'Gilmore Girls' Best Character Was Never Meant To Be in the Show
Kendall Myers is a Senior Author with Collider. As part of the TV and Movies Features team, she writes about some of the most popular releases before, during, and after they premiere. In three years, she has written over 900 articles with topics ranging from classic sitcoms to fantasy epics.
Sign in to your Collider account
26 years after its premiere, Gilmore Girls' popularity is undeniable. The series features small-town charm, rapid-fire dialogue, and many colorful characters, but at the center, it is about the Gilmore family, especially Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel). Gilmore Girls may be a story about an unconventional mother-daughter relationship, but the romantic lives of both Lorelai and Rory are a significant part of the series. However, one of the most central relationships was not initially part of the plan because the other half of the couple wasn't going to be in the show. As the owner of the local diner, Luke Danes (Scott Patterson) is a memorable part of the series, but he was a late addition that changed the course of the story.
'Gilmore Girls' Diner Had a Different Owner
Luke's relationship with Lorelai may have brought him further into the story, but even before that develops, he is a constant presence in the series as the keeper of the coffee. Luke's diner is a central location for everyone in town, and the fact that so many beloved scenes take place there, removing Luke wouldn't be entirely possible. However, in the original concept, Luke wasn't the character we know and love, and instead Stars Hollow had a much different resident. Luke's role as diner owner was filled by a woman named Daisy.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun
Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.
🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)
🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)
🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)
🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)
01
How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.
02
What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.
03
You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.
04
What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.
05
What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.
06
You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.
07
What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.
08
Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.
The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…
Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.
Dustin Henderson
You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.
- Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
- You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
- He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
- You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.
Emily Cooper
You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.
- Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
- You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
- She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
- She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.
Wednesday Addams
You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.
- Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
- You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
- Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
- Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.
Seong Gi-hun
You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.
- Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
- You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
- He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
- He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.
Fortunately for fans of Luke, the plan changed. Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino told EW that when the network wanted another male character, Daisy became Luke. However, very little was changed to make that happen. Sherman-Palladino admitted, "I literally just took a character and changed the name, didn't even change any of the dialogue because I'm that lazy." This gives us an idea of who Daisy was: sarcastic and unimpressed by Lorelai's antics. While we will never know what kinds of stories she would have gotten by the end, it's safe to say that things would have developed differently.
Luke and Lorelai's Relationship Developed Because of Their Chemistry
While Luke's addition may not seem as dramatic as you might have initially expected it to, it brought about a major shift for the series because of Graham and Patterson's undeniable chemistry. At first, most of their interactions are arguments about coffee or Lorelai's eating habits, but their scenes always stood out. Without intentional romantic undertones, they still seem to fit together. Speaking with EW, Patterson attributed this to the "rhythm" he and Graham shared, while Graham believes they benefited from the built-in conflict of their characters' opposite personalities. Whatever the case, Sherman-Palladino cited a scene early in Season 1, when the pair spy on Dean (Jared Padalecki) in the market, saying that their chemistry could not be ignored.
Gilmore Girls benefitted when it committed to making Luke and Lorelai a couple. Luke and Lorelai both had different romantic partners, but none fit quite as well as each other. Throughout the series, they kept coming back together, and the audience and town alike were rooting for the two of them to be together by the end. While Luke was not written as a love interest for Lorelai from the beginning, their on-and-off relationship became a major storyline, and being together was the happy conclusion both characters needed, and that is exactly what the Gilmore Girls' finale delivered.
'Gilmore Girls' Keeps Lorelai and Luke's Dynamic Interesting
Perhaps because he wasn't written to be the love interest, Luke is a well-rounded and interesting character. He had conflicts with Taylor (Michael Winters) and a purpose that wasn't about Lorelai. Regardless of where they are in their relationship arc, Luke's role in Stars Hollow as the voice of reason or negativity was an important part of the show. Luke's character adds to the small-town charm that Gilmore Girls relies on. After all, what fun are characters like Taylor and Kirk (Sean Gunn) if there is no one to call out their ridiculousness?
Luke and Lorelai's relationship isn't a foregone conclusion from the beginning. Because of his origins as Daisy, Luke's first moments on screen aren't a cliché love-interest introduction. For a long time, it was not obvious that they would end up together, despite the obvious chemistry they share. The uncertainty makes the relationship that much more interesting. Though some storylines created to drag out Luke and Lorelai's relationship drama have received criticism, the romance between them is vital to the series. Luke may have been invented to add another male character and appease the network, but his presence was what the show needed.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.