Ladies and Gentemen...THE GIRLS!

And it's all over.

Some of you know that I'm a die-hard Gilmore Girls fan, some don't. I don't know; I really don't discuss the show with many folk, but I do know that fellow efilmcritic cronies Brian, Laura, Collin, Jay Seaver and others are huge fans.

There are other friends who don't share the love; I had a near fifteen minute argument with my friend and editor Chris Parry, live on his Simon Fraser University funded CJSF radio show and Scott Weinberg and I have also lobbed a few arguments back and forth regarding this show, but at least we agree on the Drafthouse.
Whatever the case, this has been a great seven years of quality writing and storytelling. I didn't watch every tuesday night (life gets in the way and setting VCR tapes, Bittorrent and Emule downloads have certainly helped over the years) but today, seasons 1 thru 6 sit on my shelf while I await the time to make a slot for season 7. I'm a completest, you see.

I can't exactly remember where I jumped in. I have this odd knack for discovering shows when they are already in progress (this also happened with my all-time favorite TV show, Freaks and Geeks). I remember seeing various episodes of the Gilmores on our Canadian affiliate, Global, in season 1 and season 2. I liked the show but for whatever reason, didn't make a point to start following.

That all changed in season 3, in my favorite episode where Rory (Alexis Bledel) throws a party for her mother Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and the present is one of the world's largest pizzas. Not only was I totally digging on the referential dialogue and the way one story element led to another, but I also finally began to admire the relationship between parent and child. And as I began to back-track episodes, I became more involved in all of creator Amy Sherman-Palladino's world, from not just Lor and Rory but equally the people that revolved around them, from Kirk to Jess, from Sookie to Lane, and all in-between.

When the show began, Lorelai was finally managing a local hotel and wanted to send her sixteen year old kid to a prestigious prep school. Estranged from her parents, she finally decides to come back and ask them for financial help to send Rory to Chilton Prep School. They accept, but on one condition: that they both attend dinner on friday night to keep tabs on both of their lives. The following seven seasons are all of the stories, up and down, that eventually wound back up right back at that table where they began.

This was more than just an average mother-daughter television show. Gilmore Girls is really about something, about the bonds that two people can make that can last a lifetime. It asks us to follow and understand a woman who had her daughter when she was 16, rejected the silver spoon upbringing of her parents, make a name for herself and for her family and hope that her daughter gets the life that she wants and one she so deserves.

Add to that, the two have connected so closely that they are also friends as well as mother and daughter. The success to the show -- and this is important -- is how Bledel and Graham take these characters, make them work off one another, and let them fly into our hearts. The show was also brilliant in how it favored intelligence, learning and kindness over, well, everything opposite of that.

It is also about the people that come in and out of their lives, some good and some bad. For Lorelai, she had Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), the owner/operator of his own diner. The best coffee cup in town was only a stone's throw away from the house, and it was fascinating to see the world from this perspective. Lorelai had several male suitors throughout the series, but it always came back to Luke, even in the end.

For Rory, she had nice guy Dean, tough as nails Jess, a brief stint with a hopeful Marty and then Logan, who we believed was finally a personality and smarts match until a rushed marriage proposal brought everything down. In the end, Rory is without companionship but she still has her whole life to figure out as it is. That it ends on this bitersweet note for Rory is more than anything the point of her character.

I'll be honest with you...I really don't watch that much TV. I grew up a fat kid on the boob tube and when I moved into my new house, it was mostly DVD's and my endless internet addiction/obsession. But I had my Gilmores and it was something that was in my life schedule, refusing to get out. (I also followed The OC for four years until it was canceled last year. To this day, I still don't know why.) These days it's SNL reruns and late night, and not much else.

I will miss this show, of course, but it was something that was inevitable like all good things. Sure, Season 7 may have had its' brutal start with David Rosenthal at the helm, but it came to a wonderful conclusion with Rory graduating and moving on to a successful job, while Lorelai moves ahead with her life, her Luke and a strong relationship with her parents that took all this time to rebuild.

And if anyone read wayyy back on this blog a few years ago when I couldn't decide on whether I crushed on Lauren or Alexis more...I'm still not sure.

Jason
efilmcritic.com