Why the Gilmore Girls Reunion Was Better Than the Movie That's Never Going to Happen

The Gilmore Girls movie is not happening, but we're totally OK with it. Why? Because the ATX Television Festival reunion -- a whopping 15 cast members, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and exec producer Daniel Palladino -- gave us more laughs, tears and even some character updates than we could've ever hoped to squeeze into a movie.

On Saturday night, Lauren Graham (Lorelai), Alexis Bledel (Rory), Kelly Bishop (Emily), Scott Patterson (Luke), Keiko Agena (Lane), Liza Weil(Paris), Jared Padalecki (Dean), Matt Czuchry (Logan), Yanic Truesdale (Michel), Liz Torres (Miss Patty), Jackson Douglas (Jackson), Todd Lowe (Zack), John Cabrera (Brian), Danny Strong (Doyle) and Milo Ventimiglia (Jess) gathered on stage eight years after we said goodbye to the fast-talking, quick-witted mother-daughter duo of Rory and Lorelai, and the quirky residents of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Here are our nine favorite moments from the two-hour event - and one thing that was missing.

1.Remembering the legendary Ed Herrmann (Richard Gilmore). Early on in the panel, a tribute of some of Herrmann's greatest scenes on the show played. Afterward, the the cast joined Bledel, Bishop, Sherman-Palladino and Graham who had already been on stage where there was an empty chair there in Herrmann's honor. Said Sherman-Palladino: "It's really crappy that he's gone. We miss him so much, and I wanted to put a little something together. I think I speak for all of us: We were so surprised [when he died]. I don't think any of us knew he was sick. Ed was the first one to say he was going to be at this panel; that's how f-ed up it is that he's gone. I just miss him... He was our Mr. President."

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2. Patterson essentially apologized for getting fans' hopes up with that movie talk last month. "It was a little podcast!The question came, as it inevitably does, and I said what I said and next thing I know... it's gone viral," he told the audience. Added Sherman-Palladino: "There's nothing in the works at the moment. Here's the good thing: Nobody here hates each other. It would have to be the right everything -- the right format, the right timing. It would have to be honored in a certain way. If it ever came around, I think we would all jump in and do it. If it ever happened, I promise we'll do it correctly."

3. The guys admit which team they were on. "I was Team Dean," Ventimiglia said. Not Padalecki. "I was Team Jess -- he was sexy and cool... If Milo wasn't here today, I'd totally be Team Logan," he joked. As for Czuchry, he laughed and said, "I was also kind of Team Jess." Patterson rounded out the answer by adding, "None of you are good enough for Rory."

4. Bledel and Graham don't quite remember their most famous lines."I don't remember whose line was, 'Oy with the poodles already.' Oh, it was my line!" Graham said about the line people quote the most to her. "What's 'Copper Boom?'" Bledel asked when the audience shouted out her most famous words. "We said so many things!"

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5. Luke and Lorelai are definitely still together. "I think they're together, a hundred percent," Graham said when asked about the characters' futures. But, because they didn't know that the Season 7 finale would be the series finale, "It didn't end in a satisfying way... It didn't resolve satisfactorily," she said. As for the other characters, Weill said, "I'd like to think Paris and Doyle are still together." Padalecki added, "Dean would have taken over Doose's Market, and it'd now be called Dean's Market."

6. Sherman-Palladino explains why Rory lost her virginity when (and how) she did. "At the time, everybody who was under 18 on television was just f--king," Sherman-Palladino said. "We weren't trying to make a statement; we were trying to play the truth of who she was ... I didn't want her to get drunk at a party and be like 'what happened?' We got to a point where the studio and network were like, 'She's got to have sex; is she a nun?' ... I wanted it to be Dean and I wanted it to be at a time when they weren't together. He was that great first boyfriend that you struggle with that as your life goes on, and you're like, 'The first one was so nice; maybe I shouldn't have left that guy.' That was a big thing only because people were like, 'What's with her not sleeping with boys?'"

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7. Graham was made for those famously dialogue-filled walk and talks. "It's a little just the way I am anyway," she said. "I have a really good memory, which then became a problem because Amy was like, 'I'll just give these pages to you in the makeup trailer.' It was hard, but there is a music to the language ... and it doesn't not make sense. What was challenging was trying to get everything perfect. There became this marathon, athletic, holding your breath ... and keeping that light and bubbly feeling that it was coming off of the top of your head. It's technical and emotional and more language than most TV or film has. But to me that was heaven."

8. Sherman-Palladino still won't reveal those final four words. "For a while, I thought, 'I'll just hold on to it in case' -- now I'm just being an a-hole. I'm holding on to it still because in my mind... who knows? But on my deathbed, I'll be like, 'Rosebud.'"

9. But if she never gets another hit show, she'll be OK. "There's no way I'm going to top this experience, this cast, these leading ladies here," she said at the panel's close. "It's just not going to happen and that's OK. Some people get lucky and some people don't. And God, I got so lucky."

Where was Melissa McCarthy? There was no mention of Melissa McCarthy or her character, Sookie St. James, which was admittedly odd, although Sherman-Palladino talked about her earlier in the day. Still, we were surprised.

What was your favorite thing about the Gilmore Girls reunion?

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