4. Mitchum was right, y’all.
In Season 5, Rory is an intern at the Stamford Eagle-Gazette, a local newspaper owned by her boyfriend’s father, Mitchum Huntzberger. She behaves more like that of a gloried assistant, spending most of her time on his heels.
After a staff meeting, Mitchum offers Rory some feedback on her performance. And the aspiring journalist is eager to hear what he has to say, anticipating a glowing review. But that’s not what she receives.
Mitchum was professional, constructive and treated Rory as he would any other intern. Of course, she didn’t see it that way. Instead, she took it personally.
Rory (temporarily) dropped out of Yale, stole a yacht with Logan, stopped speaking to her mother and moved into her grandparents’ pool house. Eventually, though, she went back to school and later landed a job at an online magazine.
Fast forward about 11 years, where a 32-year-old Rory is struggling as a freelancer in the Netflix revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Her one claim to fame is a piece in The New Yorker, which is mentioned ad nauseam throughout the season. And to make matters worse, everyone keeps telling her she’s a great journalist who’s just in a rut.
But she’s not. We watch Rory fall asleep in the middle of interviewing a subject for a GQ story, recount to Lorelai her hookup with a source (a Wookiee) and show up to a job interview 100% unprepared, expecting to get the job just because the company doggedly pursued her.
Rory’s family and friends coddled and praised her too much. So naturally, she believed she was one of the best journalists on the market.
But Mitchum saw it from the start. He might have misjudged other situations, but he was spot on about Rory’s future as a journalist.