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
In a snow-covered park...somewhere...Luke meets up with April. He's awkward about it, which I think we are supposed to find charming, but I cannot stand this whole concept, so I don't. What I DO find charming is the actress who plays April, and the character of April, herself -- but I am telling you, Palladinos, we have seen this kid before and her name was Season 1-4 Rory and unless you're going to twist this plot around to make it to where Lorelai somehow impregnated Anna, I am not going for this mess at all. Luke reaches out to shake April's hand, and when he holds it too long, she tells him that "this is how the avian flu spreads, by the way." Mortified, he says that yes, he heard a guy say that on CNN. "Right," she says. "They fired my favorite, Aaron Brown. He was comforting." Luke's trying to fit in, so he says that yes, he was, and sits down. She asks him if he likes to hang out there in the park. They miss a clear and easily set-up molester joke right here, but I suppose it would be inappropriate. He says no, and she wonders then why they are meeting there. "I thought kids liked parks," he says. April points out that it's 41 degrees outside, and not exactly peak park-going season. Luke says there's still stuff to do. "I mean, we could have a snowball fight," he says, at which April eagerly tells him that when her friend Remi got into a snowball fight once, she got her retina detached.
Luke says that next time, he'll think of something better to do. He's not sure, he says, what sort of stuff kids are into. Asking the one in front of him might be a good start, but instead he goes on that they'll be making these meetings a regular thing. What I don't like about this is that no one is asking April if she wants to hang out in parks with this strange man. She seems to be okay with it, though, and tells him that she's off all week, since her school is a year-round school. "We get weird times off," she says. Luke suggests that they meet up tomorrow, if she wants, and tells him that she likes to do stuff with Morse code and talk to her internet penpal in Bangalore. She says what she'd like to do is come over to hang out at the diner. "My diner?" he asks, suddenly nervous. "Wouldn't that be boring?" She says no, that diners fascinate her. "The hustle, the bustle, the Monte Cristos," she says. "It'll be fun." Luke is obviously nervous, but finally says sure, that would be fine. He asks what she wants to do right then, and she says she's been watching a group of guys play Frisbee and counting how many times they drop it. "The one with the hat," she points, "is a big, fat butterfingers."Things are strummy at the Inn as Lorelai signs some papers while Kirk harasses her about her carnival booth entry. "We do things like ring-toss and rope-ladder climbing," he says, "your choice is unorthodox." Lorelai says that's just it, that she's unorthodox. "I'm liberal," she says, "with a touch of reform and a smidgen of zippity-pow!" Kirk says that he's just concerned that everything go well, since this is the first time he'll be running the carnival. Lorelai promises him that her booth will be a smash hit. "Your promise means nothing to me," he says. "You break them all the time." Lorelai is incredulous and asks when she's ever broken a promise to him. He lists such examples as her 1997 promise to bring him back a souvenir pen-and-ink set from Colonial Williamsburg; her 1999 promise to put in a good word for him at Al's Pancake House when they had a batter boy opening; and "year 2000, you promised to teach me to swim. I still don't know how to swim. What if there's a tsunami?" Do I need to say anything about how unfunny a tsunami joke is? Right. Hey, I know. Even better: What if there's a hurricane and more than half the town is displaced and Weird Al Yankovic, who is really the only celebrity that could possibly represent Kirk, has to go on television and talk about how President Bush doesn't like quirky people?