Gilmore Girls: Plot Holes You Never Noticed

Gilmore Girls was one of the best comedy-drama series on television throughout it’s seven successful seasons. The show was well known for having a fast-paced dialogue, plenty of pop culture references, and a friendly banter between the characters. Gilmore Girls started out as a WB series, but moved to the CW for the last season before it was ultimately cancelled in 2007. Luckily for fans, it was recently announced that the show would return as a limited series on Netflix and consist of four 90-minute episodes. In light of the upcoming new revival, we’ve decided to take a closer look at our favorite series and couldn’t help but notice a few plot holes that happened over the years. Here’s a look at the 12 biggest plot holes even the most loyal fans might not have noticed!

12. Where is Mr. Kim?

Has anyone else noticed that Lane doesn’t seem to have a dad? For the first few seasons she constantly refers to her parents in plural, but we never actually see Mr. Kim, we only meet the strict and defiant Mrs. Kim. To our dismay, Lane’s father never makes a physical appearance on the show, but he is referred to all the time. No one ever addresses the topic of where he is all the time. He doesn’t even make an appearance at her wedding later on in the series! Eventually Lane stops using plurals when referring to her parents and begins to only cite her mother.

Saeed Adyani / ©Netflix / courtesy Everett Collection

11. Back From the Dead

Trix is Richard Gilmore’s mother, a recurring character on the show who, to Emily’s dismay, makes frequent and unexpected visits. She is a fan favorite because she gives Emily a taste of her own medicine as Trix is often caught making snide, judgmental comments towards Emily. Grandmother Gilmore is first introduced when she is referred to by Emily and Richard in episode 3 of season 1 and it is implied by both of them that she is dead. However, she shows up in episode 18 when she makes one of her surprise visits and spends the entire episode criticizing Emily and praising Richard, Lorelai and Rory. Looks like Trix Gilmore is alive and well after all!

©Warner Bros./Everett Collection

10. Rory and Lorelai’s Spending

Lorelai is a single mom and Rory is a high school student for much of the series, and any single parent will be the first to say that budgets are tight. Despite the fact that they are supposed to be living on a pretty small budget, it makes absolutely no sense, and is never explained how they can afford eating out more often than not. Getting pizza and takeout as often as Rory and Lorelai do is quick to add up, and how they choose to spend their money is very unrealistic.

Scott Humbert / ©The CW /Courtesy Everett Collection

9. Rory as Valedictorian

There is obviously no doubt that Rory Gilmore is very smart and a very good student, but that doesn’t explain why she ended up being valedictorian. Although she was the best in her class at Star’s Hollow High, the same can not be said for when she transferred to Chilton Academy. Rory’s grades suffered for the first time when she made the move to Chilton and her being valedictorian might have even made sense if it weren’t for Paris. While Rory struggled academically, Paris never did, so it actually makes no sense that Rory would ever catch up to her enough to be named valedictorian over her.

WB/Ron Batzdorff, © Warner Bros./Everett Collection

8. Mystery Man

Early on in season 1, we catch Rory starring longingly at a strip of photobooth pictures from back in the day of a young Lorelai and Christopher, her father. If you look closely it’s clear the man in the photos is not the same person that shows up later on in the series as Christopher. So who is this mystery man?

7. Michel Never Gets Fired

Okay, so this might not be a plot hole so much as it just doesn’t make sense. Don’t get us wrong, we love the character of Michel, he’s hilariously whiny and sassy, but it’s pretty clear he’s the world’s worst employee! Michel works at a hotel that Lorelai manages and he is constantly snippy with his superiors, like Lorelai. He complains about dealing with customers, is blatantly rude to them, then flat out refuses to do things that are asked of him at work. How did he never get fired? Despite our concerns, we are glad he never got fired because he brought a lot of great sarcasm to the show.

Richard Foreman / ©The CW /Courtesy Everett Collection

6. Double Casting

We often see this happen in sitcoms because there are so many characters that come and go throughout a series — it can be hard to keep track of them all! Directors are banking on our forgetfulness as they often cast the same actor twice for different roles. There are two instances throughout the Gilmore Girls series when this happens. First there is Marion Ross who played the character of Trix Gilmore, but then she later appears ironically in the episode where Trix dies as Marilyn Gilmore, Trix’s niece and Richard’s cousin. The second time this happens is with actress Sherilyn Fenn who played the characters Anna Nardini and Sasha. Her first appearance was as Jess’ dad’s girlfriend, Sasha, and then later as the mother of Luke’s surprise daughter, Anna Nardini.

Marsha Blackburn / ©The CW /Courtesy Everett Collection

5. Rory’s Job

Rory ends up attending one of the world’s best universities in Yale and ends up being the school’s editor-in-chief, which is a huge responsibility, but there is no way she would actually maintain the job as her work ethic is very poor. Then when she returns home and finds out the Star’s Hollow Gazette is shutting down, Rory also becomes the editor of that paper, which would seemingly be her dream. In spite of this, she is never shown actually writing an article, tracking down stories, dealing with advertisements or anything that actually goes into running an entire newspaper, which makes absolutely zero sense for how she kept it running.

4. The House

One of the plot holes in Gilmore Girls that easily gets glossed over, is the house that Rory and Lorelai live in. Although it looks very big, especially for two people on the outside, when they are inside it seems almost like an apartment. With just the two of them in the kitchen it seems cramped, when in fact it seems like two people wouldn’t be able to fill the house.

3. Lorelai and Rory Abandon Their Meals…All the Time

Lorelai and Rory always order food at Luke’s diner, in fact for a single income family (Lorelai refuses to accept financial help from her rich parents) they eat out a lot! She refuses to cook which means they eat at Luke’s diner about twice a day or order take out and then somehow live off the leftovers. We aren’t quite sure how they afford this lifestyle. Not only that, but when Rory and Lorelai go to Luke’s they frequently order and then flee off to solve some impending crisis. They’ll order tons of greasy food (and might we add they never gain weight) and then spontaneously abandon their order altogether. What happened to all that food that they just ordered? Plus, we’ve never seen them pay once for a meal. We know Luke is a charitable guy considering he’s in love with Lorelai and all, and we’ve seen her wave a bill or two at him before to get a coffee, but not once has there been an exchange of money happen between the two.

2. Lane’s Date T-Shirt Controversy

In episode 12 of season 1 Lane goes on a double date with Dean, Rory and some guy named Todd. On the date we see Todd wearing a t-shirt for the band Fugazi. Lane tries to talk to him about the band, but it’s painfully awkward. The real quirk about this particular t-shirt is that the band featured on it is a musical group that was famous for not selling band T-shirts. There were a small set of bootlegged shirts that were sold anonymously online back in the day that said, “This Is Not A Fugazi T-Shirt,” because Dish Records, run by Ian MacKaye from the band, refused to make or license T-shirts for his band. How weird is it that this kid Todd from the small town of Stars Hollow got his hands on a Fugazi shirt!

1. Mick Becomes Kirk

When Kirk was first introduced on the show his name was Mick. He made his debut in season 1, episode 2 as a DSL installer, then in episode 3 he is seen again, but this time as the “Swan Guy” when he delivers swans to The Independence Inn. Then finally in episode 5 he becomes known as Kirk and for the rest of the series we see him take on dozens of different job roles.