“Gilmore Girls” Season 7 (2006-07, The CW) was maligned from the get-go by many viewers simply because Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino weren’t involved anymore. To me, that makes new executive producer David S. Rosenthal’s accomplishment all the more impressive: The final season has that classic “Gilmore Girls” rhythm from start to finish despite having only two returning writers (Rosenthal and Rebecca Rand Kirshner).
Better than previous 2 seasons?
I’d even go so far to say it’s better than the Palladinos’ last two seasons. Whereas those forced the drama (everyone at each other’s throats in Season 5, Rory and Lorelai on the outs in Season 6), Season 7 tones things down and concludes with a thoughtful, grounded arc about Rory weighing her career options versus her relationship with Logan.
Meanwhile, the Luke-Lorelai-Christopher love triangle is put front and center, which is definitely a TV trope, but the writers do justice to all the characters while also giving us the ending we wanted (unlike some other shows – cough, “Dawson’s Creek,” cough).
“Gilmore Girls” Season 7 (2006-07)
CW, 22 episodes
Showrunner: David S. Rosenthal
Stars: Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Scott Patterson
If I have one fault with Season 7 it’s that many of the events feel inevitable; even when it first aired, I knew the Chris-Lorelai relationship would fall apart and she’d end up with Luke. Also, several episodes repeat ideas from previous seasons — another graduation, another Richard hospitalization, more Marty-Rory awkwardness, and more delving into Emily’s jealousy of Mia.
While it’s certainly a shame that the Palladinos couldn’t see their show to the finish line, Season 7 is not an unfortunate tack-on that denigrates their legacy. Rather, it is a touching love letter to Lorelai, Rory and Stars Hollow from writers who clearly love and respect the show, even if they weren’t there from day one. Here are my rankings of the 22 episodes.
1. “Lorelai? Lorelai?” (episode 20, written by David S. Rosenthal)
Rightly renowned for Lorelai’s “I Will Always Love You” karaoke serenade to Luke, this hour also crystalizes Rory’s worries about her nascent journalism career through an opening dream sequence where she imagines herself being expelled from Chilton for not measuring up.
(If only she had remembered that she landed that job at the Stamford Gazette in Season 6, then maybe she’d be less stressed out. Then again, her bosses probably aren’t thrilled with the fact that she forgot she has that job and therefore never shows up to work.)
2. “Hay Bale Maze” (18, Rebecca Rand Kirshner)
The titular maze is the last great bit of Stars Hollow craziness, and Luke and Lorelai’s mutual apologies about their breakup at the end of Season 6 double as apologies to fans for that contrived storyline. It’s neat to see Stars Hollow through Logan’s eyes – yes, this is his first visit to Stars Hollow, and I don’t think it’s an accident that it took this long, or that he dresses kind of like Christopher (also out of place in SH) here.
3. “Gilmore Girls Only” (17, David Babcock)
The humor flows naturally on the road trip to North Carolina featuring all three Gilmore girls, especially when Emily is in decidedly non-Emily settings such as a roadside restaurant. Having a different (and noticeably younger) actress in the role of Mia is mildly distracting, although I appreciate the desire to revisit Lor’s surrogate mother, who had appeared in only one prior episode.
4. “Go Bulldogs!” (6, Rosenthal and Kirshner)
It’s funny to see the ongoing joke about a cappella a couple years before “Glee” and “Pitch Perfect” made the art form cool. Luke’s bad date with the swim teacher is a copy of Rory’s bad date in Season 4, but the portrayal of Rory and her Yale Daily News staff rallying to cover a breaking news story is well done – “If they’re gonna be journalists, they’re gonna have to learn to write drunk.”
5. ” ‘S Wonderful, ‘S Marvelous” (4, Gayle Abrams)
The show was in desperate need of a couple carefree friends to contrast with Rory and Paris ever since the departure of Madeline and Louise in Season 4, and art students Lucy and Olivia fit the bill wonderfully. Chris and Lor’s movie date at the barn is the couple’s most beautiful romantic moment in the series.
6. “French Twist” (7, Babcock)
It’s nice to see Marty (last seen getting his heart stomped on by Rory in Season 5) again, although the writers will end up fumbling his storyline. The production design on Paris (the city, not the character) – where Lor and Chris get married on a whim — is well done, the latest example of “Gilmore Girls” getting a lot of bang out of a modest budget.
7. “Farewell, My Pet” (14, Jennie Snyder)
Considering how inevitable the Lor-Chris breakup is, the heart-to-heart on the couch is handled with a deft, bittersweet touch. Rory’s crush on the economics teaching assistant is hilariously played by Alexis Bledel.
8. “Will You Be My Lorelai Gilmore?” (16, Abrams and Gina Fattore)
In a season full of love letters to our favorite aspects of the series, this one honors the friendship between Lane and Rory at Lane’s baby shower.
9. “Introducing Lorelai Planetarium” (8, Snyder)
Similar to Season 4’s underappreciated classic “Die, Jerk,” Rory writes another article where she inadvertently crushes someone, but this time it’s her boyfriend rather than a stranger. It brings to the fore a good discussion about how Logan’s high-class status doesn’t necessarily mean his life is a cakewalk. It’s cool to see Luke be a competent parent to April when she has appendicitis.
10. “Bon Voyage” (22, Rosenthal)
Rather than giving us Stars Hollow’s postcard-perfect weather in the finale, it actually rains! This highlights the town’s – and particularly Luke’s — love for the Gilmores all the more when they throw Rory a bon voyage party. Although Rory does land a writing gig covering the Obama campaign, she wasn’t doing herself any favors by snail-mailing resumes at the start of the episode. (Also, I hope she’s not using the Stamford Gazette – where she hasn’t shown up since she landed the job – as a reference.)
11. “Santa’s Secret Stuff” (11, Kirshner)
Because I work in an industry where I can’t always get time off over holidays, I adore the way the Gilmores have their own Christmas in January because that’s when their schedules match up. On the other hand, Luke’s custody case for April is annoying in the way it turns Anna into a plot device (although I guess she has always fit that mold, considering that she didn’t tell Luke about his daughter for 12 years!). If she cares about April so much, why would she try to prevent her from seeing her dad?
12. “Knit, People, Knit” (9, David Grae)
I don’t care for the additional twisting of the knife in Marty’s gut when he and Rory share another awkward moment of one-way affection. That having been said, I feel he should appreciate Lucy more, as Krysten Ritter is adorable. Chris thinking he’s doing something good (donating all the money for a new bridge) but actually doing the wrong thing (it ends the knitting festival prematurely) nicely illustrates how he’s out of step with the Stars Hollow vibe, and therefore Lorelai.
13. “Lorelai’s First Cotillion” (3, Rina Mimoun)
The year’s major threads are set up, and they are good ones: Rory and Lane’s friendship is brought back to the fore, Zach and Lane’s home life with twins on the way provides a contrast to the career-minded Rory, and Lorelai and Christopher will get a fair chance at love for the first time.
14. “Merry Fisticuffs” (10, Rosenthal)
The wordless Luke-Christopher fight in the park is hilarious. On the downside, the Lucy-Marty-Logan-Rory dinner dustup is a missed opportunity to be a springboard for a Rory-Marty relationship. Perhaps the writers would’ve tried that if this wasn’t the last season; as it stands, Season 7 marks the Unnecessary Destruction of Marty’s Character.
15. “I’d Rather Be in Philadelphia” (13, Kirshner)
Using the exact same trick as a Season 1 episode, Richard’s hospitalization crystalizes everyone’s true feelings. It’s a contrived, but admittedly necessary, way to cause a major rift between Lor and Chris while also bringing Luke back into the picture.
I like that Rory brings her grandpa his Milton Friedman book to read; it’s one of the several subtle libertarian/economic/business elements peppered into a show that had leaned slightly statist in the Palladino years. (I suspect using Obama as the candidate whose campaign Rory will cover might’ve been due to the writers’ interest in his civil libertarian rhetoric at the time, something that is decidedly ironic – and sad — from the perspective of 2014.)
16. “It’s Just Like Riding a Bike” (19, Snyder)
Paris’ and Rory’s roles are flipped from their final days at Chilton – Paris gets into tons of medical schools while Rory’s future is uncertain. Other than that, this episode allows us to feel good about the home stretch: Luke and Lorelai bicker (meaning they like each other again), and the writers remember the existence of Lucy and Olivia for the first time in several months.
17. “Unto the Breach” (21, Babcock and Snyder)
This graduation episode fails to stand out from previous ones (Rory from Chilton, and Lor from business school), in part because Yale took a back seat to Stars Hollow this year (Rory ceded her editorship at midseason, citing Daily News bylaws).
Rory’s pain at breaking up with Logan is palpable yet almost a side story, partly because she is more mature now, but partly I think because the writers recognize this three-year relationship didn’t carry the emotional weight of Dean or Jess – at least not for viewers.
18. “That’s What You Get, Folks, for Makin’ Whoopie” (2, Kirshner)
Liz gets the Luke-Lorelai breakup right: It’s like they’re not on the same space-time continuum. And the grocery store encounter is sad: “You go back to being Lorelai Gilmore, and I’ll go back to being the guy in the diner who pours you coffee.” On the plus side, even as Season 7 was originally airing, I strongly suspected this would not be the sentiment when the series ended.
19. “To Whom It May Concern” (12, Babcock)
It’s touching to hear Lor’s reference letter for Luke, who rightfully wins his custody battle (although, again, the case itself is an annoying plot). And it’s nice to see Rory and Lucy make up after their Marty-influenced fight.
20. “I’m a Kayak, Here Me Roar” (15, Kirshner)
Emily’s appreciation for Lor’s business skills when her daughter teaches her how to use Quicken is nice, albeit somewhat of a repeat of Lor helping Richard set up his office in Season 4. The scene of Rory getting “Huntzbergered” by Mitchum is pitch-perfect; as despicable as Logan’s dad is, I have to admit actor Gregg Henry nails the role.
21. “The Long Morrow” (1, Rosenthal)
The traffic camera at Stars Hollow’s one stoplight and the resulting privacy issues is the first of several libertarian themes peppered into Season 7. The girls’ racquetball court conversation seems like a desperate attempt by the new writing team to be wacky, and I’m still irked that Lorelai gives up on Luke just because he couldn’t think fast enough while juggling his engagement and surprise daughter. It’s an uneven, if not foreboding, start for the Rosenthal regime.
22. “The Great Stink” (5, Fattore)
Coming up with a good “quirky Stars Hollow plot” is difficult, as it can either make or break an episode. Here is a rare case where it doesn’t work at all – the idea of a derailed pickle train stinking up the whole town lands flat, and it gets pounded flatter as the hour progresses.
What are your favorite episodes of the final season? And how do you rank the seasons? My ranking order is 2, 1, 3, 4, 7, 6, 5. Share your thoughts below.
More “Gilmore Girls” reviews:
Season 8: “A Year in the Life”