‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ Might Have Proven That Emily and Lorelai Gilmore Were Very Much the Same Person
Lorelai Gilmore and Emily Gilmore had an incredibly complicated relationship. The two women never seemed to see eye-to-eye during Gilmore Girls’ six-season run, and, based on background information, they didn’t get along when Lorelai was a child, either. Initially, it was suggested their frosty relationship was the result of vastly different personalities. That might not be the case, though. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life may have proven that Lorelai and Emily were far more similar than they were different.
Emily Gilmore was initially presented as completely different than her daughter
For most of Gilmore Girls, the show’s writers tried to drive home the point that Lorelai and her mother were inherently different people. The way they dressed was different, the way they spoke was different, and they had completely different ideas about what was right and wrong.
Lorelai was presented as someone who disappointed her family by refusing to fit neatly into the Gilmore’s upper-class world. On the contrary, Emily was presented as someone who followed the way that was laid out for her. She went to college, married a man in her social circle, had a child, and carried out an executive’s wife’s duties. Still, some moments seemed to suggest Lorelai and Emily weren’t all that different after all.
Emily and Lorelai were both strong personalities
While Emily and Lorelai were often presented as polar opposites, there were moments in Gilmore Girls when it was obvious that the pair were far more alike than they would have ever wanted to admit. Their values may have been vastly different, but they both were incredibly strong personalities. They were both prone to emotional outbursts, too.
When Richard Gilmore refused to listen to Emily, she exploded in the center of a shopping mall. After Rory dropped out of Yale and moved in with Richard and Emily, Lorelai had an emotional moment in the middle of her parents’ home. When Lorelai got pregnant and refused to get married, Emily was angered. When Rory applied to schools other than Harvard, Lorelai was irritated.
Emily proved in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life that she could forge her own path
After the death of Richard, Emily proved what fans had been thinking for years. She and her daughter were not all that different, after all. Lorelai and Emily might have been the same person. Emily, no longer burdened by the need to look proper, shook out of the life she lived for 50 years and completely changed everything.
Instead of staying in Hartford and continuing to live in high society, Emily sold her expansive home. She decided to start over again in a completely new place. By the end of the revival, Emily had a life in Nantucket, a job, and a completely different outlook. She forged her own path. It happened later, but her journey was similar to what Lorelai had done decades before. Just like that, she brought the Gilmore’s story full-circle.
