Typically only seen as the strait-laced matriarch of the Gilmore clan, Emily Gilmore rarely becomes uninhibited. She is the epitome of the proper wife and does what is expected of her. However, there is one deviation from this pattern: Kelly Bishop's favorite episode and one of the best episodes of "Gilmore Girls" altogether.
"I found a letter that [Richard's mother] had written to him — the night before our wedding, I think — begging him not to marry me," Bishop explained to "The Today Show" in a Q&A. In one of the best seasons of "Gilmore Girls," Richard's (Edward Herrmann) mother dies, which leads Emily to discover the letter above. The cruelty of her mother-in-law sends Emily into a tailspin, showing a side of her that the audience had never seen before. Bishop said: "During that episode, I was drinking ... There was even one scene where I was smoking a cigarette. I called it the Tennessee Williams episode for me."
In "A Streetcar Named Desire," the famous playwright often depicts characters dealing with painful pasts, which usually develop into outbursts and vices of every sort (via The New Yorker). Emily's impersonation of Blanche DuBois in the episode is a particularly good one, where she washes her hands of helping with her mother-in-law's funeral. For a character so concerned with status, it was a delight for viewers — as well as the actors — to see Emily unhinged.
