With 153 40-minute episodes throughout the entire series, “Gilmore Girls” has a long and complex story to unpack. The show is ideal for binging — preferably after a breakup or with a pumpkin-spiced latte in hand.
It’s the best time of year — pumpkin spice flavoring has re-entered coffee shops and my friend and I have fallen back into our seasonal obsession with “Gilmore Girls.” It’s our way of fully embracing the autumn spirit and a perfect excuse to watch the show annually.
Set in the early 2000s in a small Connecticut town called Stars Hollow, “Gilmore Girls” encapsulates the back-to-school feeling of autumn. With the show’s emphasis on dealing with change, “Gilmore Girls” was made for fellow romantics who love to feel nostalgia, especially people like my friends and me, who binge watch all seven seasons every year. The series gets more and more nostalgic with age.
Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) has some bad habits: she drinks too much coffee, can’t commit to a relationship and loves doing anything her parents disapprove of. Her daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) balances her mother’s bad habits through her quick wit and compassion. Together, the “Gilmore Girls” create a goofy pair who have to maneuver their way through life’s complexities, still managing to laugh along the way.
Lorelai’s charmingly playful demeanor might fool most of the people she interacts with, but in actuality, the single mother craves the stability of a romantic partner. She cycles through partners and falls in love, just to be left alone repeatedly.
Lorelai runs an inn with her best friend and chef Sookie St. James (Melissa McCarthy) who keeps Lorelai relaxed while at work. St. James often finds herself consoling Lorelai when experiencing heartache, combating the blues with a joke, song or baked goods.
Like her mother, Rory cycles through romantic partners, always putting her passions like newswriting before her love life.
Lorelai and Rory’s relationship dynamic is as a standard mother-daughter bond as two best gal friends of 16 years. Lorelai’s pregnancy at 16 years old created an enormous schism between Lorelai and her parents, who put their pride over their parenting. However, this created a bond between Lorelai and Rory by being the only constants in each other’s lives.
While fighting with her parents, Lorelai often rants to Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), owner and operator of Stars Hallow’s local diner with a name just as straightforward and simple as the owner— “Luke’s.”
Lorelai and her parents have an arrangement: they will pay for Rory’s education in exchange for Rory and Lorelai’s weekly attendance at Friday night dinner.
When Lorelai was especially upset with her parents for using their money to manipulate her and Rory, she stormed into Luke’s and proclaimed: “Give me a burger, onion rings, and a list of people who killed their parents and got away with it.”
Lorelai is a force to be reckoned with. She sews her own clothing, understands the emotionally complex and even has the ability to “smell snow” every autumn right before the first snow of the year. She is an independent and self-sufficient woman who learned everything from being left on her own as a single, pregnant teen. She worked tirelessly for the well-being of her daughter, which is why it’s so hard for her to accept any help from her parents.
Stars Hollow is full of charismatic individuals like Lorelai and Rory, who have nothing but love for their quirky and somewhat bizarre neighbors. Kirk Gleason (Sean Gunn) seems to work at nearly every business in Stars Hollow and no one knows where to expect him to pop up next.
“I’ve been working for 11 years, Luke.” Gunn’s character explained. “I’ve Had 15,000 Jobs.”
“Gilmore Girls” originally aired on The WB network on Oct. 2, 2000. It was an immediate crowd-pleaser and went on to become a seven-season success. The show’s last episode aired on May 15, 2007, making it a staple show of the early 2000s and creating a name for itself in the world of sappy television.
Equipped with flip phones and low-rise jeans, Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel’s chemistry carried the series. Their on-screen interactions commanded a unique presence that makes the show a stand-alone classic. Even my parents, who don’t normally gravitate towards soap operas, have watched the series a couple of times.
In 2016, Netflix released “Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life,” which was heavily criticized for missing the crucial 2000s aesthetic and having a seemingly forced script. In four 90-minute episodes, the magic of Stars Hollow was stripped. Therefore, I have decided to forget about it altogether and declare the series uncanonical.
With 153 40-minute episodes throughout the entire series, “Gilmore Girls” has a long and complex story to unpack. The show is ideal for binging — preferably after a breakup or with a pumpkin-spiced latte in hand.
Join me in my seasonal habit: “Gilmore Girls” is ready to watch on Netflix, Prime Video or Apple TV.
Featured image courtesy of Warner Bros.
