27 seconds.
It's not a very long time but it's enough to have caused me to hold back on posting this for two weeks. When The WB originally aired the season finale of Gilmore Girls the episode ran 27 seconds into the 9 o'clock hour. That decision was unannounced prior to airtime and consequently wreaked havoc on DVRs and VCRs everywhere, leaving some very angry fans.
What happened in those 27 seconds might have been a mystery if not for WB promos that promised a marriage proposal. But who proposed to who?
The specifics of that proposal had been spoiled for me by the time I saw it play out during WB's quickly scheduled rebroadcast last night but it was still worth the wait.
Much has been written about the creative resurgence of Gilmore this season, and happily the show also managed an impressive ratings boost (up 17% in total viewers and 24% in the 18-49 demo) making it the WB's second highest rated show for the season. It's extremely rare for a series to deliver one of its finest seasons in its fifth year but Gilmore did just that (I think this season stands with the first as the series' overall best).
So anyway, two weeks late, but yes Gilmore Girls finished off one of its very best seasons with one of the season's very best episodes.
Lorelai and Luke finally became a couple this season and wrapping the year up with a proposal was the perfect finish. It couldn't have happened in a better way.
Even if that meant that Rory had to act in a ludicrously un-Rory-like manner and decide to drop out of Yale because her boyfriend's powerful father told her she doesn't have what it takes to become a journalist - her lifelong dream.
I appreciate that the writers (and by writers I mean primarily Amy Sherman-Palladino, clearly the voice of this show) enjoy testing Rory's limits, throwing obstacles in her path to see how she'll react, complicating her relationships (especially with her mother) and allowing her to grown up in a messy, believable way. Losing her virginity to her married ex-boyfriend in last season's finale was a perfect way of doing all that. Forcing her to quit Yale for what seems like short term dramatic impact is not. I'm very curious to see where exactly they're going with this.
But I'm glad, and somewhat surprised, that after five seasons I can have such a strong reaction to a character's decision on a TV show. For all its cutesy quirks the reason Gilmore Girls works is because of the strong central characters it has developed over the years.
With its WB-size-appropriate audience the show has remained something of a cult phenomenon and not everyone has had the chance to discover its exceptional qualities. But it's quite unlike anything else currently on the air. It's funny, it's witty, it's smart and it loves its characters so much it's impossible not to love them back. Even when the decisions they make are really stupid.
Finale Grade: A
Season Grade: A-
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