This Fan Theory Connecting 'Gilmore Girls' & 'Friends' Almost Works
Someone out there went full "Westworld" on "Friends" and "Gilmore Girls."
The timelines don't completely add up in this fan theory -- which was actually posted on Reddit months ago and only just recently got picked up by whichever house elf is responsible for making stories go viral. Glamour shared the theory, which originated from Reddit user NotAnAverageTaunTaun in a thread called "[Gilmore Girls / Friends] Paris Geller is Rachel Green's redemption story."Yes, the theory surrounds Paris Geller of "Gilmore Girls," and directly links her name to Rachel Green's "Friends" storyline.
Put on your tinfoil hat and read away:
"As most of us know by now, the 2004 series finale of Friends portrays Rachel Green famously getting off a plane to Paris (where she was offered an incredible job at Louis Vuitton after working her way up from nothing in the fashion world) for her on-again off-again love interest, Ross Geller.
Meanwhile, another early-2000s show, Gilmore Girls, features a character named Paris Geller — a smart, no-nonsense, career-driven student who blossoms into an extremely motivated adult.
My theory is that, while Paris Geller's name connection to Friends might have begun as an accident, her character arc is a deliberate flip-side of the coin from Rachel Green's — a sort of redemption story. While Rachel sacrifices her career for love, Paris's storyline time and again shows her doing the opposite; especially later in the show, after the Friends finale aired.
When faced with the possibility of her love life detracting from her future career, Paris breaks up with her beloved Yale boyfriend, Doyle — she refuses to let a boy stop her from attending medical school. Unlike Ross Geller in Friends, Doyle makes the choice to support and follow Paris wherever she decides to go, effectively reversing the Rachel and Paris's respective character arcs."
The author acknowledges that she might be "grasping at straws" and could just be projecting her own frustration with Rachel's choice to not go for the Louis Vuitton job.
One of the commenters basically shot the theory down, based on the characters's different personalities and the conflicting series timelines. As they wrote, "Friends also ended in 2004. That's when Rachel had the Paris thing going on. Gilmore Girls started in 2000. Paris was not named after Rachel's potential city of employment."
Yeah, OK, but the theory can still live on in an alternate universe, like a sideways "Lost" situation. Don't crush the dreams of inventive fans, they are the ones keeping these shows alive year after year! Without them, we might not get things like the "Gilmore Girls" revival coming November 25 to Netflix.
[via: Glamour]
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