Coffee. Family. Small town. Coffee. Food. Drama. Coffee. Feel-good comedy. Relationships. Mother and daughter. Oh, and did I mention coffee? This is what you experience when you enter the lives of Lorelai Victoria and Lorelai “Rory” Leigh Gilmore, better known as the Gilmore Girls.
The Gilmore Girls, which can be watched on Netflix, is set in the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. The show aired for seven seasons (October 5, 2000 – May 15, 2007) on The WB for the first six seasons, and The CW for the final season. The show was also revived by Netflix in November 2016 for a season of four episodes which takes fans back to Stars Hollow for one year.
Rory and Lorelai are both addicted to coffee, a staple to be found several times in each episode of the show, as well as junk food. Surprisingly, though the two never exercise, they manage to maintain perfect figures – something desired by women worldwide. We follow the two through romance, heartbreak, familial problems and friendships.
Rory is a bright, caffeine addicted young woman. The show begins with her at the age of 16 and starting at an advanced school part-way through her sophomore year of high school. We watch her grow and achieve her dream of attending an Ivy-League school as the show progresses. We also see her in her first and second relationships in the first three seasons. She begins her third relationship while in college, but there are rough patches in all of her relationships, as is common in real life. There is a rekindling of her relationship with her first boyfriend during the third and fourth seasons, but it is short-lived.
Lorelai has multiple relationships throughout the show. Her relationship with Christopher, Rory’s father, often rekindles itself throughout the series. For a brief period, Lorelai has a serious relationship with Rory’s English teacher – Max Medina – which ends when the two break up while engaged. She eventually begins a much-anticipated relationship with her friend, and the town diner owner, Luke Danes. Before she begins her relationship with Luke, she has multiple short-lived relationships, as well.
Lorelai has a dream to open her own inn, which eventually comes true. She and her best friend, Sookie St. James, open the Dragonfly Inn together, with Lorelai as the manager and Sookie as the chef. Sookie is married to the vegetable supplier of the inn, Jackson Belleville, and has three children with him by the end of the series.
What life, or TV show, is complete without its family drama, though? Gilmore Girls has plenty of that. Lorelai and her parents have a rocky relationship. She felt stifled throughout her childhood and adolescence by her parents. Richard and Emily Gilmore, Lorelai’s parents, come from old money and raised Lorelai to be a proper lady in their world. Once Lorelai had Rory, at the age of 16, she decided she’d had enough. She stopped telling her parents where she would go, and after a year, she ran away to Stars Hollow and hardly looked back. It is hinted that before the beginning of the series, Rory and Lorelai only saw Emily and Richard for holiday dinners. Once the series began, however, Lorelai made a deal with her parents to have weekly Friday night dinners if they would help her pay for Rory’s schooling.
This caused tensions in the family, but it was simple enough to resolve. Lorelai said that she would pay her parents back as soon as she had the money, which she received at the end of the third season. Once Lorelai repaid her debt to her parents, the obligatory Friday night dinners came to an end, which angered Emily. However, they were quickly reinstated when Rory asked for help paying for college. Lorelai was not obligated to attend these dinners, but chose to, so she could spend time with her daughter.
This show has everything: laughs, tears, drama, coffee, food. What more could a college student, or anyone, need? Join me in watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix and learn about everything that goes on in the chaotic and fun Gilmore family and town of Stars Hollow.
