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
Lorelai sighs, saying she's going to go find Rory and will see him out there. She is shocked to find Rory in the kitchen, surrounded by food and looking exactly like Nigella Lawson on the cover of her last cookbook. Lorelai is in disbelief. "You're wearing an apron," she says. "You've not worn an apron since you saw The Sound Of Music and you put one on so you'd look like Sister Maria, and you made a big crucifix out of popsicle sticks." Rory laughs and stuns her mother further by juicing an orange. Lorelai says that she wants to help, and starts grabbing up stuff on the chopping block. "This would definitely do a foot!" she says, wielding a knife. They are interrupted by Luke. "Rory's gonna let me chop something," Lorelai tells him. Luke: "Is that wise?" Lorelai is excited, though, and after pushing off the dinner knife Rory tries to make her use, picks up the big knife again, saying she's Mario Batali and Ina Garten's love child. Rory tells Luke that Logan is outside grilling the lobsters, and may need some help. "He kept them very well hidden from me," Rory says, "when they were, let's just say, not dead." Lorelai grimaces: "Not dead, ugh. I don't like all this behind-the-scenes food stuff." Luke heads out to check on Logan as something suddenly occurs to Rory. "What did you mean," she asks Lorelai, "it would 'do a foot'?"
Outside, Logan is, indeed, working at the grill. It's a time-honored Huntzberger tradition, Logan says, to cook lobster just right. Luke says that he's never head lobster, and Logan says he's sure Luke will love it. "So, FYI," he continues, "I'm probably going to do the present thing at dinner." Luke looks confused. "Just wanted to give you a heads up," Logan adds. "Don't want to complicate your life." Luke is only vaguely catching on: "You got Rory a present?" Logan says he did, for Valentine's Day. Ah. Luke, of course, has nothing for Lorelai, and for the first time in this episode, I am kind of on his side, seeing as how, as he says, Valentine's Day is not until a few days later. ["Not that he was planning to get her anything regardless." -- Wing Chun] Still, he looks chagrined, and asks if there's someplace open nearby. "Only if you want to buy her a windbreaker," Logan says, "or some boating equipment." Logan sees his pain, and comes to Luke's rescue. He went overboard, he says, and got Rory both a tennis bracelet and a necklace: "Let me give you one to give to Lorelai." Luke says he couldn't possibly accept that, but Logan presses: "Dude, it's Valentine's Day. You gotta give your girl something." Ick. I think Logan's being awfully nice, but I hate how chummy he is with someone so much older. Also, wouldn't the solution to this problem, if it is even really a problem, be Luke's asking Logan not to give Rory her gifts at dinner, and waiting, instead, to do it in private? After all, it isn't even Valentine's Day. Logan convinces Luke to take one of the gifts, though, and Luke reluctantly but gratefully says he'll take the necklace: "Mainly because I have no idea what a tennis bracelet is." Logan is glad to do it, and says that, in a minute, they can sneak out to the car where he's hidden the gifts: "We men have to stick together."