Wherever 'Gilmore Girls' Goes I Will Follow, Because Black Girls Are Excited For The Revival Too!

I’ll admit, 2016 has left me less than excited about a lot of things. 

After taking some of our greats including Natalie Cole, Muhammad Ali, Prince, Tommy Ford and Sharon Jones, and electing a problematic President which subsequently makes the goodbye to the Obamas that much harder than it would’ve been, it’s safe to say this year has been less than favorable.

But if there was one thing on my long list of blessings from this year, I’m comfortable admitting that the return of Gilmore Girls ranks pretty high.

With Lorelai and Rory at the helm of the hit WB series that made its debut in 2000, the show defined a generation with a different kind of exploration of the girlhood wonder. I was hooked from the moment Carole King played the piano along to the theme song, “Where You Lead.”

I found nuances of reliability in each episode, most importantly with Rory, because who didn’t?

She kept her nose burie deep into a book and was able to attend private school thanks to her mother’s financial and emotional sacrifice. She always dared to explore love and the heartbreak of it all by losing her virginity to a boy she didn’t love and falling for the bad boy because that’s really what always happens. She endured turning foes into friends and learning about the sometimes sad and unnecessary cruelty of female competition. She even mastered the balance of pleasing the people around her—including her grandmother—while creating peace of mind for her own satisfaction. Rory and I were symbiotic just as my mom was with Lorelai. She was quick witted with the one liners, willing to sacrifice whatever for my happiness and while my mother’s caffeine addiction is easily replaced with chocolate, we are best friends, just as the characters we watched on screen together were. 

We were their foils full of Black Girl Magic. 

The Gilmore Girl’s revival taps into the nostalgia that we millennials all pine for—the show explored the intimate and awesome relationship between a mother and daughter who respected each other enough to know the difference between parenthood and friendship. It devoted itself to remaining wacky and weird, quirky and witty, even in its flaws.

There was an elegance in all its dysfunction and imperfection—the white privilege oozing from their fictional existence, the perpetuated racial stereotypes with only less than a handful of characters of color and the portrait that single motherhood struggles could be fixed with a cup of coffee, an order of Chinese cuisine and a back and forth love affair—it was perfect.

The reboot of the series, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, will sadly only be four 90-minute episodes that explore the character’s lives during the four seasons of a calendar year. After the rather abrupt 2007 finale that left many fans—much like myself—pining for an ending that didn’t want to make us drive off a cliff, we now have the chance for the happily we deserve, just like Lorelai and Rory.

Today I was unfound. At 3:01am EST I brewed up more Luke’s coffee than I probably needed and Netflix and chilled by my damn self, binge watching my 20something heart away.

The Gilmore Girls have finally returned to TV, and where they lead to end this era, this little Black girl will definitely follow.