As an avid Gilmore Girls fan, I yearned for the four-part Netflix special like Lorelai yearns for coffee. I watched the entire thing in one day-and will be watching it many more times over the course of the holidays. What I'm saying is, a decade later, and Stars Hallow did not disappoint.
Not a single actor failed to dive back into their charming roles, from Kirk and his quirks, to Luke's grumpiness, to the Gilmore girls' gabbing. It felt like coming home after a long vacation. That's what Gilmore Girls is to many-it's home. It's the show I watch when I'm upset. It's the show I watch when I'm sick. Hell-sometimes I even turn it on when there's good news. In fact, I even got a Gilmore Girls tattoo a few months ago. It's been my favorite TV show since before puberty, and now, in my early twenties, it's back in full force.
The original Gilmore Girls gave a peak into the life of awkward teenagehood through college, through the eyes of Rory. Now, as Rory lives her life at 32 (the same age that Lorelai was when the show began), her friends are all mothers, in careers, and/or married. Coming of the high of getting published in the New Yorker, Rory starts to get stuck. What is there left for her to do?
I rarely write a review on something with almost no negative criticisms, but here I am. A Year in the Life did the one thing I was afraid it wouldn't-it got modern. The show made it clear that we were smack-dab in the middle of 2016, with the first scene starting with a pan-over of Stars Hallows, and ending with a girl taking a selfie on the gazebo, the heart of the town. References to modern pop-culture was spewed left and right, from Taylor Doose ripping off Hamilton, to Lorelai making jokes about Lifetime movies. In fact, Michel, the character who I've always hoped was gay, especially as a young, confused queer child myself, was revealed to be not only gay, but married, and talking about children, within the first few scenes of the first episode. When Gilmore Girls first came out in 2000, almost no one was queer in television, unless they were a punchline. Although he was flamboyant, he was never established as queer, until now.
My only complaint about the special is the amount of cameos by A-listers, like Alex Kingston, Jason Manktzoukas, and even Sutton Foster. It was exciting to see people who are so well-known, but it also halted the suspension of belief that we were truly back in the Gilmore world-the one place where the characters are as big of fans of media as the audience.
Perhaps Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life will be successful enough to prompt more Gilmore episodes, I know I personally wouldn't mind.
