Every Gilmore Girls season, ranked
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"I smell snow…" After a successful seven-season run on the WB and a well-deserved resurgence when a new generation of fans discovered it on Netflix, Gilmore Girls has become Gen Z and Millennials' go-to cozy show. Thanks to its lovable characters, the quirky small-town setting of Stars Hollow, and love letters to snow, it's the perfect series to rewatch while hunkering down with a blanket and hot chocolate.
But Gilmore Girls isn't just cozy — it's also groundbreaking. The pilot aired on the WB in 2001, when it was still relatively unusual for shows to pass the Bechdel test, let alone feature two complex, hilarious women as protagonists. There were intense shipper debates about both characters' love lives, especially Rory's (Alexis Bledel, #TeamJess forever), but fans were also invested in the women's dreams and ambitions: whether Rory would go to an Ivy League school and become a reporter, whether Lorelai (Lauren Graham) would start her own inn, and whether everyone would survive the infamous Friday night dinners with the grandparents, Richard (Edward Herrmann) and Emily (Kelly Bishop).
So as you gear up for your annual binge, here's EW's ranking of the Gilmore Girls seasons from worst to best. (For new viewers, plenty of spoilers ahead)
Season 7 (2006-2007)
The heart of Gilmore Girls was always dialogue: the witty, pop-culture-laden, mile-a-minute conversations that the actors needed a coach to pull off. But in season seven, the only installment without original creator Amy Sherman-Palladino at the helm, the show loses its unique rhythm: the dialogue clunks, the bits go on for way too long, and the characters just don't sound like themselves. Suddenly, the show lives up to that MADtv parody where they ask, "Is this funny or just fast?"
Many fans were upset about melodramatic plot developments in season seven, like Lorelai and Chris' (David Sutcliffe) rushed and underdeveloped marriage, or both Lane (Keiko Agena) and Sookie (Melissa McCarthy), Lorelai's best friend, having unwanted pregnancies. But honestly, the plot never mattered that much to the quality of the show (Rory and Lorelai's assessment that "nothing happens" in The Donna Reed Show could also apply to Gilmore Girls most of the time). The real problem with season seven is its sentimentality.
Viewers think of Gilmore Girls as a chatty, emotional show, and the characters do indeed talk a lot, but rarely about their feelings. In this season, all of the subtext becomes text. Lorelai spontaneously admits that everything she does is a reaction to her parents, Rory and longtime love interest/possible father of her child Logan (Matt Czuchry) have long conversations processing the tiniest conflicts, and the characters say "I love you" more in those 22 episodes than they do in all of the other seasons combined. It's not terrible writing, exactly, but it feels like any other family show on the WB. Many fans would place the oft-misguided A Year in the Life at the bottom of their ranking, but season seven was worse than bad: it was generic.
<i>A Year in the Life</i> (2016)
The Gilmore Girls revival evoked fond memories — at least, before it came out. Tears welled when the theme music played during the trailer, and there was an urgency to start watching the moment it came on Netflix. Unfortunately, A Year in the Life didn't live up to the massive hype. All of the characters are in stasis, as if they were frozen in time since the Palladinos left the show at the end of season six.
Lorelai and Luke (Scott Patterson) are still avoiding conversations about marriage and children despite being in a long-term committed relationship. Rory is floundering in her career and having an affair with her engaged college boyfriend — behavior that makes much more sense for a 20-something than a 32-year-old. Only Emily has a satisfying story arc as she processes Richard's death, which is made all the more poignant by the real-life death of Ed Herrmann.
There are moments when the dialogue sparkles the way it did in the original series; Paris (Liza Weil), especially, gets some of her best one-liners yet. But there are just as many bits that don't land — Luke not understanding surrogacy is especially cringey — and despite the longer episodes, the reboot doesn't spend enough time with the characters viewers care about. We barely see Lane, but the audience does get a random magical realism sequence with the Life and Death Brigade and an interminable musical that can quite literally induce sleep. Worst of all, fans waited almost a decade to hear those final four words, and they were, well, a huge letdown. "I'm pregnant"? Really? That's the big ending for Rory we were all waiting for?
Season 6 (2005-2006)
Season six may not be the worst season, but it's definitely the most depressing. Fans waited years for Luke and Lorelai to finally get engaged, only to watch their relationship die a slow, sad death. Lorelai and Rory's relationship is the heart of the show, and for almost half the season, they're not even speaking to each other. But mostly, fans decry season six thanks to one character: April Nardini (Vanessa Marano). And for good reason — illegitimate love children have no place on any show that's not a daytime soap opera.
There are some bright spots here and there, like Jess returning to convince Rory to go back to Yale, or the stylistically ambitious episode "Friday Night's Alright for Fighting," in which Lorelai, Rory, Emily, and Richard spend 10 full minutes airing all of their grievances from the past 20 years. But for most of the season, it feels like the Palladinos ran out of ideas.
Season 4 (2003-2004)
In teen dramas, the college years are usually the kiss of death. And while Gilmore Girls ultimately became the exception by returning to form in season five, Rory's freshman year is a little rough. There are entire episodes where Lorelai and Rory barely interact, and the writers don't find anything compelling to fill the vacuum: Lorelai's relationship with Digger (Jason Stiles) is incredibly low-stakes, the drama with Richard's company is a yawn, and Rory (bizarrely) doesn't make any new friends in her first year of college.
But while the overarching plot leaves something to be desired, season four is consistently funny and high-quality on an episode-to-episode basis. The last few episodes, especially, remain some of the best of the series, mostly due to Luke and Lorelai's early courtship, starting with a hilariously earnest self-help tape and ending with one of the best first kisses of all time.
Season 5 (2004-2005)
After a bumpy transition to college, Gilmore Girls found a new rhythm in season five, which was just as funny and self-assured as the first three installments (if not quite as charming). This particular season contains some of the best gags of the whole series, such as Luke and Rory's first boyfriend Dean's (Jared Padalecki) Bop-It battle or the "I love Jesus!" mannequins, as well as ambitious set pieces like the Life and Death Brigade stunt in "You Jump, I Jump Jack."
Best of all, the class conflict that was mostly absent in season four is back in full swing. Emily tries to break up Lorelai and Luke so the former can marry someone with "better breeding," while Rory becomes enamored with her Yale love interest Logan's world of money and excess. It all ends with Rory stealing a yacht, dropping out of college, and moving in with her grandparents over her mother's protests. This may not have been the best development for Rory's likability, but it makes for damn good television.
Season 1 (2000-2001)
Gilmore Girls' debut season had its share of awkward moments while the writers and actors were discovering the characters we all know and love: Rory's voice is weirdly low, Stars Hollow eccentric Kirk's (Sean Gunn) name is "Mick," Rory and Lorelai keep insisting that they never fight even as they literally fight all the time, and Lorelai eats a salad (!). But despite these growing pains, Gilmore Girls developed a unique identity right out of the gate, from Rory getting hit by a deer to the very first time we hear Lorelai say, "I smell snow…" And while Dean overstays his welcome later in the series, his early relationship with Rory is almost painfully adorable, giving us classic moments like "I got kissed! And I shoplifted!" and Lorelai insisting that Rory "wallow" after her first heartbreak.
But even as both of the main protagonists have ups and downs in their love lives, what makes Gilmore Girls special from the very beginning is the focus on the mother-daughter relationship. In the season finale, Lorelai's then-boyfriend Max (Scott Cohen) proposes to her with a thousand yellow daisies and Rory finally says, "I love you, idiot!" to Dean. But it's the last shot, with Lorelai and Rory running toward each other in the town square and jumping up and down to the sounds of "My little corner of the world," that caps the season with pure magic.
Season 2 (2001-2002)
The first three seasons of Gilmore Girls are all wonderful, and the difference in quality is honestly negligible. Season two, however, had the most high-stakes romantic drama, as Lorelai breaks off her engagement to Max and Milo Ventimiglia's Jess arrives in town to kick off the Rory/Dean/Jess love triangle. It's also the coziest season, with time-honored Stars Hollow traditions like Bid-a-Basket, Revolutionary War reenactments, and a classic love letter to snow in "The Bracebridge Dinner" complete with horse-drawn carriage rides and a snowman-building contest (for which Lorelai and Rory build a snowwoman that looks like Björk).
Season two is also the best showcase for the signature writing style of the series, in which some of the most dramatic events happen off-screen. For instance, Lorelai breaks off her engagement in a scene that we don't get to see, because all that matters is Rory's expression when Lorelai chokes out, "I didn't want to try on my wedding dress every night." Meanwhile, Rory and Jess also get into a car accident offscreen, but we only find out when Lorelai's babbling about takeout menus is interrupted by the news that Rory is in the hospital. However, the spotlight always remains on the relationships, mostly between Lorelai and Rory, two of the most distinctive and lovable characters ever to grace television screens.
Season 3 (2002-2003)
Season three is classic Gilmore Girls. Every episode is a banger, from Lorelai flashing back to her teen pregnancy to Rory's love triangle exploding at the town dance marathon in "They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They?" Jess and Rory finally embark on a relationship, and Adam Brody shows up to give the most romantic speech about carbonation you've ever heard.
But season three is at its best when Lorelai and Rory are just being their charming selves, eating four Thanksgiving dinners, devil-egging Jess' car, and making their famous pro-con lists to decide where Rory should go to college. And try not to cry when Rory finally graduates from Chilton and delivers a heartfelt valedictorian speech about her mother: "As she guided me through these incredible eighteen years, I don't know if she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her." Even Luke was blubbering.
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