Five Things I Learned from Watching "Gilmore Girls"

I caught on to the "Gilmore Girls" trend about ten year after everybody else. With a Christmas Netflix subscription and my move to a house with glacial internet speed looming imminent, I had three months to get through seven long seasons. (It's been done before: my college roommate and I watched 30 hour-long episodes of "Once Upon a Time" in a week.) At first it seemed, like all Hallmark Channel dramas, cheesy and predictable. And I hated Alexis Bledel's voice: you're not five, honey - you don't need to talk like you are.

Then one season turned into two. Then three. And pretty soon I found myself looking for ways to cancel evening plans so I could curl up in my bed with a cup of Lorelai-approved coffee and find out "what happens next." I slowly fell in love with Luke (mostly because I'm marrying a man exactly like Luke), hated Taylor Doose with every fiber of my being, and prayed that Lorelai and Rory would make up after yet another fight that pushed one of them toward her detestable parents.

I'm a season and a half away from finishing it. And I'm tempted to repeat my performance at the end of "Friends": to not watch the last episode so it continues to live on in my mind.

A reboot of the beloved series is in the words, and I'm still debating whether or not to get hooked on it. ("Downton Abbey" is over, I need something else to binge.) But as I near the end of the original, I wanted to share some of the things I've taken away from my time in Stars Hollow.

1. Everybody loves a small-town story. The title characters are only part of this story: the mother and daughter exploits wouldn't be nearly as charming if not for the colorful cast of supporting characters. And somehow, every time I hunkered in for another episode, I felt like I was coming home, to people that I had grown up with in a town where I would always be welcome. There's something alluring about the idea of a place where everybody knows your name and where your gossip is common knowledge only minutes after it happens. While the archetypal character concepts flood anything about small-town life - the eccentric handyman, the badass woman who breaks the mold by doing a man's job, the grouchy but lovable uber-conservation, the straight-laced asshole who everybody hates but can't do without - the eccentricities of the Stars Hollow residents are just quirky enough to be refreshing and unique. And I want to move there.
2. Everybody craves a good old-fashioned love story. I was never that interested in Rory's love life - I didn't like any of the guys she dated. But oh my word, Lorelai and Luke's story? Arguably the best: they've known each other forever and everybody knows they're supposed to be together, but there's that agonizing tension of, "Will they? Won't they?"
   
   And you heave a sigh of relief when they finally do get together. It just makes sense! Even through Lorelai's experimentation with Christopher (who I never liked) and Max Medina, and Luke's marriage and the discovery of his long-lost child, they ended up together - just as it should be.
3. Time - and food - heals all. I have only seen one other person eat like the Gilmores, and he's a dairy farmer who works hard all day and earns his right to eat his body weight in peanut-butter-and-jelly-and-potato-chip sandwiches. Lord Almighty, the food that these women consume. And the mere fact that everyone from Dean to Luke to Babbette knows them by how much they eat. The consumption of food is cathartic, and no matter what travesty befalls them, they know that a night of pizza, Red Vines, Chinese food from Al's Pancake World, and classic movies will make it all better. And I've been with these girls through horrible boyfriends, omitted truths, moving out, parent troubles. And they always come back together. Because friendship - which I think more defines them than mother-and-daughter - is stronger than the little piddly fights that life throws their way.
4. The "game plan" isn't always the best plan. I watched this series in a post-college panic: after graduating with an English education degree, I decided that I wasn't quite right for the classroom and quit a full-time job at a grocery store to be a writer who cleans houses on the side. And I found comfort in Lorelai's got-pregnant-at-sixteen-ran-away-from-home-started-working-as-a-cleaning-lady-at-an-inn-and-eventually-opened-up-the-inn-of-her-dreams story. As the daughter of a wealthy insurance man and a Daughter of the American Revolution debutante, she had everything going for her. And rather than seeing her less-than-ideal situation as the death of a promising future, she got her butt in gear, worked hard, and made a life that made her happy - happier than she would have been in the center of her parents' social circle.
5. Family is the worst. And also the best. I cringed whenever the Gilmores slunk up to that front door for Friday night dinners. I pitied Lane in her one-sided arguments with Mrs. Kim. I hated the dynamic between Luke and his brother-in-law TJ. (I actually just hated TJ - where the hell did he come from?) Who drives you nuts like your family does? The mothers who know what's best for you but have a hell of a way of showing that this is simply how they love, the children who respond with rebellion and hateful words - it's the single most relate-able aspect of the whole show. And yet...you watch what these families do to each other, for each other. Mrs. Kim wants so deeply for Lane to be safe that she erects these strict codes that must be obeyed. But when Lane finally gets through to her that this life is nothing like the life she wants, her mother encourages her to go after what she wants - she will not quit being a drummer, because she is supposed to be a drummer. Emily and Richard are so concerned with their daughter and granddaughter being comfortable that they come across overbearing and offensive in their haste to be involved. And Lorelai herself wants her daughter's future to look nothing like her own: she pushes her toward Yale and the right boys so that she doesn't have to struggle like her mother did. Though they may not have the best way of showing it, these characters are fiercely devoted to their kin; and they will do whatever it takes to make sure they are taken care of.