OK – I’m having issues with word press, so forgive the spelling and formatting errors and just know that I fixed it! Read on.
Hello! Here’s what I hope will be a fun feature for everyone to participate in. I’m not doing sign up sheets or anything, but you can tag your posts with ” There I fixed it. I think I added it to the menu.
Pardon spelling errors , I can’t get the new WP spell check working.
The concept is simple, take a piece of pop culture that didn’t quite land, but was pretty good and try to fix it. Obviously there will be spoilers, and presuming prior knowledge.
Seasons 6 and 7 could have made the Gilmore Girls a great show.
When it premiered in 2000, GG was a fun show, well written – if a little meandering- with some big themes about class and mother daughter relationships. And they threw in a fantastic quirky small town packed with lots of characters. For the purposes if this discussion, I’ll consider Seasons 1- 5 more or less canon, and play around with the final 2 seasons.
It’s my understanding the showrunners were very frustrated with the network and not getting the things they needed and deserved to continue a hit show. Did they try to blow it all up in S6, figuring S7 wouldn’t be theirs? ( Season 7 had a different showrunner.) We have the luxury of knowing, through the revival, that the Sherman- Palladinos intended to end the series with Rory telling Lorelei she’s pregnant.
There were a lot of contrivances to keep our OTP Luke and Lorelei apart in Seasons 6 and 7.
April.
Lorelei ending up married to Christoper for a few episodes in Season 7.
OK everyone, take a deep breath, it’s OK.
April never existed and Christopher dies in Season 6.
THERE, I FIXED IT!
(This could get super dark, but I’m gonna go by what I think the CW would have done with this show and keep it “not realistic.”
So, season 5 left with Rory stealing a yacht with her douchey boyfriend Logan, who is an awful lot like her father, right? This is all a reaction to one person telling her one time, that she’s not good enough. This sets up a nice arc to explore the Gilmore entitlement and privlledge. We begin Season 6 with Rory and Lorelei’s estrangement – and basically Rory’s estrangement from all things Stars Hollow. Rory’s living in the pool house, doing her community service, working at the DAR part time. (There’s one scene I love at the end of one of the S6 episodes, when Rory is being inducted into the DAR with a couple of helmet haired be-suited middle aged women and just STARING – we’ll keep that!)
So I’ll leave most of the Rory stuff in the beginning of S6 alone – let’s pop back into Stars Hollow and fix that up. Luke and Lorelei are engaged, and they don’t break up. But we need some kind on conflict, right?
Enter Lane Kim. She and Lorelei have always bonded – renegades with controlling mothers! Her boyfriend Zack has turned into a real doofus, she’s waitressing at Luke’s and is floundering. Lorelei, looking to fill the void in her life and projecting heavily – as the Gilmores do- encourages Lane to take some music classes at a local school, sets up Hep Alien with some gigs and zany Stars Hollow shenanigans ensue, until she goes too far and it ends with Lane yelling “You’re not MY mother!” It a lovely moment as they both realize how much they miss Rory. Lane dumps Zack – he leaves town and Hep Alien becomes a trio. Lane and Brian remain roommates. Add in a cutesy new love interest for Lane later in S6 if you need to pad out the 22 episodes.
THERE, I FIXED IT.
Back to Rory. Remember that spectacular Gilmore Friday Night Dinner Fight – oh, we’re keeping that. But at the very end of the episode, just as Lorelei and Rory are leaving, Richard takes a phone call. Christopher is dead. ( Let’s go with something like motorcycle crash or hang gliding accident)
By this point Rory is back at Yale and she is alarming everyone by not crying, and throwing herself into work at the paper, school, and partying with the Life and Death Brigade. There’s a couple of huge problems with the trust fund Christopher set up for her. #1, the mom of her half sister is asking for some of it, because of course Christopher forgot to make arrangements and #2 Christopher’s parents are being douches.
Even Logan can’t keep up with her and they go “on a break” and she hooks up with someone inappropriate. I’ll say a handsome grad student / TA. It all comes to a head one day when she comes home to that apartment that she and Paris and Doyle share and is so drunk she can’t get the key in the lock. Paris gives her a very Paris-like dressing down, which ends with Rory saying that Paris is a really good friend and Paris shockingly shows some warmth. Tells her to spend spring break in Stars Hollow.
Rory spends spring break in Stars Hollow, wallowing, eating hanging out with Lorelai and Lane and Luke and oh – lets throw in a zany Star’s Hollow event set piece here.
SHE IS ON ACADEMIC PROBATION AT YALE – HER MIDTERM GRADES ARE TERRIBLE.
That’s when she’s finally able to cry and mourn her father, and reflect on her behavior. She hates herself. Lorelei makes some terrible jokes about having to see the school counselor, but encourages her to explore that and we end season 6 with Rory saying to her counselor, ” My mom had me when she was 16….”
THERE, I FIXED IT.
Season 7 begins with Stars Hollow getting ready for Luke and Lorelai’s wedding: the event of the Millenium. The diner is closed, the gazebo looks beautiful. Sookie made the cake, but is flitting around giving the caterers instructions and also grabbing Lorelei her getting ready mimosas. Kirk is doing something zany. Emily comes and and gives Lorelei some shit for not having her father walk her down the aisle, Lorelei relents, Richard says he’s proud of her as they go. Luke has chosen Jess as his best man. Sookie and Jackson round out the wedding party. Rory sees him for the first time at the wedding ( not realistic, but I’m doing this GG style) they make eyes during the ceremony. As Rory and Jess walk down the aisle after L&L arm in arm at the recessional, we cut to Logan – a guest at the wedding.
Turns out Rory and Logan got back together! There’s some awkwardness, but Logan and Jess have a very CW talk about how Rory changed Logan. Zany Stars Hollow wedding reception shenanigans ensue. Let’s do a cute callback and have Kirk run around naked later in the evening when L&L kiss.
Now we need some conflict, right? Back to the trust fund – Rory isn’t paying much attention – she’s got Emily and Richard to pay for Yale. But it’s come to a head and Lorelei has to remind Rory that she has a half sister. Rory kind of hates children – but after some reworking of everyone’s wills, she has to agree to be her sister’s guardian if anything happens to the mom. There’s a cute scene where she enjoys some time with the kid (foreshadowing) and then the mom and sister fuck of to Europe for a few years.
Meanwhile, Rory is deciding what to do after she graduates. Is she applying to the Columbia School of Journalism? She’s still partying a bit too much and may only graduate cum laude instead of magna or suma . She’s editing the paper but hasn’t done a real story in a while. With Logan’s encouragement, she does some big story and fucks it up big time.
Meanwhile, The Dragonfly is floundering. The restaurant is booked solid every night, but there aren’t many overnight guests. Sookie is killing herself cooking and being all controlling. Lorelei has to tell Michel that he really can’t be such a dick to the guests – he does work in hospitality! She makes a joke about French people. They sort out a sous- chef for Sookie in an amazing interview montage. Maybe Kirk ends up being a secret good chef. Lane agrees to help Lorelai out by arranging musical guests at the inn.
Luke and Lorelei take a backseat a bit – they’re happy, working on the house, Luke gets into it with Taylor a lot. Padding. It’s OK let the OTP be.
Richard and Emily are struggling to keep their connection with Rory and Lorelai going after they’re no longer able to pay for Yale after Rory’s graduation and Friday night dinners won’t be an obligation anymore. Richard is OBSESSED with Christopher’s trust fund issues. They call Rory’s half sister “The Toddler.” Logan comes over to announce his intention to ask Rory to marry him. They are ecstatic. Keep hinting about it. Lorelei figures it out, tells Rory who FREAKS THE FUCK OUT. She wonders if she really is just destined to be a Connecticut wife. She’s had setbacks – Logan’s dad telling her some bullshit in S5, the academic probation, the being a bad reporter when she tried. Everyone telling her she’s amazing her whole life. She didn’t get into the Columbia Grad School of JOurnalism and that’s the only place she applied.
She asks Logan to take her away for a lost weekend – a decadent Life and Death Brigade thing maybe. They forget the birth control.
Logan proposes to Rory the day before her graduation at some big Emily and Richard event and she refuses him, because she’s freaking the fuck out. She storms out of the party, and gets a call from Jess- who’s wishing her the best on the eve of her graduation. She says she wishes she were as brave as him. he says she’s as vrave as her mother (foreshadwoing)
Graduation Day: She gets a job offer. Logan pops over to say that since she’s refused him, he’s going to Europe for a while to work on one of his family’s things. He hopes to see her again. No, he won’t stay for the ceremony, he has a flight to catch. Emily and Richard give her a ridiculous corsage, which she wears anyway, because it’s hilarious. Luke walks in with a special gift that he made himself and she just collapses in his arms crying. She says she loves him and he says he loves her too, and she always has him.
Stars Hollow has thrown an epic graduation party for Rory. Hep Alien is playing. Shenanigans. There’s a slo mo montage and as the sun sets, she and Lorelei sit on the steps of the Gazebo.
Lorelei offers Rory some champagne. ” No, I can’t.”
“It’s your graduation, if not now when?”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m pregnant.”
-FIN-
I’ll share my thoughts on how the revival would go in the comments.