Gilmore Girls Season 7 Wasn't Supposed To Be The Final Chapter

Why was Gilmore Girls cancelled after 7 seasons?

Because of contract negotiation issues, Gilmore Girls season 7 was the final installment, and on a 2015 episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, Lauren Graham explains that the whole cast filmed the finale and didn't even realize it would be their last time shooting an episode together.

“We shot the last episode and we had no idea," Lauren Graham says. "There was some back and forth about what was gonna happen. I was in a restaurant and I had turned my phone off. So the waiter comes to the table and he was like ‘Are you Lauren Graham?’ and I was like, ‘Yes.’ He goes ‘Your agent’s on the phone.’ I thought I was in a ’40s movie or something. I was walking to the house phone and I was like ’Hello,” and he goes, ‘It’s cancelled.’ And that’s how I found out that it was the end.”

Was there a season 8 of Gilmore Girls?

Thankfully the end of Gilmore Girls wasn't the *end* because while we never got a Gilmore Girls season 8, we did get Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life in 2016. (And now we might also get Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life season 2?!). The new Netflix series follows the Gilmores, Scott Patterson's Luke, and the rest of Stars Hollow through each season as they navigate everything from the ins and outs of small businesses to relationship issues and family planning.

The continuation is a super fun watch because it allows almost all our favorite characters (Paris Geller nation rise!) to return. It also filled in a lot of questions viewers had about the characters' lives. But the most shocking thing about Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is that original series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino went in completely blind.

Why did Amy-Sherman Palladino leave Gilmore Girls season 7?

Amy Sherman-Palladino left Gilmore Girls after a standstill on contract negotiations during season 6 led to the show's end, and she revealed she never watched any of season 7! Instead, to prep for the Netflix miniseries, she asked her friends about what they had seen.

“I called them and went, ‘We’re thinking of doing this. What steps on it?'” she says during a 2016 Television Critics Association summer press tour (via TV Line). Thankfully, season 7 didn't interfere with the important themes she had planned for the four-episode series — except one.

"I would’ve preferred that Lane [Kim] not have kids, only because it would’ve given us more options," she tells TV Line in December of 2016. "The one thing you couldn’t do with Lane and Zack is have them be sh*tty parents. So them having kids sort of dictated them still living in Stars Hollow. It changed things ever so slightly. They’re still rock and rollers. They’re still the cool parents."

Does Rory get pregnant in Gilmore Girls season 7?

Since the series had Lane get pregnant instead of Rory, it allowed for Rory's pregnancy in the miniseries and those final four words: "Mom? / Yeah? / I'm pregnant." But when answering a TikTok question about whether the whole set knew the original final words, key set costumer Valerie revealed that no one on set knew what was coming.

"When Amy left at the end of season 6, those words stayed with her," Valerie says. As costumer, Valerie also got to read scripts that some of the actors didn't even receive, and reveals she heard a rumor about the final words that would have changed everything: Instead of, "Mom? I'm pregnant," Valerie thought the final words would be something like, "Oh, you're adopted."

Was Lorelai Gilmore adopted?

Having Lorelai Gilmore's journey begin with feeling so disconnected from her family that she runs away, and ending with the revelation that she's adopted would have been insanely impactful, but not because it emphasized that disconnection — because it emphasized how *connected* Lorelai, Emily, and Richard had become over the course of the show.

Ever since that first Friday night dinner, viewers see Lorelai get to know her parents better and more deeply than she ever dreamed, and allowing Rory to know them too, forging relationships with them that made Lorelai's adulthood much less lonely than her teenage years. Ending the show learning she's adopted would have highlighted how we really *can* choose our family, and that love transcends everything. Because if there's one thing that ties all of Gilmore Girls together, it's love.