During her formative high school years, Rory Gilmore was always a one-man-at-a-time type of gal. She liked relationships, and through her coupledoms with Dean and then Jess, she looked like a serial monogamist. But when Rory got to college, though, and broke up with Dean for the second time, she was ready to play the field. When she met Logan Huntzberger, she knew they liked each other, but Logan wasn’t a girlfriend guy. They started off in a friends-with-benefits situation that eventually turned into more, though they eventually broke up at the end of Season 7. Nearly a decade later, Rory and Logan’s relationship in the Gilmore Girls revival is very similar to their original arrangement. SPOILERS AHEAD.
When we open on “Winter,” Rory and Logan are both in their early 30s. He is in London, as he has been since he graduated from Yale, and Rory is bopping around — she’s in New York, she’s in Stars Hollow, and she’s, coincidentally, in London, too. Rory is writing, working on a book proposal, and always forgetting about her boyfriend of two years, Paul. I’d say poor Paul, but the man is so boring that he doesn’t even deserve that. Rory needs someone fun! Anyway, every time Rory goes to New York, she stays with Paris. When she goes to Stars Hollow, she stays (obviously) with Lorelai. When she goes to London, she tells her mother she’s staying with her friend Didi, but she’s really shacking up with Logan. I don’t know how Lorelai believes this lie — wouldn’t she have heard more about Didi at some point in the last 10 years if Rory was close enough to stay with her?
Rory sleeps at Logan’s flat when she’s in London, and she’s sleeping with him, too. The two look pretty couple-y, but there’s another catch. Rory has a boyfriend, as I mentioned, but Logan is engaged to married to a French girl named Odette. Rory and Logan treat their relationship as no-strings-attached, friends-with-benefits stuff because they are technically supposed to be in love with other people. Oops.
I’m actually kind of happy that Rory has involved herself in this, not because I think cheating on your long-term partner is something to be proud of or because I love Rory and Logan together (but I do), but because Rory has been so straight-laced her entire life that it’s nice to watch her make a bad decision. She did go through that whole “I crashed a yacht” phase and that time she slept with Dean while he was married, but what else has Rory really ever done wrong? The only way people grow is by making mistakes, and sometimes knowing what you don’t want is as important as knowing what you do.
Rory and Logan are definitely doing wrong here, not only because they are cheating but also because this arrangement didn’t work with them the first time around. Rory wanted more, Logan decided he was in, too, and they were a couple. These two will always care for each other, but I have a feeling this friends-with-benefits relationship will result in not just their significant others getting hurt...
Images: Netflix; Giphy (2)
