Gilmore Girls' Creator Wishes That Lane Never Got Pregnant
"Gilmore Girls" juggled a ton of characters and storylines throughout its original run, but there's definitely one character who gets the short end of the stick. Lane Kim, played by Keiko Agena, is a consistent delight in the series, as Rory's (Alexis Bledel) music-obsessed best friend who ends up forming a band, Hep Alien. After escaping her mother's strict household and striking out on her own, Lane ends up dating her bandmate Zack (Todd Lowe), and the two get engaged and then married in Season 6... only for Lane to end up pregnant with twins at the end of Season 7.
As it turns out, showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino wasn't a fan of this (pretty unpopular) decision, as she told TVLine in a 2016 interview that followed the Netflix revival "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life." Sherman-Palladino and her husband, fellow showrunner Daniel Palladino, left the show before Season 7 and never actually watched the divisive final season. So when it came time for the revival, they had to rely on friends who did watch it to fill them in on what they missed.
"When Dan and I started breaking these stories [for the revival], we didn't know how Season 7 had ended," Sherman Palladino said, particularly whether it fulfilled her original idea for Rory to get pregnant — a reveal that was planned to come with those infamous final four words. "Rory could've had a pregnancy scare in Season 7. They had Lane get pregnant, which was the only thing I was a little disappointed in."
Sherman-Palladino doesn't think Lane and Zach would have become parents
When TVLine clarified whether or not Lane getting pregnant was the storyline that Sherman-Palladino had previously implied the Season 7 writers had "stepped on," Sherman-Palladino confirmed that it was. "Yes. That was the one thing. It was a totally valid story point. I'm not saying it was executed poorly. It was just the one thing I was like, Damn.'" Instead, she had wanted that pregnancy shocker for Rory. "I always wanted [the story] to end in a Life Repeats Itself kind of way. The daughter following in the mother's footsteps."
As for Lane, Sherman-Palladino said that she doesn't think Lane and Zach would have become parents at all: "I would've preferred that Lane not have kids, only because it would've given us more options... It changed things ever so slightly. They're still rock and rollers. They're still the cool parents. But the Rory thing they left wide open for me, which I was very happy about. I'm very pleased with how it ended."
In the Netflix revival, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life," Lane and Zach are still living in Stars Hollow with their twins, and Sherman-Palladino gets the ending she wanted all along — that is, Rory telling Lorelei (Lauren Graham) that she's pregnant. In a moment that comes full circle, Rory is 32 years old, which is exactly the age Lorelei was at the very beginning of the series — which wouldn't have happened if Sherman-Palladino hadn't gone with the original plan of having Rory get pregnant right out of college.
Both "A Year in the Life" and "Gilmore Girls" are streaming on Netflix now.