To the Girls I Loved Before: Gilmore Girls

Growing up, one of my favourite TV shows apart from F.R.I.E.N.D.S (of course) had to be the Gilmore Girls. The show made its debut on 2000 and had ran for seven seasons until 2007.

 

Gilmore Girls was the ‘hip and happening’ TV shows back then. It was a perfect combo of gorgeous leading roles ~ Lorelai and Rory that were living a somewhat Boho life in an idyllic small-town ~ Stars Hollow (that seemed to host so many festivities all year long) with their loving and quirky friends and also neighbours. Apart from the small town charm, from time to time, the audience got a glimpse of the life of the rich and privileged society in America all thanks to Richard and Emily Gilmore which seemed to either hosting or attending so many parties - cocktail parties, charity events etc., including the absurd occasion (well at least to me) the debutante ball @ coming out party - are you serious?

 

The Gilmore Girls' Inner Circle

Back then (oh I feel so old!), there was no streaming and we could not download the series whatsoever. So, we had to actually wait in front of the TV every week to catch the latest episode of our favourite TV show. Gilmore Girls was aired on the weekend and it left us with no choice but to plan our social lives around the airtime hahaha.

Admittedly, I was a huge fan but I only managed to follow the series up to the point when Rory developed an interest over Jess, a troubled but smart and well-read (not to mention cute) boy when she was still with the sweet, caring Dean (scandalous huh?) – and that was from season 3. Well, I got busy with my own life then and could not cope out with the series anymore. And to my defense, I did not think that TV3 managed to broadcast all the seasons as well, or did they?

 

Fast forward about 2 decades later, during the Movement Controlled Order (MCO) to be exact, whilst most people going all hype with the Korean drama series (I still want to catch up on this one day), I decided to actually find out what exactly happened between Rory and Jess. Did they get to be together after all?

 

So, I decided to revisit my teenage years and have been binge-watching the series ever since. As I am writing this, I’m on the sixth season ~ a total of 114 episodes from its inaugural episode so far! I think this should be in my personal record or something for the most watched episodes from a TV series.

 

Anyway, I’m not going to rant about the plot here ~ basically it was about the same people making the same (bad) decisions over and over again and mostly involving boys. But it was really interesting to see how my perspective about the girls and the show has changed after all these years.

 

I used to be…liking the girls

When I first watched the series, I was in my early 20’s – when most aspect of my life was not sorted out yet. So, naturally, I felt closer to Rory than any other characters in the series. She was brilliant, articulate, studious, naive and of course cute. Then her easy-going, bubbly mother, Lorelai got my utmost support and being on her side automatically made me despised her wealthy, perfectionist mother, Emily for being so controlling and judgmental towards her own daughter. I was all for the "Lorelais" (Rory real name is actually Lorelai ~ hold on a sec, who named their children after their own name? Oh my, I just realized that Lorelai (the mother) is so sick 😲! 

…but I’m not anymore

However, as I watched the series again in 2020, I found that my perspective towards the girls has somewhat changed. I found that the girls were not as great as I remembered them before. They were manipulative ~ taking advantages from those around them by literally batting their eyelashes. For instance, Lorelai was borrowing money from her parents for Rory's tuition. The arrangement was that the girls had to visit their parents/grandparents every Friday for family dinner. Lorelai and Rory did honour the agreement but that was done with much drama especially on Lorelai's part. Well, for someone who survived on take-out / diner food everyday, having sumptuous dinner once a week should be a real treat. She did not even need to lift a single finger to help out on the planning and preparation of the dinner ~all she had to do was to be there. Lorelai also taking advantage over Luke by asking him to do too many favours (chores and also money) just because he always had feelings for her. The girls also constantly weighed down their best friends ~ Lane and Sookie with their never-ending dramas, up to point when I found them to be very annoying and self-centred that I begin to understand why Emily treated them (or Lorelai to be exact) in such manner.

Rory, The Good Girl Gone Bad

I will start with Rory. In the first three seasons she had been perfect, even with the stolen kiss incident with Jess while she was still with Dean – a guy next door who was not only cute but also thoughtful and caring. I mean, what else do you look in a guy when you’re 16, right?

 

But I think understand why she could not resist Jess. Even if he was vertically challenged (I could not help it but to notice this in each of his appearance), he was so full with attitude and those smirk and deep smouldering eyes were to die for hahaha. When Rory decided to skip school to made a surprise visit to Jess in NY, I still think it was a really nice gesture despite the fact that she couldn’t picked a better date to do that, but on her Mom’s graduation day, resulting on her missing that important day all together.

Rory and the Boys 

No matter how much I wanted Rory to be with Jess, I did not agree with the way she treated Dean. As her feeling for her first boyfriend fade away, so did her sweet, lovable character. For instance, she spaced out and at one time she actually sighed when Dean came to meet her at the diner unannounced. Dean was not so smart, but I was glad that he was smart enough to notice how Rory was behaving and when he dumped her during the dance marathon, I could not help but to say “Padan muka!” to Rory.

 

Maybe Rory action was forgivable considering she was quite new to the dating scene. I mean who never mistreated a person before because they were unsure of their own feelings? Ehem, talking from a personal experience here. Well, Rory and Jess was meant to be together. Their relationship was intense. But this is as far as I could agree with Rory. 

Okay, apart from the boyfriend issue, I used to love the way Rory carried herself in surviving Chilton (the private school that she went to). She was the odd one out at the private school of the rich, spoiled and snobbish students. Despite of that, she managed to adapt herself well and at the end of her senior year, Rory did not only get the offers from three Ivy league universities including her dream, Harvard but she was also the class valedictorian and had successfully turned foes into friends especially the  power crazy and ruthless Paris.

 

But that was it. The character began to lost its charm once Rory started at Yale. I suspected that the producer had a major change in the scriptwriters’ team at this point of time. From a determined, opinionated, considerate and sensible girl, Rory had turned into a complete stranger. We are all aware that college life is very different from the senior high, so it is understandable that she might get a little intimidated with the surrounding, dealing with the fact that she was going to live on her own for the first time - but everybody was experiencing the same thing. Moreover, Stars Hollow was just a few hours drive away from Yale. So, she did not need that much adjustment than someone who had to travel half world from home to study at Yale. So why Rory so freaked out? Even her young roommate, Tanna who seemed to be oblivious to her surrounding and her adversary Paris manage to survive there. 

I really do not understand this side of Rory. Rory had always being more mature than her age. She was even more mature and sensible than her mother. She also had done her research about the college and of course she was aware of what was expected from a freshman liker herself. So why with all the college frenzy? Why she suddenly got the feeling that she needed to hang with the cool crowd, to be accepted – something that she had been avoiding all her life? 

From there, Rory began to make one stupid mistake after another. Even with her super busy college life, she managed to had an affair with the married Dean, not because she loves her and just got on her senses after she had ran after Jess, but just because (in her words) he is her Dean. This girls has a serious possessiveness issue. She even wrote him a note which was found by Dean's wife, Lindsay which resulted in them getting a divorce. I suspected that she did that on purpose - to let the wife knows about the affair. 

After all that, both Rory and Lorelai acted like nothing happened and Rory did the same thing again to Dean. She stood him up because she was too busy partying with her super rich and cool new friends. Well, at this point of time she already had set an eye for Logan, an heir to a media mogul. Rory proved herself to be a selfish, heartless home wrecker.

Oh did I mention that around the same time, Rory managed to manipulate and crush the heart of her new BFF at Yale, Marty who had developed a feeling for her. He was kind and cute, but broke. It turned out that Rory is money and power crazy. 

To cut the story short, Rory stole a yacht because of something that Logan's father said to her, get caught and decided to quit Yale and lived with her grandparents because her mother disapproved of her decision. 

Lorelai, The Girl Who Couldn't Make Up Her Own Mind

One of the most memorable things about Gilmore Girls were Lorelai's ability to talk so fast. The distinctive fast-paced banter was her most endearing personality but after sometimes, it became a huge annoyance. Lorelai had this tendency to quickly grab a phone or go to talk to another person whenever an issue arises without having even a split second to think the matter through and weighing her options and the consequences of her actions to those around her. This resulted in her having so many failed relationships, including with her parents and finally as shown in season 5/6, with her own daughter. 

Lorelai always potrayed herself as an independent person ~ but in fact she was overly dependent to another person. She depended on Rory for keeping her company, she depended on Luke to settle every problem that she had with the house, for food etc. and she depended on Emily to make her feel good about her self. She really acted like a big baby when she got into a big fight with Luke that she could no longer eat at the diner and had to go to Sookie's and all just to grab a food. I mean, she could not even manage to prepare a simple meal for herself let alone for Rory for God's sake and Luke had been feeding her and Rory all their lives. Lorelai never knows what she wanted. Max Medina was a perfect match and they were engaged. But she called the wedding off a night before the reception for no apparent reasons. Then she jumped into the arms of one man to another until she finally settled for Luke. I could not agree more with Dean when he said this to Luke on his final appearance on this series, “Don’t you get it? They want more than this, and all you are is this."

Update : I have a confession to make, I could not bring myself to finish all the seven seasons (153 episodes) after the sixth season. It just not make much sense anymore and the story-line was repetitive. Rory and Lorelai character development were a big disappointment. At some point of time, just in order to make the duo look lovable and cool, the writers 'overly-punished' the other characters that seemed to be 'blocking' the way for the Gilmore Girls - just look what happened to Christopher's fiance Sherry. She turned from a lovely lady who was desperate to get to know her soon-to-be-stepdaughter to a heartless mother who left her own baby and moved to another country just like that (so that Lorelai could step in and saved the day). The same thing with Luke's ex-wife, Nicole and long-time girlfriend, Rachel. The fact that Lorelai and Rory just being their indecisive-self again and again and was saved mostly by their look and of course surname also did not helped much. 

It is somewhat a despair to found out that the TV series that was once very dear to our hearts, turned out to be not so great after all. I guess some memories are best left untouched, so that we could hold the sweet initial feelings forever in our hearts. 

But this did not stop me from watching the revival miniseries. I still want to watch it whenever I have the time and patience hahaha.

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