its just a show

i am attached to many television shows, but last night i reached all new lows. one of my favorites had its series finale, and i lost it.

gilmore girls has ended. it is truly the end of an era.

after seven seasons of mother-daughter bonding and angst, boyfriends and break ups, and eight million cups of coffee, the spit fire, fast-paced dramedy has finally called it quits.

i am ambivalent about the end of this show, which makes my uncontrollable sobs during tonight's series finale that much more embarassing.

i have been an on and off fan of gilmore girls from the beginning. two close friends, lex and jodi, were avid fans and turned me on to the show in high school and college, respectively.

if you have never seen this cute small town family drama best known for its lightning quick banter and constant, and sometimes obscure, pop culture references, i would recommend stopping the next time you come across it in repeats (fyi: its on abc family). its a feel good show, most of the time.

the story seems sappy: a rebelious teen from a waspy connecticut family gets pregnant at age 16 and runs away. she gets a job and shelter at an inn in a tiny town in connecticut, the no-stop-light kind of place. the mother, lorelai, gives birth to her daughter, lorelai jr., or rory, while she's working as a maid at the inn. they live in a small house out back behind the inn.

flash forward 15 years, and gilmore girls opens when rory is almost the age her mother was when she gave birth. lorelai is now manager of the inn, and she's going to business school. rory is a brilliant teenager who just got accepted to an elite prep school in hartford.

while the best friend/sisterly relationship between lorelia and rory is the central focus on the show, the supporting characters always brought such life and detail to the storytelling. first on any list are lorelai's parents who, after not speaking to their daughter for 15 years, enter into rory and lorelai's lives by giving them a loan for rory to attend that elite school. in return, the grandparents request one thing: the girls must join them for dinner every friday night. the tradition becomes a key theme throughout the show, and madness (of course) ensues.

but lorelai and rory are also surrounded by friends, boyfriends and neighbors. everyone in the town knows them. they frequent the home town diner where lorelai falls in love with the owner, luke. rory's best friend lane was a rebelious music fiend whose mother was a devout, obsessive christian. rory's friend from high school who followed her to yale in the fourth season, paris, is ridiculous but grows on you.

ultimately, the show's sweet and sappy message was consistently outweighed by slapstick comedy, a wealth of pop culture knowledge, and events that could have happened in real life. i admit it, there are times in my life when i wanted to live in stars hollow and be rory gilmore.

and i never wanted to be rory more than i did last night.

the last season of the show has been disappointing. as the wb changed over to the cw last year, gilmore girls was supposed to be a premiere show on the channel. but the show lost its life blood its creator left after season six, and then it lost viewers. even i missed half of this season's eps. under new writership, the show became a little unbelievable. i guess i was not alone in my thinking...last week the cw said the show would not be returning next year.

last night's episode, however, was everything that is great about the show. created as a possible series finale before the producers, writers and actors knew for certain that the show would not be returning. it wasn't a cop-out, sappy wrap up. it was bittersweet, with rory going off to cover barack obama on the campaign trail and the whole town saying good bye to her. in the end, lorelai and luke made out, and the show closed with the girls sitting in the diner sipping coffee.

and i cried and cried. turns out, i wasn't the only one. see this email i got from lauren this morning:

I watched the very last ever gilmore girls last night ... did you? sometimes series finales dont seem to do the show justice, or everything is rushed into a quick summary to try and give the viewer some feeling of closure. but i think they did an amazing job. my mom (and even my dad a little too) were all waterworks.

lorelai, rory and the rest...you will be missed. when that full series dvd collection comes out, you know who will be picking it up!