WhileA Year in the Lifegot a lot wrong, there is one plot that I could never understand in Netflix’s 2016Gilmore Girlsrevival. Even the bestepisodes ofGilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifedidn’t feel quite right. Part of this could be put down to the nine years that elapsed between the original series finale and the arrival of 2016’s Netflix miniseries. Part of it could be blamed on the brevity of the four-part miniseries, whose pacing felt nothing like one of the original show’s more luxuriant 22-episode outings.
However, I would argue that the main issues withGilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifeare rooted in its writing rather than the format or any broader social, cultural, and political shifts in the outside world.Rory’sGilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifestorylinereceived a lot of criticism for changing her character too much, but I found her personality flaws all too familiar. Her plot had a lot of similarities with her season 5 storyline, to the extent that it felt like little more than a retread of Rory’s spiraling after Mitchum Huntzberger shook her confidence.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Never Justified Lorelai’s Pacific Crest Trail Storyline
Lorelai Wasn’t Exactly the Hiking Type In Earlier Seasons
In season 5, Rory was reassured of her journalistic bonafides when she spontaneously became editor ofThe Yale Daily Newsby virtue of being in the right place at the right time. Similarly, inGilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Rory’s struggles with working as a journalist end overnight when she pens a memoir without so much as a minute’s struggle. While not all ofRory’s worstGilmore Girlsmomentscame in season 5 or the revival, I was still surprised to see viewers complain thatA Year in the Lifedidn’t feel enough like the original show.
If anything, I thought Rory’s revival story was too much like her earlier misadventures. That said, there were some plots that felt profoundly out of place.Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifenever satisfactorily explained why exactly Lorelai needed to walk the Pacific Crest Trail, so it was hard for this plot not to feel like a waste of the revival’s limited screen time. Not only was Lorelai never much of an outdoorswoman in the original series, but she still isn’t in the revival.
It was jarring and bizarre when Lorelai insisted she needed to recreate Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild by venturing onto the Pacific Crest Trail.
Billy Burke’s short-lived love interest Alex even canceled their fishing trip to go to a spa when he realized she had no experience in outdoor sports, so it was jarring and bizarre when Lorelai insisted she needed to recreate Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild by venturing onto the Pacific Crest Trail. If Luke had joined her, I can imagine this being a hilarious story where the experienced outdoorsman tried and failed to introduce Lorelai to the world of hiking. However, with Lorelai alone on the trail, the plot felt profoundly pointless.
Lorelai Barely Even Tried To Start The Pacific Crest Trail
The Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Plot Just About Makes It Out of Stars Hollow
To make matters worse, it wasn’t like Lorelei’s wilderness adventure was some unexpectedly ambitious plot that expanded the cozy suburban world of the original series to encompass more of the great outdoors.Lorelai barely even started the Pacific Crest Trail, never encountering any of the many pitfalls that make the iconic hike famous and barely making a dent in its lengthy map route. This gag could have worked if it weren’t for the limited screen time of the miniseries.
The fact that Sookie andDean barely appeared inGilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifewas understandable considering how busy their actors were, but the primary appeal of the revival was bringing the cast back together after almost a decade. As such, it was a bizarre decision to send Lorelai across the country on her own for an entire quarter of the revival’s brief runtime. Rory complained about feeling like her mother wasn’t supportive enough earlier in the miniseries and, as entitled as she could sometimes be, Lorelai’s sudden absence made this complaint feel justified.
This Gilmore Girls Plot Betrayed A Year in the Life’s Purpose
Lorelai Was Separated From Luke and Rory For Much of the Revival
Meanwhile, since seasons 6 and 7 infamously split up the show’s main couple during Lorelai and Christopher’s ill-fated attempt at a romantic reunion,Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Lifewas supposed to be a chance to see Lorelai and Luke’s life together for the first time. The pair spent years narrowly avoiding domestic bliss throughout the original series, and it seemed as if their story finally came to a happy ending in the season 7 finale. As such, it was jarring to see Lorelai decide that she needed to leave the love of her life behind without explanation.
Lorelai had no one to talk to, meaning the show’s trademark quick-fire repartee was lost throughout this episode.
Richard’s death did explain some of Lorelei’s sudden existential malaise inGilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, but abandoning Luke and leaving Rory to struggle through her plentiful problems alone was a terrible dramatic choice. Alone on the Pacific Crest Trail, Lorelai had no one to talk to, meaning the show’s trademark quick-fire repartee was lost throughout this episode. Many ofGilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’s changesfailed to win over fans, but this was one of the most egregiously easy to avoid.
One Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Scene Helped Redeem This Subplot
Lorelai and Emily’s Phone Call About Richard Is Truly Moving
Luckily, I do love one scene from “Fall,” and it is almost enough to entirely salvage Lorelai’s misjudged hiking subplot. When Lorelai gets her sought-after silence, she ends up calling her mother Emily to make peace. The pair had a falling out earlier in the miniseries when it is revealed via flashback that Lorelai couldn’t recall a positive memory of Richard after his funeral. In the episode’s best scene, both mother and daughter tear up as Lorelai recounts a mundane but meaningful moment she spent with her late father.
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WhileGilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’s phone callscene is wonderful, it would have worked just as well without Lorelai going on the hike berforehand. While she may have needed space to think, the fact that Emily now lives on Nantucket means she already had that space. Nonetheless, I’m willing to forgive the pointlessness of thisA Year in the Lifesubplot since, while it wasn’t strictly necessary, it did result in one of the best scenes from theGilmore Girlsrevival thanks to Lorelai and Emily’s reconciliation.
