Poor Lindsay Lister got a lot of hate during her time on Gilmore Girls, but was it justified? Played by Arielle Kebbel of Midnight, Texas fame, Lindsay was introduced in the third season of Gilmore Girls as the new girlfriend of Rory’s (Alexis Bledel) ex-boyfriend and first love Dean Forester (Jared Padalecki). Lindsay was described by Rory as “cute and smart and really nice” and she even had a sweet anecdote about a fourth-grade field trip to Mark Twain’s house, during which Lindsay bought Rory a Mark Twain magnet because she had no money and wouldn’t let Rory pay her back.
By all accounts, Lindsay was a pretty decent person, but despite that and the fact she only featured in a total of nine Gilmore Girls episodes spread across three seasons, she quickly became one of the most hated characters in the fandom. The hate increased tenfold once Lindsay and Dean tied the knot right out of high school and to an extent, her unpopularity was understandable.
Although the teen-aged newlyweds seemed happy at first, cracks soon started to show in their admittedly rushed and probably doomed-from-the-start marriage. When Lindsay decided she wanted them to get a new car and start saving for a townhouse, Dean took on extra jobs and temporarily dropped out of college to support them. While Lindsay did play the role of a dutiful housewife by attempting to learn to cook, she didn’t really do much else like getting a job herself to help them buy their first home, and complained all the while about being bored.
While she was often immature and unrealistic, a lot of Lindsay’s behavior can be explained by the fact she was a teenager just out of high school with little in the way of life experience or how married life works. Even in spite of her faults, Lindsay didn’t deserve to get cheated on by Dean when he and Rory began having an affair. Neither did she deserve to find out about said affair via a letter Rory penned to Dean about their tryst. In fact, Lindsay’s finest moment on Gilmore Girls was probably when she showed a bit of backbone by kicking Dean out and throwing all his things into the street.
Really, if anyone was deserving of hate in that messy love triangle it was Dean and Rory for doing the dirty on Lindsay. While Lindsay wasn’t one of the Stars Hollow residents featured in the recent Gilmore Girls revival Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, it’d be nice to think she moved on from her doomed marriage and went out and lived her best life before settling down with somebody a lot more decent and mature than her first husband.
Next: Why Gilmore Girls Season 7 Was So Bad
