Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Never The Bride
By Al Lowe | Season 6 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.27.2006
When I wake up, the moderator is asking the panel to respond to the ethical temperature of journalism "in a post-Judy Miller era." This bugs for about nine reasons, one of which is that I have never heard Judith Miller referred to as "Judy," but we don't have time to think about it, because the bowtied editor of the Princeton paper leaps in pompously to interrupt. The dude takes the stance that all sources should be guarded at all costs, considering the struggles upon which the rights of the free press were established. Here's where the scene goes wrong: when he finishes, Rory jumps in, saying that while she agrees that confidential sources are the greatest and most important tool of the free press, she can't see how the people on this panel are qualified to make any kind of statement about the struggles of reporters pressured into giving up their sources, because they are only in college and couldn't presume to know what they'd do if faced with that pressure. Okay...what? First of all: this is a panel asking you, the people on the panel, what you think about certain issues in the field of journalism. If you're going to answer every question by saying you're not qualified to answer, then don't bother being there. Secondly: HUH? The Princeton guy -- obnoxious though he may be, and Judith Miller's own ridiculousness notwithstanding -- is RIGHT. Therefore, I cannot figure out the smug faces of Rory and her proud parents in the audience. I guess they're proud that she's speaking well; I don't know. "We created her," Lorelai says, smiling broadly. Chris: "Out of thin air." Well, if that's what the kids are calling it these days.
Back from commercial, this insufferable scene is still going on. Rory says that she wouldn't print a picture of the Yale president chowing down at the campus bake sale; however, she WOULD print a picture of someone smashing a pie in the president's face, if said someone did it as a political statement. The Princeton guy chimes in, saying he'd do the very same thing. "Quentin," Rory says in mock surprise, "you agreed with me! I didn't think you were capable." Y'all, seriously, I am not trying to be all mean and bitter -- sometimes I do actually like Rory -- but why in hell did they use this scene? She's wretched. They've also run a laugh track under the "funny" things she says that sounds like it was stolen from a scene of Jack Tripper running into a wall outside the Regal Beagle.