11 things nobody wants to admit about Gilmore Girls

4. Season 6’s twists were hard to bounce back from

As iconic as the season 5 finale might be, it was a series-defining turning point. In the throes of an existential crisis care of one mustache-twirling cartoon villain Mitchum Huntzberger, Rory decides to take her woes out on a boat. She and Logan steal a boat for fun and wind up arrested. It’s concerning to Lorelai, but she never saw the real kicker coming.

Following boat-gate, Rory leaves Yale for time off, and that’s when Lorelai goes into full panic. She leans on Emily and Richard for help, but they seemingly turn on her by giving Rory a place to stay in their pool house with no immediate intent to get her back to Yale. Being so, Lorelai cuts off Rory and her parents and asks Luke to marry her. Going into season 6 with those game-changing cliffhangers, Gilmore Girls fans simply didn’t know peace.

The first half of season 6 was indeed a tough watch. Lorelai and Rory had fought before, especially in the teen angst-riddled first season, but they had never not been on speaking terms for a handful of episodes. Seeing them struggle to be in the same room together as godmothers to Sookie’s children was difficult. Seeing them so far apart from each other at Rory’s 21st birthday party was brutal. Seeing them reunite, though… that’s the planets and the stars aligning.

But Lorelai and Rory’s feud wasn’t the only part of season 6 that forever changed the fabric of the show. Luke learns that he has a pre-teen daughter that he’s never met and didn’t know existed. Rather than confiding in Lorelai, his fiancée, with this revelation, he keeps it a secret. Lorelai doesn’t even find out about April from Luke! Naturally, this causes the destruction of their engagement and leads to her relationship with Christopher.

The seventh and final season, which didn’t have Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino at the helm, had a lot of ground to cover to course correct this soapy twists. For the most part, the integrity of the series was able to remain mostly intact, though it was a colossal undertaking. Those big swings could have ruined the show, and for some it did, but the eventual bounce back was a challenge for fans to watch and for the writers to navigate.