We Finally Know Why Jess’ Gilmore Girls Spinoff Didn’t Happen

Back in the early days of Gilmore Girls, there were plans for a spinoff show. It had a title, a cast, and even aired an unofficial pilot episode — but the companion series never launched. Now, over two decades later, a writer on the beloved series is explaining what happened to Jess Mariano’s planned spinoff.

Hardcore GG fans probably already know the basics. The penultimate episode of Season 3, titled “Here Comes the Son,” was meant as a backdoor pilot for a show centered on Jess that would have been called Windward Circle. The episode saw Jess reconnect with his father, Jimmy, in his eclectic Venice, California community. It ends with Jimmy reluctantly agreeing to take Jess in, teasing that the spinoff would have been all about the estranged father and son rebuilding their bond.

However, the sunny California setting may have been too much of a seasonal shift from what makes Gilmore Girls everyone’s favorite cozy, fall show. “I think [creator Amy Sherman-Palladino] really wanted that to be such a different vibe from the leaves falling in Stars Hollow to being out in Venice in California,” writer Stan Zimmerman revealed to People on Sept. 30. “It just never gelled into anything, but it was interesting to see Jess’s life and what that would’ve been like.”

Zimmerman, and it sounds like other creative forces on the show, realized that the autumnal vibes of Stars Hollow played a huge role in Girlmore Girls’ appeal. “There is just something about the East Coast ... those leaves changing,” Zimmerman mused. “It just has this cool, towny feeling you just want to hang out in and it’s very warm.”

He even admitted that seeing the central town in full summer mode during the 2016 revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life was kind of unsettling. “It’s like, wait, there’s a pool in Stars Hollow? To me, there just seems something so wrong, there should not be a pool there,” he said.

The wind can blow all it wants on Windward Circle, but if it’s not carrying some crisp fall leaves, it’s not joining the Gilmore Girls universe.