Rory Gilmore's Downfall Isn't Bad Writing

Brynn Murawski

Rory Gilmore is one of the most beloved and disliked characters in pop culture, simultaneously an icon and a lightning rod for critique. She is one of the protagonists of Gilmore Girls, a classic chick-flick drama that ran from 2000-2007, with a brief mini-series revival in 2016. 

My goal is to finally untangle the complicated relationship viewers have with her, why her arc progresses the way it does, and why her behavior is actually never out of character. 

So let’s start with the “what.” The issue most fans have with Rory is how she goes from what they see as a lovable, hardworking, nerdy girl to a selfish, destructive, mess of a person. When taking a passing glance at her arc, it could certainly seem this way. 

Early seasons’ Rory is constantly studying, working hard, and has goals and dreams and success. She graduates valedictorian of her private school, and gets into three Ivy League universities. Throughout all of this, she maintains a bashful, endearing femininity and constant hunky boyfriends. Her character is a role model for every young girl that wants to have it all, because, for the most part, she does. 

Most viewers mark her descent as beginning in season four, when she attends Yale (instead of her “dream school” Harvard.) Unfortunately, this is only the beginning for her. Eventually, Rory will go on to lose her virginity to a married ex-boyfriend and pursue a rich party-boy. But perhaps her greatest transgression is when, after receiving a harsh bit of criticism during a journalism internship, she steals a yacht, drops out of Yale, and moves into her grandparents house. Despite the fact that the original series ends with her back at Yale and getting a good job on the Obama campaign, at this point most audiences have already given up on her. And when the series picks back up for A Year in the Life a decade later, she is sleeping in her childhood bedroom, unable to find a good job, and having an affair with the man whose marriage proposal she rejected in the final season. The series canon now ends with Rory’s words “Mom, I’m pregnant.” And, for most fans, she is a complete betrayal of the nerdy, responsible, ambitious, doe-eyed teen they fell in love with. 

This is how she’s a character that simultaneously pops up in trending study motivation videos every autumn while being torn apart in the comment section of that same TikTok. “I only liked her in the beginning of the show.” “They ruined her character when she went to Yale.” “What happened to this Rory??” 

If you re-examine the character, however, there are clear signs even in the earliest season (even in the first episode) that Rory was going to end up the way she did. The pilot of Gilmore Girls includes Rory getting into a prestigious prep-school (Chilton) and almost turning it down because she had just met a boy that will turn into her first love interest, Dean. 

In the very first episode, Rory goes from being excited about her acceptance, something that will fast-track her into Harvard, to nearly throwing away all of her mother’s sacrifice because she’s developing a crush. Rory and her mother, Lorelai, fight over this, with Lorelai recognizing her daughter’s erratic behavior. A few episodes later, Rory lashes out at her class, yelling at the other students because she’s frazzled and late for a test. Is it portrayed as an understandable reaction? Sure. But everyone has to deal with shit sometimes, and we usually don’t react like that. 

Already, Rory is exhibiting selfishness, erratic behavior, and doesn’t seem to have quite the commitment to her dream that viewers think she does in hindsight. She regularly breaks down over feeling unprepared for her future, seeing it with a borderline dangerous absolution. She will go to Harvard and she will be a journalist. These traits are only further exacerbated when Jess, AKA love interest #2, comes into the picture. Her feelings for Jess lead her to cheat on Dean, another example of her characteristic selfishness and ego. But perhaps most telling is when Rory skips school and takes a bus to New York to see Jess (before they are even dating.) 

In doing so, she misses Lorelai’s graduation. Lorelai, who could never graduate college because she had Rory, is angry but ultimately forgives her pretty easily and the problem is forgotten. Not only does Rory skip out on her academic commitments, but she selfishly hurts someone she loves in the pursuit of a momentary ego boost. Is it really so hard to believe this person would continue a pattern of cheating in relationships, stealing a yacht, and giving up at the first sign of struggle? 

The final puzzle piece of Rory’s eventual downfall, however, is that her ego is constantly boosted by everyone around her, from minute one of the series. Lorelai, Luke, every boyfriend, and all the townspeople see her with rose-colored glasses. Ironically, this is also very similar to how viewers see her in the early seasons. 

Every infraction she participates in, her mother forgives her quite quickly, or defends it because “this isn’t like Rory.” Seems similar to what audiences say as the series progresses, doesn’t it? And of course Lorelai sees Rory on such a pedestal, Rory was her way out of a situation she hated. Rory meant autonomy, a goal, some over the first true connection Lorelai experienced. Her daughter, who wants to go to the Ivies and have a big fancy job, something Lorelai never got to do. And even beyond Lorelai, every townsperson sees some part of themselves in Rory, something worth defending with an almost Holden-Caulfield-esque passion. Protectors and supporters of her innocence and ambition. 

So of course Rory has a complex. Of course she crumbles the second things don’t go as expected or she faces a little bit of criticism. Of course she reacts erratically and selfishly. Of course she has unhealthy relationships with the men in her life, cheating on them often, when her own father was the only person who didn’t adore her enough to stick around. It makes complete sense that Rory Gilmore would spiral, with clues dropped the second that autumn-themed intro played for the first time. 

But why would a protagonist of a television show be written like this? It has to be a mistake, right? People are supposed to get better, not worse.

When taking a harder look at showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino’s life and motivations writing the series, however, it becomes clear that Rory’s downfall was intended from the start. Because here’s the kicker. Sherman-Palladino knew how she wanted to end the series from the second she wrote its pilot. 

“Mom, I’m pregnant.” 

Sherman-Palladino is on record saying this. It is a literal fact. And this is something she was planning on doing long before she could have any idea of knowing how long the show would last. It could’ve meant a teenage Rory becoming pregnant, just like her mother. Because Sherman-Palladino wasn’t just writing a show about a mother and daughter being best friends, like she pitched it. She was writing a story about doing everything you can to break a cycle, and failing. She was writing a critique of the upper class, and a critique of Ivy-League ambition. 

Because Amy Sherman-Palladino never went to college. 

Of course, this wasn’t necessarily because she was unprivileged. She was actually trained in ballet for much of her young life (adding an interesting spin on the ballerina-critique Rory writes in the later seasons.) So, of course, we get into speculation here. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe Sherman-Palladino was only trying to live vicariously through a character. Or, she got tired of people throwing around fancy-college degrees as if that meant they were more talented than those without them. Maybe, she was never really going to root for a character whose entire goal in life was to go to an Ivy League school. Maybe, she wanted to write someone with so much potential and so much opportunity who still falls prey to her own ego and selfishness. Maybe the lesson here is not a focus on competitive academics and careers, but on building yourself up with determination and human connection. (Maybe Rory wasn’t the hero, Lorelai was.) 

“But Brynn, why does the seventh season end with Rory succeeding? Striking out on her own path? Getting a great job with a future looking up, only to sabotage it all a decade later?” 

The seventh season was run mainly by David Rosenthal. The Palladinos (Amy and her husband) were ousted by the network for requesting more writers and resources. Sherman-Palladino had no say in the original end of her series, and she refused to ever watch the seventh season, even when writing A Year in the Life. 

So that is why AYITL doesn’t quite match the original ending. It was a completion of Sherman-Palladino’s vision, Rory’s arc ending in a removal from the journalism she always wanted with a renewed focus on family instead. Ending on the words Palladino had been sitting on for a decade and a half. 

Most people don’t understand how a character could get worse rather than better, so they chalk Rory up to bad writing. By doing this, they’re missing the main point of the show. Rory was never supposed to be a role model, she was supposed to be a critique. At the end of the day,

Gilmore Girls is not about getting into the fanciest school or having the best job, it is about human connection, a silly town in Connecticut, and generational cycles. It is about the complex love that binds parent to child. And Rory did exactly what she was always going to do.

Edited by  Alima Shoranova & Elisabeth Kay