Editor’s note: This article about the final four words of Gilmore Girls doesn’t actually mention those final four words. You’re safe here.
The debut of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life—the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls that saw the return of its original showrunner and most of the cast—gave us the familial reprieve (or bonding time) we needed in the middle of a possibly contentious Thanksgiving weekend. But as fans made their way through the four-part miniseries, they discovered that the show went in some surprising and polarizing directions.
There was the debate of which person (if any) that Rory would end up with, but what ended up being even more divisive is how it ended: with those final four words.
Original Gilmore Girls showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, who returned for the Netflix series, always had a planned ending for the series, including what would be the show’s final four words. For years, fans never learned what those words were because Sherman-Palladino left the show prior to Gilmore Girls’ seventh and final season, and the very idea of words became larger than life; even non-fans knew that they existed. The Netflix miniseries would not only let Sherman-Palladino finish the story she wanted to tell—she has said that the seventh season, which ultimately became divisive among fans, didn’t line up with her vision—it would end exactly the way she wanted: with four final words.
And now that they’re out there, fans have many feelings about them. They’ve analyzed the words themselves. The end will satisfy some fans while angering others. The implications on the rest of the series are huge. (All of these links contain spoilers about those four final words, so click at your own risk.)
While some cautiously go online knowing they could be spoiled at any time, others are blissfully unaware. And others, of course, are coming up with their own take on what Sherman-Palladino’s final four words are. Even if they’re not objectively better than what appeared in A Year in the Life, we can agree they’re very amusing alternatives—and we’d pretty much pay Rory and Lorelai to say them.
what if the last four words of gilmore girls were "some-BODY once told me…" then credits rolled to smash mouth's all star
— anne t donahue (@annetdonahue) November 26, 2016
I mean, could you imagine?
I can't believe the last 4 words of Gilmore Girls was "Make America Great Again"
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) November 28, 2016
Was Stars Hollow on Team Trump? You never know.
While some takes predate the Netflix series (and are truly out-of-the-blue guesses), others are more topical than what Sherman-Palladino could have come up with, and we love them all the more for it.
I hope the last four Gilmore Girls words are "Fuck you, Donald Trump"
— (((Jodi))) (@NobleKnope) November 18, 2016
last four words of Gilmore Girls
— Clown Store (@sevkatechnology) November 26, 2016
Rory wakes up in a terror, rolls over and Paris is like "that dream again, honey?"
CUT TO BLACK
Can’t believe the #lastfourwords on Gilmore Girls were ‘It’s another infinity stone!’
— Ludwig Kietzmann ☕🎮 (Vacation Mode) (@LudwigK) November 28, 2016
It's cool that the final four words in Gilmore Girls were "We're the Gilmore Girls!"
— Sean Thomason (@TheThomason) November 28, 2016
https://twitter.com/Kyle_Feldscher/status/803336872391012352
And while we don’t picture the President-elect being a Gilmore Girls fan, one person noticed the length of his original Twitter statement on the passing of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was exactly four words.
I SWEAR DONALD IF YOU RUINED THE LAST FOUR WORDS OF GILMORE GIRLS FOR ME https://t.co/vU0O4bO2iT
— Patti Murin (@PattiMurin) November 26, 2016
That wouldn’t have been good for anyone.