More than five years after Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life debuted, Rory’s shocking pregnancy reveal is still causing commotion.
Valerie Campbell, a former costumer for the show, proposed an interesting theory to Gilmore Girls fans via TikTok, questioning whether Rory (Alexis Bledel) was always who creators had in mind for the twist ending.
“I just had this really weird thought,” Campbell said in a video shared earlier this month but originally posted in December 2022. “What if the final four words [of the series], which [creator] Amy [Sherman-Palladino] knew from the very beginning of the show, were not meant for Rory to say.”
In the fourth installment of the 2016 revival series, Rory has a brief yet powerful exchange with her mom, Lorelai (Lauren Graham). “Mom,” Rory says. “Yeah?” Lorelai replies, before Rory reveals, “I’m pregnant.”
While some viewers believed Rory’s ending was written in the stars — “After all, you’re me,” Lorelai tells her daughter in the very first episode of Gilmore Girls — Campbell wondered whether it was initially Lorelai who was going to drop the pregnancy bombshell.
“Just think about it,” she said in her TikTok. “At the end of the season 8 that we never got to see … Lorelai would still have been at an age that would have been appropriate for her to have a baby.”
Lorelai gave birth to Rory when she was just 16 years old, moving to the small town of Stars Hollow to raise her daughter as a single mom. Campbell pointed out that much of the “buildup” of Lorelai’s story line isn’t only about her romance with Luke Danes (Scott Patterson), but also about her estrangement from her parents, Emily (Kelly Bishop) and Richard (Edward Herrmann).
Gilmore Girls ended in 2007 after seven seasons, the last of which was not helmed by Sherman-Palladino or Daniel Palladino. Campbell theorized that the revival might have looked a little different “if Amy had gotten to end the [original] series where she wanted.”
She continued: “After all, I don’t think Amy would have wanted to make Rory pregnant at that age. 23 is really young. … It actually makes more sense that Lorelai would have been the one saying it.”
Fans quickly shared their own hot takes in the comments section, with one noting that it was “sad” that Lorelai and Luke never had a baby together. “I had always wished it was Lorelei. It would’ve added such a different twist to the show,” a second TikTok user wrote.
Other devoted viewers disagreed. “ASP drove the ‘full circle’ storyline home in the [revival] … I think she intended for rory to be the prego one,” one comment read.
Another debate has been ongoing since A Year in the Life premiered: who is the father of Rory’s baby? While she reconnects with exes Logan (Matt Czuchry) and Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) throughout the series, Rory is only seen hooking up with Logan on screen in the new episodes.
Czuchry exclusively told Us Weekly in January 2021 that he knew the identity of the baby’s father — but he wasn’t interested in sharing. “Ultimately, this is Amy and Dan’s show and it’s Lauren’s show and it’s Alexis’ show. It’s not mine. And so, for me, it doesn’t feel like the right place to say who it may or may not be,” he explained. “Also, if we do come back, they may change their minds. So it could become somebody else.”
