‘Gilmore Girls’: Mrs. Kim Is the Reason Lane Never Reached Her Full Potential
Gilmore Girls is full of loveable characters, and a fan-favorite is Lane Kim, Rory Gilmore’s music-loving childhood best friend. Many fans were disappointed in how Lane’s story played out, and some have pointed to her mother, Mrs. Kim, as the reason why.
Rory Gilmore’s best friend Lane Kim is a smart, driven music-lover with big dreams, but she ends the show without achieving any of them
Lane (played by Keiko Agena) is introduced in the first episode of Gilmore Girls. It’s immediately clear she has big plans for her life. She rebels against the restrictive nature of her family’s Seventh-Day Adventist faith, listening to rock music and wearing crazy clothes whenever her mother isn’t around.
In later episodes, it’s noted that Lane was one of the top students in her elementary school class and continued to be an above-average student throughout her time at school. While she wasn’t as academically focused as Rory, who worked her entire life to get into Harvard, Lane was definitely a smart and driven young woman.
As the show progresses, we see her discover a love of music. Lane decides to learn how to play the drums and practices until she’s a skilled instrumentalist. She then works to find a band she can play with. Once she does, Lane pushes them to play shows, go on tour, and make their own album.
Throughout the show, Lane is shown to be a hardworking, driven, smart person with a lot of ambition, so it surprised many fans when she ended the original series as a young married mother of twins. It was even more surprising when the revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Lane is still in Stars Hollow and not really pursuing her original dream of being a rockstar.
Lane’s mother, Mrs. Kim, is not supportive of her daughter’s ambitions
While Lane’s fate wasn’t what fans wanted, it’s not entirely unexpected when you think about the impact her mother, the strict and unyielding Mrs. Kim, had on her life. Lane kept her love of popular music, movies, and TV a secret from her mother for years, but it eventually comes out when Lane sneaks out when a big opportunity for the band comes up.
Once she gets home, Lane comes clean with her mom, telling her how important music is to her and that it’s something she seriously wants to pursue. Instead of trying to understand her daughter, Mrs. Kim kicks her out of the house.
After that, Lane has to scramble to find a place to live and ends up working full-time at Luke’s diner. This means she has to drop out of college to pay rent — a religious college her mother forced her to attend in the first place.
Without the time and space to explore her interest in music, as well as the need to pay her own way, Lane is forced to put the band on the back burner and work full-time.
How Mrs. Kim’s controlling nature ends up forcing Lane to put her family over her musical dreams
Lane and Mrs. Kim eventually reconcile — her mother even helps the band book a tour. But once Lane gets married and quickly becomes pregnant, it’s clear Mrs. Kim wants family to be her focus. Lane shockingly agrees.
In an episode taking place shortly before Lane gives birth, Lane even says she won’t be able to have fun once she becomes a mom, because her mother was so focused on her growing up. She even gives up the chance to go on tour with her husband Zach to stay at home and take care of their twins.
Many fans of Gilmore Girls were disappointed to see a passionate, ambitious character like Lane fall short of her dreams, but with a controlling mother like Mrs. Kim, it’s not surprising she ended up staying in Stars Hollow.
