some thoughts on rory and logan in the revival, since i am forever confused and emotionally anguished about that whole ish, but in a way where i simultaneously find the writing oddly exquisite because if nothing, at least the revival seems to have clearly decided that logan is rory’s The One, but rory just can’t have nice things because [footage not found, who knows what asp was thinking there]??:
on one level they’re clinging to each other because they are each other’s strongest memory of being young and fancy free and defiant and full of possibility. their relationship represented a time in their lives when they were free, and taught each other how to be freer; they both gave each other the courage to be bold and try new things and cast off the familial obligations and expectations that shackled them, and i think when we meet them again in the revival, they miss that desperately, especially considering where they are now in their lives.
logan is the heir to the family business, the exact future he dreaded; his engagement is an extension of that dutifulness. rory is failing at the one thing she has always based her future, her whole identity, her value around.
i think neither of them like themselves very much when we meet them again in the revival, and so they don’t feel worthy of being together in a real, ‘take a chance on me’ kind of way. instead, they’re being shady assholes about it. but what they do still really like is each other.
and it’s obvious from the way they act with each other that this isn’t a no-strings-attached hookup situation. they talk about drycleaning and work; logan gives rory thoughtful feedback on her work prospects; they go out to lunch together to talk about their days; rory keeps boxes at logan’s place. calling logan when she’s upset is a reflex for rory, and as soon as she calls, logan says, ‘talk to me, i’m here.’ they are acting like married people, not hookup buddies.
but neither of them can admit it. because logan is stuck in the dynastic plan, and rory is determined to be rootless, because if she’s being rootless it means she hasn’t failed, and she cannot admit that the only roots she’s put down tie her to a person instead of the career she has always aspired toward. i think that logan is way more consciously willing than rory is to throw it all away and get back together, but rory won’t, can’t go there, because she’s failed and this isn’t where she was supposed to be and maybe she doesn’t want it to seem like she’s falling back into his arms out of necessity because she can’t take care of herself.
and so they have this grand goodbye that is a testament to their wild happy youth together, and they’re so sad to part at the end of it, but they both feel that they’ve wandered so far away from the people that they were when they were together that there’s nothing holding the current versions of themselves together.
they’re on such separate paths (and have failed their young selves so severely) that they feel like there’s no way to navigate their way toward what they each secretly want, which is to be together as adults, to be moving into the future together instead of clinging to the past together.
and then rory finds out that she’s pregnant, and obviously logan is the father. the universe handing them a future.
and i would just love it if the revival had gone on for, oh, i dunno, twenty more minutes. and we could see emily at luke and lorelai’s formal wedding (walking lorelai down the aisle! this will be forever canon to me!), and the whole town gathering together for one last celebration, and rory deciding to tell logan about her pregnancy because hey, actually, history doesn’t have to repeat itself. and you know logan wouldn’t hesitate, because all he needed was for her to say the word.
sure, we wouldn’t have the same final four words (what … a shame … ?), but we could have a sure, happy, hopeful ending for rory, where she’s figuring out where she wants to take her career, but at least she’ll have the person she loves by her side.
(hypothetical new final four words: lorelai, rory, and emily are hanging out together on the couch in the gilmore-danes living room in their pajamas, picking at leftover wedding cake. the final four words are lorelai’s epiphany. “i’m the grandma now.” rory smiles, tickled. lorelai balks, for comedic effect [or IS it?]. the camera lingers for a moment on a shot of our three gilmore girls, just as emily begins to smirk the world’s queenliest and most satisfied smirk. cut to black, THE END.)
