This ‘Gilmore Girls’ Fan Theory Explains ‘A Year In The Life’

When Netflix released Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life in November of 2016, fans eagerly tuned in to see the continued story of mother-and-daughter duo Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life picks up ten years after the seventh season of the show left off, featuring Rory as a 32-year-old struggling journalist and Lorelai as a successful inn owner.

While some circumstances of the Gilmore women’s lives have changed, the cast of characters surrounding them mostly remains the same: Lorelai is still with Luke, and Rory interacts with her three ex-boyfriends (Dean, Jess, and Logan) to varying extent. After A Year in the Life, something else changed as well: many fans and journalists publicly aired their grievances with Rory Gilmore.

In articles like Bustle’s “Rory Is Actually the Worst on Gilmore Girls“ and the Washington Post’s “Rory Gilmore Is a Monster,” authors criticized many of Rory’s decisions. Throughout Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Rory engages in quite a bit of questionable behavior: she cheats on her new boyfriend Paul by sleeping with Logan (who is engaged) and she fails to hold down a job or adequately prepare for an interview. This behavior is at odds with her persona in the earlier seasons of Gilmore Girls:“the old Rory had flaws, but she remained a revelation — a shy, smart teen girl who gets the guys is still a rarity on TV.”

In a new video posted by Cracked, Rosie Kaller and Daniel O’Brien explain a fan theory that accounts for Rory’s drastic change in behavior. Kaller argues that the book Rory writes about her life at the end of A Year in the Life is actually a novelization of the first seven seasons of Gilmore Girls.

“A Year in the Life is the only true Gilmore Girls universe. Gilmore Girls seasons one through seven are actually the rose-colored-glasses version of what unhappy 32-year-old Rory wants her life to be.”

In other words, Kaller postulates that the events we see in the original Gilmore Girls are a fictionalized, more positive account of Rory’s life. This would explain why Lorelai reacts so negatively when Rory informs her in A Year in the Life that she wants to write a book about their relationship. If, as Kaller puts it, the relationship between Lorelai and Rory Gilmore “was actually a more realistic and tumultuous mother-daughter relationship,” then Lorelai would not want it to be detailed in a publicly available book.

“Rory writes this book knowing her mom was against it. It only makes sense that she would smooth over all the aspects of their relationship that wasn’t pretty.”

Kaller’s theory about Gilmore Girls also explains some inconsistencies regarding Rory’s relationships with the men in her life. In Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Logan never addresses the fact that he unsuccessfully proposed to Rory ten years ago. He never discusses it because, according to Kaller’s theory, he never actually proposed to Rory at all. “At the end of seasons one through seven (the book she’s writing), Logan proposes to her and she says ‘no’ and goes and leads her best life, which is something she can’t do in her real life.”

This also explains why Rory and her father Christopher have seemingly drifted apart in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. In the original Gilmore Girls, Rory and Christopher had an easy rapport and showed a lot of affection for one another. In A Year in the Life, the two have a stilted, awkward conversation which disappoints Rory. Kaller argues that “A Year in the Life Rory and Christopher is the true relationship. She goes there, it’s awkward, whereas in seasons one through seven Rory and Christopher have the most idealistic relationship.”

To see even more evidence of the Gilmore Girls fan theory, watch the full Cracked video.

[Featured Image by Netflix]