After all the progress Maggie has made in the first two seasons of Gilmore Girls’ Scott Patterson) as she reconnects with her old life.

One of the biggest questions in the first season of the show was whether Maggie would actually be able to think of Sullivan’s Crossing as home. She constantly wanted to go back to her life in Boston, but complications from a colleague’s illegal activities, being sued by the mother of a patient, and more, found her taking a breather in Sullivan’s Crossing. While there, however, every setback in her life would see Maggie ready to run.

Maggie's Most Annoying Habit In Sullivan's Crossing Was Running Away From Her Problems

Maggie Prefers To Avoid Her Problems Rather Than Face Them

While Maggie is a great medical professional and has no problem taking charge when someone is injured and standing up to others when she has a life in her hands, her personal life is another matter entirely. When her life becomes too complicated or difficult for her, she prefers to run. That’s especially true of the first two seasons of the show.

Every time something upsets her in Sullivan’s Crossing, she prepares to run to Boston, and when something upsets her in Boston, she runs the other way.

Though Maggie has not been to Sullivan’s Crossing or seen her father since she was about 16 years old, it’s where she runs when her dreams of being a successful neurosurgeon are derailed. That is the tipping off point of the show, allowing Maggie to run to somewhere she feels safe when the man whose practice she s is arrested, and she is implicated in his illegal activities (though eventually cleared). It very quickly becomes clear that running is a pattern for Maggie, though.

When she and Sully do not see eye-to-eye about things, and when he punches her stepfather after the other man makes pointed comments about him, Maggie immediately packs up and leaves for Boston instead of trying to understand what happened between the two men. When she finds coworkers gossiping about her being sued at a restaurant, she panics and flees the building. When she and her boyfriend break up, she runs back to Sullivan’s Crossing instead of returning to her life in Boston.

Every time something upsets her in Sullivan’s Crossing, she prepares to run to Boston, and when something upsets her in Boston, she runs the other way. Running is how Maggie avoids her problems early in the series, though running from city to city is the more extreme version of that.

Maggie comes by her avoidance of her problems honestly. Even in the first season, when Maggie is ready to confront Sully about not being there for her as a kid, when Sully gets too frustrated by the argument that pits him against the other father in her life - her stepfather Walter - Sully tells her he has a headache and goes to bed, avoiding the issue rather than discussing the root of their problems. Maggie and Sully are a lot alike that way, and it takes time for both of them to become more comfortable discussing problems rather than running from them.

Maggie Regressing In Sullivan's Crossing Season 3 Would Undo All Her Season 2 Character Growth

Maggie’s Relationships In Sullivan’s Crossing Help Her Grow

As the Cranebears are fond of saying, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” Maggie is the epitome of that in the first two seasons of the show. She makes small steps of growth throughout those seasons, and if Sullivan’s Crossing season 3 does not allow her to continue to make those steps forward, she will only regress.

Maggie bonding with Cal (before their relationship becomes romantic) helps her find outlets for her pain and anxiety in the first season. Cal helps her to focus her breathing and find a happy place when she is anxious. Her learning the “primal scream” from him in the woods helps her to deal with some of her past traumas, and even though Cal becomes one of the reasons she thinks she should run back to Boston in the first season, he also helps her move forward when it comes to facing trauma in seasons 1 and 2.

Maggie’s conversations with Sydney about Sydney’s own love life also help to give Maggie perspective on her own. She can see that Sydney repeatedly runs away from her feelings for Rafe because Sydney is afraid of getting hurt, and offers up plenty of advice for her long-time friend. That advice about not running from her feelings and giving people she cares about a chance, of course, comes right back around to her.

The comfort she gets from the anxieties and uncomfortable situations in her life from Frank and Edna Cranebear also helps her move forward with her life, giving her less of a reason to run. Frank and Edna provide her with a system she does not have in her mother and Walter. While Maggie’s mother and Walter want what they believe is best for her, they often have trouble seeing beyond their own ideas about Sullivan’s Crossing and Maggie’s life there with Sully.

In the Cranebears, Cal, Sydney, and even her often contentious relationship with Sully, Maggie is able to understand how to face her issues instead of running from them. In season 2 especially, Maggie steps up and confronts the difficult things in her life head-on, choosing to stay and help Sully at Sullivan's Crossing when she believes his health is declining, itting her feelings to Cal, and making sure that Sullivan's Crossing stays in the family.

If season 3 walks that progress back, Sullivan’s Crossing risks becoming repetitive, losing one of the aspects that draws the audience in - character growth.