20 Times 'Gilmore Girls' Literally Made No Sense
In the early 2000s, a quaint town and its townspeople stole our hearts. Then, inbounded the most relatable brunettes to tell their story and make sure we weren't going anywhere. We didn't realize it then, but Gilmore Girls was the show we didn't know we needed.
Based on a single mom doing the best she could to raise her daughter, the show gave us something to look forward to on Tuesdays and a reason to remind our own moms how amazing they are. Stars Hollow was the fictional place everyone wanted to live in, so much so that it seemed impossible to comprehend it could be an actual destination by a different name.
It's hard to imagine a time when we didn't have Friday evening dinners at the estate, tubs of ice cream to heal a breakup, and more gossip than we could fit into a town hall meeting. How could young girls even get through their formative years without life lessons from Rory?
Gilmore Girls blessed us with seven epic seasons, eight technically if you count the 2016 revival. While we learned a lot from the show and fell in love with its characters all over again every week, there were plenty of times it just didn't make any sense. We want to keep reliving the magic, but there are some things that must be addressed first.
20 Mornings Can't Always Start With A Sit-Down Breakfast
Breakfast is supposedly the most important meal of the day. Lorelai and Rory would agree. But try telling that to any other average multi-tasking human and you will be laughed at. Very few people have the luxury of eating anything that isn't a grab-and-go snack as they rush out the door for one of three 8 am meetings that they are already running late for. To be super lucky would be to actually finish swallowing that pastry or yogurt before the boss intercepts you on your way to said meetings and demands to know where the thing he wants is.
Basically, we're calling “not a chance” on Rory and Lorelai's near-daily morning soiree at Luke's Diner.
There would have been too much for Lorelai to do at the Inn, too much homework for Rory, and too few dollars in the bank account (don't even get us started on this one) for it to happen. In all fairness, we were reminded by Bustle article that they would often take two bites of food and then scamper out the door to start their busy days. But then it makes even less sense why they would go to all that trouble in the first place.
19 Rory Didn't Really Need To Enroll At Chilton
Reddit users have long been trying to figure out if Rory actually needed to go to Chilton in order to be accepted to Yale. In short, she didn't (but the outfit was pretty cool and we're proud of her for sticking with it after a fairly awful first day).
While we learned from College Transitions that private school counselors spend a significant amount more time on counseling students about their college choices and assisting on applications, lots of kids from public schools are accepted into Ivy League institutions. Coming from a public school may even be a benefit as you might stand out better amongst your peers. Plus, prestige isn't everything. Other things that matter on an admissions decision include demonstrated volunteer service, test scores, extracurricular activities, and academics performance.
Rory was very smart (who else reads all the great Russian novelists by age 10) and was a good student that applied herself in the classroom. She probably could have given back to the community a bit more, but that alone isn't a reason to assume she would never get into her top schools.
Remember when she almost didn't go to Chilton (because of a boy, not because she thought through the points made here), but eventually opted in? Imagine the storyline if she had in fact just kept working hard at Stars Hollow High and still achieved her dreams.
18 It Is Impossible To Consume That Much Coffee
Go ahead, we dare you. Actually, please don't take that bet and instead trust us that Rory and Lorelai would have been too caffeinated to actually function. Also, trust the Mayo Clinic - the folks over there advise no more than four cups of coffee per day. No, this wouldn't be a typical afternoon crash. More like afternoon jitters, muscle spasms, and possible hallucinations. We wouldn't even be having this discussion if the girls had been hooked on fruit smoothies, but alas, their vice was coffee.
According to Refinery 29, Lorelai drank six cups of coffee per day in the pilot episode. While this tapered out a bit (and maybe depended on whether or not she was seeing her parents that day, a task for which she needed to be quicker with wit and stamina).
The same people also calculated that Lorelai and Rory consumed a grand total of 503 cups of coffee between the two of them over the show's seven seasons.
And because this is truly fascinating stuff, Refinery 29 even discovered that some seasons were bathed heavier in caffeine. Namely, the most coffee-loving season was the first (80 total cups) and the least was the fifth.
We could try to dig deeper and run another analysis, but coffee is calling.
17 Sookie And Jackson Never Discussed Children Before Marriage
Sookie and Jackson are adorable. Sookie and Jackson with their frequent communication miscues that lead to disagreements are even more adorable. Sookie and Jackson with kids are the most adorable. But Sookie and Jackson realizing they hadn't discussed the important topic of children before marriage were a little painful.
Of all the things on the checklist to make sure have been covered pre-marriage, that's probably at the top or a close second. Their relationship did move at lightning pace and Sookie was very aloof, so it's possible they simply didn't get around to this chat or they did and Sookie just forgot. But we all remember the newlywed episode in which Jackson proclaims he wants to have four babies in four years with his new bride.
While things didn't quite end up that way (at least in part because of a medical procedure that reportedly happened but didn't really), there were so many questions that remained at the end of the seventh season. Most of those weren't even answered in the revival because Sookie was away growing food for much of it (let's just call it what it is and say Melissa McCarthy is a very in-demand woman). All we know is Sookie and Jackson are still together and thriving, which gives us hope in the world.
16 Nobody Would Eat At Luke's Diner In Real Life
With a ban on cell phones, man buns, and taking pictures of the food, there really wouldn't be a point in going out to eat (we know you're thinking about when the last time you actually enjoyed a meal that wasn't photographed before being consumed). Sure, there are places that require a jacket for dinner and make use of a tiny vacuum to clean the table linen between courses. But leave the man buns alone.
Luke's Diner, with its unwelcoming demeanor, is a staple in Stars Hollow.
It seems like the customers are always unhappy, battling poor service from an understaffed and overwhelmed owner.
It sounds to us like a recipe for a bad review on Yelp and the chef leading the pack is, of course, Luke with this backward ball cap. But the people just kept coming and Luke's Diner is probably the most recognizable spot for fans of the show, prompting Luke's Diner pop-up shops in 200 cafes across the country on the sixteenth anniversary of the first episode. There was even a Snapchat filter to commemorate the occasion, through social media use seems to go against the basic rules of the real (real in Stars Hollow) diner.
No word on if the pop-up shops were allowing man buns.
15 Everyone Was Super Unfaithful To Their Significant Others
This is a judgment-free zone but come on, people. There must have been something in the water (err, coffee) in Stars Hollow because the concept of commitment was clearly lost on many of the town's characters and we just can't understand it. Rory cheated on her most recent boyfriend, Paul, with Logan. Dean cheated on his wife, Lindsay, with Rory. Lorelai cheated on Luke with Rory's father, Chris. Rory cheated on her first boyfriend, Dean, with Jess. We might get even more confused if we list others, but we could keep going.
An old question and response thread on Quora that still rings true today is that television characters are pitted against each other and portrayed as unfaithful in relationships to highlight character flaws that otherwise might not be so readily apparent. Okay, we won't argue that point. However, we still could have had a delightful show about a mother and daughter duo (which is what Gilmore Girls is really supposed to be about) without all the heartache (ours and theirs) and cheating. Relationship drama makes good television, but so do a lot of other things (road trips with friends, cupcake battles, puppies - to name a few). Just saying.
14 Rory Is Always Home From School
This one is a head-scratcher. We're not talking about when Rory dropped out of Yale to move into her grandparents' pool house and become a sort of event planner. Rather, this is about when she was in school and frequently spent weekends at home.
Her schedule seemed to allow her the flexibility to go out on a Friday night and then hop back over to see her mom in time for Saturday morning coffee at Luke's Diner and then make it back to Yale sometime on Sunday night or Monday for regularly scheduled classes.
And this was all before Uber, so you know the logistics were tricky. Press repeat for the next weekend. College is a time for self-exploration, self-sacrifice, and self-awareness. Maybe Rory found Yale overwhelming (plausible considering she did take a year off) or maybe she was trying to justify not having a major job outside school by saying that she needed to be home on the weekends. Maybe she just wanted her own bed and that sweet slice of take-out pizza she had become accustomed to. Whatever her reasoning, any former college student will likely tell you Rory's self-imposed schedule sounds exhausting (and seriously when did that girl study or make friends?).
13 The Band Had One Job And Couldn't Even Play
A step up from air guitar, in which you mimic holding a guitar and pretend to jam out, is when you actually do hold a guitar and still pretend to jam out. The prop gives the illusion that the sound is happening in real time, but just as Super Bowl halftime shows can be faked so can this. As much as we want to believe everything we heard on the show, the hometown fictional band, Hep Alien, was just pretending.
According to the Huffington Post, the scream-singing (and band member on band member arguments) was real, just not the instrument part. Well, until Sebastian Bach was brought into the fold. At which point he probably couldn't believe his ears and proceeded to blow everyone away with the sounds of an actual rock star.
In all fairness, the original band members (Lane, Zack, Brian, and Dave - until Dave left for the much more dramatic O.C.) could thumb enough cords and hit the drum sticks just right to get by, but weren't confident enough to play the full songs. For this, the show's producers hired musicians to stand just out of camera range to play while the cast made it look good. They also had a little help from Rush frontman, Geddy Lee, for a short time.
12 Luke Forgot To Tell Lorelai About His Daughter
You might forget to tell the person you are seeing that your parents are coming into town and staying at the house. It would even be excusable to show up a bit late (anything short of Ryan Gosling late) to a date. And, since nobody is perfect, maybe you can get away with failing to mention a criminal record that might pose some problems when booking that romantic trip to Mexico. But one does not simply forget to mention that one has a child.
Okay, Luke didn't technically forget about April. He just chose to selectively find this out and then leave this tidbit of information out of every conversation he ever had with Lorelai.
Even though it is definitively challenging to get a word in edgewise with how fast she talks, there were windows. So, when April magically showed up in season six it is easy to understand how her presence threw a wrench into Luke and Lorelai's relationship. According to Vulture, April (Vanessa Marano in real life) ended up being scorned by fans for all this wrench-throwing, none of which was her fault. However, the blame has to land somewhere so it may as well be with April (by maybe the blame actually lands with Luke and not an innocent child?).
11 Paris Geller Never Got Her Own Spinoff Series
In a ranked order of best to worst Gilmore Girls characters released by the Revelist, Paris is just outside the top ten. Her brutal honestly, tough love mentality, vulnerability, and admission that she would do anything for the people she cares about making her a lovable gal. We all need someone in our life to call us out on our shenanigans when nobody else will. Paris was always the one to say what everyone else was thinking but couldn't bring themselves to say, especially when it came to Rory. Basically, we need a Paris to our Rory.
A 2017 Bustle article made mention of how odd it was that a show as successful as Gilmore Girls didn't produce any spin-offs. While there were a few characters that could have handled the focus for at least a few episodes (including Emily, because we're dying to dig deeper into her life), the most likely spin-off series would have been granted to Paris. And based on her twelfth-favorite character status, we think people would have watched (even just to hear what speech she had prepared).
For seven seasons, we never really got to know Paris in full. There were other characters with limited backstories, but Paris' situation was special as the main character whose roots we couldn't trace. She was so different from the other characters. Plus, her adult life was super interesting and there is a gaping hole between the season seven finale and the revival.
10 The Movie References On The Show Are Super Random
Break out the popcorn and get cozy, folks. It's about to get weird. For as many times we've watched Gilmore Girls, the actual “Gilmore girls” have watched twice as many (maybe three times as many) movies. Thanks to Buzzfeed, we didn't need to scan carefully through every episode created to pick out the top movie references.
An obsession with A Beautiful Mind is out of the ordinary, even by Gilmore standards. That said, this was one of the most watched and/or referenced movies during the series. Right up there near the top was Wizard of Oz, An Affair to Remember, Casablanca, Fiddler on the Roof, Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, and Mary Poppins. Oh, we almost forgot Lord of the Rings and Bambi. We're not sure how all of these films are tied together (aside from great music and misplaced love interests in exotic locales).
So, our best guess is that the Gilmore Girls creator just really likes an eclectic bunch of movies and took advantage of the opportunity to add a bit of her own style.
In case you were curious, the West Wing was only referenced one time. Just once. This is almost more confusing than the seven times the writers found a way to work in Willy Wonka.
9 Lane's Mom Was Cursed With The Worst Reputation
Growing up, you always want your mom to be the “cool” mom. The one that lets you do things on super short notice, buys you and your friends the best snacks for weekly hangout sessions and knows which boys are popular. The one that purses her lips at your outfit choices, but allows you to leave the house looking like that. Yeah, you want the cool mom that don't panic if you're a few minutes past curfew and wears that bands t-shirt because she hears you singing every word of their hit song (and then surprises you with concert tickets because she is super cool).
If this is the barometer of a “cool” mom, Lane Kim's mom was anything but cool (though by the end of the series we understood more about her personality and reasoning). She terrified all of Lane's classmates and Lane herself often didn't even take a chance in crossing her mother. Mrs. Kim disapproved of most of Lane's interests, including the heart and soul that was her music. For all of this, she was given one of the worst TV mom reputations.
But Mrs. Kim was actually the sweetest, or at least had some very sweet moments. Like when she helped Hep Alien go on tour and jumped for joy at the news Lane was expecting.
8 All Of Season Seven… Just The Entire Thing
Television enthusiasts would like to pretend that the seventh season never happened (we will not acknowledge a time when Lorelai and Luke weren't together). In a nutshell, the show's creator (Amy Sherman-Palladino) left at the end of season six over a contract dispute and took with her a brain full of plans and plot twists that would have brought closure (and more sense) to the characters of Stars Hollow. Fans fumbled through that final season hoping it would eventually come full circle, but it never did. It wasn't just fans that felt something was missing, cast members did too.
According to TV Guide, Lauren Graham (aka Lorelai) blocked out the entire season from her memory.
When shooting the revival, she didn't even remember that she had in fact married Christopher in season seven. She was, by her definition (and we would agree), “out of character”.
She wasn't the only one that thought season seven felt off. Kelly Bishop (aka Emily Gilmore) told Entertainment Weekly that many of her proposed lines that year weren't “Emily lines”. She noted even just missing Amy's presence while they were filming, a feeling that overshadowed what should have been an opportunity to cement the Gilmore Girls legacy.
7 The Two Places Emily Will Never Eat: Perched At The Bar Or Outdoors
Emily Gilmore: female extraordinaire and force of nature (that's probably what they will say about her at her 100th birthday celebration, which she will live to celebrate even if only to spite people that didn't think she could). Emily is the queen of class, punctuality, and one-line sentences that will throw your whole day off. She takes care of business (that woman ripped a hole into the Daughters of the American Revolution) without a second thought, but can let loose from time to time. Plus, she refuses to eat outdoors or at a bar so you know she has some other hidden quirks.
She has a whole bunch of beliefs and sayings, most of which make little sense (you can definitely take coffee in the car and you should put walnuts in salad), but according to Eater her food habits that center on “location, location, location” might be the oddest.
The woman is moving to Nantucket, so she is probably going to have to eat outside at some point. Even pretending she can continue to avoid eating outside, she is definitely going to have to overcome her aversion to bar seating. If there are not any tables available does she just leave? Or would Emily Gilmore never be caught dead entering a restaurant she hadn't first made a reservation at?
6 Rory And Lorelai Never Eat A Vegetable
Dinnertime around the Gilmore house probably went something like this:
Lorelai: “Hey, want to try that new place across town? I hear they have a hamburger that isn't actually meat but tastes just like meat”.
Rory: "Ew. I could run to the store and pick up some ingredients to make salads. Okay?"
Lorelai: "Hard pass. Let me see what we have in the cupboard… looks like canned beets, some sort of kale pesto, and asparagus spears that have been in here since last year".
Rory and Lorelai (simultaneously): "Let's just order pizza".
While we would probably also choose the pizza, we do crave healthy foods from time to time.
When a Bustle writer tried the “Gilmore Diet” as it will forever be remembered, she nearly gave up halfway through in a desolate land somewhere between Poptarts and Pringles.
Really, it's just a lot of work to have a diet full of trans-fats. There's the constant facial cleansing (because greasy food is skin's worst enemy), exercising, and shame associated with your neighbors seeing what's in your garbage bag when you throw it out. Even with all this, amazingly, Rory and Lorelai seem to not be phased (and, may we say, still look fabulous).
5 The Abundance Of Poorly Made Decisions That Could Have Been Avoided
We've already been over the cheating, crazy amounts of coffee, and casting woes. Those were definitely bad decisions. But those were really just the tip of the iceberg. As you likely remember, there were so many more bad decisions. And, because we can't spend all day on this, we're just going to focus on those made by a few key characters.
Let's start with one that made Ranker's list titled, “the biggest mistakes Gilmore Girls ever made”. In the fourth season, somewhere between Luke and Christopher and back again, Lorelai takes an interest in a man that basically fell out of the sky. He went by Digger and worked with Lorelai's father. If they really wanted him in the show they could have cast him in a number of different ways, but to place him into Lorelai's life like that was just odd.
Turning our attention to Rory, now, we find ourselves at the intersection of a day with Jess versus her own mother's graduation. We couldn't believe (it's really a stretch and doesn't actually seem believable for Rory's character) she would miss such an important event just to gallivant around New York City with a boy.
Everything listed here was a bad decision that could have been avoided. It just doesn't make sense to us why some of these were written in as they didn't add much to the overall show.
4 Michel Seems Miserable But Never Quits His Job
Oh, Michel. Our most salty and sassy innkeeper that hated socializing, often wished ill upon guests and refused to help them, and didn't care even a little bit about the first snowfall. You just have to respect someone that chooses a profession they were not made for. And frankly, Michel was not made for the Inn. He was probably only even in Stars Hollow to recover from the traumatic swan event (go back and watch that episode).
With his thick French accent and defiance, Michel added a dose of reality (and diversity) to the show.
He was miserable at the Inn (well, in life in general) and made sure to stick it out to give us the power to talk back to our bosses (we only wish). But why didn't he leave?
We've all had that coworker or know somebody who has. The person that dodges conversations and makes sure to leave exactly at the end of their shift in case anybody was to ask him or her to get together after hours. That's, of course, the same person that finds an excuse to skip office parties (sounds like Michel to a tee) and never discusses their personal life. These folks are miserable (probably making your life miserable), but they just won't quit no matter how bad it gets.
3 Jane Lynch Was In An Episode And We Don't Remember It
You're probably still reeling from the news that you almost got to gaze into Ryan Gosling's baby blues while he made a name for himself as the best Stars Hollow High quarterback. Maybe you're still trying to calculate how many more cups of coffee you need to drink today to live up to Gilmore Girls fame. But while we were busy erecting our Ryan shrine and thinking about coffee, we missed Jane Lynch.
Our beloved Jane makes an appearance in the first season (episode ten, to be specific) of Gilmore Girls. Apparently, before she was a track coach (shout out to you, Sue Sylvester), she was a hospital nurse. In that episode, she is left to interface with the begrudging Emily Gilmore after her husband, Richard's, first heart attack. Well, a lot happened in that episode - Rory and Lorelai aren't speaking and Emily uninvites Lorelai from the holiday party - but we're pretty sure the most important part was Jane's cameo. It is debatable whether or not her scene, which was less than five minutes in total, is really what put her on the map. Anyway, we can still say that we knew her back when she wore scrubs before she made it big.
2 Ryan Gosling Didn't Make The Casting Cut In Auditions
There were plenty of hunks on Gilmore Girls (mainly Milo Ventimiglia), but there was almost one more. According to Us Weekly, Ryan Gosling was being tapped to play the star football player. While we don't know if he would have maintained a recurring role, he didn't even get the chance to sweep Rory off her feet (or us) or serve coffee at Luke's Diner. This hurts worse than when we learned from Time that Gosling had been invited to be a Backstreet Boy and AJ ruined everything.
Us Weekly reported that the show's casting director had previously worked with Gosling and offered him an opportunity to audition. His blonde hair and fashionably late attitude didn't win him any favors and he nearly had to beg for a second audition.
Since this is just now coming to the surface, you correctly guessed that the second audition didn't go any better than the first. Apparently, Gosling lacked “potential”.
No word yet on whether or not the producers name the Gosling guffaw as one of their biggest regrets. But Glamour did the math and discovered The Notebook was released just four years after the first Gilmore Girls episode, which means Gosling might have been too busy chasing Rory to deliver a true love story. So, maybe everything worked out like it was supposed to.
1 Nobody Tips The Town Troubadour
If you were waiting until the end of this article to pick your favorite character from the show, look no further. We give you, Grant Lee Phillips, better known as the Town Troubadour. Every town in America should be so lucky as to have a troubadour setting the scene like the one gracing Stars Hollow with his presence. He was there with his guitar through it all, the good times and the bad (he really did play that guitar, often performing songs from his real-life 1990s band). But there's one thing in particular that stands out.
Nobody ever tips the guy. He knows everyone by name, greeting them with a smile, and they know him. Yet, there are never any quarters thrown his way. It doesn't make sense. Is he just so altruistic that he keeps that guitar case shut so there is no temptation to make an offering? Or, has Taylor, with his watchful eye over Stars Hollow, prohibited him from accepting money? Maybe everyone spent all of their loose change at Luke's Diner and they have nothing to give?
Even without that Stars Hollow cash, the show further launched his personal career. In an interview reported on by Bustle, Grant gives much credit to Gilmore Girls producers for allowing him to share his music and story with the world. And with that humble attitude, now we like him even more.
References: Us Weekly, Time, Glamour, Reddit, College Transitions, Revelist, Bustle, Vulture, Bustle, Bustle, Mayo Clinic, Refinery 29, Refinery 29, Quora, Huffington Post, TV Guide, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Eater, Ranker, Bustle