While Gilmore Girls did eventually replace Milo Ventimiglia’s Jess Mariano with a new partner for Rory, the actor’s plan for his character’s fate was wisely avoided. Rory Gilmore had numerous minor love interests throughout the show’s original seven seasons and its 2016 revival, A Year in the Life. However, only three of her prospective paramours stood out and became fan favorites thanks to the depth and duration of their respective relationships with the show’s heroine. Jared Padalecki’s Dean, Milo Ventimiglia’s Jess, and Matt Czuchry’s Logan were Rory’s three pivotal love interests.
While many members of the Gilmore Girls cast went on to have impressive careers after the cult classic ended, Ventimiglia’s time as a teen heartthrob was kick-started by his tenure in Stars Hollow. Ventimiglia went on to star in Heroes shortly after appearing in Gilmore Girls before parlaying his newfound fame into roles in movies like Stay Alive, Rocky Balboa, and Gamer. All this came at a cost to his availability for Gilmore Girls, although Jess did appear a few times after he and Jess broke up. Ventimiglia himself, however, had a very different plan for his character.
Milo Ventimiglia Wanted Gilmore Girls To Kill Jess Off When He Left The Show
According to an interview with E! Entertainment back in 2006, Milo Ventimiglia wanted the show’s creators to kill Jess off violently. He suggested that Jess ought to be hit with a bus or stabbed in the neck before admitting that the creators of the series didn’t go in for his idea. One harsh reality of re-watching Gilmore Girls is the realization that nothing this shocking would ever happen in the show’s low-stakes universe, although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Gilmore Girls staging Jess’s gruesome demise might seem like a wild twist, but it would have badly derailed the show’s long-established rhythm.
Even though Gilmore Girls did feature a lot of brutal arguments and some truly tragic breakups, the show was mostly a comfort watch. From its warm autumnal color palette to the fast-paced, pop culture-steeped dialogue of its heroines, Gilmore Girls was never all that concerned with the darker side of life. When the show did address grim plots, it was usually only in passing. As such, Jess succumbing to a brutally violent, abrupt death could have made Gilmore Girls feel less like a warm dramedy and more like a corny soap opera. Much of the show’s appeal came from its gentle tone, something this event would have permanently obliterated.
Killing Jess Would Have Been Tonally Inconsistent With Gilmore Girls (& Ruined The Show)
The darkest moments in Gilmore Girls usually centered around personal betrayals and feuds rather than death and violence. As such, killing off Jess in a bloody twist would have thrown the show’s tone completely. While Jess did cause Rory and Dean’s breakup, this didn’t mean that Stars Hollow’s resident bad boy deserved to die before he reached adulthood. Since Gilmore Girls never featured violent moments of this caliber before or after the proposed twist, it would have been a major mistake to take Ventimiglia’s advice and end Jess’s story with a bang. Fortunately, Gilmore Girls kept Jess around for its final seasons and 2016 revival.
