So I didn't watch GG very consistently when it was on air and I was a bit too young and sheltered to be following the production and behind the scenes drama as it was happening. I mostly became a dedicated fan when it was on Netflix, and am just now starting to read this sub and other fandom spaces.

It seems to be a pretty popular fan opinion that ASP deliberately sabotaged season 6. When I try to research this, I get a lot of broken links to articles about the contract negotiation from gossip sites that no longer exist. I'm genuinely curious why people think this, and if there's any evidence based on interviews with the Palladinos or the cast? The only interviews I've been able to find with ASP where she discusses this, she vehemently denies that she ever deliberately sabotaged the show and that all of the unpopular plotlines were planned in advance, but I'm sure no one would ever openly admit to sabotaging their own show so who knows.

There seem to be a few reasons people think ASP did this:

-she was salty because she was taken off the show, and was either sabotaging the show out of pure spite, or because she was hoping she could wreck s6 enough that the network would realize they needed her to fix the mess and win back the fanbase. This explanation seems odd to me, because my understanding is that most of the plots had been decided early in the s6 production process, while the contract negotiations were still ongoing? From what I can decipher of the timeline, it seems like ASP and DP didn't realize they were definitely off the show until pretty late in the production of season 6, so very little time to throw a wrench in things deliberately.

-she was pissed that Lauren Graham didn't want to do more than 7 seasons, and was hoping she could strongarm her into extending her contract by muddling the plot so much that it needed at least an extra (eighth) season to tie everything up. This seems slightly more likely to me, I've read that there was some drama between ASP and LG. But it also still seems kind of an odd thing for ASP to do since she didn't even have a guaranteed contract for s7 at the time she was writing and developing s6. I guess it might make sense, since she always made it sound like she was shocked when the contract discussions fell through. So maybe she assumed s7 was in the bag and was trying to think ahead to s8?

-she didn't actually deliberately sabotage the show, but the drama of the contract issues leaked into the show and distracted ASP, majorly dropping the quality of writing. This would explain why most people think the second half of s6 is much worse than the first half, since I'm guessing ASP got more and more upset as the contract drama dragged on, making her less focused as the season went on. This seems like the most likely, Occam"s razor option for me. I know people don't like ASP but I'm not sure she'd actively, deliberately sabotage the show that catapulted her to stardom and that she clearly felt a deep personal attachment to. If we take her at her word that she planned all of the stupid stuff in the second half of s6, is it possible that she could have written it better and made it feel believable and less soap opera-y if she weren't also dealing with the contract stuff? Or does she just have bad judgment and s6 would have been s6 no matter what else happened?

What do y'all think? Am I missing anything major?