Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B- | 173 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Valentine, The Destroyer
By Al Lowe | Season 6 | Episode 15 | Aired on 2006.02.14
After what seems like nine hours of Lorelai rattling on like a thirteen-year-old, Luke tells her she doesn't have to keep talking the place up; he's fine with the trip. "I just want you to have fun," she says, wistfully. "I just want you to relax." He fusses, saying he'll try, but that he has his concerns about Logan: "Where do we even stand with this guy? One day we like him, next day we hate him, next day we like him." Lorelai says that they have a sort of truce, and that everything is okay. "What if they break up while we're there?" Luke asks, and Lorelai says that they aren't going to break up. No, we should be so lucky. "Our bedroom isn't sharing a wall with theirs, is it?" Luke asks, and Lorelai says she has no idea. Luke: "You don't know the layout of the house?" Lorelai shrugs, saying that she thought spermaceti was a pasta until three minutes ago. Luke says that it's just weird to stay at other people's houses, "tiptoeing around and using their sheets, drinking their weird tap water." God, shut up, you old man. Lorelai says again that she doesn't want the trip to be work for Luke. He grudgingly says that it will be fine, and then remembers that he put April's bike in Lorelai's garage; he was going to fix the wheel, he says, but has not gotten around to it. The mention of the Secret Daughter makes Lorelai cringe a little, but she holds it together. Luke says that they should go; they have a ferry to catch. "And please," he says, "don't add anything to that." Too late! Lorelai says that there are several historical lighthouses on the island. "Hey," she says, dragging this already-awful joke over the broken glass of my soul, "I wonder if there is a connection between the shape of lighthouses, ferries, spermaceti, and Gay Head!" She slaps her knee as I slap my head and, damning this scene to hell, we finally move the eff on.
After a full minute of what I assume is stock footage of Martha's Vineyard in anything but the "dead of winter," Luke and Lorelai arrive at the house. Logan greets them politely, saying, "This must be Luke," which confuses me, since I thought surely they'd met before. "Oh, no," Lorelai says. "I dumped Luke. This is Clem. I picked him up at a truck stop on 95. We were at the registers, paying for our blue plates, when our hands reached for the same Dixie Chicks cassette." Luke interrupts, introducing himself, and Rory shows them around the house, which is pretty swank: dining room seats twenty, wet bar, etc. Logan asks if they're hungry, but Luke says they ate on the way up. Rory ends her tour with a few things of note about the house. It's an old place, so there are some kinks. The hardwoods have some buckling, the French doors get warped in the cold, and there's a raccoon, Stan, who makes noise outside the window. "He's been living on the property longer than my family has," Logan explains, "so we give him free rein." Rory continues her Little Miss Hostess routine, telling Luke and Lorelai that the showers will go cold if they run at the same time, and that the breakfast place down the road opens at 8. "7, actually," Logan says, and Rory nods, saying yes, that's right, it's just that they never make it there before 8. She shows them their room. "We call it the King & Queen Suite!" she announces, excitedly. Lorelai asks why. "Because," Rory says, "you're our honored guests, and I just named it that a second ago." After she gives them the rundown on the stuff in the room, she heads out, saying that she'll see them later. "I'd really like to tip you," Lorelai says. "But I only have a twenty." Rory laughs: "Just add it to the bill, ma'am."