For as beloved as it is, Luke and Lorelai's relationship storyline. The gruff diner owner and the bubbly over-caffeinated protagonist had been a will-they, won't-they couple for four seasons, until the season 4 finale when they share their first kiss. They date in season 5 and are engaged in season 6, though things hit a rough patch when Luke discovers he has a 12-year-old daughter named April. Tensions escalate, the engagement is called off, and Lorelai sleeps with Christopher.
This launches us into the oh-so-bad Gilmore Girls season 7. A big reason for the show losing its magic is the departure of series creator and showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, along with her husband Daniel Palladino, who also served as showrunner. According to the Palladinos, they left because they requested a short hiatus to rest and an eighth season to properly tie up the story. Given how little attention Luke and Lorelai got in season 7, it looks like the Palladinos were right.
Gilmore Girls' Final Season Failed Luke & Lorelai's Story After Years Of Build-Up
She Spends Half The Season With Christopher
The later season finales of Gilmore Girls have a frustrating habit of having a character make a terrible decision that negatively impacts a huge chunk of the following season. A major example is Rory stealing a yacht, dropping out of Yale, and feuding with Lorelai. But that pales in comparison to Lorelai seeking refuge in Christopher's bed after her engagement to Luke blows up, and then not only dating but marrying Christopher in season 7.
The writers put way too many eggs in Christopher's basket and not nearly enough in Luke's.
It's a harsh truth about Lorelai that she flees her problems, so her actions in the season 6 finale make sense. What doesn't is that she essentially spends half of Gilmore Girls season 7 with Christopher, a character liked by literally nobody unless your name is Emily Gilmore. I'd have been fine if Lorelai and Christopher had tried dating for a few episodes, but theirs isn't the relationship that fans had invested seven seasons in.
Gilmore Girls: Lorelai And Christopher's Relationship Timeline, Season By Season
Lorelai and Christopher's Gilmore Girls love story is dramatic, wild, and complicated, and something major happens to the couple in every season.
The writers put way too many eggs in Christopher's basket and not nearly enough in Luke's. The final Gilmore Girls season should have been all about Luke and Lorelai finding their way back to each other. Though they do get together in the end, sealing their relationship with a kiss, it's not nearly as satisfying as it could have been if Gilmore Girls had given them more attention in the final installment.
Luke & Lorelai Deserved More Attention Before Gilmore Girls' Original Ending
The April Storyline Took The Spotlight Off Their Relationship
While everybody hated the Lorelai and Christopher marriage storyline, Gilmore Girls season 6 is just as bad as season 7 when it comes to waylaying Luke and Lorelai's storyline. A major focal point of the penultimate season is the much-maligned April Nardini storyline. The introduction of Luke's daughter completely pulled focus away from his relationship with Lorelai, and if that wasn't bad enough, his terrible communication also had a detrimental effect on the couple's engagement.
Gilmore Girls' April Nardini Complaints Ignore Two Much Bigger Crimes In That Story
Although April Nardini is one of the most hated characters in Gilmore Girls history, she wasn't the real problem with season 6 and 7's worst plot.
Then there was Lorelai's estrangement from Rory, which went on for way too long. They spend about a third of the season fighting over Rory's decision to drop out of Yale, which causes Lorelai to postpone her and Luke's wedding because she wants her daughter to be part of it. In fact, Lorelai essentially spends all of season 6 miserable because April is introduced in the same episode in which Lorelai and Rory have made up. It was really a downer of a season, specifically for Luke and Lorelai fans.
A Year In The Life Failed To Fix The Show's Best Romance Story
It Invented Problems That Luke & Lorelai Wouldn't Realistically Have
Gilmore Girls fans were thrilled when the revival miniseries, A Year in the Life, was announced, largely because the show's final season was such a disappointment. However, AYITL failed in a lot of ways, and a big one is Luke and Lorelai's romance. While it would have been boring for the couple to have no problems whatsoever, after barely seeing them happy in season 7, we wanted a bit of HEA energy for them. Instead, they seemed to regress to the terrible communicators they were before, which was beyond awkward considering they had been living together for almost 10 years.
Why it took them until the events of A Year in the Life to discuss the prospect of marriage and children is mind-boggling, and if anything, the revival seemed to posit the question of if Luke and Lorelai should actually be together. Thankfully, like season 7, things end happily for the fan-favorite Gilmore Girls couple, and they finally get married. But the road to get there was unnecessarily clunky.
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Gilmore Girls
9/10- Release Date
- 2000 - 2007-00-00
- Network
- The WB
- Writers
- Amy Sherman-Palladino
WHERE TO WATCH
StreamingBUYIn the fictional town of Star's Hollow, single mother Lorelai Gilmore raises her high-achieving teenage daughter Rory. Mother and daughter rely on each other throughout their own life changes, romantic entanglements, and friendships.
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Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
8/10- Release Date
- 2016 - 2016-00-00
- Showrunner
- Amy Sherman-Palladino
- Directors
- Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino
WHERE TO WATCH
StreamingBUYActing as a follow-up to the original series, Gilmore Girls, A Year In The Life is a comedy-drama series. Having completed her stint on the Obama campaign trail, Rory now finds herself as a freelance journalist with an inconsistent life. Meanwhile, Lorelei finds herself lost in life before her marriage to Luke. This four-part mini-series follows the titular mother-daughter duo as they continue to navigate their mother-daughter relationship in Star's Hollow.
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