And why you keep coming back every year
I first watched Gilmore Girls when I was twelve years old, sitting on my living room couch with my mom and sister. Since that first watch, which left me absolutely hooked and caused me to subsequently binge the entire show, I have returned every fall without fail to the familiar setting of Stars Hollow. Perhaps it’s the color grading of warm colors, the hay bales around every turn on screen or the perfectly curated messy-but-put-together seasonal wardrobe that all the characters seem to wear. No matter what the specifics are, Gilmore Girls has the it factor that has caused it to be formally named the show of fall.
Lorelai’s constant speed talking, paired with Rory’s sleepy demeanor and Luke’s incessant crankiness that only breaks when either one of the girls displays a need for his help, weaves a universe of characters that feel like people we know, people we could find if we walked out of our own front door.
Schooling and academics are a major plotline of the story, and most of Rory’s life-altering events coincide with the school she is enrolled in at that time. In Season 1, Episode 1, titled “Pilot,” Lorelai discovers that Rory has been accepted into the prestigious private school, Chilton, just two weeks into the school year. The placement of the show in this time period, the beginning of the academic year, sets the show’s rhythm into motion in such a way that the first season’s episodes almost perfectly align with major holidays or events that the characters experience in the show. This makes it so easy for the watcher to equate what is occurring on the show to what they are experiencing in real time. The back to school jitters that Rory has as she navigates her new life at Chilton, all the way to her figuring out how to find her way around Yale’s campus when she moves in, kickstarting a new era of her life, are feelings that anyone can relate to, and associate with fall.
Next, to quote Lorelai Gilmore herself, “coffee coffee coffee”. Caffeine isn’t just an aspect of the show, it is woven into every episode, every relationship and every sentence of the program. Rory and Lorelai’s landing spot at the beginning of almost every episode in the beginning seasons is Luke’s Diner, a place Lorelai initially stumbled upon in a caffeine feigned haze when Rory was very little. The relationship they now have with that diner, and Luke himself, stretches beyond customer and coffee pourer. In fact, (spoiler alert!) Luke becomes an integral contributor to Rory’s adolescence, and eventually marries Lorelai. The show’s obsession with coffee mirrors the feelings of ritual and comfort that the viewer experiences. Coffee is the ultimate autumn ritual. Just as the characters return to Luke’s and their overflowing mugs, we return every time to watch them do it. It’s predictable, but more importantly, it’s comforting.
Gilmore Girls owns fall not due to its plot twists or love triangles, but because of its atmosphere. The show manages to distill everything we associate with fall; starting a new school, oversized sweaters and leaves changing, hot coffee and warm pastries, into one single enduring aesthetic, tied tight with a bow. If you find yourself watching Gilmore Girls soon, think of it as less than rewatching an old favorite and more of a ritual—one that reminds us that no matter what happens, fall always comes again.