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Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life

Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) has always been something of a controversial figure. Some people found the bookish heroine of Gilmore Girls, with her quiet demeanor and dreams of being a writer, delightful (I did). Some people thought she was a narcissistic, spoiled brat.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life seems to indicate that the people who held the latter opinion were right.
God, were they ever right.
Viewers will get some sense of this as soon as they see Paul, Rory’s boyfriend, whom she’s been dating for two years. The series begins as he comes over to have dinner with Lorelai, Luke, and Rory. The great joke is that Paul is so forgettable that no one remembers him. Rory continually forgets to break up with him. Maybe this would be funny if Paul were obviously awful. But Paul seems, well, great. Paul remembers that Luke was interested in an antique wrench the last time they talked so he brings it along to show him. He brings virus protection software for Lorelai’s computer. He brings flowers. Paul’s most glaring flaw seems to be that he does not like coffee, which is a preference, not a flaw.
In return for his generosity, Rory cheats on him relentlessly. She flies to London to see her ex-boyfriend Logan, whom she sleeps with. In the second episode, we find out that Logan is engaged! To a woman named Odette! Who will soon be coming to live with him. Rory is not overly irritated that she is cheating on her boyfriend with a soon-to-be-married man. However, she seems extremely miffed that she can no longer crash at Logan’s place whenever she goes to London. Because his fiancée will be living with him.

This is the way a sociopath would react to that news.

Still, maybe we’re supposed to forgive her because Rory is such a talented writer. Genius has its privileges, right? If that’s the case, we never really see much evidence of her genius. Rory is a writer who is writing, at best, as a hobby. She wrote one New Yorker Talk of the Town piece. Which is great! That is a really great accomplishment. However, it is the kind of accomplishment you parlay into a career, not a career by itself.
Let us say, generously, that that New Yorker piece paid about $2,000. That is all she wrote. In a year. That means that Rory Gilmore made $2,000 that year. It seemingly never occurs to her that she has made only enough to cover the plane fare to one her many round-trip flights to London (to sleep with an engaged man). Maybe she could make some money so that, familial wealth aside, she could feel some pride at earning her own way in the world. Or, at the very least, so that she could pay some rent money to the numerous friends and family members who are putting her up at their places. Especially given the fact that she’s offered at least two jobs, one by a website, and one by her prep school.
To which surely I wasn’t the only one who screamed, “Get a job, Rory. Flying to Europe to sleep with your engaged ex is not a job.”
But Rory doesn’t care about being employed. Or rather, she only cares about being employed someplace high-status enough to play into the notion that Rory is the smartest person in the world. Now, in the world of Stars Hollow, which is run at least in part by a man-child with a pet pig, that may not be that difficult. But Rory is a journalist who falls asleep while interviewing a subject who is giving her extremely eloquent quotes. Which is to say she’s a bad journalist. Of course Condé Nast does not want to hire her. When she gets a job offer from an up-and-coming website, she toddles into the interview wildly unprepared. I don’t want to go too The Devil Wears Prada but I’m going to guess that a lot of journalists who have written a grand total of one published piece in a year would kill for that job. She accepts a non-paying job (Get a job, Rory! Get a job!) editing the Stars Hollow newspaper, which, according to its readers, she promptly ruins by eliminating their traditional poem.

In the course of her failed journalistic attempts, she also sleeps with a source. The source is dressed like a Wookie. Sleeping with a source is both stupid and unethical. Sleeping with a man dressed as a Wookie is great if that’s what you’re into, except that she is once again cheating on her perfectly nice boyfriend.
And while floating around like a dilettante might be cute or at least forgivable at 25, this is a 32-year-old woman. Jesus would almost be dead by the time he was Rory’s age.
There would be nothing wrong with any of her behavior if it were clear that Rory was an anti-heroine. But she’s still treated as if she is a sheer delight. Having everyone respond to her as though she is a glossy-haired princess whom they can’t wait to give houses to — and yes, Logan offers her an actual house, to live in — is ridiculous. Someone, surely, would notice the fact that someone who frequently cheats on their partner while barely working is not a person to be admired. The series feels like it would greatly benefit from some of Emily’s vitriol being directed, just this once, towards Rory.
Anyhow, at the end, Rory is pregnant. I hope it’s the Wookie’s.
[Watch Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life on Netflix]