‘Gilmore Girls’: 3 Times Lorelai Gilmore Had to Go to Richard and Emily for Money
Gilmore Girls creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, made sure that fans knew Lorelai Gilmore built her life all on her own. The teenaged mother broke away from her parents’ stifling yet wealthy world to find a family and community of her own. While she had a lot of success, Lorelai wasn’t entirely self-sufficient. Lorelai had to go to her parents for help on more than one occasion. Do you remember three times that Lorelai needed Richard and Emily Gilmore’s help with money?
Lorelai needed money from Richard and Emily to pay for Chilton
Gilmore Girls may have ultimately been about Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, but the story was driven by the drama between Lorelai and her parents. She needed to ask her estranged parents for money in the very first episode. When Rory was accepted to a prestigious prep school, Lorelai didn’t have the money to pay for it. To save her daughter’s spot, she went to Richard and Emily for help.
Lorelai’s fiscal trouble is the reason she reestablished a relationship with her parents. Their money also allowed Rory to get the education she wanted and helped her develop a rich relationship with her grandparents. While Lorelai lamented the fact that there were strings attached to Richard and Emily’s money, the benefits, in this scenario, surely outweighed the negatives.
Lorelai needed Emily’s help to fix her house
Richard and Emily’s financial contribution didn’t end with Rory’s high school tuition. In season 2, Lorelai found out that her house had termites. Not only did she needed to get an exterminator, but she also needed cash to repair the damage done by the termites. The repairs weren’t going to be cheap, and Lorelai had no savings.
While she did avoid using her parents’ money to get the job done, she still needed their help with the repairs. She needed Emily to co-sign a loan. Lorelai got the money she needed, but no one ever mentioned the loan again. Presumably, she paid off the loan without any additional help from her parents.
Lorelai needed money to expand the Dragonfly Inn in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life took place nine years after the original series went off the air. Fans found Lorelai and Rory in much different places in their lives than where they left them. Rory was, by all metrics, a failure. Lorelai wasn’t faring much better with her once successful business. Eventually, Lorelai agreed that an expansion was the best way to salvage her failing business. Still, an expansion takes serious money, and only one person seemed to have that kind of dough.
Emily agreed to give Lorelai the money to expand the inn but under one condition. She wanted to see Lorelai and Luke Danes regularly. The scene brought the show full circle in a way that fans hadn’t initially anticipated.
