As I'm sure many of you can relate, I rewatched an absurd amount of my old favorite TV shows during 2020 and 2021. Most recently, I finished rewatching every single episode of Gilmore Girls, and it drove me to a single conclusion: Emily Gilmore is, perhaps, the most underratedly(?) iconic TV character of all time.
With that in mind, I rounded up some of the Gilmore family matriarch's best moments for your viewing pleasure! So, here are just a few times Emily was the best Gilmore Girl of all the Gilmore Girls:
1. The time she said this about small towns:
Emily: "Small-town charm is good for a weekend, Lorelai, but I have no interest in having a next-door neighbor walk in with a pie, wanting to chat. I would kill myself AND my neighbors."
2. The time she joked about why she goes through maids so often:
Friend: "What do you do to [the maids]?"
Emily: "The usual. Clean this, cook that, sacrifice a virgin on your way out."
3. The time she gave out this free advice:
4. The time she greeted Lorelai like this:
Emily: "Lorelai, hello."
Lorelai: "Mom?!"
Emily: "You remember? I'm so touched."
5. The time she did an A+ impression of her husband:
Emily: "He was the master of the 'frown, step back, wrinkle, and sigh.'"
Lorelai: "The what?"
Emily: [Acting out each motion] "The frown. Step back. Wrinkle. And sigh."
6. The time she asked Lorelai for a favor:
Emily: "Will you at least promise to keep your comedy set at my funeral to under five minutes?"
7. The time she needed help with a definition:
Lorelai: "We are at a wake, a funeral. It was for the neighbors' cat...Mom?"
Emily: "Hold on, I'm looking up 'aneurysm' in our medical dictionary to see if I just had one."
8. The time she said this iconic comeback:
Richard: "Only prostitutes have two glasses of wine at lunch!"
Emily: "Well then, buy me a boa and drive me to Reno, because I am open for business!"
9. The time she got really into this mother/daughter co-ord:
10. The time she finally snapped at a D.A.R. meeting:
Emily: "Bullshit. It's all just a big pile of bullshit. I can't spend anymore time and energy on artifice and bullshit."
11. The time she had this simple (but evergreen) emotion:
Emily: "I simply don't understand people."
12. The time she got a job at the museum after her husband died to keep herself busy — and was amazing:
Emily: "He plunged his barbed harpoon into the whale's back. And then, with the killing irons, they stab the great beast repeatedly in the neck. They cut the tail tendons, immobilizing the whale, to stop us diving and make it bleed to death all the faster. Later in history they invent an explosive lance that combines the stabbing of the lance with an explosive that detonates once inside of the whale, but at this point it's just lots and lots of stabbing. Well, by now, the whale is spouting buckets and buckets of blood, and...I'll give you a moment."
13. The time she forced Christopher to leave when he was being an ass:
14. Also, the time she read Christopher for filth to his face, and he couldn't even deny that she was right:
Emily: "All right, I'll come straight to the point, Christopher. Now, I've known you a long time. I watched you grow up. You were a charming boy. A weak, but charming boy. And, to be completely honest, I never thought much of you."
15. The time she made good on this threat:
16. The time she saw right through Luke's non-answer:
Emily: "So exactly what is going on between the two of you?"
Luke: "Nothing, really. We're just friends. That's it."
Emily: "You're idiots, the both of you."
17. The time she slighted Lorelai with minimal effort:
18. The time she was a perpetual mood when it came to clothing:
19. The time she was a sassy sarcasm machine:
20. The time she should've won the "Grandmother of the Year" award:
Emily: "Rory, I know you've heard a lot of talk about various disappointments tonight, and I know you've heard a lot of talk about it in the past. But I want to make this very clear: You, young lady, and your existence have never, ever been — not even for a second — included on that list. Do you understand me?"
Rory: "Yeah, I do."
21. And finally, of course — the time she positively DRAGGED Logan's mother for the way she treated Rory:
Emily: "Now let's talk about your money. You were a two-bit gold digger, fresh off the bus from Hicksville when you met Mitchum at whatever bar you happened to stumble into. And what made Mitchum decide to choose you to marry amongst the pack of women he was bedding at the time, I'll never know. But hats off to you for bagging him. He's still a playboy, you know? Well, of course you know. That would explain why your weight goes up and down 30 pounds every other month. But that's your cross to bear. But these are ugly realities. No one needs to talk about them. Those kids are staying together for as long as they like. You won't stop them. Now, enjoy the event."