Picture the scene: it’s late afternoon on a blustery day in early April 2023 and we are on a small farm in the English countryside. The farmhouse (simple but pretty, clad in wood, roof could do with a little repair, window frames need repainting) sits unassumingly in a meadow. In the house, towering on a chair, is a pile of laundry that needs putting away, there’s a garbage bag sitting inside the front door, mail lies unopened on the kitchen table, and next to it, a random shoe and an empty packet of potato chips. In the sitting room, the log burner is lit and two dogs sleep by the hearth.
The TV is on and 22-year-old Felix, home from university, is completely absorbed in a show on Netflix. Suddenly his mother, somewhat windswept and slightly wild about the eyes, makes a cyclonic entry into the house. "Felix!" No answer—he’s captivated by drama unfolding on the screen. "Felix!"
"Huh?" He turns his head a notch but his eyes remain fixed on the TV. "I’ve been phoning and phoning you - you didn’t pick up!"
She may as well be talking to thin air. She’s kind of used to it. She talks at him at breakneck speed, recounting the chaos of her day, cramming a chocolate bar into her mouth while she picks up things and puts them down again and speaks with her mouth full and barely pauses for breath. ". . . Felix!!"
"Oh—soz—I was. . ." But he’s held captive by a scene unfolding on the TV: a man is waiting outside a diner, inside there are numerous tins of paint, dust sheets all around, there’s more than interior decorating on his mind. Whomever he’s waiting on isn’t going to show. Oh—hang on—that very person is currently entangled in a passionate embrace on a balcony elsewhere.
Felix’s mother turns to face the screen. "What?? Gilmore Girls?!" She regards her son with amazement. "You’re watching Gilmore Girls?"
"I’m obsessed," Felix shrugs happily in the vague direction of his mother. "It’s us," he tells her. "Actually, it’s more than just us. It’s who I was when I was younger - who I am now - who I’ll become one day."
In an instant, his mother forgets about her stressy day and all the idiots in it, the various items on the to-do list she was phoning her son about and the various items strewn around the house that need sorting and all about her stroppy mood in general. Instead, she sits herself down beside him and they watch three more episodes back-to-back, only breaking for dinner when they’re overcome with emotion because Emily Gilmore is overcome with emotion visiting the tiny hut Lorelai and Rory first lived in. True story, that.
Here’s what I find interesting about the enduring and cross-generational appeal of Gilmore Girls. My son Felix was in his final year at university, taking a joint-honours degree in English and Film Studies, when he discovered the show. Previously, he and I had watched all six seasons of The Sopranos as part of his course. He goes to watch each John Wick movie at the cinema on the day of release. Ultimately, though, it isn’t Christian Bale or Brad Pitt he’d choose to hang out with.
For this 22-year-old lad, Stars Hollow had become his definitive happy place, its inhabitants his support network, while he tackled the stress and workload of university. I’m not sure that Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote the show with the Felix Type in mind—but Gilmore Girls continues to resonate with him on many levels, providing more than entertainment, bringing him solace and respite and light relief and companionship.
I had come across the show on one of those evenings when I’d been aimlessly zapping through the myriad offerings competing across the streaming services. I vaguely remembered the title from many years before and I decided to dip in and give it my 20-minute rule. Over 110 hours later, it appears I’m in it for the long haul.
But on that day last April, with an uncanny dynamic befitting Lorelai and Rory, it transpired that Felix and I were just one episode apart in season 1.
Anytime he was home for a weekend break or the vacations from university, he and I would teleport to Stars Hollow. We have an unspoken rule to only ever watch Gilmore Girls together, which has necessitated extreme self-restraint not to sneak in extra episodes if one of us isn’t around.
What is it about this show which has found its way under my skin and woven through not just my heart but my son’s too? Yes, of course, Felix and I sit together and laugh and wince and cheer and gasp because the writing is so good, the humour so razor sharp it could split logs, a setting so enviable we want to relocate, characters so known to us we can’t quite believe we’re not in a WhatsApp group with the lot of them.
But reader, it goes way deeper than such surface details. I’m a single mother and it’s been that way since Felix and his younger sister Georgia were tiny. So, on a very personal level, this show is my show. When I started watching Gilmore Girls, I’d already gone through the teenage years with my off-spring and come out the other side - so I’d call across to the TV, offering Lorelai my advice and support because I’d been there, done that and somehow survived.
Rory is currently 21 and so is my daughter - which means that Lorelai and I must have experienced everything in tandem and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so close to a fictitious character. I am as grateful to the writers for drawing from life and detailing the flaws and the loneliness, the freedom and the fear and the joy of lone parenting, as I am to Lauren Graham for portraying so convincingly the stumbling passage that us single mums make in our (frequently misdirected) bid to ensure that our kids are okay. Throughout the five-and-a-bit seasons I’ve watched, I’ve seen how Lorelai, too, fears that the world will take her child away from her, the potentially dangerous and way-too-big world, whilst also finding the courage to let that child leave.
Just as Lorelai has superbright Rory, so, too, am I similarly blessed with Felix. I know from the frequent sideways glances he’ll send over whilst we’re watching the show that he sees me in Lorelai - whether it’s a beseeching gaze for me to Be More Lorelai or a raised eyebrow that says See What I Have to Go Through.
After nine months and five seasons of sublimely entertaining time-travel, the two of us remain completely united in our commitment to the show. It’s a mother-son thing. Gilmore Girls belongs to us.
Extracted from Life’s Short, Talk Fast: 15 Writers on Why We Can’t Stop Watching Gilmore Girls edited by Ann Hood
