the downfall of gilmore girls | some thoughts on where the show went wrong

oh hi today's video is coming at you approximately 15 years too late but you know what i have things to say and i'm gonna say them i watched gilmore girls for the first time last year and despite my various frustrations with it which i'm going to discuss at length in this video i adore it it is ridiculous comforting super early 2000s all the good stuff however my love for it means i hold it to a high standard i want the best for this ridiculous cast of characters and in my opinion the best was not always executed something i'm surprised isn't spoken about more is how some of the behind the scenes staff with the network and writers and cast likely contributed to some of the series most disappointing moments for me gilmore girls is like the ultimate comfort show it's a show that i just want to curl up and rewatch but one that i know will be a struggle at times to re-watch not only because there's so much of it but also because some of the stuff in it is just so frustrating so that's what i'm going to be talking about today my frustrations with gilmore girls the main series and the 2016 reboot despite how much i love it niche audience you might think but i know there's gilmore girl stands out there who will lap this up so buckle in oh and if it wasn't already obvious massive spoilers for the entire series and the reboot throughout this whole video like every spoiler you can imagine so do not watch this if you don't want the entire thing ruined but before we get into that you guessed it i'm here to talk to you about anna louisa you may have noticed the beautiful new pieces that i'm wearing and anna louisa are currently running their mother's day sale so there's 20 off the entire site which you can access at the link in the description i picked up three more pieces this time the beautiful hannah lee necklace which i just saw and was obsessed with it's like all my childhood dreams in a necklace i feel like it's one that barbie would have in one of those amazing early 2000's barbie movies that like unlocked a portal to another world or something obsessed this beautiful red gem heart pendant on a gold chain with a really eye-catching fastening i also picked the cindy necklace which i am also modeling for you today i picked this one out because pearls are really in at the moment and i think they're beautiful and i thought this was a really kind of modern take on a classic pearl necklace it's got a really really lovely dainty chain and real freshwater pearl beads spaced throughout i thought this would be really nice to layer with this necklace and the other necklace that i got as well different thicknesses of the chains i think complement each other really well and i like the length of this one as well you can wear it almost as a choker or you can extend it i just thought it was really beautiful then i also picked the lexi necklace it's like this goddess statue pendant which i love it's so so beautiful and shiny it's like a little nugget of gold and i feel it's just like really empowering you know gives me like ancient greek statue vibes i love it where it's mother's day coming up my mom and nonna have picked some pieces out from the website as well i really wanted to get them a little something to say thank you they've been seeing me get all my anna louisa parcells for ages and they want in on it so they're looking forward to that the great thing about anna louisa is they are constantly releasing new designs there is honestly something for everyone but they're released in small batches to keep it sustainable i just think their design's honestly always so creative and fresh every time i go on there something else catches my eye and i'm like oh my god i've never seen anything like that before i think anna louise's jewelry would honestly be a great gift for any woman in your life this mother's day every piece comes with a year-long warranty so you're guaranteed of quality and you can buy with confidence i genuinely love this brand so much they're a pleasure to work with and i think you will really love them as well so remember to click the link in the description to access their mother's day sale and get 20 off site-wide okay gilmore girls i am going to start with the main series overall obviously i can't get into too much detail because it was a long series a lot of episodes but i am going to give you some of the main issues that i remember from my time watching the series again it was a while ago i watched it last year so these are like the things that still stand out to me and then i will get on to the reunion because i feel like a lot of that was just a dumpster fire okay main series my main issues early on in the series we know rory is with dean first boyfriend first of three main boyfriends that we get throughout the course of the show and i think dean gets a bad rep everybody hates dean dean is like the universally hated girl girls character and i don't know why especially because i know a lot of you are team jess i'm sorry i can't be having that i know dean got annoying but i think this was a writer's fault he just had this kind of character transplant it was really weird to make way for jess they still could have shown the process of rory falling out of love with dean falling in love with jess without dean becoming an absolute insufferable sap who later goes on to cheat on his wife with rory that's not the dean of early series you know it's not he was a great first boyfriend for rory i will not have any more dean slander on this page he treated her a hell of a lot better than toxic just did remember that he didn't try and force rory to have sex with him did he also i just found it funny because i re-watched the first episode of gilmore girls recently and dean is like this mysterious almost bad guy figure like lurking in the shadows with his like leather coat on and that is so far from who he becomes jess takes over as this like bad boy figure but no i think dean was a really nice best boyfriend for rory if you disagree then i don't know what to tell you yes he had his flaws yes he had a weird kind of semi-misogynistic view of the traditional family structure but he was a teenager okay yes he got a bit jealous and possessive of rory but again a child early season dean is fine and the writers did not need to turn him into the person he became yes i am this passionate about fictional characters yes i am this invested i did a degree in english lit what do you expect point one justice for dean point two and i wonder whether this is where a lot more went wrong for rory specifically where we start to see the change in her rory letting go of her lifelong dream to study at harvard to go to yale because her grandparents want her to essentially yeah sure she made her own mind up she decided for herself but she had always wanted to go to harvard are you telling me that if she hadn't got close to her grandparents she wouldn't have gone to harvard obviously it's kind of a plot point for convenience yale is a lot closer to where stars hollow is in connecticut it means that rory can be in and out of stars hollow but i wonder if this is the moment where things start to go wrong for rory and i wonder if that's what the writers were trying to do as well to show how kind of easily influenced she is despite being this really headstrong character at first and by going to yale she is buying into that family legacy she is strengthening her connections with this world of privilege which laura and i tried really hard to get her out of and when you contextualize it with the absolute dumpster fire of rory's life that happens in season five i guess this could be seen as the start of her downfall point three just rory like rory season five to season six what was going on she was never particularly likable in my opinion i always found her a bit annoying but you know what aren't we all i can still root for you bestie but then she gets the first bit of valid criticism she's ever had in her life and she decides to steal a boat she decides to drop out of yale what was going on the creator of the show amy sherman palladino has said that people idealized rory way too much and the whole point of this storyline was to show look she's not perfect people make mistakes but like stealing a yacht though there were so many other more realistic ways they could have shown a slight downfall in rory or her flaws they decided to like literally make her a criminal it just doesn't track with the rest of our character in my opinion there either should have been more build up to that point or they should have just had an entirely different way of showing her to be flawed probably mostly this season that is is putting me off a re-watch i can't lie and then for some of season six where she's still not talking to her mum i just think this whole period in the series is just so crazy and ridiculous and it's just kind of creating tension for the sake of it like they didn't know what else to do so let's completely twist rory's character in the most ridiculous and implausible way now we're getting on to the later series and this is where the behind-the-scenes writer's disputes start to come into play i think so amy sherman palladino the creator of the show as i said got into a conflict with the network the network said it was over pay she and her husband said it was because they wanted an eighth season and they were only being given seven they wanted more writers and a short hiatus they didn't get their way and so they decided at the end of season six that's it we're done we're leaving let these guys finish it on season seven we're out so season seven was written by other people than the original creator i personally for the most part not all of it like season seven which i'll get on to later but i kind of think this is why things start to go so haywire in season six it was almost like asp shorter than amy sherman paladino was like we're leaving so let's just throw a bomb into this show and see what happens we don't have to deal with it let them get on with it we're off peace and that brings me to big issue number four i think luke's long lost daughter april i don't hate the idea of luke being a dad i think the daddy luke's scenes were cute okay but again it's just so contrived and like i know this isn't a realistic show don't get me wrong i know i'm talking about this like it's really serious but i know this is fiction but yeah just this teenager showing up in his diner one day like are you my dad oh my god really are you gonna do that really and again i think it's just because they needed a source of tension between luke and lorelai and they didn't know what else to do because it was so obvious from day one that these two were gonna end up together how do we create drama for these two characters who have only really ever had eyes for each other long lost daughter april as a plot point and luke's reaction to her just kind of felt like lazy writing to me the next point that i am going to discuss i think this is the penultimate one is the treatment of and injustices bestowed upon miss lane kim now to be fair to asp i don't think it's her that came up with the lane having twins after her first time having sex storyline what the hell was that but what she and her husband did oversee was marrying lane off to zack in season six why did they do that how does that track with lane's character at all lane wanted to be a rock star she'd never got to be her authentic self and then they marry her off and make her pregnant also her being with zack at all that was just never supposed to happen like it was so obvious that lane was supposed to end up with dave if you know a bit about the behind the scenes stuff lane was actually based on asp's bestie in real life whose husband was called dave so layne and dave obviously meant to be endgame and that didn't happen i think solely because adam brody left to film the oc which is a real shame we were robbed and that's not fully the writer's fault adam brody left they had to do something but like did they have to marry her off why couldn't have she just been lame why did she have to get married to the other guy who was in the band who she'd never shown an interest in before i just think lane deserved better i feel like at times we're just supposed to forget about her like rory does for half the time which feels really annoying because she was kind of such a central part of the early series and then when they kind of bring her back and they're like oh yeah lane they just kind of destroy her life by murraying her off and giving her babies and making her really miserable and busy and i guess that's just to kind of justify the lack of time that rory and lane's been together now but couldn't she have just like gone off on tour or something and been living her best life as a drummer i don't know seems a shame to me justice for lane and then my last main gripe with the entire series lorelei murray and christopher why did this have to happen i know luke gets married in the earlier series and that's really annoying but we knew it was early on maybe it was more frustrating if you were watching it live i was watching it 15 years later when i could see there were seven series so when he gets married really early on i'm like oh who cares they're gonna end up together naturally when lorelei married chris in season seven the last season it just meant that the rest was kind of rushed don't get me wrong love the tension i love a will they won't they moment i love that they got that happy ending at the end of season seven but did she have to marry christopher to get there though people talk about christopher and luke being the two key loves in her life and like oh who will she pick i'm like are you kidding does she ever even like christopher like and yes they got married i think in season seven so asp had already gone by that point but season six ended with the ultimatum that lorelei gives to luke says let's elope or we're not getting married and he doesn't do it and then she goes and sleeps with christopher so they kind of created the mess in season six that then has to be dealt with in season seven again it was just like another bombshell another spanner in the works that i frankly could have done without okay so they are my main series gripes now things i think they did right the ending i think the ending of season seven was really good i thought it was happy without being too perfect and it still managed to retain that kind of optimistic tone for the future things had really leveled out by the end and there was just this strong sense of hope everyone lived happily ever after even though things aren't completely closed but the end laura and luke get that happy ending rory's career is just getting started with her impressive if not really unrealistic first job working on the obama campaign trail and in my opinion we've even come to appreciate logan as the best boyfriend for rory trust me i did not see this one coming when he was introduced logan was absolutely everything i hated but i think he really mellowed out became a more well-rounded person and showed that he really genuinely cared for rory in a healthy way unlike the previous two boyfriends maybe in the last few series i really appreciated and liked rory and logan as a couple i thought they were good for each other they were just kind of at each other's level they treated each other well it made sense right didn't love the proposal at her graduation party nor did i love the fact he broke up with her on her graduation day dick move but none of that felt kind of beyond the realm of possibility people are young people make mistakes people misjudge things so i didn't think that was like a bad decision on the writer's part and as much as i ended up feeling like these two were right for each other i think it made absolute sense for rory to turn down the proposal it seemed like a decision that the younger more headstrong goal-oriented rory would have made and the ending of that college relationship right before they embark on the next chapters of their lives so they can work things out individually i just think it made sense for like 22 year old rory's character arc to finish single and career focused on a related note can we talk about that scene where rory and logan are talking about the uncertainty of their future and their relationship while they're stood at the fork in the road in the hay bale maze imagery and now the revival i'm gonna stop the things they did right this time because i feel like there's less to say paris and the fact that paris is finally more successful than rory it was so deserved i've been waiting for this one she didn't get the fully happy ending that we wanted for her maybe with doyle but i was just so glad she was rich and successful and finally doing better than rory because she always worked hard we knew that she was always really jealous of rory so paris got her not revenge because they're friends but paris got her moment she didn't get into harvard but who's winning in the revival something else i thought made sense in the revival was the maintain connection between rory and logan i feel like their relationship at the end of the main series ended so abruptly so yeah i think it made sense for them to still be a thing of sorts although the terms of that thing i'm gonna get into later and it's not in the positive section i feel like their story wasn't finished and so that that made sense and then lastly something that i enjoyed about the revival was jess's redemption i did not like jess during the main series however his maturing and his leveling out and the reunion was something that i really love to see see even i want the best of him i think he was a really great counterpoint to rory just did not come from privilege he didn't have things handed to him on a plate like rory did he wasn't seen as this golden child who could do no wrong he had it pretty tough but he pursued his passion he made the opportunity for himself and he wasn't super unrealistic about his goals like rory was i remember that season seven plot point about her applying to that like new york times internship and turning down a really good job offer because she's waiting out for that and then she doesn't get it she's quite unrealistic and overestimates her own capabilities i guess whereas jess kind of built himself from the ground up and yeah i just really liked his character development and i think asp is definitely team jess because the way he was looking at rory in that reunion i just wish the same level of character progression and development that had been given to jess had also been applied to rory and logan and i'm going to get on to that in a bit now the issues i had with the reboot literally one of the first things i noticed was the fat phobia which just made rory and lorelai really unlikeable especially considering the diet they i just felt like that scene where they were judging that man's body was so unnecessary and just gross and out of touch with the period it was filmed in we can look back at the many inappropriate things said in the original series and see them as a consequence of their time but to see the same sort of stuff carrying over a decade later was just a bit disappointing and unnecessary i thought second thing that i had issue with kirk's play asp what the hell was that bestie it was just so incongruous it just did not make any sense it went on for far too long i just i don't know why they thought it was a good idea like i love kirk more of kirk yes please but like why this fun fact asp and the rest of the writers actually wanted luke and laurel's wedding to be a much bigger affair than it ended up being when she and luke are engaged in the main series her and suki actually talk about the wedding she wants and it's very much not the wedding she got it ended up being that small nighttime gazebo affair with like three guests and that was because they used all of their budget on kirk's play hmm we were robbed at the laura lyon luke wedding we deserved because of kirk's play now all i want to know is how much money they spent on that thing jesus christ next thing which i mentioned before that i just really hated about the reunion was the complete destruction of all the character development made of rory and logan as i say logan started out for me wholly unlikable but he grew from that they showed so much development he was just shown to be a good person for rory i think by the end he had changed a lot and rory had come back from her season five season six breakdown and was on track again and was doing really well as i say the main series ended on a really positive optimistic note her starting her career fun times and then they are just an absolute mess both of them individually and together rory has a boyfriend who she forgets about the existence of regularly and she's seeing logan on the side who is engaged it's just so like out of character from the commitment they had for each other 10 years before they have the whole life and death brigade reunion which again i really could have done without i hated it i thought it was super cringy and and i hate all that kind of pretentious secret yale society thing anyway but it was just like grow up guys grow up you're in your 30s go and get a job rory rory has no career to speak of but rather than really fighting for it and using that to fuel herself she just wallows himself pity and despite all this privilege that she's had she won doesn't have a job and two is shown to be really bad at her job they show her interviewing people and she's really rude to the people she's interviewing and so disengaged and disinterested no wonder you don't have a career girly it's just a completely different character to the really enthusiastic motivated rory of the first few seasons and asp's whole argument is life doesn't turn out how you think it will life isn't perfect we have hurdles not everybody lands their dream career yes i get that but i just have a really hard time visualizing the progression and the regression i guess of rory from the main series to where she ends up in the reunion and i just found her completely unlikable in the reunion and now here's the big one those four little words that end the entire thing listen i don't even mind that rory ends up pregnant at the end of it all i don't could be a fun plot point for another series but i do hate what it stands for to prove some weird point about daughters always following in their mother's footsteps and history repeating itself if asp hadn't left before the end of the original series because of that dispute she would have ended the main series this way it was always her goal to have rory be pregnant and you know in her mind she was going to be pregnant at like 20. that just would have made me so angry because at least we can kind of collectively put the reboot in a separate box from the original take what we like about it leave the bits we don't to have ended the original series like that it suggests that rory was just going to turn into her mother despite their completely different characters and upbringings i don't agree with that as a concept and then by extension is she saying that logan is going to be the christopher of this situation is she making a parallel is she suggesting that he is going to be the carbon copy absent father figure that christopher was despite all the progress he made over the series and despite the years we've invested in him asp said the purpose of leaving rory in this position was always supposed to be that history repeats itself daughter follows mother where you lead i will follow oh yeah because that's definitely what happened with lorelei and emily isn't it i think that amy sherman palladino probably didn't like how the original series ended because it didn't fit her vision which was always to have rory become the next lore allied to be a young mother so when she comes back for the revival she decides to undo an entire series worth of character progression plot development all the work that was done to tie things into a kind of neat digestible happy package at the end of season seven to fit her own vision lorelei and luke get married that's nice but you're telling us it's taken a decade for them to do that they never had kids despite wanting them not forgetting they seem kind of miserable when things kick off richard gilmour dying was sad but necessary i guess given what happened in real life i don't mind emily's finding herself in nantucket storyline despite it seeming a little out of character but yeah the thing that i hated most was the destruction of that character development especially of rory and logan destruction of the entire series seven plot development just to land at those four final words ultimately i think the show's creator had a completely different vision for the show the characters and how things would end than anyone who watched it and liked it and i think to have committed so wholeheartedly to that just because of your own tunnel vision as a writer is a shame i get that she wanted that sense of realism that things don't always work out like you hope when you're 20. but i also think driven motivated and let's be honest super privileged people usually have some level of success ultimately it was her show and she did what she wanted with it for better or worse right i'm going to get off my years too late gilmore girls soapbox now and hopefully go for a walk because it's a beautiful day outside as always thank you for watching and remember to click the link in the description to access anne louise's mother's day sale i will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Mia Testa

Views: 110,546

Keywords: gilmore girls, lorelai gilmore, rory gilmore, lorelai and luke, rory and logan, rory and dean, rory and jess, rory and lorelai, emily gilmore, lane gilmore girls, lane kim, gilmore girls analysis, i watched gilmore girls for the first time, luke danes, jess mariano, dean forrester, logan huntzburger, yale, rory yale, paris geller, paris gilmore girls, gilmore girls essay, video essay, gilmore girls ruined, gilmore girls a year in the life, lorelai and christopher

Id: tq3ZEoJDG-k

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022