Gilmore Girls: 4 moments that made us cry

Here are the four times Gilmore Girls made us cry

This weekend, Pop TV aired its annual GilMore the Merrier programming block, an eight-day, 153-episode Gilmore Girls marathon that concluded with the cable premiere of Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

After binging the show all week, and every day of our lives, here’s our list of four moments from Gilmore Girls that made us cry.

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1. Emily demands to go first

In Season 1, Episode 10, “Forgiveness and Stuff,” following the argument that resulted from her arriving home late from her school dance in the previous episode, Rory attended her grandparents’ annual Christmas party alone. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a quiet night at the Gilmore mansion as before dinner began, Richard would collapse and need a trip to the hospital.

From there, Rory, Emilly, and Lorelai, who’d been driven to the hospital by Luke, would be in a frenzy as they awaited the prognosis of Richard’s condition. The episode’s emotional climax would come in a scene in which Richard notified Emily about the location of their stock and insurance information as well as his will, wanting to make sure his affairs were in order if he were to die.

However, Emily was having none of it and told Richard that while many things were happening in the hospital that night, his death wasn’t one of them.

In fact, she prohibited him from dying for a very long time and demanded to go first, to which Richard would say, “Yes, Emily, you may go first.” Unfortunately, Richard would end up breaking that promise 16 years later.

2. Dean breaks up with Rory at the Stars Hollow Dance Marathon

Toward the end of Season 1, Dean would break up with Rory after his admission of love went unreciprocated. By the end of the season, however, the pair made amends, and going into Season 2, they seemed to be going strong. However, Rory’s attention shifted amid the pressure of prep school and the arrival of Luke’s well-read and troubled nephew Jess Mariano.

Throughout much of Season 3, Rory, much like Luke, came to Jess’s defense whenever he was in trouble and with time began to develop romantic feelings for him, although she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.

While Dean’s jealousy grew, Jess fueled the fire, taking every opportunity he could to torment Dean and make Rory jealous.

These attempts paid off, and as Jess watched Rory and Dean dance at the Stars Hollow Dance Marathon, Dean couldn’t take it anymore and broke up with Rory, telling her that it was clear she had feelings for Jess and that he didn’t want to look like an idiot for ignoring it anymore.

Although following Rory’s break-up with Jess at the end of Season 3 and the decline of Dean’s marriage to Lindsay in Season 4, Rory and Dean gave it one more try; their final break-up didn’t pack the same punch that this one did.

3. Rory and Lorelai feel like failures

In Season 4, Rory and Lorelai were embarking on new journeys as Rory would begin her higher education at Yale, and construction would begin on the Dragonfly Inn. However, both women would find their new journeys had more challenges than they were expecting.

Midway into Season 4, Lorelai would find herself in debt, and Rory, always the hard-working student, would find herself unable to handle her rigorous course load. To make matters worse, the girls would be engaged in a game of phone-tag.

Without each other to lean on, they’d crack under the pressure, leaving Dean and Luke, respectively, to pick up the pieces in the lowest moments we’d seen the Gilmore girls at by that point.

4. Rory moves into her grandparents’ pool house

Toward the end of Season 5, Rory accepted an internship at the Stamford Eagle-Gazette, which was run by Mitchum Huntzberger, the father of Rory’s then-boyfriend, Logan Huntzberger. After accepting the internship, Rory was eager to begin working at a professional news publication.

Unfortunately, her bubble got burst just a few weeks into her internship when Mitchum sat her down and told her that she didn’t have what it takes to be a journalist.

Rory, having worked her whole life intending to become a journalist, was left heartbroken.

In a moment of weakness, following this conversation, Rory would find herself stealing a yacht with Logan and getting arrested. After being picked up from jail by her mother, Rory headed back to school for one last final. However, Rory would spend that time considering her future and whether or not a career in journalism was viable.

That afternoon, she’d have lunch with Lorelai at Weston’s Bakery and let her know she wasn’t returning to Yale in the fall. Lorelai, already upset with the effect the Huntzberger’s were having on Rory, was furious and told Rory that she’d worked too hard to give up now.

Although Rory told her it was a temporary break, Lorelai wasn’t having it and said that she couldn’t bum around Stars Hollow through the fall. Before Friday Night Dinner with Emily and Richard, Lorelai met with them to ask for their support in convincing Rory to reconsider dropping out.

Although Emily and Richard would agree wholeheartedly to assist Lorelai, a visit from Rory later that day would change their tune. That night, they would sit Lorelai down to let her know Rory would be taking time off from Yale and moving into their pool house. Feeling betrayed, Lorelai stormed out of the mansion but didn’t leave before stopping at the pool house to watch as Rory moved in, accepting the life that Lorelai had rejected years earlier.

What are your favorite tear-jerker moments from Gilmore Girls?

Relive these moments and more by streaming all seasons of Gilmore Girls on Netflix.