The last time we saw Rory Gilmore, she was about to head off on the campaign trail behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
And given how much has changed in American politics since then, we can only assume things for Rory are also starkly different.
We all know the outcome of that election, but what we don’t know is whether or not the former Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Daily News became the Pulitzer winning journalist she was so clearly destined to be.
Thankfully, all will be revealed when the Gilmore Girls revival finally drops on Netflix in a few weeks time.
However, here’s another question we all want answered about the fate of our fast-talking television favourite: Who is Rory going to end up with?
And with all of Rory’s former flames set to return to the screen, will it be Dean, Jess or Logan who’ll win her heart once and for all?
Yes, we want answers, but we’ve also completely missed the point. Sigh.
Team Jess though, just quietly. Source: Netflix
Of course Rory likes boys, duh, who could resist Jess' broodiness, Logan's Colgate white smile, Dean's... um...
But the point is, her ambitions have always been far grander than landing a boyfriend.
She was valedictorian of Chilton Preparatory School, for Christ's sakes.
She was accepted into Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
When Dean tried to twist her arm into a quiet life in Stars Hollow, she turned him down.
Similarly when Logan popped the question at her Yale graduation, she told him to take a hike while she found her feet in the adult world, which makes perfect sense when you think about what the show's creator Amy Sherman-Palladino wanted for her characters.
"It’s a small part of who Rory is, it was never about that," she explained in a recent interview with Time magazine.
"Rory didn’t spend her days thinking, 'Who am I going to end up with?' Rory was much more concerned about 'How do I get that interview at the New York Times?'"
The Binge crew talks all the things you Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life...
Of course Sherman-Palladino understands the key role romance plays in creating an infinitely watchable TV show, but she also knows that for smart young women, there's more to life than boys.
"Sometimes I wish that the Dean and Jess thing weren’t so prominent because in the grand scheme of Rory’s life, who her boyfriend was when she was 16 years old is such a small event," she said, which is honestly a sentiment most people who've ever stalked their high school sweetheart on Facebook can relate to.
WWRGD? Source: Netflix
Like us, she also feels affection for all three of the young male leads (yes, even Dean) but sees them for what what they are, incredibly handsome stepping stones on Rory's path to success and way to give insight into the show's most important relationship of all, the one between Rory and her mother Lorelai.
"It was was part of her development that Dean was her first boyfriend, that Jess was the boy that diverted her attention. Then she wound up with Logan, and God knows where she’s been since then," she said.
"They were a very big part of the show, and frankly they were always there to feed stories about Lorelai and Rory. That was the core of everything. Lorelai’s relationships, Rory’s relationships were a way for us to explore the mother-daughter relationship.
"It’s just such a small part of who Rory is. I don’t see people debating 'What newspaper is Rory’s working for?' 'Did she win a Pulitzer yet?' It’s all about Dean and Jess. Dean was 16 years old when they dated.
"Everybody should go back and think about their boyfriend at 16 and then reevaluate whether that should be the focus of the conversation."
Now, with that in mind, here's hoping Rory's best friend and once promising punk rocker Lane Kim gets that record deal she so deserves.
Top Comments
I hope Suki has, like, 5 kids or something. That would be great.
If the creator wanted people to focus on Rory's achievements, she should have made the show more about that.
People talked about how brilliant and amazing Rory was, but we rarely actually saw it. In the high school years the main evidence of it was her carrying books. At Yale she actually came off as a pretty mediocre reporter, certainly not one capable of winning a Pulitzer. Paris was always the one who actually seemed unusually intelligent and capable of great things.
The boy-drama and the relationship with her mother dominated Rory's character arc.