Episode Report Card Al Lowe: B- | 153 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT You Can Dance If You Want To
By Al Lowe | Season 7 | Episode 3 | Aired on 2006.10.10
Back from commercial, the FND is STILL going on. Emily is talking, eight to the bar, about more cotillion stuff, giving Charlotte directions on the use of all the silverware. The kid handles the information ably, prompting Rory to say that she thinks Charlotte will have a great time at the event. Charlotte asks if Rory ever attended a cotillion. "Nope," Rory says. "But I did have a coming out party." Lorelai nods: "And I fully supported her decision. She shouldn't have to hide her love for women." Charlotte's eyes go wide, and Emily steps in to admonish: "Lorelai, there's nothing funny about being a lesbian." Tell that to Ellen DeGeneres. Never knowing when to shut up, Lorelai tells Charlotte that cotillions are not fun parties: "They're boring rituals to train a whole new generation of snobs." Instead of telling her daughter not to use a ten-year-old in her nonstop struggle against family oppression, Emily reminds Lorelai that she herself has never even been to a cotillion, so she has no evidence for her negative claims. Lorelai smarts back, "You don't have to jump off the Empire State Building to know it's gonna hurt." Poor Charlotte is wondering how she ever got involved with these damn freaks and the dysfunction that overrides every occasion they share.
The G-Unit quizzes Rory on her summer plans, asking if she has any exciting social engagements coming up. "Not really," Rory says. "Logan's in London, so..." Right, right. I forgot that this brilliant, beautiful twenty-one-year-old was somehow incapable of having a life outside her boyfriend. Because she's an aerie girl.
Finally, the elder Gilmores ask what's new with Lorelai, and she is forced, after much hemming and hawing, to reveal that she and Luke broke up. This is met with...no response whatsoever. Lorelai's parents react with the most minuscule noises, like Lorelai has just told them she had a splinter in her finger, and move immediately back to the cotillion instruction. Lorelai jumps back in, rolling her eyes, smartmouthing that she knows her parents have thoughts on the subject and might as well let them out now so that they can all move on with their lives. "I've moved on," Emily says, all innocence, and Richard adds that he can't think of a thing. They change the subject again, to Rory's delight and Lorelai's disappointment: she busts back in, demanding to know why they're avoiding the subject of her breakup. Emily sighs that there's no point in discussing it. "We couldn't possibly say anything right," she says, quite correctly. "So, why say anything at all?" Even Charlotte, who barely knows the difference between a salad and roast fork, knows it's rude to be held hostage by your hosts' long history of emotional paralysis. As the Gilmores continue to fight, mostly spurred by Lorelai's demands that someone care about her for five minutes, the kid looks desperately to Rory, who tries to get her mother to let it go. "Lorelai," Richard adds, "your mother is simply expressing our regrets that you've ended your relationship with Luke. I hardly see how that's offensive." Excellent point, Grandpa. Except Lorelai is now doubly offended, and starts the "you never liked Luke!" argument. Emily gets mad, and starts bitching that they were, indeed, supportive of the relationship, even willing to buy the couple a huge house. This leads to yet another outburst from Lorelai, prompting Rory to bust out the safe word: "Bangalore! Bangalore! Bangalore." Though the thrice-repeated mantra does not conjure up a demon, as I'd hoped, it does at least end this infernal, eternal scene.