The perfect ending — or the worst?
Gilmore Girls superfans react to the final episode, Fall, streaming now on Netflix
Spoiler alert! Reveals plot points from the fourth episode of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.
Katrina Clarke: The final new episode of Gilmore Girls opens with Lorelai false-starting her way into “doing Wild,” Luke distressed, Rory swept into a fantasy-filled evening by the Life and Death Brigade and Emily knocking back gin and tonics at her newly purchased Nantucket home, dubbed the Sandcastle.
“The previous owners called it the Clam Shack. I guess Vagina House was taken,” Emily quips.
And those bombshell final four words — which creator Amy Sherman-Palladino had been promising for so long — are sure to leave fans in a state of shock.
Nick, did this episode tie off the loose ends you hoped or did it leave you with more questions than ever? Nick Patch: I definitely have more questions than ever. I was caught completely off guard by that ending. Until that moment, it seemed the finale would be a series of gentle resolutions leading up to the wedding: Lorelai and Emily’s full-circle arrangement for a strings-attached loan and summer fun in Nantucket; Rory’s tense but illuminating conversation with Christopher, who didn’t exactly “enter in a cloud of sulphur” but still seems blind to the damage he’s caused; and the return of Sookie, baking up a storm.
Then Rory’s revelation arrived. Looking back, it now seems obvious to me that Sherman-Palladino started with that ending and worked backward through the season, and all of Rory’s aimlessness this season now feels purposeful.
How did you feel about Gilmore Girls’ grand twist: was it well-earned or too cruel a cliffhanger? KC: I can’t decide if it was the perfect ending or the worst. In a sense, life came full circle. Perhaps it means there’ll be more Gilmore Girls — humans and episodes — to come.
I would also like to bring attention to Lorelai’s baffling reconciliation with Luke. The proposal seemed abrupt after a year spent secondguessing their relationship. But I’ve never seen Luke happier, so all the power to them! There were many touching moments in this episode. Which was your favourite? NP: Throughout this revival, I’ve been most compelled by Lorelai and Emily navigating their transformed relationship and I thought their last scene together here was perfect. With Emily echoing Richard’s blunt refrain from the pilot — “you need money” — in a far less combative context, the symmetry is clear even before the duo toasts “the circle of life.”
When Emily tells Lorelai that she looks “very happy” and Lorelai agrees that she is, it seems that feeling is inspired less by securing the loan for her bigger and better Dragonfly, and more that she seems to have finally established a trusting relationship with her mother.
In this finale, we were reacquainted with Christopher, Sookie and Dean (whose “boring” life in Scranton aligned almost exactly with your predictions, by the way). Which return excited you most? KC: I was pleased to see my Dean prediction came true! Might I add, I previously predicted Rory would be living in London, she’d be in a dull relationship, Lorelai would marry Luke in the town square, Sookie would move to a farm, Lane’s life would be the same and Kirk would create the next Tinder — it ended up being Uber, but close enough.
As for the return that excited me most, Sookie wins by a landslide. Sookie and Lorelai’s reunion felt so touching and genuine that I wondered if the actors perhaps missed each other in real life, too.
Without giving away too much, where do you predict the Gilmore Girls will be in a decade? NP: Like you, I was a bit unsatisfied by the ending to Luke and Lorelai’s arc. Would a town wedding really cure all that apparently ails them?
But of course, my most burning curiosities surround that ending.
Can we presume Logan’s the father, since Paul would seemingly have had to conceive via text message? Will Rory deliver and keep the baby? If so and if it’s a girl, will she name her Lorelai?
Maybe it’s the optimist in me, but the open-ended nature of the finale has me wondering: is that really it? Could this be the potential beginning of a new Gilmore Girls story? KC: My gut tells me Sherman-Palladino got the ending she longed for and that’s all folks! But here’s hoping.