This week’s Entertainment Weekly has exclusive photos of the upcoming Gilmore Girls movies coming to Netflix later this year, and I am curious. I am excited. I am very, very much aware that I’m being teased.
There’s nothing in these pictures we don’t know. Lorelai and Rory still love coffee! Rory is fond of a dress when she lectures students! In the VERY SUNNY square of Stars Hollow, Miss Patty and Babette are still hanging out, and providing opportunities for Rory and Lorelai to dress in capital-O Outfits. And Lorelai and Luke are holding hands! Fantastic! They’re great, they’re fine, no worries there.
Are you worried?
I would be worried, if I didn’t know better. Why would you revive a whole show if everything was fine? If there were no stories to tell, and things for the characters to go through? Remember, they’re not just reading us a history of what they’ve done the past nine years. Stuff is going to happen in the here and now.
The other reason Gilmore Girls is so beloved? All those sunny town-square events and la-la-la music (God, I can’t wait for the la-las) were the pretty, happy decoration on much more complicated stories of class and wealth, and women’s ambitions and dissatisfactions with their partners, and the supposed definition of happiness. The show wasn’t a hit because they drank a whole lot of coffee—the show was a hit because of how complicated and unpredictable and, at times, unlikeable Rory and Lorelai were. That was trailblazing back then. Still trailblazing now.
So take the beautiful glossy big-smile pictures with a grain of salt. Think of them as the 2016 version of those amazing WB Promos , which still make my pace quicken a little bit—but know that beneath the on-trend dresses, big smiles, and improbable cultural references (foremost in my mind: what slang has Lorelai picked up in the past year, and how do we not cringe at her using it?) lurk the actual, awesomely un-pretty, tricky and complicated stories that made the show work and endure.
Click here to see more photos.
