Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Just Like Gwen And Gavin
By Al Lowe | Season 6 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.16.2006
The phone rings, and it's Luke. "So," she jokes, "she came back with all her fingers and toes; very successful first outing." Luke says yes, it was nice, and Anna smiles, saying that April had a good time, too. "So," she continues, "[April] is coming by your work tomorrow." Ah, Luke begins the backpedaling. He says he's not sure it's going to work out for April to come by. "There's gonna be lots of people," he says, "swooshing around, and all." Anna just laughs, and says that April likes people swooshing around her. "Pans of hot grease..." Luke says, trying again. "There'll be pans of hot grease swooshing around her?" Anna asks. Luke says that there will be if April's in the kitchen. "Well," Anna laughs, "keep her out of the kitchen if there's any grease swooshing." She goes on that April is very low maintenance and Luke can just set her up at a table. Luke tries more backtracking. Now he's not sure there will even be a table. Anna is growing more and more impatient. "Luke, no," she finally says, "it doesn't work that way." He tries to act all offended, saying he doesn't know what she's talking about, but she tells him that he's not being cool and that "there's no great time to be a parent, Luke. You just are one." She says if he's going to make plans with April and get her hopes up only to cancel, then this whole arrangement is off. Luke doesn't want that to happen. "You're either all in or all out," she says, and he gets all panicky and apologetic, saying it's okay for April to come by tomorrow. Anna's still pissed, and says goodbye. Here's reason one million that this whole thing just bugs: If Anna's so damn uppity about Luke's parenting skills and her daughter's time and life and all that, why did she allow April to do the DNA project to start with? Argh. I just hate this ridiculous fifteen-shark-jumping contrivance.
At Yale, Rory walks into the campus bar to find the entire newspaper staff having a bitch session about Paris's insane behavior. They all clam up when Rory walks up, admitting that this is a war council "about Kaiser Gellar and her Reign of Terror." The paper is unreadable, they say. Paris rewrites their stuff and then rewrites her rewrites, and the copy gets worse every time. "She used to be good, right?" one girl says. "Wasn't Paris good at one point?" They say she was, before she was editor, but that "now she's Augusto Pinochet in a pantsuit." Good one, random dude. They tell Rory that they are seriously considering Howell-Rainesing her, and I get sad all over again about ol' Howell, with whom I share a home state. Rory is surprised, but not overly, that the staff is considering ousting Paris via the board. She asks why she wasn't invited to participate in this conversation. "You're in Paris's pocket," one of them says. Rory denies this. "You're best friends, right?" a girl asks. "That's what Paris is always saying." Rory stops them to set the record straight: She's devoted, she says, to the paper. She are Paris are not best friends. And she's not immune having the crap bugged out of her by Paris's behavior.I pause to consider the warning bells that Rory MIGHT hear right now, had she ever attended Sunday School and heard the story of Peter's three denials of Christ. Not to go all scripture knowledge on your ass, Rory, but you're being a gargantuan dink. Paris is your friend "for the most part"? Nice. You've only known her ten years now or something, and shrew though she can be, she's your friend. Ugh. Rory tells the rest of the staff that maybe they should talk it out and try to figure out ways to fix things before going to the board. "Fine," one guy says, "but allow us our cathartic purging." Rory tells him to purge away, and generously offers them all coffee from her personal cart, which is still following her around. "He does a great mocha latte," she says.