Episode Report Card Pamie: B- | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Know When to Hold 'Em
By Pamie | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 10.04.2004
The champagne is served. Luke toasts to Lorelai. "I'll drink to that," she says. Luke: "Yup, I definitely hate champagne." Were two people more perfectly suited for each other, I ask you? He hates everything but Lorelai; she feels exactly the same way. Lorelai asks Luke if he remembers the first time they met. She can't, but he does. It was lunch. He was trying to work during a very busy rush. She burst through the door asking for coffee, interrupting him, bothering him constantly while he was trying to work. He told her to wait her turn. She followed him around, talking. He finally turned to her and told her she was being annoying. Lorelai says that the woman he's talking about sounds delightful. She hassled him for his birthday, finally got it, and ripped out his horoscope, on which she wrote something and then handed it to him. Lorelai: "God. Seriously. You wrote the menu, didn't you?" On the piece of paper she had written, "You will meet an annoying woman today. Give her coffee and she'll go away." Luke gave her coffee, but she didn't go away. She told him to hold onto the horoscope and to put it in his wallet. Luke pulls out his wallet and shows Lorelai that he still keeps that horoscope, through a marriage. Maybe if this show were even slightly campy, even a little more like The O.C., then they could get away with the way they treat wedding vows. Then we wouldn't feel icky about Lorelai's leaving Max at the altar, or Luke's elopement and divorce, or CuteDean's cheating on Lindsay, or Christopher's wanting to be with Lorelai when he's got another baby on the way. And this weird way they treat commitment makes it hard to care about any relationship once they do commit, because Lorelai and Rory don't truly want anybody but each other, and destroy anybody who comes close to either of them. Jess got hurt. CuteDean gets repeatedly hurt. Max got hurt. Rune got hurt. The dude from the business school? I can't even remember what happened to him. So now that Lorelai and Luke have "finally" gotten together, it's hard to feel excited for them, because it already seems doomed. It was doomed from their first kiss. This is the last season, surely, and it will end with Lorelai and Rory alone in their house, the inn gone, their boys moved far away, as they settle down to watch Grey Gardens again. (By the way, since that last recap, I've seen that movie. It's terrifying when you see yourself in it, but you will. Oh, but you will.)
I know, I know, this is the scene that made many of you squee and I'm ruining it by getting sour right before the good line. But I just want to explain why this episode gets a B, and it's not just because the side storylines in this episode are lame (Rory's new slew of potential boyfriends, Emily and Richard bickering, Paris doesn't weep for the death of the love of her life), but because we waited five years for this part of the story. Five years of wondering how it would be, and for the most part, it's exactly as it was before they started dating. There's no anxiousness of trying to see each other but not being able to. They tried that with a cell phone, but it still wasn't any different than if Lorelai was waiting for a new pot of coffee to brew. They aren't keeping it a secret, really, so there's nothing to cover up, like she had with Digger. Nobody wants to keep them apart, and even Rory's all for it. So they could completely just date, which should be the reason that they either have a hard time with it, or won't get out of bed because that's what really happens when you start dating someone you've been lusting after for years. Lorelai and Luke should be totally holed up in the honeymoon suite at the Dragonfly, and the inn's going to shit because Lorelai won't put her clothes on for five minutes. It's destroying her relationship with Sookie, who is now suddenly having to take orders from Michel, because he's taken over with Lorelai on her back. Rory misses her mom, which makes her resent Luke, which makes her sabotage the diner with Lane. They plot to get Kirk to keep Lorelai and Luke from seeing each other. Lorelai and Luke even can have a little pregnancy scare. Or their first real fight. Or Emily wants to meet Luke and have an awkward lunch where they have to sit equidistant from the house and the poolhouse. Something. Something. Make something happen. But reading menus and telling long stories about a horoscope that Lorelai gave you eight years ago that said she'll be coming by for coffee for the next forever? We're used to that. We've seen that. Shit, there were hotter scenes between Jess and Rory when they were fighting in a sprinkler system, in the worst episode of this show's history. So I'm disappointed with this coupling because we've waited so long for it and they just handed it to us. Blah. Like they vomited it on the table because we asked for it. "Here. Here's your Luke and Lorelai. What do you call yourselves on that other forum? The one with all the banned posters? 'Java Junkies'? Here you go. Squee on that, bitches." It just feels so obligatory, that's all. This show can be so romantic, and it's just not happening here, with the one heterosexual relationship that has actually had development over the seasons. I suppose I should go back to recapping. I'll get down off this box now, but while I'm up here, does anybody need some soap?