10 Things About ‘Gilmore Girls’ Rory Gilmore That Don’t Work Today

Gilmore Girls was one of the most popular shows of the early 2000s, and it has remained just as relevant and important to fans to this day. Following the quick-witted Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her studious teenage daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel), the show follows their lives in their quirky small town of Stars Hollow.

Audiences loved watching the mother-daughter duo, but just because they’re the center of the hit series doesn’t mean they’re above criticism. In fact there’s a lot that wouldn’t fly today, with Rory in particular.

10

Rory Sleeping With Dean

For a show where fans can’t seem to agree on whom the best boyfriend for Rory was, they can all agree on one thing: her sleeping with Dean (Jared Padalecki) was the worst thing she could have done. Dean was Rory’s first boyfriend, but they eventually went their separate ways, and he moved on, eventually getting married. In the Season 4 finale, Rory and Dean end up sleeping together, which happens to be Rory’s first time. It should be a momentous occasion, but it’s tainted by the fact that Dean is still very much married.

Rory and Dean continue their reignited romance after he leaves his wife for her, and it paints Rory in a completely different light. No longer is she sweet and considerate, she’s a homewrecker, and it’s terrible to watch play out. More than that, she justifies their relationship because he was “hers first”, which just doesn’t cut it. This storyline changed Rory forever, and it’s one that fans have never forgotten, and likely would not fly today.

9

Believes She Gets a Pass at School Just Because She Lives Out of Town

In Season 1, Rory transfers from her local high school in Stars Hollow to a prestigious private school a town over. The students, and even the people who inhabit the town, are a far cry from the people of Stars Hollow and Rory has a hard time adjusting to the change. She is eventually told by the school counselor to make some friends and participate in the school more or her performance will suffer, so she begrudgingly talks to some of her fellow students. They end up getting her into trouble when they get her to sneak into the Headmaster’s office after hours, but Rory manages to talk herself out of suspension by saying it’s all the Headmaster’s fault for forcing her to befriend anyone in the first place. She says that she has friends in Stars Hollow, but he doesn’t see that part of her life, and somehow this works on him.

And it isn’t the first time she has done this either. Early in Season 1, she was late for a test after she overslept and hit a deer on the way to school, and was rightfully told she could not take the test because of her tardiness. She blamed it on the fact that she lives out of town, and that she started mid-school year, but these are all things she knew when she first started at Chilton, not things she should be getting passes for.

8

Missing Lorelai’s Graduation

The entire charm of Gilmore Girls is the relationship between Lorelai and Rory. Lorelai had Rory when she was a teenager, and didn’t even get to finish high school, let alone go to college. So, when she decided to pursue a business degree from the community college, it was a huge deal for her character. When it came time for her graduation her excitement was palpable, and she was especially thrilled to share the day with Rory. Except, Rory never showed up. Rory was instead in New York visiting Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) and, due to a series of mishaps with the train, ended up being delayed in getting home.

Lorelai ends up sharing a touching moment with her parents, which is a huge deal, but the person she really wanted wasn’t there. And yes, Rory apologized profusely, and she felt immense guilt for it, but it’s still one of the most disappointing episodes. Lorelai asks for very little from Rory, and this was such a huge moment for her, yet Rory went off gallivanting in New York without a second thought.

7

Thinking She’s Above Infidelity

As previously mentioned, the whole Dean situation was a mess, but in general, Rory doesn’t have much regard for fidelity. Even before that whole mess, she was carrying an obvious torch for Jess while dating Dean, and refused to acknowledge it until Dean himself got frustrated and ended things. Later in the series, when she’s dating Logan (Matt Czuchry) she goes to Jess and kisses him when she and Logan get into a fight. And perhaps, worst of in A Year In the Life she is actively carrying on an affair with Logan, while he is engaged and she has a long-term boyfriend.

The crazy thing is, Rory never acknowledges the cheating. In fact, she justifies it. When Lorelai calls her out on sleeping with Dean while he’s married, she reasons that he was “hers first”, so it’s okay. The same goes for her whole situation with Logan in the revival. Rory truly believes that she is above infidelity so long as she dated them once before.

6

Her Inability to Take Criticism

Rory is an incredibly hard worker and an impeccable student. There’s no denying that she earned her spot at Chilton and eventually Yale. But one thing that she has never handled well is criticism. And it’s understandable, she’s a young girl who’s still growing up and she’s fragile. But she was choosing to go into journalism, which would mean her work would constantly be under intense scrutiny by the public eye and privy to criticism. Yet we see countless times throughout the series that she doesn’t take criticism well, no matter who it comes from.

This aspect of Rory’s character won’t probably be completely erased, since she is still a perfectionist at her core, but it would have to be worked on. Rory never really grows out of this, and they even argue it gets worse as the series goes on. Heck, she drops out of Yale, one of the most prestigious schools, all because Mitchum (Gregg Henry) says he doesn’t think she has what it takes to be a journalist. There was no growth.

5

The Way She Shames Others

Rory is initially depicted as a very kind and sweet girl. She’s friendly and everyone seems to like her in her town. She seems like the kind of girl you’d become fast friends with. But as the show goes on, you start to realize that she’s actually not as kind as she seems, she’s actually quite judgmental. She judges Dean for his future plans, particularly his school plans. She judges Paris (Liza Weil) for her relationship with Asher (Michael York). And who can forget when she wrote that nasty article fat-shaming the ballerina?

For a girl who was said to be so nice, Rory was quite judgy and had a bit of a mean girl side to her that reared its ugly head from to time. These moments certainly wouldn’t fly today. Especially the ballerina storyline. Though that never should have been included in the first place.

4

Her Internship With Mitchum

When Rory is dating Logan, his father, Mitchum, gives her an internship to help her hone her journalistic skills. This ends up being disastrous for Rory and completely derails her life. It starts out well enough, but even though she’s meant to be there as a journalist, she ends up more like Mitchum’s assistant. By the end of her time there, Mitchum tells her that he doesn’t think she has what it takes to be a journalist, and this just completely unravels Rory. From the very beginning of the show, Rory has been saying that she wants to be a journalist, so Mitchum saying she doesn’t have what it takes was a huge blow to her ego. It caused her to drop out of Yale as she suddenly lost all sense of direction and purpose in her life.

Fans have debated this storyline a lot over the years, and Mitchum wasn’t entirely wrong. He gave her a chance to show what she could do, and instead she was fetching coffees and tending to his needs. She didn’t stand out like she needed to be a journalist, and she didn’t even seem to try. Granted, she was in a weird spot being that she was interning for her boyfriend’s dad, but still, a little effort could have been put in.

3

Her Argument With Lorelai

After Rory makes the decision to drop out of Yale, she moves in with her grandparents and stops speaking to Lorelai, severing their once unbreakable bond. On one hand, this storyline needed to happen eventually, because Lorelai and Rory’s relationship was far too picturesque to be realistic as mother and daughter. But the way it all went down was just cruel.

Rory schemed with her grandparents to drop out of Yale because she knew Lorelai wouldn’t let her. She moved into her grandparent’s house without telling Lorelai. And then they didn’t speak for months on end. Rory was pushing Lorelai away so hard, which was so out of character for her, and it’s likely that it would have played out a bit differently today. Rory obviously had a lot to work through, but completely alienating Lorelai from her life was an unexpected gut punch.

2

Not Remembering Her Boyfriend’s Name

The Gilmore Girls revival is a touchy subject, to say the least. You either love it or you hate it, and there’s really no one in between. But one of the weirdest plot points was that Rory had a long-term boyfriend named Paul (Jack Carpenter) who she could never remember the name of.

He was a total sweetheart, and she seemed as though she couldn’t care less about him. Seriously, it became a running gag that she kept forgetting about him and had to remind herself to break up with him. All the while she’s carrying on an affair with Logan, mind you. It’s just a weird storyline, and paints Rory in an even worse light, because how do you just forget your boyfriend?

1

The Way She Treats Her Friends

It’s been pretty well established that Rory is a crappy girlfriend, but she’s also a pretty crappy friend, which is a shame considering she has one of the best. Lane (Keiko Agena) has been Rory’s best friend since they were in kindergarten, and they remain best friends into their adulthood, but the way Rory treats Lane at times is shameful. She all but drops Lane completely when she starts dating Dean, and she rarely shows any true interest in Lane’s life. This wasn’t always the case, there were genuine moments where the pair’s friendship was adorable, but especially as the show went on, Rory just proved to be a worse and worse friend for how checked out she was.

The same goes for her friendship with Paris. Granted, they got off on the wrong foot, but they eventually spark up a really great friendship. Paris even considers Rory her best friend, yet Rory is pretty dismissive of Paris, and looks down upon her at times, especially during her relationship with Asher. Like Lane, Rory and Paris have their good moments, but they tend to be overshadowed by the times Rory just isn’t a good friend to her, and it’s disappointing to see.

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