WARNING: if Gilmore Girls is your life and you hate seeing negative opinions about the show, this is NOT the review for you. You’re still welcome to read, but you may not enjoy yourself. 😉
The show opens and just the first 15 minutes of the first episode has me begging myself to turn it off. I did watch through all 4 episodes, though I didn’t actually enjoy it. I tried to rewatch before finishing this post, but couldn’t make it halfway through the first episode.
The ‘witty banter’ is like SO exhausting. The shtick-y gags are tired. So tired. Watching someone run through town trying to get phone reception COULD be funny, but certainly not here, with these characters and this writing. 😛 There is way too much of this sort of silliness and none of it feels genuine or is actually funny.
The below is really just the tip of the iceberg, since I’m not going to get into Kirk & Taylor being their annoying selves times two, Emily Gilmore is still racist, and why on earth is every single character miserable??
Here are my top 5 biggest annoyances from the Gilmore Girls Netflix special A Year in the Life.
1. Lorelai’s Constant Nonsense
Lorelai’s constant quips were at least bearable in the original show, most of the time. Sometimes annoying, but still enough character motivation to keep you interested.
Now, she’s a middle aged woman with a 30 year old daughter! It’s not funny. It’s not cute. It’s stupid and annoying and makes me hate her.
Rage-firing a perfectly good chef because he moved a coffee pot (but really she can’t get over the fact that he’s not Sookie)??
The painting thing drove me crazy. Who cares if Mrs. Gilmore ended up with a huge painting instead of a ‘normal’ sized one? Why is Lorelai arguing with her grieving mother, who just lost her life partner of like 40 years, over something so unimportant as a giant portrait? It’s just so cringe.
2. Lorelai And Luke Have Not Talked About Kids?
In TEN YEARS. That’s some next level terrible communication. And also makes no sense for the characters, because they already talked about kids in Season 6 when they first started dating. It’s definitely unbelievable that they never brought it back up because they both just ‘assumed’ the other person didn’t want to.
I get that the writers/producers just wanted to sort of start back right where they left off in Season 7, but that produced terrible storylines. Why couldn’t Luke and Lorelai have had a kid or two? That has so much great potential.
Instead we got this weird and awkward storyline where they haven’t discussed kids and now are running around trying to get information on IVF and surrogacy and Luke thinks he literally has to have sex with another woman to do it. It just felt so strange and unnecessary.
Not to mention, I don’t think that is what the fans really wanted. Yes, they wanted to come back and experience the town, the family, the friends. That doesn’t mean everything has to be Season 7 2.0! Show them as people with 10 years history. 10 years older.
3. Rory is Like the Most Entitled Person Ever
Logan’s dad was right – Rory is not tough enough or really cut out to be a reporter. This is first evidenced by the fact that him telling her that completely destroys her sense of self. Her opinion of HERSELF was completely tied up in what he, essentially a random dude, thought of her. He was harsh, and maybe even cruel, but you will encounter people like that in life and have to be able to progress on your own regardless.
Now, we see Rory 10 years later and… not doing much of anything. Just coasting off of a single op-ed she wrote for the New Yorker. She half-heartedly applies for jobs, none of which she actually wants to work. She is presented with opportunities that she basically spits on.
Everyone in Rory’s life still treats her like the best thing since sliced bread and constantly is telling her how amazing and special she is. No wonder she has an entitlement complex.
This could have been an interesting story about how entitled she has always been, and it coming to a head when real life ends up kicking her in the butt. I didn’t get the feeling that’s what they were going for, though. Rory always has been, and still is, painted as sympathetic. We are supposed to empathize and identify with her struggles, heartaches, and disappointments.
I have a hard time doing that when literally everything that is wrong in her life is her doing. She is constantly making terrible life decisions that end up causing the minor issues she deals with. She doesn’t actually have to struggle, as she’s set to inherit millions, has two homes she could indefinitely ‘crash in’ at any time, and has job offers that she turns down. Everyone in Rory’s life still treats her like the best thing since sliced bread and constantly is telling her how amazing and special she is. No wonder she has an entitlement complex.
4. Rory is Still Literally Pining Over Dean
Rory Relationship-Ruining Gilmore, is a thirty-two year old woman still pathetically pining over her “lost love”, a high school boyfriend. She happens to see him in the store and everything is super awkward and tense and very much has that ‘the one who got away’ kind of tone.
Honestly, Dean wasn’t even that great. Not only did he end up cheating on his wife, and is apparently still mooning over his high school girlfriend even after 10 years married with children, but he wasn’t even that awesome as Rory’s boyfriend.
The one thing that really stood out to me is how butthurt he got about her wanting to spend time alone at home and not want to be together literally every second of every day, and how kind of offensive he was about Rory and books. Honestly, how he treated her opinions in general when they differed from his.
I mean, he wasn’t a book-ripper, but he never really respected or liked that aspect of her personality. Which was like 80% of her personality. Like, I had no interest in basketball before I met my husband, but he loves it, so I enjoy listening to him talk about it because I love to see him interested! This doesn’t mean you have to take deep interest in everything your significant other likes, but at a bare minimum you shouldn’t be annoyed by the fact that they ‘enjoy it too much’, which the vibe I ALWAYS got from him.
5. GilMeanGirls
Ok, that was a really dorky word mash, but the point still stands. I mean, there were always some moments in the original show where they were over the top and too mean. I always felt a distinct disgust toward pregnancy, childbirth, and even motherhood in general in this show, a problem that follows Amy Sherman-Palladino into her new show as well (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Here, there are entire scenes dedicated to judging and being disgusted by fat people at a pool, falling asleep listening to ‘boring’ people, forgetting a boyfriend even exists.
Lorelai has not matured and if anything, Rory has regressed.
Let’s just talk Paul for a minute. Literally what did this guy do or not do to the Gilmores? Even Luke is a jerk about it. He’s TOO nice? He actually takes the time to get to know them, to do really thoughtful gestures, and sticks by Rory even though she’s not very good at hiding the fact that she forgets about him all the time. And they despise him for it? They actually discuss how annoying it is that he cares about them.
Remember, these stories are written from the Gilmore point of view, and we are meant to identify with their perspectives. There is no learning moment here. At no point does someone point out that how they’re treating him is pretty awful and then they learn to be better people. Eventually, Rory just breaks up with him, and he disappears.
Lorelai has not matured and if anything, Rory has regressed. I feel like Luke in A Year in the Life is the physical embodiment of my feelings on this ‘sequel’:
Old, and exhausted by the Gilmores’ nonsense.