I am a hardcore Gilmore Girls fan. The day that the revival was released on Netflix, it took everything in me to wait for my aunt to get off of work so that we could binge it (complete with pizza, ice cream and any other junk food that a Gilmore would approve of). I stayed away from online spoilers (which if anyone knows me they know that is SO hard for me to do). I didn't look up the last four words, I wanted to be surprised. I wanted to savor it.
Once the revival was available to stream diehard Gilmore fans jumped on it and shouted their opinions from the rooftops. They spoiled the ending and talked crap about our beloved Gilmores because, believe it or not, everything didn't go picture perfect for our girls. In fact, they were thrown curveballs and made mistakes, just like we all do.
Perhaps the biggest criticism I read about was that of Rory Gilmore (played by Alexis Bledel). In the original series, Rory graduated at the top of her class, she was the most angelic daughter (thanks to having the best mom ever) and she had her life also perfectly together. When we last saw her she was going to be a journalist on the Obama campaign trail (LOL @ 2007) and had just graduated from Yale University. She was going to accomplish great things!
In the revival, things were a different story (SPOILER ALERT!!!). Our dear Rory was a bit of a mess. She had a boyfriend she was constantly forgetting about, an inconsistent job and her big break was when she got published in The New York Times a few years back. She didn't know where her underwear was located, and she hadn't seen her mom in a long time. Where was the Rory Gilmore we knew and loved?
On top of that, she was sleeping with her ex-boyfriend who happened to be almost engaged to a French lady named Odette. Sure, we all know where her ex's heart truly lied, but Rory being the other woman? Well, it wouldn't be the first time...(cough, Dean, cough), but at 32 years old you'd think she would have grown a little since her more reckless days of being 19.
In all honesty, though, I wasn't disappointed in revival Rory Gilmore. I spent seven seasons watched her unfold from this precocious, timid sixteen year old to this bright yet confused young woman fresh out of college. Rory has never been perfect, nor did she or those who created her claim to be. She didn't always make the best choices, but so what? When did we expect everything on our TV screens to be perfect? Don't we want our favorite fictional friends to reflect real life?
The truth is that Rory still trying to find herself at 32 is totally and completely normal. Even though she was driven and passionate about being a journalist at 16 doesn't mean that she'd feel the same way 16 years later. Sometimes things don't work out the way they were planned, and that's okay.
I've always seen a lot of myself in Rory Gilmore. She has a young, fun mom (as do I) and she would rather live in a world of books than the real life. For a long time I wanted to be Rory when I grew up, but after watching the last few seasons of Gilmore Girls and the revival, I realized that Rory was always just as lost as the rest of us. I think that means there's already a little Rory in everyone.
So when Rory mutters the last two words of the series, "I'm pregnant," to her mother, we must remember that we would all be just as scared and confused and conflicted if that were us. She is a fictional character, but she is portraying a woman that is inside all of us, which is I think why we care so much. I still admire Rory Gilmore, and know that at the end of the day, it only matters that she's happy with who she has become.
