Dee Discusses: Gilmore Girls Season 6

The last two seasons of the Gilmore Girls saw a dip in quality and a subsequent dip in popularity too. We die hard fans weren’t going to be scared off, but they were definitely putting us through the ringer. This is a season when at times the drama seemed forced instead of natural, and the tone was off in several places. It was the season with the most fighting and conflict, with Lorelai and Rory not speaking for about nine episodes, which really hurt the show considering it sold itself on the mother-daughter relationship. To be fair, I think they were trying to challenge that and see how the two did on their own, but nearly half a season of  it starts to drag. This is the season where pretty much no one was happy for long. Previously in season six, Rory stole a yacht after Logan’s father said she didn’t have what it took to be a journalist, and she was arrested for it. She decided to take a year off Yale and live in her grandparents’ guest house after fighting viciously with her mother. Lorelai proposed to Luke, which made us shipper happy, but also it seemed murky to start with considering it came after the bad stuff with Rory. Was she just trying to hold onto any happiness she could find? Maybe a little too tightly? Well this season answered that.

The first half of the season Rory was in a funk. She had to do community service to make up for stealing the yacht, and she was angry with Lorelai, especially when she found out about her engagement to Luke from a third party. She was at her most sullen and annoying this season, in my opinion. Normally people go through this when they’re fourteen, so it made sense a girl who was typically mature and level headed would get to it a little later. I liked that Rory struggled and everything didn’t come easily to her, but I also wanted to be like ‘honey, it gets worse, wait until you get into the real world.’ One pompous man criticized her and the world was coming to an end? She was not well equipped to deal with the world, let’s be real. Eventually Rory and Lorelai did make up, and we were all thankful for that, because it was tense and uncomfortable before that. The kick in the pants Rory needed was surprisingly Jess. I mentioned earlier on in my reviews that I disliked Jess, but I was very satisfied with his conclusion. I still feel that way strongly. I think they did an excellent job with showing Jess having grown up in a realistic way; he was at a point where only his good points were highlighted. He matured. He paid Luke back and showed true appreciation now that he was successful, and he told Rory she wasn’t acting like herself. It wasn’t him trying to get her back; he was speaking as someone who cared about her, knew the type of person she was, and believed she could do better. And it felt right coming from someone she would actually listen to. So Jess, you drove me insane when you were on the show and I couldn’t wait for you to leave, but you might have one of the most satisfying character arcs in the show. You left on a high note and gave me an appreciation for your overall journey. Bravo, writers!

Rory does eventually get her head on straight and return to school, taking the paper away from Paris (ouch), and her relationship with Logan was back and forth a lot. His parents being such jerks to Rory didn’t help, I’m sure. They break up for a time, and eventually get back together, but Rory gets angry when she finds out he slept around a lot after they broke up. I’m not sure she has a right to get that upset about it. No one wants to hear the person they love got around with a bunch of people, definitely not, but it’s not surprising considering who Logan is, and he didn’t owe her anything at that point. Then it led to some arguments about his partying too much and he injured himself while drunk, and that made them get together again. I was never a huge fan of their relationship, so I ended up going ‘eh’ to a lot of it. Logan heads off to London at the end of the season. Emily and Richard spent the season being supportive of Rory, while being equally concerned for her at the same time. There’s a fall out (NATURALLY) between Lorelai and her parents, since she’s mad about them enabling Rory, but that also softens with time. I do appreciate that once Emily and Richard found out how terribly Logan’s parents treated Rory they were having none of that nonsense. There was also some awkwardness when Christopher uses his inheritance to pay for Rory’s education, meaning the Gilmores didn’t need to pay for it. But that was settled with Lorelai agreeing to go to Friday dinners regardless.

I’ve been avoiding the main storyline that makes me so sad this season, and I will just a little more. Lane and Zack break up, as well as the band, but then he proposes to her unexpectedly.  Sookie and Jackson make Lorelai and Rory the kids’ godmothers so they’d make up while they were still fighting. Christopher! Oh yuck Christopher. Sigh okay so he comes back when he has his inheritance and pays for Yale, as I mentioned above. Lorelai and Rory deal with him more, and Lorelai is concerned about how spoiled rotten Christopher’s daughter Gigi is. My guess is that it was over compensation considering how he bailed on his first kid. Alright I have to talk about it. Luke and Lorelai are engaged and it doesn’t bring either of them as much happiness as it should. Luke is notorious for being slow about things, and a controversial event happens: he finds out he has a daughter April. Her mother never told him, and very suddenly he gets thrust into a role as a father, and he’s not certain if it’s something he wants or can do. Of course we all know he’s a good father, he cared for Rory a great deal and took care of her whenever he could. At first he hides this from Lorelai. I think it’s partly because he wasn’t sure how he felt about it, and there was so much changing in his life already. Also it could be that Lorelai is so dynamic and good with kids, maybe April would start liking her more than Luke and leaning on her for parental support/advice. I’m not sure, I think the general idea is that Luke basically panics a lot this season about too many things changing, and it means he digs his heels in and refuses to push forward. Lorelai gives him an ultimatum: get married or break up. And they break up. Nooooooooooo. I can’t say it was a surprise since most of the season was building up to the fact that neither of them was as happy as they should have been in their situation. But they still had such fabulous chemistry, even when things were difficult. It was a very sad way to end the season, and this was overall not a very popular season. It was a little too dramatastic at the end of the day, but in ways that seemed attention-getting rather than natural to the plot. You can only see them screw things up massively so many times before you want everyone to act like an adult already.

Now on to the last season which wasn’t much better. Sigh.