WhileGilmore Girlswas sometimes guilty of glamorizing the flawed relationship between Lorelai and Rory, the show’s Thanksgiving episode highlighted what happened when Lorelai’s approach to parenting broke down. Theentire cast ofGilmore Girlswas interesting on their own merits, but there was a reason the show’s creators chose the title. The series was about the thorny, complex relationships between three generations of women in the Gilmore family, first and foremost. This was whyLogan leftGilmore Girlsbefore the series finale, as this gave the show’s last episode a chance to focus on Lorelai and Rory’s relationship with each other.
Two Of Gilmore Girls' Most Unloved Stories Were Virtually Identical
April Nardini’s arrival and Rory’s relationship with Marty and Lucy both arrived around the same time and highlighted the same Gilmore Girls problem.
Similarly, numerous Lorelai love interests seemingly faded away without explanation over the years, from Digger to Alex Lesman, and this was usually due to Rory taking precedence in her life. As proven by theGilmore GirlsrevivalA Year in the Life, Rory and Lorelai had a very different relationship to that of Lorelai and her mother, Emily. Emily was a classic disciplinarian who still told her daughter how to behave well into adulthood, resulting in Lorelai’s rebellious streak. In contrast, Lorelai saw herself as Rory’s peer and equal. This seemingly superior dynamic resulted in problems of its own on occasion.
Lorelai’s Issues With Rory’s Yale Application Prove Her Biggest Gilmore Girls Problem
Lorelai’s Rejection Of Her Parents Impacted Rory’s Future
In season 3, episode 9, “A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving,”the Gilmore family’s Thanksgiving dinner proves that Lorelai’s parenting can be fairly flawed. When Lorelai blows up at Rory for failing to inform her that she was applying to Yale as well as Harvard, she proves that she sometimes puts Rory’s interests aside to focus on feuding with her parents. Lorelai might not have realized how unrealistic and counterproductive it would have been for Rory to apply to Harvard and nowhere else, but her anger over Rory’s interest in Yale is explicitly rooted in her family’s approval of the college.
Gilmore Girls’ heroine Lorelai proved that her own baggage around her past decisions haunted her attempts to steer Rory in the right direction.
Lorelai fails to focus on what would be best for Rory, instead angrily berating her parents for pushing what she views as their agenda. In the process,Gilmore Girls’ heroine Lorelaiproved that her own baggage around her past decisions haunted her attempts to steer Rory in the right direction. The sensible choice for Rory would be to apply to every college that she was interested in attending, considering how selective Harvard admissions are. Moreover, Rory still needed to decide for herself which college even appealed to her. Her mother was only concerned about what Rory said as a child.
Lorelai’s Problems With Her Parents Shape Rory’s Gilmore Girls Story
Rory Was Often Caught In The Crossfire Of Intergenerational Squabbles
Lorelai insisted that Rory only ever wanted to go to Harvard, but this ignored the reality that Rory didn’t know much about higher education as a child and her horizons had broadened over the years. Not only that, but applying to safety schools was simply common sense even if she was only interested in Harvard.Rory’sA Year in the Lifestoryproved that she never really knew what she wanted, and Lorelai using her as a pawn when fighting with her parents is partially to blame. This unhelpful dynamic helped shape theGilmore Girlsheroine’s sense of self.
Gilmore GirlsandA Year in the Lifeare available to stream on Netflix.
