The Big Picture
- Rory Gilmore’s character development in Gilmore Girls is a realistic depiction of adolescence’s messy and imperfect nature. Fans should give her some grace.
- Rory’s “fall from grace” includes poor decisions like losing her virginity to her married ex-boyfriend and briefly dropping out of Yale, but she is still a young adult figuring out life.
- Viewers shouldn’t expect Rory to be perfect and should understand that her mistakes are common for young adults. Her character growth in the show is a reflection of real-life struggles.
Gilmore Girls is the TV show equivalent of your favorite sweater. It’s warm, comforting, and nostalgic. It’s no wonder that Gilmore Girls has become a staple Fall rewatch. Set in the wonderfully quirky, fictional Connecticut town of Stars Hollow, the show paints an idyllic picture of small-town life that has stood the test of time. In the show’s early seasons, Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) is the golden child of Stars Hollow. She is the type-A, overachieving, mildly awkward bookworm the show’s target demographic dreams of being. Her relationship with her mom, Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) is one of the most iconic TV mother-daughter relationships ever. The two of them share a bond that is closer to sisters or best friends than it is to a parent and child. But when Rory graduates from high school and heads off to Yale in the show’s fourth season, her once-perfect veneer begins to show cracks, causing some fans to unfairly write her off for simply being human.
It’s Time To Show Rory Gilmore Some Grace
Rory Gilmore’s transition into adulthood is faced with some major missteps and poor decisions, but isn’t that what being in college is about? Many Gilmore Girls fans consider Rory to be downright unlikeable by the end of the series (and in the 2016 reboot), wishing she was still the same, bright-eyed, lovable teen from the early seasons. But Rory starts the show just shy of 16 and ends the show at 22. Gilmore Girls is a complete portrait of Rory’s journey through adolescence, and adolescence is famously messy, imperfect, and chaotic. Instead of lamenting over her character change and gradual loss of innocence, perhaps it is time for fans to give Rory some grace, and even appreciation, for not passing through that period of her life with flying colors. Perfection is impossible to achieve, and the show does its fans a service by not trying to pretend otherwise.
There are two moments in particular that define Rory’s so-called “fall from grace”. The first is when she loses her virginity to her now-married ex-boyfriend, and the second is when she (briefly) drops out of Yale before her junior year. Both of these are poor decisions on Rory’s part that stem from a deep-rooted sense of entitlement and fear of rejection. And they are tough scenes to watch, especially for a character viewers want to see succeed. But before diving into the specifics of these mistakes, it is important to remember that Rory is 19 and 20, respectively, when these events occur. And, more importantly, to remember that Rory lived an extremely sheltered life before college in a town where it was practically held as fact that she could do no wrong.
Rory and Dean’s Affair Left a Bad Taste in ‘Gilmore Girls’ Fans’ Mouths
When Rory chooses Yale over Harvard, she retains the ability to keep one foot firmly planted in her Stars Hollow life, for better or for worse. Going to school close to home allows her to visit on the weekends and keep close relationships with her family, friends, and past lovers. One of these relationships is with her first boyfriend, Dean Forrester (Jared Padalecki). Dean and Rory begin dating her sophomore year of high school before she ultimately leaves him for Milo Ventimiglia’s cool guy Jess Marino. But the two eventually move past this, rekindling a friendship during her freshman year at Yale. In the final few episodes of Season 4, the show has resumed its Jess-Dean rivalry with both boys fighting for Rory’s favor. When she chooses not to run away with Jess in Season 4’s penultimate “Last Week Fights, This Week Tights,” it is clear that a Dean and Rory romance is about to make a return.
After his initial breakup with Rory, Dean dates and quickly marries his former classmate Lindsay (Arielle Kebbel), but it is clear he still has unresolved feelings for Rory. Lindsay is not blind to Dean’s lingering desires, and his and Rory’s relationship begins to put a strain on their marriage. Lindsay eventually forbids Dean from seeing Rory, which he promptly ignores. It is clear to viewers that Dean is unhappy in his shotgun marriage, an obvious and extreme attempt to rebound from Rory. And Rory can see this as well. All of these unresolved feelings come to a head in the Gilmore Girls Season 4 finale, “Raincoats and Recipes“, when Rory has sex for the first time with Dean in her childhood bed. The episode revolves around Lorelai’s and Suki’s (Melissa McCarthy) new inn opening, and both Dean and Rory are in attendance. They share a near kiss while helping set up for the opening when Dean confesses he is relieved Rory didn’t get back together with Jess, but they are interrupted.
Later, Rory goes back home to grab a stack of CDs and, to no surprise, Dean follows her. He tells Rory point-blank “It’s not working with Lindsay. I can’t make it work.” But Rory still tries, albeit half-heartedly, to offer suggestions to fix his relationship, telling him that the first two years of marriage are known to be the hardest and that they should try taking a trip together. In fact, she is the one who brings up Lindsay in the first place when it is clear Dean has come over to resume the moment they’d shared earlier that afternoon. The two of them kiss and proceed to have sex, but only after she has asked Dean multiple times that both he and Lindsay believe the marriage is over. Sure, Rory is in the wrong here and could have done more to reject Dean’s advances, but she is not the villain in this story. Dean is. Her lack of remorse in the episodes to follow is concerning and exemplary of her sense of entitlement (her most cringe line: “He’s not a married guy! He’s Dean! My Dean!”). But the scene is not the malicious moment that many fans make it out to be. If anything, it is a moment of pure naivety stemming from a sheltered life and a trusting outlook. Rory makes a big mistake, but she is still a kid. Looking back, she also encouraged Dean to work it out with Lindsay rather than turning to her instead.
Why Did Rory Drop Out of Yale in ‘Gilmore Girls’?
Rory Gilmore’s other major defining mistake during Gilmore Girls’ original seven seasons is when she decides not to return to Yale for her Junior fall semester. This takes place at the end of Season 5 during her relationship with Logan Huntzberger (Matt Czuchry), the last of her main three love interests over the course of the show. Since the beginning of the show, viewers are shown it has always been Rory’s dream to be a journalist (specifically, the next Christiane Amanpour); a dream she works towards during her time at Yale. In her sophomore year, she begins an internship at the Stamford Eagle Gazette, a newspaper owned by none other than Mitchum Huntzberger (Gregg Henry) – Logan’s dad. Despite her less-than-ideal situation of working for her boyfriend’s father, Rory appears to be doing fairly well at the paper while also balancing her classes and position at the Yale Daily News. That is, until her performance review with Mitchum.
In Season 5, Episode 21, “Blame Booze and Melville,” Mitchum sits Rory down for a quick end-of-internship performance review. He tells her he has a pretty good idea of whether someone has “that certain something to make it in journalism.” And then he delivers the crushing blow: “You don’t got it.” At that moment, Rory’s whole world comes tumbling down. All her life she’s gotten everything she wanted – the grades, the guy, the perfect body despite subsisting on only junk food and candy. This is the first time she has had to grapple herself with the realization that she may not be perfect, and it is a difficult pill for her to swallow. Perhaps if she had the chance to develop a thicker skin, this comment would have been motivating rather than soul-crushing. But that is not her reality, and she does not take the news well. It is one of the most infamous moments in the show and one of Rory’s most criticized. However, should viewers have expected anything else seeing as how, up until this moment, Rory has lived a life relatively free of loss and failure?
Rory reacts to this news the way any sane person would — by stealing a yacht with her billionaire boyfriend. Sure, this was over-the-top. But it’s a television show. TV characters get away with much weirder stuff. What is remembered more than her bizarre boat-heist is her revelation in the Season 5 finale that she does not plan on going back to Yale for her Junior fall semester, instead deciding to spend that time participating with her grandmother Emily (Kelly Bishop) in the DAR. This decision seems wildly out of character for someone whose whole identity has been built around attending an Ivy League college, but maybe it’s just what she needed. Ultimately, she ends up going back to school (after having some sense talked into her by none other than her ex-boyfriend, Jess). But maybe the girl who has known nothing but intense academic stress her entire life needed some time to just be. Rather than a character flaw, her decision not to go to Yale was one of the few moments viewers got to see a vulnerable side of Rory. Despite always appearing on top of everything, she really never learned how to take care of herself and her mental health.
‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ Didn’t Give Rory Much Character Growth
In reality, Rory Gilmore was never perfect, and to uphold her to a standard of perfection is unfair both to her characters and to the viewers. Yes, she makes a lot of mistakes. She sleeps with a married man, briefly drops out of college, and is unable to cope with failure. But these are by no means exceptionally rare mistakes for young adults to make, especially by TV show standards. In the series’ original run, Rory transitions from a teenager to a young adult, and she should have permission to make these mistakes. In Gilmore Girls‘ Season 7 finale, Rory chooses her career over marriage to Logan, taking a reporting job covering Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. It is a bittersweet sendoff that leaves the fans with hope for her future success. Unfortunately, as shown in the 2016 reboot Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, she doesn’t quite achieve the levels of success fans had hoped for, still making the same mistakes at 32 as she was at 19. So while it is time to forgive young Rory Gilmore for her imperfections, reboot-Rory may still have some explaining to do.
