THE OFFICIAL FACTS OF LIFE TIMELINE (Version 1)

It’s a big age range, but having grades six through nine (i.e., junior-high age) living together makes more sense to me than having grades seven through ten live together. But I have the impression that in the writers’ and producers’ mind, Blair, and the other girls that were supposed to be about her age in the house (Sue Ann, Nancy, and Cindy), were on the older side. 

I think these girls are meant to be more like juniors or seniors in high school, but given the rest of the known timeline, they can’t be older than sophomores.

It is known that Kim Fields was ten years old when she filmed this season (she wore roller skates to make her look taller), and a ten-year-old playing a girl who is supposed to be around twelve isn’t that unreasonable. 

That could be the face of either a sixth or seventh grader. Whether that girl should be living with the girls in the first picture is a separate question. I am not familiar with the norms of Peekskill boarding schools in 1979. It also makes the fact that a record store sold Tootie and Natalie bongs even more creepy.

Though there are too few details to confirm for certain the ages of the other girls in Season One, using their relative ages, we can speculate that Sue Ann and Nancy are in ninth/tenth grade (Nancy’s long-term, serious relationship with Roger is another clue supporting the girls being older); Cindy is in eighth/ninth grade (it is mentioned in “Running” that she is younger than Sue Ann, but she seems to be older than Natalie); and Molly is in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. I think she’s probably Natalie’s age, but she could be as young as Tootie.

This is, of course, Jo’s first season, and it begins as the girls are beginning a new semester. It seems insane for me to think about a seventh- and eighth-grader tagging along with two high school girls to sneak into a bar, and it also seems insane to me that a couple of sophomores are going to try to pass themselves off as legal. I know the drinking age was eighteen (this is explicitly said in the first episode), but sixteen trying to pass as eighteen seems more reasonable to me than fifteen trying to pass as eighteen. 

Additionally, in episode 8, Natalie plans to host a boy at her parents’ place in New York City for a weekend. It’s a little young either way, but way less icky coming from a ninth grader than an eighth grader. This season also features the Eastland/Bates mountain campout, which Tootie is expected to attend, and Tootie’s trip to New York City where a pimp tries to recruit her. Eighth grade is still a little scarily young for these things, but it’s better than seventh. We also have Natalie tutoring Blair in chemistry in episode 21. Whether it’s more humiliating for an eighth grader to tutor a sophomore or a freshman to tutor a junior I’ll leave up to you.

This season again opens with a return from summer vacation, indicating the start of a new school year. The season opener is the episode in which the older girls, excluding Tootie, have a party with the wine Blair brought back from her summer in Europe. Which is more likely: Juniors willing to share with a freshman but not an eighth grader, or seniors willing to share with a sophomore but not a freshman?

Also, in episode 3, Blair’s friend, who had dropped out the previous year to have a baby, comes and visits. She got pregnant, therefore, either as a sophomore or as a junior, by a senior boy (or a boy already in college). Isn’t it strange how there seem to be those sharp divisions between ages that aren’t that far apart? I’d love to open up discussion on this topic, if anyone wants to weigh in in the comments.

The timeline solidifies here, because the end of this season features Jo and Blair’s graduation from Eastland. The season begins with the school year in progress, so although it’s possible that a summer has passed between the end of the last season and the beginning of this season, it’s not necessary. The previous season could have taken place over only a month or two, with it ending and this season beginning toward the end of fall/beginning of winter. In episode 5, in which Blair develops a crush on a mentally challenged delivery boy, it is clearly the middle of winter. The actor who played the mentally challenged delivery boy, incidentally, would appear in an episode in Season Six as a completely different character, specifically, Blair’s cocaine-addicted boyfriend.

It does seem out of the timeline, however, at the beginning of the season when Jo is worried about losing her scholarship funds. It doesn’t seem possible that one’s scholarship could be cut in the middle of the year, particularly the middle of a student’s senior year. It’s nearly as implausible, though, for it to be cut once the senior year has already started, so I think this is just an outlier.

SEASON FIVE
Blair and Jo: freshmen in college, Natalie: 11th grade, Tootie: 10th grade

The season opens with the girls adjusting to the new school year, with Jo and Blair at Langley college and Tootie and Natalie hating their roommates at Eastland. We also have Mrs. Garrett – and the setting of the show – moving from Eastland School to Edna’s Edibles in downtown Peekskill. Jo dates a rich boy and Blair pledges Gamma Gamma with Jami Gertz.

It seems a little odd that Blair, a freshman in college, is dating Cliff, a second- or third-year medical student, but it’s not impossible, especially for the fabulous Blair Warner. He does propose to her in episode 20, though, which means he asks her to marry him after they’ve been dating for less than a year. Yeah, I’m judgy.

SEASON SIX
Blair and Jo: sophomores in college, Natalie: senior at Eastland, Tootie: 11th grade

The girls return from summer vacation in an awesome season opener that I can’t wait to watch next week, so we know that we’re in a new school year. Tootie’s boyfriend Jeff is now in college, so he is a year younger than Blair and Jo, a year older than Natalie, and two years older than Tootie. It also means he worked  very hard as an illiterate high-school senior in Season Five, episode 5 so that he could catch up enough to be enrolled in college now. Jo has a relationship with one of her professors, and Mrs. Garrett enrolls in a Shakespeare class at Langley. Natalie graduates from Eastland but makes the decision not to go to college. Most of all, Jo begins wearing her hair down.

SEASON SEVEN
Blair and Jo: juniors in college, Natalie: 18 and she likes it, Tootie: senior at Eastland

The season begins with the girls returning from summer to find that Edna’s Edibles has burned down. Tootie’s graduation is discussed, and Tootie also learns to drive, which is not unreasonable for a 17 or 18-year-old who has grown up in a boarding school outside of a city.

Also, this is the first George Clooney season.