‘Gilmore Girls’: 2 Reasons Sean Gunn Found Series Finale ‘Unsatisfying’
Gilmore Girls has ended twice and fans still hold out hope for a second season of A Year in the Life. Both endings were controversial, both among fans and the stars. Sean Gunn and Scott Patterson weighed in on both endings.
Gunn was a guest on Patterson’s I Am All In podcast on Sept. 14 taking fan questions. When asked how they felt about the ending of Gilmore Girls, Gunn shared his frustration with the season 7 finale and Patterson with A Year in the Life.
Sean Gunn doesn’t know ‘Gilmore Girls’ but he knows what he likes
Gunn prefaced his answer by establishing that he’s no TV critic by any stretch. However, living with Kirk and the Stars Hollow gang for seven seasons, there was no denying something was off when Gilmore Girls ended.
“I have a difficult time sometimes being critical in the non pejorative sense of the word, really being able to judge when I’m in something like that, when I’m so close to it,” Gunn said on I Am All In. “I tend to know by the audience reaction. If everybody hates it, it was probably a problem. Game of Thrones. And if everyone likes it, it was a good decision, whether I thought so at the time or not.”
Gilmore Girls Season 8 was still in discussion when they filmed the season 7 finale. When the following season fell through, that made the series finale all the more unfulfilling.
“I don’t know really,” Gunn said. “I sort of felt like the original ending of the series when we were done in 2007 was so unsatisfying, partially because we weren’t even sure it was ending. It was like a half ending where we might do another something but we might not. So they tried to leave it open ended.”
The ‘Gilmore Girls’ series finale was also missing key people
Amy Sherman-Palladino created Gilmore Girls and produced it with Dan Palladino. They left after season 5, so ending the show without them automatically felt not quite right.
“Plus, Amy and Dan were gone by that point and so there was something always unsatisfying about that,” Gunn said. “I know Amy ended it the way she wanted to end it originally. I don’t know, I never really questioned that too much. I sort of feel like I thought the episodes were good so I don’t know. I don’t know what I would’ve done differently. Your opinion about that is better than mine is.”
Scott Patterson’s issues with ‘A Year in the Life’
The Netflix revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was four feature-length episodes, each focusing on a season in Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel)’s life. Patterson thought that was the wrong approach.
I don’t like what they did to Rory. I think you respect Ed Hermann. You give him half the first episode to mourn and to go through that process and then you do three and a half episodes of a huge wedding. For me it was a big missed opportunity to introduce all of those machinations and shenanigans that would’ve occurred. The runup to everybody behind schedule and screwing up. It would’ve been great. And I think the fans really deserve something that was that on the nose because Amy and Dan don’t write things that are on the nose. They go big when you expect them to go small and vice versa. That’s the beauty of what they do that few people do. But I think in that situation it was warranted because it was just so obvious what the fans wanted and I think that was a time you’ve got to give the fans what they wanted. And maybe they will eventually. Those are my two main points.
Scott Patterson, I Am All In, 9/14/22
The audience for I Am All In cheered both answers, so clearly Gunn and Patterson speak for some of the fans.
