In 2007, I was a freshman at a college in a tiny little town. They had their own video rental store, but it was a bit of a hike and Netflix promised delivery of any DVD I wanted. So I signed up and requested Angela’s Ashes. It arrived; I put it in the DVD player and not very long into the movie it began stalling and sputtering. Luckily Netflix allowed you to send back any defective DVDs without any penalty. So I did that, and my replacement Angela’s Ashes DVD came in a few days. This one never even started the movie for all the apparent scratches on its delicate surface. I returned the DVD, canceled my subscription, and hoped that they would eventually learn that more than simple paper envelopes were needed to keep the DVDs damage-free. And it’s been that way for eight years: through the advent of the streaming revolution and Orange is the New Black I stayed away from Netflix. Nothing could make me give them eight dollars a month.
Except now, when they are the ones salvaging my favorite television show of all time. They finally got me.
The Gilmore girls series DVDs span seven seasons, but there’s a bit of a debate over when the show really ended. Majority opinion states that when Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino exited the show at the end of the sixth season, Gilmore girls as we loved it ceased to exist. For that reason, I think this revival is not a mere pander to an upturn of demand, but an opportunity for the creators to take back control of a beloved show and end it on their terms. We Gilmore fans have waited a long time to learn the fabled Last Four Words as Sherman-Palladino intended them. And now, we will finally hear them.
As with anything of this magnitude, there of course are questions, and at this point there are few concrete answers. The revival will be comprised of four 90-minute episodes spanning one calendar year. Although there have been no contracts signed, TV Line reported that the three Gilmore Girls (Kelly Bishop, Lauren Gram, and Alexis Bledel) and Scott Patterson are involved. More have voiced their interest, including Milo Ventimiglia, but a tweet in favor of the revival doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to be involved. The possibilities are wide open.
The one truly hard thing they will have to do is say goodbye to Richard Gilmore, played by the late Edward Herrmann. There’s no way they’ll brush off his absence by saying Richard is away on business, so we might get a funeral service. It might even be the inciting incident, bringing Rory back home from whatever she’s doing to support her mother and grandmother. Lorelai will have to deal with her issues with Richard, and Emily will adjust, over the course of the four episodes, to life without her husband. What that adjustment looks like could go in many directions, some of them even a little funny (consider Emily’s shopping spree breakdown in Scene in a Mall and the episode where she’s so distraught she seriously considers buying a plane).
While we’re on the subject of absences, there’s the question of Melissa McCarthy’s involvement. Nothing has been said either way, but plenty of speculation exists that for a number of reasons, Mc Carthy won’t be able to reprise her role of Sookie St. James, chef at the Dragonfly Inn and Lorelai’s best friend. It could be anything from scheduling conflicts to being unable to come to a contract agreement regarding money. I hope they can find some way to bring her back, even if it’s just for one of the four episodes. Sookie’s mix of sweetness, culinary intensity, and klutziness would be sorely missed.
Of course, there are plenty of secondary characters that would be greatly missed were they not to show up in the revival. All of the Stars Hollow townies (yeah, even Taylor Doose) gave the show its quirky heart. I want to know what Lane and Hep Alien are up to, and I want a reunion with Dave Rygalski (and the ensuing hilarious awkward moment when he finds out Lane married Zach). I want to know what Paris is doing now—and more importantly, I want to see Paris living in a world where Donald Trump is running for President.
However, there are a few characters that I wouldn’t miss too terribly. At the top of the list is Dean. My apologies to Jared Padalecki; you’re a great actor and everything, but God help us if we get dragged through yet another Rory and Dean reprise. I think it’s safe to say they’ve run their course. I don’t have any real desire to see Logan again either; he’s always been my least favorite of the Rory boyfriends. In my younger years, I was a solid Team Jess girl, but upon rewatching Gilmore girls, I’m more into the idea of Rory being unattached. Season four is one of my favorite seasons for Rory—it’s just her, figuring life out, no relationship drama, and that’s how I want to see her in her early thirties.
As for Lorelai’s love interests, there can really only be one: Luke Danes. If the revival is taking place eight years after the original series’ end, it’s kind of hopeless to expect to see the wedding take place. And I think that’s what stung a lot of us most. Season six was an endless tease about Luke and Lorelai’s wedding, and season seven ended with only a kiss between the estranged lovers. That particular arc felt incredibly incomplete, and we can only hope for possible flashback scenes of the wedding. Will it be winter-themed and snowy? I hope so.
When it comes to major plot lines, I don’t really know what I hope to see, specifically. But I do know that I can’t wait to see what pop culture references the Gilmores will be making in 2015. Will Lorelai be pro-Frozen, or will she feel like snow has been cheapened by a power ballad that won’t be silenced? What does Rory think of Harper Lee’s controversial long-lost novel? Has Lorelai been productive at all since the advent of Netflix streaming? I keep having this idea that Zach and Brian will be really into Game of Thrones, so much so that they want Hep Alien to do an album of Game of Thrones-inspired songs. I feel like if Led Zeppelin can include Tolkien references in their music, Hep Alien can easily sing about the Lannisters.
I’ll end with a fervent hope that the invisible character of Gilmore girls will be present: that is, the signature sountrack provided by Sam Phillips. I wrote before that Sam Phillips is the sound of Stars Hollow. That sound can either be a comforting lullaby, a broken heart, or a sense of intrigue. I can’t imagine not having that sonic background. And maybe now we’ll even get a release of the full collection of music cues, which would be amazing. There were about four of them included on the only Gilmore girls soundtrack released on CD, and I will freely admit, there are more than a few old ipod playlists that feature those Gilmore girls cues mixed in. I liked feeling as if I was driving from Stars Hollow to Friday Night Dinner with Emily and Richard. I just wanted to be part of their weird little community. And thanks to Netflix, those sneaky bastards, I’ll actually get another chance to do it.
For The Stories 