After almost a year and a half of waiting since the Netflix miniseries, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life," was announced, the build-up has been intense. I, a die-hard "Gilmore Girls" fan had been waiting not-so-patiently for the miniseries to be uploaded to Netflix, watching every trailer in existence until the release date. I wanted to be a gung-ho, supportive fan of the recently-released revival, but, as much as I hate to say it, there was something missing about the show when it returned nine years later. WARNING: this article contains spoilers about not only the original series, "Gilmore Girls," but also the Netflix revival miniseries, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life." If you do not wish to be spoiled, now is your time to leave. Consider yourself warned.
I don't know exactly what was missing, I just know it could have been better. The initial suspense about how Rory's life will be moving forward comes to a screeching halt when she's seen canoodling with her past flame, Logan Huntzberger. I'm not just saying this because she's causing turmoil on both ends of the relationship, as Logan is now engaged to an unseen character named Odette and Rory has been in an unexciting, long-term relationship with both boring and unmemorable boyfriend, Paul. It's more on the thought that Rory has hardly moved on or accomplished much with her life, which is both disappointing and discouraging to me, college student, who always found herself agreeing with Rory in the original series. Rory should have ultimately learned her lesson about affairs when she had one with her then-married first love, Dean Forester (Season 4). This, at the time, resulted in a long and drawn out fight between her and her mother, Lorelai, which was quite uncharacteristic of the duo. My point is that Rory should know that once you turn down a man who once proposed to you, that's probably a hint that he's not the right fit for you.
Though I was excited about the cameos of some new (Parenthood's Adam and Amber, among others) old characters, some characters, such as Sooki and Dean didn't even return to the revival until the Season of the revival (Fall). I felt a little bit cheated, to say the least, especially since both characters only returned for one scene. This is especially true with Sooki (portrayed by Melissa McCarthy), who showed up at the very end to bake up a dozen wedding cakes for Lorelai and Luke's wedding ceremony. Now, I understand that Melissa McCarthy is pretty hard to book these days, but she did get her start on "Gilmore Girls." I think it's safe to say that she owes it to the show to come back for more than five to eight minutes of the 4-mega episode-series. Maybe I'm just biased since Sooki was potential my favorite supporting role in the original series. Also, it's probably just me being salty that Petal the Pig got more screentime than the beloved Sooki.
Badboy Jess Mariano returned for two short scenes. His character nine years later is much improved. He has all the elements to be a good fit for Rory at this time in her life, including giving her the idea to write a book about the story of her and Lorelai. Though, Rory doesn't pursue it. I've always been #TeamJess, so disappointed was an understatement. Rory, just realize it: Logan is so beyond bad for you.
I don't even know how to put into words how hard it was to watch the show of an Emily Gilmore without her Richard. It was a difficult, but necessary change that we were at least prepared for (for those of us who watched the trailer), but Emily Gilmore in jeans still scared the bejeezus out of me. It's amazing what kind of change you can go through when mourning, which I feel like the revival series did a very good job of capturing, though I (along with probably many other fans) was still disappointed to not see Richard Gilmore one last time.
The talking also was not as fast and quite frankly, the dialogue was a little awkward. I'm hoping that Rory revealing she's pregnant in the last five minutes of the revival is a sign that the miniseries will be making a return, because even though I was disappointed, it would just be unethical to not give us answers.
Who are your predictions of who Rory's baby daddy is? I'm hoping that maybe she had a fling with Jess in the three months before that we as an audience were unaware of? Well, a girl can dream. Only time will tell.
