Episode Report Card admin: B- | 3 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Fight For Your Right To Be Laaaaaazay!
By admin | Season 6 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.19.2005
Rory makes it back to the pool house, sweaty and dirty. She wanders in and finds that her grandmother has left the DAR application for her to sign. It's all notated and filled out. She looks kind of moody about it.
Rory must be feeling pretty low, because in the next scene, we see her walking into Luke's at closing time. He is very surprised to see her, and she's nervous. I feel bad for Rory, here. She's feeling sorry for herself, and is looking back to old haunts for validation. One of my hardest lessons of adulthood was figuring out that that validation is much harder to come by the older you get. Even the people who love you eventually expect you to start taking care of your own ass. As irritated as I've been by Rory's character lately, I get her. I think that's why she's so annoying. Luke pours Rory a cup of coffee, and she thanks him, noting that the town has done a little painting. He says, yes, it was Taylor's idea. "He put these obnoxious signs up," he says, "'Pardon our spiff; it'll just take a jiff.' It's dumb." Rory agrees that it's dumb, but comments that the town looks good. They hem and haw a little with the small talk, and Rory tells him that she's started her community service. Five hours down, 295 to go. "It's good you're chipping away at it," Luke says, clearly uncomfortable. Finally, Rory asks, pointedly, "How are...people? Are people good?" She's asking about Lorelai, of course. Luke spills the beans: "Your mom and I are engaged." Rory is shocked, but tries to play it off. She smiles, and gets on the verge of tears, and congratulates Luke before running out. Oops, Luke.
The next morning Chez Lorelai, she is awakened by banging and clanging. She comes out on the front porch to confront T.J. about the 7 AM wake-up call. "I know," T.J. says. "The sun ain't even warm, and here we are, totin' that barge. Mr. Taskmaster!" Lorelai wants to know who the taskmaster is who's ordered all this barge-toting. T.J. interrupts to try to explain his side of the whole sledgehammering-a-hole-in-her-house thing, but Lorelai's not interested: "It's really early, T.J." She says she's not mad at him, and hears Luke up on the roof, yelling at T.J. to get away from her. She asks Luke if he's aware of the time and if maybe, tomorrow, he could think about starting around 8-ish. They get into a spat about it -- Luke's in a mood. A yelling match ensues, her on the lawn, him on the roof. He complains that she's got a Frisbee just sitting up on the roof. "Luke," she says, "there is a lost Frisbee on the roof of every suburban home in America. No less a luminary than Garrison Keillor said that. It's not that big a deal." Luke thinks it is, though, or at least he's going to make it a big deal so that he can ramp up the argument to get to the big moment: "I told Rory we were engaged." Aw, snap.