Can you be nostalgic for an era you never experienced? My answer, after hours of binge-watching Gilmore Girls, is: Yes, you can. And going by the plethora of fall outfits inspired by Lorelai Gilmore’s ’00s style and the many fall aesthetic TikTok trends derived from the series, it seems like the rest of my generation has been dreaming of times gone by as well.
So, to fuel my aughts nostalgia and get up to speed on the quintessential fall-girl show, I recently watched Gilmore Girls from start to finish. Expecting little more than a soothing series to help me ring in the chilly season, I didn’t anticipate becoming so invested in the highs and lows of Stars Hollow’s favorite duo—and I especially didn’t expect to have such heated takes on the Gilmore Girls themselves. So, here’s everything I thought after watching the show. Spoilers ahead.
Y2K Fashion Must Really Be Back, Because I Want Lorelai’s Entire Closet
While Lorelai had her flaws, I can say for certain that her closet had none. The woman had impeccable aughts taste—she’d probably make a fortune selling her baby tees and low-waisted flare jeans on Depop today. Some of my favorite looks from the Gilmore Girl include a Juicy Couture tracksuit with “juicy” written on the rear (which elicits disgust from her mother, Emily), the dress with the plunging neckline that she wears to Luke’s sister’s wedding, and almost every slip dress she wears to Friday night dinner had me hitting pause to screenshot and reverse-image-search the look.
And while I wasn’t that into Rory’s wardrobe, I will give her Chilton uniform an honorable mention for its staying power, what with all the Mary Janes, knitted cardigans, and collegiate dressing trends that have overtaken street style (and the runways) for the last few seasons. If I were Rory, I’d be digging up my Chilton gear and rifling through my mom’s storage closet right about now.
In the Case of Lorelai vs. Emily Gilmore, I Sympathize With Both
If mother-daughter relationships can be measured on a spectrum, with Lorelai and Rory on the “my mom is my best friend” end and Lorelai and Emily on the “we’re frenemies with deep-seated issues” end, then I’d say that my own falls closer to the latter. This meant that in the case of Lorelai vs. Emily, I was on team Lorelai for a good portion of the series. Emily was demanding and strong-willed; pointedly indifferent and controlling. And although I empathized with Lorelai’s desire to flee for the sake of freedom, I had to acknowledge that she wasn’t perfect, either.
Because she wanted a childhood for Rory in Stars Hollow that was the total opposite of her own childhood in Hartford—one where her daughter was free of oppressively high expectations—Lorelai completely shut her mother out of her and her daughter’s life. Yet there were times when Lorelai overcorrected, and projected her anti-Emily-and-Richard-Gilmore agenda onto Rory; for instance, when she objected to Yale—her father’s alma mater—as one of Rory’s college options, or discouraged her parents’ well-intentioned attempts to have a better relationship with the two Gilmore Girls they almost lost. As much as I could understand Lorelai’s anger toward her parents, who still tended to treat her like a child, the writers also did their due diligence to make us viewers sympathize with the senior Gilmores, Emily especially.
One scene that really made me feel for Emily was when she secretly asked Mia, the woman who took Lorelai in when she ran away from home, for pictures of Lorelai and baby Rory from the years when Emily wasn’t allowed into their lives. Also worth mentioning is the flashback scene to when Emily finds Lorelai’s note explaining that she was leaving.
There was a lot of hurt between the two of them, which made it particularly heartwarming to see Lorelai and Emily come to a heartfelt resolution in the series finale, and agree to continue their weekly dinners even after Rory went off to work—a tradition that originated as a quid pro quo for the senior Gilmores paying for Rory’s high school education.
Rory Dropping Out of Yale Was So Out of Character—Until It Wasn’t
A good few episodes into the Rory-drops-out-of-Yale plot, I was, at best, agitated. Having watched Rory spend 18 years of her life grinding to get into Harvard, refusing defeat in her four-year competition with her academic enemy (turned friend) Paris Geller in high school, and navigating the high expectations of the grand-Gilmores, it seemed so out of character for Rory to drop out of college after a single man told her she didn’t have “what it takes” to become a journalist.
But then I realized why that moment was actually the perfect catalyst for Rory’s self-doubt. She’d spent all her life being told she was the best. She could do no wrong in her grandparents’ eyes since her mother walked out on them; she was a star pupil, valedictorian of Chilton; and the soft-spoken goody two-shoes of Stars Hollow.
To be clear, I’m not saying that Rory’s life was without adversity. She’d dealt with heartbreak, felt out of place at Chilton and Hartford for years, and constantly found herself keeping the peace between two generations of feuding Gilmores—which sounds emotionally exhausting for a teenager. However, media tycoon Mitchum Huntzberger’s “you just don’t have it” speech was the first time someone of importance had told that Rory she wasn’t good enough. Keeping in mind that Rory had just left the Huntzberger household humiliated by the rest of the family, it’s no wonder that Mitchum’s comments were Rory’s final straw.
We Deserved to See Lorelai and Luke Get Married
Lorelai is everything you want in a main character: She’s charming, witty, independent, and silly. She’s the type that would break the fourth wall, Fleabag-style, if she could. But after sitting through six seasons of the slow burn between her and Luke Danes—Stars Hollow’s resident bachelor, whom Rory (and the rest of the town) regard as Lorelai’s perfect match—to see them finally get together, only to call it quits right before their wedding, gutted me. I longed for Lorelai’s happy and well-deserved ending.
Though she did eventually find her way back to Luke in the series finale, after briefly trying to make it work with Christopher—her ex and Rory’s father—I still felt cheated. For one thing, the two only reunited in the final few seconds of the episode. As I listened to the last “la la la”s fade into the credits (that iconic soundtrack is backing every fall-aesthetic TikTok right now, by the way), I thought, I’m happy that Lorelai got her happy ending, but we missed out on so much. I wanted to see the wedding that never was, more of Luke and Rory’s father-daughter relationship, and Lorelai’s “We had twins!” dream come true—but my wishes and could-have-beens never made it on screen.
Why Did No One Tell Me Gilmore Girls Has a Sister Show That I Already Loved?
Gilmore Girls is just as entertaining to a Gen-Zer as it was—I assume—when it first aired. This has partly to do with the fact that I was already a fan of the fast-paced, witty banter I thought was singular to one of my all-time favorite shows. I’d just started Gilmore Girls, listening to a bit of back-and-forth between Lorelai and Rory, when I did a double take. Rewinding the scene, I thought, Am I hearing things, or is this not an episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel?
Later on, I learned that the two shows share the same writer and creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino. In fact, many Gilmore Girl alums went on to guest-star in the Emmy-award-winning dramedy, including Lorelai’s first serious love interest, Max Medina, played by Scott Cohen; Rory’s bad-boy beau Jess Mariano, played by Milo Ventimiglia; and the unforgettable Paris Geller, played by Liza Weil…just to name a few.
However, after all that bingeing, one lingering question remains…should I watch the revival?