At this point almost everyone is aware of the show Gilmore Girls, whether you ever watched it or not. The show originally aired in the early 2000s and showcases the life of Lorelai Gilmore (played by Lauren Graham) and her daughter Rory’s (played by Alexis Bledel) life in the small town of Stars Hollow. Much of the show explores Lorelai’s broken relationship with her wealthy upper class parents after she got pregnant with Rory at 16 and ran away from home, Rory’s struggles to be successful and realize her potential as she moves through high school and college, and the romances and friendships that both of them encounter. Gilmore Girls was known for quick dialogue and quippy comments with pop culture references scattered throughout the witty banter. The show lasted for seven seasons, with the main creator and writer Amy Sherman-Palladino not being a part of the seventh season. This lead to the demand for a revival, which Netflix was happy to provide on November 25th now ten years later, allowing the original writer Sherman-Palladino and her husband to return and write four 90 minute episodes of the life for Gilmore Girls in the present day to give the show the ending she intended. As someone who jumped on the Gilmore Girls bandwagon a little late, I recently just finished watching the infamous seventh season and then immediately jumped into the Gilmore Girls revival- and honestly, there were a lot of unmet expectations and, frankly, huge disappointments. By the way, if you haven’t seen the show or the revival by now, be aware there are spoilers ahead.

The seventh season of Gilmore Girls, the one everyone lamented due to Sherman-Palladino’s witty dialogue being mostly absent from the show, was actually not that bad. To be honest, I was more upset with how the sixth season went, with Luke and Lorelai’s perfectly healthy and cute relationship quickly distintegrating due to Luke’s strange relationship with his newly discovered daughter April. After their relationship ended (in a seemingly unrealistic and forced fashion) Lorelai spends most of season seven (once again) pondering her (once again) budding relationship with Rory’s father Christopher. Their entire relationship never quite fit, so I can see how some people might be frustrated about the fact that the season spends so much time on a relationship that we know isn’t going to work out and very little time redeveloping the relationship between Luke and Lorelai. But honestly, I figured this was no worse than the sixth season- at least in season seven Lorelai was progressing in a relationship instead of remaining stagnant with Luke and then suddenly calling the whole thing off. One major complaint I heard about the seventh season was how Luke’s daughter April was annoying and seemed to make the plotline unnecessarily complicated. In my opinion, she wasn’t all that bad. April had already done her damage when Luke and Lorelai broke up in season six, so I wasn’t all that annoyed at seeing her and Luke’s relationship deepen- if anything, seeing Luke’s love for her was actually really sweet. And even though there was less quippy dialogue and the plot and bad decisions seemed to pop all over the place, the final episode tied up the lose ends and left optimistic possibilities for the Gilmore Girls, with Rory getting a promising start to her journalism career, Lorelai and Emily deciding to continue with Friday night dinners and preserve the relationship they’ve built, and Lorelai and Luke sharing a kiss that hints at their happy relationship in the future. The ending was happy and conclusive, allowing us to see the direction in life the Gilmores were going without being too sappy about it. And then the revival destroyed all my expectations for the Gilmore Girls characters.

The revival was more frustrating than the seventh season by far. Part of the problem was trying to fit plot into ninety minute chunks. As a result, there was so much dead time following jokes and subplots that didn’t seem to hold much importance. For example, the show spent 15 minutes unnecessarily following the songs of the Stars Hollow musical when all we really needed was a small snippet that showed the reason for Lorelai’s distaste for it. Also, not to say that the show’s always been totally realistic before (like how shy and studious Rory Gilmore manages to suddenly attract all these guys?), but too many plot points were contrived beyond the bounds of reality. Lorelai telling the horrible story about her father after the funeral wasn’t at all realistic, even considering the pressure she was under. Even Lorelai could come up with something better than that. Also, Lorelai’s decision to deal with her relationship questions is to go on a hike spanning thousands of miles and several weeks when she hates nature and really should be communicating to solve her relationship problems since that’s what started them in the first place. And then the trippy dream sequence where suddenly Logan and his old college buddies suddenly show up in steampunk outifts to pick up Rory, go get drunk at a tango club, then buy out a hotel for the night? I wish it was a dream- the whole thing kept going and going. It wasn’t until the end of the whole sequence I realized that it actually happened at all. The most frustrating part of the whole thing is Rory’s immaturity despite her age. Rory is in her mid thirties, has a good education, landed a few good jobs and is intelligent and independent, yet cannot stop making horrible decisions. She is homeless and unemployed, searching for a perfect job that will truly put her skills to use. Her over confidence resulting from her previous success story lead her to ignore current job offers and then lose those offers when she doesn’t bother to prepare to be interviewed for them. Not to mention her irresponsibility with her romantic relationships. Rory strings along her boyfriend of two years Paul throughout the revival, always forgetting to break up with him and even forgetting he exists, not even having the decency to break up with him over text. She is also in a relationship with Logan despite him being engaged to a different girl (you think she would have learned her lesson after cheating with Dean) but still feels hurt when she realizes Logan’s fiance has moved in and she can’t be with Logan anymore. On top of all that, while interviewing people for a story she proceeds to hit it off with a group of people, get drunk with them, and have a one night stand with a guy in a wookie costume. All of Rory’s decisions throughout the revival make no sense with the kind of character that was built throughout the original series. She goes from a responsible, dedicated girl to being protrayed as self centered, entitled, and dishonest from how she treats her career and relationships. At the end of the revival she is still unemployed (unless you count her dead end job at the Stars Hollow Gazette), not in any lasting romantic relationship (despite how the show has long teased us about Logan) and is stuck in Stars Hollow even with all the potential she had to get out and make something of herself. It doesn’t fit with everything we’ve learned and hoped about Rory, and it certainly crushes any dreams of success we had for her at the end of the seventh season.

Not to say that the revival didn’t get anything right, though. With the return of Sherman-Palladino, much of the witty banter was back and I was able to laugh at a few light hearted moments. The treatment of the death of Richard, due to the passing of the actor who portrayed him, Edward Herrmann, was very respectfully done and added a deeper level to each of the characters, especially Emily. Though she has always been portrayed as shallow and materialistic, overly concerned with the importance of image, we get to see her reevaluate the importance of the things in her life without completely losing the things that make her Emily Gilmore. The progression of her character through grief and rediscovering herself, she progresses and rises above the tragedy, taking a new direction in her life and finding new purpose beyond being just a housewife. Despite how the plot annoyed me to no end, the actors dutifully carried out their roles with skill and poise. There was never any lack of convincing acting in this show- only unconvincing situations. The show allowed us to see how life has progressed for some of the minor characters- Paris is the head of a successful company yet still struggles emotionally, Lane and Zack are still happily married and pursuing their dream of music despite having kids, and Jess has finally lost the bad boy attitude and is making something out of his life (unlike Rory, whom for some crazy reason he still seems to have feelings for). As a longtime fan of the show, it was nice to see these characters bakc and having good futures with the occasional struggle in hand. But even all the banter, acting skills, and minor character plotlines couldn’t redeem this revival in my mind. I was totally disappointed with the direction that Rory’s character had gone in and most plot points seemed overly contrived and unrealistic. The revival, instead of building off the Gilmore Girls legacy and leaving me more satisfied, only left me feeling confused and frustrated with most of the characters for either taking this long to reach a happy ending or not really progressing at all. After watching the revival, I’ve decided to treat the seventh season finale as the true ending to the story- one where I can imagine the futures for the Gilmores for myself instead of having unrealistic plot twists and character developments (or regressions) shoved down my throat.