Thoughts on: Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

Part One: Stars Hollow, Paris, and Rory

As a general disclaimer, while I love Gilmore Girls, I am aware as a cis dude it cannot mean the same things to me, in the same ways, that it does for many women and female-identifying fans. During the show’s first run I didn’t pay attention to representation, or think too hard about what the show meant to women and feminists. I’m a different kind of viewer now. (Thankfully!) Paying more attention to the world in 2016, I can’t say everything about the show has aged well, and my naive nostalgia for the original run has undeniably tainted and tinged my reception to this new series.

That being said, I am somewhat surprised how divisive the reaction to the show’s return has been. I wouldn’t consider it the best, maxed-out version of everything I loved about the series, but I’d hardly describe it as a train-wreck either.

An incredible amount of Gilmore Girls spoilers follow, and a handful for Parenthood too, be ye warned.

For all the speculation surrounding the revival, there were some things we knew we could expect. Clever writing, fast talking, and the reunion of the main cast were never in doubt. But the eccentric supporting cast has always been as important to the show as the Gilmore Girls themselves; and so I was most excited and nervous about how many returning faces we’d get to see.

I am really quite surprised we saw as many supporting characters as we did. I have always loved Gypsy, for example, but had no great hope that she would be deemed “important” enough to be brought back for the revival. And yet she showed up in the very first episode. We got the whole Hep Alien band, pretty much every Stars Hollow citizen (which was even more surprising, since I thought Sally Struthers was dead. Its good to be wrong sometimes!), and even Headmaster Charleston.

Opening these cameo-floodgates has two adverse side effects, however: 1) Characters I didn’t particularly care for also came back, namely Jason and Logan’s Shitty Friends (I know they have a “better” name, but its not a more accurate name.), and 2) when 99% percent of characters come back, it does draw attention to the 1% that don’t. I don’t know the behind the scenes wrangling, but it felt totally unfair that we got Francie (who, honestly, I had completely forgotten about) but no Madeline and Louise. And we had Digger Styles (ugh) but no Max Medina?? When Rory visited Chilton, I was sure we were going to see Max. But, oh well.

On the whole, I felt that the characters who did come back were handled well, and were realistically weaved into the story. This is fiction, after all. In ‘real life’, even in a small town, its entirely reasonable that the cast of characters that surround you would change. So, shoehorning fan favorites in could have been handled much worse. As much as I don’t like Jason/Digger, it did make sense that he would be at Richard’s funeral, for example. By and large, character reappearances were done right, and felt natural… with one, possibly major exception.

I love Paris. Always have. Yes, her character went a little sideways in the death throes of the original run, but I like to close my eyes and convince myself that the show actually ended after the 5th season anyway. The 6th and 7th GG seasons were gas-leak years, IMHO.

I knew Paris would be back, I just didn’t know to what extent. I’m glad we got as much Paris as we did. I know many, many people were not fans of how she was brought back, but I thought it, for the most part, fit her character. I was somewhat surprised to see her running a high-end fertility clinic, but I don’t think it pushed too much against the Paris we knew. She was doing pre-med at Yale, but she is certainly not a good fit as a doctor. She’s savvy and relentless, and frankly would want a career that would provide the sort of material comfort to which she as grown accustomed. I saw concern in reviews and comments sections over how she treated her “breeding stock” of surrogates (her term, not mine), especially considering her character’s feminism. Frankly, I saw that whole aspect of her character as a joke that didn’t quite land, rather than a radical departure in writing. Paris is not a compassionate character. She’s loyal, dedicated, but recognizing the humanity of other people is not her strong suit. And she’s incredibly efficient in what she does, able to compartmentalize and cut away “fluff” and distraction. I think seeing surrogates as breeding objects was meant to highlight that side of her character, but was incredibly ignorant of the optics of an unabashedly feminist character reducing other female characters to “breeding stock.”

I am always one to give writers the benefit of the doubt, which I will admit is often a liability, but it doesn’t stretch my interpretation of Paris’ character to see her have huge blindspots in her feminism. If we knew the “real” Paris, it’s incredibly likely we’d label her a “white feminist”, and we probably wouldn’t be wrong. If anything, this just points out the role that racial and economic privilege plays in Gilmore Girls; a role that I was totally ignorant of 10 or so years ago, but cannot ignore now.

The other oft-commented-on part of Paris’ return was the Tristan-bathroom incident, but again, I don’t think that goes too far from the Paris I know. Paris has always had problems with her confidence in social situations. Seeing a glimpse of someone from her past, in the midst of her current marital problems, could indeed totally undermine her confidence and send her into a spiral. It’s disappointing — if this can happen to Paris Fucking Geller, what does that mean for the rest of us? But it’s not unrealistic. It’s a bleak message, that ten years after we last saw them, our heroes still struggle with the same problems, and can be undone by the same weaknesses. But, whether intentional or not, that’s the one of the messages of the revival, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Rory’s story.

On some levels, Rory has never been a realistic character. Gilmore Girls is not overly realistic in anything it portrays, nor is it meant to be. Gilmore Girls is idealized. Everyone is a little smarter, wittier, prettier and a little less encumbered by life’s actual problems. Sure, the show has dealt with privilege, but Lorelei’s single-parent-poverty looks nothing like the kind actual single parents experience in the real world. I don’t think that’s a liability. The show has never pretended to be anything else. But because it usually smooths over many of life’s rough edges and tricky questions in service of its story or style or aesthetic, it is somewhat jarring that so much of the tone and subtext of the revival is so bleak. Even the Last Four Words are, in some way, proving that nothing really changes, that we are all helpless to fate in the end.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Rory Gilmore is in her thirties, unanchored, underachieving and generally flailing. We watch her make bad personal (fucking Logan, and also Fucking Logan), and professional choices. She’s adrift and looks nothing like that smart kid we saw at Chilton. What’s wrong? What happened? Bad writing? I say no; I say good writing.

Now, as a full disclaimer, I am also in my thirties, also somewhat adrift and underachieving. I flail. And in high school I was on the path for success, nurtured by a supportive family and community. So maybe I relate to Rory just a little too well. I know the character of Rory is a hero for so many people, and that it is hard to see her not utterly winning at life. But it fits. Rory changed when she went to college. Its natural. Her world, her context completely changed. We watched her struggle to find a place, to achieve her goals, even to set her goals. We looked at Rory like a parent does, unable to shake the idealized image we created in her youth, when everything was going her way. But really, Rory is just like so many smart, privileged kids who get out of their childhood town, and can’t find their footing in the Real World. Of course she’s still sleeping with Logan. He’s a tie to a simpler time, in some ways, he’s all she knows. Of course she’s awful to… whatever her actual boyfriend is called (I literally can’t remember his name. How meta.). Rory became more self absorbed in college.

I posit that Rory has two facets to her personality. The one that dates Logan, and the one that dates Jess.

Now, Rory and Jess is probably the OTP-est of my OTPs. In my head they are together 5ever, but Jess is far from perfect and Rory is far from perfect when she’s with him. But it is also Jess that helped Rory focus on her passions, on writing a story that actually met something to her. That is the part of Rory that Logan and his lifestyle and friends and family drown out. So, away from Jess, Lorelei, even Paris, Rory is living in a Logan context. He’s the touchstone. Even more than her mother, by the sounds of it.

I don’t mean to reduce Rory to an incomplete character unless various men are around to ‘flesh her out’. Rather, people are naturally the product of the relationships they have in their lives. Rory chose to maintain a relationship with Logan, and it is (in Rory’s opinion) some sort of stabilizing influence. Just maybe not the best one. Rory knows this too, which is why she hides it from her mother. When Rory doesn’t talk to her mother about things, she behaves in different, arguably worse, ways. Its always been that way, and frankly wasn’t surprising to see that here.

Which brings us to The Last Four Words.

We all know the story. This “should” have been how the story ended 10 years ago, but Amy Sherman-Palladino never got the chance. Obviously the connotation of having Rory be in her 20s and pregnant and instead in her 30’s and in a completely different part of her life are incomparable. This is not the way the ending was “supposed” to go. But putting all of that aside, let’s talk about what this means.

Many, many people were upset. I can understand that. It, like Paris’ career, is another aspect that can appear strangely un-feminist from such a feminist show. After everything we’ve come to know and love about Rory, when she finally gets her focus on an authentic project, she is shoehorned back into the most traditional of female roles, motherhood, and seemingly stripped of her agency. Many people have much better formed thoughts on that.

I agree its bleak, and a little gimmicky. After all, those didn’t have to be the Last Four Words. The very fact that they happen ten or so years later than originally intended calls into question just how “organic” of a plot development this could possibly be. But again, I bend my deference to the writer here. To me, the lesson is, no matter how hard we work at living a life we want to live, we will never avoid curveballs. We can never truly have it all figured out, but (and this is the important part) we are not alone, either.

Lorelei took a huge risk leaving Emily and Richard’s home with baby Rory, and she survived because she wasn’t alone. We’re not “worried” about Rory because we know she is safe. She has family and a community that will help and support her. Her life just got incredibly more complicated, but despite Rory’s less-than-stellar life choices, we know she is going to be okay. But we also learn that these life choices have consequences that do not always occur on a linear timeline. But that’s life. That’s the point. Its somewhat bleak I guess, but its real.

(Also, I think Rory would certainly consider abortion as an option, almost any understanding of her character would make this a very real possibility, and from a plot perspective could be an interesting counterpoint to the options Lorelei had with her unexpected pregnancy.)

So, I liked the ending. I like that it sets up the characters for a whole new set of “adventures”. Clearly Jess is not over Rory, and their story doesn’t have resolution. If the baby is Logan’s, then that story is still in flux too. And, as mentioned, though Gilmore Girls doesn’t try to be realistic all the time, these Last Four Words feel very real in that nothing is ever really over.

Except Oober. That is, by legal decree, quite ooover.

Next time: Part Two: Lorelei and Emily!

This post originally appeared on scraps of poetry and madness, my (text) blog.