Chad Michael Murray's Excuse for Leaving 'Gilmore Girls' Isn't What We Expected

The Gilmore Girls writers really seemed to have some unfinished business when they wrote an exquisite love plotline just to watch it all snap away with little explanation. Rory went through some major relationships, but one of them totally gets overlooked ... her brief stint with Tristan from Chilton.

When Tristan's actor, Chad Michael Murray, up and left the show, he left a massive heartbreak in his wake ... and we're not talking about Rory, we're talking about us. The redemption arc of the high school bully is the perfect example of a "what could have been," so Chad better have a really good reason for ripping that away from us.

For Chad, it was a personal decision to leave the show. It turns out that he just wanted to explore other opportunities in his career, despite an offer from Warner Brothers to stay on the project much longer than just two seasons. “For me, it was about just … trying on different clothes, different costumes, different walks, different feels. … Sitting in the same character for too long can get stagnant,” he told Gilmore Girls star Scott Patterson on Patterson’s podcast I Am All In.

“I was so young. I needed to find out who Chad [was]. Who was Chad as an actor?" he added. Chad was about 19 years old during filming, so he definitely had a long way to go in his career. He said, “I genuinely wouldn’t be the man I was today without making that decision. When the opportunity came to stay on Gilmore, I just wanted to know more about me.”

So, that wasn't quite the excuse we were looking for. After all, he could have been part of the big three: Dean, Jess, and Logan. Tristan's wealth, affluence, and status so closely resemble Logan's and the storyline that was set up about Rory's understanding of high society that there's a really huge chance that Tristan's existence might have meant Logan never was written at all ... that's all fan speculation, of course.

Many of the original actors made a comeback for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life when Netflix decided to grace fans with a look into the future of Stars Hollow. When Rory and Paris make a trip back to Chilton as part of an alumni day, the opportunity to run into past classmates opens up.

And the pair do run into some of their former enemies, including Francie from the Puffs. When it comes to Tristan, it turns out he was at the event, but Chad wasn't actually seen on camera. Instead, there's a quick glimpse at a fill-in actor that we're meant to assume is grown-up Tristan.

Paris ends up totally wigging out after seeing Tristan, too. She steps back into the mindset of a teenager as she recalls her crush on the school's bad boy. Rory helps calm her down, but it isn't easy since Paris is coping with quite a bit of stress, including her divorce from Doyle.