Gilmore Girlsmay be centered around Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), but it’sthe residents of Stars Hollowthat make the show so lovable. Among those residents isLuke Danes (Scott Patterson), the broody, baseball cap-wearing diner owner who gives the Gilmore girls their daily coffee fix. He may be grumpy 90% of the time, but he has a heart of gold, something that is proven time and time again throughout the series’ run — especially when it comes to Lorelai and Rory.
Around the halfway mark inSeason 6, a bomb is dropped on both Luke and the audience:He has a daughter, April(Vanessa Marano). Now, Luke has never really been the biggest fan of kids, Rory being the one exception, so it was certainly a twist, and an interesting one at that. Unfortunately, the show did it all so wrong, and whatcould’ve been a good storyline quickly became one of the most hated inGilmore Girlshistory.
Gilmore Girls
A dramedy centering around the relationship between a thirtysomething single mother and her teen daughter living in Stars Hollow, Connecticut.
Why Is ‘Gilmore Girls’ April Storyline So Bad?
Luke having a kid was quite the turn of events onGilmore Girls, especially since Season 6 was already a bit of a wild one. Rory and Lorelai aren’t speakingdue to Rory’s dropping out of Yale, and she is living withher grandparents, much to Lorelai’s dismay. Luke and Lorelai, however, are happy and in love, and are finally engaged! So why not throw one extra log onto the fire? The thing is, April’s storyline isn’t eventhatbad of an idea — it actually puts Luke in a new situation and gives him a chance to grow. Introducing a child into his life was an opportunity to dive deeper into his character and not only focus on the grumpy guy persona he’s been carrying around forthe past six seasons. However,the writers fumbled the storyline so hard that it’s almost painful to re-watch.
As mentioned, Luke and Lorelai are engaged at this point, so when April comes into his life, you’d expect there to be a conversation about her… right? Instead,Luke hides the discovery from Lorelai for two whole months!It’s absolutely absurd — this is supposed to bethe woman he’s planning to marry, and yet he hides such a huge new part of his life from her. It’s natural that he would be confused and unsure what to do given how sudden of a change this is — after all, it’s not every day a pre-teen walks into your diner and plucks a piece of hair off your head to see if you’re her dad. But it’s still a mystery why he decided to keep it from Lorelai. Even when she finds out, he pushes her away and doesn’t let her and April get to know each other because April’s mom (Sherilyn Fenn) doesn’t want them to. She’s his fiancée, for crying out loud! Put your foot down, Luke!
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Lorelai eventually gives him an ultimatum: marry her now to show he can commit, or she’s walking away. He can’t decide, and so she walks away, devastatingLuke and Lorelai shipperseverywhere.It’s unclear why the storyline went this route — it’s not like Lorelai is bad with kidsor anything, as proven by how great of a mom she is to Rory. And it’s not like she could’ve been mad at Luke, given that he didn’t know about April, and April’s mom didn’t even know for sure that he was the father. It just makes no sense whatsoever.
‘Gilmore Girls’ Wasted April and Luke’s Potential
ManyGilmore Girlsfans have omitted this storyline from memory, and it’s pretty obvious why. It could have been great had it been done right, and it’s a damn shame it wasn’t. Firstly, we saw a similar storyline play out in Season 2 when Jess (Milo Ventimiglia) came to live with Luke. Luke was the one tasked with turning his nephew around and setting him on a good path, and though it may not have happened under Luke’s roof,Jess did indeed go on to make something really great of himself. In a shocking turn of events, he ended up having his life together more than Rory did. That whole arc in Seasons 2 and 3 is one of the best in the show — not only wasthe tension between Rory and Jess peak drama, butLuke’s genuine attempts to steer Jess in the right direction were admirable and showed a softer side to himthat we very rarely saw. The same could’ve been the case for April, and in a way it sort of was — he did take to fatherhood surprisingly well, all things considered, but the mess of things that it caused made it fall a little flat.
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As previously stated, Luke would do anything for Lorelai and Rory, and pretty much all the moments we see him let his guard down and show off his softer side are in regard to the Gilmore girls. Likewhen he went to Rory’s Chilton graduationand didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that he was blubbering as she gave her valedictorian speech. Or when he blew up balloons and made her a coffee cake for her 16th birthday. Or how about when he built Lorelai a Chuppah when she was planning to marry Max (Scott Cohen)? There’s a long list of times when Luke acted like the father to Rory that Christopher (David Sutcliffe) never was, so you would think that would sort of translate over to his own daughter. Especially since, like Rory,April is super smart, and a bookworm. However, it just never fully takes. Perhaps it’s becausethe entire storyline is soured by the way it destroyed Luke and Lorelai’s relationship, or maybe there simply wasn’t enough care put into the father-daughter relationship. Nevertheless, April was brought back for the show’shalf-baked revival,Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, maintaining her quirky demeanor as a fresh MIT gradwith a fondness for cannabis.
That’s not to say the entirety of that arc was a flop, because it wasn’t. Luke suddenly being thrown into the role of “girl-dad” and taking it in stride was quite comical and heartwarming. You know it’s not his ideal situation, but he still gives it the best shot he has, and it’s admirable. As April warms up to him, and him to her, they do form a sweet little bond, but it doesn’t help to heal the wounds this storyline caused onGilmore Girls. And to make matters worse,Amy Sherman-PalladinoandDan Palladino(the show’s creators) departed after this season, leaving the show’s new writers to clean up the mess inthe seventh and final season. Perhaps this storyline could’ve worked better had it been introduced earlier, and been given a bit more time to be fleshed out — instead,it felt like it was used for shock value and needless drama. The thought was there, but the story of April Nardini was doomed from the start.
Gilmore Girlsis available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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