Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ooh, That Smell
By M. Giant | Season 7 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.23.2006
Dinner at the Gilmores'. Richard's telling some boring story about how he butted into some students' conversation about Franz Ferdinand, not realizing that the students were talking about the band and not the dead Archduke. That segues into a boring conversation about the pears in the salad, which in turn gives way to Richard rambling on about midterms. The salad course over, Emily gushes that she chose lamb for the main course, Chris's presence being such a special occasion and all. Then she brings up tennis, saying that they need new doubles partners because the people they play with now kind of suck. Not at tennis; it's just that the wife grunts a lot and wears plaid. "I can only think that it was designed to cause some sort of optic misfunction," Richard says. This is of course their way of inviting Lorelai and Christopher to play with them, and Chris and Lorelai are both too distracted by how pissed they are at each other to do anything but accept. Not that Emily notices anything wrong. If this scene is attempting to show us how stultifyingly dull Friday dinners would be without Lorelai's acting up all the time, I would deem it a rousing success.
The entree arrives, and Chris says that he likes lamb now, although he didn't when he was a kid. "I guess I've changed," he says, with a pointed look at Lorelai. "People do that sometimes." Lorelai huffs angrily at him, but Emily and Richard are too wrapped up in the riveting saga of Richard's late-onset fondness for radishes to take note of it. Radishes. Not making this up. Glaring at Chris, Lorelai remarks, "I don't like radishes. I guess it's because I find them threatening." "What a peculiar thing to say," Emily says, because even she can't miss the wind whipping through her hair as the clue train passes closer to her than ever. Not that she's any closer to parsing the situation between her guests. Richard proposes a toast: "To many more nights like this, and Lorelai and Christopher. Who knew, twenty-some-odd years ago, that we would be making plans to play doubles tennis?" Emily throws in bridge. Richard says that they've come a long way since their "rebellious youth." "Derelict," Emily says. "The word is 'derelict.'" Well, that got nasty in a hurry. Funny, though. Everyone drinks. Emily repeats her "derelict" charge, and reminds Richard of the time Lorelai and Christopher stole a bottle of wine that Richard had been saving for ten years, but because they didn't know from corkscrews, "they just cracked the top off with a brick and slurped what they could off the patio." Mmm, oaky and porchy. Lorelai smiles a little at Christopher, but he doesn't seem to notice. As Richard compliments them for "drinking very nicely out of glasses" tonight, Lorelai abruptly tells Chris that she needs to see him in the bathroom. Is there really that severe a room shortage in Richard and Emily's house? But Christopher doesn't question, and follows Lorelai away from the table, to her parents' mild consternation.