Gilmore Girls was one of the WB's most groundbreaking shows of the '00s. Lorelai and her BFF/daughter Rory welcomed us into Amy Sherman-Palladino's idyllic New England world. The show created something truly unique and optimistic in an era of melodramatic teen shows and hyper-cynical adult dramas. Gilmore Girls provided a spot of something sweet and innocent, all expressed through Sherman-Palladino's iconically rhythmic, punchy dialogue.
The whimsical supporting cast of characters that populated Stars Hollow also gave the show its quintessential flavor. Kirk, Taylor, Miss Patty, Mrs. Kim, all seemed a little out of time. It was almost as if they'd be more comfortable in a classic film than in a modern dramedy, but that's part of what made them so freaking entertaining.
That said, what made the show so charming -- its out of place, out of time sensibility -- was also what could end up its downfall from time to time. While Gilmore Girls definitely took place in a universe that didn't occur in our reality, many of its main characters did live in the real world, and the situations they found themselves in weren't always "adorably" whimsical. Sometimes they just made no sense. This is a list of those times we had to turn a blind eye to the mistakes of the show we loved and just wait for another scene where Emily verbally annihilates someone.
Here are 25 Things Wrong With Gilmore Girls We All Choose To Ignore.
LORELAI DATING RORY'S TEACHER
Lorelai starts stating Rory’s English teacher at Chilton, Max Medina, during season 1. They go on to get engaged, break up, and mess around each other some more before Max finally gives up. As relationships go, it’s not super out of the ordinary except in that it’s incredibly inappropriate and weird.
Rory was a new student at Chilton and had a rocky start. As a matter of fact, Max was the first teacher that gave Rory a D. No matter how nice he was, it was really selfish and insensitive to potentially expose Rory to more discomfort by dating one of her teachers.
THE HARVARD OBSESSION
One of the series’ hallmarks was that Rory Gilmore was going to Harvard. Her dream of going served as an integral part of the premise of the entire show. Lorelai goes to her parents for money to send Rory to Chilton so Rory has a better chance of getting into Harvard.
It’s not that Harvard is an unworthy goal, but it sends a questionable message to have the very capable Rory be so fixated on one school.
It is incredibly difficult to get into any Ivy, and to have Rory continually put all her eggs in one basket made no sense and made them both seem ignorant, naïve, and sentimental.
PARIS WAS A GIANT BULLY
Lisa Weil is fantastic. Paris was ridiculously entertaining and served as a necessary reminder that Rory wasn’t always the smartest person in the room. But Paris was also a real jerk. She was a terrible, selfish roommate, she was jealous of Rory and punished her for it on multiple occasions and was generally a big bully.
A lot of it may have seemed like comic relief when the show aired, but Paris doesn’t really hold up in the light of the present day.
WHY RORY AND DEAN'S BREAK UP
Rory and Dean 2.0 were always doomed, if only because of the way they got together, but their original relationship was quite sweet.
Dean and Rory basically break up because he can’t handle her new lifestyle.
He actually says to her he doesn’t “belong there” when she invites him to a party. Dean’s discomfort and lack of willingness to adapt to her surroundings doesn’t make him look good, but it also makes a pointed statement about relationships and class and how issues like that are insurmountable.
DEAN HAD EVERY RIGHT TO BE JEALOUS OF JESS
Dean gets a lot of gaff for being a possessive jealous boyfriend when Jess and Rory started their friendship, but what a lot of people seem to forget is that he actually had a point. Rory and Jess hit it off on a different level than he and Rory did and he correctly observed that that level was more intimate than puppy love.
That fact combined with Jess’ endless taunting of Dean, who probably would’ve been really nice to him otherwise, makes Dean a little more sympathetic than he’s ever given credit for. Granted he’s a jerk a lot of other times, but he had a right to be upset in this case.
LANE'S PARENTING CHOICES
There are a lot of things to be upset about in season 7 of Gilmore Girls, and Lane’s pregnancy is one of them. The issue is not the actual pregnancy itself, but what she plans to do after.
As she’s going into labor, she expresses her desire to stop her career and devote her entire life to her children because that’s what her mother did for her.
Appparently Lane forgot that their relationship was incredibly strained because Mrs. Kim hovered so much and that it was totally unnecessary for Lane to give up her career to be a good mom.
STARS HOLLOW'S WEIRD OBSESSION WITH RORY
Seriously, were there no other cool kids in Stars Hollow for the entire town to creepily focus its attention on? Everyone is obsessed with Rory – Taylor basically forces her to be Queen of Stars Hollow and everyone else is thinks the sun shines out of her forehead for literally no reason.
Sure, she’s nice and the whole “it takes a village to raise a child” idea is endearing, but at the end of the day, the Stars Hollow residents’ level of investment in Rory Gilmore is creepy, inappropriate, and kind of annoying. What about Lane?
LORELAI AND LUKE'S UNNECESSARY SEPARATION IN SEASON 7
There was literally no reason for Luke and Lorelai not to have figured out their business and reconcile before the very last minute of the very last episode of the very last season. It’s not that we would’ve expected them to rush back into each other’s arms immediately after Lorelai and Christopher broke up, but an entire season?
Was it really necessary for us to have to sit through Lorelai's awful "I Will Always Love You"?
Was it really necessary to watch them rebuild a friendship, but never, ever directly discuss their romance and feelings for each other until they kiss in the middle of Stars Hollow? No, it was not.
THE GILMORES ARE IMPOSSIBLY JUDGMENTAL
Okay, we get it, the Gilmores were dysfunctional. It made sense that after the first few seasons of them getting to know each other again they would still hit roadblocks.
It took Emily and Richard nearly seven years to give Lorelai the credit she deserved.
We get that they wanted her to succeed on a higher level than she already was, but after seven years of Lorelai insisting on living her life the way she wanted to, the most Richard and Emily could do was basically give her a punch on the arm in the series finale. That made both of them seem more emotionally stunted than they actually were.
THE STARS HOLLOW VORTEX
Part of the charm of Gilmore Girls was the idyllic town of Stars Hollow. It was adorably and sometimes painfully charming, but at the end of the day provided a dreamy backdrop for the real-life difficulties Lorelai and Rory faced regularly.
The show made it seem as though no one in Stars Hollow had any ambition to do anything else but to live out their lives in Stars Hollow.
Neither Lane nor Dean go to college and both settle there, and none of the adults have lives that take them out of Stars Hollow. It’s completely self-contained and kind of weird.
LORELAI IS ACTUALLY REALLY UNGRATEFUL TO HER PARENTS
Lorelai had a point about not wanting to live in her parents 'world, especially given how insistent they were that she do so while she was young. But once she struck out on her own and they had no choice but to accept that, she should’ve softened a little toward them.
Any help they offered she resented, to the point of hurting Emily’s feelings on a regular basis. Richard had to point out to Lorelai how devastated Emily was when her only daughter ran away because Lorelai had never thought to ask. It’s just too much.
RORY AND LOGAN'S INFIDELITY
This is a point people bring up quite a bit, but it bears repeating: Rory and Logan’s affair was so weird and so wrong. It didn’t make sense for Rory’s character to do such a thing on the show, and it didn’t make sense for the writers to depict this behavior after Rory had been shamed for doing something similar with Dean.
Rory was cheating on her boyfriend with Logan, who had his own fiancee.
It’s not that the show came down in favor of Rory engaging in this behavior – much of A Year in the Life centered around Rory going off the rails – but the fact that she would engage in it so freely just didn’t make sense, no matter how lost she was.
HOW DID THEY AFFORD THEIR LIFESTYLE?
While food and housing are generally cheaper in rural/small town American than they would be in the average apocalypse, it seems very, very difficult to swallow that Lorelai could afford the mortgage, taxes, utilities and all the other expenses that come with home ownership alongside those that come with child rearing-- plus eating all that takeout.
Yes, there was one storyline about Lorelai needing money for her roof and yes, she went to her parents for money for Chilton, but their lifestyle on an innkeeper’s salary and then an inn owner’s salary was so far from realistic.
RORY'S CONDÉ NAST "INTERVIEW"
Rory’s journalism career in A Year in the Life is unrealistic in a lot of ways, not the least of which was the time she went to the Condé Nast offices for an interview. Condé Nast is a group of publications, the parent company of publications like Vogue, Vanity Fair, and a bunch of other aspirational places many writers would love to work.
This would be like meeting with the CEO of McDonald’s to interview for a job as a cashier.
It makes absolutely no sense and likely has never happened to a freelance writer whose story at The Atlantic just got shelved.
SOOKIE'S KITCHEN
Sookie’s one of the most beloved and wacky Gilmore Girls supporting characters, and honestly there’s a reason she’s only on this list once – she’s practically perfect in every way. Her kitchen, on the other hand-- every time we took a peek in either the Independence or Dragonfly Inns, there was a bounty of fresh ingredients at the ready for Sookie to grab and make magic with.
That would all be well and good if Gilmore Girls took place in the Middle Ages, but itt is ludicrous that Sookie would run a professional kitchen that way with no labels on anything and all sorts of food just sitting out.
RORY'S ANTI-DIGITAL ATTITUDE
Let's discuss Rory’s performance at her job interview with SandeeSays, the Buzzfeed-type company she considers a job far beneath her.
She shows up completely unprepared, she has no pitches to offer, and she generally comes across as completely entitled.
Her interviewer at SandeeSays was totally courteous, and Rory was totally shortsighted to act as though she was too good for a job there. That job has benefits, Rory Gilmore! Just who do you think you are and when did you start exemplifying entitled rich people stereotypes?
WHY DID PEOPLE TOLERATE TAYLOR?
Oh, man was Taylor Doose a a pill. He was pushy, selfish, vindictive and weirdly obsessed with his town. We can forgive the last one – everyone has a thing, but the rest of his behavior is rude at best and abusive at worst.
Yes, Stars Hollow is a magical fairyland that allows for everyone within it to live their idiosyncrasies, but Taylor Doose crossed the line.
He demanded whatever he wanted, abused his position by using it to push people around and then had the gall to get all mopey and depressed when Jackson beat him in the town selectman election. Get a job, man.
THE ENTIRE APRIL STORYLINE
The idea of Luke having a secret daughter was hopelessly contrived on its own, but we liked seeing him play the father so much that it didn’t really matter she was clearly a plot device.
Then, when Luke refused to tell Lorelai about it and instead of him being a dad the story became about a roadblock in their relationship, it became clear that April was never brought on the show for the sake of Luke’s character growth. She was brought on the show to put something between Luke and Lorelai for the sake of more drama between them once they got together. No thanks.
LORELAI AND LUKE NOT GETTING MARRIED UNTIL A YEAR IN THE LIFE
The problem with Lorelai and Luke was that the show couldn’t find any interesting problems or drama in their relationship itself. The introduction of April was a lame attempt to throw some issues their way until Christopher reared his head again and it was time for Luke and Lorelai to break up again.
The only conceivable reason for Luke and Lorelai not to get married before the end of A Year in the Life, when he’d been so passionate about it for years, was to add some kind of unnecessary drama between the two.
MICHEL WAS NEVER FIRED
While Sookie was brilliant comic relief, she also did her job fantastically well. Michel was great comic relief, but also literally the worst person to work customer service in the hospitality industry.
We almost never saw him do his job well.
In fact, we saw him shirk his duties so often it stopped being charming and started becoming ridiculous. There’s a way to write someone who hates working customer service but is actually good at customer service and make it funny. Michel just stopped making sense after a while. We still love him, though.