5 Ways ‘Bunheads’ Left Its Mark on ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’

By far the biggest influence that Bunheads had had on Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is that suddenly, Gilmore Girls is a show that is very much in touch with its own artificiality. On Bunheads, 45 minutes of teen drama and Sutton Foster charm and small-town hijinks would give way to a fully choreographed dance routine. Sometimes it was merely in the guise of a rehearsal scene; other times the staging was more elaborate. But for those last few minutes in an episode, Bunheads ceased to be just a sparklingly written dramady; it was a place where the elastic reality of TV could make you feel something grand and beautiful.

Gilmore Girls in its initial run was never that. It was charming and romantic and sweet and moving, but it never leaped past the earthbound. A Year in the Life changed all that. The surreality of Stars Hollow became more and more apparent. That main thoroughfare always looked like a studio lot, sure, but A Year in the Life‘s restless camera movements left no doubt.

By the time we got to “Fall,” strict realism had been lost for good. The less said about the Life & Death Brigade the better, but that whole sequence in the jazz club is a dance interlude with douchebags attached. But it was Luke and Lorelai’s wedding where the Bunheads influence was felt most beautifully, a moment where the center of Stars Hollow practically cracks open to fete the show’s central couple with wonder and whimsy. It was very likely not for everybody, just as Bunheads wasn’t; but if you were a fan of the way that A Year in the Life could transport its audience from the terrestrial to the fantastical, you have Bunheads to thank for it.

Okay, this one is easy. From the moment that Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was announced, ASP fans wondered whether Foster, who had proved herself to be so adept with Sherman-Palladino’s unique rhythms and style, would show up in Stars Hollow in some way. And boy did she, in the “Summer” episode, as the lead performer in Taylor Doose’s ill-conceived musical extravaganza. And just in case the meta-narratives weren’t already thick in the air, two-time Tony Award winner (and Sutton Foster’s real-life ex) Christian Borle was cast as the male lead.

Watching Foster and Lauren Graham in a scene together was somewhat surreal, and even better that Foster’s character turned out to be a salty old theater lifer who didn’t appreciate Lorelai’s constructive criticism. But then — THEN! Lorelai returned to the playhouse to see the new musical number Taylor added to the show, at which point she and the audience alike were treated to a Sutton Foster performance of real beauty and feeling. Score one for the Bunheads alums.

Obviously, Sutton Foster was the most prominent Bunheads cast member to show up on Gilmore Girls, but she wasn’t alone. There was Julia Goldani Telles — who played the bitchy yet wildly talented Sasha on Bunheads and has since set up shop on Showtime’s The Affair — playing the lifestyle blogger who at first desperately wants to hire Rory and then just as quickly sours on her. Blonde Bunhead Bailey Buntain (now Bailey De Young) showed up a member of Gilmore‘s much-maligned “30-something Gang” (like Rory was sooooo much better than they were? GET OVER YOURSELF, RORY). And Stacy Orsitano, who played Foster’s quasi-nemesis Truly Stone on Bunheads, has a brief appearance as one of the women walking the Wild trail with Lorelai.

One thing that isn’t quite so readily apparent that bonds A Year in the Life to Bunheads lies at the root of the stories that both shows are telling. In the pilot episode of Bunheads, Michelle (Foster) falls for the persistent charms of Hubbell (Alan Ruck) and marries him on a whim, only to have him die before the hour is over. Hubbell’s death ultimately brings the two main characters together: Michelle and Hubbell’s mom Fanny (Kelly Bishop). They’re bonded by grief but not necessarily made closer by it.

Cut to the Gilmore Girls revival, where fate forced Sherman-Palladino’s hand to introduce an element that hadn’t previously been present in the Gilmore dynamic. Edward Herrmann’s death in 2014 meant that Gilmore Girls would have to deal with the death of Richard Gilmore. While Lorelai’s fraught relationship with her mother was never far from acrimonious, it was one based on things like abandonment and resentment. Grief was never a part of it, until now, and in A Year in the Life, grief is all over that relationship. Certainly this wasn’t any kind of intentional throwback to Bunheads, but it does tie the two shows together. And it leads us to something else …

Richard Gilmore’s death was bound to change Emily in some way. It had to. I don’t think any of us expected that it would have her wearing a t-shirt and jeans (JEANS!) before the first episode was even finished, but grief is a powerful thing. But once Emily managed to get out from under the weight of Richard’s headstone, his portrait, Lorelai’s betrayal, the DAR, and Marie Kondo, the place she ended up seemed … kind of familiar?

Maybe it’s just that we’d never seen Emily Gilmore by an ocean before. But the scenes with Emily in Nantucket, checking out a seaside home with its bright and breezy vibe — a vibe that was verrrrrry gradually starting to creep its way into Emily herself — felt like we were watching Fanny on Bunheads. Fanny was never THAT far removed from Emily as far as Kelly Bishop’s performance was concerned, but it was the little things that always set her apart as a California dance teacher as opposed to a Connecticut Daughter of the American Revolution. Fanny was always Emily if she got out and enjoyed the sun a little more. By the end of A Year in the Life — as we watch our formerly icy Hartford matriarch feel the Cape Cod breeze in her hair and swan around to the Bernadette Peters recording of Gypsy — Nantucket Emily was kind of just that.