Let’s Talk Gilmore Girls Revival — Spoilers!

Last updated on: November 30, 2016 at 3:49 pm by Libby Anne

Let’s Talk Gilmore Girls Revival — Spoilers! 2016-11-30T15:49:50-04:00 Libby Anne

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It’s finally here. The Gilmore Girls team came back to make four more episodes, covering a full year—one for each season. They’re set ten years after the show ended.

I watched Gilmore Girls while I was in college. I saw a few episodes here and there, and then, one summer, I binge-watched all seven seasons. Gilmore Girls was an important step in my acclimation process—I grew up in a sheltered conservative homeschool community. Once in college, I struggled to understand and identify with classmates who grew up attending school, hanging out at the mall, and going to softball games. Gilmore Girls offered me a window into a different world, and built my knowledge of popular culture.

I never viewed Gilmore Girls through rose-colored glasses. I was angry with Rory when she temporarily dropped out of Yale, and appalled at the antics of Logan and his friends. I was beyond upset with Rory when she slept with Dean, and I never understood Jess’s appeal. But the show also presented dynamics I understood all the way down to my toes. Lane’s conflict with her mother—and Lorelei’s conflict with her mother—mirrored my own experiences. I got it. I felt it. It moved me.

Ah, but I promised a discussion of the four-part revival! So. Let’s do that.

I’m sure you’ll have lots to say in the comments, but first, a few thoughts. When I initially finished watching the four new episodes—which I did in one day—I was pleased. The show brought back all of the feeling of the original seasons, even after a ten year break. It felt like real, old-school Gilmore Girls, all of it. And I loved it for that. But. As I processed what I’d seen, I became more critical. The episodes were beautiful, don’t get me wrong, and it was the writers’ prerogative to sketch out the future the way they saw it. But.

Rory. At first, Rory seems to be leading this glamorous freelance journalist life, but all of that quickly falls apart. It turns out she’s sitting around waiting for the next big thing, and it’s not coming. We see her offer to ghost write a biography, but that falls through. We see her promise to write an article on spec, but after going out and doing some reporting she appears to drop it. We see her go in to an interview with an online news site without a single pitch to sell. (She blames her would-be employer for making her think the job was hers for the asking, but you’d think a freelance writer would go about with a stack of pitches at hand.) Finally, Rory takes an editor job at the Stars Hallow Gazette only to waltz off to try a new project within months.

Rory went to Yale. Rory is not unemployable. Rory’s inability to settle down to one thing and her apparent belief that she should have things fall in her lap rather than working for them starts to feel like a dig at millennials. Look, I had a pretty tight group of friends in college; we graduated shortly after Rory did. We’re only a few years younger than her. We didn’t go to Yale, we went to a state school. Today, most of us are married, and all of us have jobs of one sort or another. Even friends who felt like they were at loose ends for a while, trying to figure out what they wanted to do, landed on their feet and began substantively building a career by their late 20s.

I’m not saying no one my age ends up in Rory’s situation, or feels like they’re at loose ends. I just hope no one watches the rival and comes away seeing Rory as a stand-in for Millennials. Perhaps I’m being overly sensitive. Paris had a career. Dean had a job and three kids with one on the way. Jess seemed competent. Logan—let’s leave him out of this, because I have too many words. Still, I was left with the nagging feeling that the writers don’t like millennials. Was there a reason they sent Rory in this direction? Did the earlier seasons set her in this direction? Yes, she had a lot of things handed to her. Yes, people adored her. But she also was not afraid of bucking down and putting in the hard work, even when it was boring.

But enough of Rory. I loved Lorelei. I felt like she had grown and matured as a character since we last saw her. Lane, in contrast, seemed frozen in time. I liked Emily’s development in Richard’s absence—it felt very real to me. She still shouldn’t have quit therapy. And Logan—don’t even get me started. I loved Paris, though I felt like her meltdown was a bit out of place—yes, she’s always been over-the-top, but she has a successful career and two beautiful kids. Yes, she was headed toward divorce, but her freak-out seemed to suggest that even competent, successful millennials are living on the brink of emotional breakdown, and that was somewhat uncomfortable.

And with that, I’ll turn it over to you all. What did you think? Am I reading too much into things? What did you love best? What gripes did you have? What would you have done differently?

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