49 Fun Facts About Gilmore Girls: a Year in the Life

On which streaming service was A Year in the Life released in 2016?

Netflix. The original seven seasons had only reached the service in October 2014, where they drew a whole new generation of viewers in the two years before the revival.

As unpaid editor of the Stars Hollow Gazette, Rory learns that readers prize which front-page fixture?

The poem. She takes over the closing town paper for no pay, and her first edition brings complaints because she has left the traditional verse off the front page.

Each episode of A Year in the Life represents what?

One of the four seasons. The plan was so central that the revival was widely expected to be called 'Gilmore Girls: Seasons' until its real title was announced.

As A Year in the Life opens, Rory's one big career high is an article published in which magazine?

The New Yorker. Luke is so proud of the piece that he has it printed on the back of his menus, but Rory can't turn it into steady work and ends up moving back home.

A Year in the Life was released the day after which American holiday?

Thanksgiving. Every episode arrived at once on Black Friday 2016, so any viewer could skip straight to the end and learn the long-awaited last four words within minutes.

What does Rory reveal to Lorelai in the final scene of A Year in the Life?

She is pregnant. The exchange is the 'last four words' Amy Sherman-Palladino had planned for years, and they were kept out of the script, so Lauren Graham first heard them on set.

Which character's recent death, following actor Edward Herrmann's, hangs over the revival?

Richard Gilmore. Herrmann's death was still fresh when the revival was planned, and Amy Sherman-Palladino said making it felt like a way to honour him, so Richard's loss shapes every episode.

Which TV cook plays herself in A Year in the Life, filling in for Sookie in the Dragonfly Inn's kitchen?

Rachael Ray. With Sookie away, Lorelai and Michel work through a string of celebrity guest chefs, Roy Choi among them, and struggle to settle on anyone.

When the original Gilmore Girls ended, Rory was leaving Stars Hollow to cover which politician's presidential campaign?

Barack Obama. She was off to follow the campaign for a website, and the revival finds her nine years later with, in her own words, no job, no credit and no underwear.

Who plays Emily Gilmore?

Kelly Bishop. Her Emily, who used to sack a maid every episode, changes so much in the revival that she keeps one housekeeper, Berta, all year and lets Berta's whole family move in.

Rory visits which character, her father, to tell him about the wedding?

She asks him why he let Lorelai raise her alone; he says it seemed the best choice at the time.

Where was most of A Year in the Life filmed?

Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. Stars Hollow has never been in Connecticut: the town square is one block of California backlot, dressed with fake snow and fake leaves to pass for New England.

On which network did the original Gilmore Girls premiere in October 2000?

The WB. Its executives sat bored through Amy Sherman-Palladino's other pitches, then bought this one on a single last-ditch line about a mother and daughter who are more like friends.

For which later series did Alexis Bledel win a Primetime Emmy in 2017?

The Handmaid's Tale. Her guest role as Ofglen, a handmaid punished for loving another woman, earned the award, and she was promoted to series regular for the second season.

What is the name of the boyfriend Rory Gilmore keeps forgetting she has?

Paul. They have been together two years, yet Rory forgets inviting him to dinner and even leaves him behind at the house, and in the end it is he who ends things, by text.

What is Logan's relationship status during his affair with Rory in A Year in the Life?

Engaged. His fiancee is a French heiress named Odette, and once she moves in with him Rory has to face what their arrangement really is.

Which ex-boyfriend urges Rory Gilmore to write a book about growing up with her mother?

Jess Mariano. The creators wanted someone important in her life to steer her, and the book he suggests finally gives Rory a direction, though Lorelai takes the idea badly at first.

Who runs the fertility clinic Lorelai Gilmore and Luke visit when considering a surrogate?

Paris Geller. Rory's old school rival now runs a surrogacy business with celebrity clients, and later in the revival the two of them go back to Chilton together to speak to the students.

Who plays Violet, the leading lady of Stars Hollow: The Musical?

Sutton Foster. The Broadway star had led Amy Sherman-Palladino's short-lived series Bunheads, and several more of its cast turn up around her in the revival.

Lorelai Gilmore sets out to hike which long-distance route?

Pacific Crest Trail. She wants to copy the book Wild, but she never hikes a step of it, and comes home instead to ask Luke to marry her.

Where does Emily Gilmore move after selling the family home?

Nantucket. She settles in the family's old holiday rental and takes a job as a guide at the whaling museum, where she treats startled visitors to the bloodiest details of the trade.

Which organisation does Emily effectively quit in A Year in the Life?

Daughters of the American Revolution. In the middle of a membership interview she denounces the whole business as artifice and 'bullshit', language nobody expects from Emily, and that is the end of her time in the club.

Its creator said A Year in the Life's 90-minute episodes were inspired by which series?

Sherlock. A fan of the BBC drama, she said its episodes are 'their own mini-movies', which let her avoid both a single two-hour film and an ordinary season.

Which Stars Hollow resident writes and stages 'Stars Hollow: The Musical' in A Year in the Life?

Taylor Doose. The town selectman means his history of Stars Hollow to be a masterpiece, and of everyone at the preview only Lorelai seems to notice how many problems it has.

Which Gilmore Girls cast member announced her return on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in April 2016?

Melissa McCarthy. Earlier that year she had tweeted that nobody had asked her or Sookie back, and she told Ellen the deal had been settled barely two hours before.

Carole King reprises which role in A Year in the Life?

Sophie Bloom. The singer plays the town's music-shop owner, a part she had taken now and then in the original run, and in the revival she performs a few bars of her own hit 'I Feel the Earth Move'.

Why did The CW later air A Year in the Life?

The pandemic. With new shows held up by the 2020 production shutdown, The CW ran the miniseries over four consecutive nights to fill the gaps in its schedule.

Amy Sherman-Palladino left Gilmore Girls in 2006 after 'a botched negotiation' over what?

Hiring more writers. She said she was working too much and asked for a bigger staff to keep the show going two more years, and after she left the studio hired one anyway.

What is the title of Lauren Graham's 2016 memoir?

Talking as Fast as I Can. Subtitled 'From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls', it tells how the show's creator quietly sounded her out about a return well before any revival was announced.

Lauren Graham played Sarah Braverman on which 2010–15 series?

Parenthood. Its ending freed Graham at just the right moment, Amy Sherman-Palladino said, and her screen daughter from it, Mae Whitman, turns up in the revival for a cameo.

What do Lorelai and Emily start attending together in A Year in the Life?

Therapy. The joint sessions are Emily's idea, yet she is the one who soon stops going, and it is Lorelai who ends up carrying on with the therapist alone.

A 2015 cast reunion at a television festival in which Texas city helped set A Year in the Life in motion?

Austin. On stage there Amy Sherman-Palladino told the crowd that nothing was in the works, yet she later called being together under one roof 'the moment to act' and went to the studio.

Which actress plays Naomi Shropshire, the eccentric subject of Rory Gilmore's book project?

Alex Kingston. Her Naomi wants Rory's help with a book, but the collaboration comes to nothing, one more dead end in a year that leaves Rory without a plan.

Which Supernatural star returns in A Year in the Life as Rory's first boyfriend, Dean?

Jared Padalecki. His signing meant all three of Rory's boyfriends from the original run were back, though the creators insisted her story was never really about which boy she chose.

To promote A Year in the Life, over 200 coffee shops spent a morning as which Stars Hollow business?

Luke's Diner. The one-day pop-ups marked 16 years since the show's premiere and gave away free coffee from seven in the morning until noon, with fans queuing overnight in Beverly Hills.

Amy Sherman-Palladino's production company, credited on A Year in the Life, says which writer 'Drank Here'?

Dorothy Parker. The company is called Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, a salute to the acerbic wit whose style helped shape the show's rapid, barbed dialogue.

Rock musician Sebastian Bach plays which member of Lane's Gilmore Girls band Hep Alien?

Gil. The singer who fronted Skid Row plays Hep Alien's guitarist instead, a part he had already held for four seasons of the original run.

Dakin Matthews returned to Gilmore Girls as which Chilton headmaster?

Hanlin Charleston. When Rory goes back with Paris to speak to the students at her old school, she comes away with the offer of a job there.

Which Gilmore Girls star told the Gilmore Guys podcast in May 2015 that revival talks were under way?

Scott Patterson. Asked on the fan podcast, the actor behind Luke said there was 'some activity' and 'I'm in', and argued that plenty of territory was left for a limited series or a film.

A Year in the Life opens and closes with Lorelai and Rory together at which Stars Hollow landmark?

The town gazebo. The first scene finds them bantering on its snowy steps, and the last has them sitting there hours after Lorelai's wedding as Rory speaks the final four words.

Tanc Sade reprised which friend of Logan's in A Year in the Life?

Finn. Sade tweeted his return only three days after the revival was confirmed, and Finn duly reappears with Logan's old crowd to take Rory out for one last big night.

Carole King recorded the Gilmore Girls theme 'Where You Lead' as a duet with whom?

Her daughter Louise Goffin. King had stopped singing the 1971 song because she felt its lyric had dated, so the words were reworked to be about a mother and her child.

Gilmore Girls' only Emmy win was for makeup on which episode?

The Festival of Living Art. The townspeople are painted and posed as famous pictures, with Kirk taking his turn as Jesus in The Last Supper far too seriously, and the prize was the only Emmy nomination the show ever had.

Which singer-songwriter composed the score for Gilmore Girls throughout its run?

Sam Phillips. Using little more than her own voice and an acoustic guitar, she sang the 'la-la's that bridge the scenes, which the show's creator wanted to sound like the girls' own thoughts.

A website courts Rory early in A Year in the Life; what happens when she finally interviews there?

She is turned down. Rory takes the job for granted and is put out to be interviewed at all, so the site that had chased her decides it can do without her.

Which unlikely subject does GQ assign Rory to write a feature about in A Year in the Life?

People waiting in lines. She neglects the research for a one-night stand instead, and the stalled piece becomes one more sign of how far her career has drifted.

Which secret society of Logan's gives Rory a last wild night in A Year in the Life?

The Life and Death Brigade. Logan's thrill-seeking club from their Yale days stages an over-the-top reunion for Rory, after which the two of them say goodbye once more.

A Gilmore Girls fan challenge asks you to get through every one of the show's what?

Books. Fans' lists of the titles Rory reads or the show mentions run to more than 300, and the same devotion produced a cookbook, Eat Like a Gilmore.

What kind of pet has Kirk acquired by the time of A Year in the Life?

A pig. Kirk and his girlfriend Lulu now keep a pet pig named Petal, and he has other projects too: a knock-off of Uber called Ooober and a new short film he screens for the town.