We're learning more all the time about the Netflix revival of The CW favorite, Gilmore Girls. Now it looks like we can count on a certain popular sideplot to be involved in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life as well. Actress Carolyn Hennesy has been cast as a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, which means that the DAR will definitely have a presence in the new Gilmore Girls this year.
Carolyn Hennesy (General Hospital, True Blood) will have a recurring role on the revival series as Toni, a member of the DAR who is, of course, upper crust, but also dislikes dissension and likes to keep things orderly. And, as we all know as fans of Gilmore Girls, any Hartford, Connecticut member of the DAR has been working for ages with a certain Gilmore matriarch. That's right, Emily and Toni have been in the DAR together for many years, but there's no word in the report from Variety that notes whether these two are friends in the club, or foes.
In case your memory is shaky on all things DAR and Gilmore Girls, the show used the real-life organization for many years on the series as one of the many clubs that Emily was a member of. They frequently had meetings at her home, where we were treated to all the rich mature lady discussions of charity work that the show could stuff into a few minutes of screen time. The group is such a big deal for Emily that she also often mentioned them and her work with the group when talking with other characters.
The really big deal with the DAR, though, was the Season 6 plot with the organization and Rory. After newspaper magnate Mitchum Huntzberger tells aspiring reporter Rory that she's probably not cut out for the business, she quits Yale, moves in with her grandparents (much to the chagrin of her mom/best friend Lorelai) and joins the DAR at the prompting of her grandmother, Emily. And, since this is Rory we're talking about, she throws herself into the DAR life full force. Since she no longer has school, it becomes the thing she thinks about and spends all of her time working for.
Rory threw herself so fully into the DAR and life living in her grandparents' pool house that, to many fans (and certainly the character's mother), she hardly seemed like our good, old reliable Rory any more. The character had always been dedicated to whatever task she set her mind to, so that wasn't the issue, but she was brought up with more middle class values than what the DAR represented. From what we saw of the group during meetings at Emily's, they were made up pretty exclusively of middle aged and elderly corporate wives, not young women just getting their start in life.
Well, we don't know exactly what part the DAR will play in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life just yet. I can only hope that Rory's career isn't going so badly that she's taken refuge in the organization to get away from her problems. We'll see when the show debuts on Netflix on November 25.
