This Is The Exact Moment Gilmore Girls Jumped The Shark
The story of a mother and daughter whose relationship is so close that it veers toward toxic but swings around all the way to just being quirky and adorable, "Gilmore Girls" ran on WB (now known as The CW) for a whopping seven seasons, delighting viewers across the globe. Centered around Lorelei Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and Lorelei "Rory" Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), a mother and daughter with a conspicuously small age gap, the series — created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino — takes place in the sleepy hamlet of Stars Hollow, the hometown of said Gilmores.
Throughout the narrative, Lorelei and Rory work together to build Rory's future, attend Friday night dinners with Lorelei's extremely wealthy parents Emily (Kelly Bishop) and Richard (the late Edward Hermann), drink a potentially lethal amount of coffee, and talk very, very fast. By doing all of these things and more — who could forget the time Rory hit a deer?! — these Gilmore girls captured the hearts of audiences everywhere, and the show's legacy lived on so hard that Netflix even crafted a spin-off years after the original series finale.
With all of this said, you might be asking yourself one question: how could "Gilmore Girls" possibly jump the shark? Well, there's one really clear moment, and it might not be the one you're thinking of, because it's not the one where Rory steals a yacht. It's the one where Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) has a secret kid.
Luke's love child is one of Gilmore Girls' stupidest and most ridiculous plotlines
A truth universally acknowledged is that television writers who have to fill twenty-plus episodes of network television love to stretch out romantic pairings, taking the "will they, won't they" path nine times out of ten. "Gilmore Girls" is no exception — though it's painfully obvious that Lorelei and Luke, the cranky diner owner who supplies Lorelei with an endless supply of caffeine, are endgame, it takes them until the Season 4 finale to even kiss each other.
Once they kiss and then do other stuff, the two get engaged during a period where Lorelei and Rory aren't speaking (because Rory stole a yacht and dropped out of Yale, which was a very close second pick regarding shark-jumping). All seems well from this point on; Lorelei and Luke are happily planning their wedding, and when Lorelei and Rory finally reconcile, she feels like they can set a date. There's just one problem, and her name is April Nardini.
Played by Vanessa Marano, April, a precocious kid clearly made in Rory's booksmart image, shows up at the diner and bluntly announces that her mom and Luke did the horizontal mambo about twelve years ago, resulting in her. The idea of uber-responsible Luke not having any awareness of April is stupid from the outset, and from there, Luke makes a series of weird, boneheaded decisions, including not telling Lorelei about April and letting her find out by accident before not allowing his fiancée — who is, herself, a mother — anywhere near the kid. Eventually, the two break up over April, and even though they eventually get back together, it's held up as one of the all-time worst "Gilmore Girls" storylines.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is also pretty absurd
Putting aside Rory's yacht thievery, there's another universally reviled and very lengthy part of "Gilmore Girls" that fans think takes things entirely too far, and that's "A Year in the Life." This four-part continuation of the series allowed Amy-Sherman Palladino, who, along with her husband, left the original series before its final season — but at what cost, really?
Told throughout the year's four seasons in lengthy installments, "A Year in the Life" shows us where those dang Gilmore Girls are years after Season 7, and for one of them, the answer is "not in a very good place." At 32-years-old, Rory is, to be blunt, a mess; she doesn't have a place to live, she's still sleeping with her college boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry), who is engaged to someone else, and her career isn't exactly going swimmingly. Lorelei and Luke are at least together in these episodes, but that, as well as anything involving the always-perfect Kelly Bishop, is the highlight. Everything else, especially the bizarre "Hamilton" inspired musical about Stars Hollow, is largely a big waste of time.
There is, truly, so much to love about "Gilmore Girls," from the constant pop culture references to the camaraderie between Rory and Lorelei to literally every word uttered by Emily Gilmore or the sharp-tongued Paris Geller (Liza Weil). Every show hits an absurd point eventually, though, and these are the silliest, shark-jumpingest moments in "Gilmore Girls."