10 episodes that highlight the unparalleled small-town charm of Gilmore Girls
Image: Graphic: Allison CorrScreenshot: Gilmore Girls TV Features TV Club 10
It’s the perfect time for this particular TV Club 10, and not just because Gilmore Girls debuted 20 years ago, on October 5, 2000. The series, set in an unconventional small town in New England, has one of the most autumnal aesthetics in TV history; it’s difficult to picture Lorelai and Rory Gilmore not encased in scarves and fluffy sweaters amid brilliant foliage. Inspired by a chatty inn manager at a Colonial getaway years before, series creator and former Roseanne writer Amy Sherman-Palladino (helped by her husband, Daniel Palladino) crafted the tale of the witty, talkative Lorelai (Lauren Graham), who has a child, Rory (Alexis Bledel), when she’s still in high school, derailing the loftier plans set up by her blue-blood parents (Kelly Bishop as Emily and Edward Herrmann as Richard). She leaves her home in Hartford to raise Rory in the hamlet of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, where she finds a community of like-minded oddballs and makes a family of her own. But as the series begins, Lorelai is forced to reunite with her estranged parents when Rory gets accepted to an expensive prep school; her parents front the tuition at the cost of a weekly Friday night family dinner.
Season one set Lorelai and Rory at the center of the Stars Hollow community, introducing an unforgettable tapestry of engaging characters, like Lorelai’s best friend, clumsy chef Sookie (Melissa McCarthy); Rory’s own BFF, Lane (Keiko Agena); diner owner and love interest Luke (Scott Patterson); the frequently annoying town administrator, Taylor (Michael Winters); Lorelai’s surly assistant, Michel (Yanic Truesdale); former performer and dance studio owner Miss Patty (Liz Torres); and the girls’ next-door neighbor, Babette (sitcom legend Sally Struthers doing some sort of Ruth Gordon impression). Season two introduced into the equation Luke’s bad boy nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiglia), creating a seemingly endless love triangle between him, Rory, and her boyfriend, Dean (Jared Padalecki), while Lorelai weighed a prospective return to Rory’s dad, Christopher (David Sutcliffe).
The series peaked in season three, with an unforgettable dance marathon, the culmination of Rory’s love triangle, and a new business venture for Lorelai. But the first few seasons mainly highlighted the series’ intergenerational charm, the Palladinos’ fast-and-furious pop culture references inherent to Lorelai’s near-constant snappy patter as she and Rory juggled love interests alongside Stars Hollow events like a neighbor’s pet’s funeral or an ice sculpture contest. Lorelai gave adults someone to watch in the youth-filled WB lineup, and Gilmore Girls became fledgling network The CW’s third-most-watched series.
Things got a little rougher in the latter half of Gilmore Girls’ run. In season four, Rory went off to Yale, and the series struggled to keep the girls in each others’ orbits now that they were no longer living together. But it did end with Luke and Lorelai’s will-they/won’t-they finally tumbling onto the “they will” side (though Rory wound up busting up Dean’s marriage). Season five saw the advent of five words that still make some GG fans tremble: The Life And Death Brigade, Rory’s new boyfriend Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry)’s privileged pack of rich kids, an alliance that leads to (but not directly causes) Rory to drop out of Yale. That unfortunate plot twist resulted in the girls being estranged for the first eight episodes of season six.
Meanwhile, the Palladinos themselves were in the process of becoming estranged from the show. In 2006, the WB merged with UPN to create The CW, and Gilmore Girls was one of the seven series selected to help kick it off. But the original creators left the show at the end of season six after a breakdown of contract negotiations, leaving hell fires like Luke’s newly discovered daughter, April (Vanessa Marano), in their wake. Season seven was almost an improvement, with a new showrunner, series writer David S. Rosenthal, who at least still seemed invested in the series. But the damage had been done, and Gilmore Girls limped along to its finale on May 15, 2007.
Considering the unceremonious way the Palladinos left their breakthrough series, their Gilmore Girls revitalization for Netflix in 2015 wasn’t much of a surprise; the four episodes that made up A Year In The Life mostly pleased longtime fans. After Amy Sherman-Palladino and Lamar Damon’s similarly charming small-town-set Bunheads, the Palladinos finally landed all those Emmys they’d been chasing—for their Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Alexis Bledel moved on to prestige series like Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale, while Lauren Graham wrote and published three books when she wasn’t appearing in the long-running NBC drama Parenthood. But since Gilmore Girls’ cancellation, the show has become a cult classic (helped by syndication runs at ABC Family, Soap Opera Network, and elsewhere), with an annual Gilmore Girls Fan Fest in Connecticut, pop-up Luke’s Diners, a Gilmore Girls cookbook, and the popular podcast Gilmore Guys.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the show’s debut, we’re returning to the place where it all started, with 10 episodes that highlight the unparalleled quirky charm of Stars Hollow and its inhabitants, featuring folksy events, countless pop culture wisecracks, and a few long-awaited kisses. If you’re new to the Gilmore universe, these episodes are a great place to start; if you’re already a GG fan, enjoy this rewatch as the perfect way to kick off the actual most wonderful time of the year (the entire original series is available on Netflix).
“The Lorelais’ First Day At Chilton” (season one, episode two)
Sure, the pilot sets up all the Gilmore family conflict, but it also gets bogged down in an extremely rare fight between Lorelai and Rory about Dean, who frankly isn’t worth the screen time. But the next episode, featuring Rory’s first day at her fancy new school, sets everything up rather nicely, establishing Lorelai as the less responsible one in the pair, as she can’t get up on time to get Rory to Chilton. When her cute fuzzy clock fails, Lorelai is stuck wearing the pink T-shirt/cutoffs outfit we will spy in the credits until the end of the series, getting off on the wrong foot in front of Rory’s new headmaster, with her disapproving mother in attendance, naturally. We’re also introduced to Paris (Liza Weil), the mean girl who will make Rory’s life hell until they inevitably become best friends, as well as Chad Michael Murray’s bad boy Tristan. The episode also stokes the fire between Luke and Lorelai, as Luke shows obvious relief that Lorelai decides not to date a dad at Rory’s new school.
“Run Away, Little Boy” (season two, episode nine)
This season-two stunner has multiple highlights, as Lorelai tries to get back on the dating scene months after her broken engagement to Rory’s teacher Max. Gilmore Girls was always effective at merging its disparate worlds, and here the Chilton crowd invades Stars Hollow (specifically, Miss Patty’s dance studio) to rehearse their Romeo And Juliet school assignment. Paris as a cutthroat stage director is breathtaking to witness, while Rory (as Juliet) tries futilely to reach Tristan (who’s playing Romeo), who’s fallen in with an even worse crowd than usual. (Even then, he’s still a lot more attractive than sullen Dean, who’s just around to glower at everyone.) But the episode’s high point is when Lorelai’s date, Paul, also shows up at Luke’s, with his parents—and appears to be years younger than the cute guy we spy Lorelai flirting with at business class. An amused Rory gets in a few excellent digs: “He should have been holding a yo-yo and a lollipop and wearing a beanie with a propeller on it.”
“A-Tisket, A-Tasket” (season two, episode 13)
Part of Stars Hollow’s charm lies in its adherence to long-standing traditions, even when those happen to be steeped in antiquated sexist standards: young men bidding on picnic baskets to get to have lunch with the lady of their choice, for example. In the annual basket auction, helmed by Taylor, both Lorelai and Rory are the subject of highly contested bids: Dean goes off to sulk again when Jess outbids him for Rory’s basket, while Lorelai drafts Luke to save her from some suitors that Patty has lined up for her. The result is two cute, chemistry-filled lunches; as a bonus, we get to see Sookie and her beau, Jackson (Jackson Douglas), take a step forward in their relationship as well. Then Lorelai and Rory get ensnared in a rare tiff when Lorelai can see the writing on the wall: Rory’s inevitable feelings for Jess.
“Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving” (season three, episode nine)
Naturally the Gilmore Girls are so popular that they receive four invitations to Thanksgiving dinner: Luke’s, Lane’s, Sookie’s, and Emily and Richard’s in Hartford. This makes “Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving” a delightful offering that shows different facets of the girls’ lives, all in the same episode. Rory and Jess try to get their relationship off the ground as the town looks on; Dave Rygalski (Adam Brody) proves that he’s Lane’s best-ever boyfriend by posing as a Bible-studying guitar player in an attempt to win over Mrs. Kim; Melissa McCarthy shows that drunk Sookie is the best Sookie. But it wouldn’t be a Gilmore holiday without some family drama, and Lorelai gets steamed at the Connecticut part of the evening’s festivities when she finds out that Rory has applied to Yale as well as Harvard. It’s a ridiculous blowup that indicates the kind of privilege Gilmore Girls showed that could turn some viewers off: If your biggest beef is that your kid is applying to a different Ivy League school than the one you like, get some real problems.
“A Tale Of Poes And Fire” (season three, episode 17)
“A Tale Of Poes And Fire” is the ultimate ode to Stars Hollow: First, the town hosts a whimsical gathering of an Edgar Allan Poe society, with Lorelai and Rory riffing on “The Raven”—a double performance that displays the girls’ banter at its best. Then there’s a fire at the Independence Inn, and the whole town naturally steps up to house Lorelai’s displaced hotel guests; Sookie takes over Luke’s Diner to feed them, and Michel is forced to work with Babette and Patty when he sets up a new office in the dance studio. Some guests even stick around because the impromptu slumber parties seem like so much fun, and you can’t really blame them; the episode captures the immediate camaraderie that can stem from states of emergency. It’s all so eventful that Rory’s choice of college almost gets lost in the shuffle, but even in the midst of crisis, Lorelai finds a way to honor her daughter’s decision in a thoroughly Stars Hollow manner.
“Nag Hammadi Is Where They Found The Gnostic Gospels” (season four, episode 13)
Time for another Stars Hollow event: in this case, the annual Firelight Festival, which hapless town mainstay Kirk (Sean Gunn) is put in charge of, resulting in predictable and hilarious mayhem and a lot of walkie-talkie usage. Rory comes home for the event just as Jess returns to town briefly to pick up a car, resulting in a series of near-meetings. There’s also the introduction of Luke’s sister (and Jess’ mom), Liz (Kathleen Wilhoite), with her new boyfriend, T.J. (Michael DeLuise), leading to some awkward Danes family gatherings. But none more awkward than Emily and Richard desperately trying to fill a table at a lavish fundraiser, forcing Lorelai and Jason (Chris Eigeman), who are secretly dating, to act like they’re a couple, showing off the greatest chemistry their romance ever had.
“Raincoats And Recipes” (season four, episode 22)
Making a will-they/won’t-they pay off after 80-some episodes of buildup seems like an impossible task, but Gilmore Girls’ season-four finale sticks the landing. Lorelai’s new Dragonfly Inn is finally ready to open, and she invites all her Stars Hollow friends—and even her parents—for a trial run. The evening is complicated by the appearance of Lorelai’s recent ex Jason, and the fact that Emily and Richard are barely speaking. But the main event is Luke finally coming forward with the feelings he’s been harboring for years, which have only increased over the past few episodes. Lorelai reciprocates, resulting in a passionate embrace for the ages. Unfortunately, her brief moment of bliss is derailed almost immediately by the revelation that Rory has just lost her virginity to Dean—who’s married to someone else. The episode is one of the best examples of Gilmore Girls comedy/drama balancing act; the season ends with an arguing Rory and Lorelai, then a crumpled Rory realizing what she’s done, and a shot of Lorelai walking up to her, to be there for her daughter yet again, no matter what.
“Written In The Stars” (season five, episode three)
We get so few scenes of Luke and Lorelai’s coupled happiness over the course of the series that we have to cling to these moments while they last, including L&L’s first official date in “Written In The Stars.” The pair was one of the rare TV couples whose chemistry remained intact even after they were together—evident in their cute diner banter in this episode—which makes it all the more frustrating that they were pulled apart almost immediately. Luke’s confession that he’s carried around the horoscope that Lorelai gave him ever since their first meeting eight years ago reveals how “all in” he is. Rory goes back to Yale for her sophomore year this episode, Emily and Richard bicker, and Paris is mourning the death of her college professor boyfriend, but “Written In The Stars” is ultimately all about Luke and Lorelai, and the appreciation of one of TV’s greatest romances.
“Wedding Bell Blues” (season five, episode 13)
Romance and family issues come to blows in this standout episode, when Emily’s calculations to have Christopher break up Lorelai and Luke backfire spectacularly at her own vow renewal party. The sweetness of Emily and Richard’s official reconciliation is soon overwhelmed by the unwelcome appearance of a drunk Christopher, distraught over watching Luke and Lorelai together. Luke storms out, leading Lorelai to end the episode with a comment to her mother so cold that Emily actually flinches: “You and me… we’re done.” Because one Gilmore girl usually has to be in turmoil while the other is not, Rory and Logan finally kiss, only to be caught by Lorelai, which leads to one of Alexis Bledel’s best-ever line deliveries: “Grandma wants pictures,” Lorelai says. Rory: “Of this?”
“Hay Bale Maze” (season seven, episode 18)
Even in the dregs of season seven, we have time for one final Stars Hollow event, when Taylor blows the entire Spring Fling budget on a confusing hay bale maze that mucks up the whole town. Rory brings Logan home with her for the festivities, where he is quickly won over by that signature Stars Hollow charm while he simultaneously tries to win over his girlfriend’s suspicious mother. But the maze actually works some magic by trapping Luke and Lorelai in the same place for their first real conversation since they broke up, so that they can finally say sorry for all the wrongdoing during their split (Lorelai apologizing for sleeping with Christopher is a huge first step), paving the way for their inevitable reconciliation.
And if you like those, here are 10 more: “Cinnamon’s Wake” (season one, episode five); “The Bracebridge Dinner” (season two, episode 10); “Teach Me Tonight” (season two, episode 19); “Lorelai’s Graduation Day” (season two, episode 21); “Haunted Leg” (season three, episode two); “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?” (season three, episode seven); “You Jump, I Jump, Jack” (season five, episode seven); “Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out” (season six, episode eight; “Friday Night’s Alright For Fighting” (season six, episode 13); “Bon Voyage” (season seven, episode 22)
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♪ ♫ I don’t want to wait… for our liiiiiiiives to be overrrrrr… ♬ ♩
Sounds like someone’s out on the road, feeling lonely and so cold.
Who the hell names their kid Pacey?Go back to Wilmington, troll!
Friday Night’s Alright For Fighting might be a bad episode to watch if you’re just sampling the show as it pays off a lot of previous storylines, but it’s the best episode of the series.
I’d recommend Girls In Bikinis, Boys Doing The twist from Season 4, and Partings from Season 6. Partings has Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, AND Sparks!
That Friday Night Dinner sequence is amazing, but I think you’re right that it only works after 5 1/2 years of Friday Night Dinners shot in the traditional way.
That Sparks song still pops into my head every once in awhile for no reason.
I’m fond of Ted Koppel’s Big Night Out. That autumnal collegiate vibe always gets me, we see Rory with arguably the best of her suitors (season 7 Marty doesn’t count), and everyone is at their most charming for the first stretch. Maybe I just really liked Marty and still dislike Rory for choosing Logan.
Logan was Rory’s best boyfriend. The first person in her life who didn’t fall for her princess act.
I think he was the best match for her, but I think there could have been a bigger impact from her choosing him over someone like Marty and what it meant about who she was becoming. That was the moment she diverged from her mom’s world and started on a more upper crust path. The “grammar” of the show was set up to view that choice as something sinister, but it didn’t come through.
I was still more of a fan of Let Me Hear the Balalaikas Ringing Out, but it’s been so long that I might be misremembering. I just remember watching the end of that episode when Rory comes in screaming across the lawn and that divide between her and Lorelai finally gets bridged.I cried like a baby.
Same.
The best small-town-traditions episode was “Festival of Living Art”. Giving Kirk a Jesus complex and letting him go fully passive-aggressive against Grant Lee Philips’ Judas was as good as the character ever got.
Sean Gunn usually is good regardless of what role he is in. He only works in a small spectrum of roles but truth is, when he is in one of them he just kinda works. Whether it’s Golden Girls or Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s good at it. I don’t think he’d work as a main character but he’s great at that “Odd person in the corner” role.
*Gilmore Girls, not Golden Girls
Yes. Sorry – been up since 5am on meetings at work translating between Swedish and English in my head. At this point I’m thankful I can write my own name correctly.
I was just amused because for a second I thought “wait, was Sean Gunn on The Golden Girls as a kid?” but no.
I am a tech lead working in the US digital Ikea team. I have to not only wake up early but mentally translate half the words the powers that be in Sweden say and by 9am I am a zombie.
Makes total sense. 🙂 You have my sympathy, have some coffee.
Too bad, I was going to watch that.
He was in Golden Girls? :). He only does G shows like Gilmore Girls and Guardians of the Galaxy.
I started watching this twice can could never get past episode 3. Is it worth it to keep going, in that the background small town folk seemed to spend most of their time having quaint arguments about strawberries and other produce? The basic structure built in of a permanent deus ex machina of super-rich grandparents also was not appealing. I would have found it much more interesting if she had gotten into her new fancy school on a scholarship (especially with the past four years of seeing exactly how undeserving some people are of their family connections). The basic mother-daughter rapport did not put me off.
Yes, Gilmore Girls is one of those rare tv shows that gets better after it’s 3rd episode.
lol
I say, on this basis, this is not the right show for you. I watched the whole series and enjoyed much of it (Luke and Lorelai, Rory and Lorelai’s rapport, the complicated relationship between Lorelai and her mother) but the town stuff can be cloying at times, and the rich-grandparent element you mention only gets worse/more prominent as the seasons go on. Rory’s character is nearly done in by entitlement and privilege and only redeemed at the eleventh hour in the seventh season. (They chose to double down on Rory’s clueless entitlement in the reboot, which was a real bummer.)
Thanks. I would like something long-term to watch, and I missed this when it came out (had a job that required travel all the time). Suggestions are welcome.
I got into the Gilmore Girls late too, at a time in my life when I could not handle watching murders and other horrible violence, but needed some long-form entertainment. I still have a hard time thinking of long-running shows that are not categorically comedies or teen-focused that also are not about cops, drugs, crimes, or crime families. I guess the West Wing? I’ve never watched that one myself. There are probably also non-American shows that would fit the bill. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not that it needs to be clean or Christian or whatever, it’s just sometimes all the violence gets to be a bit much.
It’s funny, I know a lot of people who despise the Lorelai character because she skates by so much on her charm and beauty, but I think she is the far more interesting character. How many privileged 17-year-olds would willingly give up wealth and comfort to take a job as a chambermaid while raising a child? She worked her way up all the way to manager and got a college degree (and maybe a graduate degree? I’m not clear on the details), all without any help from her parents. That takes real drive and commitment, despite her flighty appearance. In universe the characters constantly talk about what a great person Rory is, but she is more spoiled and less resilient than her mother.
I agree 100%.
It definitely gets better as the first season goes on and keeps getting better
I missed the show’s first run. All the hoopla when it started on Netflix made me tune in. The superficial charm worked for a while but it eventually seemed like so much cotton candy. How quirky that Lorelei refused to cook! Well, it was an excuse to feature Luke. Then her mother had servant problems, revealing that not cooking was a rich chick thing. I got bored before the end, although it seems I had seen the better part.Some people love this stuff. Not everybody. The same creators gave us Mrs Maisel, with abundant charm and a bit of an edge. More to my taste….
I tried binge watching it once a few years ago and only managed to get through maybe two or three episodes. Not long before the revival was coming along, I just went for it and made it through until around mid season 6-ish. Last year I managed to get through the whole series from the start, and I definitely noticed my interest waning at the same point I dropped off last time.In short, I would say go for it and watch the thing, but if your interest starts to fizzle by season 6, well I won’t blame you.
I wouldn’t expect that GG is a great binge. First, a lot of comedies need to breathe after an hour. and also the whole mood can become stale. It was best as a weekly, when the dialogue shines as a whip-smart contrast and Stars Hollow can still surprise as ‘oh right, this town is ridiculous’ instead of a constantly-mounting feeling that builds toward ‘this town is insufferable.’
I would say that the pilot episode really does a good job of capturing the overall sense and sensibility of the series. If that doesn’t work for you, you’re probably not going to enjoy the show. I knew it was right for me within about 5 minutes and I’ve rewatched it countlessly since, but I understand that it’s not a show for everyone.
The joys of the show for me are the Rory-Loreli relationship, and the extended Gilmore family dynamic. Love the patter, love the rapid jokes. The townsfolk can be… a lot. They are best in limited doses. But if you tried to watch it a couple times and it just doesn’t appeal to you, that’s cool! Don’t force yourself into it when there are dozens of other shows out there you can try! There are lots if critical darlings that I can’t get into (like The Leftovers and Bojack Horseman). Life’s a rich tapestry. Find your shows!
I recently rewatched this series and something odd happened : I finally grasped the dislike of Rory.In early seasons she worked. She was a precocious type-A kid in a high school surrounded by others like her and her character worked. As soon as she went to Yale she started to become intolerable. When I first watched the show I didn’t get that but now… yeah, she needed a good verbal slap a few times. She was a spoiled little brat by the end of the series.
The real tragedy of the 2016 Gilmore Girls revival is that Mitchum Huntzberger was right about Rory.
I think the Palledino’s have this issue where they create characters that are so evidently charming from a pure personality standpoint that they forget they still have to manage how that character interacts with others. It happens a few times with the fights that Lorelai gets into with her mom, where she’s being unreasonable but you can tell they expect us to side with her because she’s Lorelai. It happens in Mazel too, especially in the first season.
That’s a good way to put it.
The revival really highlighted that the Palladino’s never really saw anything that needed “fixing” between Lorelai and Emily, which is a bit sad.
Lorelai is the protagonist of the show, but I think it’s pretty obvious that she has a lot of resentment towards her parents, much of it unjustified, and that this goads her into making poor decisions in her relationship with them. Lorelai and Emily are even more alike than Lorelai and Rory, and this causes them all sorts of problems.
Sure, and I know the show often knows that, just like it often knows that late stage Rory has a complicated relationship with wealth and privilege and Logan and his cohort are spoiled. There are times where it takes those things seriously. The problem is there are other times where it feels like the show doesn’t really know that and expects us to reflexively go along with the ride.
Rory reads a lot differently than she did in 2000. Back then she was a plausibly interesting indie-quirky character before that type got annoying. As the series progressed, however, she emerged more clearly as a spoiled child of privilege, someone who’s been told that she’s special all her life and becomes offended at any criticism. These days that letter perception is impossible not to see from the start.
In 2020 Rory is a Karen in training
I agree, and I also suspect that the fact it’s being binge-watched, instead of watched weekly or daily in syndication, makes it more obvious.
Bingo. I am not 100% sure Gilmore Girls is a binge watch type show…
I really understand Rory. She was told her entire life that she was something special, because she was. But once you leave Stars’ Hollow it turns out there’s lots of brilliant people around. Sherman-Palladino ultimately left because she said she needed two more seasons and The CW was only willing to give her one. The arc of those two seasons was squished into eight hours in the revival, but I can see how it would have worked. After all, part of the sixth season was Rory finally having to face how she wasn’t going to get the world handed to her. I think she could have grown past it.
Rory is that cute-hot and unchallenging girl that always gets a lot of attention from guys and that always bugged me, though obviously that’s my own hang up. Still, it wasn’t great to have seven seasons depicting a weak-willed and unconfident young woman being the object of so many guys’ affections. It affirms a lot of regressive ideals.
Re: the Netflix revival – I’ve only watched it through once, so maybe it deserves another viewing, but I kind of hated Rory in it? She was just so flighty and irresponsible and the total opposite of the driven, focused young woman off to conquer the world in the series finale. There are certainly things I didn’t love about her in the series itself, but revival!Rory was just… bleh. Emily, on the other hand – she had the best character arc of the revival.
I feel like the Palladinos just took whatever they had planned for season 7 before they quit and used it for the revival. Rory’s arc would make more sense if she was fresh out of college and realizing that the world isn’t going to cater to her. The same goes for Lorelai and Luke – they’ve been in a holding pattern for a decade, and there’s no reason for it except “the show wasn’t on.”Emily’s story had to be new because of Edward Herrmann’s death. I think that’s why it’s so much better. They couldn’t just pull old ideas out of a drawer.
yeah, I agree that their stories would have made more sense in S7. Seems like laziness on the Palladinos’ part.
Amy Sherman Palladino DID say that she had the last line of the series planned out almost from the start, I think, so I can imagine it was hard to let that go, especially given a second chance to finish the series.
Surely you aren’t arguing that her college boyfriend’s frat brothers showing up in her hometown and elaborately surprising her (completely with a robotic talking bird) more than a decade after she’d last seen them simply because she’s feeling a bit down is somehow an unreasonable plot development???
Hahahaha, I forgot all about that! Garbage!
The moment you realize that the only fan of the Life and Death Brigade is the person who wrote it into existence.
The perils of old people writing “cool young kids.”
I’ll wager everything I own that this was the case. They would have been better off flat-out pretending the non-Palladino season never happened.
Yup, that hits the nail on the head for me.It also has the worst GG joke ever, IMO (where Carole King music store lady pitches a Carole King song she “wrote” and everyone does the whole “That’ll never work!” shtick)
I haven’t yet watched the revival so I won’t say whether it worked or not, but in general, I think it’s ok for drama to largely ignore the ‘real world time’ implications of a hiatus and mostly pick up where storylines left off. Audiences these days seem to clamor for expansive off-camera ‘universes’ more deeply than needy method actors.
The thing is that it’s explicitly set 9 years after the series ended. Rory is 31 years old, Luke and Lorelei have been together for a decade, etc. All of this is made clear in the dialogue. But on a show where a whole lot changed in 7 years, almost nothing did in the following 9. It just feels off, is all.
Yup, and while I don’t think season 7 is as bad as people make it out to be, they clearly tried stamping it out of memory.
Rory’s arc in the original series was a bit about learning from failure. It’s just, ten years later, it’s gone from a good story, to a very sad story.
The “I Will Always Love You” karaoke is one of the best bits of the series, so I can never fully hate Season 7 like some people do.
Luke and Lorelai being on hold was… Really sad.
Like, you guys are just now talking about having a kid? You’ve just lived together for 10 years and didn’t talk? At all?
Oh well, time for a musical scene that takes up any time you were hoping would be spent on character development.
Completely agree. The Rory storylines would make much more sense as a season eight arc in 2008. She finishes her reporting from the Obama campaign bus (probably getting bumped in favor of a staff reporter once Obama’s campaign took off and was more than just a long shot) so she comes home to Star’s Hollow. But she can’t get a job anywhere because of the global recession, so she goes to work in the local paper. It’s really hard to square the driven Rory from the TV show with the “Hey cool if I crash in your couch for a week” driftless Rory in the revival. There may have been a point about best laid plans, etc, but it didn’t really come across in Year.
There’d been so much made about the show working towards the final three words since the pilot, that it was never going to work. If Sherman-Paladino had’ve announced the revival with “Cool, we get to do more Gilmore Girls again! It’s 10 years later, so there’s no realistic way the original intended arc will work. Tuesday Weld, 23 Skidoo, Klondike Bars”. Do/Don’t reveal what the words were. Whatevs.Shit, even starting the revival with a “previously on Gilmore Girls…” shot of the back of young Rory’s head and a “Mom, I’m Pregnant” voiceover would’ve been some momentarily bad TV-making that could’ve led somewhere interesting.I haven’t rewatched the series in years, but I’m going to binge it at some stage and see how well it works as primarily being about the redemption of Emily. That part was wonderful.
I only watched it once as well, but there were some legit mean bits. Rory was pretty insufferable the last few seasons, and she’s no better here. Still cheating, although I think she and Logan deserve each other and if nothing else, at least he knows who he is. I hate what they did to Lane, but I guess at least she’s still playing music? Honestly, just give me a Lane and Paris spin-off.
I haaaaaaaate Logan so much. Jess was the only boyfriend who had any character growth, and there he was just quietly lurking and waiting for her to notice him (a la Luke I guess). But yeah, Lane deserved better too.
I feel like Rory’s and Jess’s development were at odds: she devolved while he evolved. By YitL, I feel like he was too good for her. A lot of what I disliked about YitL though is that it felt like they were trying to hard to put Rory on a similar path as Lorelei and it just made no sense.
Yeah, as people said elsewhere, it’s like ASP couldn’t let go of her original vision for S7 … but 10 years later it made even less sense.
Bohemian bookstore owner Jess is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen on tv. I hated him during the actual relationship though.
Jess wasn’t “great” when he was a teenager, but the show really glosses over the fact that his mom had substance, relationship, and likely physical abuse issues.
As soon as he’s in town, most of the “adults” start yelling at him.
There’s one episode where Luke actually sits down and gives him advice, and that is the same exact episode that the character of Jess begins to take leaps and bounds in his development.
Absolutely, I think in his first episode Lorelai trues to lecture Jess and he’s like, you really don’t know what it’s like to be a stressed out kid who isn’t wanted.
Even aside from the cheating, her boyfriend got such poor treatment. Why??
I got a little ways in, realized there wasn’t really anything about it that I liked, and bailed because I wanted to have the future that’s in my head for the characters, not that one.
I’m sure yours is better :)Emily’s arc was honestly great, but yeah, the rest was largely disappointing
My internet cut out like three minutes before the end of the last ep, and instead of freaking out I was just like, welp, guess I’ll go to bed. I didn’t see the last few minutes until weeks later.
Yeah, only watched it once myself, mostly because they made Rory the WORST. Someone else was saying that the reason people seem to prefer Jess over Logan (which is wrong), is because Rory just kept getting worse and worse as the series went on, so maybe the the hate toward Logan was misplaced and they REALLY hated Rory. She was more likeable with Jess, so Jess gets that shine. Mind you, Logan was not great in the revival either, but I also think that’s just a reflection of the Rory worsening.
I suppose you could charitably say that no one really stays the bright-eyed go-getter once they leave school, but man, they Rory was not great in that.
the thing is – I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this – Jess grows up. He makes amends with Luke and his mom, he finds a stable job, he becomes more emotionally mature. By the end of the series, he’s in a pretty good place.Logan makes feints at growing up, he breaks away from his dad, but he never seems to really *get* Rory? And she calls him out repeatedly for his privilege but never makes it stick. At least she turned down his proposal. I also have a bias against privileged douchey white guys, so. There is that. (I went to college with the Midwestern equivalents of Logan.)I mean, sure, most people become jaded as they get further into the working world, but Rory seems to lose all ambition and believes things will be handed to her – she totally botches the interview she got, for instance. Ugh.
I feel like Rory resents Logan because secretly, or subconsciously, she knows that he DOES get her. Like, totally gets her. And she hates that. I too went to college with a lot of douchey white guys of an arguably worse variety—Southern—so it took me a while to realize that Logan was really not as bad as first seemed. I think he’s just mostly OK with the person he is, and Rory is not, and she doesn’t like that she sees that reflected in Logan.Man… now i KINDA wanna watch the revival again. I need to really solidify my Logan-Rory theories….
I never hated Logan. Rory ended up drifting toward the life her mom rejected, and for some reason the show never really addressed it.
The setup was odd. Rory had become the editor of her town’s newspaper – the goal of any journalism major – and it was portrayed as lame. She also turned down a teaching job. Just weird stuff.
Aside from Emily, I loathed the revival. Rory as a 31 year old whiner, who thinks she’s too good for her job, who lives a life of luxury by sponging off her rich friends and relations? Not as charming as ASP seemed to think. Also, Rory’s end with the pregnancy was asinine.
Apparently, there are people online who liked it fine. I’ve never personally met anyone who didn’t absolutely hate it for a number of reasons.
I just finished my rewatch and a couple things really stuck outHoly shit the privilege. The fight about Harvard vs. Yale was insane. Based on this and Miss Maisel, I get the sense that the Palladino’s grew up in very upper-crust circles…so actually I think it was a very real fight that could happen.Lorelai and Rory’s relationship really borders on codependent and unhealthy sometimes. I can’t tell if this was an active choice.The grandparents are absolutely unbearable and I dreaded any scene with them..
I used to say this on the Old Site, but still relevant: GG simply doesn’t work in a world where ‘inequality’ and ‘the one percent’ are embedded in our political discourse. It’s a show about how privilege replicates itself: Lorelai and Rory may think they’re rebelling against their privileged upbringing–and honestly, Lorelai is, at least early on–but they both end up embedded and complicit in it. One top of that now we have a new term for Rory: she’s a failson (faildaughter?). Before 2008 this was (mostly) easy to overlook: it’s perfectly cast (Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop should have shelves full of awards for it), the dialogue is fun without falling into Dawson’s Creek-style ridiculousness (a danger in the early 2000s), it did a fantastic job building a nice little world, it balanced the funny and the serious very well. But now you watch it and realize the foundational action of the show is that Lorelai and Rory need to have weekly dinners with their incredibly wealthy [grand]parents so Rory can go to a ridiculously exclusive private school and you think…yeah this is a Rich People’s Problems show.
While I agree with everything you’re saying, I will point out that the personality mismatches and misunderstandings between Lorelai and her parents do have genuine emotional heft to them, and that push/pull between their love and their inability to get one another drives a lot of the show’s best arcs. Those bits can be very relatable, even if the trappings and set pieces aren’t.
Oh yeah I completely agree with that; I just think that the times have made those trappings loom larger.
There is still television about very privileged people, but it camouflages this by making some of them gay or trans. Look at Transparent and Grace and Frankie. Take away the LGBTQ themes and it’s just rich people deciding who to sleep with and what hobby “businesses” to start. None of their decisions are motivated by money or financial responsibilities. They start dildo stores and get graduate degrees out of pure restlessness. Grace and Frankie is literally about single, older women left with no other options than to live in the beach house they already own.
Mad Men is mainly centered on rich, privileged businessmen and yet it’s possibly the greatest character drama I’ve ever watched.Privileged or impoverished, great storytelling is great storytelling.
I agree. I don’t have a problem with stories about privileged people, or kings and queens for that matter. Good is good. I would distinguish Mad Men because it does show an “inside/outside” phenomenon, and how people on the outside move in, etc which makes it a little different than shows about privileged people and take place entirely inside their world. Both categories of shows are fine by me, but I do think they are different.
You’re asserting that the shows are different, but you said in another comment that you haven’t watched Gilmore Girls?
I distinguish Mad Men from “television about very privileged people,” of which I have watched plenty.
But Mad Men is aware that it’s a show about rich, privileged businessmen and doesn’t treat them as superheros. Indeed the most compelling plots center on Peggy and Joan crashing their way into this man’s world. Gilmore Girls never critiques its privilege, and indeed at times seems to have contempt for people of lesser means.
I don’t think that’s right at all. Socioeconomic critique is not the show’s purpose. But there’s plenty of criticism of what wealthy people do with their money. And the only character in the show with fuck you money, Logan, is shown to be warped by having grown up in a life without obstacles, even as it also allows him to puncture Rory’s illusions. (The Gilmores are rich, but they don’t have that level of wealth.)At the beginning of the series, part of the pitch is that Lorelai and Rory can be outsiders to the world of wealth (because they are merely comfortable) and can comment on it when they are brought inside, due to a happy accident of birth. That can’t really be sustained over six years, but Rory’s arc shows how money makes her a less empathetic person. The show retains a critique of class divisions in this way.
Thing is, I don’t think we’re supposed to see Rory as ‘less empathetic’, certainly not in the original show–it ends up with the town throwing her a party and her landing a job covering Obama; privilege is being able to screw up immensely–why not just abandon Yale for a year?–and recover unscathed. Logan could be an example of being ‘warped’ by wealth, but part of the evidence for that warping is that it’s his father who tells Rory that she’s not that special–and we’re supposed to see him as the bad guy. I do agree that the premise of the show is intended to be as you describe, but the problem is that if Lorelai can get back in her family’s good graces, she was never really an outsider to the world of wealth. And ultimately neither Lorelai nor Rory face any consequences for their occasional attempts to resist their ‘happy accident of birth’. Honestly I don’t think GG necessarily needs to be a class critique–indeed for our vantage today, where it sometimes seems that every show needs to make some kind of political comment, it’s nice to revisit a show like this that’s not interested in doing so. But issues of class and wealth are so baked into the premise that it’s difficult to filter them out.
Everyone on Modern Family seems to be doing quite fine.
All valid critiques of the show. But the last five years have really eroded my enjoyment of a LOT of shows, some much more current. Like, when Mr. Robot started it seemed exciting and new and dangerous. By the last season, I was like “I’m supposed to find THIS scary?” What I wouldn’t give to have the US suffering ONLY an economic collapse…
Oh totally. My suspension of economic disbelief has totally been destroyed. Wondering how the Friends afforded those huge apartments was an annoying observation back in the day, but now it’s really at the core of why I can’t enjoy the show…
(It’s an illegal sublet.)
IMO the child abuse angle of Mr. Robot undid a lot of goodwill for me. It wasn’t really dealt with and it was only tossed in to explain the series-long gimmick.
I’d completely forgotten about that until just now. Which I guess means I agree with you.
This was also a show where child support was never a concern. Chris/ his parents really wouldn’t have been on the hook for tuition? Or like…mortgage payments? Anna never once called Luke to ask about his medical history, or to cover doctors bill?
I remember in the last season when Lorelai and Rory were over the moon about the fact that Rory had her first job interview at the age of 22. Not like “wow you’re starting to get you’re post-college career together!” It was pure wonder at the notion of an interview, as if the writer had never worked. At the point ASP was long gone but it was still very in line with the rich cluelessness.
Ehhh…. In any sort of real-word, issues-driven program, sure, but here, I’d give it a pass. It’s not a fight about the merits of the school by any means, it’s entirely a subtext of Rory backsliding into her grandparents idea of life against everything Lorelai did to build an independent direction (while also acknowledging that this is not so different than Lorelai might think). Is it a silly thing to argue about? yes, but in the context of the show it’s not contrived at all, it’s an issue that’s been in the background since the beginning.
EDIT to add: I think the privilege actually shows much worse on the other end of the scale where supposedly low-income, single mother Lorelai has basically zero income- or expense-related stress except for when faced with things that should have required a decade of saving and then she’s consistently given interest-free money.
ASP’s dad was a Jewish standup comedian on cruise ships. She was probably around the upper-class (60s/70s cruises were a rich people thing, right?), but not a member of it herself. The early series showed a curious but critical look at their lifestyles, but the later series/Mrs Maisel really loses any contempt for their worst excesses unless it’s some next-level shit like the Huntzbergers.
‘the four episodes that made up A Year In The Life mostly pleased longtime fans’That’s not how I remember this at all. At least here more people seemed disappointed…it didn’t help that they gave more or less an entire episode to the life and death brigade. (Indeed wasn’t it so badly received that they scrapped plans for further GG reunions?)
I think it pleased fans in that it was a return to the show, cast, and writers/producers that everyone remembered and loved, but overall it didn’t seem to over well with discerning viewers. It almost seemed like the Palladinos wanted it both ways: on the one hand they tried pandering to the fans by peppering it with in-jokes (hey, it’s Lane’s father, hyuck hyuck) and appearances by every Stars Hollow resident ever, even though they have nothing to do and as a result the likes of Sookie, Jackson, Dean and the Hep Alien guys only get one scene each (although in Sookie’s case I can understand why). On the other hand, as was pointed out elsewhere on this thread, they seemed intent on throwing in every single idea they had they they weren’t able to use after they left the show, plus a few more they came up with in the interim (I’m convinced the musical storyline was conceived solely because ASP was determined to get Lauren Graham and Sutton Foster in a scene together, whether it made sense or not).
I was definitely not pleased. There is nothing even OK about it.
Agreed. I was surprised at that line in the post.
My favorite Gilmore Girls episode is that one where they speak fast.
I just punched that in to my Google and it near caught fire.
I binged through the whole series last year and I definitely enjoyed it up until season six, then it became a chore because I wanted to get to the end and it’s the same spot I lost interest the last time I tried binging the show.I followed up with Bunheads and it struck me how distracting it was having all those GG alumni around playing essentially the same character but with a new name (especially Liza Well, who I couldn’t believe is actually than the actor playing her sister Truly; she still seemed like young Paris Geller playing grown-up).
Gregg Henry gets to play a very different character from Mitchum, at least!Bunheads is a total mess, but I adore it anyway. The six leads are all so charming, and the best of the dance numbers (the “Instanbul” one, “I Predict” with miner’s helmets on) are genuinely astonishing. There’s nothing else like it.
It was messy for sure, but I enjoyed for the same reasons.I’m gonna say I don’t remember that actor appearing in Bunheads, so I guess his inclusion wasn’t distracting. Funny how they then did the inverse and put a few of the Bunheads actors into A Year in the Life (and Ms. Maisel).
He’s the laid-back, pony-tailed restaurant owner. About as far from Mitchum Huntzberger as you can get!
And yeah, I love the Bunheads cameos in A Year in the Life. Sasha (aka Dark Rory) as the young, hip editor who doesn’t want to hire Rory is *perfect*.
Huh, I don’t think I remember him. I remember all the other restaurant staff though (the guy who gives Boo a hard time and the guy they tried to force a romance with Sutton Foster with).
Bunheads was criminally underrated, imho, but only because it wasn’t that long since the end of Gilmore Girls and those are some hard shoes to fill. Still, it had the same charm, wit, and sarcasm the ASP gave to GG so I was all in.
Bunheads only started to feel like its own beast by the end of the season. Fair or not, Sutton Foster was always going to feel like an off-brand Lauren Graham to me. I would’ve loved to see where a second season that was more comfortable with not being GG 2.0 went.
Around 2016, I watched through the 6th season of the show (largely propelled by Gilmore Guys, which started getting tired around the time that the show started going off the rails) and for the last couple years I couldn’t remember what it was I liked about it.Reading this article brings it all back; even though all the pieces may sound insignificant, the hearts of the characters came through their improbably fast dialogue and led to some really wonderful emotional beats. Every character had fairly obvious flaws, but enough time was spent with most characters in varied enough situations for me to have some sympathy for nearly everyone.Kelley Bishop, Edward Herrman and Lauren Graham all deserved consideration for Emmys over the course of the show; it may not have been prestige television, but I remember being genuinely affected by their performances. I would give good money to have Kelley Bishop cut me down with a careless insult.
Kelley Bishop kept me watching Bunheads through the early episodes until it found its footing.
This series should be listed among those ‘It would’ve been great of only it didn’t have those later seasons’ shows. I liked spunky working class Lorelai. Not so much after she incongruously became owner of a million dollar luxury inn. I liked overachieving schoolgirl Rory. Not so much needy neurotic college girl Rory. Both their personalities fell apart in that ‘money grab’ last season.
Lorelai fucking Christopher was it for me. Luke deserved better, and one punch wasn’t enough. If it would have been me, it would have been at least a 30 day stay at the local PD Bed and Breakfast.
If your biggest beef is that your kid is applying to a different Ivy League school than the one you like, get some real problems.This is less a matter of “disliking” a certain Ivy League school and more a matter of “Yale is everything my parents represent and I rejected when I ran away.”
I just assumed every episode was like this:
Boy, I did not pick up on most Family Guy references when I was younger.
I have never seen this show and I am thankful for, and astounded by, this in-depth description of the premise. The mom moved from Hartford to Stars Hollow?? I always assumed they lived in the town the mom was from. But no, she got pregnant and became estranged from her parents so she started a new life somewhere about an hour’s drive, max, from her parents?
We’re into our umpteenth rewatch of this show.
The town of Stars Hollow was the real villain of the show—a comfortable place that drains you of your ambitions and dreams.
Life is the real villain. Teens who think they are going to be Christiane Amanpour are lucky if they end up working at a small town newspaper. Teens who want to be “rock stars” are going to end up working at a restaurant and playing in a local bar band. Teens who think they are going to become cutting-edge cancer researchers are lucky if they can make big bucks selling fertility.
Very true. I am not sure Rory was prepared to accept that. I can see her becoming a bitter woman in life.
Years pass, other series come in and GG’s flaws become even more apparent but I still think this is my favorite show ever. It’s just so… charming. Funnily enough, the things I like more (Jason, Rory in Yale, Logan) are what people seem to hate the most, and I don’t get it. S4 is the show at its best IMO.
I liked Jason. He was also rebelling against his rich parents and he matched Lorelai’s banter well.
“It’s a ridiculous blowup that indicates the kind of privilege Gilmore Girls showed that could turn some viewers off: If your biggest beef is that your kid is applying to a different Ivy League school than the one you like, get some real problems.”I get this take for lots of parts of this show, absolutely true, but this doesn’t feel true to what that fight was about. It wasn’t because Harvard was the school Lorelei wanted Rory to attend, it was because Rory’s Harvard dream was exclusively a part of Lorelei’s Stars Hollow life; achievable through the hard work and parenting she put in (and Rory’s natural brilliance) and having nothing to do with any influence from her parents. By even considering Yale, Rory was sucked even further into her grandparents orbit (teed up here nicely, and then all her fears came true when Rory does go to Yale and they once again end up paying for it. Great set up and pay off w/ the Yale/Harvard storyline.)This conflict between Lorelei’s desperation to keep Rory hers was couched in a silly Harvard vs Yale fight and it played out really well, especially in one of my fave episodes, when they go to the tailgate w/ Richard and Emily.
I got to visit the WB set a few years ago and it’s crazy to be there. Every time a different show is shot there it’s extremely obvious where they are. You can even see the mountains in the background of some shots that makes it very apparent that they’re not in connecticut.
I find this show watchable even though I’m not sure I actually like it, all these years later. I might be the only person who prefers rorys college years over the Chilton years – prep school drama isn’t my thing. I also enjoyed the LADB. Rory was such a drip that it took a lot of contrivances to enmesh her in a friend group as cartoonish as Lorelai’s Stars Hollow crew. There were just so many weird writing choices. Lane should have been sent off to college. She’s obviously a holdover from an earlier draft of the show, before it became clear that Rory’s social entanglements would usually occur wherever she was going to school. That’s fine – shows drift after the pilot. But ASP was stubborn about certain things as we all know.
Still wish that they did the reunion series before Edward Herrmann died.
Nope. Loved him, but Emily growing the fuck up was the best part of the reunion. It wouldn’t have happened with Herrmann there.