What Happened to Rory Girlmore’s Career?

I grew up with Rory Gilmore.

Gilmore Girls premiered in the fall of 2000. I was a sophomore in high school, just like the fictitious Rory Gilmore. Suddenly there was a television character I could relate to on multiple levels: same age, dark hair, loved to read, passionate about journalism, and didn’t quite fit in with the other girls. Tuesday became my favorite day of the week because I had a new episode of Gilmore Girls to look forward to.

For seven years, Gilmore Girls was my favorite TV show. Together, Rory and I overcame our battles as adolescents, suffering through the trials of high school to be rewarded at the end with acceptance into colleges of our choosing (hers being Yale and mine UGA). In college, Rory and I would both work hard as reporters at our respective college newspapers, and we both would rise to the position of Editor-in-Chief our senior year. Gilmore Girls would come to an end in the spring of 2007, right when Rory and I were both graduating.

Gilmore Girls didn’t end the way any of us thought it would. During Season 6, creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino left after falling out with Warner Brothers. Season 7 hobbled along until it finally wrapped with Rory graduating from college. Her big break right out of journalism school was covering the presidential elections from Obama’s tour bus.

When Rory and I graduated from college it was the eve of the Great Recession. In 2008, the economic downturn pummeled newspapers, wiping out advertising dollars which led to the sacking of talented journalists and putting many reporters on furlough. It was part of the reason I got out of the newsroom and into a more secure office gig.

For Rory though, the indomitable Lorelei Gilmore Jr., I like to think she stuck with it. Netflix announced there will be four, 90-minute episodes of Gilmore Girls coming soon, reprising the original Palladino dream team with Alexis Bledel, Lauren Graham, and the cast of characters.

After jumping up and down for a few minutes with excitement, I started to wonder what might happen to Rory Gilmore. We’re picking up with her character now at age 30. She’s been in the workforce now for eight years. Where might she be?

Here are five possible career scenarios for Rory Gilmore:

1. Rory is a staff reporter (or editor) at The New York Times

All throughout Gilmore Girls, Rory talked about her dream job of hobnobbing with Maureen Dowd and other New York Times staffers. After working her butt off at local newspapers and blogs, her talent was recognized and she got a gig at The Boston Globe, or perhaps writing on a features beat for The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, take your pic. Now after eight years, all of her hard work has paid off and she’s been rewarded with an editorial position at the best newspaper in the world.

2. Rory is Content Director at a blog

Rory runs a team of contributing bloggers with titles like “Content Producer” or “Social Media Strategist”. Since the show won’t be able to use names like Gawker, HuffPo, and BuzzFeed without permission, a pseudonym will be created for the media outlet where Rory reigns supreme over the blogosphere. Perhaps she’s the next Arianna Huffington? Her ex-boyfriend, the self-pious yet poignant Jess, will show up at her office one day late at night to give her grief about giving up her journalistic integrity for click bait. This presents Rory with the crisis “Oh my god I’m 30! What am I doing with my life?!” This could be a theme of the abbreviated season.

3. Rory will have gotten married, never had a real job, and be at stay-at-home mommy blogger

This is the most unlikely scenario. After all, Rory is Lorelai’s daughter. But I want to take a moment to outline this scenario. Rory turned down a marriage proposal from her college boyfriend, Logan, in the second-to-last episode of the series. In the last episode, she headed off to Obama’s tour bus. Then, during the Great Recession of 2008, she was unable to find a job, and faced with the prospect of returning to Stars Hollow and working at the local bookstore, she calls Logan to reconnect with him. He sees her plight, pulls out the ring, and re-proposes. This time, she says yes. And after a brief engagement, they married in a lavish, destination wedding. Rory gets pregnant on the honeymoon, then fast-forward six years to present day where she has two children, no job, but this journalism degree from Yale. Again the “oh-my-god-I-am-30-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life” crisis is a theme.

4. Rory is the publisher of her own newspaper

Perhaps she thought she was done with the newspaper business altogether after falling out with the Huntzburger family. Alas, in Ed Herman’s passing, perhaps Grandpa Richard Gilmore would have left her a very large inheritance which would have allowed for her to purchase a newspaper (left wanton by the lack of advertising support) on the brink of bankruptcy. This allows Rory to transform a failing local paper into a modern, digital powerhouse. Perhaps she’s even publisher of the Stars Hollow Gazette, which has become the go-to-source for feature content in the New England DMA.

5. Rory gets into politics.

“What? Me? Rory Gilmore? Run communications for a State Senator? This isn’tThe West Wing!” With her Chilton prep connections, her Ivy League contacts at Yale, and, of course, her grandparents affiliations, perhaps Rory was asked by an up-and-coming politician to manage his media relations. Now, with this being an election year, the shows creators can use her as a political mouthpiece to espouse their own views. They did this all the time in the original series with cameos from Christiane Amanpour and Madeleine Albright.

So what do you think, reader? What do you hope Rory Gilmore has done with her career? What else are you looking forward to with the second-coming of Gilmore Girls?