The 3 Most Tragically Underdeveloped ‘Gilmore Girls’ Characters
The cooler it gets outside, the more people tune in to rewatch Gilmore Girls. The series has become, in many ways, the ultimate comfort show, buoyed by its addition to Netflix’s catalog several years ago. There are many reasons people return to the show year after year. Still, the cozy town of Stars Hollow and the colorful and complex residents who inhabited it are probably the biggest reason its popularity continues to surge. While the residents of Stars Hollow were all great, in their own respect, we think three characters were tragically underdeveloped during the show’s seven-season run. We would have loved to see more for them.
Babette Dell was one the most tragically underdeveloped ‘Gilmore Girls’ characters
Babette Dell was one of the first Stars Hollow residents that Gilmore Girls fans get a chance to meet. As Rory and Lorelai’s next-door neighbor, Babette factored heavily into their lives. She was clearly concerned about them and interested in remaining close to the mother-daughter duo. Despite her proximity to Rory and Lorelai, her standing in Stars Hollow, and her penchant for sharing really random tidbits about her life, fans walked away from Gilmore Girls knowing astonishingly little about Babette.
It seems a bit strange and, frankly, sad that such a bright character was created and then not given regular, personal storylines. Kirk Gleason had several pretty important storylines during the show’s seven-season run. While Kirk was certainly an interesting character in his own right, we don’t think his character deserved more true development than Babette.
Bootsy could have been Luke’s laid-back counterpart
Luke Danes and Bootsy had a fair bit in common. Like Bootsy inherited his newsstand, Luke inherited his father’s hardware store. While Luke turned the hardware store into a diner and developed a gruff and uptight demeanor, Bootsy seemed to leave things as they were, and his laidback style was certainly interesting. Sadly, Gilmore Girls never really dove into Bootsy’s story, and the character remained completely underdeveloped. While we didn’t need Bootsy to be a huge factor in every storyline, it feels like we could have seen more from him. At the very least, it feels like a missed opportunity to learn more about the character and his background.
Sadly, Bootsy’s story has officially ended, even if the cast of Gilmore Girls were to return for a second Netflix revival. Brian Tarantina, the actor who portrayed Bootsy during Gilmore Girls’ original run, died in November 2019 in New York. Before his death, Tarantina did reprise the role in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Still, it feels like there was a great deal of Bootsy’s story that was left untold.
‘The show’s writers needed to be all-in or all-out on Lucy and Olivia
In the final season of Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore befriended two Yale students. Lucy and Olivia met Rory while she was working for the Yale Daily News. They took her under their wing a bit. Feeling a bit lost without Logan Huntzberger around, Rory grew close to Lucy and Olivia quickly. It could have been great, but the characters kind of petered out from there.
You could argue that Lucy and Olivia lacked true character development because the show introduced them so late. Still, it feels like there is more to it than that. The duo was already best friends, but Gilmore Girls never explored that dynamic, nor was their quick interest in Rory ever explained. All told, the Gilmore Girls characters could have been great, but the writers never really did anything with them. We still wonder if moving to New York after graduation worked out for them.
