The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir

After canceling Gilmore Girls, Warner Bros. sold the show to Netflix. When it began streaming, the show was an immediate hit with both old and new viewers. In 2015, a cast reunion was held at the Paramount Theatre in Texas, in front of an audience of 1,200 people. An empty chair on stage honored Ed Herrmann, who had died of brain cancer a year earlier.

Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote four new episodes of the show for Netflix, titled Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Lee supported Bishop’s resumption of the role of Emily; his daughter Sheryl stayed with him while Bishop was filming. In portraying Emily Gilmore as newly widowed, Bishop drew on the loss of her mom and also her mom’s experience of losing her husband. As a grieving character, Emily is more vulnerable and relatable, prompting a closer relationship with Lorelai.

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life concludes with several loose ends, which Bishop recognizes left some fans feeling unsatisfied. For example, Rory announces that she is pregnant but does not reveal the identity of her baby’s father. More broadly, the future trajectory of the characters’ lives remains ambiguous. However, Bishop suggests the ending was “interesting rather infuriating” (195), allowing for individual interpretations. Personally, she believes that Logan is the baby’s father as he is the most mature of Rory’s suitors. Bishop is on “Team Luke” when it comes to Lorilai’s perfect love match. 

Bishop is always moved when fans tell her how much the show means to them. While in the process of writing her memoir, a teenage boy at a gas station told her that, to him, Emily was “the third Gilmore Girl” (200). The remark persuaded the author to change the book’s working title, At the Ballet. Bishop deeply appreciated the ensemble nature of Gilmore Girls as she never wanted the pressure of being a star.

While Lee was fighting his sixth cancer and struggling to walk, Bishop fractured her sacrum and pelvis when she slipped on ice outside the house. Lee cared for her for six weeks while she used a walker. In 2018, Bishop told her agent she was unavailable for work as she could not bring herself to leave Lee. However, she accepted a five-day role in the independent movie The Salzburg Story, shot in Austria. Her best friend, Priscilla, went with her, and the work trip proved restorative.

Returning from Austria, Bishop learned that Lee had a lung tumor. In the final weeks of his life, she insisted on caring for him at home. One day, Bishop noticed Lee’s mouth moving as he stared at something invisible and was convinced her husband was “communicating with somebody” (209). Lee died shortly afterward in December 2018. At his celebratory memorial service, a psychic medium told Bishop that Lee was present and grateful.

The author explains that certain events have reinforced her lifelong belief in a spiritual realm. After the end of her first marriage, she was feeling sad when a young man approached her on the street, kissed her, and then walked away. Afterward, she felt strangely comforted, wondering if the man may have been her guardian angel. On another occasion, she was walking her dog in a forest when she experienced an overwhelming instinct to stop. When she did so, a large branch plummeted to the ground, just missing them. After Lee’s death, Bishop contacted a psychic medium, hoping for a specific message from her late husband. The medium described seeing Lee in a golf cart and sitting on a bench with Bishop singing. The scenarios made sense to Bishop as Lee once said he fell in love with her while they sang to each other on a bench at a golf resort.

Shortly after Lee’s death, Bishop also lost her beloved dog Dixie. She continued working to distract from her grief, playing a fashion publicist in the miniseries Halston alongside Ewan McGregor. When filming paused with the advent of COVID-19, Bishop adopted a rescue dog, Dolly. During lunch with Lauren Graham and Amy Sherman-Palladino, Bishop confided that her future seemed empty without Lee. Two weeks later, she was invited to appear on Sherman-Palladino’s new show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as the character Benedetta. Bishop also began seeing a cognitive behaviorist and rediscovered the pleasure of her own company.

In 2022, Bishop was offered the role of the formidable Mrs. Ivey in the series The Watchful Eye. She accepted the part and enjoyed the experience, even though filming required traveling to Vancouver, Canada. While waiting to see if a second season would be commissioned, Bishop began suffering pain while walking. When the cause was revealed to be blood clots requiring surgery, she was furious with herself, convinced that her lifelong smoking habit was responsible. On her release from the hospital, her stepdaughter Sheryl and friends rallied around to help.

Writing her memoir in the summer of 2023, Bishop reveals that she has recovered, no longer smokes, and is keen to return to work. However, she must avoid the long flights that likely contributed to her health crisis. As she approaches 80, the author reflects on whether she should have cosmetic surgery to look younger. She admits that after Season 1 of Gilmore Girls, she had cosmetic work to correct her inherited “disappearing jawline” (231). However, “the Bishop jowls” (231) have returned, along with lines and wrinkles. The author concludes that she is sufficiently comfortable with herself not to change how she looks. She also consciously celebrates the past instead of mourning it. When she went to see the musical Hamilton, her attention was drawn to a talented chorus dancer. Reflecting that the dancer was like her years earlier, she felt pride rather than a yearning for her earlier achievements.

Recently, when a woman asked Bishop to talk her son out of a career in the theater, Bishop refused. As someone who feels gratitude for her life and career, Bishop would never dissuade someone from following their dream. While writing her memoir, she realizes she is still growing and learning.