Here's the basic premise: Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) was a single teen mom, giving birth to her daughter, Rory, when she was only sixteen. She chose to leave home, get a job, and raise Rory by herself, rather than taking the easy way out and marrying the wealthy boyfriend she didn't love. As a result, Lorelai and Rory share less of a mother-daughter relationship and more of a best-friends-forever dynamic. In the pilot episode, Rory (Alexis Bledel) is sixteen and has gained entrance into the very prestigious and pricey Chilton Preparatory School. Lorelai would do anything for her daughter, so she swallows her pride and goes to her estranged parents (Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann) to ask for a loan to help with Rory's tuition. Lorelai's always-scheming mother, Emily, agrees, but only if Lorelai and Rory will have dinner at the Gilmore house every Friday. And thus begin the weekly Friday dinners, a sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic ritual that pits Lorelai against her upper-class parents, while allowing Rory to bond with her grandparents and make them proud.
Setting aside Friday dinner, however, we must discuss Stars Hollow, the Connecticut town where the Gilmore girls live. This town is insane in the best possible way. It is like a Christmas card and Carnival rolled into one, with a long list of bizarre inhabitants who pop in and out of the show with unfailing regularity and give it so much of its charm and warmth. While the various citizens of Stars Hollow may get on each others' nerves (some much more than others), they are a tight-knit community who love and support each other when push comes to shove. They serve as an idyllic and zany supporting cast for the many adventures that Lorelai and Rory experience in the show's seven seasons.
The show passed the Bechdel test from the first minute and was relentless in its quest to develop these two characters into intelligent, quirky, and oddly relatable women. There were multiple successes and failures, romances and heartbreaks, new opportunities and bitter losses. But through it all, mother and daughter always found their way back to each other and a cup of coffee. Which brings me to A Year in the Life, the four-part revival of the show that Netflix dropped on Friday. While I adored Gilmore Girls when I first started watching it, the final season was a bit of a slog. When I spoke to longtime fans, they informed me this was a truth universally acknowledged, stemming from the fact that the show's creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, had left the show after Season 6. This show owes everything to her distinctive voice and vision, and A Year in the Life is her triumphant return to the helm. Considering I, a fan of one-year's standing, was already thrilled to see this revival, I can't imagine how ecstatic other people must have been who had been waiting for nine years since the show went off the air.
As it's only four episodes, I shan't spoil a word. All I will say is that it is bizarre and wonderful. It isn't perfect but it captures all the whims and vagaries that made the show such a pleasure. Gilmore Girls always managed to strike a chord, delving into deep-seated neuroses I had always imagined were unique to me and reassuring me that these were a universal experience. Watching A Year in the Life is like a distilled dose of that sense of shared belonging. All the familiar characters and settings are back, along with the whiplash-inducing rapid-fire dialogue, pop cultural references, and general jollity laced with family drama. It feels both fantastical and real at the same time, with multiple tangents, dream-like non sequiturs, some moments that are silly and pointless and others that feel heartbreakingly right. Ultimately, it is comfort food of the highest order, nourishing and warm, a perfect serving of post-Thanksgiving nostalgia and pre-Christmas cheer. Women of all ages can find something to relate to in this story of three generations of Gilmore women, and I urge you to binge watch your way through every episode.
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