Entertainment

You May Have Missed This 'Gilmore Girls' Detail

by Allie Gemmill

In case you haven't already been transformed into a pile of mush after watching the latest Gilmore Girls Netflix revival trailer, I'm going to tell you something that will absolutely wreck you. You see, even after multiple viewings of the trailer, I am betting you missed out on one detail because it's so brief, but which is so beautiful that you're going to kick yourself. Remember the moment when Lorelai and Rory are watching Emily take some time alone at Richard's funeral? Did you happen to see the big memorial photo that Emily was looking at? Well, it was a photo of Emily and Richard from their wedding vow renewal ceremony in Season 5, and it basically ruined me. In the best but most bittersweet of ways, I started welling up when I caught this little detail on my umpteenth viewing. It's a small detail which demonstrates that Emily and Richard's love will never die, and Gilmore Girls is intent on proving this time and time again.

In the GG trailer, Emily laments to Lorelai, "I don't know how to do this. I was married for 50 years. Half of me is gone." That immediate sense of confusion, loss, and despair is so painfully real, and coming from Emily (often strong in her constitution), it just hits home even harder. Emily doesn't appear ready to move on romantically, despite moving away from the perfect upper-crust life she was accustomed to with Richard. When she puts into perspective that she's been married for half a century, it's those remaining relics, like the portrait displayed at Richard's funeral (and the giant painting in her living room), that become tangible totems of a romance that will last forever. It's heartbreaking, you guys. I can't even handle it.

A Year in the Life is not going to be easy on our emotions, that's for sure. The trailer not only set up Emily's journey from a tragic crossroads, but also Lorelai and Rory struggling to gain clarity on their own respective futures. It's these little details, like Emily and Richard's portrait, that will delight longtime fans while simultaneously serving as reminders that so much has happened in the fictional lives of these women that they have grown to love. But these details will undoubtedly turn viewers into sobbing piles of mush, because the emotions embedded in the details will be so intense. That's why noticing this portrait at the funeral has such deep resonance.

I'll be right back, once I'm done crying forever thinking about that portrait and how it represents Emily's enduring love for Richard. I can't even deal right now.

Images: Warner Bros. Television; Netflix US & Canada/ YouTube