Why the return of Gilmore Girls is the per­fect rem­e­dy for 2016

With the abject uncer­tain­ty of 2016, a basic fear for the future was made all-too real in a sin­gle day this Novem­ber. As such, the return of Gilmore Girls, set in the the snark-free Con­necti­cut sub­urb of Stars Hol­low, couldn’t have come at a bet­ter time. After all, it’s a show where the cen­tral con­ceit is con­cerned with the opti­misti­cal­ly nos­tal­gic rit­u­al of a week­ly fam­i­ly din­ner, usu­al­ly based on an attempt to repair some­thing or some­one that’s broken.

The fam­i­ly in ques­tion are the Gilmores – father Richard (the late Edward Her­rmann), moth­er Emi­ly (Kel­ly Bish­op) and daugh­ter Lore­lai (Lau­ren Gra­ham). Rory is Lore­lai junior, who has inher­it­ed her mother’s affin­i­ty for caf­feine and end­less sup­ply of wit­ti­cisms on every­thing from Paul Thomas Ander­son (“She had a bad reac­tion to Mag­no­lia. She sat there for three hours scream­ing ​‘I want my life back’,” Rory says when asked why her moth­er won’t watch Boo­gie Nights) to Broke­back Moun­tain and Don­na Reed.

Richard is a suc­cess­ful insur­ance bro­ker and both he and Emi­ly enjoyed the high soci­ety life that comes as a result. This left Lore­lai to grow up with­in the rar­i­fied trap­pings of débu­tante balls and din­ner par­ties. It was a sti­fling world, and one that saw her leave when she fell preg­nant at 16. She remains estranged until her daugh­ter is the same age and she wish­es to send her to the Ivy League breed­ing ground of Chilton and achieve her dream of being a journalist.

Exist­ing near­ly alone for 16 years, Rory and Lore­lai have a rela­tion­ship that, ini­tial­ly, is easy to envy. They’re so in tune they’re mis­tak­en as sis­ters. After grow­ing up in a house built on pleas­antries, rules, and ​‘appro­pri­ate behav­iour’, Lore­lai is deter­mined to be open in a way her par­ents nev­er were. Their bond is test­ed over the sev­en sea­sons of Gilmore Girls as Rory exists between the high-class world of Chilton, with fren­e­my Paris (Liza Weil), and home, with best friend Lane (Keiko Agena).

They’re both torn between war­ring love inter­ests – Lore­lai on admit­ting her feel­ings to Luke (Scott Pat­ter­son) who owns the din­er they vis­it for their dai­ly cof­fee fix, pur­su­ing Rory’s teacher Max (Scott Cohen), or rec­on­cil­ing with Rory’s father (David Sut­cliffe). Then there’s Rory, sand­wiched between the impul­sive Dean (Jared Padalec­ki), sen­si­tive but unpre­dictable bad boy Jess (Milo Ven­timiglia), or trust fund baby Logan.

Lore­lai realis­es her per­son­al ambi­tions, open­ing her own inn with best friend Sook­ie (Melis­sa McCarthy), and Rory pur­sues hers and reflects on whether it’s what she real­ly wants. When Rory attends Yale in sea­son four, their mutu­al deci­sions see her and Lore­lai grow apart almost beyond repair. Rory even tem­porar­i­ly lives with her grand­par­ents and assumes the life Lore­lai didn’t want. Over the com­ing sea­sons, their sep­a­ra­tion is almost unbearable.

But even in the chaos of the lat­er sea­sons, as the show goes off the com­fort­ably melo­dra­mat­ic rails, there’s a cer­tain­ty to Gilmore Girls that makes it irre­sistible. It’s a show built on nos­tal­gia and reli­a­bil­i­ty. Stars Hol­low is small with­out being oppres­sive (nev­er mind that in a real town, every­one would be way too involved in each other’s busi­ness). Walk down the street and there’s always some­one to recog­nise and always some­thing to see, whether it’s an enter­tain­ing town meet­ing or the pres­ence of Tay­lor Doose, the town’s most involved citizen.

Then there’s Luke’s din­er and the reg­u­lar din­ners, and the reg­u­lar town eccentrics; com­fort­ably stock fea­tures that give the show an opti­mistic rou­tine. Amy Sherman-Palladino’s end­less snap­py and ref­er­ence-fuelled dia­logue is infec­tious­ly, joy­ous­ly lit­er­ate and a chal­lenge to keep up. But Gilmore Girls works like gang­busters when it cap­i­talis­es on this easy relata­bil­i­ty: Lorelai’s desire to live a more open life free of her par­ents; the small rit­u­als with Rory of cof­fee; junk food; and movies that the show is remem­bered for; con­ver­sa­tions about insignif­i­cant things.

When Gilmore Girls end­ed abrupt­ly in 2007, it was with hope for the future. Rory (Alex­is Bledel), hav­ing grad­u­at­ed from Yale after much soul-search­ing and heart­break, lands a job cov­er­ing Barack Oba­ma on his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. It undoubt­ed­ly set the tone for the world the show was leav­ing behind, one where change and hope were in the air. It doesn’t need to be said that the mood of Gilmore Girls tri­umphant return is quite the oppo­site, one of divi­sion and sad­ness. When Rory and Lore­lai return to their ​“lit­tle cor­ner of the world” cour­tesy of Net­flix, for once, it’ll be like noth­ing ever changed.