Subtitle: Meg Has Feelings.

Dear Gilmore Girls, I think I speak for all of us when I say: What. The Actual. Eff?

I’m going to insert the Read More tag here so that I don’t spoil things for those who have not seen the ending of Gilmore Girls, A Year in the Life. Hold, please…

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS?? Rory is PREGNANT? No. Just…no, man. No. I will not be dividing this recap into Observations, Questions, and Shenanigans because all of it is one big friggin shenanigan. This episode was so good, so perfect, and then…ugh, just NO. Frankly, this episode doesn’t even deserve a recap but here we are so here we go.

Recap

We open this episode and OH LOOK, Lorelai and Rory are fighting. Cause it just wouldn’t be a Gilmore Girls season if there weren’t some stupid fight. Lorelai has run off to California to “do Wild”; which is a polite way of saying she has run away to decide if she still wants to be with Luke. One of the first scenes is a very funny shot of a whole line of eager millennials exiting the same motel as Lorelai, all setting out to “do Wild” and proving that 1) Lorelai is doing this soul searching thing way too late in her life and 2) the appeal of Reese Witherspoon abides. The weather is lousy and Lorelai loses her Wild permit so she can’t even begin the soul searching hike she ran away to do. There’s something very sad about that but whatever. Upon searching for a cup of coffee, Lorelai finds a nature trail and is able to have the Big Epiphany she so desperately needed. By the way, that’s supposed to be the epiphany-inspiring vista of California? That looks like New Jersey. Just saying. New enlightened Lorelai calls her mother to tell her, in her own weird way, that she really did love her father, then runs home to propose, in her own weird way, to Luke. So Luke and Lorelai have decided that this relationship suits then just fine. This sex-free, mess-free, joint-checking-account-free, lying-about-your-whereabouts, you-live-your-life-and-I’ll-live-mine-and-never-the-two-shall-mingle, I-don’t-even-know-that-you-are-friends-with-Keifer-Sutherland-because-THAT’S-how-little-I-know-about-you-despite-the-fact-that-we’ve-lived-together-for-nine-years relationship. Sounds perfect! In fact, I just rolled over in bed last night and said to my husband “you know, this whole marriage thing is great, I just wished it SUCKED MORE. I like that we are partners but I wish we could be more like complete strangers, don’t you?” We are three episodes and a half in and I have not once heard Lorelai or Luke say I love you to each other. Can someone fact check me on this?

Rory gets a visit from the Life and Death Brigade (actually heard from my mouth: “Oh not again with this crap”) and has one final, and very moving, goodbye with Logan. She goes to Hartford to write the first three chapters of her book, and then makes nice with Lorelai. Like there was any suspense about that one.

I’d like to take a pause here to remind you all that Alexis Bledel recently had a child exit her body and she still looks like she is sixteen. Ok, as you were.

Rory pays a surprise visit to Christopher (more on this later.) Let’s see, what else: Lorelai decides to buy a new property for the Dragonfly, finally understanding that she has to expand the business in order for it to survive. Seems like progress? Emily tells off the DAR (hearing Kelly Bishop say the word “tits” tickled me a shade of pink I didn’t know existed), buys a house in Nantucket, and gets a job at the whaling museum. Emily, by far, had the most satisfying storyline of this season. It was delightful to see her finally get the independence she needed and prove she’s just as good a businessman as her husband. These are the tools she needed to learn how to deal with Richard’s death.

More fast forwarding: Dean, Dean, Dean (he lives in Scranton? And has four kids? Move over, Lane, there’s a new contender for Saddest Sack); Sookie, Sookie, Sookie (I’d bet good money that 95 percent of that the scene between Melissa McCarthy and Lauren Graham was improvised); Jess is obviously still in love with Rory; wedding, wedding, wedding. So far this episode, lots of feelings happening on my side of the house: Logan framing Rory’s face in his hands; Lorelai’s monologue about Richard; Rory turning the lights on at her grandparents’ house; Rory sitting at Richard’s desk, next to her own portrait, to write the book about her family; The milestone wedding cake; Rory walking Lorelai down the aisle; Emily tucking in her maid’s children. There were a lot of really lovely moments in this episode and I savored them all.

And then.

We come to the end. Two girls, on a gazebo, talking about their future. I know that the final four words are coming. I can feel it. Wait, is Rory crying? Things feel serious. What’s happening? For a second, I start to have a joking conversation with myself like I sometimes do:

“Hey, wouldn’t it be hilarious if the final four words were Rory saying she’s pregnant?”

“Yeah, hilariously AWFUL!”

“Oooh, good one, Meg. Hahaha!” *High fives*

“Good thing that would never ever happen.”

AND THEN IT DID. IT HAPPENED. The very thing that I had just identified as being the exact worst thing to possibly happen to this episode, and the series in total, actually absolutely happened. It was like that joking conversation I had with myself the night of the election: “Good thing Trump could never, ever win this thing” And then he did. (My husband, just now: “Maybe you should stop having those jokes with yourself. I’m beginning to think the universe can actually hear you and that you’re messing things up.” Noted.)

Rory is pregnant. Pregnant. Knocked up. PG. In a family way. On the way to Boston. Preggers. Eating for two. With child. Preggo. Up the pole. Having a baby.

There are many reasons why this is the Worst Thing Ever. For one, it tells us that no matter what you do or how hard you try to make a better life for yourself than the one your parents had, or how hard you try to make sure that your kids have a better life than you do, it doesn’t actually matter because we are all doomed to repeat the same patterns, generation after generation. Take that scene with Christopher: This scene is pretty much, for me, the keystone of the entire show. It explains and adds a grace note to everything. Everything that Rory has done, and is, is because Christopher left. Lorelai fell in love with that baby and pushed everyone else out of her life, for better or for worse (probably for better but who can say?). Christopher is right: Lorelai’s only getting married now because Rory is grown and Lorelai can finally let someone else in. How much better would everyone’s life have been if they had realized all this fifteen years ago? Does Rory even realize this now? Will she make the same mistake and keep poor Jess on the periphery, staring at her through the window like some freak peeping Tom? They should have titled this episode “Nobody Learns Anything.”

I’m also retroactively annoyed: These are the final four words you were going to end the show with almost ten years ago? You were going to get Rory knocked up before she even had a chance to be a journalist? Not cool, Amy Sherman-Palladino. Not cool at all. The single mama route is noble but it’s not the destiny for Rory that we were promised.

Finally, I’m mostly annoyed by this ending because it’s just stupid. It’s a stupid ending. It’s like when I taught creative writing and told my students that the worst way they could even end a story is with the phrase “and then I woke up.” Move over, dream-ending, there’s a new Terrible Way to End a Story in town and it’s called “I’m Pregnant.” Rory gets pregnant with Logan’s baby? No she doesn’t. She just doesn’t. What is she going to do, raise this baby in Stars Hollow? With Lorelai? Good grief, that’s a sequel to Grey Gardens that no one wanted to see. Good thing Emily got out when she could.

Feelings! Apparently I have a lot of feelings about this. So many that I’m incapable of ending this properly in a neat little bow. Anyone have any thoughts?

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