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Gilmore Girls may have seen its finale in 2007, but fans can’t help but binge-watch it to this day. The Gilmores have given viewers everywhere enough drama, surprise, struggles, and comedy to consume for a lifetime. Most of all, we see a single, strong, independent mom who, for the life of her, can’t trust a man enough to commit to marriage. 

Lorelai has always struggled with committing to her relationships — and although she took that plunge later— it would not be with Max. This came as a shock for many first-time watchers. But a Gilmore Girls deleted scene we all missed made it clear from the beginning that Lorelai didn’t intend on marrying Max.

(L-R) Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham on 'Gilmore Girls'
(L-R) Alexis Bledel as Rory Gilmore, Lauren Graham as Lorelai Gilmore | The WB/Mitchell Haddad/Getty Images

Lorelai and Max’s whirlwind romance

Despite many viewers being obsessed with the idea of Luke and Lorelai, there’s no doubting how good Max and Lorelai were together. They just got each other. It started with them meeting at a Chilton parent night since Max was Rory’s teacher at the time — making the relationship challenging right off the bat. They jump into their whirlwind romance until all of Chilton finds out the two were involved.

This puts a rift between the two lovers, but eventually they reunited. Things get heated once again. It turns serious quick with a spontaneous engagement announced, accepted, and wedding bells in the near future. Then it all ended with Lorelai and Rory packing bags and skipping town on Max just before the wedding — never showing their break-up scene.

The deleted scene that would’ve foretold Lorelai’s intentions to leave

The runaway bride came as quite a shock to fans, despite us being used to Lorelai’s tendency to run away from her problems. But one deleted scene would’ve been the foreshadowing we needed not to get our hopes up too soon.

Following Max’s rash proposal and Lorelai’s back-and-forth on whether to take the plunge, a telling scene of Rory’s pro/con list for Max showed Lorelai in a different light in terms of her soon-to-be fiance.

Instead of throwing out even one pro about him, she only gives a few cons. It’s Rory who fills out all the pros, and it’s Lorelai who doesn’t even want to think about it despite it being a huge deal for her — maybe because she knew deep down she wouldn’t take that big leap anyway?

Lorelai struggles with commitment, so Max didn’t have a shot

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Max wasn’t the first romance she began only to run away terrified, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last — just look at her packing her bags in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life nearly a decade later. Almost the entire show is about Lorelai jumping from romance to romance without any real indication of settling down. So, it was already likely that Rory’s adorable English teacher wasn’t going to make the cut.

While the deleted scene (which you can watch on YouTube) could’ve saved fans a lot of time with their fingers crossed and tissues ready for Max, it’s probably better they didn’t air Lorelai’s obvious dismissal. Their short-lived romance was still one for the books and a heck of an entertainment piece for the show as fans sat back biting their nails in anticipation of Lorelai actually settling down.