*spoilers ahead*
I love Gilmore Girls, and I would say the first four seasons are relatively flawless. However, the Season 4 finale episodes were a turning point. It could have been the mark of great things yet to come. Instead, it was a harbinger of impending disaster.
Let’s talk about Rory first. In the Season 4 finale, she bangs Dean which would have been gross enough, (because I hate Dean) but Dean is also married at this point. Now, this could have been the start of Rory’s true character development. At the beginning of Season 5, she could have realized her mistake, broke it off with Dean, and taken the reins of her life for herself. After all, she was with Dean because he was comfortable and reliable… and less so because she loved him.
Instead, she has an affair with Dean which leads to his divorce. She also continues to date him until Dean gets insecure and breaks it off with her. Then enter Logan, and he annoys her until she dates him. While Rory shows plenty of autonomy in her other activities, with boys, she seems to bend easily to what others think is best (and by others, I mean the boys). To me, Rory only goes downhill from here. I don’t mind that she has the existential crisis and bails on school for a while. That’s an interesting plot for her. But I’m talking about her attitude. She is disrespectful to Lorelei who has only ever treated her kindly and as more of an equal than she should have. Rory also thinks she knows better than everyone else and her haughty attitude permeates every aspect of her life. It gets to the point where Paris is the joy of the two.
It’s a shame because Rory was a very interesting character initially. She was a quiet and shy nerd (or at least appeared to be so much so that her headmaster thought she needed an intervention and some friends). Yet, as we see with Jess, she secretly sought adventure and danger. How fun it would have been to see Rory seek adventure on her own?
The other thing that was ruined by the Season 4 finale was, of course, Luke and Lorelei. Honestly, Luke’s realization that he loves her is pretty hastily done and only happens within a few episodes. I think their slow-burn romance could have been dragged out for another season or so. However, I don’t mind that they get together at that point, but the writers should have been prepared for it and come up with better content and drama points other than the constant breakups.
The rest of Season 5 goes pretty well. It even makes sense that Emily would try to break them up and their relationship would be on the rocks for a minute. BUT, the real kicker is that Luke and Lorelei were shown under the chuppah during Season 2, hinting that they will get married. And let’s not forget Lorelei’s dream during the Season 3 premiere where her and Luke are having twins.
In real life, symbolism and dreams don’t matter that much and they don’t indicate the future, but in books and movies, they do. When you make promises to your audience, you must keep them. If you show two characters under a chuppah, you better have them get married. If you show that two characters will have kids, you better deliver (haha). Let’s not forget that Luke and Lorelei also agree that they both want kids, and even the whole town won’t shut up about it. Then they just don’t do either of those things and, in fact, they break up and Lorelei gets with Chris??? And who has the prophesized twins? Lane Kim for some horrible reason. What?! Why?! I understand that Season 7 did not have the original writers, but Season 6 did, and that’s when all the Luke and Lorelei promises were broken.
Plus, the Luke/Lorelei wishy-washy relationship raises another fundamental issue. Let’s look at FRIENDS for example. Why do audiences put up with the extreme ups and downs of Ross and Rachel? Because Monica and Chandler are stable. They fight occasionally of course, but audiences know they have a relationship to rely on.
Ross and Rachel’s best content is their intense fights and intense makeups. Luke and Lorelei’s best content is their fun banter, their friendship, their average, day-to-day adventures (a la Chandler and Monica). You can’t just turn a Chandler/Monica relationship into a Ross/Rachel relationship. You know who is the Ross and Rachel of Gilmore Girls? Rory and Jess. I am also aware that Milo Ventimiglia did not renew his contract, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have had him show up periodically when his schedule allowed or at the series finale for a “I got off the plane” moment. In Gilmore Girls, Rory should be the one with the love triangles, the boys fighting over her, the intense ups and downs. And, in fact, she is for the first half of the series. You can’t just change that and make Luke and Lorelei the Ross and Rachel because you can’t think of a better way to make drama.
In conclusion, most people think Gilmore Girls started to go wrong in Season 6, but we’d already been on the downward slope for a while at that point. Instead of the trajectory that Rory and Lorelei go on in the second half of the series, I think that Rory should have cleaned her act up after the Dean debacle and not had a serious relationship for the rest of the show. Then at the end, she could end up with Jess (yes, because I’m a Jess fan but also because it would have been the best thing for her character, he would have linked the first half of the series to the second half, and it would have delivered to the audience a true cathartic, Ross/Rachel moment).
With Lorelei, she and Luke should have at least gotten married. Can you imagine Emily trying to take over their wedding? Hilarious. Stellar content. Also, if they had the twins, they we would get to see another challenge for Rory and Lorelei. How would Rory feel now that Lorelei has other children and that those children get a stable home and family to grow up in? Would Rory be jealous? Melancholy? Would Rory and Lorelei finally assume a more typical mother/daughter relationship or would they grow closer as best friends. And what about Amy Sherman Palladino’s plan for Rory to get pregnant at the end of the series (which she ended up doing for the “Year in the Life” episodes)? Would Rory and Lorelei raise their children at the same time and how would that affect their relationship? What would Emily do? I’m sure she’d freak! Let’s not forget that Gilmore Girls is supposed to be a show about a mother and daughter and female relationships. It’s not a show about boys. These scenarios would add a lot of drama without the cheap drama of male/female relationships and boy fights. If Gilmore Girls was handled better, we could have gotten ten fairly decent seasons with consistent characterization and cathartic endings.
P.S. Any Dean hate is directed at the character, not Jared Padalecki. Jared’s cool.