The Gilmore Girls Project Primer: The Characters

This entire project will obviously be peppered by our personal love or disdain for all of the characters that make Gilmore Girls great. Full disclosure is important here.

As a point of reference as we go forward, here is a helpful guide to how we feel about every Gilmore Girls character:

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All but three can be easily classified into one of three categories: The Best, Normal, and The Worst. Most are self-explanatory, but there are a few obvious things we need to comment on straight away:

Lorelai Gilmore: The Worst of The Worst

Somewhere along the past 10 years we both came to a somewhat surprising realization that could possibly be controversial (or maybe it’s canon, who knows?) in the world of Gilmore Girls enthusiasts: Lorelai Gilmore is a world class asshole. Clearly we think there are a lot of people on this show who are “the worst,” but Lorelai Gilmore is the worst of The Worst.

We’ll get into why Lorelai is the worst in more detail later, but I feel like this is an appropriate warning for all readers. If you love Lorelai Gilmore, please don’t be offended. We liked her the first 5-7 times around. You’ll come around by your 8th viewing. And if you love Lauren Graham, don’t worry, we do too! She is a wonderful, talented actress, and it is totally not her fault Lorelai is a narcissistic, self-destructive jerk. In fact, her portrayal of LorelaiĀ is a master class in subtlety.

Michel: Unclassifiable

Michel is either The Best or Normal or The Worst depending on our moods. Of all the men on the planet, Michel, to me, isĀ the most exhausting kind of man. He’s surly and French and twee and flamboyant (but not gay!) and whiny and lazy and petty and sassy and exacting and apathetic. There is nothing really disputed here, he’s just unclassifiable. And exhausting.

Jess and Logan: Disputed

J is team Jess. L is team Logan. L hates Jess. J hates Logan. There is no middle ground here, no compromise to be had. The key to a successful marriage is knowing what battles are not worth fighting. L‘s love for Logan is the yin to J‘s love for Jess yang, and at the end of the day we can all just agree that anything’s better than Dean.

 

Did we miss anyone? I’m sure we did! Comment below and we’ll update the list.

The Gilmore Girls Project

A bit of background:

My wife (J) and I (L) both have real Ph.D.s in a real scientific discipline. But we also strongly believe that we have honorary Ph.D.s in Gilmore Girls. It has been our default “there’s nothing to watch” time-filler for the past decade, and we have watched every episode of every season at least 10 times. It never gets old.

I recently realized that we, Gilmore Girls scholars that we are, have MANY opinions and MUCH wisdom to share about Gilmore Girls. And if there is one thing I love, it is broadcasting my opinions and “wisdom” on my blog for 10 people to read. We have decided to start the Gilmore Girls Project.

This “project” is mainly an attempt to rank order every Gilmore Girls episode best to worst. The methodology is not set in stone but it will probably have something to do with star rankings or something like that. More importantly we’ll record our thoughts on the episodes along the way. We are disorganized and lazy, so while I can promise that we will make an attempt to rank and discuss every single episode, I can also promise that (1) it won’t happen in any sort of logical order, (2) it will most definitely happen in fits and starts, and (3) most of the opinions will come from me, L, with as much contributions as I can squeeze out of J as possible. This is how we roll, and all 10 of you are going to have to deal with it.