self, knowing Rory would have eventually realized how much she missed school and how it would make her dreams come true, along with proving Logan's father wrong.
In the meantime, Paris had become editor of the Yale Daily News, in preparation for Doyle's graduation, immediately instituting a quieter and less chaotic newsroom. Unfortunately, Paris drove the staff insane with her constant criticism of their work, often demanding they rewrite entire articles with criticism that bordered on verbal abuse, and her unusual system of keeping tabs on them, which involved numbered baseball caps and a magnet board system of recording where a writer is at any given point in time which went beyond the normal 'in' and 'out' icons of the system. Befitting her status as Paris' best friend, Rory wore #2 despite Paris saying she didn't want to play favorites. The staff resented Paris's treatment of them and begged Rory to do something about her; when Rory confronted Paris on the issue it only served to make her more hostile towards the staff. Because of this grinding management style, the newspaper almost missed a publication date, only making it to the press with a last minute push by Rory (and some help from Logan) to get it into the printer on time. In the end, the staff mutinied against Paris's abusive behavior (rebellion had been brewing for some time) and chose Rory as their new editor, ousting Paris.
Paris and Doyle had moved into an apartment building in a more urban part of New Haven at the start of the semester, and when Rory came back, she happily offered a room to her friend, which Rory took. Paris has taken many measures to protect herself, including several door locks and chains on her apartment door, burglar alarms, and Krav Maga self-defense classes, in addition to calling a neighborhood street gang a "doo-wop group" whenever anyone asks about who hangs out in front of the building. When Paris heard that she had been ousted and replaced by Rory as Editor (which Paris lasted for only three months), she threw out all of Rory's belongings in an act of spite, forcing Rory to move in with Logan.
After a few weeks, Paris returned to the Daily News, feeling defeated and down. Rory sympathized with her, and suggested that Paris turn an article she was writing into a week-long series. A depressed Paris hadn't been able to sleep in a bed for weeks, and stayed at her crafts table doing bead projects non-stop.
A turn of events brought Rory and Paris back under the same roof; Rory learned while helping with Honor Huntzberger's (Logan's sister) wedding that Logan slept with several of his sister's friends (bridesmaids at the wedding) after they took a break as a couple after Thanksgiving. Rory decides to move out of Logan's apartment and leave him again.
Meanwhile, Paris and Doyle had a fight over Paris' article series. Paris kicked Doyle out of the apartment, and they broke up. Doyle and Rory coincidentally met at a nearby bar and drank away their sorrows until they both decided they had enough. Doyle tried to kiss Rory before they parted, but Rory didn't want to be involved with Doyle in any way, and turned him down.
Looking for a place to stay, Rory went back to Paris' apartment, where she sat alone, eating a meal of Chinese food for ten (claiming she doesn't want people to know she wallows alone). Both of them bury the hatchet and apologize, and after a friendly hug and a proclamation by the both of them that "boys suck", Paris asked Rory to move back into the apartment, which Rory accepted. The scene ended with Paris happy about the silver lining of Rory being able to reach the bowls she and Doyle couldn't previously reach in the cupboard without the aid of a stepstool. The events of this last episode were then undone in the next episode, with Paris and Doyle reconciling, then Logan winning Rory's reluctant forgiveness and moving back to the apartment with him, despite Paris' condemnation of his behavior and attitude.
[edit] Season Seven
The season starts with Paris using the Daily News office for the summer to run her own test preparation service, called "The Paris Geller Yale Review", to help students pass standardized and admissions exams, like the services provided by The Princeton Review and Kaplan, because she wants to cut out the middleman and collect the fees that would have otherwise gone to the company itself. She also tests the parents to get a sense of how dedicated a student is to passing a test, while using an abrasive style of training;
- Mother: I just want her to get into a good school, she has such potential.
- Paris: Well, so did Charles Manson.
- Mother: Why do I need to take a test?
- Paris: I need to get a realistic sense of Caitlyn's true potential, and genetics is by far the most reliable indicator.
- Mother: I'm sorry?
- Paris: Basically, I need to know how much of this is her fault, and how much of it is yours. (holds up a kitchen timer and winds it). Tick-tock!
- Mother: (startled) Oh! (joins Caitlyn at the testing table)
- —Season 7, Ep. 1 "The Long Morrow"
She does offer a position to Rory, who would eventually takes on a student, and then they discuss Logan in London, with Paris warning he might stray without Rory nearby, going from past experience with Jamie and Logan's past with Rory.
As the last semester of Yale begins, Paris has begun to push Rory to take several opportunities for grants, interviews and other things of interest with her outside of their given fields under the banner Operation Finish Line (referring to graduation), such as oceanography and a Goldman Sachs interview in order to add extra experiences to each of their resumes. Again, Paris uses a whiteboard system to keep track of these various items for both her and Rory. She also took up yoga with Doyle in pursuit of adding to her life experiences, surprisingly enjoying it in the end.
Paris, who has mentioned earlier that she would like to be a judge and a surgeon, will likely be attending Law School as she alludes to in the episode entitled "The Proposal".
| Gilmore Girls | ||
|---|---|---|
| Main characters | ||
|
Lorelai Gilmore | Rory Gilmore | Luke Danes | Christopher Hayden | Sookie St. James | Lane Kim | Paris Geller | Jess Mariano | Logan Huntzberger | Kirk Gleason | Emily Gilmore | Richard Gilmore |
||
| Recurring characters | ||
|
Jackson Belleville | Taylor Doose | Dean Forester | Michel Gerard | Jason Stiles | Max Medina | Trix Gilmore | Mrs. Kim |
||
| More | ||
