That Sticks You With the Mattress: The Day I Hated the Gilmore Girls

Remember that Gilmore Girls episode where Rory is moving to Yale, and Lorelai has borrowed Luke's truck to move stuff, and she brings the microbe mattress to Stars Hollow, but Luke needs his truck back, and the conversation that ensues is a brilliant piece of writing that entails them going in circles, and me laughing so hard I'm rolling? Well, I love that scene. But the reason the Gilmore Girls revival reminds me of that scene is not such a good one.

I have been waiting for this for a decade, as have many other loyal GG fans. In 2010, I had to sell the seasons of GG I had on DVD because all I would do is watch them, over and over again. I made it my mission to recruit as many people as I could to this brilliantly written, crazy show that I couldn't stop laughing at, even when I had seen them all dozens of times. So when the revival was announced, I was ecstatic. I hated how season 7 ended, and I was curious as to how Amy Sherman-Palladino would have ended it, given the chance. It had to be better than what was actually written. What were those last four words and how would she work them in even after so much time. How would all the characters figure into the story after a decade? What high-glamour journalism job would Rory be working, and how many kids would Luke and Lorelai have?

Imagine my complete shock and disgust when I found out that all of these characters have basically been living in time capsules, doing nothing, while they waited for Amy Sherman-Palladino to write, and let them act out, what she would have had them do back in season seven.

Rory has had one article published in The New Yorker, and has done nothing else worth speaking of. Bright, driven, intelligent Rory, who was valedictorian of Chilton, editor of the Yale Daily News, and who turned down a marriage proposal in order to chase her dream, has done virtually nothing in an almost-decade? And not only that, but she has reverted back to Rory, The Other Woman, the person I hated from season 4. Rory is not this lackluster fallen angel who she has been dubbed in the revival.

And Lorelai. Lorelai who finally wanted to get married. Who knew it was right and planned the perfect wedding that fell into place in a day. June third. Who later had to cancel June third, and then worried that there never would be a June third, ever. Who could have guessed that she was absolutely right? The woman who couldn't take being put off by Luke anymore, but then later broke it off with Christopher because she knew Luke was really her true love, was content to just sit around for the next 8 years? Really? Completely uncharacteristic of the true Lorelai.

It all made sense when those last four (really two) words were uttered. Amy Sherman-Palladino chose the selfish road. She didn't get to write her 7th season, so she put everyone in a frozen state of nothing until Netflix welcomed her into the family with open arms, and urged her to wake up her children. So, she did, placing them in situations which would be conducive to the last four words, and proceeded to tease the world into thinking that she was writing something as brilliant as the first six seasons of Gilmore Girls.

The Revival Rory and Lorelai look nothing like the two that I know and love. In fact, they have a surprising resemblance to the little square carpet I have on my porch. What's that called again? Oh yeah, a doormat.

So now, the cycle Lorelai wanted to break is going to continue. Rory will raise her child alone, periodically visited by Logan, the child's absent father. She'll have on-and-off romances with Jess, her own Luke Daines, during which he'll be the one to "father" the Rory-child, instead of Logan. That child will be urged to follow her dreams, and she will, until a disgruntled writer decides to hold her back with a few hundred strokes of a pen.

Lorelai: "And that sticks YOU with the mattress.

Luke: "We've been here before."

Lorelai: "I recognize that tree."