A Return to Stars Hollow

"I believe, in a former life, I was coffee." — Lorelai Gilmore

On May 15, 2007, "Gilmore Girls" aired its final episode. It was the end of a beautiful seven-season journey. But it didn't end the way Amy Sherman Palladino intended. She created the show, but she and her husband, Dan, producers on the series, left prior to the seventh season. And audiences, though they were taken with the journey, were always left to wonder what might have been.

I'm a 35-year-old male, definitely not the target audience for "Gilmore Girls," but it was a show I watched faithfully for seven seasons. And in the nine years since it left the air, the love for it hasn't waned. So when Netflix announced that they were bringing it back, with four 90-minutes episodes, I like so many in America were incredibly excited. The cast was coming back and Amy and Dan were getting to write and direct the episodes and tell the stories they wanted to tell.

The season dropped on Friday and we finally got the answer to the questions. Slipping into the episodes was like slipping into a warm, comfortable and familiar. After nine years, it was like we never left. Sure, some of the familiar faces were missing, but the spirit and the story felt the same.

I won't ruin the experience for those that haven't finished it with specific plot details, but I thought the four episodes were uneven. The first couple were slow and, at times, awkward as the show tried to balance the quirky towns people we've come to know and love with moving the central story forward. At times during "Winter" and "Spring" it was hard to see the bigger picture.

But it was the back half that really hit it on the head. In fact, "Fall," the final installment of this four-episode adventure, was one of the finest episodes in the show's history. There were plenty of beautiful moments in the episode, which is also the only one to feature Melissa McCarthy. It was a near-perfect and iconic hour and 41 minutes that ends with nothing short of an incredible bombshell.

It also poses the question, is this the end or the beginning of a new adventure? For those that head the final line of "Fall," the question becomes even more central. Whether this is the end, or just the first part of a new adventure, it's great to have "Gilmore Girls" back on the air.