Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images 
 
 Start building up your caffeine tolerance and grab your best mug—after several months of (occasionally harrowing) rumors, Netflix confirmed Friday afternoon that a “final season” of Gilmore Girls will find a home on the streaming-and-chill platform. 
 
 The original series, which aired for seven seasons from 2000-2007, followed Lorelai Gilmore, her daughter Rory, and the residents of Stars Hollow—the show’s fictional New England town. Now, nine years later, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino is returning to the helm as executive producer, joined by her husband Daniel Palladino (also an EP). Together, they’ll write and direct all of the episodes in this final season. 
 
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 Netflix confirmed that many of the original series’ core cast members are returning, including Lauren Graham (who played Lorelai Gilmore), Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore), Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore), Scott Patterson (Luke Danes), Sean Gunn (Kirk Gleason), and Keiko Agena (Lane Kim). 
 
 Notable exclusions from the list, however, include Liza Weil (Paris Gellar), Yanic Truesdale (Michel Gerard), and Luke’s ever-present baseball cap. But the latter, at least, is a good bet. Less clear? Melissa McCarthy, once Lorelai's friend Sookie St. James, now a movie star. 
 
 There’s no final word on the title or premiere date for the season, and Netflix hasn’t yet doled out confirmed details on number of episodes or where, exactly, this final season fits into the Gilmore Girlsiverse. Will Luke and Lorelei find their happy ending nearly a decade later? What becomes of Luke’s Diner? Is Lane touring the world and making some boy with long hair carry her drums? 
 
 No matter the events of the final season, though, there’s one issue Sherman-Palladino must solve, and that’s the problem of Rory’s Exes. All intolerable in their own right (yes, even Jess), they displayed varying degrees of awfulness but shared a single common trait in that none of them deserved Rory. If the new season’s going to win hearts and make itself a worthy successor, Gilmore Girls must finally find Rory a worthy partner or—God forbid—no partner at all. ||||| The Gilmore Girls follow-up movies are officially cleared for production after securing six cast members from the original series, led by stars Alexis Bledel and Lauren Graham. After lengthy negotiations, Graham and Bledel have closed deals to reprise their roles as the mother-daughter duo of Lorelai and Rory. The Gilmore Girls lead quartet is returning intact, with Scott Patterson and Kelly Bishop signed to reprise their roles as Luke and Emily alongside Bledel and Graham. Also, returning are Gilmore Girls co-star Sean Gunn (Kirk) and Keiko Agena (Lane). 
 
 The Gilmore Girls revival, whic h Netflix is treating as a farewell season of the cult show, consists of four 90-minute movies. The Gilmore Girls creator/exec producer Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel Palladino, a fellow Gilmore Girls executive producer, are writing and directing the four films, which are set in present day and unfold over a calendar year, each covering a different season. There had been a sense of missing closure among Gilmore Girls fans because Sherman-Palladino was not on board for its final season of the series and was not able to finish it the way she had originally planned. 
 
 Netflix confirmed the movies were going ahead with a tweet featuring a famous line from the show and a “see you on the set” call-0ut to Sherman-Palladino, Graham and Bledel: 
 
 The beloved series was a critical and commercial hit for the WB, being able to hold its own airing against then-biggest show on television, NBC’s Friends. 
 
 The revival, whose exact title is still TBD, is produced by Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. 
 
 Here is Graham’s tweet about the revival,which has just done a table read for the first film: 
 
 I CAN NOW CONFIRM: it's time for me, and this jacket I stole in 2007, to return to work.@netflix #GilmoreGirls pic.twitter.com/tBb07J9oO1 — Lauren Graham (@thelaurengraham) January 29, 2016 
 
 Graham followed Gilmore Girls with a starring role on another well received, long-running drama-comedy, Parenthood, while Bledel has done mostly features, including The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants franchise. Bledel is with CAA, Graham with ICM Partners, Patterson with Genesis Entertainment and Morris Yorn, Bishop with Abrams Artists Agency. ||||| From Bedford Falls of “It’s a Wonderful Life” to Mayberry of “The Andy Griffith Show,” the idyllic small town has always held a special place in American pop culture, providing fictional refuge in times of real-life turmoil. 
 
 On Friday, anyone exhausted by the effort of avoiding political conversations with that one uncle should consider a visit to Stars Hollow, Conn., the impossibly quaint and harmonious community at the center of “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.” 
 
 Nearly a decade after “Gilmore Girls” concluded its seven-season network run, the whimsical dramedy about quick-witted single mother Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham), her overachieving daughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) and WASPy mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) returns in a much-anticipated Netflix revival. 
 
 Consisting of four movie-length episodes written and directed by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel Palladino, “A Year in the Life” finds each of the Gilmore women at a crossroads months after the sudden death of family patriarch Richard (actor Edward Herrmann, who died in 2014). 
 
 “Gilmore Girls” was never a major ratings hit or awards darling, but it earned a devoted base of fans, few of whom were pleased with the final, Sherman-Palladino-free season. Since its cancellation, “Gilmore Girls” has only grown in popularity, thanks to its availability on Netflix and the enduring appeal of its core mother-daughter relationships. 
 
 The “Gilmore” DNA lives on in the likes of “Jane the Virgin,” another cleverly written show following multiple generations of tightly knit women. But even in the era of Peak TV, entertainment that’s sharp, funny and relatively family-friendly remains a scarce commodity. 
 
 “A Year in the Life” is a perfectly timed, if imperfect, slice of holiday escapism that retains the original series’ signature mix of fast-paced banter, intimate family drama and small-town eccentricity. 
 
 Fans will be delighted, and newbies will be able to follow along with minimal assistance from Wikipedia. Many will even find themselves eager to go back and consume the whole series from the beginning. (Lo, the binge-watching circle of life continues.) 
 
 Stars Hollow appears to be “constructed inside a snow globe,” as Lorelai knowingly puts it early in the new season. It’s a place untouched by the culture wars that have cleaved the country in two, where everyone seems to have enough money even when they don’t have jobs and the most divisive issue is the town sewer system. 
 
 The locals are quirky in an endearing, non-threatening way and, for better or worse, nearly all of them are back, including deluded entrepreneur Kirk (Sean Gunn) and snooty hotel clerk Michel (Yanic Truesdale). At the same time, the people of Stars Hollow — especially Lorelai — are anything but rubes. 
 
 Residents name-check celebrity chefs and New York Times columnists and could hold their own at dinner parties in Park Slope or Silver Lake. “Gilmore Girls” is Norman Rockwell by way of the New Yorker, a salty-sweet confection that balances out its “snow globe” quality with cultural savvy. 
 
 This seemingly contradictory blend of old-fashioned and modern, of wholesome and worldly, makes “Gilmore Girls” seem essential at this particular moment. 
 
 As ever, the series will be especially rewarding to pop culture connoisseurs who will understand Lorelai’s references to the steam-room scene in “Eastern Promises” or Omar Little’s burners in “The Wire.” But even those less well-versed in the oeuvres of David Cronenberg and David Simon will find something to relate to in Stars Hollow. The series conveys the universal through the highly specific dynamics of the Gilmore family. 
 
 Rory and Lorelai were always flawed, deeply human characters and they remain so in “A Year in the Life.” The revival is clear-eyed about Lorelai’s shortcomings, revealing how her abrasive wit is a defense mechanism that keeps grief and other painful emotions at bay, often at the expense of those closest to her — especially her grieving mother, Emily, and endlessly patient partner, Luke (Scott Patterson). 
 
 Rory is subjected to less scrutiny, though, truthfully, she probably deserves more. The youngest Gilmore is now 32, roughly the same age as Lorelai was when “Gilmore Girls” began, but is caught in a state of protracted adolescence. 
 
 Her once-promising journalism career has reached a plateau, and her love life is even more of a mess. Though we’re meant to sympathize with her millennial angst, Rory comes off too often as an entitled globe-trotter prone to selfish dithering and poorly justified romantic choices. 
 
 Sherman-Palladino rivals Aaron Sorkin or Quentin Tarantino in her talent for densely allusive, rat-a-tat dialogue, and some performers are more naturally suited to her manically loquacious style. Graham seems born to deliver highly caffeinated rants about things like flying on planes “surrounded by people with consumption, diphtheria, scabies.” Likewise, Bishop inhabits the Scotch-swilling, silver-tongued grand dame Emily like a second skin. 
 
 But at the risk of offending “Gilmore” superfans, I’ve never found Bledel quite as convincing; Rory has always sounded, to me, like a girl impersonating her mother. This awkwardness made sense when the character was a teenager, but she’s now a grown woman without a voice of her own. 
 
 The four-episode format provides a neat timeline for the overall story, but at roughly 90 minutes each, the installments sometimes drag. There are a few superfluous subplots involving supporting characters you probably forgot about long ago. (The thing about reunions, whether on TV or at your high school, is that you don’t really want to see everyone, do you?) 
 
 Your enjoyment of “Gilmore Girls” will depend on your tolerance for quirk, which is as pervasive in scenic Stars Hollow as disembowelments are in the zombie wasteland of “The Walking Dead.” Anyone who grows queasy at the thought of, say, wacky small-town musicals or adorable pet pigs should probably steer clear. 
 
 The rest of us are happy to pour another cup of coffee and indulge. 
 
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 �?Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ 
 
 Where: Netflix 
 
 When: Any time, Friday 
 
 Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under age 14) 
 
 meredith.blake@latimes.com 
 
 Follow me on Twitter @MeredithBlake 
 
 ALSO:
– If you're out on the road, feeling lonely and so cold, all you have to do is…come inside and log onto Netflix, because the streaming service is bringing back Gilmore Girls. Slate reports the return of the popular show—which ran from 2000 to 2007—about a grumpy New England diner owner forced by fate to provide sweets to a fast-talking mother and daughter had been rumored for months before being officially confirmed by Netflix on Friday. With the confirmation comes the announcement that six of the series' main stars will be reprising their roles: Lauren Graham (Lorelai), Alexis Bledel (Rory), Scott Patterson (Luke), Kelly Bishop (Emily), Sean Gunn (Kirk), and Keiko Agena (Lane), according to Deadline. The revival, which is being called a "final season," will comprise four 90-minute movies taking place over the course of a single year, Deadline reports. After being absent for the final televised season, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino will be back to write and direct the movies, giving her a chance to end the series on her terms. According to Slate, those terms better include finding a "worthy partner" for Rory, as her boyfriends throughout the series were "all intolerable in their own right" and "displayed varying degrees of awfulness." No premiere date for the first Gilmore Girls movie has been announced.