It was all going so well.

The sharp, snappy, witty dialogue returned seemingly without missing a beat. The leads were as delightful as ever, slipping snuggly and comfortably into their roles like hands around a mug of very caffeinated coffee. Stars Hollow and its cast of lovable kooks were just the right amount of enchantingly whimsical (except for the musical; we don’t talk about the musical). Yes, there were problems, but overall, it was a warm, cozy and happily familiar experience, like cuddling into an old beloved blanket, even with the messy wine stains and worn-out holes.

And then the ending happened – creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s famous final four words, which may have become infamous depending on who you ask. It’s not a "Seinfeld"-level finale misfire – and I already have the feeling that time and more reflection will perhaps make it sit a little more comfortably and make me regret my current headline – but for a revival event many fans hoped would bring a sense of closure the original series never completely got, the final moments were like wrapping up a sloppy but warmly satisfying Thanksgiving dinner only to find a stray hair on your final bite, a nice meal with an uneasy aftertaste.

But it only seems fair to talk about the other five hours and 59 minutes or so too. In a cute play off the theme song, "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" splits itself into four 90-minute segments each in a different season of a year, starting in "Winter" and wrapping up – OR NOT, grumble, grumble – in "Fall." And while our lead characters look exactly the same (it’s like the last almost 10 years never happened to Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel), the same unfortunately cannot be said for their lives.

Lorelai’s old wounds with her mother Emily (Kelly Bishop) haven’t healed – and actually have only gotten worse with the new wounds made during the never seen but heavily felt death of Gilmore patriarch Richard (the dearly departed Edward Herrmann). Worse yet, cracks are appearing in her relationship with everyone’s sweetly craggy diner owner Luke (Scott Patterson), dragging them from fertilization clinics (hi Paris!) to café franchising talks and even sending herself off to the Pacific Coast Trail to go "Wild"-ing (book, not movie).

If Lorelai’s coping with the ground now moving underneath her feet, Rory isn’t even sure where the ground is anymore. Suffering a one-third-life crisis, Rory’s a ship adrift wading between failed freelance writing gigs and missed job opportunities. To make matters worse, when she’s not having a one-night-stands with Wookies, she’s playing mistress for perpetual billionaire brat Logan all while half-heartedly dating and stringing along a new guy named Pat Peter Paul, the show’s version of Ann Veal from "Arrested Development." Indeed, Rory’s life is a mess – made worse by the fact she might be privileged and terrible (the show’s occasionally condescending attitude toward, say, unfit pool goers and "the 30-something gang" not helping).

And yet, still, "A Year in the Life" makes it easy to fall back in love with our misfit Gilmores. Much of that is the lead performers, Graham and Bledel. From their opening, mildly self-referential dialogue, the two still have the same nimble, rapidfire Olympic ping-pong-like repartee, feeling less like roles and more like slipping back into a part of themselves.

Bledel is still solid with the tart zinger lines, yet it’s her big-eyed gentleness that helps sell her faults and "being lost" dilemmas as genuine. Yes, she constantly seems to pick wrong and disappoint, but she does so in the way that feels all too familiar to us flawed mortals, falling into predictable traps of our own making despite knowing better. The writing in "Gilmore Girls" normally gets most of the credit for the show’s success, but Bledel deserves props for helping make a character like Rory relatably irritating and human rather than just irritating.

The same goes for Graham, who gets saddled with carrying most of the big emotional baggage in this revival (along with the indispensable Bishop, so perfectly sniperous and tart and regal). Every time the series gives her a big moment, though, she nails it, pulling on the heartstrings just as well as she goofily flings bagels and attempts to crawl away from having some big speech.

The rest of the cast is stupendous as well, from the awkward town jester Kirk (Sean Gunn, who I’m annoyed to just discover is "Guardians of the Galaxy" director James Gunn’s brother) to the sweetly grumpy Luke to the persnickety Taylor and even the very brief but quite wonderful return of Melissa McCarthy’s Sookie and the actress’ underappreciated ability to be silly and also big-heartedly sincere. Again, the writing is the show’s calling card, but it takes a great cast as well to make something with this level of flawed privileged characters (just ask "Girls") or potentially overwrought dialogue (just ask Aaron Sorkin) to sing the way it can.

And it does sing. The writing – solely from Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel – is still Ferrari fast with the whip-sharp references old and new, as well as the witty goofiness. When the big emotional beats arrive, they hit hard too with real emotions often felt on both sides of the arguments and debates. Even the nostalgia aspect, possibly the most treacherous part of a revival like this, plays warm and welcome, calling back Stars Hollow and the past with a general ease while also moving things forward, not content to just cover greatest hits and wink at the crowd for cheap applause. In many ways, it feels like a real final season for "Gilmore Girls," not just a nice nostalgic cash-in or victory lap.

Like its leads, however, "A Year in the Life" has got its flaws – glaring, obvious and occasionally annoying flaws.

The 90-minute mega-episodes sometimes play like the Palladinos tried to fit every subplot and idea conceived over the past decade into six hours. The plot, as a result, feels easily distracted, with seemingly major developments flaming out into non-starters. Lorelai and Emily go to therapy … only for it to quickly dissolve. Rory works on a piece on lines in New York City … only for it to lead nowhere. Even Lorelai’s sudden "Wild" expedition – teased by a few subtle book shots but that’s all – gets too much time for what it actually amounts to.

Maybe hour-long episodes tighten up the plotting, but in 90-minute form, we end spending too much time on detours – most notoriously the musical in "Summer." I know I said we never bring it up, but my god, I haven’t seen something that painfully smothered to death since "Amour." I know we want to make the most of having Broadway star and "Bunheads" alum Sutton Foster on set, but it’s a problem when more time seems dedicated to a bad musical than, say, Rory’s growing life crisis, which often felt unfortunately besides the point.

And speaking of which, the ending (which I’ll attempt to talk vaguely about, but still, maybe spoilers for those concerned).

I see how it works; it brings things full circle in a way that’s cleverly tidy without at all being tidy, and imperfection and messiness has always been a key part of the Gilmore girls’ story, so I don’t need everything to be neatly tied up and saccharinely perfect.  

It may be the right ending ... but it doesn’t feel right. For one, it doesn’t feel like an ending; it feels like a cheap and really unfortunate cliffhanger. Maybe if it had an extra beat for the characters to react and have a moment to breathe, it might feel more comforting, granting a sense that, yes, life is still messy, but things will be fine. Instead, I’m left thinking Rory is even more lost than ever before, that what much of the series has been building for Rory is at best getting sidelined, that nothing has been learned despite all the efforts from all involved.

Many are hung up the obvious plot-based questions from the big reveal – though frankly, the answers seem pretty clear – but I’m more hung up on the bigger emotional questions of what this means for an overly still immature and confused person’s future. I feel no comfort with where her character has been left on any level – save for the circular cuteness of the script.

It’s impossible to know how the famous four final words would’ve played if this was 2007 and Palladino got to end things the way they were truly intended, if a decade’s worth of life and limbo didn’t create the six final hours we got, and if this had begun life as truly a final season rather than feeling like a scattered family reunion of sorts.

Maybe Palladino always expected the words to hedge her bets for yet another season – but in its current form, would you really want another season? Two-thirds of the titular Gilmore girls have perfectly wrapped up their arcs, not completely tidy but right; do you want another season that unfurls all of that, that forces a fake new conflict? So then a Rory-focused revival instead? Maybe, but how do you have just "Gilmore Girl"?

Perhaps the dissonant note will resolve after some time – like I said, "Gilmore Girls" was always about messiness, even when it came to its own production. Right now, though, it’s a prickly burr stuck in an otherwise cozy and sweet blanket, sticking in my side and making it hard to be completely comfortable.

But maybe there’s always next "Year"?

Extra notes

• I binge-watched this with my mom and older sister – fans since the beginning – and while we were pretty split on the ending (mom liked it; sister did not), we all agreed on this: How in flip's name are the Lorelai and Rory still so fit and healthy considering their diet?
• Favorite and most iconic moment of this mini-series likely belongs to neither Rory or Lorelai, but to Paris and her heel-kicking block of the bathroom door. 
• In addition to giving too much time to meander and sprawl, the 90-minute episodes felt like a tough binge. It felt like trying to knock back four regular-sized cakes as opposed to a dozen cupcakes – one's a little easier to digest. 
• My personal cry-count was three: the "Wild" speech between Lorelai and Emily, the funeral breakdown and the added musical number – which probably would've hit even harder if I didn't dread the idea of returning to the musical subplot with the same exhausted fear that I have toward high school. I went from "This is really funny," to "Launch this segment into the sun" by the end. 
• McCarthy's return was so nice, it almost made up for those cameos from Roy Choi and Rachael Ray. Woof. 
• Important note from my mother: "Whoever the person was in charge of putting coats on people was good at their job."
• Favorite cameo (outside of McCarthy) likely belongs to Mae Whitman – not because it was particularly funny or genius, but because she's great and needs to be in more things.
• Least favorite cameo (outside of the celebrity chefs): Jared Padelecki's Dean, which was the only one that panged of contractual obligation.