Fall

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year, so it seems fitting that it gets to be the season that wraps up one of my favorite TV shows. Interestingly enough, this was probably my favorite episode of A Year in the Life, until those final four (but really two) words.

Unlike Spring and Summer, Fall was not full of frill and fluff. The cameos were significant. The story line closures felt right (except one). And unlike Winter, it wasn't pandering to the nostalgia of the audience. Fall is Gilmore Girls at its best. It had the heart that all the other episodes were missing.

Lorelai

We start the episode with Lorelai in California, actually following through with her absurd announcement from Summer to "do Wild". The book, not the movie because Lorelai is a purist of course. This whole Lorelai-goes-hiking concept isn't something I can really get behind, but I enjoyed the Parenthood cameos, and it was kind of funny to see all these women out there trying to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to gain some insight into their lives. It felt both culturally and personally relevant. Plus the entire story arc culminates in what might be my favorite scene of the entire series: the story Lorelai should have told about her father at the funeral.

I have to admit, Lorelai acting like a fool at Richard's funeral kind of pissed me off. It didn't seem like her, after all these years and all the progress she made. After Richard's immensely kind words to her at Rory's farewell party 10 years ago, it didn't seem right that she would have no fond memory of her father to share. But this story of her 13th birthday was perfect in every way. Emily got the story she deserved. Lorelai found the insight she was seeking. And Richard's memory was honored in a way the first episode never quite got right. This was the Gilmore Girls I had waited 4.5 hours for, and boy did it deliver.

And let's not forget Sookie, finally making the appearance we've all been waiting for. While in the show it doesn't seem like she's really gone or out of Lorelai's life completely, what with the ease she fell back in to her place at the Dragonfly, but that moment when Lorelai opened the kitchen door and knew Sookie was there... oh the feelz. It was no surprise she had overdone the cakes for Lorelai's wedding or that she knew exactly which celebrity chefs had been in her kitchen (Roy Choi, Ina Garten, and Rachel Ray if you're curious). She is just as klutzy and lovable as I remember. It felt really good to hear her and Michel bicker in the background like old times. Despite Melissa McCarthy's busy schedule and the slightly lame cameo she was given, it's always nice to have a little Sookie in our lives.

Let's close off Lorelai's story with that beautiful midnight wedding to Luke. It felt wrong that Emily, Sookie, and Jess couldn't be there, but it also felt so Lorelai and Luke that they would sneak off and get married before everyone expected them to. This wedding has been a long time coming, and it couldn't have been shot any more beautifully. Even Kirk played a hand in the nuptials, with his incredible decorations. And of course the whole sequence is scored to the song Reflecting Light, the same song Luke and Lorelai danced to at Liz and TJ's wedding, their "first" date.

And with a Dragonfly annex on the way, it looks like Lorelai is finally going to have everything she has ever wanted in life. Honestly, I think this girl deserves it.

Emily

Emily has spent the entire series rightfully grieving her husband, and falling into old habits. While it was mildly annoying at times, who can really blame the gal. She has just lost the one person who was her identity for the past 50 years, of course she's lost. But I'm glad to see her find herself again in this finale. Selling the Gilmore mansion, moving to Nantucket (and buying the Sand Castle!), quitting the DAR like a BAMF, and working at a museum telling tourists horror stories of whaling seems like the perfect final act of her life. Not to mention she even manages to wrangle a deal from Lorelai for money, quoting Richard from the first season when Lorelai visits them to borrow money for Rory's Chilton tuition. It looks like somethings never change, but in this case it's probably for the better. Cheers to the circle of life.

Rory

Last, but not least, there's Rory. Although the ending Amy Sherman-Palladino gave Rory makes me rage, I'm not saying that Rory didn't have some really great moments in this episode. The entire Life and Death Brigade scene was fun and a nice throwback. It was a satisfactory bittersweet ending to the Logan-Rory affair, even if the Logan-Rory affair never made sense to me in the first place. It is nice to see that these two do really love each other, and that they probably always have and always will. And maybe in another life Logan would have left Odette for Rory (maybe he did but we'll just never know). But as this series played out, she doesn't really belong in his world, she never really has (even if season 7 led us to believe that he could belong in hers). I'm glad they got to have one final "night to remember". Even if it means Rory will be remembering it for the rest of her life...

Before we get too far into Rory's closing storyline, I just want to talk about her other two exes. The Dean cameo was surprisingly refreshing. It's completely believable the boy is married with three kids and another on the way in Scranton, Pennsylvania (is this a reference to The Office by any chance). I like that these two can look back on their time together as kids with fondness and learn from their experience. And that cornstarch reference, that really tugged at my heart strings.

As for Jess, well, who didn't see the look he gave to an unknowing Rory through the window. I'm not sure I believe it makes sense for Jess to be still pining over Rory, but if you think of her being the reason he got his life together, maybe it does. Either way, their story suffered because of the potential spin-off that never happened. I truly believe Jess could have been and deserved to be a bigger influence in Rory's life, not that he hasn't been exactly what she has needed when she has needed him the most. Writing this makes me almost believe they are meant to be... but only almost. Sorry Jess.

One of my favorite Rory scenes is when she returns to the Gilmore house to write her book about her mother. As she walks through the rooms, memories of previous events play in front of us. The four of them in the dining room during Friday Night Dinner, Rory offering to make a frozen pizza the night she's snowed in with her grandparents in Season 1, and of course Richard sitting at his desk in his study. They couldn't have picked a better place for Rory to start her story than the place her mother's story started.

Speaking of this book, I also loved the concept. And I loved that Lorelai told Rory to "drop the 'the'" a la Social Network. It seemed so perfect that Rory had written this story of their lives and what we were watching from season 1 was what Rory had written. It would have been a beautiful way to tie the story together and bring it full circle. It would have been the ending I wanted, but it was not the ending I got. And just like How I Met Your Mother, the creators took something beautiful and destroyed it in the last few moments.

You know what I'm talking about. You have either witnessed the tragic final four words yourself, heard them from someone else, read them on the Internet, or figured out my allusions to them in these posts about A Year in the Life. The final four words that ruined everything.

"Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm pregnant."

And while I'm all for a great artistic ending, I hate it when it comes at the expense of character development. It's even worse when it ruins an episode that would have otherwise been excellent and made up for whatever filler crap was in the other episodes. I get this whole "circle of life" thing, really I do, but beating us over the head with it is a little much. I know they are your characters, but when you shared them with the world, you gave them a life of their own, and their lives in that sense matter more than your artistic visions. Rory does not have to be her mother. Logan is not destined to be her Christopher. Jess is not necessarily her Luke. We are not destined to repeat our parents' lives because if we were then there would be no point to life because we already know how it ends. Amy Sherman-Palladino has taken this character, this wonderful role model of a character and beaten the shit out of her in this series. Everything in Rory's life goes wrong, and just when she's starting to pull herself together, Sherman-Palladino gives Rory her mother's mistake. You could argue that mistake isn't really the right word for it. After all, Rory turns out pretty well and perhaps Lorelai was always meant to have Rory. But to give her the same curveball, to hold her back because she has to be a mother is something that Lorelai has always been trying to avoid since the beginning. She wanted to give her daughter a better life, an easier one, and those four words signify to me that Lorelai has failed. That there is no breaking the predestined loop we are programmed for and that our ambitions and dreams don't matter because even strong, independent, intelligent women are bound to live their mother's lives. We are trapped forever in this bubble of a world represented by Stars Hollow. Though if Westworld has taught me anything, maybe all we need is a little bit of time before we're ready to break free.

From one Amy to another, it's probably not a good thing if I'm making Westworld references in a Gilmore Girls post. So like I told the creators of HIMYM I will tell you, the end of Rory's story as you planned it is dead to me. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life ended with Luke and Lorelai getting married, and Rory writing her book, which is the show that we have been watching all along. Now that's poetic.