My Thoughts on Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

Warning: this post will contain spoilers, so if you haven't finished it yet, don't read!!! 

Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, a 4 episode miniseries following the characters 10 years after the series finale of the show, came out a little over a week ago now. I had many mixed feelings about the revival after watching it, but I wanted to wait a little while to fully digest what I saw and be able to articulate my thoughts in a way other than AGH, NOOO, WHY????

The episodes themselves are not perfect, but they are good. They have what we loved about Gilmore Girls in the past. The humor, the drama, the complicated love story lines and the coffee. I do think each episode has something that could have been omitted (the Stars Hallow musical? The Life and Death Brigade adventure?), in order to spend more time with the characters we've missed so much.

First, lets talk about what these episodes did right:

The way they handled Edward Hermann's death on the show was really great in my opinion. They honoured him in the most respectful way. Emily's reactions to her husbands death were both heartbreaking and realistic.

I appreciated that in these 4 episodes, we followed all 3 generations of the Gilmore girls, and saw them all in their most vulnerable moments. I also very much so appreciated that things weren't going so well for Rory; in the 7 seasons of the show, things always seemed to fall into place and work out for her. Not so much anymore, which I think made her character a little more relatable and realistic.

Finally, seeing Luke and Lorelai's relationship, still going strong, minus a few bumps here and there is what I really loved here. Those two were meant to be all along, as complicated and flawed as they are.

And although did have a soft spot for him during the original run of the series, Logan was just horrible, and finally Rory realized that and has (hopefully) left him for good.

However the show did feel really lacking without Richard and Sookie. I would have also liked less Logan and more Jess. And more Paris! Always more Paris.

All this aside, we need to talk about the ending.
Those final four words...

Before the episodes came out, there was so much hype created about the last four words. I kept trying to think what they could be. Perhaps Jess would propose to Rory? Something big, something happy, to end the series right, right?

Mom?
Yeah? 
I'm pregnant. 

And that is how we're left, mouths gaping, gasping, shocked. Angry.

I was so angry. What I wanted more than anything from this revival is for all the loose ends to be tied up neatly and happily. This is not what I wanted. No.

After thinking about it for a while, while I'm still sad and definitely would have preferred a cheesy, happily ever after ending, this is how is had to be.

The whole purpose of this show was to illustrate that while their circumstances may be different, Rory and her mom are very similar. This ending served to come full circle, and draw the parallels between Rory and her mom.

Logan is Rory's Christopher. And as we saw from her asking her father how it felt when Lorelai left and raised her baby alone, Rory intends to be a single mom too. She knows Logan is not going to be the father this child needs.

Jess is going to be Rory's Luke. Throughout this revival, he was there, helping her out, guiding her. He is so obviously the right guy for her, just as we thought to ourselves about Luke and Lorelai back in season 1.

The reason is ends like this is because this is not a cliffhanger. Had Jess proposed, or had it been neatly summed up, we would always still have questions. By ending the show like this, we know what happens. Lorelai's story is now Rory's.

So I guess all I can say is that while I'm disappointed I didn't get my cheesy, fairy tale ending, Gilmore Girls has never been that kind of a show, and this is the realistic ending we had coming all along.