There’s always been something special about Gilmore Girls — and not just because it gives you that cozy girl in the fall with a knitted blanket kind of vibe. Any fan of the beloved, long-running series will tell you a particular aspect that speaks to them directly, whether it’s the quick-paced dialogue, charmingly eclectic cast of small-town misfits, or Lorelai’s blind hatred of Evanescence. But at its core, Gilmore Girls tells the story of a unique mother-daughter relationship. “I sold it off of a line,” Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator told Today. “It’s like a mother and daughter, but they’re like friends. And they all perked up and said, ‘Great. We’ll buy that.’” Palladino has also long maintained that she knew the story’s ending from the very beginning — long before Netflix’s revival series Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. So how did things pan out at the end of the show?

First, a few refresher details: Set in the fictional town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, Gilmore Girls follows thirtysomething Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her teenage daughter, Rory (Alexis Bledel), through the ups and downs of life among their quirky fellow locals. It first premiered on the WB in 2000, running for seven seasons before ending in 2007, with its final season airing on the CW. In 2016, Netflix reunited the cast with Sherman-Palladino for a four-episode revival, as she wasn’t part of the final season, which meant the Season 7 finale wasn’t the ending she’d originally envisioned. With that said, let’s revisit the finales for the seventh and final season as well as the revival, A Year in the Life.  

How did the original Gilmore Girls series end? 

In May 2007, the final episode of the original series, “Bon Voyage,” aired on the CW.  Rory has just graduated from Yale and turned down Logan’s marriage proposal. Instead, she begins planning a carefree summer getaway with Lorelai and starts sending out résumés, trying to land a job in journalism. At her usual Friday night dinner with grandparents Emily and Richard (Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann), Rory arrives late — but with good reason. Earlier in the evening, she was offered a reporting job at a small online magazine that plans to follow Barack Obama (remember him?) on his campaign trail. The problem is, she has to leave in two days so Lorelai must reckon with an untimely goodbye. Meanwhile, the townsfolk of Stars Hollow are heartbroken when they find out there won’t be time for the graduation re-enactment party they’d been promised before their beloved First Daughter is off to start her new life. So, unbeknownst to Rory and Lorelai, Luke (Scott Patterson) plans a surprise celebration for Rory in the town square. Everyone in Stars Hollow turns out to send Rory off. As Rory makes her rounds, Richard tells Lorelai that this celebration isn’t only about Rory, but also a testament to how Lorelai raised her within this wonderful community. Emily talks to Lorelai about expanding parts of the Dragonfly Inn, to which Lorelai responds, “Mom, why don’t we just talk about it Friday night at dinner?” Emily, who’d been uncertain their tradition would continue after Rory moved away, is pleasantly surprised. 

At the end of the night, Lorelai thanks Luke for putting together Rory’s celebration at the last minute, to which he says, “I just like to see you happy.” The two share a meaningful kiss in the town square, giving the will-they-won’t-they couple closure. The next morning, Lorelai and Rory stop at Luke’s before she leaves for the campaign trail — and the final shot of the show marks an all-too-familiar scene.

How did Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life end?

Fast forward a decade or so: A Year in the Life is broken down into four season-titled episodes: “Winter,” “Spring,” “Summer” and “Fall.” And this is where Sherman-Palladino got to tell her ending. 

The new series picks up with Lorelai and Luke living in unholy matrimony — or as Emily calls them, “roommates.” In the intervening years, Richard has died, and Emily is grappling with this new chapter of her life without her husband, while Rory is struggling to keep the momentum going after publishing a “Talk of the Town” piece in the New Yorker. A few other favorites make appearances throughout the series: Paris (Liza Weil) is now a renowned fertility expert; Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) still works in publishing; Dean (Jared Padalecki) is married with four children; Kirk (Sean Gunn) has a pet pig and Logan (Matt Czuchry) is engaged to a French heiress but — here’s the kicker — he’s still seeing Rory on her frequent trips to London. Midway through the series, Rory realizes (with some help from Jess) that her true calling is to write a book about herself and her mother. While Lorelai is hesitant at first, she eventually comes around but insists Rory drop the “the” from the title — “just Gilmore Girls, it’s cleaner.” See what they did there?

Meanwhile, Lorelai and Luke finally plan to hold their long-awaited wedding in the town square, only to spontaneously decide to get married in the middle of the night. They wake up Rory and drive to the town square, where Kirk has outdone himself by creating a whimsical wedding wonderland. A reverend marries Luke and Lorelai in the gazebo with Lane (Keiko Agena), Rory and still-French Michel (Yanic Truesdale) as witnesses. In the morning, Lorelai and Rory drink Champagne on the steps of the gazebo. Lorelai asks what’s going through her head, and Rory replies, “I want to remember it all. Every detail.” After a beat, we hear the final four words of the series that Sherman-Palladino intended to end with: 

“Mom?” Rory says. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m pregnant.” 

Why did Gilmore Girls end with those last four words?

“It wasn’t open-ended for any nefarious reasons,” Sherman-Palladino told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s open-ended because life is open-ended. One of the things that I always liked that we did on Gilmore is we never ended things with a hug, we never concluded things, we never had the moment where it’s like, ‘Everything is going to be OK.’”

While the open ending left many fans of the show wanting more, Sherman-Palladino was satisfied. “I always wanted [the story] to end in a Life Repeats Itself kind of way. The daughter following in the mother’s footsteps,” she told TVLine. “I always thought that was an interesting way to go, with these women who are so tied to each other and who make slightly different choices, but find themselves in interesting situations together. Because they are not like any normal mother and daughter.”

No, not like a normal mother and daughter, indeed. As we’ve seen for many years, the two are bonded by blood, best friends by choice. 

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